Darkness Descending

Inside the depot, Bembo’s boots made echoes kick back from the walls as he strode across the marble floor. No lamps burned, leaving the depot a dank and gloomy place. The roof leaked. It had rained a couple of days before--Gromheort rarely got snow--and little puddles dotted the floor. A cold falling drop got Bembo in the back of the neck. He cursed and wiped it away with his hand.

An Algarvian military policeman carrying a clipboard came up to Pesaro. “How many of these blond whoresons have you got?” he asked.

“Fifty,” the constabulary sergeant answered. “That was the quota they gave me, and I deliver.” He puffed out his chest, but, however much he puffed it, it would never reach out past his protruding belly.

“Fine,” the other Algarvian said, obviously not impressed. He studied his clipboard, then scribbled something on it. “Fifty, eh? All right, take ‘em over to platform twelve and load ‘em onto the caravan there. Twelve, you hear?”

“I’m not deaf,” Pesaro said with dignity. He would have scorched a constable who sassed him, but had to be more careful around soldiers. Since he couldn’t tell the military policeman off, he shouted instead at the Kaunians the squad had rounded up: “Come on, you lousy buggers! Get moving! Platform twelve, the man said!”

“Likes to hear himself make noise, doesn’t he?” Oraste said under his breath.

“You just noticed?” Bembo answered, and the other constable chuckled. But then, more charitably, Bembo added, “Well, who doesn’t?” He knew he did, and knew very few Algarvians who didn’t. The Forthwegians and Kaunians he’d met since coming to Gromheort seemed less given to display. Sometimes, he just thought that made them dull. Others, though, he got suspicious--what were they hiding?

No one could have hidden anything out on platform twelve, which stood open to a chilly breeze blowing out of the west. Once upon a time, the platform had had a wooden roof; the stumps of a few charred support pillars were all that remained of it.

There by the edge of the platform, the cars of the caravan floated a couple of feet above the ley line from which they drew their energy and along which they would travel. Looking at those cars, Bembo said, “Where are we going to fit this lot of blonds? I don’t think there’s room for ‘em.” He didn’t think there was room for about a third--maybe even half--of the Kaunians already jammed in there.

“We’ll shoehorn ‘em in somehow,” Oraste said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a lawyer.” He chuckled nastily. “And we can feel up the broads as we shove ‘em in.”

The blond man who knew Algarvian turned to him and said, “I already knew better than to expect mercy from you. Is the smallest decency too much to ask for?”

“You Kaunians spent years and years and years grinding a foot down on Algarve’s neck, and nobody ever heard a word about mercy or decency from you,” Oraste said. He chuckled again. “Now you’re going to get it in the neck and see how you like it.”

Guards opened doors on some of the cars. They and the constables herded the Kaunians into them. It did take a lot of pushing and shoving. The seat of the trousers was one obvious place to shove. Oraste enjoyed himself. Bembo confined his shovings to the back, though he couldn’t have said why he bothered.

Even before the last of the Kaunians were inside the cars, workmen--Forthwegians with an Algarvian boss--began nailing over the windows wooden grates with only the narrowest of openings between the slats. “What’s that all about?” Bembo asked.

At last, the job was done. The guards forced the caravan-car doors closed, then barred them from the outside. From within, Bembo could still hear the moans and cries of the Kaunians as they sought whatever comfort they could find. He doubted they would find much.

Oraste waved to the cars, though with those grates on the windows the men and women inside could hardly have seen him. “So long,” he called. “You think it’s bad now; it only gets worse later. Off to Unkerlant with the lot of you!” He threw back his head and laughed.

A couple of the Forthwegian carpenters must have understood Algarvian, for they laughed, too. But Sergeant Pesaro rounded on Oraste, growling, “Shut up, curse you! They won’t want trouble on the caravan while it’s going west, so don’t stir up the stinking Kaunians.”

“He’s right,” said Bembo, who as usual on roundup duty wished he were doing anything but. Oraste nodded to Pesaro and gave Bembo a dirty look.

As soon as the carpenters had nailed a grate over the last window, the ley-line caravan silently glided away. For a moment, Bembo simply watched it. Then he gaped. “It’s going east!” he exclaimed. “East, toward Algarve! Why are they sending Kaunians that way?” No one had a good answer for him; all the Algarvians on the platform looked as surprised as he was.

Skarnu laughed softly as he strode through Pavilosta toward the market square. Merkela, who walked beside him, sent him a curious look. “What’s funny?” she asked. “The town hasn’t changed much, not that I can see.”