Out of the Darkness

“Er-” As the sergeant had done, this fellow had a civilian in his wake: no, not one civilian, but half a dozen or so. “These. . people need to speak with you, sir.”

“Oh, they do, do they?” Lurcanio snapped. “What in blazes do they want? And why do I need to say one fornicating word to them?” But then he got a good look at who came behind the soldier, and his fiery temper cooled. “Oh,” he said, and, “Oh,” again. He nodded. “Them. Aye, I’ll talk to them.”

The four men and two women who came up to Lurcanio wore tunics and kilts in the Algarvian style, but they were blonds, their hair soaked and falling down stringily over their faces. “You have to help us, Colonel!” the tallest man exclaimed, his Algarvian fluent enough but accented with the more guttural consonants and flat vowels of Valmieran. “By the powers above, you have to!”

Lurcanio had known him well enough back in Priekule. “I have to, eh? And why is that, Smetnu?” For a refugee without a kingdom to give him orders really was a bit much.

Smetnu had an answer for him, though: “I’ll tell you why. Because I spent four years-more than four years-helping you, that’s why. Didn’t my news sheets sing King Mezentio’s song all over Valmiera?”

“And my broadsheets!” another man added.

“And my plays,” said a third.

“And our acting,” one of the women and the fourth man said together.

The other woman, whose name was Sigulda and who was either married or at least thoroughly attached to Smetnu, said, “If you don’t help us, they’ll catch up with us. And if they catch up with us. .” She drew a thumb across her throat. Her nails were painted red as blood, which added to the effect of the gesture.

And the Valmierans were right. That was all there was to it. Lurcanio bowed. “Very well, my friends. I will do what I can. But I can do, perhaps, less than you think. You will have noticed, Algarve is falling deeper into ruin and disaster with each passing day.”

They nodded. Their own kingdom-the Algarvian version of Valmiera they’d promoted and upheld-had already fallen into ruin. And now that Algarve was breaking under hammer blows from west and east, few of Mezentio’s subjects could spare them any time or aid or effort. If anything, they were an embarrassment, a reminder of what might have been. They were, in spite of everything, Kaunians, and somehow not quite welcome even to watch Algarve’s death throes. The destruction of a great kingdom was, or at least should have been, a private affair.

Unlike most of his countrymen, Lurcanio did feel a certain obligation toward them. He’d worked with them for a long time. Baldu, the playwright, had done some splendid work during the occupation. His dramas deserved to live- unless the Valmierans flung them all into the fire because he’d written them under Algarvian auspices and because some of his characters (not all, by any means) had friendly things to say about the men who’d occupied his kingdom.

Bowing again, Lurcanio asked, “Where would you go?”

“Any place where they won’t hang us or burn us or blaze us!” The actor made as if to tear his hair, which struck Lurcanio as overacting.

“Very good,” he said. “And where might that be, pray tell?”

Silence fell over the Valmierans-a gloomy, appalled silence. Not many places on the continent of Derlavai would be safe for them after Algarve finished losing the war, because all her neighbors would be eager for revenge against anyone and everyone who’d helped her.

“Siaulia?” Lurcanio suggested, and then shook his head. “No, if we lose here, what we hold on the tropical continent will be yielded to the victors. That’s how these things work, I fear.”

“Gyongyos?” Baldu suggested. “Can you get us there?”

It wasn’t an impossible notion. Gyongyos was losing the war, too, but mountains shielded its heartland, and it was a long, long way from the greatest strength of its enemies. That same, unfortunately, didn’t hold true for Lurcanio’s own kingdom. He saw one other problem: “I can probably make sure you reach a port. But the ports in the south are mostly closed because of enemy dragons flying out of Sibiu, and in the north. . It’s a long, long way to Gyongyos. Not many of our ships-or those of the Gongs-get through. The enemy prowls the sea lanes, too. You might have a better chance of reaching some island in the Great Northern Sea. No one would come looking for you there, probably not for years.”

The Valmieran collaborators looked even less happy than before. Lurcanio didn’t suppose he could blame them. Those distant islands were ratholes, nothing else but. Then Smetnu asked, “Can you get us to Ortah?”

“I don’t know,” Lurcanio said thoughtfully. The neutral kingdom was much closer than Gyongyos. Even so … “I don’t know what things are like in the west of Algarve right now. If you try to get to Ortah, you’re liable to run right into the Unkerlanters’ arms. You wouldn’t like that.”