Out of the Darkness d-6

by Harry Turtledove

  “Thank you,” Vizgantu said. “You might have done this yesterday and saved everyone a good deal of difficulty.”

  “So I might have, but I did not,” Lurcanio replied. “And I doubt everything was perfectly smooth in Valmiera almost five years ago, when you folk found yourselves on the other end of victory.”

  Vizgantu gave back a proverb in classical Kaunian: “The last victory counts for more than all the others before it.”

  Since Lurcanio knew that to be true, he didn’t try to argue it. He just sent the Valmieran major deeper into the pocket the Algarvians still held. If the Algarvian commander chose to surrender, that was, or at least might have been, his privilege. And if he chose to fight on …

  If he chooses to fight on, he’s a madman, Lurcanio thought. That, of course, had little to do with anything. If the Algarvian commander chose to fight on, his men would keep fighting for as long as they could. Lurcanio didn’t know what good it would do, but he hadn’t known what good further fighting would do for quite a while. He didn’t want to die at this stage of the war-his goal was to be blazed by an outraged husband at the age of 103-but he knew he would go forward if ordered, or hold in place as long as he could.

  The order didn’t come. Instead, that afternoon a runner announced, “General Prusione will yield up this army at sunrise tomorrow.”

  “It’s over, then,” Lurcanio said dully, and the runner nodded. He looked not far from tears.

  It wasn’t quite over, of course. Around Trapani and here and there in the north, the Algarvians still fought on. Surrendering to Unkerlant was different from yielding to Lagoas and Kuusamo-different and much more frightening. The Algarvians had plenty of reason to worry about how their enemy in the west would treat them once they gave up, and even about whether King Swemmel would let them give up.

  But that wasn’t Lurcanio’s concern. He took a certain pride in knowing he’d made a tolerably good combat soldier. It hadn’t mattered, though. However well he’d fought, Algarve still lay prostrate.

  When the sun rose, he led his men out of their holes. Lagoan soldiers relieved them of their weapons and whatever small valuables they had. Lurcanio strode into captivity with his head up.

  Eleven

  News-sheet vendors in Eoforwic shouted that Gromheort had fallen. Vanai cared very little about that. The vendors also shouted about the hard fighting Forthweg’s Unkerlanter allies had done. Vanai cared very little about that, either. But she did fear hard fighting in Gromheort would have taken a toll on the civilians there. She hoped Ealstan’s family had come through as well as possible.

  News-sheet vendors said never a word about Oyngestun. Vanai would have been astonished if they had. Her home village, a few miles west of Gromheort, wasn’t important enough to talk about unless you lived there. She didn’t worry about her own family; her grandfather was all she’d had left, and Brivibas was dead. Vanai wasn’t particularly sorry, either. Tamulis the apothecary was the only person in the village she cared about even a little. He’d been kind to her after her grandfather took up with Major Spinello, and even after she’d had to take up with Spinello herself. But Tamulis was as much a Kaunian as she was, which meant the odds he’d come through weren’t good.

  Saxburh pulled herself upright with the help of the sofa in the flat and cruised from one end to the other, holding on. As soon as she let go, she fell down. She laughed. It hadn’t hurt her a bit. Of course, she didn’t have very far to fall. She looked over at Vanai. “Mama!” she said in an imperious tone that couldn’t mean anything but, Pick me up!

  “I’m your mama,” Vanai agreed, and did pick her up. Saxburh called her mama much more often than dada these days. She said a couple of other words, too-hat most often, after a cheap linen cap she loved to jam down onto her head-and a lot of things that sounded as if they ought to be words but weren’t. She was getting close to her first birthday. Vanai found that preposterously unlikely, but knew it was true.

  Saxburh tried to eat her nose. That was the baby’s way of giving kisses. Vanai gave her a kiss, too, which made her squeal and giggle-and, a moment later, screw up her face and grunt. Vanai sniffed. Aye: what she thought had happened had happened.

