Out of the Darkness d-6

by Harry Turtledove

  “Oh?” Garivald said. “How did that happen?”

  “Nobody seems to know,” Obilot answered, not quite innocently enough. “Are we going to have to find another abandoned place and learn new names for ourselves all over again?”

  Garivald looked around. She’d done an astonishing job of keeping this farm going. All the same, he nodded. “I’m afraid so. A couple of men ended up dead when I got out of the mines.”

  “Mines? Oh.” Obilot nodded, too, briskly and without regret. “All right, we do, then. We can manage. I’m sure of it.”

  “We’ll have a chance,” Garivald said, ingrained peasant pessimism in his voice. But then he shrugged. In Unkerlant, a chance was all you could hope for, and more than you usually got.

  Istvan climbed down from the wagon near the mouth of the valley that held Kunhegyes and the neighboring villages. “Thank you kindly for the lift, sir,” he told the driver, a gray-bearded man with stooped shoulders.

  “Glad to help, young fellow,” the other Gyongyosian replied. “Nothing’s too good for our fighters, by the stars. You’d best believe it.”

  “Uh, the war is over,” Istvan said-maybe the wagon driver hadn’t heard. “We lost.” He brought the words out painfully. They hurt, aye, but they were true. No one who’d seen Gyorvar could doubt it even for a moment. He wished he hadn’t seen Gyorvar himself. He wished he hadn’t seen a great many things he’d had to see.

  But the driver waved his words away, as if they were of no account. “Sooner or later, we’ll lick ‘em,” he declared. Istvan doubted he had a particular ‘em in mind-any enemy of Gyongyos would do. He wished things still looked so simple to him. They never would again. The driver flicked his whip and said, “Stars shine bright on you, Sergeant.”

  “And on you,” Istvan called as the wagon rattled away.

  Shouldering the duffel that held his few belongings, he trudged toward Kunhegyes. He wasn’t sure he’d been formally discharged from the army. Back in the coastal lowlands, government had been a matter of opinion since the death of Ekrekek Arpad and the destruction of Gyorvar. No one in all his long journey east had asked to see his papers. He didn’t expect anyone here would, either.

  He looked around his home valley with wonder on his face. He’d been back only once since the war began. The place had seemed smaller then than when he’d gone forth to fight for Gyongyos. It seemed smaller still now, the mountains looming over the narrow bit of land trapped between them. Mountain apes up there, Istvan thought. He’d seen one of those, too. I’ve seen too much. He looked down at the scar on his left hand, the scar that had expiated his goat-eating, and shuddered. Aye, I’ve seen much too much.

  Somewhere back on Obuda-or, more likely, back in Kuusamo by now-a little slant-eyed mage knew what he’d done. That made him shudder, too. Not that she would ever come to Kunhegyes-Istvan knew better than that. But he knew she knew, and the knowledge ate at him. He might as well have been naked before the world.

  He tramped up to Kunhegyes’ battered old palisade. He had a much keener eye for field fortifications than he’d owned when he left the village. A couple of egg-tossers could have knocked it down in nothing flat. Rocks and bushes within stick range might give marauders cover. I’ll have to talk to somebody, he thought. Never can tell what those whoresons from the next valley over-or even from Szombathely down the valley from us-might try and do.

  A sentry did pace the palisade. That was something. Istvan wondered how much, though. Had the fellow been more alert, he would have already spotted him. That thought had hardly gone through Istvan’s mind before the lookout stiffened, peered out toward him, and called, “Who comes to Kunhegyes?”

  Istvan recognized his voice. “Hail, Korosi,” he called back. The villager had made his life difficult before he’d gone into Ekrekek Arpad’s army, but he’d been mild enough when Istvan visited on leave. Easier to overawe a youth than a veteran on leave, Istvan supposed.

  “Is that you, Istvan?” Korosi said now. “Have you got another leave?”

  “Another leave?” Istvan gaped. “Have the stars addled your wits? The war’s over. Haven’t you heard?” He’d known his home village was backward, but this struck him as excessive. Kun would have laughed and laughed. But Kun was dead, struck down by the sorcery that had slain Gyorvar.

