Through the Darkness

This time, Istvan wasn’t the only one who blazed at them. Down they went, one after another, like oxen slaughtered for a noble’s wedding feast. A few of them let out howls of pain as they fell. Most simply died, death taking them by surprise. Istvan had the feeling he’d just disrupted the advance of at least a company.

After a bit, the Unkerlanters decided they wanted no part of the position he and his squad were defending. They fell back. He decided not to stay around and try to hold in place. “Back,” he ordered urgently. “Next things they’ll do is, they’ll hit this place with everything they’ve got.”

As he knew winter, so he knew the Unkerlanters. They didn’t withdraw from a position because they’d lost hope of taking it. They withdrew because they wanted to hit it a different, harder, blow. Runners--well, waddlers in this country--were surely going back to their officers with the bad news. Some of those officers would have crystallomancers. Before too long, fury would fall on the fighters who’d presumed to slow Swemmel’s soldiers.

And so, for now, retreat. It galled Istvan; his instinct, like the Unkerlanters’, was to go forward first. But he didn’t know how many of the foe pressed against him. And so he fell back a quarter of a mile. Having advanced through that stretch of the wood, he knew what was there. Before long, he and his men took a position as strong as the one they’d just left.

They’d hardly settled in when eggs started falling on the little clearing they’d abandoned. “The sergeant knows what’s what,” Szonyi said cheerfully. If nothing had happened to that clearing, Istvan would have lost respect. As things were, he gained it. Being no less selfish than any other man, he liked this better.

After a while, silence returned up ahead. “What now, Sergeant?” Kun asked. The question was half serious, half challenging--a demand for Istvan to prove he was as smart as Szonyi said he was.

“Now we go forward again,” Istvan answered at once: both the warrior’s response and, he was sure, the right tactical choice. “They’ll advance again, and they’ll be sure we’re all dead. Here’s our chance to show ‘em they’re wrong. But we’ve got to move fast.”

Moving fast was easy enough till they got near the clearing they’d left. The eggs had knocked down a good many trees, and the Gyongyosians had to scramble over or around them to get close to their previous position.

Istvan didn’t mind, or not very much. “Look at all the fine hiding places they’ve handed us, boys,” he said. “Snuggle down, and then we’ll blaze them right out of their boots.”

“That wouldn’t be bad,” Szonyi said. “Those big felt ones they wear hold the cold out better than anything we issue.” Having seen a fair number of Gyongyosians wearing felt boots whose original owners didn’t need them anymore, Istvan could hardly disagree.

“Here they come!” Kun snarled. Maybe he’d used his little magic for detecting people moving toward him. Maybe he just had good ears and-- thanks to his spectacles--sharp eyes.

The Unkerlanters came on openly, confidently--they seemed sure their eggs had cleaned up whatever enemies might be waiting for them. Fools, Istvan thought. They had to be new men, men without much experience in battle. Veterans would have taken less for granted. Some fools lived and learned and became veterans. Istvan was determined that these men wouldn’t.

Again, he chose to wait till the Unkerlanters were almost on top of him before he started blazing. Again, his men imitated him. Again, they worked a frightful slaughter on Swemmel’s troopers. This time, it was too much for the Unkerlanters to bear. They fled, leaving dead and wounded behind them.

“Boots,” Szonyi said happily, and proceeded to strip them off the corpse closest to him and put them on his own feet.

“Those are too big,” Istvan said.

“They’re supposed to be big,” Szonyi insisted. “That way, you can stuff them full of cloth or whatever you’ve got so they keep your feet warm even better.” But whenever he moved, the boots tried to slide off. At last, cursing, he kicked them away and allowed, “Well, maybe they are a little too big.”

“Let me try them,” Istvan said. “I think my feet are bigger than yours.” He sat down on a tree trunk, pulled off his own, Gyongyosian-issue, boots and put on the ones the dead Unkerlanter had worn. They fit him better than they had Szonyi, and they were warmer and more flexible than the ones he’d had on. He walked a few steps. “I’ll keep ‘em.”

“Let me see if I can find a pair to fit me,” Kun said. He had plenty of Unkerlanter corpses from which to choose; Swemmel’s men had paid a heavy price for gaining not an inch of ground. Before long, all the Gyongyosians who wanted felt boots had pairs to suit them. Istvan nodded in no small satisfaction. If you had to fight a war, this was the way to go about it.