Out of the Darkness

They’re arrogant whoresons, and it cost them, Rathar thought. If they’d pretended to come as liberators from Swemmel’s hard rule, half the kingdom would have gone over to them. But they didn’t think they needed to worry about what we thought. They gave Grelz an Algarvian for a king. They showed everybody they were even worse than Swemmel-and they paid for it. And now we’ll be the masters in big chunks of Algarve, and we won’t be sweet to the redheads, either.

Someone hurried into the headquarters-an Unkerlanter major. “Marshal Rather!” he called. “I’ve got important news.”

Rathar looked up from the map table. “I’m here,” he said. “What’s gone wrong now?” By the man’s tone, something had. Vatran looked up, too, sharply. He picked up his mug of tea and started to sip from it.

“Here, lord Marshal,” the newcomer said. “I’ll have to show you.” He took a couple of steps toward the map table-and then stopped and yanked his short officer’s stick from his belt and swung it toward Rathar.

The Marshal of Unkerlant had half a heartbeat to know what a fool he’d been. This is how General Gurmun died, flashed through his mind. If the Algarvians could sorcerously disguise one of their own to look like an Unkerlanter up in Forthweg, why not on their own soil, too?

But the beam never bit into his flesh. Vatran flung his heavy earthenware mug at the false major’s face. It caught him right in the teeth. He howled and clutched at himself, and his blaze went wild. Before his finger could find its way into the blazing hole again, Vatran and Rathar were both grappling with him. Rathar wrenched the stick out of his hands. The shouts and groans from the map chamber brought more soldiers rushing in. They seized the major and, after some fumbling, tied him up.

“He’s gone mad, sir,” a captain-a veritable Unkerlanter captain-exclaimed.

“No, I don’t think so,” Rathar answered. “I think if we leave him alone for a few hours, he’ll start looking like one of Mezentio’s majors, not like one of ours.” He switched to Algarvian and addressed the would-be assassin: “Isn’t that right, Major-or whatever your real rank happens to be?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the fellow replied in Unkerlanter holding no trace of any accent save that of Cottbus-certainly no Algarvian trill. His mouth bled where the mug had caught him-and where the two Unkerlanter officers had hit him in the fight that followed.

“Aye, tell us King Mezentio didn’t send you after the marshal,” General Vatran jeered.

“He didn’t,” the man replied with a bloody grin. “King Swemmel did.”

If he aimed to produce consternation in the headquarters, he succeeded. Horrified silence fell. Rathar himself broke it, saying, “You lie. If his Majesty wants me dead, he has no need to sneak in a murderer. He could simply arrest me, and his will would be done.”

“You’d be too likely to rise against him, and the men are too likely to follow you,” the fellow said.

All that had a certain ring of truth, regardless of whether the failed assassin was what he claimed to be. All the more reason, then, for Marshal Rather to speak in ringing tones: “You lie. I am loyal, and his Majesty knows it.” He turned to his men. “Take this lying wretch away. Do nothing to him for one day except keeping him under close guard. When his looks change and show him for the Algarvian he is, let me know.”

They dragged the false major out of the headquarters. Rathar hoped with all his heart the man would show himself to be an Algarvian. If he didn’t. . The marshal didn’t want to think about that. Being possessed of a disciplined mind, he didn’t. Instead, he told Vatran, “Thank you,” and asked, “How were you so ready there?”

Vatran shrugged. “Something about the way he looked, something about the way he sounded-it didn’t feel quite right.”

“He just seemed eager to me,” Rathar said.

“Maybe that was it,” Vatran said.

Rathar wondered if he was joking. After a moment, the marshal decided Vatran wasn’t. After almost four grinding years of war against Algarve, how many Unkerlanter officers had any eagerness left? Algarvians, now.. Algarvians went into everything with panache. This fellow hadn’t looked or sounded like one, but he’d seemed enough like one to make Vatran at least wonder-and that, in turn, had ended up saving Rathar’s neck.

“Thank you,” the marshal said again.

“You’re welcome,” Vatran replied. He lowered his voice: “Now we just have to hope the lousy bugger really is a redhead.”