Darkness Descending

Only after they were out of sight did Skarnu amble over to see what the broadsheet said. In rather stilted Valmieran, it offered a reward for information leading to the capture of soldiers who had gone into hiding rather than surrendering, and a double reward for information leading to the capture of officers.

He stood rocking back and forth on his heels, the picture of rustic indifference. Then, with a shrug more convincing than his yawns had been the night before, he went back to work. Maybe someone in the countryside knew what he and Raunu were and felt like turning a profit on his knowledge. Whether that was so or not mattered little at the moment; Skarnu couldn’t do anything about it. He could do the work. If he didn’t, no one would.

When he and Raunu came in for their midday meal--big bowls of bean soup, with more beer to wash them down--he mentioned the broadsheet. Raunu shrugged. “Figures the redheads would try it sooner or later,” he said. “But not many people like ‘em well enough to talk with ‘em even for money.”

“Someone will,” Merkela said. “Someone will want silver, or will remember an old quarrel with Gedominu or with me. There are always people like that.” She tossed her head to show what she thought of them, a gesture even Skarnu’s sister Krasta might have envied. Skarnu wondered how many of the people who’d had quarrels with Gedominu were jealous of him for taking such a woman to wife.

He chuckled. He hadn’t imagined farmers might have feuds as serious and as foolish as those of the nobility. “Can you think of anyone in particular?” he asked Merkela. “Maybe someone needs to have an unfortunate accident.”

Her eyes flashed. Skarnu would not have wanted that wolfish smile aimed at him. “Or even a fortunate one,” she said.

Captain Hawart said, “Gather round, men.” Corporal Leudast and the other Unker-lanter survivors from his regiment obeyed. They might have filled out three full-strength companies. Hawart was the senior officer still alive. Colonel Roflanz hadn’t lived through the counterattack he’d stupidly ordered against the Algarvian invaders.

Lieudast marveled that he himself was still breathing. The regiment had been encircled twice during the grinding retreat through Forthweg. Once, the men had slipped through the Algarvian lines a few at a time under cover of night. The other time, they’d had to fight their way clear--which was one reason so few of them gathered to listen to Captain Hawart.

He pointed back toward the village in eastern Unkerlant through which they’d retreated the day before. The Algarvians held the place now, or what was left of it: a breeze from out of the east blew stale, sour smoke into Leudast’s nostrils. “Men, we have to retake Pfreimd,” Hawart said, “Once we do it, we can form a line along the western bank of the stream that runs by the other side of the town and have some chance of really stopping the redheads.”

That stream was hardly more than a creek. Leudast hadn’t bothered looking for a ford before wading across it, and the water hadn’t come above his waist. He didn’t think it would prove much of an obstacle to the Algarvians. As a matter of fact, it hadn’t proved much of an obstacle to the Algarvians.

“We’ll have reinforcements coming in behind us,” Hawart promised. “They’ll give us the men we need to make a proper stand on the river line.” It wasn’t a river. Not even in flood could it be a river. But the regimental commander had met Leudast’s most urgent concern.

In any case, Hawart gave the orders. Leudast’s job was to obey them and see that the men in his squad did the same. He glanced over to Sergeant Magnulf. Magnulf shrugged, ever so slightly. He had to obey orders, too. After a moment, Leudast also shrugged. Going straight at the Algarvians was only slightly more perilous than falling back before them.

“Let’s get moving,” Hawart said. “Advance in open order. Use whatever cover you can find. If you can manage it, Unkerlant needs you alive. But Unkerlant needs dead Algarvians even more. Come on.”

“Open order,” Magnulf repeated. “Spread it out as wide as you can. We want to get into the village, we want to clear out the Algarvians, and we want to keep on advancing to the line of the stream. And Leudast here,” he added, pointing toward the corporal, “wants to keep the redheads as far away from his home village as he can.”

“Aye, that’s so,” Leudast agreed. He turned his head to look westward. His village couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty miles west of the battle line, though he was rather south of it, too. “Too many villages lost already.”

“Well, let’s take one back,” Magnulf said.

Leudast did his best to force fear to one side. He couldn’t keep from feeling it. As long as he kept from showing it, though, he could hold his head up among his comrades. Maybe they felt it, too. He hadn’t asked. Nobody’d asked him either.