Out of the Darkness

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” he muttered. Even if King Mezentio had personally appealed to him to come to the capital’s rescue, he couldn’t have obeyed his sovereign. A good-sized Algarvian army remained in the field here in the southeastern part of the kingdom, but it was cut off from the rest of Algarve by the Lagoans and Kuusamans. Having bypassed it, the islanders seemed content to leave it alone so long as it didn’t make a nuisance of itself.

Captain Santerno came up to Lurcanio. The combat veteran didn’t bother saluting. Lurcanio didn’t bother reproving him. Without preamble, the captain said, “Sir, how in blazes are we going to get out of this mess?”

“That’s a good question, Captain,” Lurcanio replied. “As best I can see, there’s no way. If you want to tell me I’m wrong, I’d be delighted to hear the whys and wherefores, believe me.”

Santerno cursed with soldierly fluency. When he ran out of curses-which took a while-he said, “I don’t see any way, either. I was hoping you did.”

“Me?” Lurcanio said. “What do I know? After all, I spent the war shuffling papers in Priekule and laying Valmieran women.” Santerno hadn’t thrown his previous duty in his face, but his scorn for Lurcanio because of it had never been far from the surface.

Now the captain had the grace to cough and shuffle his feet and show a certain amount of embarrassment. “Turned out you knew what you were doing in the field after all, sir,” he said. “I stopped doubting it after the way you led the brigade down toward the sea this past winter during our last big attack in Valmiera.”

“We might have gone farther if those Kuusamans holed up in that one town hadn’t cramped the whole attack.” Lurcanio sighed. “But it probably wouldn’t have made any difference in the long run.”

“Maybe not.” Santerno drew himself up with a certain melancholy pride. “We scared the buggers out of a year’s growth, though.”

“I suppose we did,” Lurcanio replied. “And how many men and behemoths and dragons did we throw away doing it? We could have used them against the Unkerlanters instead, don’t you think, and got more with them.”

His adjutant shrugged. “I don’t give orders like that, sir. I just follow the ones I get.”

“We all just followed the ones we got, Captain.” Lurcanio waved, as if to show this last bypassed army trapped in its pocket. “And look what we got for following them.”

Before Santerno could answer that, a soldier came up to Lurcanio and said, “Sir, there’s an enemy soldier coming up under flag of truce.”

“Is there?” Lurcanio heaved himself to his feet, however much his weary bones protested. “I’ll see him.” The soldier nodded and trotted off to bring back the foe.

“He’s going to ask for our surrender,” Santerno said.

“Probably,” Lurcanio agreed. “I can’t give it to him, of course.” I would if I could, he thought, but kept that to himself. Aloud, he went on, “All I can do is pass him along to General Prusione, and I expect I will.”

But his resolve wavered when he saw the fellow who came in under the white flag. Not that the major in the greenish brown tunic and trousers was ugly, but he was, unquestionably, a Valmieran. “Do you speak classical Kaunian, Colonel?” he asked in that tongue. “I regret to tell you, I have no Algarvian.”

“I know Valmieran, Major,” Lurcanio replied in that language. “What can I do for you this afternoon?”

“My name is Vizgantu, Colonel,” the Valmieran said, plainly relieved to be able to use his own speech. “Please take me to your commander. I have been sent to request the surrender of the Algarvian army in this pocket, further resistance on your part plainly being hopeless. Why spill more blood to no purpose?”

Lurcanio took a deep breath. “Major Vizgantu, I am going to send you back to your own superiors instead. I mean no personal offense to you, sir, but having a Valmieran demand our surrender is an insult, nothing less. We may have lost this war, but we did not lose it to your kingdom. I spent more than four very pleasant years in Priekule. I should have a child there now, as a matter of fact.”

Captain Santerno laughed out loud. Major Vizgantu turned red. Doing his best to choke back rage, he said, “You are in a poor position to tell the armies opposing you what to do, Colonel. By the powers above, I hope you pay for your insolence.”

My whole kingdom is paying, Lurcanio thought. What Algarve had made her neighbors pay never entered his mind-that was their worry, not his. He turned to the soldier who’d brought the Valmieran to him. “You may take this gentleman to the front once more. His flag of truce will be honored as he returns to his own side, of course.”

“You bastard!” Vizgantu snarled.