Rulers of the Darkness

"Hello, Archmage." Set beside Addanz, Rathar felt himself to be all harsh stone and rough edges. The archmage was a courtier; Rathar wasn't, or was as little as he could get away with. But regardless of what he wasn't, he cursed well was a soldier, and he'd summoned Addanz on soldiers' business. His index finger stabbed down at the map. "This center here, the western one- are you sure it's where you want it? If they break through past this line of low hills, they may overrun it."

"The closer, the stronger- so we have shown," Addanz answered. "With soldiers and magecraft to defend it, it should serve well enough. Besides, given how soon Mezentio's minions may strike at us, have we got the time to move it and set it up again farther from the front?"

Rathar gnawed his lower lip. "Mm- you're likely right. If I thought we had more time, I'd still have you move it a bit. You're liable to take a pounding from dragons, too, you know."

"That would be so even if we did move it," Addanz answered. Rathar gnawed his lip some more. The archmage went on, "And we have masked it as best we can, both with magecraft and with such tricks as soldiers use." He didn't sound patronizing; he seemed to make a point of not sounding patronizing. That only made Rathar feel twice as patronized.

He shook his head. Addanz had won this round. "All right. I'll never complain about anyone who wants to get close to the enemy. I just don't want the enemy getting too close to you too fast."

"I rely on your valiant men and officers to keep such a calamity from happening," Addanz said. I'll blame them to Swemmel if it does. He didn't say that, but he might have.

"Your mages know exactly what they have to do?" Rathar persisted.

"Aye." Addanz nodded. A year and a half before, the notion had so rocked him, he couldn't even think of it for himself. How Swemmel had laughed! Nothing rocked Swemmel, not if it meant holding on to his throne. And now Addanz took it for granted, too. The war against Algarve had coarsened him, as it had everybody else. That was what war did.

Distant thunder rumbled, off to the south. But there should have been no thunder, not on a fine, warm early summer day. Eggs. Thousands of eggs, bursting at once. Rathar looked to Vatran. Vatran was already looking to him. "It's begun," the marshal said. Vatran nodded. Rathar went on, "Now we'll know. One way or the other, we'll know."

"What?" Addanz needed a moment to recognize the sound. When the archmage did, he blanched a little. "How shall I go back to the center now?"

"Carefully," Rathar answered, and threw back his head and laughed. Addanz looked most offended. Rathar hardly cared. At last, after longer than he'd expected, the waiting was over.

***

Even Sergeant Werferth, who had been a soldier for a long time, first in Forthweg's army and then in Plegmund's Brigade, was impressed. "Look at 'em, boys, he said. "Just look at 'em. You ever see so fornicating many behemoths in one place in all your born days?"

Sirdoc wrinkled his nose. "Smell 'em, boys," he said, doing his best to imitate his sergeant. "Just smell 'em. You ever smell so fornicating many behemoths in one place in all your born days?"

Everybody in the squad laughed- even Ceorl, who was about as eager to fight Sidroc as the Unkerlanters; even Werferth, who seldom took kindly to being lampooned. They all had to laugh. Sidroc's joke held altogether too much truth. Algarve had indeed assembled a great host of behemoths to hurl against the western flank of the Unkerlanter salient around Durrwangen. And those behemoths did indeed stink. They'd been moving up toward the front for days now, and the air was thick with the rotten-grass reek of their droppings.

It was also thick with flies, which buzzed around the behemoths and their droppings, and which weren't too proud to visit the waiting men and their latrines as well. Like the other soldiers in Plegmund's Brigade, like the Algarvians with them, Sidroc slapped all the time.

Like everybody else, he also did his best to be careful where he put his feet. He knew all about stepping in horse turds. Who didn't, by smelly experience? But a horse turd dirtied the bottom of a shoe, and maybe a bit of the upper. Behemoths were a lot bigger than horses. Their droppings were in proportion. Those who didn't notice them in the weeds and rank grassland and unattended fields had enormous reason to regret it.

An Algarvian senior lieutenant named Ercole had replaced the late Captain Zerbino as company commander. Sidroc wondered how Ercole had got to be senior to anybody; he doubted the redhead had as many years as his own eighteen. Ercole's mustache, far from the splendid waxed spikes his countrymen adored, was hardly more than copper fuzz. But he sounded calm and confident as he said, "Once the eggs stop falling, we go in alongside the behemoths. We protect them, they protect us. We all go forward together. The cry is, 'Mezentio and victory!' "