Through the Darkness

On toward the Britz they went. The Unkerlanters attacked again and again, from south and east and west. Swemmel’s cavalry forces nipped in to raid the supply wagons that kept the relieving force fed and supplied with eggs and with sorcerous charges for their sticks. In spite of everything, the Algarvians and the men of Plegmund’s Brigade kept pushing south.

And then, about a day and a half before they would have reached the Britz, most of their behemoths left the army and headed north. “Have they gone out of their fornicating minds?” Sidroc shouted. “The Unkerlanters still have their behemoths, curse them. How are we supposed to lick ‘em without ours?”

No one had an answer for him till later in the day. Then Werferth, who as a sergeant heard things, said, “Swemmel’s whoresons are mounting a big push on Durrwangen, north of here. If they take the place, then they’ve got us in the bag along with the boys down in Sulingen. Can’t have that. It doesn’t work.”

“Getting over the Britz isn’t going to work, either, not without those behemoths,” Sidroc said.

“We’ve got to try,” Werferth answered. Sidroc grimaced and nodded. Deserting and going north on his own was sure death. Advancing with his comrades was only deadly dangerous. Knowing the odds, the men of the relieving force went on.

They reached the river. They couldn’t cross. The Unkerlanters had too many men in front of it, too many egg-tossers on the southern bank. And they had behemoths left to throw into the fight, behemoths the relieving force could no longer withstand. The Algarvians and the men of Plegmund’s Brigade fell back from the Britz, retreating across the frozen plains of Unkerlant.

A blizzard howled through the woods where Munderic’s band of irregulars took shelter from their foes. As far as Garivald was concerned, the tent pitched above a hole in the ground was no substitute for the warm hut in which he’d passed previous winters with his wife and children and livestock. He didn’t have enough spirits to stay drunk through the winter as he normally would have, either.

And he couldn’t even stay in his inadequate shelter and feed the fire a few twigs at a time. As far as Munderic was concerned, blizzards were the ideal time for the irregulars to be out and doing. “Most of the time, we leave tracks in the snow,” the commander declared. “Not now, by the powers above--the wind will blow them away as fast as we make ‘em.”

“Of course it will,” Garivald said. “And it’ll blow us away just as fast.” Perhaps fortunately for him, the wind also blew his words away, so no one but him heard them.

When Munderic gave orders, it was either obey or raise a mutiny against him. Garivald didn’t want to do that. He didn’t much want to go tramping through the snow, either, but nobody asked what he thought about it. The only people who’d ever asked what he thought of anything were his wife and a few close friends, and they were all far away in Zossen.

Munderic led almost the whole band out against the village of Kluftern, which had a small Algarvian garrison and which also sat close to a ley line. “If we can wipe out the redheads there, we can sabotage that line in a dozen different places--take our time and do it properly,” Munderic said. “That’ll keep Mezentio’s mages scratching like they’re covered with lice.”

He was right; if they could bring it off, that would happen. But Garivald turned to the man closest to him and asked, “How often do these things turn out just the way they’re planned? Next time will be the first, as far as I can see.”

The man next to him turned out to be a woman; Obilot answered, “At least he isn’t counting on magecraft this time around.”

“That’s something,” Garivald agreed. The two of them were on wary speaking terms again. Obilot hated the Algarvians too much to stay furious at anyone else who also hated them. As for Garivald, he wasn’t by nature a particularly quarrelsome man. He’d kept speaking softly, not making things worse than they were already, till Obilot’s temper softened.

Once the irregulars left the shelter of the woods, the wind tore at them harder than ever. Algarvians out in such weather might well have frozen. Every one of the Unkerlanters, though, had been through worse. They trudged along, grumbling but not particularly put out.

“We’ll catch the redheads all cozied up to the fire,” somebody said. “Then we’ll make ‘em pay for being soft.”

That brought a rumble of agreement from everyone who heard it. Garivald rumbled agreement, too, but he didn’t really feel it. Had the Algarvians truly been soft, they never would have overrun the Duchy of Grelz or penetrated Unkerlant to Sulingen and to the outskirts of Cottbus.

Snow swirled around Garivald and blew into his face. He cursed wearily and kept walking. He hoped Munderic was keeping track of the direction in which Kluftern lay. He couldn’t have found it himself on a bet.