Out of the Darkness d-6

by Harry Turtledove

  “I… think so,” Talsu answered. Now thoroughly confused, he dared ask, “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” the interrogator snarled. “You must have kissed some Kuusaman’s arse, because the miserable slanteyes want you out of here. And so you’re going out of here-way out of here. Get into your clothes. You’ll be their problem from now on, and they’re fornicating well welcome to you.”

  Things were happening too fast for Talsu to follow. He wondered if they were going to kill him and give his body to the Kuusamans. Then he decided they wouldn’t do that-the major wouldn’t have been so angry about disposing of his corpse.

  He dressed in a hurry. The only Kuusamans with whom he’d had much to do were the mage near Skrunda and the soldiers he’d led past his home town. How could one of them have heard he’d been tossed in a dungeon? How would one of them have had the clout to get him out? He had no idea. He didn’t much care, either.

  “Sign this.” The major shoved a leaf of paper at him.

  “What is it?” Talsu asked. As he picked up a pen, he looked at the paper. “A certificate of good treatment? Are you out of your mind? Why should I sign it? It’s a bloody lie.”

  “Why should you sign it?” The major looked at him. “Because we won’t turn you loose if you don’t, that’s why.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited.

  Talsu started to bend over the certificate, then stopped, weighing the odds. He wouldn’t have been here if the Kuusamans hadn’t leaned on King Donalitu’s government, that was plain. But, since they had. . Who owned the power here? Talsu straightened up and set down the pen. “Futter you,” he said evenly.

  Behind him, the guards growled. He tensed and started to shrink in on himself, fearing he’d misjudged and earned another beating. But the major of interrogators just gave him a sour stare. “We’re well rid of you,” he declared, “and the Kuusamans are welcome to you.”

  What did that mean? Before Talsu could even ask, the major gestured to the guards. They grabbed Talsu and hustled him out of the interrogation chamber. He went out through the exercise yard-blinking at the bright sun, as he always did when he first saw it-and out through the gate. He blinked again, this time at not having walls around him. Was this where. .?

  It was. A ley-line caravan glided up. A couple of nondescript men, men who looked amazingly like the fellows who’d arrested him, got down from a caravan car. One of them jerked a thumb at Talsu. “This the bastard?” he asked.

  “It’s him, all right,” a guard agreed. The fellows from the caravan car and the guards signed some papers. Then the guards gave Talsu a shove. He climbed up into the caravan car. So did his new keepers. The ley-line caravan slid off toward the southeast.

  “Where are we going?” Talsu asked.

  “Balvi,” one of the men said. “Shut up,” the other one added. He would have had no trouble working in a dungeon.

  “Balvi!” Talsu exclaimed. He’d never been to the capital of Jelgava. Before his days in the army, he’d never been far from Skrunda. The mountains he’d seen and fought in then hadn’t endeared him to the idea of travel. Neither had his couple of trips to King Donalitu’s dungeons. “Why Balvi?”

  “Shut up.” This time, both keepers spoke together. In casual, conversational tones more frightening than fierce menace would have been, one of them went on, “You’d be amazed how much we can make you hurt without leaving a mark on you.”

  “That’s true,” the other one agreed. Talsu was willing to believe them. He sat quietly in the compartment-save for one brief trip to ease himself, during which both keepers went with him-till the ley-line caravan glided into the depot at Balvi late that afternoon. A carriage waited for them there. Talsu craned his neck for glimpses of the capital’s famous buildings. Even the royal palace was worth seeing, no matter what he thought of King Donalitu.

  Once inside the carriage, Talsu risked a question: “Where are we going?”

  “Kuusaman ministry,” answered one of the men with him.

  “You’re their worry now,” the other one said, “and good riddance to you.”

  “What do you mean?” Talsu said. “You sound like you’re throwing me out of the kingdom.”

  “That’s just what we’re doing,” a keeper said. “If the slanteyes want you so bad, they’re welcome to you, as far as Jelgava is concerned.”

  Talsu was still chewing on that when the carriage stopped in front of a larger, more impressive building than any Skrunda boasted. The Kuusaman banner, sky blue and sea green, flew in front of it and atop it. “Out,” the other keeper said. Talsu got out. So did his shepherds.

