Darkness Descending

Along with the rest of the villagers, Garivald dutifully cheered. He’d learned from experience that, if the cheers weren’t hearty enough to suit the redheads, they’d keep the peasants there till the shouts suited them. He had work to do. Cheering loudly from the start let him go do it. He didn’t have time to waste standing around.

He wondered how much truth the proclamation held. The Algarvians had been in the habit of announcing victories even in the middle of winter, when the irregulars made it clear Mezentio’s men were getting pounded. But Algarvian soldiers had come forward through Zossen in the past few days, which likely meant things weren’t going so well for Unkerlant.

Another squad of Algarvians, these men mounted on unicorns, rode into the village while he was out weeding. Garivald paid them no particular attention, even when they didn’t go west right away. He’d grown too used to the redheads to worry about any one lot of them very much. A year before, he’d never so much as seen an Algarvian. He heartily wished he’d never see any more of them, either, but that wasn’t the sort of wish likely to be granted right away.

When sunset came, he shouldered his hoe and trudged back toward Zossen, as he did every evening. Again, he noticed the Algarvians standing at the edge of the village without paying them any special heed. It was Dagulf who remarked, “Looks like that cursed long-winded bugger of a sergeant is pointing at you.”

“Huh?” Garivald looked up in surprise. Sure enough the redhead who’d delivered the proclamation did have his index finger aimed his way. When he saw Garivald had noticed him, he beckoned.

“What’s he want with you?” Dagulf asked.

“Curse me if I know.” Garivald shrugged and sighed. “Guess I’d better go find out, though.” He turned away from the shortest path toward his home and walked over to the sergeant, who stood with some of the newcomers to the village.

“You being Garivald, is not being so?” the sergeant said. His Unkerlanter was much worse when he had to try to speak it without a script.

“Aye, I’m Garivald,” Garivald answered. The question, plainly, was for the record; the sergeant knew who he was.

All the Algarvians who’d come into Zossen that day aimed their sticks at him. “By order of King Raniero and King Mezentio, you are under arrest,” one of them said. His Unkerlanter was much better than the sergeant’s. Even so, Garivald had trouble following what the fellow said through the roaring in his ears: “You are to be taken to Herborn for trial, the charge being treason through subversive songs. After the trial, you are to be executed in accordance to the law. Any resistance and you shall be blazed without trial. Now come along.”

Numbly, Garivald came. Later, he thought he should have laid about him with the hoe and with luck have slain a couple of the redheads before they did blaze him down. At the moment, stunned by the catastrophe that had overfallen him, he let them take away the hoe, let them tie his hands behind his back, and let them lead him to their unicorns.

With his hands tied, he couldn’t mount one of the beasts by himself. A couple of Algarvians helped him get aboard. He’d never ridden a unicorn before. He would just as soon not have started riding one in this particular way. But he had no choice; he’d lost any possibility of choice once the hoe was gone. The Algarvians tied his feet together under the unicorn’s barrel.

“What happens if I fall out of the saddle?” he asked.

“You get dragged to death or trampled to death,” answered the Algarvian who’d announced his arrest. “We don’t care. We can deliver your body. If you want to keep breathing a little longer, don’t fall.”

They wasted no time. Unkerlanters, at King Swemmel’s urging, talked about efficiency. The redheads personified it. They--and Garivald--rode out of Zossen before Annore could burst shrieking from the house she’d shared so long with her husband.

Even after darkness fell, they kept on heading east, back toward the capital of Grelz. Garivald had heard the irregulars boasting of what they did to small bands of Algarvians they caught away from help. He’d believed those boasts. Tonight, he discovered that, like so many, they were nothing but wind.

The Algarvians treated him like a domestic animal, without either kindness or cruelty beyond what they needed to make sure he didn’t escape. When he asked them to stop so he could ease himself, they did. Toward midnight, they rode into another village. They fed him then, from their own rations--spicier than what he was used to eating, but no worse--and gave him wine to drink. They let him sleep in a hut, but posted guards around it. He was too worn even to think about escape for more than a moment.