Harry Turtledove - Through the Darkness

Count Sabrino had strolled through a good many Algarvian camps in Unkerlant the first summer of the war there, when things were going well. The stroll he was making through this encampment on the austral continent put him in mind of those. The encampment was smaller, but filled with the same sense of quiet confidence he’d known before.

In Unkerlant, that confidence was dead, buried by a resistance far stronger and more ferocious than the Algarvians had imagined when they started on the-bad-roads west. Here in the land of the Ice People, it still lived. The Algarvian force here was tiny compared to the armies that had gone into Unkerlant, but it wasn’t facing the whole of Swemmel’s vast kingdom, either.

Algarvian soldiers sat on stones or on the grass, tending to their boots or packs or sticks as if they were so many craftsmen practicing their trades. Behemoth crews tinkered with their animals’ armors or fiddled with their egg-tossers to make them fling a little farther. It was all very businesslike.

Even the wounded, who were tended by mages and surgeons, did their best to make light of their injuries. In best Algarvian style, one cracked a joke so funny, it made the fellow sewing up his leg pause to laugh out loud. Sabrino had seen the same sort of thing in Unkerlant. It had made him proud then. Here, it left him sad.

At last, he found his way to the tent of Brigadier Zerbino, the officer King Mezentio had appointed to command the Algarvian forces in the land of the Ice People. Zerbino, a big, bluff fellow who was marquis of a small domain in southern Algarve, greeted him with a bear hug and a flagon of wine. “We smashed them!” he declared. “Positively smashed them!”

“So we did, sir,” Sabrino agreed; Zerbino held the higher military and social ranks. “Now we can keep the cinnabar going across the Narrow Sea.”

“Oh, aye,” Zerbino said, swigging from his own flagon. “And we can drive the cursed Lagoans right off the austral continent. Traitors to the Algarvic race, that’s what they are. Might as well be Kaunians.” He swigged again. “I’ve sent messages by crystal, asking the king for more. . more of everything, by the powers above. Enough to let us finish the job.”

“Is that a fact, sir?” Sabrino said tonelessly, hoping that tonelessness disguised the alarm he felt.

It didn’t, or not well enough. “What’s biting you, Colonel?” Zerbino demanded. “It’s something besides these cursed mosquitoes, I’ll say. Don’t you want to lick the lousy Lagoans right out of their boots?”

“On the austral continent, sir, everything bites you in the summertime,” Sabrino answered. His joke did not go over so well as the wounded trooper’s had. After a moment, he went on, “I’d sooner lick Unkerlant. If we do that, we can settle Lagoas later.”

“King Mezentio doesn’t think the same way, not at all he doesn’t,” Zerbino said. “We came down here to help the Yaninans. Best way to do it is to give the Lagoans a good boot in the arse, and that’s what we’re doing.”

“But, sir-” Sabrino began.

“But me no buts.” The marquis made a sharp chopping gesture with his right hand. “Just have your dragons ready to go after the Lagoans whenever I give the word. You can do that, can’t you? If you can’t, you’d better give me the reason why right now.”

“I can do that, sir,” Sabrino agreed. Having been doing it for a good deal longer than Zerbino had been on the austral continent, he spoke with some asperity.

If the marquis noticed, he affected not to. “That’s fine, that’s fine,” he said. “Finish your wine and I’ll fill you up again. This isn’t the sort of country you want to face sober, after all.”

Before the Algarvian buildup sent supplies flooding across the Narrow Sea, Sabrino had been drinking camel’s milk, sometimes fermented, sometimes not, and boiled water. He said, “Thank you, sir. I don’t mind if I do. Good to see wine again. Even better to taste it.”

“Enjoy it,” Zerbino said. “We’ll slaughter all the Lagoans and drive them out of this miserable place, and then we won’t have to worry any more about cinnabar going across the Narrow Sea.”

He made it sound so easy. Sabrino wondered where he’d fought before coming to the austral continent. Valmiera, most likely, he thought. Zerbino couldn’t have seen much duty in Unkerlant, or he wouldn’t have been able to keep that particular brand of optimism. Whenever Sabrino thought of Unkerlant, he wished he were back there, in the bigger, harder fight. “This is a sideshow,” he said once more. “The real war’s against King Swemmel.”

“Aye, and we’re winning it,” Brigadier Zerbino answered after his large larynx worked to get down a swallow of wine. “We’re bloody well winning it. We drive them in the south, the same as we drove them all along the frontier last summer.”

Algarve wasn’t driving all along the frontier in Unkerlant this campaigning season. Sabrino understood why: King Mezentio didn’t have the men to do it. Had Zerbino come to the same conclusion? He gave no sign of it. Sabrino upended his goblet to pour the last of the wine down his throat. “I thank you for the hospitality, sir,” he said. “My dragons will be ready for whatever you may need from us.”

“I know that,” Zerbino said. “You’ve even got the Yaninan dragons flying as if the men on them know what they’re doing. That’s not easy. Allies!” He let out a loud, disdainful sniff.

“That’s more Colonel Broumidis’ doing than mine, sir,” Sabrino said. “He’s a good officer, and nobody anywhere would say anything else. Some of his junior men handle themselves well, too. When they get good leaders, the Yaninans can fight.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me, not with what I’ve seen of their foot-soldiers.” Zerbino sniffed again, even more noisily than before. How many goblets of wine had he had before Sabrino came to see him? No way to tell. He bowed, and straightened readily enough. “You are dismissed.”

With a salute, Sabrino left the new commandant’s tent. As he walked back toward the makeshift dragon farm, he had to fight hard to keep from muttering curses under his breath. King Mezentio had decided not just to keep the Lagoans from making trouble for the cinnabar shipments from the austral continent but to conquer it, to the degree that men from Derlavai could conquer the land of the Ice People. Wasteful, Sabrino thought, but the word didn’t pass his lips. King Swemmel would have called the plan inefficient-and, as far as Sabrino was concerned, the half-mad King of Unkerlant would have been right.

Colonel Broumidis came up to Sabrino as he returned to the dragons. As always, Sabrino had trouble fathoming the expression on Broumidis’ face. The Yaninan’s large, dark eyes held depths that made a mockery of the confident way Algarvians viewed the world. Doing his best to hide his unease, Sabrino asked, “And what can I do for you today, Colonel?”

“I do not know if there is anything you can do for me, Colonel,” Broumidis replied. Something sparked in those usually fathomless eyes. “In any case, I should be the one asking you what I can do. This is Algarve’s war now, with Yanina playing the part of the poor relation, as usual. Or am I wrong?”

Policy demanded that Sabrino insist Broumidis was indeed mistaken. Right this minute, he couldn’t stomach policy. He rested his hand on Broumidis’ shoulder for a moment in silent sympathy.

The Yaninan officer said, “You are a good chap-is that the right word?” He didn’t wait to hear whether that was the right word, but went on, “If more Algarvians were like you, I should not mind so much being subordinated to them. As things are, however …”