Through the Darkness

For the first half hour or so, everything went as smoothly as the Sibian could have wanted. But then the dragonflier looked back toward the moon, which hung in the northwestern sky--and away from which the leviathan was swimming. “I hate to tell you, my dear fellow, but home is that way.” Mezentio pointed northward, as if certain Cornelu had made a foolish mistake and would turn around once it was pointed out to him.

Getting ready once more to pull out his knife, Cornelu answered, “No, Algarve is that way. My home is--was--in Sibiu, and I’m taking you to Lagoas.” He let his native growl come out as he spoke.

“Why, you son of a whore!” In the moonlight, the Algarvian’s face was a shadowed mask of astonishment. “You cheated me!”

“Ruse of war,” Cornelu said calmly. “I’ll tell you what: if you don’t like it, you can let go and swim back to Algarve. Go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”

For a moment, he thought the dragonflier would let go. Cornelu wouldn’t have missed a moment’s sleep if the fellow had. Then the Algarvian shifted as if thinking about attacking him instead. Cornelu did draw the knife. Its blade gleamed. The dragonflier cursed. “No wonder you wanted me to give you my dagger.”

“No wonder at all,” Cornelu agreed. “But you really don’t want to try anything stupid. You must know the sorts of magic leviathan-riders get. All I have to do is make the beast stay down longer than you can hold your breath.”

The Algarvian didn’t lack for nerve. “Suppose I let go then?”

“You get to swim home, same as before,” Cornelu answered. “Or, if you annoy me enough, you make about two bites for a leviathan.”

“Curse you,” the Algarvian said glumly. “All right, it’s a captives’ camp for me. I wish I could have dropped an egg on your head a year ago.”

Cornelu shrugged. “Then you’d be drowning about now, or maybe a shark or a wild leviathan would have found you before you went under. You ought to thank me, not curse me.”

“I’d thank you if you were one of my countrymen,” the dragonflier said. “You didn’t sound like a stinking Sib.”

“I’ve studied Algarvian,” Cornelu said. “We know our enemies.”

“It didn’t help you,” the dragonflier replied. He didn’t know how close he came to dying in that instant; Cornelu was within a hair’s breadth of drowning him. Only the thought that the fellow might have useful information stayed his hand. The Algarvian went on, “Besides, you Sibs are Algarvic, too. You shouldn’t be fighting King Mezentio. You should join him in the real battle, the battle against Unkerlant.”

“No, thanks,” Cornelu told him. “Getting your kingdom invaded says a lot about whom you ought to be fighting.”

“You don’t understand,” the Algarvian dragonflier insisted.

“I understand well enough,” Cornelu said. “And I understand who’s got whom here.” To that, the Algarvian dragonflier had no answer. At Cornelu’s urging, the leviathan kept swimming south, on toward Lagoas.

Along with the rest of the men in his training platoon, Sidroc ran through the forest. His legs ached. His lungs burned. Sweat poured off him. He dared not slow, even if he did feel as if he were coming to pieces. The Algarvian drill instructors assigned to turn Plegmund’s Brigade into a real fighting outfit seemed to be made of metal and magic. They never got tired and they never failed to notice--and to punish--a mistake.

“Forward!” one of them shouted--in Algarvian, of course--as he trotted along beside the Forthwegian recruits. “Keep moving!”

Both of those were standard Algarvian commands. Sidroc had expected the redheads would make him into a soldier. Before joining the Brigade, he hadn’t thought they would make him into an Algarvian-speaking soldier. He wished he’d studied harder at the academy.

He splashed through a stream. The edge of the forest lay not far ahead. He and his comrades had run this route before. Once they got out from under the trees, they had less than a mile to go to get back to their tents.

“Faster!” the Algarvian shouted.

If I go any faster, I’ll fall over dead, Sidroc thought resentfully. The Algarvians were even worse than Uncle Hestan for making him do things he didn’t want to do. He’d paid Hestan back, paid him in blood: Leofsig’s blood. He hadn’t really intended to kill his cousin, but he wasn’t sorry he had, either. Leofsig had been another one who made him feel like dirt just because he wasn’t a lousy Kaunian-lover. He cursed well wasn’t--and neither was Leofsig, not any more.

Sidroc burst out of the trees and into the sunshine beyond. He could see the tents ahead--and the arch through which he and his comrades would have to run to get to them. He wished he were still back near Eoforwic, but the whole regiment in training had gone to this camp in the uplands of southern Forthweg only days after the Algarvian authorities got him out of gaol in Gromheort.