Authors: Harry Turtledove
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 to Major Scoufas. 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 King Swemmel of Unkerlant and at war with King Mezentio 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 that King Tsavellas had not done this. You Algarvians scorn us, I know, but you did not 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?” Sergeant Werferth 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,” Sergeant Werferth 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 meeting King Swemmel’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 think
we’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 from 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,” Sergeant Werferth 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.
“You’d better get the blazes out of here,” Sidroc called back. “Those bastards will come and eat you for breakfast.” Someone translated that into gurgling Yaninan. The villagers exclaimed in horror. Some of them started fleeing east with no more than the clothes on their backs.
“Curse it, keep your fool mouth shut,” Sergeant Werferth snapped. “Now those miserable Yaninans will clog the roads for everybody else.”
“Sorry, Sergeant.” But Sidroc wasn’t sorry. He had all he could do to keep from laughing out loud as he left the Yaninan village. He nudged Ceorl. “Didn’t they look like a flock of spooked chickens?”
“Sure did,” Ceorl said. After another few paces, he added, “You’re not such a bad son of a whore after all.”
“Thanks. You, too.” Sidroc grinned. Ceorl grinned back. In Forthweg, he’d been a ruffian, a robber, probably a murderer. Here, he was a comrade. Sidroc didn’t worry about what he did in his spare time. And Ceorl, evidently, had at last forgiven him for not being rough enough.
Just after sunset, they joined up with the Algarvian brigade the crystallomancer had found. Sidroc wasn’t far from the lieutenant who led his group when that worthy asked the colonel in charge of the brigade, “Sir, what are we going to do now? What
can
we do now?”
“Fall back,” the colonel answered. “There’s higher ground farther east. They won’t have such an easy time pushing us off it. We
have
to hold there— nothing but Algarve behind.” The lieutenant nodded earnestly. Sidroc nodded, too, in a different way. The lieutenant thought everything would be all right once they got to the high ground, wherever it was. Sidroc had done enough retreating by now to doubt whether everything would ever be all right again.
Pekka had had to beg the Seven Princes to get a few days’ leave from the sorcerous project in the Naantali district. She’d put Raahe and Alkio jointly in charge while she was away. They were solid and steady, not given to wild adventurism. She’d also advised them to smack Umarinen over the head with a rock when and as needed.
Getting from the Naantali district back down to Kajaani was an adventure in and of itself. The carriage ride from the hostel to the nearest ley-line terminal was long and bumpy. Then, thanks to the way the earth’s energy grid in that part of the world ran, she had to go around three sides of a rectangle before finally heading south to her home town.