Rulers of the Darkness

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered. "I really am. I aimed to hit you with that, Garivald. I probably shouldn't have done that either, should I?"

"No, you bloody clot," Garivald snapped. He rounded on Tantris again. "Well?" he demanded. "Are you going to tell me some more about how Sadoc is the unicorn you're going to ride to victory, and he'll gore everything that gets in front of you out of the way?"

Tantris was still gaping at the remains of his comrade. The stench of burnt meat filled the clearing. Garivald had to repeat himself to get his attention. When he did, Tantris shuddered. He leaned over and was noisily sick. Garivald nodded to the irregular closest to him. The man gave Tantris a canteen. After he'd rinsed his mouth and spat, he violently shook his head. "I'm not going to tell anybody anything, not for a while," he answered.

"That's the first sensible thing you've said since you got here," Garivald told him.

But Tantris shook his head. "No. We really do need to do everything we can to keep the redheads from moving supplies through Grelz. However we do it."

"However we do it- aye," Garivald said. "Suppose you let us find our way instead of telling us yours." Tantris looked at Gandiluz's corpse again. He gulped. He said not another word.

Eleven

No one could have come near the fighting line through the great woods of western Unkerlant without knowing two armies grappled there. The ignorant traveler's nose would have told him if nothing else did. Istvan was no ignorant traveler, but he smelled the reek of unwashed bodies, the fouler stench of imperfectly covered latrines, and the sharp tang of woodsmoke, too.

And yet, at this season of the year, those stinks were almost afterthoughts in the air. Everything was green and growing. Broad-leafed trees, bare through the winter, had cloaked themselves anew. So had the bushes and ferns that grew under them. Pines and firs and balsams stayed in leaf the year around, but the sap rising in them put out spicy notes Istvan's nostrils appreciated.

He also appreciated the lull in the fighting. "We're on the defensive," he told Captain Frigyes when the new company commander came forward to inspect the redoubt, "and they're on the defensive, too. Put it all together and it means there's not a whole lot of action."

"Sometimes the stars shine on us," Frigyes said. He was a big man, burly even by Gyongyosian standards, with a scar on his right cheek. "We have troubles out in the islands, the Unkerlanters have troubles off in the east. Put it all together and they don't want to be fighting here and neither do we."

Captain Tivadar might have said the same thing. Istvan missed his long-time superior, but Frigyes looked to be a solid officer- and he knew nothing of why Istvan and several of his squadmates bore scars on their left hands. Istvan looked around. All of his troopers were busy with other things. He could bring out a question perhaps improper for a man of a warrior race: "Why don't we go ahead and make peace, then?"

"Because we would betray our Algarvian allies if we did, and they've struck some heavy blows at the accursed Kuusamans," Frigyes answered. "Also, because King Swemmel hasn't shown any interest in making peace, may the stars withhold their light from him."

Anyone would reckon Swemmel the warrior, Istvan thought uncomfortably. But he's just a madman. Everybody knows that. Even his own soldiers know it. But why do they fight so hard for a madman?

"Enjoy this while it lasts," Frigyes told him. "It won't last forever. Sooner or later, the Algarvians will strike their blow, as they do every spring. Then, odds are, they'll drive the Unkerlanters back again, and then the Unkerlanters will hit us again here."

"I'm sorry, sir." Istvan frowned. "I don't follow that."

"How likely is Swemmel to get summer victories against Algarve?" Frigyes asked. "Not very, not if you look at what's happened the past two years. So if the Unkerlanters want wins to keep their own people happy, they'll try to get them against us."

"Oh." That made an unpleasant amount of sense. It was also an insult of sorts. "We're easier than the Algarvians, are we? We shouldn't be easier than anyone."

"We're easier than the Algarvians, aye." Frigyes didn't seem insulted. "They can bring their whole apparatus of war with them. We can't. All we've got here in these woods are some of the best footsoldiers in the world." He slapped Istvan on the back, climbed out of the redoubt, and went on his way."

Istvan turned to his squad. "The captain says Gyongyos has some of the best footsoldiers in the world. He hasn't seen you lazy buggers in action yet, that's what I think."

"There hasn't been any action for a while," Szonyi said, which was also true.

"Do you really want much?" Kun asked. Even if he did wear spectacles, he could ask a question like that: he'd seen as much desperate fighting as any man in the woods, Istvan possibly excepted.