  Korosi said, “Some commercial traveler tried to tell us that a couple of days ago, but we figured it was a pack of lies. He spouted all sorts of nonsense-the ekrekek, stars love him, slain; Gyorvar gone in a flash of light; the goat-eating Unkerlanters licking us in the east; us surrendering, if you can believe it. Some of us wanted to pitch him in the creek for that pack of crap, but we didn’t.”

  “A good thing, too, because it isn’t crap,” Istvan said, and watched the village bruiser’s jaw drop. Istvan qualified that: “Well, I don’t know about Swemmel’s bastards, not so I can take oath about it, but the rest is true. I was stationed near Gyorvar, I saw the city die, and I’ve been in it since. The ekrekek’s dead, and so is his whole family. And we have yielded-it was either that or get another dose of this wizardry. I saw a Lagoan going through what’s left of Gyorvar, looking to see just what the magic did. One of our mages was with him, and acting mild as milk.”

  “You’re making that up,” Korosi said. In a different tone, it could have been an insult, even a challenge. But Istvan had heard men cry, “No!” when they knew they were wounded but didn’t want to believe it. Korosi’s protest was of that sort.

  “By the stars, Korosi, it’s true,” Istvan said. “Let me in. The whole village needs to know.”

  “Aye.” Korosi still sounded shaken to the core. He descended from the palisade and unbarred the gate. It creaked open. Istvan walked through. Korosi shut it behind him. He looked around. I probably won’t go far from this place for the rest of my life. Part of him rejoiced at the realization. The rest saw how small and cramped Kunhegyes seemed, as if crouching behind its palisade. True, the houses and shops stood well apart from one another-a precaution against ambushes-but they themselves were nothing beside those of Gyorvar. Istvan shook his head. No, beside what once was in Gyorvar. Only rocks and houses alike melted to slag there now.

  Korosi’s booted feet thumped on the wooden stairs as he went up to the walkway once more. People came out into Kunhegyes’ narrow main street. Istvan found himself the center of a circle of staring eyes, some green, some blue, some brown. “Did I hear you right?” somebody asked. “Did you tell Korosi it’s over? We lost?”

  “That’s right, Maleter,” Istvan said to the middle-aged man. “It is over. We did lose.” He repeated what had happened to Gyorvar, and to Ekrekek Arpad and his kin.

  Quietly, women began to weep. Tears didn’t suit the men of a warrior race, but several of them turned away so no one would have to see them shed any. The sounds of mourning drew more folk into the street. One of them was the younger of Istvan’s two sisters. She shrieked his name and threw herself into his arms. “Are you all right?” she demanded.

  He stroked her curly, tawny hair. “I’m fine, Ilona,” he said. “That’s not what people are upset about. I told them the war was lost.”

  “Is that all?” she said. “What difference does that make, as long as you’re safe?”

  Istvan’s first thought was that that was no attitude for a woman from a warrior race to have. His second thought was that maybe she owned better sense than a lot of other people in Gyongyos. Remembering what had happened to Gyorvar, he decided there was no maybe to it. “What’s happened here?” he asked. “That’s what’s really important, isn’t it?” It is if I stay here the rest of my days, that’s certain sure.

  “Of course it is.” Ilona had no doubts; she’d never been out of the valley. “Well, for one thing, Saria”-Istvan’s other sister-”is betrothed to Gul, the baker’s son.”

  “That weedy little worm?” Istvan exclaimed. But he checked himself; Gul might have been weedy when he went off to war, but probably wasn’t any more. And his father ha
d, or had had, more money than Istvan’s own. “What else?” he asked.

  “Great-uncle Batthyany died last spring,” his sister told him.

  “Stars shine bright on his spirit,” Istvan said. Ilona nodded. Istvan went on, “He was full of years. Did he pass on peacefully?”

  “Aye,” Ilona said. “He went to sleep one night, and he wouldn’t wake the next morning.”

  “Can’t ask for better than that,” Istvan agreed, trying not to think of all the worse deaths he’d seen.

  His sister took him by the hand and started dragging him toward the family house-my house again, at least for a while, he thought. She said, “But what happened to you? By the stars, Istvan, we all feared you were dead. You never wrote very often, but when your letters just plain stopped coming….”

