Out of the Darkness d-6

by Harry Turtledove

  “I like him, too,” Elimaki said, and then tempered that by adding, “More than I expected to,” so Fernao wasn’t sure how much credit he’d earned. Some, anyhow: by the relief in Pekka’s eyes, perhaps even enough.

  Vanai, these days, was a better housekeeper than she’d ever been, at least when it came to keeping the floor of her flat clean. She hadn’t really sought such neatness; she’d had it forced on her. Saxburh crawled all over the flat. She could go surprisingly-sometimes alarmingly-fast. If she found anything she thought was interesting, it was liable to end up in her mouth before Vanai could take it away from her. The cleaner the floor was, the fewer the chances she had to eat anything disgusting or dangerous.

  Saxburh didn’t appreciate her mother’s vigilance. As far as the baby was concerned, everything she could reach was supposed to go into her mouth. How could she tell what it was if she couldn’t taste it? She fussed and squawked when Vanai took things away from her.

  “Fuss all you like,” Vanai told her after one rescue in the nick of time. “You can’t eat a dead cockroach.” By the way the baby wailed, she was liable to be stunted for life if she didn’t get her fair share of dead bugs.

  Keeping such things out of her hands and, more to the point, out of her mouth was Vanai’s second-biggest worry. It was the biggest one about which she could do anything. Ealstan was and remained somewhere far away to the east. She wondered if she’d even know if anything-powers above, forbid it! — happened to him. She’d heard not a word since he got dragooned into King Swemmel’s army. If he didn’t come back after the war ended, that would tell her what she needed to know-or it might, for the Unkerlanters could simply have hauled him off to the other end of their vast kingdom.

  How would I be able to find out, one way or the other? she wondered. The answer there was painfully obvious: I wouldn’t. She pushed the worry to the back of her mind, as she did whenever she started fretting about what she couldn’t help.

  If only Ealstan were here… If Ealstan were here, he would find life in Eoforwic easier than it had been at any time since he and Vanai came to the Forthwegian capital. It had been weeks since Algarvian dragons appeared overhead. Gromheort still held out, but the rest of Forthweg belonged to Unkerlant these days-and, nominally, to King Beornwulf as well.

  Beornwulf seemed to be doing what he could (and, perhaps, what the Unkerlanters would let him) to be a good king. Broadsheets outlawing price-gouging in the marketplace went up alongside sheets singing the praises of Swemmel’s soldiers. Vanai looked out her kitchen window. A work crew was pasting up fresh broadsheets even now. I wonder if I could put glass in the window again, Vanai thought. It wouldn‘t get broken right away, not any more.

  She couldn’t afford to look out the window for long. She looked back toward Saxburh instead. It wasn’t a dead cockroach this time-just a dust bunny. Vanai got it away from the baby. When Saxburh fussed, Vanai said, “Come on-let’s go see what the new sheets say.”

  Scooping her daughter off the floor, she carried her down the stairs and out into the street. A few other people were looking at the new broadsheets, too, but only a few. There’d been too many broadsheets-from King Penda, from the Algarvians, and now from the Unkerlanters and their puppet king-for anybody to get very excited over one more. Vanai wasn’t very excited, just curious and looking for an excuse to get out of the flat for a little while.

  A Forthwegian man reading one of the new broadsheets pasted to a fence turned away with a disgusted gesture. Another one said, “Well, here’s something else that won’t fly.”

  The first fellow said, “And what if it did? Doesn’t hardly matter anymore, does it? I ask you, is this a waste of time or what?” Shaking his head, he walked off.

  Vanai went up to a broadsheet. “Oh,” she said softly when she saw its title; the headline was CONCERNING KAUNIANS. She still wore her sorcerous disguise, and so still looked like a Forthwegian herself. Back before the war, Eoforwic had a name as the place where Forthwegians and Kaunians got on better than they did anywhere else in the kingdom. The reputation held some truth; Forthwegians and Kaunians here had rioted together on learning that the Algarvians were shipping blonds west to be murdered. But plenty of Forthwegians here despised Kaunians, too. Vanai had seen that along with the other.