  “You’re a stinker,” she said, and set about cleaning up the mess. Saxburh didn’t like that so well. And, being more mobile than before, she kept doing her best to escape. Vanai had to hold her with one hand and wipe her bottom and put a fresh rag on her with the other. Battle won, she kissed Saxburh again and asked, “How would you like to go down to the market square with me?”

  It wasn’t really a question, for Saxburh had no choice. Vanai scooped her up and stuffed her in her harness. She also scooped up some silver, grimacing as she did so. The money wouldn’t last a whole lot longer, and she didn’t know what she would do when it looked like running out. Whatever I have to do, she thought, and made another sour face.

  Whatever I have to do reminded her of something else. She renewed the spell that let her look like a Forthwegian. She did that whenever she went outside these days. She couldn’t see the effect of the magic on herself, and didn’t want it wearing out where other people could see her. It was again legal to be a Kaunian, but that didn’t mean it was easy.

  She chanted a third-person version of the disguising spell over Saxburh, too. With her daughter, she could see it work. Thanks to Ealstan, Saxburh already had dark hair and eyes, but her skin was too fair and her face too long for her to look quite like a full-blooded Forthwegian. A little sorcery, though, mended that for hours at a time.

  Vanai clicked her tongue between her teeth as she carried the baby down to the street. “I am going to teach you Kaunian,” she said softly. “If I have to teach you when to speak it and when not to, I’ll do that, too.” Maybe Kaunianity wouldn’t be extinguished in Forthweg. Maybe it would just go into hiding. Considering what the Algarvians had tried to do to her people, that would be something of a triumph.

  Little by little, Eoforwic showed signs of coming back to life. A postman nodded to Vanai as she lugged Saxburh toward the market square. “Good morning,” he said, and tipped his hat. She nodded back. No one had sent her or Ealstan anything for a long time, but she’d started checking the brass box in the lobby to her block of flats again. These days, the idea of finding something there wasn’t an absurdity.

  Maybe Ealstan will post me a letter, the way he did when I was still living in Oyngestun, she thought. If he had sent her any, they hadn’t got to her. She wondered whether Unkerlanter soldiers were even allowed to write letters. For that matter, she wondered how many Unkerlanters even knew how to write. Her opinion of Forthweg’s western neighbors was no higher than the view Forthwegians had of their more numerous cousins.

  Guthfrith’s band thumped and blared away in a corner of the market square. Vanai stayed away from that corner of the square, and hoped Guthfrith- who, when not sorcerously disguised himself, was also the much more famous Ethelhelm-hadn’t noted her arrival.

  She bought black olives and raisins and smoked almonds. She fed raisins to Saxburh as they went back to the block of flats. Only when she was halfway there did she realize she’d taken no pains to keep Ethelhelm from seeing which way she went. She shrugged. She didn’t think he’d given her any special notice. She hoped not. He made her nervous.

  When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw no one following her. She cocked her head to one side and listened. The band was still playing, which meant Ethelhelm was still where he belonged. Vanai sighed with relief and went on. She let Saxburh walk beside her for a few paces holding her hand. The baby seemed to think she was a very large person indeed after that, and didn’t want to go back into her harness again.

  In the lobby of the block of flats, Vanai tried the mailbox. To her astonishment, it held an envelope with an image of King Beornwulf in one corner-a rather smeary image, plainly turned out in a hurry to avoid having to use frankings from Algarve or from King Penda’s day. The envelope was addressed to her as Thelberge a
nd to Saxburh.

  “It’s your father!” she exclaimed to Saxburh. Who else would know the baby’s name? But that wasn’t Ealstan’s script, which she knew as well as her own. With her daughter and the food on her hands, opening the envelope was impractical down here. She thrust it into her handbag and raced up the stairs to her flat faster than she’d ever gone before.

  She took the baby out of the harness and set her on the floor. As always after going to and from the market square, Saxburh was glad to escape and crawl around. Vanai tore the envelope open, and had to be careful not to tear the letter inside it, too. She unfolded the leaf of paper and began to read.

