Darkness Descending

“And isn’t that the sad and sorry truth?” Istvan said, more in resignation than anything else. “Well, they haven’t killed us yet, so we’re still ahead of the game.” As other sergeants and officers were doing, he raised his voice: “Come on, you miserable lugs, get moving. Somewhere in there, we’ve got Unkerlanters to flush out.”

He and his men tramped across the meadow that led to the forest. The grass was a brilliant green, far brighter than the nearly black needles on the trees ahead. Yellow ox-eye gentian and red clover brightened the meadow more. Butterflies flitted from flower to flower. Some sort of ground squirrel, not long out of its burrow after a long winter’s nap, stood up on its hind legs and chattered indignantly at the soldiers marching past.

And then, off to Istvan’s left, the ground erupted in a roar. A trooper shrieked, but not for long. Istvan stared up at the sky. No dragons wheeled there, only a rusty-red jay like the ones he might have seen at home. And no more eggs were flying through the air to land on the advancing Gyongyosians.

Someone else shouted out what flashed through his mind: “Have a care, all! The stinking sons of goats have buried eggs under the meadow. Tromp on one and you’ll never tromp on anything else.”

All at once, Istvan wanted to walk above the grass. His bowels knotted with every step he took. Kun spat and said, “I wonder how much fun we’ll have going down the highway that’s supposed to run through the forest.”

Istvan didn’t like thinking about that, either. “Have we got any mages who can sniff out buried eggs for us?” He asked the question in a loud, hopeful voice. Nobody responded to it. Istvan rounded on Kun. “What about you? You were a mage’s apprentice, after all.”

Kun bared his teeth in what was anything but a smile. “If I could, do you think I’d be stomping along like everybody else?”

“No law against hoping, is there?” Istvan said.

“No, and there’s no law against stupidity, either, though there cursed well ought to be,” Kun retorted. That was insubordinate, but Istvan let it slide. He knew why Kun was unhappy. He was unhappy for the same reason himself.

Another egg burst, this one half a mile over to the right. Istvan couldn’t hear whether the luckless Gyongyosian who’d trodden on it shrieked or not. He ground his teeth and kept going. Half a minute later, yet another burst shattered the morning calm. A magpie screeched annoyance at having its hunt for worms and crickets and maybe mice disturbed.

Higher and higher, the trees loomed ahead. But for the roadway that led into the forest, no one had ever taken an axe to it. Gyongyos had few woods like this, and none so vast. People were scattered thinly over this part of the world; it looked, Istvan judged, much as it had when the stars first shone down on it.

“Kun, walk point,” he called as his squad went into the forest a little to the north of the road. “Szonyi, on the right. Fenyes, on the left. I’ll take rear guard for a while. Keep your eyes open, everyone. Somewhere in there, the filthy goat-buggers are waiting for us.”

The world changed when he went in among the trees. The sun disappeared, except for occasional dapplings sneaking through the thick branches overhead. The air got cooler and damper; spicy, resinous scents filled it. Istvan’s boots scuffed on red-brown fallen needles. Here and there, especially at the bases of tree trunks, lacy green ferns sprang up.

On the meadow, Istvan had been able to see for miles. Here, the trees cramped his vision, and not just from side to side. When he looked up, those dark boughs hid the sky. He shook his head. He didn’t like that.

“No stars tonight,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.

But one of his troopers heard, and answered, “They’ll see us, Sergeant, even if we can’t see them.”

“Aye,” Istvan answered, but he remained unreassured. He kept looking up. Every once in a while, he managed to spy a sliver of blue. When he did, he felt he’d won a victory.

A red squirrel holding a fir cone in its front paws peered down at him with beady black eyes and chittered in annoyance, as its cousin had out on the meadow. He raised a hand. The squirrel ducked back, putting the bulk of the branch--which was as thick as a man’s leg--between itself and what looked like danger.

Seeing it put a new thought in his mind. “Keep watching overhead,” he called to his men. “If the Unkerlanters haven’t put some snipers in the trees, I’m an even bigger fool than you think I am.”

Up ahead, Kun said something. Istvan thought he heard the word impossible, but he wasn’t sure. He decided not to find out.