Darkness Descending

But the Algarvians were as quick to correct their own mistakes as they were to punish the Unkerlanters’. Reinforcements came to the rescue of the men the Unkerlanter attack had been on the edge of crushing, and those reinforcements included behemoths with redheads aboard. One thing Leudast had seen before was that Algarvian behemoth-riders went after their Unkerlanter counterparts the instant they spied them. So it was in this fight, too, and, with fewer behemoths backing them, King Swemmel’s footsoldiers faltered.

Shouting King Mezentio’s name, the Algarvians came on again, hot to retake the stretch of ground the Unkerlanters had wrested from them. But a flight of dragons painted rock-gray swooped down on them, dropping eggs on their behemoths and flaming their footsoldiers. Leudast shouted himself hoarse, or rather hoarser, for the smoke in the air had left his throat raw now for quite a while.

When he looked back over his shoulder, he was surprised to see the sun dipping toward the western horizon. The fighting had gone on all day, and he’d hardly noticed. Now he felt how worn and hungry and thirsty he was.

Unkerlanter reinforcements came up during the night. So did a little food. Leudast had more than a little food on him; he knew supplies were liable to be erratic. During the night, the wind shifted, as it had a way of doing as summer swung toward fall. It blew from out of the south, a cool breeze with a warning of rain in it.

Sure enough, at dawn gray clouds covered most of the sky. Eyeing them, Sergeant Magnulf said, “It’ll already be raining, I expect, down in the village I come from. Nothing wrong with that, you ask me.”

“No,” Leudast said. “Nothing wrong with that at all. Let’s see how the redheads like slogging through the mud. If the powers above are giving us an early winter, maybe they’ll give us a nasty winter, too.” He stared up at one of the few patches of blue sky he could see, hoping the powers were listening to him.

Along with a dozen of his comrades, Tealdo sheltered in a half-wrecked barn somewhere in southern Unkerlant. It was raining almost as hard inside the barn as it was outside. Tealdo and Trasone held a cloak above Captain Galafrone to keep water from dripping down onto the map the company commander was examining to try to figure out just where they were.

“Curse me if I know why I’m bothering,” Galafrone growled. “This miserable thing lies more often than it tells the truth.”

Trasone pointed to a line printed in red. “Sir, isn’t that the highway?” “That’s what the map says,” Galafrone answered. “I saw Unkerlanter roads during the Six Years’ War, but I thought they might have got better since. They were supposed to have got better since. But the stinking ‘highway’ is just another dirt track. Huzzah for Swemmel’s efficiency.”

“Mud track now,” Trasone said. His legs, like everyone else’s, were mud to the knees and beyond.

Tealdo said, “Maybe Swemmel’s efficient after all. Hard for us to go very far very fast if we bog down every step we take.”

Galafrone gave him a sour look. “If that’s a joke, it’s not funny.”

“I didn’t mean it for a joke, sir,” Tealdo said. “I meant it for the truth.”

“They have as much trouble in this slop as we do,” Trasone said.

“What if they do?” Tealdo answered. “They’re not trying to go forward right now, or not so much. They’re only trying to hold us back.”

That produced a gloomy silence. At last, Captain Galafrone said, “We’ve got ‘em by the ears and we’ve got ‘em by the tail. Can’t very well let go now, can we?” He bent closer to the map, then swore. “I’ll be cursed if I don’t need spectacles to read the fornicating letters when they’re printed that fornicating small. Where in blazes is the town called Tannroda?”

Trasone and Tealdo both peered at the map--rather awkwardly, since they had to keep holding the cloak over it. Tealdo spotted the place first. He pointed with his free hand. “There, sir.”

“Ah.” Galafrone’s grunt held more weariness than satisfaction. “My thanks. Northwest, is it? Well, that makes a deal of sense--it’s in the direction of Cottbus. Once we take his capital away from him, King Swemmel won’t be so much of a much.” He folded up the map and put it back in his belt pouch. “Come on, boys. We’ve got to get moving. The Unkerlanters won’t wait for us.”

“Maybe they’ve all drowned in the mud,” Trasone said.

“Don’t I wish.” Galafrone grunted again. For the first time since the veteran had taken command of the company, Tealdo thought he saw his years telling on him. Galafrone made himself rally. “It’s too much to hope for, and you know it as well as I do. If we don’t shift ‘em, they won’t get shifted.”

“Maybe the Yaninans can do the job,” Tealdo said slyly as Galafrone started toward the open barn door.