Out of the Darkness

By all the signs, Andelot knew what he was talking about. Streams of Unkerlanter soldiers and behemoths were moving up toward the front. Rock-gray dragons swarmed overhead, with few in Algarvian colors in the air to hold them back. The redheads had done everything they could to drive back the men of Unkerlant, and it hadn’t been enough.

More dragons flew by, all of them heading northeast to strike the enemy. Some had eggs slung under their bellies; others carried only dragonfliers. They protected the ones with the eggs, fought off the handful of Algarvian beasts that rose to oppose them, and swooped low to flame soldiers and civilians on the ground.

“They’ll make Mezentio’s men wish they were never born,” Garivald said smugly.

But then, as he watched, the whole flight of Unkerlanter dragons tumbled out of the sky. It wasn’t as if they’d been blazed down. It was more as if they’d run headlong into an invisible wall. Some of the eggs they carried burst while they were still in the air, others when they hit the ground.

“What in blazes-?” Garivald exclaimed.

Andelot took things more in stride. “Curse them, they made it work again,” he said. Garivald’s questioning noise held no words. Andelot went on, “The redheads keep coming up with new sorceries, powers below eat ‘em. This one congeals the air some sort of way. Don’t ask me how-I’m no mage. I don’t think our mages know how this spell works, either, come to that. The one thing we do know is, for every ten times the Algarvians try it, they bring it off once, twice if they’re lucky.”

“That’s too often,” Garivald said.

“I know,” Andelot said. “But it’s only a toy. It won’t change the way the war turns out, not even a copper’s worth. Most of the time, our dragons do get through.”

Garivald nodded. Looked at from the perspective of the war as a whole, that did make perfect sense. Looked at from the perspective of the dragonfliers who’d just run into the Algarvian sorcery. . He tried not to think about that. Before long, the regiment was moving forward again, so he didn’t have to.

Ilmarinen stood in one of the passes that cut through the Bratanu Mountains. The air was as clear as mountain air was said to be. Finding a cliche that turned out to be true always amused him. Looking west-and looking down-he could see a long way into Algarve. There not too far away lay the town of Tricarico, with olive groves and almond orchards and rolling fields of wheat sweeping away till detail was lost even with this clear, clear air.

Beside Ilmarinen stood Grand General Nortamo, the commander of Kuusaman soldiers in Jelgava. He was, in fact, the overall commander of the Lagoans in Jelgava, too, however little they cared to acknowledge it. Grand general was not a usual rank in the Kuusaman army; it had been created especially for this campaign, to give Nortamo rank to match that of the Lagoan marshal who led King Vitor’s men.

Nortamo was tall by Kuusaman standards; he might have had a little Lagoan blood in him. That would have helped explain his baldness, too. Most Kuusaman men, Ilmarinen among them, kept their hair. Nortamo hadn’t. He wore hats a lot. Up here in the chilly mountains, nobody could smile at him because of it.

He was one of the blandest men Ilmarinen had ever met. How did you get your job? wondered the sardonic mage, who was a great many things, but none of them bland. By making sure you never offended anybody? Seems more trouble than it’s worth.

“We took a little longer than we should have, getting through the mountains,” Nortamo said. “But now, sorcerous sir, we are going to finish driving the Algarvians, and I don’t see how they can stand in our way.”

He also had a nearly infallible gift for stating the obvious. Ilmarinen sighed. Is that what it takes to lead lots of men? A good smile and no surprises? Powers above be praised, all I ever wanted was to go off by myself and cast spells.

“They probably won’t stand in our way,” he remarked now. “They’ll probably hide behind things and blaze at us.”

“Er-aye,” Grand General Nortamo said. As befit a man with a gift for the obvious, he also owned a remorselessly literal mind. “Well, we’ve got the men and the behemoths and the dragons to root ‘em out if they do. And we’ve got you wizardly types, too, eh?” He patted Ilmarinen on the back.

Ilmarinen had never been called a wizardly type in his entire life. He hoped with all his heart never to be called such again, either. “Right,” he said tightly.

Oblivious to any offense he might have caused, Nortamo went on, “And you’ll shield us from whatever funny sorceries Mezentio’s men fling our way, won’t you?”

“I do hope so,” Ilmarinen answered. “It’s my neck on the line, too.”