Out of the Darkness

A Forthwegian labor gang went by, herded by a couple of Algarvians with sticks. “Wonder how many of those whoresons are Kaunians in sorcerous disguise,” Bembo said.

“Too many,” Oraste answered. “One’d be too many. However this stinking war turns out, we’ve got rid of a whole great raft of blonds. That was worth doing.”

Bembo shrugged. Back before the war, he hadn’t thought much about Kaunians one way or the other. A few blonds had lived in Tricarico, as a few- sometimes more than a few-had lived in a lot of cities in the north of Algarve: reminders of where the Kaunian Empire had once stretched. But they’d been taken away while the war was new. Bembo supposed that made sense. How loyal would blonds in Algarve be when King Mezentio was at war with Jelgava and Valmiera, both Kaunian lands, and with Forthweg, a kingdom where blonds had more than their share of money and power?

His own notions about Kaunians had changed after the Derlavaian War broke out. He remembered that, now that he thought about it a little. How could they have helped but change, when the bookstores were filled with romances about the slutty blond women of imperial days and other choice bits, and when every fence and wall sprouted broadsheets telling the world-or at least the Algarvian part of it-what a pack of monsters Kaunians were?

He blinked. “You know something?” he said to Oraste. “We were made to hate the blonds. It didn’t just happen.”

His partner’s shoulders, broad as a Forthwegian’s, went up and down in a businesslike shrug altogether different from the usual Algarvian production. “Speak for yourself,” Oraste said. He jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “Me, I never needed any help.”

A lot of Algarvians-and, from everything Bembo had seen, even more Forthwegians-felt the same way. “Before the war,” Bembo began, “what was the-?”

He didn’t finish, for bells began clanging all over Eoforwic. “Dragons!” Oraste exclaimed. “Futtering Unkerlanter dragons!” He looked around, his eyes wild, as did Bembo. “Now where in blazes is a cellar?”

“I don’t see one.” Bembo wasn’t the least ashamed of the fear in his voice.

Most, almost all, the buildings hereabouts were wrecks, their cellars, if they’d ever had them, buried under rubble. He moaned. “But I see the dragons.”

They flew low, as they usually did on raids like this, only a couple of hundred feet above the waters of the Twegen. The rock-gray paint Swemmel’s men gave them made them all the harder to spot, but Bembo could see how many of them there were, and that no Algarvian beasts rose to challenge them. One or two tumbled out of the sky, hit by beams from heavy sticks, but the rest came on, eggs slung under their bellies.

“No cellars,” Oraste said as some of those eggs began to fall and to release bursts of the sorcerous energy trapped inside them.. “Next best thing is the deepest hole in the ground we can find.” He started to run.

So did Bembo, his belly jiggling. Oraste jumped into a hole, but it was plainly too small for a pair of good-sized men. Bembo kept running, while the roars from bursting eggs came closer and closer as the Unkerlanter dragons penetrated deeper and deeper over Eoforwic. Bembo spotted a likely hole and dashed towards it. He was only a couple of strides away when an egg burst much too close-and then he wasn’t running any more, but flying through the air.

It wasn’t anything like his dreams of flying. For one thing, he had no control over it whatever. For another, it didn’t last more than half a heartbeat-and when he hit a pile of rubble, he hit hard. He felt something snap in his leg. He heard it, too. That was almost worse-at least till the pain reached his mind, which took a couple of extra heartbeats.

Somebody close by was screaming. Whoever he was, he had to be close by: Bembo could hear him through the din of the eggs. After a moment, he realized those screams came from his own mouth. He tried to make them stop, but it was like trying to recork a fizzing bottle of sparkling wine-once that stopper was out, no getting it in again. He bawled on and on, and hoped an egg would burst on him and kill him. Then, at least, it would be over.

No such luck. What did I ever do to deserve this? wondered some small part of his brain still able to think. Unfortunately, he had no trouble coming up with answers. Few Algarvians who’d served in Forthweg would have.

The dragons kept dropping eggs for what seemed like forever. Bembo kept screaming all that while, too. And he kept screaming after the Unkerlanter dragons flew back toward the west.

“Oh, shut up,” Oraste told him. “Let’s have a look at you.” He did, with rough competence, the accent being on rough. When he finished, he said, “Well, Bembo my lad, you are one lucky son of a whore.”

That startled Bembo enough to make him stop screaming for a moment. “Lucky?” he howled. “Why, you-” He called Oraste every name he knew.

Considering the decade or so he’d spent in the constabulary, he knew a lot of names.