Rulers of the Darkness

"Keep moving!" Ercole screamed. "You've got to keep moving. This is how we beat them- with speed and movement!" By all the news sheets Sidroc had read back in Gromheort before joining Plegmund's Brigade, by all the training he'd had, by all the fighting he'd seen, the company commander was right.

But it wouldn't be easy, not here it wouldn't. The Unkerlanters had known they were coming- had probably known for a long time. They'd fortified this ground as best they could. It didn't look like much, but obstacles- tree trunks, ditches, mud- made the going slower than it would have been otherwise. Those obstacles also channeled the advancing men and behemoths in certain directions- right into more waiting Unkerlanters.

As soon as the Algarvians and the men of Plegmund's Brigade got in among the first belt of Unkerlanter defenders, others farther back began blazing at them from long range. More obstacles slowed their efforts to get at the Unkerlanters who now revealed themselves. Men on both sides fell as if winnowed. Algarvian behemoths went down, too, here and there, though few Unkerlanter behemoths were yet in the fight.

At last, around noon, Mezentio's men cleared that first stubborn belt of defenders. Ercole was almost beside himself. "We aren't keeping up with the plan!" he cried. "We're falling behind!"

"Sir, we've done everything we could," Sergeant Werferth said. "We're still here. We're still moving."

"Not fast enough." Ercole stuck his whistle in his mouth and blew a long, piercing blast. "Onward!"

For a furlong or so, the going was easy. Sidroc's spirits began to rise. Then he heard the sharp, flat roar of an egg bursting under another Algarvian soldier. He realized why no Unkerlanters infested this stretch of ground- they'd sown it with more eggs to slow up his advancing comrades.

What had been woods ahead had taken a demon of a beating, but still offered some shelter: enough that the Unkerlanter behemoths emerging from it were an unwelcome surprise. "Powers above!" Sidroc exclaimed in dismay. "Look at how many of the whoresons there are!"

The behemoths started tossing eggs at Plegmund's Brigade and at the Algarvian footsoldiers to either side of the Forthwegians. Sidroc jumped into a hole in the ground. He had plenty from which to choose. So did Ceorl, but he jumped down in with Sidroc anyhow. Sidroc wondered whether he wouldn't be safer facing the Unkerlanter behemoths.

"Hard work today," Ceorl remarked, as if he'd been hauling sacks of grain or chopping wood.

"Aye," Sidroc agreed. An egg burst close by, shaking the ground and showering them with clods of dirt.

"But we'll do it," Ceorl went on. "We go east, the redheads on the other side come west, and we meet in the middle. Be a whole great fornicating kettle full of dead Unkerlanters by the time we're through, too." He sounded as if he enjoyed the idea.

"A lot of us dead, too," Sidroc said. "A lot of us dead already."

Ceorl shrugged. "Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." He brought out the clichй as if he were the first one ever to use it. Maybe he thought he was.

An officer's whistle squealed. "Onward!" That was Lieutenant Ercole, who'd had the sense to jump in a hole. Now, sooner than he might have been, he was out again. The Algarvians hadn't given Plegmund's Brigade any officers who weren't recklessly brave- that Sidroc had to admit. "Come on!" Ercole shouted again. "We won't win anything if we stay here all day!"

Sidroc surged up out of the hole. The Algarvian behemoths had taken care of a lot of their Unkerlanter counterparts, but they'd had holes torn in their ranks, too. A dragon fell from the sky and thrashed out its death throes a couple of hundred yards from Sidroc. It was painted rock-gray. A moment later, an Algarvian dragon smashed down even closer.

By the time night came, they'd almost cleared that second belt of defenders.

***

"We've got to be efficient." Lieutenant Recared sounded serious and earnest. "The Algarvians will throw everything they've got at us. We've got to make every blaze count, and to use the positions we've spent so long building up." He turned to Leudast. "Anything you want to add to that, Sergeant?"

Leudast looked at the men in his company. They knew the Algarvians would be coming any day, maybe any minute. They were serious, even somber, but, if they were afraid, they didn't let it show. Leudast knew he was afraid, and did his best not to let that show.

He thought Recared wanted him to say something, so he did: "Just don't do anything stupid, boys. This'll be a hard enough fight even if we're smart."

"That's right." Recared nodded vigorously. "Being smart is being efficient. The sergeant said the same thing I did, only with different words."