Jaws of Darkness d-5

by Harry Turtledove

  They put their heads together again. Leudast hadn’t really expected anything else. They seemed unable to do anything without consulting among themselves. The one who served as their spokesman said, “You mean, use more sorcerous energy to expedite your recovery?” He sounded faintly scandalized.

  Leudast didn’t care how he sounded. “That’s just what I mean,” he said.

  “You’re healers, aren’t you? What the demon good are you if you won’t do any real healing?”

  They all looked indignant. He wanted to laugh. They thought that would impress him. After all the time he’d spent in the field, nothing this side of a stick aimed at his face impressed him. The fellow who did their talking said, “I hope you realize we have only so much sorcerous energy to expend.”

  “Aye, I’ve noticed that.” Leudast sounded as sardonic as he could. “Common soldiers get next to nothing, officers get as little as you think you can get away with giving. Fetch me that paper. Ido need to write toMarshalRathar.”

  He knew he was being unfair. The healers were desperately overworked men. But he’d told a good-sized chunk of truth, too. A man who wasn’t important or well-connected-often the same thing-or whose wound wasn’t either as easy as possible to treat or in some way interesting got short shrift.

  Once upon a time, Leudast had been a man without connections. He wasn’t any more, though, and he intended to keep hitting the healers over the head with such importance as he had till they did what he wanted.

  They knew it, too. Glaring, their spokesman said, “You wish us to give you preferential treatment.” He might have been a Gyongyosian accusing Leudast of wanting him to eat goat.

  “That’s right,” Leudast said cheerfully. “You do it all the time. I want you to do it for me.”

  They put their heads together yet again. When they separated, the man who did the talking said, “You realize this may cause you some considerable pain?”

  Leudast shrugged. The healers blinked. They didn’t know what to think of a man whom pain didn’t horrify, which only went to prove they’d never been up to the front. He said, “How much pain do you think you’ll get once I tell the marshal you wouldn’t treat me even after I asked you to?”

  They winced. Leudast didn’t think he’d prove able to do much to them, but they didn’t have to know that. Plainly, they didn’t feel like taking chances. In their shoes, Leudast wouldn’t have felt like taking any, either. “Let us review your case,” said the one who spoke for them. “If we find some sorcerous therapy that might help you, we shall apply it tomorrow.”

  “I hope you do,” Leudast said, which seemed to him wiser than, You’d cursed well better.

  Then he had another day of waiting flat on his back. He would sooner have been in a trench waiting to start an attack, which proved how bored he was. Either that or it does prove I’ve lost my mind, he thought.

  The next morning, the healers appeared with a wheeled chair and a couple of muscular attendants who manhandled Leudast into it. Other wounded soldiers stared curiously at him as they took him off. The healers had a tent of their own, well away from the wounded they attended. It was almost alarmingly quiet in there.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Leudast asked, wondering if browbeating them had been such a good idea after all.

  Before any of them answered, their attendants hauled Leudast out of the wheeled chair and propped him up on a table. Then the mages draped his leg-all of it except the area of the wound-with gauze made from a glistening fabric he had never seen before.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked again.

  “Treat your leg-or rather, the wounded portion of it, and no other- thus the insulating cloth,” a healer told him, which left him no wiser. Then the fellow condescended to explain: “We are going to age the flesh that has been blazed, so that, being a month older than the rest of you, it will also have already healed.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Leudast exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could do such things.”

  “You will not enjoy it so much while it is happening,” the healer replied. “Also, once the month has passed, you would be very wise to have the sorcery reversed. I will give you a letter authorizing the reversal. Hold on to it and do not forget to have the second sorcery done.”

  “All right,” Leudast said. “But why?”

  The look the healer gave him was anything but cheery. “Because if you fail to have it done, if you should forget, that flesh will die a month before the rest of you-and I promise you, it will make your last month alive much less pleasant than it would have been otherwise.”

  Leudast thought about that. He gulped. “Oh,” he said in a small voice.

  “We begin,” the healer declared. He and his colleagues started to chant. Burning heat coursed through Leudast’s wound. He gasped and tried to jerk away. The attendants grabbed him, making sure he couldn’t move. “This is what you asked for,” the healer told him. “This is what you get.”

