Out of the Darkness

Informing on Ceorl might be one way to get his sentence cut. He realized as much, but never thought of actually doing it. He hated informers even more than he hated inspectors and impressers. The latter groups, at least, were open about what they did. Informers … As far as he was concerned, informers were worms inside apples.

“What would you do if you got out?” he asked Ceorl.

“Who knows? Who cares? Whatever I futtering well please,” the ruffian replied. “That’s the idea. When you’re out, you do what you futtering well please.”

He didn’t know Unkerlant so well as he thought he did. Nobody in the kingdom, save only King Swemmel, did what he pleased. Eyes were on a man wherever he went. He might not know they were there, but they would be.

Well, if a fornicating Forthwegian doesn’t know how things work, if he gets caught again, what do I care? Garivald thought. If I can get out of here, I know how to fit back into things. All I’d have to do is separate from him.

Would he have thought like that before the war? He didn’t know. He hoped not. The past four years had gone a long way toward turning him into a wolf. He wasn’t the only one, either. He was sure of that. He stuck out his hand. “Aye, I’m with you.”

“Good.” He’d already known how strong Ceorl’s grip was. By all the signs, the Forthwegian had been born a wolf. “We’ll be able to use each other. I know how, and you can do most of the talking.”

“Fair enough,” Garivald said. And if we do get out, which of us will try to kill the other one first? As long as one of them knew about the other, they were both vulnerable. If he could see that, Ceorl could surely see it, too. He studied the ruffian. Ceorl smiled back, the picture of honest sincerity. That made Garivald certain he couldn’t trust the Forthwegians very far.

“What are you whoresons doing down there?” a guard called. “Whatever it is, come do it where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You wanna watch me piss?” Ceorl said, tugging at his tunic as if he’d been doing just that. The tunnel stank of urine; he’d made a good choice for cover. The guard pulled a horrible face and waved him and Garivald back to work.

He’s got nerve, Garivald thought. He isn’t stupid, even if he doesn’t understand Unkerlant. If he has a plan for getting out of here, it may work.

As Ceorl walked back toward the mouth of the tunnel, he muttered, “This whole fornicating kingdom’s nothing but a fornicating captives’ camp.” Garivald blinked. Maybe the man from Plegmund’s Brigade understood Unkerlant better than he’d thought.

Garivald started swinging his pick with a vim he hadn’t shown before. He wondered why. Could hope, however forlorn, do so much? Maybe it could.

Since Sabrino had declined to become King of Algarve, or of a part of Algarve, he’d got better treatment in the sanatorium. He’d expected worse. After all, he’d warned General Vatran he wouldn’t make a reliable puppet. He had no reason to think the Unkerlanter general disbelieved him. Maybe Vatran had more courtesy for an honest, and crippled, enemy than he’d expected.

Little by little, Sabrino learned to get around on one leg. He stumped up and down corridors at the sanatorium. Eventually, he even got to go outside, to test his crutches and his surviving leg on real dirt. He remained in pain. Decoctions of poppy juice helped hold it at bay. He knew he’d come to crave the decoctions, but he couldn’t do anything about that. If the pain ever went away, he would think about weaning himself from them. Not now. Not soon, either, he didn’t think.

“You’re doing very well,” his chief healer said one day, when he came back worn and sweaty from a journey of a few hundred yards. “You’re doing much better than we thought you would, in fact. When you first came in here, plenty of people doubted you would live more than a few days.”

“I was one of them,” Sabrino answered. “And I would be lying if I said I were sure you did me a favor by saving me.”

“Now, what sort of attitude is that?” The healer spoke in reproving tones.

“Mine,” Sabrino told him. “This is my carcass, or what’s left of it. I’m the one who’s got to live in it, and that’s not a whole lot of fun.”

The healer tried cajolery. “We’d hate to see everything we did go to waste after we worked so hard to keep you going.”

“Huzzah,” Sabrino said sourly. “I’m not a fool, and I’m not a child. I know what you did. I know you worked hard. What I still don’t know is whether you should have bothered.”

“Algarve is mutilated, too,” the healer said. “We need all the men we have left, wouldn’t you say?”