Jaws of Darkness d-5

by Harry Turtledove

  Orosio sighed, too, and spat again. “I was hoping you did, sir. You’ve been right a lot of times before.”

  “What if I have?” Sabrino said. “How much good has it done me? How much good has it done Algarve?”

  Orosio had no reply for that. Since Sabrino didn’t, either, he didn’t see how he could blame the younger man. From over by the tents where the dragonfliers slept-when they slept-a Yaninan waved to him. He waved back, polite as usual. Then the Yaninan waved again, more urgently this time. CaptainOrosio said, “Sir, I think he wants you.”

  “I think he does, too,” Sabrino said with another sigh of his own. “I was hoping he didn’t.”

  “MajorScoufas, he want to see you,” the fellow said when Sabrino went over to him.

  “Does he?” Sabrino said, and the Yaninan dipped his head in his kingdom’s gesture of agreement. Sabrino headed for Scoufas’ tent. He had nothing against the Yaninan officer. Scoufas made a good dragonflier and a good wing commander. It wasn’t his fault that most of his kingdom’s fighting men were unenthusiastic and that the kingdom lacked many of the tools it needed to do a proper job of fighting.

  As often happened with commanders, Scoufas was busy with paperwork whenCountSabrino ducked into his tent. Scoufas shoved the leaves of paper aside with every sign of relief. “I propose that we fly forth and attack the Unkerlanters threatening Kastritsi,” he said.

  “You do?” Sabrino said in some surprise. In all the time he’d been associated with the Yaninans over in the Duchy of Grelz, he’d never heard such words from any of them. Scoufas flew more than bravely enough, but he hadn’t been aggressive in seeking out missions.

  But now the Yaninan dipped his head. “Aye. We must drive the barbarous invaders from the soil of my kingdom.”

  If your countrymen had fought harder in Unkerlant, those barbarous invaders might not be on the soil of your kingdom now. But what point to saying that to Scoufas? He couldn’t change what had already happened, any more than Sabrino himself could.

  And, as far as Sabrino was concerned, helping Scoufas defend a Yaninan town now made it less likely that he’d have to try to keep the Unkerlanters from overrunning an Algarvian town sometime in the not too indefinite future. The mere thought was enough to make him nervously glance eastward.

  Scoufas not only noticed him doing it but understood why. The Yaninan’s chuckle held more sorrow than mirth. “It makes a difference when it is one’s own kingdom, does it not?” he said.

  “Aye,” Sabrino said harshly. “Have we got enough eggs and cinnabar to give the Unkerlanters a proper pounding?”

  “Not so much as we would like,” Scoufas answered. “Never so much as we would like, is it not so?” He waited for Sabrino to nod, then went on, “But we must do what we can with what we have-is that not so as well?”

  “Aye,” Sabrino repeated, even more harshly than before. “When do you want to fly?”

  “Let the dragon handlers load eggs aboard our dragons. Let them give the beasts what meat they have laced with brimstone and with what cinnabar they can find,” the Yaninan wing commander said. “An hour’s time should be plenty, would you not agree?”

  Sabrino rose and bowed. “I shall be honored to have your company in an hour’s time, Major.” He bowed again, then strode out of Scoufas’ tent and shouted for his own men to ready themselves for a raid.

  They came from their tents with an eagerness that still delighted him after five years of fighting. How can anyone beat us? he thought proudly. But if that question didn’t have an answer, what was he doing fighting here in Yanina and not going after the Unkerlanters in their own kingdom or relaxing back in Trapani following a victorious war?

  “Yaninans are a lot happier about fighting now that they’re doing it at home, aren’t they, Colonel?” one of the dragonfliers said.

  “As long as theyare happy,” Sabrino said-again, what point to worrying about how things had been before?

  He climbed aboard his dragon while the bushy-mustached Yaninan handler was still feeding it chunks of meat yellow with brimstone or scarlet with cinnabar-too few of the latter, though. Brimstone was easy to come by. Quicksilver… He thought about Algarve’s failure in the land of the Ice People and his kingdom’s failure to reach the Mamming Hills, then realized he was worrying about what had gone before whether he wanted to or not.

