Out of the Darkness

Ilmarinen would argue with anybody at any time for any reason. “And how, precisely, do you know that?” he demanded. By way of reply, the driver jerked a thumb off to the right. Ilmarinen turned to look. An enormous dragon done in white, green, and red adorned a boulder. It was partly defaced; Kuusaman soldiers had added several rude scrawls to it. But it was unquestionably an Algarvian dragon. Ilmarinen nodded. “You’re right. We’re in Algarve.”

A thin but steady stream of wounded soldiers came back from the fighting. The ones who weren’t too badly hurt still had plenty of spirit. “We’ll get ‘em,” said a fellow with his hand wrapped in a bloody bandage. “They haven’t got hardly any behemoths left. Pretty cursed hard to win a war without ‘em.”

That made sense to Ilmarinen. What made sense, though, wasn’t necessarily true. By that afternoon, the Kuusamans were over the river both north and south of Tricarico, pushing hard to cut the city off and surround it. And then, just as the sun was setting on the broad Algarvian plain, the world suddenly seemed to hold its breath. Ilmarinen didn’t know how else to put it. He’d felt the Algarvians’ murderous magic so many time, he’d grown inured to it, as had most other mages. This . . . This was something else.

What are they doing? flashed through his mind when the sorcerous storm broke. A heartbeat later came another, perhaps even more urgent thought: how are they doing it? He’d heard that the Algarvians were pulling out all sorts of desperate spells, but hadn’t really encountered one till now.

Their murderous magecraft had been bad. This was worse. That had used life energy in a straightforward way, even if Mezentio’s men had no business stealing it as they’d done. This . . . Whoever the wizard essaying the spell was, he’d opened his spirit to the powers below. He didn’t just aim to kill his foes. He aimed to torment them, to horrify them, to make death itself seem clean by comparison.

Ilmarinen felt Kuusaman sorcerers in the field try to throw up counterspells against the dark cantrip. He felt them fail, too, and felt the extinguishment of some of them. That was the only word he could find. They didn’t die, at least not right away. They would have been better off if they had.

He essayed no counterspells. He had no idea whether that blackness could be countered, in any conventional sense of the word. He wasn’t much interested in finding out, either. Instead, he hurled a bolt of sorcerous energy of the sort Pekka had discovered straight at the Algarvian attacking his countrymen.

The enemy mage hadn’t expected that. His spell was so vicious, so dreadful, he might have assumed other wizards would attack it, not him. A lot of wizards would have. Ilmarinen didn’t think like most of his professional colleagues. His own sorcerous stroke went home, a lightning bolt piercing the darkness. He felt the Algarvian sorcerer’s outraged astonishment as the fellow died.

For a nasty moment, Ilmarinen feared that wouldn’t be enough. The spell, once unleashed, seemed to want to go on by itself. It did crumble at last, but only slowly and reluctantly. Then the day seemed to brighten, though the sun was touching the western horizon.

Weary, shaken, disgusted as he was, Ilmarinen stormed off to Grand General Nortamo’s headquarters, which he found in a farmhouse on this side of the river from Tricarico. A sentry tried to block his progress. He pushed past as if the man didn’t exist. Nortamo was conferring with several of his officers. Ilmarinen ignored them, too. In a voice that brooked no contradiction, he said, “I need to talk to those captive mages, Nortamo. Now.”

Nortamo looked at him. He was not a fool; he didn’t argue. “Very well, sorcerous sir. You have my authorization. I will give it to you in writing, if you like.”

“Never mind. We haven’t time to waste.” Ilmarinen hurried off to the small captives’ camp where mages were housed and securely guarded by other mages. He had several of the highest-ranking captives brought before him. “How could any of you do ... that?” he demanded in classical Kaunian. He spoke fluent Algarvian, but chose not to.

“How?” one of the Algarvians answered in the same tongue. “We are fighting to save our kingdom, that is how. “What would you have us do, roll over and die?” “Sooner than that?” Ilmarinen shuddered. “Aye, by the powers above.”

“No,” the mage said. “No one will enslave us, not while we still live to fight.”

“Doing that, you enslave yourselves,” Ilmarinen answered. “Better to be

ruled by foreigners, don’t you think, than by the powers below?”

“My wife and daughters are in the west,” the Algarvian said. “I sent them word to flee. I do not know whether they could. If they did not, and the Unkerlanters have caught them . . . They are raping their way through my kingdom, you know.”

“And what did you do to them?” Ilmarinen returned. “What did you do to the Kaunians in Forthweg?”