  “I couldn’t write,” he said. “I got sent from the woods of Unkerlant out to this island in the Bothnian Ocean-”

  “We know that,” Ilona said. “That was when your letters stopped.”

  “They stopped because I got captured,” Istvan said. “I was in a Kuusaman captives’ camp on Obuda for a long time, but then the slanteyes sent me to Gyorvar.”

  “Why did they send you there?”

  “Because of something I’d seen. I wasn’t the only one. They wanted us to warn the ekrekek they’d do the same to Gyorvar if he didn’t yield to them. He didn’t, and so they did. I wish he would have. We’d all be better off if he would have-him included.”

  By that time, they’d come to his front door. Alpri, his father, was nailing the heel of a boot to the sole. The cobbler looked up from his work. “May I help-?” he began, as he would have when anyone walked into the shop that was also a house. Then he recognized Istvan. He let out a roar like a tiger’s, rushed around the cobbler’s bench, and squeezed the breath from his son. “I knew the stars would bring you home!” he shouted, planting a kiss on each of Istvan’s cheeks. “I knew it!” He let out another roar, this one with words in it: “Gizella! Saria! Istvan’s home!”

  Istvan’s mother and his other sister came running up from the back of the house. They smothered him in kisses and exclamations. Someone-he never did see who-pressed a beaker of mead into his hand.

  “You’re home!” his mother said, over and over again.

  “Aye, I’m home,” Istvan agreed. “I don’t think I’m ever going to leave this valley again.”

  “Stars grant it be so,” Gizella said. Istvan’s father and his sisters all nodded vigorously. Somehow, they held beakers of mead, too.

  Had Istvan got out of the army not long after going in, he would have had no qualms about staying close to Kunhegyes the rest of his days, either. But he’d seen so much of the wider world the past six years, the valley still felt too small to suit him as well as it might have. Fillet used to it again, he thought. I have to get used to it again.

  A pull at the sweet, strong mead went a long way toward reconciling him to being home. “With the war lost, with the ekrekek dead, where would I go?” he said, as much to himself as to his family. Alpri and Gizella and Saria all exclaimed again, this time in shocked dismay, so he had to tell his news once more.

  “What will we do?” his father asked. “What can we do? Have the stars abandoned us forever?”

  Istvan thought about that. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m not even sure it matters. We have to go on living our lives as best we can any which way, don’t you think?” Was that heresy or simply common sense? He had the feeling Kun would have approved. The scar on his left hand didn’t throb, as it often did when he found himself in doubt or dismay. And, that evening, the stars shone down brilliantly on the celebrating village of Kunhegyes. Maybe that meant they approved of what he’d said. Maybe it didn’t matter either way. How can I know? Istvan wondered. He didn’t suppose he could, which didn’t stop him from celebrating, too.

  For once, the great square in front of the royal palace in Cottbus was packed with people. The Unkerlanters remained in holiday mood, too. And why not? Marshal Rathar thought. We didn‘t just beat Algarve. We beat Gyongyos, too. He looked back at the assembled might in the victory parade he was to lead. We could lick the Kuusamans and the Lagoans, too. We could, if’. .

  If. The word ate at him. He hadn’t gone into Gyorvar himself, but he’d had reports from men who had. The sorcery that had destroyed the capital of Gyongyos could fall on Cottbus, too. He knew that. He never forgot it. He had to hope King Swemmel also remembered it.

  High and thin and spidery, a single note from a trumpet rang out: the signal for the parade to begin. It should have been an officer’s whistle, ordering the advance, Rathar thought. But it was what it was. He thrust out his chest, thrust back his head, and marched forward as proudly and precisely as if he were on parade at the officer’s collegium he’d never attended.

  When he came into sight, the people who packed the square-all but the parade route through it-shouted his name again and again: “Rathar! Rathar! Rathar!”

  Rathar had rather thought they would do that. He’d rather feared they would do that, in fact. He held up his hand. Silence fell. He pointed toward the reviewing stand, on which, surrounded by bodyguards, his sovereign stood. “King Swemmel!” he shouted. “Huzzah for King Swemmel!”