  With a wave, the handler unchained the dragon from its stake. “Luck to you good,” the fellow said in rudimentary Algarvian. Sabrino waved back, then booted the dragon into the air. It rose with a scream of fury and a thunder of wings. Other beasts painted in Algarvian and in Yaninan colors joined it. Between them, they had about forty dragons.

  The raid… was a raid. Sabrino wondered how many hundred he’d flown in the course of the war. The dragons dropped their eggs on the Unkerlanters busy digging themselves in west of Kastritsi, then swooped low to flame whatever men and beasts they could catch out in the open. Swemmel’s soldiers had a good many heavy sticks. A couple of Yaninan dragons tumbled out of the sky. Sabrino didn’t see any Algarvian dragons go down. He hoped he hadn’t missed anything. I’ll find out after we fly home, he thought.

  His dragon’s flame was shorter than it should have been, and faded faster. All the Algarvian and Yaninan animals had the same predicament. MajorScoufas appeared in one of the crystals Sabrino carried. “We have done what we can do, I think,” Scoufas said.

  “I think you’re probably right,” Sabrino agreed.

  “We have hurt them,” Scoufas said.

  “No doubt of it,” Sabrino said. The raid was a pinprick, a fleabite, nothing more. If it delayed the fall of Kastritsi by so much as an hour, he would have been astonished. Scoufas was no fool. He had to see that, too. But, these days, even delays of less than an hour to the relentless Unkerlanter advance were not to be sneezed at. Sabrino spoke into the crystal attuned to his own squadron leaders. They pulled their men out of the attack and flew back with the Yaninans toward their latest dragon farm.

  No Unkerlanter dragons had paid the farm a call while the Algarvians and Yaninans flew on the attack. The bushy-mustached dragon handler chained Sabrino’s mount to its stake once more. He waved to Sabrino as the Algarvian wing commander descended from the beast. Sabrino managed a nod in return.

  Not too far away, a Yaninan crystallomancer trotted up toMajorScoufas. They put their heads together. After a moment, Scoufas jerked as if stung by a wasp. He said something loud and pungent in Yaninan, then abruptly fell silent. Sabrino wondered what was going on. He shrugged. It looked to be a purely Yaninan concern, and he had plenty of troubles of his own. With a weary sigh-flying dragons was, by rights, a young man’s game-he trudged off to his tent.

  A few minutes later, Scoufas stuck his head through the flap and said, “May I come in?”

  “Of course, Major,” Sabrino said in some surprise; he usually visited Scoufas rather than the other way round. “Let me get you something wet and strong.”

  “I thank you, but no,” Scoufas replied. “When I am done, you will not care to drink with me, I fear. I have been honored to fight alongside you, Your Excellency-always remember that.”

  Sabrino didn’t know just what Scoufas meant, but didn’t like the sound of it. “Have you been transferred?” That was the most innocuous explanation he could find.

  “In a manner of speaking, Colonel-in a manner of speaking,” Scoufas replied. “My kingdom, you might say, has been transferred. As of earlier today, I am informed, Yanina finds herself in alliance with KingSwemmel of Unkerlant and at war withKingMezentio of Algarve. I am sorry to be the bearer of such news, but it is something you must know.”

  “It certainly is.” It was also one of the best-timed betrayals Sabrino had ever heard of, but that was neither here nor there. Doing his best to gather himself, he asked, “And are you at war with me, Major?”

  Scoufas tossed his head. “No. I wish with all my heart thatKingTsavellas had not done this. You Algarvians scorn us, I know, but you did n
ot mistreat our kingdom. What Swemmel will do… It may be better than what he would have done had he taken Yanina by conquest. So Tsavellas hopes. Me…” He shrugged. “I have my doubts, and so you and your men may fly off wherever you would. I will say I am sorry, but I got the order too late to try to stop you. Good luck, Colonel.”

  Sabrino bowed. “I thank you. You are a gentleman. Would you care to fly with my men? Believe me, you would be most welcome.”

  “Thank you, but no,” Scoufas said. “Whatever else I am, I am a Yaninan.”

  “I understand, Major.” Sabrino bowed again. What he didn’t understand was what would happen next-or rather, how anything good for Algarve could possibly happen next.

  “It’s another fornicating new kingdom,” Sidroc said as he tramped through a town somewhere in western Yanina. “If this futtering war ever ends and we get back to fornicating Forthweg, we can set up as fornicating tour guides.”

