Out of the Darkness

That worried Rathar, too. What did King Mezentio have left, here in Algarve’s last extremity? The mages who wore Unkerlant’s rock-gray had grown ever more appalled at the spells the redheads tried. Not many of those spells had worked as well as the Algarvians wished, but what the enemy attempted kept getting wilder and darker.

“If we keep them busy enough fighting a regular war, they can’t spend too much time or energy getting strange on us,” the marshal said, and hoped he was right.

At the appointed hour, swarms of rock-gray dragons flew low over the Scamandro, pulverizing the Algarvians’ works on the eastern bank with eggs and with flame. Hundreds, thousands, of egg-tossers flung more death across the river. At dozens of points along the front, artificers would be springing into action to bridge the Scamandro. Let any one of those bridges stand, and we’ll whip the redheads, Rathar thought. He expected a great many more than one would stand. He expected most of them would, in fact. But one would do well enough. Any bridgehead on the eastern side of the Scamandro would give his kingdom the opening it needed.

Mages added something new to the attack: sorcerous lamps that seemed to shine bright as the sun. Their glare reflected off the underside of the clouds and helped light the way for the dragons and the men aiming the egg-tossers-to say nothing of distracting the foe. “We want Mezentio’s men knocked flat before we cross,” Rathar said.

“Looks like we’re getting what we want, too,” Vatran answered. Even as far from the front as Mangani was, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the din of bursting eggs.

A crystallomancer came up to Rathar. Saluting, he said, “Lord Marshal, resistance on the far side of the river is lighter than expected. That’s what the dragonfliers report.”

“We’ve finally beaten them down,” Vatran said.

“That would be good. That would be very good.” Rathar wasn’t sure he believed it, but in the opening minutes of an attack he was willing to be hopeful.

Another crystallomancer hurried up and saluted. “Sir, we have a bridgehead over the Scamandro and behemoths crossing in numbers to the east bank.”

Vatran and Rathar both exclaimed in delight then, and clasped hands. The Algarvians had thrown back all their efforts to force earlier bridgeheads. Let’s see the whoresons throw this back, Rathar thought. I’d like to see any army in the world-throw back this attack.

More crystallomancers brought news of bridges crossing the river and behemoths and footsoldiers rushing across. All of them said the same thing as the dragonfliers had: resistance was less than expected. Maybe we have knocked them flat, Rathar thought. If we have, we walk into Trapani instead of battering our way there. That would be nice.

Aloud, he kept giving the same order over and over: “Keep moving! Try to take the high ground east of the Scamandro. Do everything you can to link up our crossings.” The crystallomancers hurried away to take his words to the officers in the front line.

Dawn meant the sorcerers could douse the hideous lights they’d fashioned. It also meant he got some news he would rather not have had: on the far side of the Scamandro, the Algarvians had started fighting back fiercely. “How can they?” Vatran said when the crystallomancers reported that. “We should have squashed them flat as a bug.”

“I think I know what they did,” Rathar said. “I’m not sure, but I think so. I think they pulled back from their frontline positions before we hit them. They did that a few times back in Unkerlant. It would let them save a lot of their men and egg-tossers and behemoths, even if it did cost them land.”

“They can’t afford to lose anything right now,” Vatran said.

“I know.” Rathar nodded. “But if they’d lost the men, they surely would have lost the land, too. This way, they have a chance of counterattacking and driving us back-or they think they do, anyhow.”

“We have to keep throwing men and behemoths at them,” Vatran said.

“We’re doing that. We haven’t been building up here for nothing,” Rathar said. “But it’s going to be harder than we thought it would.”

General Vatran made a sour face. “What isn’t, with Algarvians?”

Rathar had no answer for that. The redheads had come horrifyingly close to conquering his kingdom. Now he was tantalizingly close to conquering theirs. But they hadn’t made any of the fights easy, not a single one. They’d failed not because they weren’t good soldiers, but because there weren’t enough of them and because King Mezentio hadn’t thought he would need to bother conciliating the Unkerlanters his men overran. Arrogance was an Algarvian vice.