Jaws of Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  “I will tell you what could be better,” Xavega answered at once. “The spells could be in Lagoan, or even in classical Kaunian. Because they are in Kuusaman, I have to learn them phonetically, and I do not see how anyone pronounces your language.”

  “I have no trouble with it,” Leino said, laughing. “Now, the sneezes and sounds through your nose that go into Lagoan—I think no sensible language should have those.”

  “Lagoan is a beautiful language,” Xavega said. “Lagoan is the most beautiful language in the world. Only Sibian and Algarvian even come close.”

  You think so because they’re Algarvic languages, too, Leino thought. He didn’t raise the issue with Xavega. Some things simply weren’t worth arguing about. Before he could find some safe way of steering them away from the beauty or lack of some in Lagoan, a soldier outside did it for him by calling out in Kuusaman: “You wizards decent in there?”

  How noisy had Xavega been? Leino hadn’t paid close attention to that. Doing his best not to sound embarrassed, he answered, “Aye. What needs doing?”

  The soldier stuck his head into the tent. Xavega squawked; she hadn’t followed the brief conversation. Still speaking Kuusaman, the soldier said, “Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got a Jelgavan here. He speaks some classical Kaunian. Can you translate?”

  “Aye, I’ll do that,” Leino replied in Kuusaman. He translated the exchange for Xavega, then added, “Unless you would rather?”

  “No, you go ahead,” she said. “You would have to translate for me if I did it. This way, I can keep studying here. You see how efficient I am—just like our allies to the west.” By her expression, she didn’t mean that as a compliment to the Unkerlanters.

  “Fair enough,” Leino said: no point discussing what he thought or didn’t think of King Swemmel and Swemmel’s kingdom, not right now. He returned to Kuusaman, telling the officer, “Take me to this Jelgavan, then.”

  The blond proved bigger and younger than he’d expected. “Hail. I am Talsu son of Traku,” he said, and then had to stop and think. As the officer had said, he knew some classical Kaunian, but he wasn’t fluent in it, as an educated man would have been. After that pause, he went on, “Algarvian line am—uh, is—before the town of Skrunda, aye?”

  “Of course,” Leino answered. And it was indeed of course; the islanders had been tapping at that line for most of a week, but hadn’t yet found a weak spot. Then he realized why the Jelgavan might have come, so he asked, “Do you know a way through it?”

  Talsu son of Traku nodded. “I do. I am living in Skrunda all of mine life. I am—was—in army of King Donalitu’s. Now I am irregular hereabouts.”

  He could make himself understood, even if his grammar left something to be desired. But… Leino said, “Did not the irregulars in these parts suffer a great blow not long ago?”

  “That am truth,” Talsu said grimly. “We not can to fight much. But I am knowing the of the barbarians position. I am knowing way past it. Men can to go. Behemothses can to go.” He murdered conjugations, declensions, and syntax.

  Leino didn’t care. He liked what he was hearing, regardless of how it was phrased. When he translated for the Kuusaman officer, that worthy’s smile said he liked it pretty well, too. He said, “Tell this fellow we’ll find him an officer or two who can follow Kaunian, and he can lead them, and they can lead our men. We’ll flank those fornicating Algarvians right out of their boots.”

  When Leino translated that quite literally, Talsu’s pale eyes lit up with a fierce fire. “Let us bring woe to the barbarians,” he declared, and then, with a grin that made him look even younger than he was, “Hortatory subjunctive. I remember how to make.”

  “Good,” Leino said, not smiling so broadly as he would have liked. “Right now, I think remembering how to make trouble for the Algarvians is more important.”

  “Even so,” Talsu agreed. When he stuck to stock phrases, he did well enough.

  “I will come with you until we find a combat officer with whom you can talk,” Leino said. “I am only a mage. I fear I am not worth much in the field.”

  “If you can stop the of the barbarians sorcery, you are worth of much,” Talsu said. “You can to save many of Kaunians blood.”

  After Leino turned that into Kuusaman, the officer who’d got him nodded and said, “He’s right.” Leino nodded, too; he couldn’t very well disagree. The officer continued, “Well, let’s find some more overeducated types who call tell what this fellow’s going on about.”

