Rulers of the Darkness

Had one of the newer men put the question, Szonyi would have felt compelled to puff out his chest and act manly. As things were, he shrugged and answered, "It'll probably come whether I want it or not, so what's the point of worrying?"

A red squirrel was rash enough to show its head around the trunk of a birch. Istvan's stick, ready for Unkerlanters, was ready for a squirrel, too. It fell into the bushes under the trees. "Nice blazing, Sergeant," Lajos said. "Something good for the pot."

Kun sighed. "By the time you skin it and gut it, there's hardly enough meat on a squirrel to be worth bothering about."

"That's not why you're complaining," Istvan said as he left the redoubt to collect the squirrel. "I know why you're complaining. You're a born city man, and you never had to worry about eating things like squirrels before they sucked you into the army." In the bushes, the squirrel was still feebly thrashing. Istvan found a rock and smashed its head a couple of times. Then he carried it back by the tail, pausing once or twice to brush away fleas. He hoped he got them all. If he didn't, he'd do some extra scratching.

"Doesn't seem natural, eating something like that," Kun said as Istvan's knife slit the squirrel's belly.

"What's not natural is going hungry when there's good food around," Istvan said. His squadmates spoke up in loud agreement. They came off farms or out of little villages. Gyongyos was a kingdom of smallholdings. Towns were market centers, administrative points. They weren't the heart of the land, as he'd heard they were elsewhere on Derlavai. And stewed squirrel, no matter what Kun thought of it, was tasty.

Kun didn't complain when it was ladled out to him. By then, it had got mixed up with everything else in the pot, mixed to where you couldn't point at any one chunk of meat and say, This is squirrel. Off to the south, somebody started lobbing eggs at somebody else. Istvan had no idea whether it was the Unkerlanters or his own countrymen. Whoever it was, he hoped they'd stop it.

Captain Frigyes came back the next day with a mage in tow. That made Kun perk up; it always did. "Men," the new company commander said, "this is Major Borsos. He's going to be-"

"Well, by the stars, so it is!" Istvan exclaimed. "No offense, sir, but I figured you'd be dead by now." He saw blank expressions all around him, including the one on Borsos' face. He explained: "Sir, I fetched and carried for you on Obuda, when you were dousing out where the Kuusaman ships were."

"Oh." Major Borsos' face cleared. He was a major by courtesy, so ordinary troopers would fetch and carry for him. He'd been a captain by courtesy out on the island in the Bothnian Ocean, so he'd come up a bit in the world. Istvan had been a common soldier then, so he had, too. "Good to see you again," Borsos said, a beat slower than he might have.

Istvan suspected the mage didn't really remember him. He shrugged. Borsos had seen a lot since then, as he had himself. And Kun looked as green with envy as the tarnished bronze dowsing rods Borsos had used on Obuda. Istvan smiled. That was worth something.

Frigyes said, "I didn't expect it to be old home week here. But Major Borsos is going to do what he can to spy out the Unkerlanters."

"Ah," Istvan said. "How will your dowsing sort through all the moving beasts and especially the moving leaves to find the moving Unkerlanters, eh, Major?"

Borsos beamed. "Aye, by the stars, you did assist me, Sergeant, or some dowser, anyhow, and he listened when he ran on at the mouth." Kun was standing behind his back, and behind Frigyes', and looked to be on the point of retching. Istvan wanted to make a face back at him, but couldn't. Borsos went on, "The answer is, just as I have a dowsing rod attuned to the sea, so I've also got one attuned to soldiers. It hardly cares about leaves, and it isn't much interested in beasts, either, though mountain apes might confuse it. Here, I'll show you." He set down the leather satchel he was carrying. It clanked. He opened it and went through the rods, finally grunting when he found the one he wanted. "Doesn't look like much, does it?"

"No, sir," Istvan answered. The dowsing rod wasn't of fresh, shiny bronze, or of the green, patinaed sort, either. It looked like a thin length of rusty iron- if those stains on it were rust. Kun was about to speak. Again, Istvan beat him to the punch, pointing and asking, "Unkerlanter blood?"

Borsos beamed again. Frigyes said, "My, what a clever chap you turn out to be." Kun looked about ready to burst like an egg from rage and jealousy. That made Istvan happier than either officer's reaction. He had to live with Kun all the time.

"Even so, Sergeant. Even so," Borsos answered, beaming still. "By the law of similarity, when I dowse with this rod, I'll sense motion from Unkerlanters, and very little from any other source." He waved the rod as if it were a sword, then thwacked it into the palm of his hand. "It's not perfect- dowsing isn't- but it's pretty good."