  A couple of Kuusamans took charge of them just inside the ministry. They spoke classical Kaunian-spoke it better than Talsu or his keepers, though it was the grandfather of Jelgavan but unrelated to the islanders’ tongue. That left Talsu obscurely embarrassed. The keepers signed several leaves of paper. Talsu began to feel as if he were no more than a sack of lentils passed from one dealer to another.

  With a last glower, King Donalitu’s men left the ministry. One of the Kuusamans told Talsu, “Come with me. I shall take you to Minister Tukiainen.”

  “I thank you,” Talsu said in his halting classical Kaunian. “But may I not wash myself first?” Middle voice, he thought. He was increasingly conscious that he hadn’t had the chance to bathe any time lately.

  After putting their heads together and talking in their own language, the Kuusamans both nodded. “Let it be as you say,” one of them replied. “But you would do well-please believe me when I say this-to bathe quickly.”

  A quick bath didn’t get rid of all the grime clinging to Talsu, but did leave him smelling less like something just off the midden. The Kuusamans escorted him to Minister Tukiainen’s office. He almost didn’t notice the minister, though, for Gailisa was sitting in the office. They flew into each other’s arms. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “It is her doing that you are both here.” Minister Tukiainen spoke good Jelgavan. By speaking, he reminded Talsu of his existence. He went on, “She wrote a letter that brought your plight to the notice of the Seven Princes. We requested your release. . and so, here you are.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Reluctantly untangling himself from Gailisa, Talsu bowed. He asked, “Uh, sir, why am I here! Why didn’t they just let me go back to Skrunda?”

  “Because your government has decided you and your wife are both troublemakers,” Tukiainen answered. “You are not welcome in Jelgava anymore. King Donalitu has said that, since Kuusamo is interested in you, you should be Kuusamo’s responsibility. And so”-he smiled-”we shall take care of that. As soon as may be, we shall send you to Yliharma and help you set up in business there. You are a tailor, your wife tells me. A skilled tailor should do well in Kuusamo.”

  Things were moving too fast for Talsu. That morning, he’d been in the dungeon, with no particular hope of ever getting out again. Now he was not only out of the dungeon but also, evidently, on his way out of his own kingdom. He tried to make himself sorry or angry or anything of the sort. He couldn’t. All he felt was joy. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and bowed again. “I feel like-like I’m escaping.”

  “And so you are,” Master Tukiainen said. “To us, this whole kingdom is like a dungeon. In my opinion, you are well out of it.”

  “I’ll have to learn Kuusaman,” Talsu said. That, at the moment, was the least of his worries.

  Thirteen

  Leudast marveled that he could walk through the streets of Trapani without being ready to dive into a hole at any moment. The Algarvians’ formal surrender in the city hadn’t quite ended the fighting. Diehards and soldiers who hadn’t got the word kept blazing at the Unkerlanters for several days more. Even King Mainardo’s announcement of a general Algarvian surrender hadn’t quite done the job. By now, though, all the redheads had either laid down their sticks or were lying down themselves-lying down and not about to get up again.

  A skinny Algarvian w
oman came out of a battered house. “Sleeping with me?” she called in bad Unkerlanter, and twitched her hips in case Leudast hadn’t been able to understand her.

  He shook his head and walked on. He hadn’t turned the corner before she called the same invitation to another Unkerlanter soldier. Leudast got propositioned a couple of times a day. Some of his countrymen said it proved all Algarvian women were whores. Leudast didn’t know whether it proved they were whores or just that they were hungry.

  Everybody-everybody Algarvian, anyhow-in Trapani was hungry these days. Leudast couldn’t see that the Unkerlanter authorities were working very hard to keep the redheads fed. He lost no sleep over it. When Mezentio’s men held big stretches of Unkerlant, they hadn’t done much to keep the peasants and townsfolk there fed, either. Let ‘em get a taste of empty, he thought. Let ‘em get more than a taste, by the powers above.

