Darkness Descending

“Have to hope,” Garivald muttered, and tramped back out to the fields. Finding a chunk of limestone the size of a finger joint didn’t take long. He unraveled some of the hem of his tunic, using the thread for a string. Annore wouldn’t be happy with him for that, but he had bigger things to worry about.

With the stone and the string in his belt pouch, he took care of endless chores till sundown. Supper was blood sausage and pickled cabbage, washed down with a mug of ale. After supper, Annore let the fire die to embers that shed only a faint red glow over the inside of the hut. She spread out blankets and quilts on the benches that lined the walls. Syrivald and Leuba curled up in them and went to sleep. Before long, Annore was snoring, too.

Garivald had to stay awake, though exhaustion tugged at him. He watched a stripe of moonlight crawl across the floor and up the wall. After the moonlight disappeared, after the inside of the house got darker than ever, he sat up, swallowing yet another yawn, and put back on the boots that were all he’d taken off.

Did Annore’s breathing change as he went out the door? Had she only been pretending to be asleep? He’d find out later. He couldn’t worry about it now.

Most of the village lay quiet. Farm work bludgeoned people into slumber when night came. That made the raucous singing from the house the Algarvians had taken as their own all the more irksome. But if they were in there carousing, they weren’t out patrolling. Beyond wishing them ugly hangovers in the morning, Garivald had no fault to find with their way of whiling away the hours, not tonight.

He stepped as quietly as he could. If anyone did spy him, he’d say he was out to ease himself. That wouldn’t work in the middle of the garden, though. Once he got there, he couldn’t afford to waste a moment.

The two-story bulk of Waddo’s house, looming dark against the sky, helped guide him to the plot he needed: Waddo’s was the only two-story house in Zossen. As far as Garivald was concerned, it was also a monument to wretched excess. But that, like the redheads’ racket, was beside the point right now.

Garivald took out the little chunk of limestone and swung it gently at the end of the length of thread tied to it. “Show me where the crystal went,” he whispered as it swung back and forth. “Show me, as was truly meant.” He didn’t know if it was truly meant or not, but figured the assumption would do no harm.

And the limestone began gliding back and forth, as if he were swinging it. But he wasn’t, not now; his hand and wrist were still. He went in the direction it led him, and it swung faster and faster, higher and higher. Then, after he’d gone on for a while, it began to slow. He stopped and reversed his field. The swings grew stronger and higher once more.

He stopped where the limestone swung most vigorously: stopped and squatted. That was where he began to dig with his belt knife. He didn’t know how deep he’d have to dig or how big a hole he’d have to make. The only way to find out was to do it.

The tip of the knife grated off something hard and smooth. “Powers above!” Garivald whispered, and reached down into the hole. After guddling about for a moment, his hands closed on the cool sphere of the crystal. With a soft exclamation of triumph, he drew it out.

Then, as best he could, he filled in the hole, trying to make it seem as if no one had ever been there. He hurried away, back toward his own house. Clouds slid across the stars, swallowing them one after another. The air smelled damp. Maybe it would rain before morning. That would help hide what he’d been doing, and hide his tracks, too. It would also be good for the newly planted crops.

“Rain,” he murmured, clutching the crystal tight.

Eighteen

Not even snowshoes helped behemoths make their way through the bottomless mud of the spring thaw. Leudast wished the thaw would have come later than it did--exactly the opposite of what he would have wished back in his village. An early thaw meant an early planting and a long growing season. But a late thaw meant the Unkerlanter army could have kept pushing the Algarvians eastward across solid ground. Solid ground, for the next few weeks, would be hard to come by.

His company was still moving eastward, one laborious step at a time. Paved roads in Unkerlant being few and far between, the highways down which they advanced were as muddy as the fields to either side. Sometimes, because so many men and horses and unicorns and behemoths and wagons moved along them and tore up the dirt, they were muddier than the fields.

During the thaw, ordinary wagons were useless. No matter how many horses pulled them, they bogged down. But every village had a wagon or two useful in the mud or in deep snow, one with tall wheels and a curving bottom almost like that of a boat. Mud wagons could bring supplies to soldiers at the front line where everything else got stuck.