Rulers of the Darkness

Maybe the men who rode those behemoths knew what they were talking about. King Swemmel's soldiers seemed astonished to find Algarvians attacking. Whenever the Unkerlanters were astonished, they had trouble. Some of them fought, stubborn as always. But a good many fled, and a good many surrendered.

"Forward!" Algarvian officers shouted, again and again. "Keep up with the behemoths!"

Sidroc did his best. Despite the snow on the ground, sweat streamed down his face. His legs ached. But he was advancing again. He blazed at an Unkerlanter before the fellow could blaze at an Algarvian behemoth. The Unkerlanter went down. Sidroc whooped with glee.

A couple of days later, Swemmel's soldiers tried to rally at the outskirts of what was either a large village or a small town. They had egg-tossers in the place. Eggs flew through the air, kicking up fans of snow- and a few Algarvian soldiers- when they burst. The counterattack slowed and threatened to stall. Sidroc cursed. "Just when things looked like they were starting to go our way-"

"Aye," Werferth agreed mournfully. "Maybe that whoreson of a Ceorl was right. This is how it works for the redheads these days. They don't- we don't- have enough to smash the Unkerlanters flat when we're supposed to."

But he was wrong. The Algarvians had always been good at making their egg-tossers keep up with advancing soldiers. Now more eggs burst in and around the Unkerlanter-held town than came out of it. One by one, the Unkerlanter egg-tossers fell silent, suppressed by the eggs flung at them. Lately, Algarvian dragons had seemed almost as scarce in the air as Algarvian behemoths were on the ground. But a wing of them stooped on the town like kestrels. With eggs and flame, they left it a smoking ruin. Only then did officers blow their whistles and shout, "Forward!"

Behemoths advanced with the footsoldiers, tossing still more eggs on the enemy. Even before the Algarvians and the men of Plegmund's Brigade got into the village, white flags started flying. Unkerlanter soldiers stumbled toward them, hands high.

"I'll be a son of a whore," Sidroc said in something approaching awe. "Haven't seen anything like this in I don't know when."

"Forward!" an Algarvian officer not far away shouted. "Keep moving! Don't waste a heartbeat! Push 'em hard! We'll take Herborn back yet!"

Three or four days before; Sidroc would have thought him a madman. Then, like everyone else, he'd been wondering how far the Algarvians would have to retreat before finally finding a line they could hold. Now… Now, for the time being at least, they had the bit between their teeth again. He trudged on past burning peasant huts and Unkerlanter corpses. He didn't know how far he and his comrades could go, but he was interested again in finding out.

***

An enormous wolf with fangs dripping blood had a long, sly face that looked a lot like King Swemmel's. So no Forthwegian could miss the point, the artist who'd painted the wolf on the broadsheet had thoughtfully labeled it UNKERLANT. A stalwart Algarvian shepherd with a stout spear stood between that fearsome wolf and a flock of sheep altogether too precious and sweet to be believable. They too had a label: DERLAVAIAN CIVILIZATION.

Ealstan studied the broadsheet with a connoisseur's appraising eye. In four and a half years of war, he'd seen a lot of them. At last, with the grudged respect one gave a clever foe, he nodded. This was one of Algarve's better efforts. Few Forthwegians loved their cousins to the west. The broadsheet might prompt his countrymen to think of the redheads as their protectors.

But so what? Ealstan thought, and his face twisted into a grin almost as fearsome as the Swemmel-wolf's. So what, by the powers above? If the Unkerlanters keep pounding Mezentio's men, what Forthweg thinks about them won't matter. The Algarvians are losing. That was sweet as honey to him. Ever since the Algarvians overwhelmed the Forthwegian army- and so many others afterwards- he'd wondered if they could lose, and feared they couldn't.

Still wearing that grin, he turned away from the broadsheet and walked down the street. A news-sheet vendor on a corner shouted, "Read about the Algarvian counterattack in the Kingdom of Grelz! Herborn threatened! Swemmel flees to Cottbus with his tail between his legs! Heroes of Plegmund's Brigade!"

Ealstan strode past him as if he didn't exist. He wondered how many times he'd done that, in Gromheort and now in Eoforwic. Too many- he knew that. He pretended news-sheet vendors didn't exist whenever the Algarvians moved forward. And whenever he thought of Plegmund's Brigade, he hoped his cousin was dead: horribly dead and a long time dying, with any luck at all.