  To her surprise, the letter inside was in accurate classical Kaunian, not Forthwegian. To my daughter-in-law and granddaughter: greetings, Vanai read. I hope that this finds both of you well, and that it reaches you safely. Now that Gromheort and Eoforwic are once more under the same administration, I have some hope that this may be so, and send it in that hope.

  She smiled; that was an opening as formal as any in the surviving letters from the glory days of the Kaunian Empire. But the smile fell from her face as she read on: I must tell you that Ealstan was wounded in the leg during the final Unkerlanter attack on Gromheort. He discovered we had come through the siege by one of those coincidences that would embarrass a writer of romances: he was nursed at a station for the wounded by his sister Conberge.

  The wound is healing. It threatens neither life nor the limb, though he may have something of a limp even after the healing is complete. I am doing everything I can to have him formally released from Unkerlanter service. Not only has he shed his blood for King Swemmel, but he is unlikely to be on his feet before the war against Algarve ends. If I were dealing with the redheaded barbarians, the matter would be easy. With those from the west, it is less so, but I hope I can manage it.

  He sends you his love, as should not surprise you. Writing letters home is actively discouraged among the Unkerlanter soldiery, but I shall do my best to smuggle out a note if he manages to produce one. In the meantime, let me say that I very much look forward to meeting both you and your daughter, and that both of you will be welcome in this house in whatever guise you wear. Your father-in-law, Hestan.

  That should have ended it. That was enough, and more than enough. But Ealstan’s father also wrote, You should know that my brother, Hengist, yet lives, and that he and I are as completely estranged as two men can be. When last I heard, Hengist’s son, Sidroc, survived, too. Since he remains in Plegmund’s Brigade, perhaps this state of affairs will not continue indefinitely.

  Vanai looked over at Saxburh, who’d just pulled herself up and fallen down again. Her own tears blurred the little girl in her sight. “Your father is … still alive,” Vanai said. That he was wounded was less than she’d hoped, but ever so much better than it could have been. “He’ll be all right, or pretty much all right. He may even get out of the Unkerlanter army before too long. Powers above, make it so.”

  Saxburh paid no attention. When Ealstan came home, his daughter would have to get to know him all over again. Vanai slowly nodded. That was all right. Saxburh would have the chance to do it. Having the chance was all that really mattered.

  “He’ll be all right,” Vanai said again. She went through the letter for a second time, then nodded once more. Reading Hestan’s words, she saw, or thought she saw, a good deal about how Ealstan had come to be the way he was. She was always glad to be reminded not all Forthwegians despised the Kaunians who dwelt in their kingdom beside them.

  Ealstan is. . going to be all right. Even that much sang within her. She began to think about what things would be like once the war finally ended and Forthweg started pulling itself together. I won’t have to stay in this miserable flat the rest of my life. Saxburh and I could go to Gromheort. I could find out if the Thelberge face I wear really does look like Conberge, the way Ealstan’s been saying it does.

  I could meet other people who care whether I live or die. After everything she’d been through, that thought struck her as strange. Then she shook her head. The Algarvians had cared whether she lived or died, too. The trouble was, they’d wanted her dead. Hestan and his wife-Elfryth, that was her name-wouldn’t. Presumably, Conberge wouldn’t, either. The same might even hold true for her husband, whose name Vanai couldn’t have remembered had her life depended on it.

  She went over and picked up Saxburh and gave her a big, loud, smacking kiss. Saxburh thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Vanai carried the baby to the window. She needed all the sunshine she could find.

  A moment later, she pulled back again. If that wasn’t Guthfrith coming up the street.. But it was, and she didn’t want him seeing her up here. Why aren‘t you playing music? she thought angrily. If he walked into this block of flats, her anger was going to turn to fear.

  To her relief, he walked past instead. But under the relief, unease remained. She went looking for a leaf of paper with which to answer Hestan. Before too long, civilian ley-line caravans would again be running between Eoforwic and Gromheort. Maybe she would do well to go east just as soon as she could.

  Ahead of Leudast, Trapani burned. He could see the capital of Algarve now, see the tall buildings that marked the heart of the great city. Some of them were plainly shorter than they had been before dragons started dropping eggs on them. If they all fell over, Leudast didn’t care.

