Out of the Darkness

Another egg burst. He saw the flash as all the sorcerous energy trapped inside the egg was released at once, and the fountain of mud and dirt that rose. The redheads had tried several times to drive the Unkerlanters back across the Twegen River, tried and failed. They hadn’t mounted any full-scale attacks against this bridgehead lately, but they didn’t let the Unkerlanters rest easy here, either.

From the rear, somebody called, “Sergeant Fariulf!”

“I’m here,” Garivald answered. Swemmel’s impressers hadn’t been perfectly efficient when they swept him into their net. They’d got him into the army, but they didn’t know who they had. As Fariulf, he’d just been one peasant recruit among many. As Garivald the leader of an irregular band, the composer of patriotic songs, he was a target. He’d led men, he’d influenced men, without taking orders directly from King Swemmel. That made him dangerous, at least in Swemmel’s eyes.

“Lieutenant Andelot wants you, Sergeant,” the soldier said.

“I’m coming,” Garivald told him. A couple of more eggs burst in front of his hole as he scrambled out and went back toward his company commander. Even had the Algarvians been pounding the bridgehead just then with everything they had, he still would have had to go. No one in Swemmel’s army got away with disobeying orders.

“Hello, Sergeant,” Andelot said. He was several years younger than Garivald, but he was an educated man, not a peasant, and spoke with a cultured Cottbus accent. Garivald liked him as well as he could like anyone set in authority over him.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Garivald asked now.

Andelot set his hand on some papers. “I just wanted to say, this report you wrote after the last time the redheads tapped us is quite good.”

“Thank you, sir.” Garivald grinned his pleasure at the praise.

With a chuckle, Andelot said, “Anyone could tell you’re new to having your letters. Once you’ve been writing for a while, you’ll come to see what a nuisance putting reports and such together can be.”

“It’s your own fault, sir, for teaching me,” Garivald replied. Only a handful of people in Zossen had been able to read and write; the village had had no school, and not much of anything else. He’d shaped and carried all his songs in his head. He still did, for that matter-putting them down on paper would have put Swemmel’s inspectors on his trail faster than anything else he could think of.

“I don’t think we’ll have the leisure for reports and such for very much longer,” Andelot said.

“Ah?” Garivald leaned toward him. “Are we finally going to break out?”

Andelot nodded. “That’s the idea.”

“Good,” Garivald said. “I’m sick of looking at this same little chunk of Forthweg day after day-especially since it gets more torn up every single day.” His nostrils flared. “If it weren’t winter-or as close to winter as they get around here-we wouldn’t be able to stand the stink. It’s pretty bad even so.”

“Mezentio’s men have hurt us,” the company commander agreed. “But we’ve hurt them, too, and we’re going to hurt them more. When we do break out of here-and out of our other bridgehead north of Eoforwic-the city will fall.”

“Aye, sir.” Now Garivald nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

But Andelot hadn’t finished. “And that’s not all, Fariulf,” he went on, as if Garivald hadn’t spoken. “Once we break the hard crust of their line, we storm eastward with everything we’ve got. And do you know what? I don’t think they can stop us, or even slow us down much, this side of the Algarvian border.”

“The Algarvian border,” Garivald echoed in dreamy tones. Then he asked a question that showed his ignorance of the world outside Zossen and the Duchy of Grelz: “How far is it from here to the Algarvian border?”

“A couple of hundred miles,” Andelot answered lightly. Garivald gaped, but only for a little while. Even though he’d been dragged into the army relatively late, he’d seen how fast it could move when things went well. Andelot went on, “We strike them at sunrise day after tomorrow. Have your men ready.”

“Aye, sir.” Garivald saluted and went up to his muddy hole in the ground once more. He knew dismissal when he heard it.

Behemoths came forward that evening under cover of darkness. Some of them sheltered under what trees still stood. Others stayed out in the open, but with great rolls of mud-colored cloth spread over them to make them harder for Algarvian dragons to spot from the air. The deception must have worked, for the redheads flung no more eggs than usual at the bridgehead the next day. The following night, still more behemoths tramped up toward the fighting front.