Out of the Darkness

Garivald hurried away. Algarvians on the streets of Torgavi hurried to step aside. A couple of bold redheaded women-sluttish redheaded women, in the reckoning of someone from a Grelzer peasant village-made eyes at him. He ignored them; he knew they wanted money or food from him, and cared nothing about himself. He’d visited a brothel a couple of times. There, at least, the bargain was open.

An Algarvian man in a filthy, threadbare uniform tunic and kilt stared at Garivald, too, and then turned away. Some surrendered soldiers were starting to come back to their home towns. Garivald knew he would have a hard time putting his life together once he got back to the farm. How much harder would it be for the redheads, with their kingdom under Unkerlant’s heel?

He didn’t waste much sympathy on them. They’d done their best to conquer his kingdom and to kill him. They’d come much too close to managing both, too. That fellow on the street looked as if the war hadn’t ended in his eyes.

When morning came, Andelot asked, “Have you by any chance changed your mind?”

“No, sir,” Garivald replied without hesitation.

“Very well. Here are your orders.” Andelot handed him a folded leaf of paper. “This includes your travel authorization. A westbound caravan leaves from the depot in about an hour. Good luck to you, Sergeant.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” Garivald said once more. As soon as Andelot left, he unfolded the orders to make sure they were what the company commander had said. He didn’t want to get off the caravan car to find that the orders told whoever checked his papers there to arrest him on sight. But everything was as it should have been. The only mention of his destination was as the place where he was to receive his mustering-out bonus. He wondered if he really would get the money. Getting his back pay would have been plenty to satisfy him.

Soldiers with duffel bags slung over their shoulders crowded the depot. Most of them made way for him: the sergeant’s emblems he wore on the collar tabs of his tunic still carried weight. He got a seat without trouble, too, and no one presumed to take the space next to his. He put his own duffel there. This wouldn’t be such a bad trip: nothing to do but look out the window till he got home.

Later than it should have, the caravan left the depot. So much for efficiency, Garivald thought. Unkerlanters spent a lot of time talking about it and not very much practicing it. He shrugged resignedly. That was nothing he didn’t already know.

Looking out the window proved poor sport. The landscape was battered and cratered. Every time the ley-line caravan glided through an Algarvian town, the place was in ruins. The redheads had done everything they could to hold back his countrymen. They hadn’t been able to do enough.

Mile after mile of wreckage and devastation and ruin went by. Here and there, in the countryside, Algarvians tended to their crops. Most of the people in the fields were women. Garivald wondered how many men of fighting age the redheads had left. Too many if they’ve got any at all, he thought.

Then he wondered how many men of fighting age his own kingdom had left. One of the soldiers in the compartment with him was close to fifty; the other looked at most seventeen. Unkerlant had won a great victory, and had paid a great price.

For a moment, he wondered if the price had been too great. Only for a moment-then he shook his head. Whatever his kingdom had paid to beat Algarve, it would have paid more had Mezentio’s men overrun all of Unkerlant. He’d seen how the Algarvians had ruled the stretches they’d occupied. Imagining that kind of rule going on and on, year after year, across the whole kingdom made him shiver even though the caravan car was stuffy and warm, almost hot.

Then he shivered again. No matter how brutally the Algarvians had ruled in Unkerlant, more than a few Grelzers-and, he supposed, more than a few men from other parts of the kingdom as well-had chosen to fight on their side and against King Swemmel. He’d had no love for Swemmel himself, not till the redheads showed him the difference between bad and worse. That anyone could have chosen Mezentio over Swemmel only proved how much better things might have been in his homeland.

For that matter, things were better in Algarve than they were in his homeland. He wondered why the redheads had tried to conquer Unkerlant. What did they want with it? Their farmers were richer than Unkerlanter peasants dreamt of being. And their townsfolk … To his eyes, their townsfolk all lived like nobles, and rich nobles at that.