Out of the Darkness

Painted sky blue and sea green, the Kuusaman dragons were hard to spot. Kuusamans had never believed in unnecessary display. Kuusamans often didn’t believe even in necessary display, Algarvic peoples, with their love for swagger and opulence, had a different way of looking at things. Algarvian dragons were painted green, red, and white; the colors of Sibiu were red, yellow, and blue; and those of Lagoas red and gold. Algarvian soldiers had gone into the Six Years’ War in gorgeous, gaudy, impractical uniforms. The slaughter in the early days of that fight, though, had forced pragmatism on them in a hurry.

Before long, the muted roar of eggs bursting in the distance came back to Leino’s ears. In an abstract way, he pitied the-Algarvian soldiers who had to take such punishment without being able to give it back. But, as a practical mage, he knew abstraction went only so far. He much preferred dishing out misery to taking it.

When he said that aloud, Xavega nodded. “Against the combined might of Lagoas and Kuusamo, they are all but powerless to resist,” she replied.

The combined might of Lagoas and Kuusamo here in Jelgava was two or three parts Kuusaman to one part Lagoan. The Kuusamans were also fighting, and winning, a considerable war against Gyongyos across the islands of the Both-nian Ocean. Xavega didn’t like to think, didn’t like to admit, that the short, swarthy, slant-eyed folk she looked down on both metaphorically and literally were a good deal more powerful than her own countrymen. Few Lagoans did. And, because Lagoas looked west and north across the Strait of Valmiera toward Derlavai while the Kuusamans concentrated on shipping and trade, they didn’t often have to. Leino smiled. Often was different from always.

But then his smile slipped. “The Algarvians cannot match us in men or beasts, no. But in magecraft. . .” By the time he finished, he looked thoroughly grim.

Xavega scowled, too. “Aye, they are murderers. Aye, they are filthy. But that is why we are here, you and I. The magecraft we learned can make their own wickedness come down on their heads, not on those against whom they aim it.”

“Indeed.” Leino had to work to hold irony from his voice. It wasn’t that Xavega hadn’t told the truth. It was just that, as she had a way of doing, she turned things so they looked best to her. The sorcery she was talking about came from Kuusamo, not Lagoas. If fact, unless Leino was entirely wrong, Pekka had had a lot to do with devising it. She hadn’t said so--but then, she hadn’t been able to talk about what she was doing for quite some time. The few hints Leino had picked up all pointed in that direction.

Before his thoughts could glide much further down that ley line, a crystallo-mancer burst out of a nearby tent and came running toward him and Xavega. “Master mages! Master mages!” the fellow cried. “One of our dragonfliers reports that the Algarvians are stirring at their special camp near the mountains.”

“Are they?” Leino breathed. Mezentio’s men called the camps where they kept Kaunians before killing them by an innocuous name, not least, Leino suspected, so they wouldn’t have to think about what they did. Names had power, as any mage knew. And the Algarvians’ enemies had adopted this euphemism, too, not least so they wouldn’t have to think about what the Algarvians were doing, either.

“What is he saying?” demanded Xavega, who’d stubbornly refused to learn any Kuusaman. There were days when Leino found himself surprised she’d ever learned classical Kaunian.

He explained, adding, “You would think they would have learned their lesson.”

“Algarvians are arrogant,” Xavega said. By all the signs she gave, she’d never noticed her own arrogance. She went on, “Besides, their murderous sorcery is the strongest weapon Mezentio’s men have. If they use it when no mages are in position to strike back at them, they can work no small harm. Here, I would say, they judge the risk to be worth it.”

“I would say you are right,” Leino answered. “I would also say we are going to teach them they have miscalculated.”

The crystallomancer seemed to follow classical Kaunian only haltingly. He spoke to Leino in the Kuusaman that was their common birthspeech: “Shall I tell the men at the front that they will have sorcerous protection?”

“Aye, you can tell them that,” Leino answered, also in Kuusaman. The crystallomancer saluted and dashed back to his tent. Leino fell back into classical Kaunian: “This time, at least, we have some little warning. That must have been a sharp dragonflier. Usually, we have to start the counterspells when we feel the jolt as the Algarvians start killing.”

Xavega nodded. She put her arms around Leino and gave him a long, thorough kiss. When at last they broke apart, she murmured, “Use my strength as your own when we give them what they deserve.”