Darkness Descending

Spinello chucked her under the chin--one more liberty she had to let him take. “Until I see you again,” he said with a bow, as if he imagined she might want to see him again. “And do give my best regards to your ever so learned grandfather.” Out he went laughing and whistling.

He was happy. Why not? He’d satisfied himself, and Algarve’s armies stood everywhere triumphant. Vanai, despised by the large Forthwegian majority in her own kingdom, despised even more by its conquerors, went off to get a rag and a pitcher and to do her best to scrub the memory of his touch from her body. She despised herself most of all.

Marshal Rathar had come down into the south to see with his own eyes how the Algarvians were making such headway against the Unkerlanter armies there. He had gone to the north, to the border with Zuwayza, to take charge of the fight in the desert when it was going badly. That had been an embarrassment for Unkerlant. If this fight went badly, it would be a catastrophe.

His first lesson was very nearly his last. He had just got out of his ley-line caravan car in the medium-sized town of Wirdum, a good twenty miles behind the battle line, when flight after flight of Algarvian dragons appeared overhead. By the time they got done dropping eggs, the local depot was burning. So were the baron’s castle and much of the center of town.

He didn’t realize he was bleeding till someone offered him a sticking plaster for the cut on his cheek. He declined with a shrug: “I thank you, but no. I don’t want the soldiers to think I hurt myself shaving.” The joke would have been better if he hadn’t had to say it three times, each louder than the one before, till the fellow with the plaster finally got it. The rain of eggs from the sky had stunned everyone’s ears.

Strong, hook-nosed face set in a frown, he rode forward toward General Ortwin’s headquarters. That was no easy trip, either. The Algarvians had already given the roads hereabouts the same sort of pasting Wirdum had just taken. Rathar s horse had to pick its way through the fields to get around the craters in the roadway. Soldiers and horses and unicorns and a few behemoths lay sprawled in death; the stink of rotting meat that rose from them was very strong. Flies rose from them, too, in great humming, buzzing clouds. Rathar’s horse flicked its tail this way and that; the marshal swatted and fumed.

Turning to the soldier guiding him to General Ortwin, he demanded, “Where are our own dragons? We need to pay the enemy in his own coin.”

“We didn’t have as many to start with as the cursed redheads did,” the man answered. “The ones we did have are mostly dead by now.”

Closer to the line of battle, egg-tossers concealed from the air with nets hurled destruction back at King Mezentio’s men. Rathar grunted in some satisfaction when he saw that. “The Algarvians aren’t having it all their own way then,” he said.

“Oh, no, my lord Marshal,” his escort replied. “They pay a price for every mile they move forward.”

“They’ve already moved too many miles forward,” Rathar said, “and the price they’ve paid hasn’t been nearly high enough.” The soldier riding with him grimaced and then, with obvious reluctance, nodded.

After what seemed far too long, the marshal reached the tent from which

General Ortwin was conducting his defense. Ortwin, who was very bald on top

but, as if to compensate, had tufts of white hair sprouting from his ears and nos-

‘ trils, shouted into a crystal: “Bring that regiment forward, curse you! If we don’t hold the line of the river, we’ll have to fall back past Wirdum, and King Swemmel will pitch a fit.” He glanced up and saw Rathar. In a voice full of defiance, he said, “If you want to haul me away for lese majesty, my lord Marshal, here’s your chance.”

“I want to halt the Algarvians,” Rathar said. “That’s the only thing I want, and I’m not fussy about how I do it.”

Ortwin snorted, which made his nose hairs quiver like grass in the breeze. “Why aren’t you shorter by a head?” he asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. “Everybody thought you were going to be, this past fall.”

Rathar shrugged. “His Majesty believes I do not want to be king, I think. Powers above know it’s a true belief. But I came here to escape the court, not to gossip of it.” He strode forward. “Show me how you are doing.”

“None too bloody well,” Ortwin answered, which would have served as commentary for the entire Unkerlanter fight against Algarve. “When you set out, we still had a decent force on the east side of the Klagen. This morning, though, the cursed Algarvians threw us back over the river, and powers below eat me if I see how we’re going to keep them from crossing.” He pointed to the map to show what he meant.

“Why didn’t you reinforce your men on the east side?” Rathar asked.