  And what would King Beornwulf have to say on the subject? She went up closer to the broadsheet so she could read the smaller print. The new edict came straight to the point, declaring, All laws, orders, and regulations imposed by the Algarvian occupiers of the Kingdom of Forthweg concerning persons of Kaunian blood are henceforth and forevermore null and void. Persons of Kaunian blood legally residing in the Kingdom of Forthweg are and shall remain citizens of the said Kingdom, with full rights and privileges appertaining thereto, including the right to publish works in the Kaunian language (subject to the same limits of taste and decency as hold for works in the Forthwegian language). The status of persons of Kaunian blood residing in the Kingdom of Forthweg shall be and shall remain precisely what it was before the obscene and vicious Algarvian occupation, which in law shall be judged never to have occurred. Issued this day by order of King Beornwulf I of Forthweg, with the concurrence of his Unkerlanter allies.

  Unkerlanters didn’t care much one way or the other about Kaunians. Only a handful of blonds lived in the far northeast of Unkerlant, not enough to make anyone in Swemmel’s kingdom nervous about them. That was one of the few good things Kaunians from Forthweg had to say about Unkerlanters: they weren’t Algarvians.

  Vanai read aloud from the edict: “… the obscene and vicious Algarvian occupation, which in law shall be judged never to have occurred.” She looked around at the wreckage and rubble of Eoforwic and laughed bitterly. And the wreckage of the city-the wreckage of the whole kingdom-wasn’t the worst of it. People could rebuild ruined shops and houses and schools. How to go about rebuilding the lives the redheads had stolen, to say nothing of those they’d wrecked?

  Publishing in Kaunian was legal again. But would anyone bother? Maybe some scholars would: people who wanted to be read by a wider audience, an audience in Kuusamo or Jelgava or even Algarve that had never learned Forthwegian. But how many writers now would turn their hands to romances or poetry or plays or new sheets in classical Kaunian? How many people were left alive to read them?

  “Powers below eat King Mezentio,” Vanai whispered. He hadn’t killed off all the Kaunians in Forthweg. But he was liable to have killed Kaunianity here. That black thought had crossed Vanai’s mind before. Having it come back after she read an edict favoring her people made tears sting her eyes.

  Saxburh squirmed. She wanted Vanai to put her down and let her crawl around out here. It was a mild spring day. Birds chirped. A warm breeze blew down from the north. Vanai said, “No,” to her daughter anyway, adding, “You’re not going to get to eat any bugs out here.”

  She wished for a park with smoothly trimmed grass. She would take Saxburh there. The closest park she knew might not have had its grass trimmed since before the Derlavaian War. The ground there was bound to be cratered by bursting eggs. And every other park in and around Eoforwic was sure to be in the same state. So much rebuilding to do …

  A woman came up and stood beside Vanai to read the broadsheet. She said, “I don’t know why this new excuse for a king we’ve got even bothered with such a silly law. How many of these people are left, anyway? Not enough to waste anyone’s time over, that’s for sure.”

  What would she do if I told her I was a Kaunian? Vanai wondered. She didn’t make the experiment. All she said was, “You may be right,” and thought, No, I won’t give up my sorcerous disguise any time soon. I could make people hate my Thelberge self for what she does, but they don’t hate her for what she is.

  And then a really nasty notion struck here. What if the other woman were a disguised Kaunian herself and, thinking Vanai a real Forthwegian, spoke out against blonds because she reckoned that expected of her? How would I know? I wouldn’t, any more than she
knows what I am.

  She had no proof. By the nature of things, she wouldn’t get any proof. But the thought, once lodged, wouldn’t go away. If it were true, it wouldn’t be Mezentio killing Kaunianity. No-Kaunianity would kill itself.

  Vanai went back to her flat. Saxburh liked going upstairs; it felt different from walking on level ground. Vanai would have liked it better if she were carried instead of carrying, too.

  “Judged never to have occurred,” she said again when she got inside. Did that mean she’d never had to go to bed with Major Spinello? Did it mean she’d never had to wear this sorcerous disguise? Did it mean the redheads had never captured her and thrown her into the Kaunian quarter here in Eoforwic? Did it mean they hadn’t killed tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, of blonds? She wished it did. Wishing meant nothing, or perhaps a little less.

  “Dada,” Saxburh said.