  And you’ll enjoy every moment of giving it to me, won’t you? Leudast thought. But he refused to give the healer the satisfaction of knowing he understood that. In a voice as steady as he could make it, he said, “Get on with it, then.” The healer eyed him and nodded in reluctant approval.

  Before long, Leudast was panting and trying not to curse or scream. The healers hadn’t told him he would feel all the pain of a month’s worth of healing, distilled down into the few minutes the sorcery took. He clenched his fists. The smaller hurts of nails digging into palms and of biting down hard on the inside of his lower lip helped distract-a little-from the torment in his leg.

  Then, suddenly, that torment eased. Leudast let out a long, astonished sigh of relief. The healer said, “You were brave. We do few such procedures where the patient does not cry out.”

  “I believe it.” Leudast sounded shaky, even to himself. But the gnawing pain in his leghad eased. That was what he’d wanted. “Can I put my weight on it?”

  “You may,” the healer replied, precise as a schoolmaster. “I hope you can-that was why we performed the sorcery.”

  “Well, let’s find out.” Leudast swung down off the table. One of the attendants who’d hauled him up onto it reached out to steady him. He waved the man away. The leg wasn’t perfect, but it would do. He could use it. He nodded to the healers. “Thanks. I’m ready to go back into the line.”

  “We shall fill out the necessary papers,” one of them said. Another very carefully peeled the shining cloth from Leudast’s leg. The healer who was doing the talking went on, “Make sure you have this sorcery reversed in a month’s time. As I said, if you forget, your last month will be nothing but torment to you.”

  “I understand,” Leudast said, and he did. The mere idea of knowing a month ahead of time that he would be dead… He shuddered. Even war against the Algarvians seemed clean next to that. And he was suddenly more eager than ever to get back to the field. If he died in battle, at least it would be over fast-he hoped.

  Merkela glared at Skarnu and at the underground fighter who called himself “Tytuvenai” after the town where he was based. She said, “I don’t think you ought to be talking with the Algarvians. I think you ought to be blazing them.”

  “Oh, we’ll do some of that even yet,” “Tytuvenai” said lightly. He winked at Skarnu. “Eh, ‘Pavilosta’?”

  “Aye, no doubt,” Skarnu answered. He glanced over to Merkela. “Like it or not, we have to talk with them now.”

  “Give me one good reason,” she snapped.

  “They hold the towns. They hold the roads. If they want to, they can start slaughtering Valmierans the same way they’ve been slaughtering the Kaunians from Forthweg,” Skarnu said. “They can do it any time they please.

  Merkela winced. Reluctantly, she nodded. “There is that.”

  “Aye, there is,” “Tytuvenai” agreed. “If we want to have a kingdom left when this cursed war finally ends, we have to walk a little softer than we might like right now. And so…” He nu
dged Skarnu. “We’d better get moving.”

  “Right,” Skarnu said without any great enthusiasm. Whether he recognized the need or not, he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of talking with the Algarvians, either. But he kissed Merkela and went out to the horses “Tytuvenai” had waiting outside the farmhouse. As he mounted and rode off, he grumbled, “Why don’t the people up in the north handle this themselves?”

  “They do,” “Tytuvenai” answered. “But we have to do our part, too.” As usual, he was cheerfully cynical: “You can’t expect those fellows up there to count on their fingers and get the same answer twice running.” Skarnu laughed, though he was sure the northern Valmierans said the same thing about him and “Tytuvenai” and the other irregulars here in the south.

  He and his comrade rode for about three hours. Skarnu’s backside started to hurt; he wasn’t used to so much equestrianism. By the way “Tytuvenai” started grunting every so often, Skarnu suspected he was feeling it, too.

  After a while, “Tytuvenai” grunted again, this time in relief. “We’re supposed to meet the redheads in that apple orchard ahead. I’ve got a flag of truce in the saddlebag here. Demon of a thing to have to use with the Algarvians, isn’t it?”

  “It’s war,” Skarnu answered with a shrug. “There’s nothing dishonorable about it.” But he was trying to convince himself as much as “Tytuvenai.”