  He had to stop then. A column of captives came shambling by: glum, hollow-cheeked men in filthy, tattered Algarvian uniforms, the stubble on their faces almost but not quite grown out into beards. Most of them were redheads, but he spotted a knot of men who looked like Unkerlanters, though they wore tan tunics and kilts like the Algarvians. Their dark beards were thick and full.

  “Who are those whoresons?” he called to a guard. “Traitors from the Duchy of Grelz?” He was a lieutenant nowadays because he’d captured the Algarvian calling himself King of Grelz. Some of the men from the duchy in the southeast of Unkerlant kept fighting against King Swemmel even after that.

  But the guard shook his head. “No, sir,” he answered. “These bastards are Forthwegians: the outfit that called itself Plegmund’s Brigade. And see? They’ve got a couple of Valmieran swine with ‘em. The Algarvians picked up garbage all over the place.” He laughed at his own wit.

  “Plegmund’s Brigade, eh?” Leudast nodded. “Aye, I ran up against them a time or two.” He hadn’t cared for the experience; the Forthwegians had been tough and nasty.

  One of them, a fellow who looked as if he’d been a robber before joining Plegmund’s Brigade, must have understood him, for he spoke in his own language: “Too futtering bad we didn’t get you, too.”

  Having come from northeastern Unkerlant, not far from the Forthwegian border, Leudast followed Forthwegian better than most of his countrymen would have. He also heard another captive say, “Powers below eat you, shut up, Ceorl! You want to make it worse than it is already?”

  “Where are these men going?” Leudast asked the guard.

  “Sir, I don’t know for certain, but I think they’re off for the Mamming Hills,” the fellow replied.

  “Ah,” Leudast said, and said no more. Ceorl’s comrade had been wasting his time worrying. If these captives were bound for the Mamming Hills, it was already about as bad as it could be. He didn’t need to fret about making it worse.

  More captives cleared debris from a broad square in front of the royal palace. Leudast scowled at the burnt and shattered wreckage of King Mezentio’s residence. He’d been in on some of the fighting there, and the Algarvians had battled room by room, corridor by corridor. And then, when his own side had finally cleared them out, they’d found Mezentio already dead. If that wasn’t a cheat, what was? Capturing Mezentio’s cousin Raniero had made Leudast an officer. What would capturing Mezentio himself have gained some lucky Unkerlanter? Colonel’s rank? A duchy? Anything this side of the sky itself seemed possible.

  But Mezentio, curse him, had taken the easy way out. What would King Swemmel have done to him, had he fallen alive into Unkerlanter hands? Mezentio hadn’t wanted to find out. Leudast didn’t think he would have wanted to find out, either, not in Mezentio’s shoes. He remembered how bravely Raniero had gone into the boiling water-and how he’d shrieked afterwards, for as long as he still kept life in him. And Mezentio, without a doubt, would have ended up envying Raniero his easy fate.

  Several Unkerlanters came out of the palace, along with one Algarvian who towered half a head over them. The group walked toward Leudast without even noticing he was there: all the Unkerlanters were officers of age and rank exalted enough to make a young lieutenant seem no more important than any other chunk of rubble littering the ground.

  One of the officers-a brigadier-was speaking to the redhead: “You had better understand, you will keep the job as long as you do as his Majesty commands. Disobey, and all you will be is very, very sorry.”

  “I’m not likely to make a mistake about that, am I?” The Algarvian spoke fluent, almost unaccented Unkerlanter. His wave encompassed the whole of the capital, the whole of the kingdom. “Considering the example I have before me, I would have to be a madman to step out of line.”

  “This does not always stop Algarvians,” the brigadier replied. “We have seen as much. I hope I am plain: if you are not pliable, you are dead. . slowly.”

  “I told you once, I understand,” replied the redheaded-noble? Leudast supposed he had to be.

  “You had better, that’s all,” the brigadier said. He and the other officers swept past Leudast. I won’t stare after them, Leudast thought. They might notice me, and I don’t want to be noticed now.

  What sort of job did they have in mind for the Algarvian? By the way they were talking, it might almost have been king. But, with Mainardo, Algarve already had a king. Of course, if Swemmel decided not to recognize Mezentio’s brother and raised up a candidate of his own, who would, who could, stop him? He’d already done that in Forthweg. Why not here, too? The only drawback Leudast could see was that any redhead was likely to betray Unkerlant the instant he thought he could get away with it.