  Ceorl barked laughter. “I like that. I’d go on a fornicating tour any day. Best kind of tour to go on, you ask me.” He rocked his hips forward and back.

  “Where in blazes are we, anyway?”SergeantWerferth asked. This wasn’t exactly Plegmund’s Brigade any more. It was a collection of men who’d got out of the Mandelsloh pocket in one piece: Forthwegians, Grelzers, blonds from the Phalanx of Valmiera, Algarvians, Yaninans. The Algarvians’ assumption seemed to be that, since they’d managed it when so many hadn’t, nothing could hurt them now. Sidroc hoped the assumption was right.

  “All right, maybe I won’t make a tour guide after all,” he said. “The Unkerlanters use one kind of writing I can’t read, and the Yaninans use another one. Wherever it is, it’s the arse end of nowhere, and the fornicating Yaninans are welcome to it. So are the Unkerlanters, if anybody wants to know what I think.”

  He and his comrades had spoken Forthwegian, of course. One of the Yaninan soldiers asked, “What you say?” in Algarvian, the only language the men who fought for King Mezentio had in common-when they had any in common at all. “You say of my country the name many times.”

  “I wondered what the name of this town was-that’s all, Yiannis,” Sidroc said.

  Yiannis looked as if he suspected it wasn’t all, but he didn’t challenge Sidroc on it. “Of this town, the name is Kastritsi,” he said.

  “Miserable place, ain’t it?” Ceorl said, but in Forthwegian.

  Before Yiannis could ask him what that meant, an Algarvian soldier pointed to the outskirts of town. “Look-there’s a bunch of dragons taking off.”

  “Are those the same bastards who flew over us to give Swemmel’s buggers a hard time a while ago?” Sidroc asked.

  “Hope so,” the redhead answered. “The more the Unkerlanters get hit, the slower they’ll come after us.”

  “They’re flying off toward the east, not back toward the Unkerlanters,” Sidroc said in disappointed tones.

  “Must come from this kingdom, then,”SergeantWerferth said-in Forthwegian. He didn’t mention Yanina’s name, so Yiannis and his countrymen, none of whom knew a word of Forthwegian, noticed nothing amiss.

  People on the streets of Kastritsi stared at the retreating soldiers with big, dark, round, solemn eyes. If you ‘re retreating, their faces said, the Unkerlanters will come next. They didn’t seem to look forward to meetingKingSwemmel ’s men. A good many of them were getting out of Kastritsi while they could. Sidroc understood that. He wanted to get out of Kastritsi, too.

  And he did get out of the town, though the refugees slowed down the couple of regiments’ worth of men of which he was a part. He kept looking anxiously up to the sky. If Unkerlanter dragons appeared overhead, the result would be gruesome.

  But the difficulty, when it came, came on the road ahead, not from out of the sky. A company of Yaninan soldiers in very clean uniforms that showed they’d seen little action were letting the refugees from Kastritsi-and from other towns farther west-go through, but they spread across the road and the fields to either side when they saw the armed men heading their way.

  Their commander, a skinny little captain, stepped forward and held up his hand, palm out, like a constable halting traffic at a busy street corner. He sounded like one, too, when he spoke in Algarvian: “You are to halt. Who of you is the commander?”

  That was a pretty good question. Sidroc wasn’t sure anyone would, or could, answer it. He and his comrades were almost as much refugees as the people fleeing Kastritsi. He had nothing left but his looks to show he was a Forthwegian-and, for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why Algarvians were kilts. To him, they were miserable, demonically uncomfortable things.

  But the rangy Algarvian major who strode out in front of the motley group of men of which Sidroc was a part wore his ragged kilt with panache. “I guess I am,” he said. “What’s your skirmish line here all about, Captain? It doesn’t look what you’d call friendly.”

  “It is not supposed to be friendly,” the Yaninan officer replied. “Yanina is as of today the ally of Unkerlant. Yanina is as of today the enemy of Algarve and of all kingdoms allied with Algarve. You will all of you put your sticks on the grounds and your hands in the air. You are our captives.”

  “Oh, we are, are we?” the Algarvian officer said, looking down his nose at the captain who’d called for his surrender. The Yaninan dipped his head, plainly confident the redhead would do as he was told. But the Algarvian had other ideas. He turned back to the soldiers he led and shouted, “Come on, boys-let’s take ‘em! You want to let ‘em hand us over to the Unkerlanters?”