  He just wanted to be there at the end of the fight, when-if-that finally came. The Unkerlanters had fought their way into the suburbs of Trapani. They’d surrounded the city. But the last couple of rings of defenses still lay ahead. So did whatever nasty magecraft the redheads had left.

  A storm of eggs fell on the Algarvian positions in front of Leudast’s men. A couple of behemoths lumbered toward them and flung more eggs at whatever the tossers behind the lines hadn’t flattened. Leudast blew a blast from his officer’s whistle. “Forward!” he yelled.

  Not all the Algarvians were dead, however much he wished they would have been. They knew everything there was to know about taking shelter. As soon as the Unkerlanters broke cover to rush toward them, they popped up and started blazing. Men in rock-gray tunics fell, some hit, some diving for cover.

  “Hands high!” Leudast shouted in Algarvian. “Sticks down!”

  An Algarvian emerged from behind a wall. He did have his hands high. Leudast gestured with the business end of his stick. The redhead hurried away. Leudast doubted he was more than fifteen years old. King Mezentio was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

  Of course, so was King Swemmel. Some of the men Leudast led had no more years on them than the new captive. Had the Algarvians been strong enough to keep the war going another couple of years, neither they nor the Unkerlanters would have had any men at all left alive.

  Seeing that the first redhead who surrendered didn’t get killed out of hand, more of Mezentio’s men-or rather, Mezentio’s boys-came out of hiding with their hands above their heads. Leudast and his countrymen sent them off to the rear, too. But then beams from closer to the center of Trapani knocked down several of the kilted soldiers who were trying to get out of the fight. Leudast dove for cover again, but the diehards up there seemed more interested in blazing Algarvians who yielded than the Unkerlanters who made them give up.

  In Swemmel, such men would have served as behind-the-lines inspectors whose job was to get rid of any man seeking to retreat without orders. Leudast had always despised them-despised them and feared them, too. He wasn’t sorry to see the other side also had them. If nothing else, it proved his kingdom wasn’t the only one where such whoresons grew.

  Behemoths tossed eggs at the buildings and piles of rubble from which the diehards were blazing. As the Unkerlanter footsoldiers rushed toward the strong-points, the surviving redheads popped out of their holes and blazed away at them, shouting, “Algarve!” and “Mezentio!”

  The fight didn’t last long. Not all that many Algarvians were stubborn enough to fight so fiercely for a cause
now hopeless, and Swemmel’s men were there in large numbers. But the Algarvians who did fight refused to take a step back, dying in place instead. And they made the Unkerlanters pay full price- pay more than full price-for digging them out.

  More Algarvian soldiers did give up once the knot of diehards was gone: fear of them had kept others fighting. But Mezentio’s soldiers had turned a park and a few nearby houses into a strongpoint. They had some egg-tossers there, and a behemoth mounting a heavy stick that took advantage of the rubble to blaze from cover again and again, knocking over several Unkerlanter beasts.

  Might as well be Sulingen, Leudast thought. He’d been through the block-by-block fighting there, perhaps the worst of the whole war. A moment later, he wished the comparison hadn’t occurred to him. He’d been wounded in Sulingen, too. He didn’t want that to happen again. He’d picked up another wound later on, in the Duchy of Grelz. As far as he was concerned, two pale, puckered scars for the sake of his kingdom were quite enough.

  Clearing the redheads from their little redoubt took all day. Not till dragons swooped down from above and killed that behemoth did the job get done. Things were easier in that regard here than in Sulingen. The Algarvians had hardly any dragons left now. Back then, Leudast had spent plenty of time cowering in holes in the ground as Algarvian beasts flamed and dropped eggs from above.

  Not that holes in the ground were any too pleasant now. Leudast dragged a dead Algarvian out of a good one in the middle of the park and settled down for the night. He’d just gone to sleep when he had to come out of the hole and fight again: using darkness as their cloak, Mezentio’s men made a ferocious counterattack, and almost drove the Unkerlanters from the ground they’d taken. More dragons and behemoths finally threw the redheads back.