Jaws of Darkness

“Go ahead.” Leudast had a pretty good idea of what was coming.

And, sure enough, the wizard said, “How did your healer decide to use that particular charm on you? Very often, we reserve it for, ah, special cases.”

“What do you mean, special cases?” Leudast asked in turn. The mage didn’t answer. But Leudast had little trouble drawing his own conclusions. It had to mean something like, people more important than a lieutenant with a peasant accent. He said, “ Marshal Rathar personally promoted me.”

That had impressed the healer who’d treated him. It impressed this mage, too. He said, “No wonder the man used it with you, then.”

Not what you know-who you know. Leudast had had that thought before. Anybody could become a sergeant. Going that far was easy, if you were a good soldier-and if the Algarvians didn’t kill you, of course. He’d been pretty lucky, getting away with only two wounds. He wondered how many Unkerlanter soldiers who’d started the war with the redheads were still in it. Then he wondered how many of them had become officers. He’d been lucky in more than staying alive, and he knew it.

“You’re ready to go, Lieutenant.” Now that the sorcerer knew Leudast knew Marshal Rathar -or at least that Rathar knew him-he was noticeably more polite.

“Thanks very much.” Leudast used a little politeness himself. He strode out of the Yaninan farmhouse the regimental healer was using, out into a rain that was begi

And I know I won’t get killed in the next month, too, he thought. Had he been about to die, his leg would have told him of it. I can be as reckless as I want on the field. The Algarvians can’t touch me. For a month, I’ve got a charmed life.

But was that really true? What would happen if, say, he picked up a stick right now and blazed out his own brains? He’d be dead, and his leg wouldn’t have warned him about it.

He shook his head to clear it. Thinking about such things was as likely to make that head ache as drinking too deep from a jar of spirits. He laughed under his breath. It wasn’t nearly so much fun, either.

His company occupied the rest of the village, or what was left of it. The Algarvians had made a stand here a few days before, and most of the huts- actually, the houses were a good deal finer than those in peasant villages in Unkerlant-had either burned or gone up in bursts of sorcerous energy in the nasty process of forcing them out. The ones who hadn’t got out still lay here and there; no one had bothered burying the corpses. Only the chilly weather kept the stink from being worse than it was.

Some of the men who couldn’t fit into the handful of houses still boasting walls and roofs kept dry in tents plundered from the redheads. The rest made do with their greatcoats and stout felt boots. The Unkerlanter army did issue those to everyone, even if Swemmel’s men might not get tents or, for that matter, much in the way of food.

But, regardless of whether Swemmel’s quartermasters got supplies to them, the soldiers had no trouble keeping themselves fed. Brass pots bubbled over fires the rain made smoky but couldn’t douse. Even the men who had only greatcoats seemed contented enough. One thing Unkerlanters knew was how to take care of themselves in the cold and rain.

Once upon a time, Leudast had assumed everybody all over the world knew such things. The trouble the redheads had in the snow the first winter of the war taught him otherwise. So did the fancy food and shelters he and his comrades kept taking from dead Algarvians. How could anyone who needed so much help to fight a war in bad weather seriously expect to win it?

Trying without much luck not to limp on his injured leg, Leudast went over to one of the stewpots and took out his mess tin. A cook with the hood to his greatcoat protecting his face ladled the tin full. “There you go, sir,” he said. His voice was curiously neutral; Leudast hadn’t been with the company long enough to have created much of an impression for good or ill.

“Thanks,” he said now, and dug in with a tin spoon. The stew was hot, which felt good. It had barley and oats and some rather nasty vegetables-the Yaninans ate things Unkerlanters didn’t-and bits of meat. Prodding one of those with his spoon, Leudast asked, “Do I want to know what this is?”

“Could be cursed near anything, sir,” the cook answered. “There’s chunks of two, three different beasts in the pots these days: behemoth and horse and unicorn, maybe even some real pork, too, but I’m not sure about that.”

“I won’t worry about it,” Leudast said. “Whatever it is, it’ll keep me going-and it doesn’t taste too bad.” The cook beamed when he added that.

Eggs started bursting, not very far to the east. As always, the Algarvians fought hard over every inch of ground they yielded. They counterattacked whenever they saw the chance. It was as if they were saying to the Unkerlanters, If you think you can beat us, you ‘re going to have to pay the price.

The ground shook under Leudast’s feet. For a moment, he thought the eggs accounted for that, but then somebody said, “More behemoths coming in.

He looked back toward the west, toward Unkerlant. Sure enough, the big, burly beasts were plenty to make the ground tremble. “What’s it like up ahead?” one of the men on the lead behemoth called as the beasts squelched forward.

“What do you think it’s going to be like?” Leudast answered. “There are redheads up there, and they won’t kiss you when they see you.”

“We’ll kiss them, by the powers above.” The fellow riding the behemoth leaned over to pat the heavy stick mounted on the beast’s armored back. “We’ll kiss them with this. We’ll kiss anybody who gets in our way, you bet we will.”

“Good. They deserve it.” Leudast paused, then asked, “Have you had any trouble from the Yaninans?”

“Not much. They’d be sorry if they gave us any, I’ll tell you that,” the man on the behemoth said. “Some of ‘em like us better than Mezentio’s whoresons, and that’s fine. Some of ‘em like the Algarvians better, I expect, but they haven’t had the nerve to show it, and they’d better not. The army is on our side.”

Leudast snorted. “Aye, I’ve heard the same thing. And it’ll do us just as much good as it ever did the Algarvians.”

“It can soak up some casualties,” the behemoth crewman said. “Better the Yaninans than us.”

“You’re right about that. We’ve paid our share and then some,” Leudast said. The fellow on the behemoth nodded and waved. The beast trudged forward. Its big feet came out of the mud, one after another, with heavy squelching sounds despite the snowshoes that spread its weight. The whole long column of behemoths followed. By the time they all went through, the road was a river of ooze stinking of behemoth dung.

One of Leudast’s men said, “There’ll be another big fight coming up pretty soon. They don’t move behemoths forward unless they mean it.”

“You’re probably right,” Leudast answered. “Only thing we can do about it is try and whip the redheads and not get hurt too bad ourselves.”

“That would be good.” The soldier didn’t sound as if he thought it were very likely to happen, though. Had Leudast been the stuffy sort of officer, he would have given the man a hard time and lectured him about efficiency. Since he’d never been able to stand that kind of officer before getting promoted himself, he kept his mouth shut.

Before long, the regimental commander-himself only a captain-came into the village with orders: “We go forward this afternoon.”

“Aye, sir.” Leudast nodded. “I thought as much when the behemoths came through earlier in the day.”