  “No, I’m your mama,” Vanai told her. The baby said mama, but less often. Vanai said, “Your dada will be home soon.” Powers above, I hope he will.

  “Dada,” Saxburh said again. Vanai laughed. It was either that or start to cry. She’d done too much crying over the course of this war. So long as I don’t have to do any more.

  She went to the cupboard to see what she could make for supper. Barley, peas, turnips, beans, olives, cheese, olive oil-nothing very exciting, but enough to keep body and spirit together. Peasants in the countryside ate this kind of food their whole lives long. City people praised peasants for their healthy diet-and didn’t try very hard to imitate it. The way things were these days, though, having enough of any kind of food, no matter how boring, was worth celebrating.

  In a few days, she’d have to go down to the market square to get more. She wondered if Guthfrith who had been Ethelhelm would be there with his band. She’d seen the drummer and singer and songwriter several times. She didn’t stop to listen to his music anymore; he made her nervous. But he noticed her; she’d seen him follow her with his eyes more than once. That was not the least of the reasons he made her nervous. It wasn’t the only one, though. He had a good notion that she was a Kaunian. With King Beornwulf ‘s edict, it shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Kaunians in Forthweg rarely assumed edicts concerning them meant everything they said-unless the edicts were threats. With threats, whoever happened to be lording it over Forthweg was commonly sincere.

  I have a weapon of my own, Vanai thought. Guthfrith was a fellow who played for coppers in the square. Ethelhelm, despite Kaunian blood, had been famous all over Forthweg. But, because of that Kaunian blood, Ethelhelm had decided it was wiser to collaborate with the Algarvians. If he tried to tar her, she could tar him.

  She made a sour face. She hated to have to think that way. She hated to, but she would. If she had to keep her baby and herself safe, she’d do what needed doing and worry about everything else later. Like so many others across Derlavai, she’d learned ruthlessness in the war.

  Marshal Rathar looked up at the night sky. Thick gray clouds covered it. He turned toward General Vatran-and accidentally bumped one of the bodyguards King Swemmel had ordered him to use after the Algarvians came altogether too close to assassinating him. “Sorry,” he murmured.

  “It’s all right, sir,” the bodyguard said. “Just think of us as furniture.”

  They were large, well-muscled pieces of furniture. Peering around them, Rathar said, “Everything’s ready to go.”

  “It had better be,” Vatran answered. “We’ve spent as much time building up toward things here as we did in the north last summer.”

  “We can’t afford to have things go wrong,” Rathar said. “Once we get over the Scamandro, we storm straight for Trapani. It’s going to be ours, by the powers above. The islanders aren’t going to take it. We’ve paid the biggest bills, and we deserve the biggest prize.” That was what Swemmel said, and Rathar, here, emphatically agreed with him.

  Vatran nodded, too. “With what all we’ve got here, sir, I don’t see any way the redheads can stop us, or even slow us down much. How much longer till the dance starts?”

  “A quarter of an hour,” Rathar replied. “We get past the high ground on the east side of the river and everything should go fine from there.”

  “Here’s hoping,” Vatran said. “If they don’t pull out any funny sorcery …”

  That worried Rathar, too. What did King Mezentio have left, here in Algarve’s last extremity? The mages who wore Unkerlant’s rock-gray had grown ever more appalled at the spells the redheads tried. Not many of those spells had worked as well as the Algarvians wished, but what the enemy attempted kept getting wilder and darker.

  “If we keep them busy enough fighting a regular war, they can’t spend too much time or energy getting strange on us,” the marshal said, and hoped he was right.

  At the appointed hour, swarms of rock-gray dragons flew low over the Scamandro, pulverizing the Algarvians’ works on the eastern bank with eggs and with flame. Hundreds, thousands, of egg-tossers flung more death across the river. At dozens of points along the front, artificers would be springing into action to bridge the Scamandro. Let any one of those bridges stand, and we’ll whip the redheads, Rathar thought. He expected a great many more than one would stand. He expected most of them would, in fact. But one would do well enough. Any bridgehead on the eastern side of the Scamandro would give his kingdom the opening it needed.