  “It would be handy if more of us spoke Jelgavan,” Leino said.

  “It’d be even handier if this bastard spoke Kuusaman,” the officer said. “Come on with me. I have two or three fellows I can ask.” He had to go through five men before finding two who could handle classical Kaunian tolerably well. When he did, he gave Leino half a bow. “I think you can get back to whatever you were doing before, sir.” His eyes twinkled. “Maybe you’ll be ready to do it again.”

  “That would be nice,” Leino said dryly, “but I don’t think I’d better. If you do go and outflank Mezentio’s men, they won’t stop at anything to push you back. I don’t know what that means as far as fighting goes, but I know just what it means when you talk about magecraft. I think Xavega and I ought to be ready to try to block it.”

  “You’re right.” The officer’s lips skinned back from his teeth in what looked like a smile but wasn’t. “Here’s hoping you don’t have to do what you’re ready to try.”

  “Please to translate?” Talsu said. Leino pretended he hadn’t heard. The Jelgavan already knew what the Algarvians might do. Leino didn’t feel like talking about it. He knew what he and Xavega were supposed to do if Mezentio’s men did start their sorcery—start murdering blonds, he glossed mentally. But he’d never tried the counterspells, and didn’t care to dwell on that, or even to admit it. Confidence counted for a great deal in a mage.

  When he got back to the tent, he found Xavega so deeply immersed in the grimoire, she hardly noticed his return. That pleased him; they both needed to be ready to do what they could against the Algarvians. After a while, she did glance up from the book. “What did the Jelgavan want?” she inquired. Leino explained. Xavega nodded. “Let us hope he can do what he says he can.”

  “Hortatory subjunctive,” Leino murmured. She looked puzzled. This time, he didn’t explain. Instead, he said, “If we do look like flanking them, they are liable to start killing people. When they do, we shall feel them. We cannot help but feel them. And we shall have to try to stop them and turn their accursed sorcery back on them.”

  That made Xavega turn serious on the instant. She said, “You are right, of course. I think, the first time, you had better do the incanting. Draw on me for power; I will give you everything I have. But I am not positive I can cast a proper spell in Kuusaman.”

  “Let it be as you say,” Leino replied. “If you are not positive you can, you should not try, not when you would be going into the teeth of the Algarvians’ conjuration.”

  “My thought exactly,” Xavega said. “Thank you for seeing things the same way and not reckoning me a coward.”

  What an Algarvic notion, Leino thought. We Kuusamans mostly have better sense than to try something we know is beyond us. Aloud, he said, “Anyone would have—everyone does have—good reason to worry about what Mezentio’s mages are doing.”

  To his surprise, she kissed him. “Not many Lagoan men would be so understanding,” she said. She was probably right, too. Lagoans, as he’d thought only a little while before, were cousins to the Algarvians, and if any folk in this war had tried something beyond their power, it was the one Mezentio led.

  With soft, muffled calls and the clank of armor on behemoths and their crewmen, a good-sized force of Kuusaman soldiers left the camp, heading west. Leino hoped Talsu knew what he was talking about. He also hoped Talsu wasn’t leading his countrymen into a trap. Some few Jelgavans loathed King Donalitu enough to stay loyal to Mezentio no matter what his men did to blo
nds.

  Then Leino stopped caring about politics, for Xavega kissed him again, more emphatically this time. Telling the Kuusaman officer he wouldn’t yield to temptation was one thing. But he and Xavega had both started getting undressed once more when they suddenly froze, him with her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Curse the Algarvians!” he said, his reasons now intimate along with the wider-ranging ones of the war. But that heaviness in the air, almost palpable to a sorcerer, meant Mezentio’s mages were murdering more Kaunians.

  “Now we find out what we can do,” Xavega said, “aside from that, I mean.” She let her hand rest affectionately on his crotch for a moment, but then grabbed her tunic and started closing it once more.

  Probably just as well that she is, Leino thought. I can’t afford to be distracted, not now, not trying an important spell for the first time. Gathering himself, he began the charm he was sure his wife had helped shape. He tasted the irony once more, then set it aside—he had no time for it now. It too was a distraction.

