Out of the Darkness

Puliano grinned and pointed west. “Now, Corporal”-Sidroc didn’t care for the way the redhead emphasized his shiny new rank-”we have to see what we can do about that bridgehead on this side of the Skamandros.”

“What, you and me and nobody else?” Sidroc said. The Unkerlanters had spent lives like water to force their way across the river after being balked for some considerable while. Most of the lives they’d spent forcing the crossing were those of Yaninans. That’ll teach Tsavellas to turn his coat, Sidroc thought savagely.

“No, lackwit,” Puliano answered. “You and me and everything the fellows in the fancy uniforms can scrape together.” He might have been reading Sidroc’s mind, for he went on, “It’s not the nasty little whoresons in the pompom shoes in the bridgehead any more. I wish it were; we could deal with them.” He spat in fine contempt. “But it’s Unkerlanters in there now, Unkerlanters and as many stinking behemoths as they can cram into the space. And if we wait for them to bust out. .”

Sidroc made a very unhappy noise. He’d seen too often what happened when the Unkerlanters burst from their bridgeheads. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that again. But he asked, “Have we got any real chance of flinging them back across the river?”

Puliano’s shrug was as theatrical as his scornful spitting. To a Forthwegian’s eyes, Algarvians overacted all the time. “We have to try,” he said. “If we don’t try, we just sit here waiting for them to futter us. If we try, who knows what might happen?”

He had a point. Most of the time, the Unkerlanters were as stubborn in defense as any general could want. Every so often, though, especially when they got hit at a time or from a direction they didn’t expect, they would panic, and then the men attacking them got victories on the cheap.

“We have enough behemoths of our own to throw at them?” Sidroc persisted. “We have enough Kaunians to kill to put some kick in our attack?”

“Behemoths?” Puliano gave another shrug, melodramatic and cynical at the same time. “We haven’t had enough behemoths since the battles in the Durrwangen bulge. This won’t be any different from any other fight the past year and a half. Blonds. . Powers above, we’re even short on blonds.” But his battered features didn’t seem unduly disheartened. “Of course, since Tsavellas isn’t on our side any more, we don’t have to worry about what happens to these stinking Yaninans. Their life energy works as well as anybody else’s.”

“Heh,” Sidroc said. “I would sooner kill Kaunians. I never did like Kaunians. We are better off without them. But nobody will miss these Yaninan bastards, either.”

“Just so,” Puliano agreed. “Kaunians are the great enemies of Algarve, of real Derlavaian civilization, always and forever. But, as you say, the Yaninans betrayed us. They’ll pay for it. Indeed they will.” He clapped Sidroc on the back one more time, then went off to spread the news elsewhere.

Sidroc waited in his hole, wondering if the Unkerlanters would spend some more Yaninans, or even some of their own men, in a spoiling attack to disrupt whatever the Algarvians had in mind. It didn’t happen before his relief came to take his place. “Hullo, Sudaku,” he said. “Everything is pretty quiet there for now. It won’t last, though, not if the lieutenant has the straight goods.”

“We have to take out the bridgehead,” Sudaku answered seriously. “If we do not, the Unkerlanters will come forth and take us out.”

They both spoke Algarvian. It was the only tongue they shared. Sudaku was no Forthwegian. He and a good many others like him had attached themselves to Plegmund’s Brigade in the grim fighting during the breakout from the Mandelsloh pocket in the eastern Duchy of Grelz. No one had bothered to detach them since; the Algarvians had more important things to worry about. By now, some of the men from the Phalanx of Valmiera could curse fluently in Forthwegian.

And, by now, Sidroc had stopped worrying about the obvious fact that Sudaku and his countrymen were tall and blond and blue-eyed-were, in fact, every bit as Kaunian as the blonds from Forthweg whom Mezentio’s men massacred whenever they needed to. He did sometimes wonder why the Valmierans fought for Algarve. The reasons they’d given didn’t seem good enough to him- but then, his own probably looked flimsy to them, too. All he really worried about was whether he could count on them in a tight place. He’d seen, again and again, that he could.

Sudaku asked, “Do we hear right? Are you promoted?”

“Oh. That.” Thinking about assailing the Unkerlanter bridgehead, Sidroc had almost forgotten about his new rank. “Aye, it’s true.”

“Good for you,” the Valmieran said. Sidroc shrugged. He didn’t know whether it was good or not, not really. Then Sudaku smiled a sly smile and added, “Now you will be able to tell Ceorl what to do.”