  That wasn’t his worry. If the candidate looked like giving trouble, he expected King Swemmel would spot it before it got bad enough to be dangerous. Swemmel looked for trouble the way fussy old women looked for weeds in their garden plots-and when he found it, he yanked it up by the roots.

  Not far beyond the royal palace stood a building so solidly made, it had come through the fierce fighting in Trapani almost undamaged. Men were carrying sacks-sacks obviously heavy for their size-out the front door and loading them into wagons. What looked like a regiment’s worth of guards surrounded the wagons.

  “What’s going on here?” Leudast asked one of the guards.

  “Sir, this is the treasury of the Kingdom of Algarve,” the man answered. His eyes were hard and alert, warning that Leudast would do well not to seem too interested.

  Despite that warning look, Leudast couldn’t help letting out a low whistle. “Oh,” he said. “And it’s about to become part of the treasury of the Kingdom of Unkerlant?”

  “You might say something like that, sir,” the guard replied.

  “Good,” Leudast said. “The fornicating redheads cost us plenty. Only fair they should pay us back. I just wish gold and silver could really pay for all the lives they robbed us of.”

  “Aye, sir.” Something of the guard’s humanity showed through the hard mask of his face. “I lost a brother last year, and my home village isn’t far from Durrwangen, so powers above only know if any of my kin are left alive.”

  “I hope so,” Leudast answered. It was all he could say; some of the biggest and most important battles of the war had been fought around the southern city of Durrwangen a couple of summers before. Leudast had been there, on the eastern side of the bulge the Algarvians were trying to pinch off. He still marveled that he’d come through in one piece.

  “So do I.” The guard’s stick twitched, just a little. Leudast took the hint. Anyone who spent too long watching the plundering of the Algarvian treasury might be suspected of wanting some of the plunder for himself. As a matter of fact, Leudast did want some of the plunder for himself, but not enough to get blazed for it. He left in a hurry.

  When he got back to his regiment’s encampment in a park not too far from the palace, it was boiling like an anthill stirred by a stick. “What’s going on?” he asked a soldier from his company.

  “Orders, sir,” the man replied.

&nbs
p; That told Leudast less than he wanted to know. “What kind of orders?” he demanded, but the soldier had already hurried off. In a way, Leudast got the answer to his question: the orders were of the urgent kind.

  “Oh, there you are, Leudast,” Captain Dagaric said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I’m here, sir,” Leudast answered, saluting. “What in blazes is going on?”

  “We’re moving out of Trapani, that’s what,” the regimental commander told him. “Moving out by tonight, as a matter of fact.”

  “Powers above!” Leudast exclaimed. “Moving out where?” His first, automatic, glance was toward the east. “Are we going to start the war up again, and take on the Kuusamans and Lagoans?”

  “No, no, no!” Dagaric shook his head. “We’re not going east. We’re going west. We’re going a long way west, as a matter of fact. A long, long way west.”

  “About as far west as we can go?” Leudast asked.

  Dagaric nodded. “That’s right. We’ve got some unfinished business with the Gongs, you know. . What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, sir, or not really funny, anyhow-but strange, all the same,” Leudast said. “Back a million years ago, or that’s what it seems like now-back before the big Derlavaian War started, anyway-I was fighting in the Elsung Mountains, in one of those little no-account skirmishes that don’t matter at all unless you happen to get killed in them. I’ve been through all this, and now I’m going back.”

  He wondered how many other Unkerlanters who’d fought in the halfhearted border war against Gyongyos were left alive today. Not many-he was sure of that. Once more, he counted himself lucky only to have been wounded twice. Well, now the cursed Gongs will get another chance, he thought, and wished he hadn’t.

  More than his regiment was leaving Trapani: much more than his regiment. Once his men got to the ley-line caravan depot, they had a long wait before they filed onto the cars that would take them across most of the length of Derlavai. “Why did we have to hurry so much, if we’re just standing around here?” somebody grumbled.