  They tied their horses to a couple of the apple trees. Skarnu didn’t fancy going into the orchard armed with nothing more than a white flag on a little pole. If the Algarvians grab us, they’ll be sorry, he thought. They’ve got to know they ‘II be sorry… don’t they?

  A tall man in his later middle years stepped out from between a couple of trees. He, too, carried a flag of truce. “Good day, gentlemen,” he said in fluent if accented Valmieran, and gave the two irregulars a courteous bow. “I have the honor to be ColonelLurcanio, administrator of Priekule underGrand DukeIvone. And you are…?”

  “Tytuvenai,” “Tytuvenai” said.

  “Pavilosta,” Skarnu said. He eyed Lurcanio. Till now, he’d had only one brief look at the redhead who was his sister’s lover. He hoped Lurcanio wouldn’t recall the name of the hamlet he used as a sobriquet.

  No such luck. Lurcanio’s cat-green eyes kindled. He bowed again, this time to Skarnu alone. “So pleased to meet you at last. We have

  … an acquaintance in common.”

  “I know,” Skarnu said, and said no more.

  “You may be interested to learn she is expecting a child,” Lurcanio remarked.

  “Is she?” Skarnu said tonelessly. But that wasn’t quite enough. And so, loathing Krasta, he asked the question he had to ask: “Yours?”

  To his surprise, the Algarvian didn’t smirk and nod. Indeed, the fellow’s voice was cautious as he answered, “So I have been given to understand.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Before Skarnu could ask-before he could even decide whether he ought to ask-”Tytuvenai” said, “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  “An excellent suggestion,” Lurcanio said. “You would be wise to bear in mind that we are still strong enough to punish acts of madness aimed against us.”

  “We would reckon some of your punishments acts of madness, you know,” Skarnu said.

  “No doubt. One day, perhaps, we can discuss the role perspective plays in human affairs.” Lurcanio was a cool customer. Skarnu wondered what Krasta saw in him. The Algarvian resumed: “We have other business before us at present, however.”

  “So we do,” “Tytuvenai” said. “Such as making us believe we shouldn’t do more to hold up the ley-line caravans you’re using to ship your soldiers out of here.”

  “Go ahead.” Lurcanio gave him a smile half charming, half coldly vicious. “The people of Valmiera will not be happy with the choice you make, but go ahead. Do as you feel you must, and we shall do as we feel we must.”

  “A lot of the people of Valmiera will be happy with anything that gets you people out of our kingdom,” Skarnu said. “Anything at all. And you know why. ‘Night and Fog.’ “ That was what the Algarvians or their henchmen scrawled on buildings whose occupants had vanished for good-usually into the camps where the redheads kept Kaunians they killed.

  “The people most intimately concerned with our vengeance will not be happy,” Lurcanio said. “On that you may rest assured.”

  “Why, you-” “Tytuvenai” began.

  “Wait,” Skarnu said. The other irregular looked at him in some surprise. Skarnu seldom spoke like a nobleman giving a servant an order; that tone more often appeared in Krasta’s mouth. Here, though, he made an exception-and “Tytuvenai”did fall silent.

  “You own some glimmering of sense,”ColonelLurcanio said.

  “I wonder if you do,” Skarnu answered. “Tell me, do you really think Algarve still has any hope of winning the war?”

  “WithKingMezentio ’s leadership, with our strong sorceries, one never knows,” Lurcanio said.

  Skarnu laughed in his face. He waited for Lurcanio to get offended, but the Algarvian just waited to see what he would say next. What he said was, “Do you think Algarve has anyrealistic chance of winning the war?”

  Lurcanio shrugged one of the elaborate shrugs in which his countrymen delighted. After a few heartbeats, Skarnu realized that was as far as the redhead would go. He didn’t suppose he could blame Lurcanio-for that, anyhow. He hadn’t wanted to talk, or even think, about Valmiera’s troubles back in the days before Algarvian behemoths and dragons leveled his kingdom’s hopes.

  “You might want to bear one thing in mind,” Skarnu said. “If you do lose this war, your enemies will remember everything you did while you held their kingdoms down. How large a price do you want to pay after your armies can’t fight any more?”