  To his vast relief, most of the people started shouting Swemmel’s name. He suspected they did so for the same reason he’d pointed to the king: simple fear. If a vast throng of folk started crying Rathar’s name, Swemmel was too likely to think his marshal planned to try to steal his throne-and to make sure Rathar had no chance to do so. As for the folk who’d started yelling for Rathar, all of them had to know one of the men and women standing nearby was bound to be an inspector. The mines always needed fresh blood, despite the great glut of captives in them now. Inside a couple of years, most of those captives would be dead.

  Behind Rathar came a block of footsoldiers. Behind them trudged weary, hungry-looking Gyongyosian captives. Most of those men would probably head for the Mamming Hills after their display here. Or maybe Swemmel had canals he wanted dug or rubble that needed carting away. The possibilities, in a kingdom ravaged by war, were endless.

  After the Gongs marched a regiment of unicorn-riders, and then a regiment of behemoths. Rathar could hear the chain-mail clanking on the great beasts through the rhythmic thud of marching feet. Hearing that clank reminded him of reports the islanders had come up with behemoth armor better at stopping beams than anything his own kingdom had. One more project to keep the mages busy-as if they didn’t have enough.

  More behemoths hauled egg-tossers of all sizes through the square. Another shambling throng of Gyongyosian captives came after them, followed by more Unkerlanter footsoldiers. Those Gongs and soldiers might have to watch where they put their feet. Dragons painted rock-gray flapped past overhead. They were incontinent beasts, too; Rathar hoped none of them chose the wrong moment to do something unfortunate.

  As he passed the reviewing stand-which, along with Swemmel and his guardsmen, held Unkerlanter courtiers and foreign dignitaries and attaches (the latter sure to be taking notes on the parade)-Marshal Rathar met the king’s eye and saluted him. King Swemmel gave back his usual unwinking stare. But then, to the marshal’s surprise, he deigned to return the salute.

  Rathar almost missed a step. Did a formal, public salute from Swemmel mean the king truly trusted him? Or did it mean Swemmel wanted to lull his suspicions and put him out of the way? How could he tell, till the day came or didn’t?

  You could rebel, he thought. Plenty would back you. But, as always, he rejected the idea as soon as it crossed his mind. For one thing, he didn’t want the throne. For another, he was sure Swemmel would win in a game of intrigue. He was doing what he wanted to do. He did it well. The crown? If Swemmel wanted it so badly, he was welcome to it.

  Out of the square marched Rathar, out of the square and down Cottbus’ main avenue. The sidewalks there were packed, too; only a continuous line of constables and impressers held the cr
owd back. Men and women cheered much more enthusiastically than Unkerlanters usually did. If they were proud of what their kingdom had accomplished, they’d earned the right to be. And if they were relieved Unkerlant had survived, they’d also earned that right. How many of them had tried to flee west when Cottbus looked like falling to the Algarvians almost four years before? More than a few-Rathar was sure of that. How many would admit it now? Next to none, and the marshal was sure of that, too.

  People who didn’t have the pull to get into the central square shouted Swemmel’s name more often than they shouted Rathar’s. These are the poor people, the ignorant people, Rathar thought. They don’t really know who did what.

  That thought salved his vanity. Even so, he wondered how much truth it really held. Aye, Rathar had been the one who’d made the plans and given the orders that led to the defeat of the redheads and the Gyongyosians. But King Swemmel had been the one who refused even to imagine that Unkerlant could be beaten. Without such an indomitable man at the top, the kingdom might have fallen to pieces under the hammer blows the Algarvians struck during the first summer and autumn of the war.

  Of course, if we hadn‘t been readying our own attack on Mezentio ‘s men, if we’d paid more attention to defending our kingdom against them, they might not have been able to strike those hammer blows. Rathar shrugged. It was years too late to worry about such things now.

  After the parade ended, a carriage waited to take Marshal Rathar back to the palace. Major Merovec waited in his office. Rathar set a sympathetic hand on Merovec’s shoulder: no one cared about adjutants in victory parades. No one would ever know how important a job Merovec had had or how well he’d done it, either.

  Perhaps not quite no one: Merovec said, “Thank you, sir-my promotion to colonel has finally come through.”

  “Good,” Rathar said. “I put that in for you more than a year ago. One thing nobody can do, though, is hurry his Majesty.”