Into The Darkness

He had to lift his head above the surface a couple of times to get his bearings. Had the Algarvians on those freighters been keeping good watch, they might have spotted him. But they seemed confident nothing could harm them here inside Feltre harbor. Cornelu aimed to show them otherwise.

Everything went as smooth as a caravan down a ley line. He attached one egg to the first merchant ship, two to the second - the largest - and one to the third. The sorcery in the shells would make them burst four hours after they touched iron. By then, he would be long gone. He swam back to Eforiel.

They cleared the harbor even more easily than they had entered. None of the Algarvian patrol boats came near them. Not long after they reached the open sea, the moon rose, spilling pale light over the water. Along with the wheeling stars, it helped Cornelu guide the leviathan across the sea and back to Sibiu. They reached Tirgoviste harbor as the sun was rising once more.

Commodore Delfinu waited on the pier. As soon as the weary Cornelu climbed out of the water, his superior kissed him on both cheeks. "Magnificently done!" Delfinu exclaimed. "One of those ships was full of eggs itself, and wrecked a good stretch of the harbor when it went up. Our mages have picked up nothing but fury in the Algarvian crystal messages they steal. You are a hero, Cornelu!"

"Sir, I am a tired hero." Cornelu smothered a yawn.

"Better a tired hero than a dead one," Deffinu said. "We also sent leviathans to the Barian ports, and have no word of success from them. If they failed they probably did not survive, poor brave men."

"How strange," Cornelu said. "The Algarvians hardly kept any sort of watch over the approaches to Feltre. Why should they do any differently at the Barian ports?"

Men going off to war had a sort of glamour to them. So thought Vanai [..I;.] at any rate. Forthwegians in uniform had seemed quite splendid to her as'~, they tramped east through Oyngestun on their way toward Algarve. Had she seen them in their ordinary tunics, she would not have given them a second glance - unless to make sure they weren't seeking to molest her.

No such glamour attached itself to men retreating from war. Vanai quickly discovered that, too. Retreating, they did not move in neat columns, all their legs going back and f6rth together like the oars of a war galley from the Kaunian Empire. They weren't all nearly identical, with only the occasional blond Kaunian head among the dark Forthwegians distinguishing a few from the rest.

Retreating, men skulked along in small packs, as stray dogs did. Vanai feared they were liable to turn on her, as stray dogs might. They had that look, wild, half fierce, half fearful another rock or another blow from a club might knock them sprawling.

They didn't look identical any more, either. Their tunics were variously torn and tattered, with spots of dirt and grease and sometimes bloodstains mottling the cloth. Some of them had bandages on arms or legs or head. They were almost uniformly filthy, filthier than the ancient

Kaunians Vanai had viewed with Brivibas's archaeological sorcery. The nose-wrinkling odor that clung to them put her in rumd of the farmyard.

Like the rest of the folk of Oyngestim, Forthwegians and Kaumans alike, Vanai did what she could for them, offering bread and sausage and water and, while it lasted, wine. "My thanks, lass," said a Forthwegian lance-corporal who was well-spoken enough but who hadn't bathed in a long, long time. He lowered his voice: "You folk here may want to get on the road to Eoforwic. Gromheort's not going to hold, and if it doesn't, this wide spot in the road won't, either."

He spoke to her as an equal, not looking down his curved nose at her because she was of Kaunian blood. She found even the casual assumption that he was as good as she on the offensive side, but not nearly so much as the leering superiority so many Forthwegians displayed. Because of that, she answered politely enough: "I don't think you could pry my grandfather out of Oyngestun with a team of mules."

"What about a team of behemoths?" the Forthwegian soldier demanded. For a moment, naked fear filled his face. "The Algarvians have more of the horrible things than you can shake a stick at, and they hit hard, too. What about a team of dragons? I've never imagined so many eggs could fall out of the sky on us." He gulped the mug of water

Vanai had given him dry. She refilled it, and he gulped once more.

"He's very stubborn," Vanai said. The lance-corporal finished the second mug of water and shrugged, as if to say it wasn't his problem. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, gave the mug back to Vanai with another word of thanks, and trudged off toward the west.

Brivibas came out of the house as Vanai was slicing more bread. "Yod were unduly familiar with that man, my granddaughter," he said severely.

Reprimands sounded much harsher in Kaunian than in Forthwegian.