Through the Darkness

Major Spinello blew a shrill blast on his whistle. “Forward!” he shouted. “They had their chance. Now it’s our turn. Mezentio!” He was the first to rush against the Unkerlanters. Recklessly brave fit him as well as the enemy.

“Mezentio!” Trasone yelled, and went forward, too. Caught by surprise by the dragons the crystallomancer had summoned, the Unkerlanters gave ground more readily than usual. Trasone’s battalion burst out into the open company south of the forest. Some of the grass was burning there, thanks to the Algarvian dragons. And on the blackened grass lay blackened bodies. Trasone trotted past them with hardly a sideways glance; he’d already seen plenty of dead Unkerlanters.

And, a couple of miles farther south, he saw more: not soldiers, these, but row on row of peasants--old men and women, mostly--with their hands bound behind them and their throats cut. Those corpses did make him grimace: they were the fuel for the sorcery the Unkerlanter mages had aimed at him and his comrades. The mages, unlike their victims, had fled. Grimly, Trasone trudged after them.

“Camel.” Sabrino spoke the word as if it were an obscure but potent obscenity. “If I never taste camel again, I’ll count myself lucky.”

“Dragons like it well enough,” Lieutenant Colonel Caratzas said. As far as Sabrino was concerned, the new Yaninan senior officer wasn’t a quarter the man Colonel Broumidis had been. He was, among other things, much too fond of the anise-flavored spirits his countrymen brewed. About all he really shared with Broumidis--and most other Yaninans--was a passion for expressive gestures. “The only other real choice we have is eating marmots and voles and grubs.”

“They’d have to be tastier,” Sabrino insisted. “They’d have to be more tender, too. Tell me I’m wrong. Go on, sir--I dare you.”

Instead of answering right away, Caratzas scratched his mustache, which always made Sabrino think a large black moth had landed on his upper lip. “Even if I did tell you differently, you would not think it mattered. And why should you? I am only a Yaninan, after all, good for nothing but running away.” He breathed potent, licorice-scented fumes into Sabrino’s face.

“Oh, my dear fellow!” Sabrino exclaimed. He didn’t want Caratzas knowing he thought he couldn’t rely on him; that would just make the Yaninan all the more unreliable. “I do not question your courage. Yaninan dragonfliers here have performed as well as anyone could wish--look at your predecessor’s extraordinary valor.”

“You are gracious,” Caratzas said with a sad, half-sozzled smile. “You do not speak of the sorry performance of our footsoldiers here, nor of the even sorrier performance of our footsoldiers in Unkerlant. Not all of your followers, not all of your countrymen, show so much forbearance.”

“Is that so?” Sabrino said, and the Yaninan officer inclined his head to show it was. Sabrino had a low opinion of the general level of Yaninan military skill himself. Caratzas doubtless knew as much, even if Sabrino didn’t trumpet that opinion to the skies. For his part, Sabrino had already known not all his fellow Algarvians in the land of the Ice People were so polite. “I shall discipline any man under my command who has offended you. We are allies, Algarve and Yanina.”

And what a hypocrite I am, Sabrino thought. He would sooner have been fighting in Unkerlant himself. Had the Yaninans been able to hold their own against Lagoas here on the austral continent, he would have been able to do that. As things were ...

As things were, Lieutenant Colonel Caratzas said, “It cannot be helped. We are the small tagalong cousin. But it grows wearisome.”

Sabrino didn’t know what to say to that. Yanina was Algarve’s small tagalong cousin in this war, and Algarve had to keep dragging that cousin out of trouble. No wonder some of his fliers had been less courteous than they might have. Staying courteous and telling the truth weren’t easy to do in the same breath. Still, the Yaninan dragonfliers had fought well--though better when Broumidis led them. What more could Sabrino tell this tipsy lieutenant colonel?

He did his best: “As I say, I will punish any man who maligns you or your kingdom. Algarve needs your aid.”

“It is better than nothing,” Caratzas said. “I myself, you understand, am able to keep my temper in the face of these insults.” He hiccuped. Those sweet-smelling spirits no doubt helped blunt the sting of any insults he heard. After another hiccup, he went on, “But we Yaninans are a proud folk, and some of us will have blood to repay any slight.”

“I understand.” Sabrino wished the Yaninans were as prickly about doing a good job at war as they were about their honor. That was one more thing he couldn’t tell Caratzas.