Through the Darkness

More men with tawny yellow hair and beards who wore leggings like Ist-van’s waved his squad and him forward. “All safe enough,” one of them said. “We’ve cleared the Unkerlanters out of the stretch ahead.”

Istvan didn’t laugh at his countrymen, but keeping quiet wasn’t easy. Brash Kun did speak up: “Nobody knows whether those goat-eaters are cleared out till after they blaze half a dozen men in the back. Some of them will be lurking there, you mark my words.”

“You have no faith,” said one of the warriors beckoning the squad onward.

“We have plenty of faith,” Istvan said before Kun could answer. “We have faith there will be some Unkerlanters all our patrols haven’t swept up. There always are.” He didn’t waste any more time with the guides, but tramped east past them, ever deeper into the woods.

Behind their spectacles, Kun’s eyes were puzzled. “You don’t usually stick up for me like that, Sergeant,” he said.

“I’ll take you over those know-it-alls any day,” Istvan answered. “They haven’t done any real fighting, or they wouldn’t talk like a pack of idiots. Besides, you’re mine. If anybody rakes you over the coals, it’s me. Let them tend to their own. That’s fair. That’s right.”

A few minutes later, off to one side, someone let out a shriek. “He’s been blazed!” someone else shouted. Gyongyosian troopers scurried this way and that, trying to flush out the Unkerlanter sniper. They had no luck.

“No, none of King Swemmel’s men in these parts,” Istvan said. “No chance of that at all.”

“Goat shit,” Kun said. They both laughed, though it wasn’t really funny. Snipers and holdouts took a constant toll on the Gyongyosians trying to force their way through the vast pine forests of western Unkerlant. Endless ferns and tree trunks to hide behind; endless branches on which to perch; endless foliage with which to conceal. . . no, rooting out the enemy was next to impossible. Kun looked now this way, now that. He knew, as the guides had not, that where there was one sniper, there were likely to be more.

Somewhere up ahead, eggs were bursting. Istvan wondered who was tossing them at whom. With the breeze blowing from out of the east, bringing the sound toward his ears, he had trouble being sure. He hoped those eggs were landing on the Unkerlanters’ heads.

“Come on! Come on!” That was Captain Tivadar’s voice. Istvan relaxed a little; if he’d found his company commander, he’d brought the squad somewhere close to where it was supposed to be. Tivadar caught sight of him and waved. “The party’s up ahead.”

“Aye.” Istvan turned to his men. “Come on, you lugs. Back into the line we go.”

“Not enough time pulled back, and we didn’t pull back far enough, either,” Szonyi said. Istvan remembered when he’d been new to the game. He wasn’t any more. He picked the same thing to complain about as Istvan would have, or, for that matter, as a fellow who’d been in the army since before Istvan was born would have.

“They can’t very well give us a proper leave, not when it’s a week’s march back to the nearest ley line that could take us anywhere worth going,” Istvan told him. Istvan had been a sergeant long enough by now to know how to squelch grumblers, too.

“Then they cursed well ought to bring some whores forward,” Szonyi said. Since Istvan thought that was a good idea, too, he didn’t argue any more.

Captain Tivadar fell into step beside him. “Swemmel’s boys are up to something,” he said. “Nobody knows what yet, but they haven’t been standing and fighting the past couple of days the way they would before.”

“Maybe they finally know they’ve been licked.” Istvan threw up a hand. Tivadar sputtered raucous laughter all the same. Istvan went on, “No, I didn’t mean it. They’re tough, no doubt about it.”

“And they’ve got more lines in these woods than a thief has on his back after he takes his forty lashes,” Tivadar added. “No, if they don’t fight now, it’s because they’re plotting something nasty for later.”

“Aye, you’re likely right, sir,” Istvan agreed with a sigh.

More eggs burst, closer now. Istvan looked around for the nearest hole in which he could hide, something he did as automatically as he breathed, and because he wanted to keep breathing. That also made him take more notice of the forest through which he was marching. Tivadar noticed him noticing; the captain didn’t miss much. “You see what I mean?”

“Aye,” Istvan said again, nodding. “If they’d fought the way they usually do, the woods here would be beaten flat. Instead, most of the trees are still standing.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” the company commander agreed. “When they’ve always done one thing and they all of a sudden change to another, anybody with any sense starts wondering why.”

An egg burst close enough to send branches crashing down only a few strides away. “They haven’t quite given up yet,” Istvan remarked dryly.

Tivadar chuckled. “No, it doesn’t seem that way, does it? But it’s not the same kind of fight as it has been, and I don’t trust it.”