Rulers of the Darkness

"What?" His men howled furious protests: "Don't they think we're good enough?" "We'll lick 'em!" "A plague on the Unkerlanters, and another one on our generals!"

"You have your men very ready for action," the messenger observed.

"What's gone wrong, sir?" Captain Turpino had. He assumed something had, and Spinello could hardly blame him for that. Spinello had thought something was wrong, too, till he'd gone all the way through the orders.

As things were, he said, "Nothing, Captain. It is, if you like, even a compliment." He passed the paper to Turpino so the senior company commander could see for himself. Spinello addressed the regiment as a whole: "We are withdrawn from the line for rest, refit, and reinforcements- this because of our outstanding fighting qualities, as the general heading up the army says in so many words. They want us in very top shape before they throw us into battle again, so we can do the enemy as much harm as possible."

"Aye, that's what it says," Turpino agreed. "It also says we're going to get sent south when the refit's done."

Spinello nodded. "That looks to be where the war will be won or lost. I say that because, having fought there, I see the difference between that part of the front and this one. Here, we go forward or we go back, and not a whole lot changes either way. There… There they take whole armies off the board when things go wrong. They've gone wrong for us and the Unkerlanters both. Next time, by the powers above, I want 'em going wrong for Swemmel's men, and we can help make that happen."

His men clapped their hands. A few of them tossed their hats in the air. The messenger saluted Spinello. "Sir, you've got them eating out of the palm of his hand."

"Do I?" Spinello looked at the palm in question. Grinning, he wiped it on his kilt. "I've been wondering why it was wet." The messenger snorted. Spinello turned back to his troops. "Form up, you lugs. Some other lucky fellows get the joy of fighting Unkerlanters here. Poor us- we have to face baths and barbers and beds and brothels. I don't know how we'll be able to manage it, but for the sake of the kingdom we have to try."

"You are a mountebank," Turpino said as Spinello led his soldiers out of the line. "Sir." His voice held nothing but admiration.

A new regiment came up the dirt road to replace Spinello's. It looked to be a very new regiment, with plump, well-fed men wearing clean uniforms. "Do your mothers know you're here?" one of Spinello's scrawny veterans called. That set off an avalanche of jeering. The raw troops smiled nervously and kept marching. They didn't jeer back, which only proved they didn't know what they were getting into.

"Stay awake," Spinello told his men. "Keep an eye skinned for dragons. I think we've got enough holes in the ground to dive into if we have to." That drew more laughter from the veterans. The landscape, like most landscapes that had seen a lot of fighting, was a jumble of craters and old, half-collapsed trenches and foxholes. Spinello bunched his fingertips and kissed them. "Aye, Unkerlant is beautiful in the springtime."

He'd hoped for a ley-line caravan ride back to Goldap, the Unkerlanter town the Algarvians used for a rest center and replacement depot. But Swemmel's men had sabotaged the ley line, and the Algarvian mages were still working to repair the damage. That meant three days of marching through mud for the regiment.

Once they got into Goldap, soldiers exclaimed at how large and fine it was. Maybe they were from little farms and had no idea what a city was supposed to be like. Maybe, and more likely, they'd been out in the field too long, so that any place with several streets' worth of buildings standing seemed impressive.

Spinello got them billeted and queued up at a bathhouse next door to the barracks before seeking army headquarters to report his presence. Though normally fastidious- indeed, more than a bit of a dandy- he didn't bother cleaning up first. If he brought the smell of the front with him, then he did, that was all. And if he brought a few fleas and lice with him, too, well, the officers here had a better chance of getting rid of them than somebody who spent all his time fighting.

As Spinello had expected, the lieutenant to whom he first announced his presence wrinkled his nose and did his best not to breathe. But the colonel to whom the lieutenant conducted him only smiled and said, "Major, about every third officer who visits me tries to show me how dreadful things are up at the front. I know it for myself, believe me."

Spinello eyed the decorations the colonel wore. They included a couple of medals for gallantry, a pair of wound badges, and what the troops called the frozen-meat medal marking service in Unkerlant the first winter of the war against Swemmel. "Perhaps you do, sir," Spinello admitted. "But you might have been someone just in from Trapani, too."