Out of the Darkness

Sidroc could have blazed him to put him out of his misery. What with the sort of magic Almonte had been using, he was more than glad to let him suffer.

“They’ll come after us as soon as they realize he can’t do anything to them anymore,” he warned Ceorl.

“I know,” the ruffian said.

Come the Unkerlanters did, behind a fresh barrage of eggs. “Urra!” they shouted, more in relief, Sidroc thought, than anything else. “Urra! Swemmel! Urra!” Despite good blazing from the barricades and from the palace itself, they gained lodgments here and there and began blazing down the Algarvians and the men from Plegmund’s Brigade and the Phalanx of Valmiera who still stood against them.

“Fall back!” Sidroc yelled. “We’ll be cut off if we don’t!” He’d done enough in this fight-he’d done enough in his whole term of service in Plegmund’s Brigade-that no one could accuse him of cowardice. He ran back toward the royal palace, his men-those still on their feet-with him.

As he ran, he hoped the redheads inside wouldn’t take the soldiers of Plegmund’s Brigade for Unkerlanters and blaze them down. That would have been the ultimate indignity. In the end, though, how much did it matter? He didn’t think he would last very long any which way.

He made it into the palace unblazed, and took up a new position at a window that had offered a magnificent view but was really too long, too open, to give good cover. To his right knelt Ceorl and a blond Valmieran from the Phalanx, to his left a redhead from the Popular Assault who couldn’t have been above fifteen and an older Algarvian, a bald fellow with a beaky nose.

The old man could handle a stick. “There’s another one down,” he said, stretching an Unkerlanter lifeless in front of the palace. “But it won’t last. It can’t last, powers below eat them all.”

Sidroc shuddered. Major Almonte, he thought, had dealt much too intimately with the powers below. “We’ll hold on a while longer,” he said, and then took another look at the man crouching there beside him. His voice rose to a startled squeak: “Your, uh, Majesty.”

King Mezentio nodded briskly. “I will ask the same favor of you, Corporal, that I’ve asked of a good many men already: when you see this place falling, have the courtesy to blaze me down. I do not care to fall into Swemmel’s hands alive.”

“Uh, aye, sir.” Sidroc nodded. He wouldn’t have wanted the King of Unkerlant to get his hands on him, either.

“Meanwhile. .” Mezentio blazed again. He nodded, but then grimaced. “I should have won Algarve should have won. This kingdom proved itself weak. It doesn’t deserve to live.”

And who led it to where it is? Sidroc thought. But he didn’t see how he could say such a thing to the King of Algarve. Even as he cast about for ways that wouldn’t sound too blunt, the moment passed. A great racket of bursting eggs and crumpling masonry and shouting men arose from the rear of the palace.

A redhead dashed up to Mezentio, crying, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! The whoresons are inside! We have some barricades in the corridors, but powers above only know how long they’ll hold.” Crashes and more screams said one of them had just gone down.

“All over,” Mezentio said, his voice soft and sad. “We came so close, but it’s all over. We weren’t strong enough. We all deserve to go into the fire.” He bowed to Sidroc. “Will you do the honors?” As Sidroc numbly nodded, the king spoke to the messenger: “Know that this man slays me at my request. Let him be rewarded for it, and in no way punished. Do you understand?”

“Aye, your Majesty.” Tears ran down the redhead’s face.

Mezentio bowed to Sidroc again. “Do what needs doing. Try to blaze true, to make it as quick as you can.” He closed his eyes and waited.

Sidroc did it. He’d done it for wounded comrades more than once before. Seeing King Mezentio slump over dead raised no special horror in him. It was as if he had nothing at all left inside. Ceorl set a hand on his shoulder. “Powers above,” the ruffian whispered.

Fresh shouts came from the back of the palace, these much closer. Sidroc got to his feet. “Come on,” he said savagely. “There’s still some fighting left.” As he and the men he led ran forward, panic-stricken Algarvians ran back toward them. “Cowards!” he shouted, and ran on. With nothing left inside him, what did he have to lose?

A beam took him in the side as he came round a corner. He went down, but kept blazing. Another beam bit, this one deep. He tasted blood in his mouth as his stick slipped from fingers that would not hold it. He was still moving a little when an Unkerlanter lieutenant paused, saw he wasn’t quite dead, and put a beam through his temple before charging on.