  So was Xavega, coming up behind him and setting a hand on his shoulder as he incanted. But she was a necessary distraction. Here with the magecraft, she gave unstintingly of herself, more than she did in bed. He felt power flowing from her into him as he chanted and made his passes. And he felt the powers within both of them building as he shaped the spell, building into a sorcerous lance he could aim at the redheads, could use to oppose the darker power they were unleashing.

  Could—and did. With a groan almost like the one he would have made at the end with Xavega, he loosed the force pent up inside him. And he felt it strike home, felt it pierce the enemy’s own potent magecraft. Whatever they’d been doing with their murderous magic, it was ruined now—and so, he thought, were the wizards who’d attempted it.

  Xavega felt the same thing. Eyes shining, she turned him toward her and kissed him. “We did it!” she exclaimed. Leino’s answering nod was dizzy for more reasons than one. How much had the conjuration taken out of him. Not too much, he hoped. Xavega dropped to her knees. “Where were we?” she asked, looking up at him with eyes full of mischief. They hadn’t been quite there, but it seemed to Leino as good a place as any, and far better than most. He set a hand on the back of her head, urging her on.

  “This way,” Talsu said to one of the Kuusaman officers who spoke about as much classical Kaunian as he did. “Do you to see? No barbarians here. Some on that side of hills, others on this side, but none here. They not to know of way through here.”

  “I see,” the dark little slant-eyed man replied. “This is good. If we get through, this is very good. I think now that we get through.” He spoke in his own oddly rhythmic language to his countrymen. A couple of them answered in the same speech. Talsu understood not a word of it, but he still would have guessed the Kuusamans were pleased with the way things were going.

  “We give the Algarvians right up the—” The Kuusaman officer used a phrase Talsu hadn’t heard before. He didn’t even know whether the last couple of words were Kuusaman or classical Kaunian. He didn’t care very much, either. Whatever language they were in, he got the message. He laughed out loud. He liked it, too.

  He led the Kuusamans on the winding track past Skrunda. The Algarvians probably didn’t even know it was there. They couldn’t find out everything about the kingdom they’d occupied, and they wouldn’t have needed to do any fighting here since the earliest days of their invasion, if then. Plenty of people could have told the Kuusamans and Lagoans about it. Talsu happened to be the one who had.

  If the Kuusamans get in behind Skrunda, the redheads will have to pull back, he thought. And if they pull back, they ‘II leave my family alone after that. They ‘II have to, because they won’t be able to reach them. Powers above grant that everyone is still safe. They wouldn ‘t have done anything to them … would they?

  I’ll find out. Once the Algarvians are gone, I’ll find out. That’s what the Kuusamans and the Lagoans are good for: driving out Mezentio’s men. We couldn‘t do it for ourselves, but it’s still going to get done.

  “There.” He pointed for the Kuusaman officer. “Do you to see? You are gone by Skrunda now. No Algarvian positions here. No barbarians here. Your men can to go ahead.”

  “I see,” the foreigner said. Except for Algarvians, he was among the first foreigners Talsu had ever dealt with. He called out to his own men, and to the behemoths with them. Then he slapped Talsu on the back. He had to reach up to do it; he was a head shorter than the Jelgavan, and so were most of his countrymen. He was short beside Algarvians, too. But with a stick in his hands, what size he was didn’t matter much. He grinned and repeated himself: “Right up the—”

  “Aye,” Talsu said fiercely.

  The Kuusaman called out again in his own language. His men and behemoths went forward without the slightest hesitation. They shared that trait with the Algarvians: when they found an opening, they swarmed to take advantage of it. Talsu didn’t think any part of the Jelgavan army had ever moved so fast during this war. That was a good reason why there was no Jelgavan army any more, unless King Donalitu was reconstituting one in the lands the Lagoan and Kuusaman armies had regained for him.

  From where Talsu stood, he could see a long way into the flat country west of Skrunda. He could see where the Algarvians suddenly realized a dagger had been thrust through their defenses. And he could see the Kuusamans rushing past the redheads’ handful of pickets, giving them enough attention to keep them from slowing things down and not a copper more. That was another lesson Mezentio’s men had taught, another lesson the Jelgavans hadn’t learned.

