Out of the Darkness

Unkerlanter egg-tossers quickly answered back; they were more efficient now than they had been when Garivald got dragooned into King Swemmel’s army. From what the handful of men who’d been in the fight a good deal longer than he said, they were much more efficient now than they had been in the early days of the war.

It didn’t do them much good, not here. Alarmed cries rang out: “Behemoths! Algarvian behemoths!”

Hearing that was plenty to make Garivald throw himself down on his belly in the middle of a muddy field. Sure enough, a column of behemoths with redheads atop them came lumbering up out of the south. Footsoldiers in kilts loped along with the behemoths to keep the Unkerlanters from getting close enough to have an easy time harming the beasts.

Garivald looked around for Unkerlanter behemoths to blunt the head of that column. He didn’t see very many. An Algarvian crew flung an egg that burst too close to him for comfort. The blast of sorcerous energy picked him up and slammed him to the ground. Clods of dirt rained down on him.

Orders were to stand your ground no matter what. Garivald looked around. If he and his men stood their ground here no matter what, they would all end up dead in short order. Lieutenant Andelot had praised his initiative before. He used it again, this time to shout, “Fall back!”

Some of the Unkerlanters had begun to retreat even without orders. The din of bursting eggs was loud off to the east, too, suggesting the Algarvians had another force of behemoths on the move there. King Swemmel’s army had stormed across northeastern Unkerlant and Forthweg and into Algarve. Mezentio’s men struck back when and as they could, but Garivald had never seen a counterattack like this before.

There was Andelot, trying to rally his men. Garivald shouted, “Sir, we’re going to have to give back a little ground. They’ve got too many men and too many behemoths for us to hold them off right now.”

He waited to see if Andelot would order him to try to hold at all hazards. He wondered if the company commander might have to suffer an unfortunate accident so someone with real sense could take over and do his best to lead the men to safety. But, biting his lip, Andelot nodded. “Aye, Sergeant, you’re right, worse luck.” He snapped his fingers. “I know what’s gone wrong, curse it.”

“Tell me,” Garivald urged.

“There are some little cinnabar mines south of Bonorva,” Andelot said. “You get quicksilver for dragonfire from cinnabar. The Algarvians haven’t got much left. No wonder they’re fighting like madmen to hold on to what they do have.”

Garivald managed a haggard grin. “So much nicer to know why you’re about to get killed.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Andelot replied. “Let’s see what we can do about making the Algarvians do the dying instead.”

What a company of footsoldiers could do on a battlefield swarming with behemoths was depressingly obvious: not much. More Unkerlanter behemoths did come down from out of the north to challenge the Algarvian beasts, but not enough. As if it were the early days of the war, the redheads had the bit between their teeth.

A week later, spring was in the air. Garivald was sure it would still be snowing down in the Duchy of Grelz, but northern Algarve was a long, long way from home. The wind blew warm from the sea. Birds started chirping in the trees. Fresh green grass sprang up; a few flowers bloomed. It would have been beautiful… if so much of the countryside hadn’t been wrecked by war’s fiery rake. And that rake had gone across the landscape first one way, then the other.

By that time, Garivald counted himself lucky to be alive. He’d never seen such a sustained Algarvian push before. It had driven his countrymen and him back a good thirty miles from the outskirts of Bonorva. He’d had to fight his way out of two encirclements, and sneak past Algarvian footsoldiers to escape a third. A lot of Unkerlanters hadn’t made it.

“They’re bastards, aren’t they?” he said to Lieutenant Andelot as the two of them sprawled by the bank of a little stream. They were both filthy and unshaven and desperately in need of sleep.

“We knew that from the start,” Andelot answered. “They’ve pushed us back some, aye, but look at the price they’ve paid. And they’re just about stopped now-we’re hardly lost any ground today. When we start moving forward again, what will they use to stop us?”

“I don’t know.” Garivald didn’t care about such things. I’m no officer. I don’t want to be an officer, he thought. Let them worry about where the fornicating war is going. I just want to stay alive till it finally gets there and stops, so I can get off.