  Mages added something new to the attack: sorcerous lamps that seemed to shine bright as the sun. Their glare reflected off the underside of the clouds and helped light the way for the dragons and the men aiming the egg-tossers-to say nothing of distracting the foe. “We want Mezentio’s men knocked flat before we cross,” Rathar said.

  “Looks like we’re getting what we want, too,” Vatran answered. Even as far from the front as Mangani was, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the din of bursting eggs.

  A crystallomancer came up to Rathar. Saluting, he said, “Lord Marshal, resistance on the far side of the river is lighter than expected. That’s what the dragonfliers report.”

  “We’ve finally beaten them down,” Vatran said.

  “That would be good. That would be very good.” Rathar wasn’t sure he believed it, but in the opening minutes of an attack he was willing to be hopeful.

  Another crystallomancer hurried up and saluted. “Sir, we have a bridgehead over the Scamandro and behemoths crossing in numbers to the east bank.”

  Vatran and Rathar both exclaimed in delight then, and clasped hands. The Algarvians had thrown back all their efforts to force earlier bridgeheads. Let’s see the whoresons throw this back, Rathar thought. I’d like to see any army in the world-throw back this attack.

  More crystallomancers brought news of bridges crossing the river and behemoths and footsoldiers rushing across. All of them said the same thing as the dragonfliers had: resistance was less than expected. Maybe we have knocked them flat, Rathar thought. If we have, we walk into Trapani instead of battering our way there. That would be nice.

  Aloud, he kept giving the same order over and over: “Keep moving! Try to take the high ground east of the Scamandro. Do everything you can to link up our crossings.” The crystallomancers hurried away to take his words to the officers in the front line.

  Dawn meant the sorcerers could douse the hideous lights they’d fashioned. It also meant he got some news he would rather not have had: on the far side of the Scamandro, the Algarvians had started fighting back fiercely. “How can they?” Vatran said when the crystallomancers reported that. “We should have squashed them flat as a bug.”

  “I think I know what they did,” Rathar said. “I’m not sure, but I think so. I think they pulled back from their frontline positions before we hit them. They did that a few times back in Unkerlant. It would let them save a lot of their men and egg-tossers and behemoths, even if it did cost them land.”

  “They can’t afford to lose anything right now,” Vatran said.

  “I know.” Rath
ar nodded. “But if they’d lost the men, they surely would have lost the land, too. This way, they have a chance of counterattacking and driving us back-or they think they do, anyhow.”

  “We have to keep throwing men and behemoths at them,” Vatran said.

  “We’re doing that. We haven’t been building up here for nothing,” Rathar said. “But it’s going to be harder than we thought it would.”

  General Vatran made a sour face. “What isn’t, with Algarvians?”

  Rathar had no answer for that. The redheads had come horrifyingly close to conquering his kingdom. Now he was tantalizingly close to conquering theirs. But they hadn’t made any of the fights easy, not a single one. They’d failed not because they weren’t good soldiers, but because there weren’t enough of them and because King Mezentio hadn’t thought he would need to bother conciliating the Unkerlanters his men overran. Arrogance was an Algarvian vice.

  It wasn’t one that mattered here, though. There still aren‘t enough of them to stop us, Rathar thought. “Wherever we penetrate, send in reinforcements;” he commanded. Again, crystallomancers relayed his words to the commanders at the front.

  He hoped they wouldn’t need the order. It was standard doctrine in Unkerlant. He gave it anyhow. In the heat of the moment, who could guess whether these front-line commanders bothered to remember doctrine?

  More dragons flew east, to torment the Algarvians with eggs and with fire. Crystallomancers reported only a handful of enemy beasts rising to challenge them. There was no doubt whatsoever that the Unkerlanters had at last forced the line of the Scamandro. How much more they would be able to do, though, remained an open question.

  “Powers below eat the redheads,” Vatran growled as the day wore on with no sign of a breakthrough.

  “They will,” Rathar said. “We’re feeding them.”

  “Not fast enough,” Vatran grumbled. Rathar wished he could have argued with his general. Unfortunately, he agreed with him. The Algarvians had salvaged more than he’d thought they could, and they were righting not only with their usual cleverness but also with the desperate courage of men who had nothing left to lose. They knew as well as Rathar that only they lay between his army and Trapani.