Out of the Darkness

Obilot’s eyes narrowed. “It’s like that?” she said. He nodded. “I haven’t seen anybody,” she told him. “Not since Dagulf. . died, and that was a while ago now.”

“Oh?” Garivald said. “How did that happen?”

“Nobody seems to know,” Obilot answered, not quite innocently enough. “Are we going to have to find another abandoned place and learn new names for ourselves all over again?”

Garivald looked around. She’d done an astonishing job of keeping this farm going. All the same, he nodded. “I’m afraid so. A couple of men ended up dead when I got out of the mines.”

“Mines? Oh.” Obilot nodded, too, briskly and without regret. “All right, we do, then. We can manage. I’m sure of it.”

“We’ll have a chance,” Garivald said, ingrained peasant pessimism in his voice. But then he shrugged. In Unkerlant, a chance was all you could hope for, and more than you usually got.

Istvan climbed down from the wagon near the mouth of the valley that held Kunhegyes and the neighboring villages. “Thank you kindly for the lift, sir,” he told the driver, a gray-bearded man with stooped shoulders.

“Glad to help, young fellow,” the other Gyongyosian replied. “Nothing’s too good for our fighters, by the stars. You’d best believe it.”

“Uh, the war is over,” Istvan said-maybe the wagon driver hadn’t heard. “We lost.” He brought the words out painfully. They hurt, aye, but they were true. No one who’d seen Gyorvar could doubt it even for a moment. He wished he hadn’t seen Gyorvar himself. He wished he hadn’t seen a great many things he’d had to see.

But the driver waved his words away, as if they were of no account. “Sooner or later, we’ll lick ‘em,” he declared. Istvan doubted he had a particular ‘em in mind-any enemy of Gyongyos would do. He wished things still looked so simple to him. They never would again. The driver flicked his whip and said, “Stars shine bright on you, Sergeant.”

“And on you,” Istvan called as the wagon rattled away.

Shouldering the duffel that held his few belongings, he trudged toward Kunhegyes. He wasn’t sure he’d been formally discharged from the army. Back in the coastal lowlands, government had been a matter of opinion since the death of Ekrekek Arpad and the destruction of Gyorvar. No one in all his long journey east had asked to see his papers. He didn’t expect anyone here would, either.

He looked around his home valley with wonder on his face. He’d been back only once since the war began. The place had seemed smaller then than when he’d gone forth to fight for Gyongyos. It seemed smaller still now, the mountains looming over the narrow bit of land trapped between them. Mountain apes up there, Istvan thought. He’d seen one of those, too. I’ve seen too much. He looked down at the scar on his left hand, the scar that had expiated his goat-eating, and shuddered. Aye, I’ve seen much too much.

Somewhere back on Obuda-or, more likely, back in Kuusamo by now-a little slant-eyed mage knew what he’d done. That made him shudder, too. Not that she would ever come to Kunhegyes-Istvan knew better than that. But he knew she knew, and the knowledge ate at him. He might as well have been naked before the world.

He tramped up to Kunhegyes’ battered old palisade. He had a much keener eye for field fortifications than he’d owned when he left the village. A couple of egg-tossers could have knocked it down in nothing flat. Rocks and bushes within stick range might give marauders cover. I’ll have to talk to somebody, he thought. Never can tell what those whoresons from the next valley over-or even from Szombathely down the valley from us-might try and do.

A sentry did pace the palisade. That was something. Istvan wondered how much, though. Had the fellow been more alert, he would have already spotted him. That thought had hardly gone through Istvan’s mind before the lookout stiffened, peered out toward him, and called, “Who comes to Kunhegyes?”

Istvan recognized his voice. “Hail, Korosi,” he called back. The villager had made his life difficult before he’d gone into Ekrekek Arpad’s army, but he’d been mild enough when Istvan visited on leave. Easier to overawe a youth than a veteran on leave, Istvan supposed.

“Is that you, Istvan?” Korosi said now. “Have you got another leave?”

“Another leave?” Istvan gaped. “Have the stars addled your wits? The war’s over. Haven’t you heard?” He’d known his home village was backward, but this struck him as excessive. Kun would have laughed and laughed. But Kun was dead, struck down by the sorcery that had slain Gyorvar.