Out of the Darkness

“Aye, sir,” Garivald answered. You couldn’t tell a superior no. He hadn’t needed more than one scorching from a furious sergeant to learn that lesson forever. And, in truth, he hadn’t been doing anything more than marveling at hearing crickets in wintertime. There wouldn’t have been any singing down around Zossen. He scrambled to his feet. “What do you need, sir?”

“Walk with me,” Andelot said, and headed away from the fires and out into the darkness. Garivald grabbed his stick before following. Everything seemed quiet, but you never could tell. Andelot only nodded. If he’d discovered who Garivald was, he wouldn’t have wanted him armed. So Garivald reasoned, at any rate. His company commander nodded again once they were out of earshot of the rest of the Unkerlanters. “Sergeant, you showed outstanding initiative there when you volunteered to go after the Algarvian egg-tosser. I’m very pleased.”

“Oh, that.” Garivald had already forgotten about it. “Thank you, sir.”

“It’s something we need more of,” Andelot said. “It’s something the whole kingdom needs more of. It would make us more efficient. Too many of us are happy doing nothing till someone gives them an order. That’s not so good.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it, sir,” Garivald said truthfully. If you didn’t have to do something for yourself, and if nobody was making you do it for anyone else, why do it?

“Mezentio’s men, curse them, have initiative,” Andelot said. “They get themselves going without officers, without sergeants, without anything. They just see what needs doing and do it. That’s one of the things that makes them so much trouble. We should be able to match them.”

“We’re beating them anyhow,” Garivald said.

“But we should do better,” Andelot insisted. “The price we’re paying will cripple us for years. And it’s something we should do for our own pride’s sake. How does the song go?” He sang in a soft tenor:

“ ‘Do anything to beat them back.

Don’t hold off, don’t go slack.’

Something like that, anyhow.”

“Something like that,” Garivald echoed raggedly. He was glad the darkness hid his expression from Andelot. He was sure his jaw had dropped when the officer started to sing. How not, considering that Andelot was singing one of his songs?

The company commander slapped him on the back. “So, as I say, Sergeant, that’s why I’m so pleased. Anything you can do to encourage the men to show more initiative would also be very good.”

“Why don’t you just order them to …?” Garivald’s voice trailed away. He felt foolish. “Oh. Can’t very well do that, can you?”

“No.” Andelot chuckled. “Initiative imposed from above isn’t exactly the genuine article, I’m afraid.” He headed back toward the fires. So did Garivald. One of the nice things about being a sergeant was not having to go out and stand sentry in the middle of the night.

He woke the next morning before dawn, with Unkerlanter egg-tossers thunderously pounding the Algarvians farther east. Andelot’s whistle shrilled. “Forward!” he shouted. Forward the Unkerlanters went, footsoldiers, behemoths, and dragons overhead all working together most efficiently. Garivald didn’t worry, or even stop to think, that the Algarvians had devised the scheme his countrymen were using. It worked, and worked well. Nothing else mattered to him.

Artificers had laid bridges over the river that ran near Gromheort-nobody had bothered telling Garivald its name. Andelot clapped his hands when he thudded across one of those bridges. “Nothing between us and Algarve now but a few miles of flat land!” he shouted.

Garivald whooped. That there might be some large number of redheads with sticks between him and their kingdom was true, but hardly seemed to matter. If King Swemmel’s men had surged forward from the Twegen and Eoforwic to here in a few short weeks, another surge would surely take them onto Algarvian soil.

Garivald whooped again when he saw Unkerlanter behemoths on this side of the rivet. Footsoldiers were a lot safer when they had plenty of the big beasts along for company.

But then one of those behemoths crumpled as if it had charged headlong into a boulder. A couple of the crewmen riding it were thrown clear; its fall crushed the rest. “Heavy stick!” someone close to the beast yelled. “Blazed right through its armor!”

Maybe that was just an enemy emplacement nearby. Or maybe. . An alarmed shout rose: “Enemy behemoths!”

Even before the first egg from the Algarvian beasts’ tossers burst, Garivald was digging himself a hole in the muddy ground. A footsoldier without a hole was like a turtle without a shell: naked, vulnerable, and ever so likely to be crushed.

Another Unkerlanter behemoth went down, this one from a well-aimed egg. The Algarvians knew what they were doing. They generally did, worse luck. Had there been more of them. . Garivald didn’t care to think about that. Beams from ordinary, hand-held sticks announced that Algarvian footsoldiers were in the neighborhood, too.