Through the Darkness

This war is bleeding the whole kingdom white, Rathar thought. He’d thought the same thing during the Twinkings War. Men a little older, a little more traveled, than he had surely thought the same thing during the Six Years’ War. And they’d been right, and he’d been right, and he was right again. What would be left of Unkerlant by the time this fight was over?

He hoped something would be left of Unkerlant by the time this fight was over. His job down here was to help make sure something would be left of his kingdom when the fight was over. If the Algarvians took it all... If that happened, they would make people long for the good old days of King Swemmel, which, to a man who’d lived through those days, was a genuinely frightening thought.

“Poor Chariulf,” he said. “He was good at what he did.”

Vatran grunted. “Aye, he was. And that’s more praise than most of us will get after we’re dead and gone.”

“If you and I don’t get that kind of praise, it’ll mean we lost the war,” Rathar said.

“Maybe,” Vatran answered. “But maybe not, too. Maybe it’ll just mean Swemmel got sick of us, threw us in the soup pot when it was boiling hard, and then went on and won the war anyhow, with whatever other generals he scrounged up.”

“Now there’s a cheerful thought,” Rathar said. “I like to think of myself as indispensable.”

“I like to think of myself the same bloody way,” Vatran replied. “But the way I look at it and the way his Majesty looks at it aren’t necessarily one and the same, however much I wish they were.” He raised his voice: “Ysolt! How about another mug of tea?”

“I’ll fetch you one, General,” the cook answered from the back of the cave. “Do you want one, too, Marshal Rathar?”

“No, thanks,” he said; he had some sour ale in front of him as he examined the map, and that would do well enough.

“Can I get you anything else, then, lord Marshal?” she asked, her voice an inviting croon. If Rathar’s ears didn’t turn as red as the embers of the fire that kept the cave a little warmer than freezing, he would have been astonished. He’d bedded her a couple of times since that first one, or rather, she’d bedded him. He’d discovered he had an easier time resisting the Algarvian army than his own hefty cook.

Vatran chuckled under his breath; he would have had to be a moron not to know what Ysolt’s tone meant. “Don’t worry about it, lord Marshal,” he said in a stage whisper. “Keeps the juices flowing, or that’s what they say.” He chuckled again. “Never a dull moment there, either, even if she’s no beauty.”

“No,” Rathar said, admitting what he could hardly deny. He’d wondered whether Vatran had slept with Ysolt--or perhaps the better way to phrase it was whether she’d slept with Vatran. Now he knew.

“You didn’t answer me, Marshal,” she said reprovingly as she brought General Vatran a steaming mug of tea and a little pitcher of milk beside it on the tray. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, that’s all right,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I thought so,” she answered, with a girlish giggle that didn’t fit her bulk. Then she had mercy on the marshal and turned back to General Vatran. “It’s goat’s milk, General. I’m sorry. It’s all I could get.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Vatran said as Ysolt went back to her cooking. “Cursed sight better than no milk at all, even if the bloody Gyongyosians would shit their drawers about it.” He poured some into the tea, then nodded. “Cursed sight better than no milk at all.”

“The Zuwayzin drink their tea without milk,” Rathar remarked. “They pour in the honey instead.”

“That’s not my problem--and if I took off my clothes in this weather, it’d freeze right off,” Vatran answered. “I can’t use it as often as I did when I was your age, but I’ve still got a blaze left in the stick every now and again.”

“Good for you,” Rathar said. Like him, Vatran also had a wife somewhere far away from the fighting. Considering what Rathar was doing, he hardly found himself in a position to criticize the general. His attention went back to the map. “They aren’t getting over the Wolter now, by the powers above.”

Carrying his mug, Vatran came to stand by him and study the situation, too. “That’s the truth, unless they scramble down the bank to the river and hop from one ice floe to the next.”

“We’ve got plenty on the other side to stop ‘em if they try it.” Rathar took another pull at his ale. “And they’re still in play here in the city, so they won’t.” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “The ice doesn’t make it any easier for us to get reinforcements and supplies up here, but I’m cursed if I know what to do about it.”

“It’ll all freeze solid before too long,” Vatran answered. “It’s already doing that farther south. And that’ll solve the problem--if it’s still a problem then.”