Out of the Darkness

“We’ll do just fine.” Nortamo spoke not so much in response to what he heard as to what he expected to hear. A lot of people were like that now and again. He had the disease worse than most.

He’s brave, Ilmarinen reminded himself. He’s not particularly stupid. The men like him. They rush to do what he tells them. They think it’s an honor. He repeated that to himself several times. It kept him from trying to strangle Grand General Nortamo. Murdering the commanding general would get him talked about, however much satisfaction it might bring. And some people probably wouldn’t understand at all.

In lieu of throttling Nortamo, Ilmarinen said, “As soon as I can, I’ll want to talk with some captured Algarvian mages. The more I find out about what they’re up to, the better the chance I have of stopping it.”

“That makes sense,” Nortamo said, though he didn’t sound as if it had made enough sense to occur to him before Ilmarinen mentioned it. “I’ll do my best to arrange it for you, sorcerous sir. I’ll do my best to forget about it, and to make you nag, was what that sounded like. Ilmarinen’s hands twitched. Could I strangle him before anyone noticed? Tempting, tempting. Nortamo gave him a cheery little wave. “Now if you’ll excuse me. .” Off he went, unthrottled. Ilmarinen sighed.

Flashes of light in front of and then inside Tricarico showed where eggs were bursting-and where, Ilmarinen presumed, Kuusaman soldiers either were going forward or would be soon. He’d never been in Tricarico. He wondered how many Kuusamans had, back in more cheerful days. Not many, or he missed his guess. The provincial town didn’t look to have much to recommend it.

No ley line ran through this pass. The road that did go through left a good deal to be desired. It might have been better before the war. In fact, it surely had been better. As Ilmarinen jounced along in a buggy, a second-rank mage gave him a happy wave and said, “Good to see you, sir. We’re just about sure we’ve found all the eggs the Algarvians planted by now.”

“That’s nice,” Ilmarinen answered. “If you turn out to be wrong, I’ll write you a letter and let you know about it.” The other wizard laughed. Occasional craters in the surface of the road said some of the Algarvian eggs had found Kuusaman soldiers before they were found. If one of them found him, he probably wouldn’t be interested in writing letters for a while.

At some point in the descent, the driver paused to look back over his shoulder and remarked, “Well, we’re in Algarve now.”

Ilmarinen would argue with anybody at any time for any reason. “And how, precisely, do you know that?” he demanded. By way of reply, the driver jerked a thumb off to the right. Ilmarinen turned to look. An enormous dragon done in white, green, and red adorned a boulder. It was partly defaced; Kuusaman soldiers had added several rude scrawls to it. But it was unquestionably an Algarvian dragon. Ilmarinen nodded. “You’re right. We’re in Algarve.”

A thin but steady stream of wounded soldiers came back from the fighting. The ones who weren’t too badly hurt still had plenty of spirit. “We’ll get ‘em,” said a fellow with his hand wrapped in a bloody bandage. “They haven’t got hardly any behemoths left. Pretty cursed hard to win a war without ‘em.”

That made sense to Ilmarinen. What made sense, though, wasn’t necessarily true. By that afternoon, the Kuusamans were over the river both north and south of Tricarico, pushing hard to cut the city off and surround it. And then, just as the sun was setting on the broad Algarvian plain, the world suddenly seemed to hold its breath. Ilmarinen didn’t know how else to put it. He’d felt the Algarvians’ murderous magic so many time, he’d grown inured to it, as had most other mages. This. . This was something else.

What are they doing? flashed through his mind when the sorcerous storm broke. A heartbeat later came another, perhaps even more urgent thought: how are they doing it? He’d heard that the Algarvians were pulling out all sorts of desperate spells, but hadn’t really encountered one till now.

Their murderous magecraft had been bad. This was worse. That had used life energy in a straightforward way, even if Mezentio’s men had no business stealing it as they’d done. This. . Whoever the wizard essaying the spell was, he’d opened his spirit to the powers below. He didn’t just aim to kill his foes. He aimed to torment them, to horrify them, to make death itself seem clean by comparison.