  For once, ColonelLurcanio had no quick answer, no snappy comeback. He eyed Skarnu with no liking, but with wary respect nonetheless. “There is enough between your ears for sparks to strike, is there not?” he remarked. “Your sister is prettier than you, but her head is empty.”

  With a shrug of his own-he didn’t want to show Lurcanio he agreed with him-Skarnu said, “That’s also something to talk about some other time. But if you start killing Valmierans for the sport of it, think what will happen when Valmieran soldiers march into Algarve.”

  Lurcanio raised an eyebrow. “And if our best chance to keep Valmieran soldiers from ever marching into Algarve lies in killing all the Valmieran civilians we can lay our hands on?”

  This time, “Tytuvenai” spoke before Skarnu could: “If you try something like that, Algarvian, you’d better be sure you do win. Can you do that? Trying and losing anyhow will be worse than not trying at all.”

  ButColonelLurcanio shook his head. “By the powers above, nothing would be worse than not trying at all.” He and the two Valmierans eyed one another in perfect mutual incomprehension.

  “We will not attack ley-line caravans taking your soldiers out of Valmiera if you don’t take our civilians out with you and if you don’t start killing them for your magecraft,” Skarnu said. “If you do, everything is fair game. And we reckon any caravan bringing your soldiersinto Valmiera is fair game, too.”

  “That is not right. That is not just,” Lurcanio said. “Many-most, even-of the men we bring here do not come to fight. They come for leave from the fight they have been making in the west.”

  “They’re still soldiers,” Skarnu said. “If you give them sticks, what will they do? Start to dance?”

  He surprised a laugh out of the Algarvian colonel. “There may perhaps be something to that,” Lurcanio said. “I speak for myself when I say so, however, not forGrand DukeIvone. You were an officer. You will understand the need for following orders.”

  Skarnu started to nod. “Tytuvenai” broke in, saying, “Some orders are wicked. No one should follow those. Anyone who follows an order to murder people deserves whatever happens to him.”

  “Anyone who lets his kingdom lose a war it migh
t win deserves whatever happens to him,” Lurcanio answered. They glared at one another once more, at a fresh impasse. Lurcanio said. “Can we agree to anything?” he asked.

  “Leave our civilians alone, and we’ll let your caravans leave in peace,” Skarnu said.

  “We had that bargain before, or so I thought,” Lurcanio said. “SoKingGainibu hinted, at any rate.”

  Maybe he thought the king’s name would fill the Valmierans with overwhelming awe. And maybe it would have… before the war. Skarnu said, “These past four years, we’ve been on our own. We haven’t paid much attention to his Majesty-and that’s the fault of you Algarvians. Why should we start over now?”

  He hadn’t seenColonelLurcanio taken aback till then. “Why? Because he is your sovereign, of course,” the redhead-actually, he’d gone quite gray-replied.

  “He’s welcome to reign,” “Tytuvenai” said. “Why should he rule? What has he done for us lately?”

  Lurcanio wagged a finger at him, a very Algarvian gesture. “If we should ever leave this kingdom, you will find that he still intends to rule, mark my words. May you have joy of it.” He paused. “I think we have said everything that wants saying.” He paused again, then nodded to Skarnu. “Have you any message for your sister?”

  “I have no sister,” Skarnu said stonily. “No point even telling her you saw me.”

  “You take this business altogether too seriously,” Lurcanio said. Skarnu did not reply. The Algarvian shrugged. “It shall be as you wish, of course.” He turned and strode away.

  Skarnu started to call something after him, but didn’t. What point to it? What was Lurcanio but an enemy? He might be-Skarnu thought he was- an honest enemy, but an enemy he remained. Skarnu turned to “Tytuvenai.” He nodded once. “Let’s go,” he said.

  After a long, deep, restful night’s sleep, ColonelSpinello yawned, stretched, and finally opened his eyes. The mattress was large and soft; the house not far outside of Eoforwic had, he thought, belonged to a Kaunian before Kaunians in Forthweg fell on hard times. It was ever so much more comfortable than lying down on bare dirt, which he’d done far too often while escaping the disaster that had overtaken the Algarvian armies in northern Unkerlant.