Jaws of Darkness

“You’re no fool, are you?” the captain said-his name was Drogden.

“There’s plenty who’d tell you otherwise, sir,” Leudast said, and got a laugh from Drogden before going on, “My guess is, I’ve just seen a lot of war.”

“Our whole kingdom has seen a lot of war, and my guess is that we’ve got a good deal more to see yet before the redheads are licked,” Captain Drogden said.

“My guess is, that’s a pretty good guess,” Leudast said.

Drogden nodded. He was an older man, close to forty, weather-beaten enough to show he’d seen a lot of war, too. Maybe he was a jumped-up sergeant like Leudast, or maybe he’d spent a long, long time as a lieutenant. “Aye, the Algarvians have no quit in ‘em,” he said. “That’s plain enough. But still and all, things’ll be different once we finally go and break into Algarve.”

His voice held an odd anticipation. “Different how, sir?” Leudast asked.

“I’ll tell you how,” the regimental commander said. “We get to pay those whoresons back for everything they did to Unkerlant when their peckers were up, that’s how. We can burn their farms pretty cursed soon. We can wreck their villages. Our mages can tear up their ley line. And, speaking of peckers up, we can throw their women down on the ground and do what we want with them.”

Leudast grunted. He knew the Algarvians had done such things in the Unkerlanter territory they’d overrun. “Powers above, I’ve never even seen a redheaded woman before,” he said.

“Neither have I. But if we don’t get blazed, I expect we’re going to. It should be fun.” With a leer, Drogden slapped him on the back. “Spread the word through your company. It’ll give the men something extra to fight for.”

Most of his troopers, Leudast discovered, had already had that thought for themselves. Some looked forward to it. But one man said, “Far as I’m concerned, we should just kill all the Algarvians, the men and the women both. Then we won’t have to worry about ‘em ever again.” Leudast couldn’t deny that that notion held more than a little appeal for him, too.

When the attack went in that afternoon, the Unkerlanters pushed forward for a couple of miles without much trouble. Then they came to the Skamandros River, which the rain had made too wide and swift to ford, and discovered that the redheads had wrecked all the bridges over it. They also discovered that the Algarvians had a demon of a lot of well-concealed egg-tossers on the far bank. “What now?” Leudast asked when he saw Captain Drogden again.

“Now we wait for the artificers to make some new bridges, or else for our dragons and egg-tossers to smash up the redheads and give us some kind of chance to cross,” Drogden answered. “Don’t know what else we can do.”

“It’s not so bad, sir,” Leudast said. “We’re moving forward, and that counts for more than anything else.”

Sidroc hadn’t liked Unkerlanters, and they weren’t that much different from Forthwegians. Now that the Algarvian army was forced back into Yanina, and Plegmund’s Brigade with it, he discovered that he really didn’t like Yaninans.

“Where’s your food?” he demanded of a ski

“Blaze the son of a whore,” Ceorl suggested. “That’ll teach him.”

“It won’t do us any good, though,” Sidroc said. “Here, watch me be as efficient as an Unkerlanter. Go inside the house there and bring out this bastard’s wife. Don’t get rough with her or anything, but bring her.”

Ceorl laughed. “I’ll do it. I think I know what you’ve got in mind.”

In he went. The Yaninan villager looked alarmed. He looked a lot more alarmed when the woman cried out. But when he took a step toward the house, Sidroc aimed his stick at the fellow’s face. “Don’t even think about it, pal,” he said. Either the words or the gesture got through; the Yaninan froze, though his mouth twisted in a snarl of hate.

Out came Ceorl, manhandling a graying woman about half his size. Sidroc knew no Yaninan, but he was sure she was calling Ceorl everything she could. Ceorl realized that, too. “I hope the old shitter stays clammed up,” he said. “I’d enjoy doing in this bitch.”

“We’ll find out in a minute.” Sidroc switched back to Algarvian: “One more time, pal. Where is the food? She’ll be sorry if you keep quiet.”

Looking daggers at him, the Yaninan answered in pretty good Algarvian of his own: “Dig under the water barrel.” He looked as if he wanted to say a good deal more than that, but he bit it back. That was one of the wiser things he’d ever done.

“No.” Sidroc gestured. “You dig, pal. And you had better come up with some good stuff, too.”

He went into the house with the Yaninan, and watched the ski

“You see?” Sidroc said to the Yaninan. “You just saved your wife.”

“But the two of you, this is too much for you,” the man with the gray mustache said.

“We’ve got friends.” Sidroc grabbed a long string of sausages. “Come on, Ceorl. Lend a hand.”

Between them, they did a good job of plundering the peasants’ larder. When they showed their comrades what they’d got, they were the heroes of the moment. “Haven’t eaten this well since we got out of Forthweg,” Sergeant Werferth said. He was exaggerating, but not by a great deal.

Sudaku, the blond from the Phalanx of Valmiera who’d broken out of the Mandelsloh pocket with the men of Plegmund’s Brigade, nodded. “Good food,” he said in Algarvian. He was eating enough for two himself.

“If we had more spirits, we’d have more spirits,” Ceorl said, and laughed loudly at his own wit. Sidroc chuckled, too. He wasn’t going to let a fellow Forthwegian down, not even a son of a whore like Ceorl.

Werferth said, “Maybe you ought to go shake down that Yaninan of yours again. If he hid the food under the water barrel, he’s probably got a distillery on the roof.”

“I would not be a bit surprised,” Sidroc said-in Algarvian, so the men who weren’t Forthwegians but had attached themselves to the now motley unit could understand. He nodded to Ceorl. “What do you say we go have a look?”

“Probably find that ugly bastard and his uglier woman drunk and screwing their brains out.” Ceorl started to heave himself to his feet.

Before he got upright, eggs started landing not far away. He threw himself flat. So did Sidroc. So did all the men who’d been sharing the booty they’d found. Veterans knew better than to stay on their feet, or even sitting, when the Unkerlanters started getting frisky.

More of the eggs landed west of the Yaninan village than square on it. That cheered Sidroc, but not for long. A couple of minutes later, Algarvians- and a few Forthwegians, and a couple of the Valmieran Kaunians who’d taken service with King Mezentio -came ru

Sergeant Werferth stuck his head up in the hope of spotting an Algarvian officer-or perhaps in the hope of not spotting one. When he didn’t, he spoke in Algarvian: “I am in charge here. We are going to get over that river east of the village as quick as we can. We have no hope of fighting their behemoths without some of our own.”

That was a bitter truth the men of Plegmund’s Brigade and the Algarvians had learned in too many encounters throughout eastern Unkerlant. Sidroc said, “Once we’re over the bridge”-he hoped there was a bridge; he’d swum one stream to escape Swemmel’s soldiers, and didn’t want to have to try it again-”we’d better wreck it, to keep the enemy from getting a foothold on the other side.”