  “What are you going to do about that, you stinking whoresons?” Talsu said, almost hugging himself with glee. “How do you like it when it happens to you?”

  But then, almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the ground quivered under his feet like an animal in pain. He cried out in horror and in fear. The Algarvians wasted no time hitting back, either, and he knew just how they were doing it: with the life blood of Kaunians.

  What would, what could, the Kuusamans do about that? He waited for disaster to strike them, as it had struck the band of irregulars of which he’d been a part after they did too good a job of harassing the redheads.

  Talsu waited, but that didn’t happen. What did happen was a flash of light somewhere off to the west, almost at the edge of his vision. And after that, he felt no more of the sorcery that had wrecked his comrades in the steeper hills to the south.

  What had the Kuusamans done? The first fellow he’d talked to, the one who’d spoken classical Kaunian really well, had worn a mage’s badge. Had he had something to do with whatever had just happened? How should I know? Talsu wondered. It didn’t really matter, anyhow. What mattered was that the redheads’ magic had failed them.

  Did the Kuusamans here even know what their sorcerers had done? Talsu doubted it. That didn’t really matter, either. The redheads in these parts hadn’t been able to stop their foes through force of magecraft. Now they would have to try through force of arms. And I don’t think they’ve got the force of arms to do it, not when their flank s been turned.

  He wasn’t, he didn’t have to be, part of the battle for Skrunda and the surrounding territory. Watching it unfold without risk to him was a rare luxury, like expensive wine or extra-soft wool for a pair of trousers. A steady stream of Kuusaman soldiers slogged past him, heading into the fight. He waved to the men of each company. They were doing his kingdom an enormous favor. He wondered if they thought of it that way, or whether they were as resigned to doing as they were told as he had been during his army days. The latter, he would have bet.

  Dragons flew low overhead, dragons hard to spot because they were painted in Kuusaman sky blue and sea green. No Algarvian dragons that he saw rose to challenge them. He hadn’t seen many Algarvian dragons here in Jelgava, not at any time and especially not the past year or so. Where are they? he thought. Defending Algarve itself, I suppose, and trying to hold back the Unker
lanters. But Mezentio’s soldiers in these parts are paying a big price because the redheads don’t have enough. That left him something less than brokenhearted.

  He trudged forward, sticking to the fields by the side of the track so the advancing Kuusamans would get the benefit of the best ground. Before he’d gone very far, he passed a crater in the ground and a corpse with nastily mangled legs. He gulped. Even if the Algarvians didn’t have soldiers covering this route, they’d buried eggs in the ground to slow up an enemy advance. Haifa mile farther on lay a dead behemoth with its right hind leg only a bloody mess. Talsu gulped again.

  Here came some kilted Algarvians back toward him. They weren’t part of a counterattack. None of them carried a stick, and all of them held their hands high over their heads. They were captives, herded along by a couple of bowlegged little Kuusamans. When Jelgava fell, a handful of Algarvians had taken a battalion’s worth of Talsu’s countrymen into captivity. Now they were tasting the humiliation they’d dished out. Some of them looked weary. More had that beaten-dog grin of relief at being alive.

  Going down onto lower ground meant Talsu couldn’t see Skrunda anymore. But he knew where it lay, and made for it without hesitation. He kept peering northwest, for fear he’d see a great column of greasy black smoke rising into the sky. That would mean the redheads were fighting there, or else that they’d fired the town to help cover their retreat. He hoped they would do no such thing, but knew he couldn’t be sure what they might try.

  To the Kuusamans, he was just one more civilian now. He did his best to stay out of their way, too. Some of them were liable to blaze first and ask questions later.

  Then the road rose and let him see his home town again. He felt like cheering—it looked more or less intact. He hurried toward it with the eagerness of a lover rushing toward his beloved. And he was rushing toward his beloved, too, for Gailisa was there—or he hoped with all his heart she was.

  He trudged into Skrunda an hour or so later. The first thing he saw was two Jelgavan bodies hanging from lampposts. The placards tied round their necks said, THEY FOUGHT AGAINST ALGARVE. Neither of them was anybody Talsu knew well. He let out a silent sigh of relief at that.