Through the Darkness

Fernao thought his friend was unduly optimistic, but said, “Here’s hoping we can bring it off. If we have enough dragons, maybe ...”

Leudast counted himself lucky to be alive. He’d had that feeling any number of times when fighting the Algarvians, but rarely more so than now. The summer before, he knew he’d been fortunate to escape from a couple of the pockets the redheads had formed on the plains of northern Unkerlant. But getting out of the pocket south of Aspang hadn’t taken just good fortune; it had required something uncommonly like a miracle.

He chewed on a lump of black bread, then turned to Captain Hawart and said, “Sir, we’re in trouble again.”

“I wish I could say you were wrong,” Hawart answered around his own mouthful of bread. Both men sat on somewhat drier high ground in the middle of a swamp along with perhaps a hundred Unkerlanter soldiers--so far as Leudast knew, all the survivors from Hawart’s regiment. Mournfully, the captain said, “If only we’d known they were getting their own attack ready back there.”

“Aye, if only,” Leudast echoed. “It’s nothing but luck any of us are left alive, you ask me. We didn’t have enough of anything to stop them once they got gliding down the ley line.”

As if to underscore his words, a dragon screeched, not too high overhead. He looked up. The dragon was painted in Algarvian colors. Leudast stayed where he was. Bushes and scrubby trees helped hide the Unkerlanters in the swamp from the dragonfliers’ prying eyes. Leudast’s rock-gray tunic, now stained with grass and dirt, was a good match for the mud and shrubs all around.

After another screech, the dragon flew on. “Here’s hoping the whoreson didn’t spy us,” Leudast said.

Captain Hawart shrugged. “We can’t stay here forever, not unless we want to turn into irregulars.”

“We can eat frogs and roots and such for a long time, sir,” Leudast said. “The Algarvians’d have a cursed hard time digging us out.”

“I know that,” Hawart answered. “But there’s a bigger war going on than the one for this stretch of swamp, and I want to be a part of it.”

Leudast wasn’t so sure he wanted to be a part of it. He’d risked his neck too many times, and come too close to getting killed. Sitting here in a place the redheads would have a hard time reaching suited him fine. He would have liked it better with more food and a drier place to sleep, but, as he’d said, Unkerlanter peasants could get by on very little.

Saying as much would only get him into trouble, and he knew it. He tried an oblique approach: “A lot of the men are pretty frazzled right now.”

“I know that. I’m pretty frazzled myself,” Hawart replied. “But so is the kingdom. If Unkerlant folds up, it won’t matter that we got to sit here happy in the swamp for a while--and the fight’s already moving past it on both sides. You can hear that.”

“Aye,” Leudast said. Every one of Hawart’s words was the truth, and he knew it. But he still didn’t want to leave this shelter that had been so long in coming and so hard to find.

And then one of the sentries came trotting back from the eastern approaches to the high ground. “There’s Algarvians starting to probe the swamp, sir,” he told Hawart.

“Still think we can drive ‘em back whenever we please, Alboin?” Leudast asked.

The youngster scratched at his formidable nose. “It’s gotten harder, Sergeant,” he admitted, “but we aren’t licked yet.” He had a burn above one eyebrow. A couple of fingers’ difference in the path of the beam that had scarred him and it would have cooked his brains inside his head.

“Only three real paths that lead here,” Leudast said. “The redheads’ll be a while finding ‘em, too. They’ll spend a couple of days floundering in the mud, odds are, and we can hold ‘em off for a long time even if I’m wrong.”

Hawart laughed, though he didn’t sound very happy doing it. “The war’s coming to us whether we like it or not,” he said. “Me, I don’t like it very much.” He glanced up at Alboin. “Your orders are, don’t blaze unless you’re discovered or unless they strike a path and come straight for us. If they don’t, we’ll pull back after dark and see if we can find the rest of our army.”

Alboin saluted and repeated the orders back. Then he headed east to pass them on to the other lookouts and to return to his own station. Watching his broad back, Leudast slowly nodded. Alboin was a veteran now, all right. He’d seen the bad along with the good, and he was still fighting and not too discouraged.

Captain Hawart and his men got about half of what Leudast had predicted: as much as anyone could expect when dealing with Algarvians without snow on the ground. The sun was going down in the southwest before King Mezentio’s men realized the swamp was defended. Then they started a brisk little skirmish with the sentries. They sent more and more soldiers forward to drive back the Unkerlanters, and also started lobbing eggs in the general direction of the strongpoint.