  He toppled in the next instant, blazed by three Yaninans at the same time. But nobody who’d fought in the west wanted to fall into Unkerlanter hands. And, while Sidroc didn’t know about anybody else, he was cursed if he wanted to surrender to a bunch of Yaninans who looked as if they’d never done any real fighting in all their born days. He took a blaze at a Yaninan who made a pretty clear target. The man went down with a howl.

  And Sidroc wasn’t the only one. The veterans who’d faced everything Swemmel’s hordes had thrown at them weren’t about to let a handful of Yaninans push them around. Shouting, “Mezentio!” they deployed from column into line and rolled over Tsavellas’ men. Some of them did fall, but not very many-the Yaninans who’d been sent out to stop them didn’t really seem to believe till too late that they would fight back.

  It was all over in a couple of minutes. Of the Yaninans who didn’t get blazed, some fled and rather more threw their hands high and gave up. Sidroc laughed as he collected the stick from one of those. “Why did they thinkwe’d give up?” he said. “It’s all they’re good for themselves.”

  “That may well be why,” a blond from the Phalanx of Valmiera said. “But what do we do now that Yanina has turned against us? It is not just this one company. It is the whole cursed kingdom.”

  Sidroc hadn’t thought of that. “Are we going to have to fight our way through this whole cursed kingdom, like you said?”

  “Who knows?” The Valmieran shrugged. “I will say this: I would sooner fight Yaninans than Unkerlanters any day.” Sidroc nodded. The fellow from the Phalanx might be nothing but a fornicating Kaunian, but he wasn’t a stupid fornicating Kaunian.

  With the Algarvian major dead, the highest-ranking officer left on his feet was a lieutenant who had to be a couple of years younger than Sidroc. When he called out, “Crystallomancer!” his voice broke and squeaked like a youth’s.

  Did they have a crystallomancer with them? Sidroc wouldn’t have bet on it, but one of the Valmierans stepped forward. “Aye, sir?” he said.

  His blond hair seemed to startle the lieutenant, but the officer told him, “See if you can find out where there’s a garrison we can attach ourselves to.” The man from the Phalanx of Valmiera saluted and went about his business. The Algarvian lieutenant raised his voice-and kept it from cracking: “All you Yaninans who’ve been with us, you have a choice. You can stay with us and go on fighting Swemmel, or you can lay down your sticks and your packs and walk away fro
m the war right now.”

  A couple of dozen men who’d fought in Unkerlant did walk away. Sidroc wondered what he would have done had someone offered him the same choice. I’d stay, he thought. Nobody made me sign up for Plegmund’s Brigade. I did it myself. And most of the Yaninans stayed, too.

  “We’d better keep an eye on them,”SergeantWerferth murmured in Forthwegian. “No telling what they’ll do if they have to keep blazing at their own people.”

  The crystallomancer said, “Sir, we have forces toward the southeast, about ten miles from here.”

  “We’ll head that way, then,” the Algarvian lieutenant said. A moment later, he asked, “Did they say what’s going on in Patras? It lies in that direction, too.”

  “There’s fighting there, sir,” the crystallomancer replied. “There’s fighting all over Yanina, as best I can tell.”

  “How are we supposed to hold off the Unkerlanters if we’ve got these Yaninan whoresons nipping our ankles at the same time?” Sidroc asked.

  Ceorl said, “We kick ‘em in the balls a few times, they’ll stop biting.”

  “Hope so,” Sidroc said. Along with his comrades, he started trudging toward that other force loyal to Mezentio. He’d been retreating before. Now he was retreating through hostile country. He knew the difference. Unkerlant had taught it to him. Movement now could turn into battle without warning. If a couple of regiments of Yaninans came over that low hill…

  They didn’t. Along the road, a few men loyal to Tsavellas blazed at Sidroc and his comrades from whatever cover they could find. Methodically, the Algarvians and Forthwegians and Valmierans and the Yaninans who’d stayed with Mezentio’s men hunted them down and killed them.

  When they marched through a village, people called out in broken Algarvian: “Save us from Unkerlanters!” They didn’t know their sovereign had chosen the strategic moment to change sides.