Darkness Descending

And, sure enough, the enemy did attack. Eggs started bursting not far from the Lagoan forces--releasing energy like that was sorcery so basic, it worked all over the world. The Yaninans swarmed forward, howling like mountain apes. Beams from their sticks pierced the darkness. Junqueiro held back response as long as he could. Then all the light egg-tossers the Lagoans had brought with them began flinging eggs back at the Yaninans. The Lagoan footsoldiers, waiting behind cover, blazed away at the men who followed King Tsavellas.

To Fernao’s delighted astonishment, the Yaninans broke in wild disorder. They must have thought they would be able to steal the battle by night, catching the Lagoans by surprise. When that didn’t happen, some fled, some threw down their sticks and surrendered, and only a stubborn rear guard kept Junqueiro’s army from bagging them all.

Even before twilight began to gray the northern horizon the next morning, the Lagoan commander declared, “The way to Mizpah is open!”

“You wouldn’t sound so happy if you’d ever seen the place,” Fernao said, yawning. Junqueiro paid him no attention. He hadn’t really expected anything different.

Talsu had got used to Algarvians swaggering through the streets of Skrunda. He felt less embittered toward the redheads than did a lot of Jelgavans, not least because he’d done more against them in the war than had most of his countrymen. His regiment had invaded Algarve, even if it never had succeeded in breaking out of the foothills of the Bratanu Mountains and seizing Tricarico. And he hadn’t thrown down his stick till Jelgava was truly beaten. Beaten his kingdom remained, but he didn’t blame himself for it.

His father had other ideas. Looking up from the tunic he was sewing for an Algarvian officer, Traku sighed and said, “If only we’d fought harder, I wouldn’t have to be doing this kind of work.”

By that, Talsu knew he meant, If only you’d fought harder. His father felt guilty about not seeing battle. Because he did, he had a low opinion of those who had seen it and hadn’t prevailed--like Talsu.

With a sigh of his own, Talsu answered, “No. Instead you’d be sewing jewels onto some noblewoman’s cloak, and you’d be grumbling about that.”

Traku grunted and ran his fingers through his hair. He was going gray but, like his son and most of his countrymen, was so blond it hardly showed. “Well, what if I would?” he said. “At least she’d be one of our own noblewomen, not a cursed redhead.”

Before Talsu answered, he looked out into the street. No one there looked like coming into the tailor’s shop above which Traku and Talsu and his mother and sister lived. Satisfied he could speak frankly, Talsu said, “If it weren’t for all out idiot noblemen clogging up the officer corps, maybe we wouldn’t have a cursed redhead calling himself King of Jelgava these days. I had to follow their orders, remember--I know what kind of soldiers they made.”

Traku opened the cash box, took out a small silver coin with Bang Mainardo’s beaky portrait stamped on it, and ground it under his heel. “That’s what I think of having any Algarvian, let alone King Mezentio’s worthless brother, set up as the ruler of a decent Kaunian kingdom.”

“Oh, aye, I have no love for him, either,” Talsu said. “Who does? But if King Donalitu hadn’t run away to Lagoas after the redheads broke in here, we wouldn’t have an Algarvian calling himself king now. You ask me, Father, Donalitu was as useless as his nobles.”

“That’s what the Algarvians want you to say,” his father answered. “A king doesn’t have a use, except to be king. He stands for his kingdom, or else he’s no use at all. And how can an Algarvian king stand for a Kaunian kingdom? It’s against nature, that’s what it is.”

Talsu had no good comeback for that. By everything he knew of magecraft--which wasn’t much--Traku was right. But Traku thought of the Jelgavan nobility in terms of luxuries used up and money wasted. That was how Talsu had thought of the nobles before the war. Now he thought of dukes and counts in terms of lives wasted, which were far more expensive.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, starting out of the shop. “Mother asked me earlier this morning to get her some olive oil and some garlic, and I haven’t done it yet.”

“Go on, then.” Traku was willing to let the argument lie. “You’d better, if you expect to eat supper tonight.”

Laughing--though his father hadn’t been joking--Talsu headed for the grocer’s a couple of blocks away. The weather was mild. Winter in Skrunda only rarely got chilly; the beaches on Jelgavas northeastern coast, the ones that looked across the Garelian Ocean toward equatorial Siaulia, were subtropical themselves. In happier times, they were a popular holiday resort for folk fleeing nasty weather farther south.