Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

Not everyone in the large captives’ camp on Obuda shared that view. As far asCaptainFrigyes was concerned, for instance, the war remained a going concern. Frigyes was ready to sacrifice himself and all the other captives to loose potent magecraft against the Kuusamans, just as he’d been ready to sacrifice the men under his command back on Becsehely.

“He’s daft, you know,”Kun said one morning as he and Istvan squatted over stinking latrine trenches. “Even if our sorcerous energy knocks this island out of the Bothnian Ocean and up onto the peaks of the Ilszung Mountains, it won’t change how the war turns out by even a copper’s worth.”

“You know that.” Istvan grunted. “I know that.” He grunted again. Kuusaman guards strode the palisade not far away. Having to take care of his needs without privacy had left him badly constipated for a while. He didn’t even notice any more. “The captain doesn’t know it, or else he doesn’t care.” He tore off a handful of grass.

“Aye, well, no doubt you’re right.”Kun grabbed some grass, too. Fortunately, it grew very fast. “But I care. I don’t much fancy having my throat cut for nothing.”

Since Istvan didn’t, either, he just threw the grass down into the trench, got to his feet, and set his clothes to rights. “What are we going to do, then?” he asked. “We can’t very well go and tell the Kuusaman guards. That would get our throats cut, too, and not for nothing-when our friends found out.”

“My dear boy,”Kun said, as if he were Istvan’s father rather than his comrade. “My dear boy, if we ever had to do such a thing, we would also have to make sure our friends never, ever, found out.” That was so obvious, Istvan felt like a fool for not having seen it himself. In the nastier ways of the world if not in years, Kunwas a good deal older than he.

They queued up for breakfast. They queued up for everything in the captives’ camp: The Kuusamans regimented them even more thoroughly than the Gyongyosian army had done, which was saying a good deal. A few of the cooks were Kuusamans; more were Obudans-the occupiers put the natives to work for them. One of the Obudans, a medium-sized, medium-brown man-larger and darker than a Kuusaman-wore a dragon’s tooth on a leather thong around his neck. As Istvan, mess tin in hand, came up to him, the Gyongyosian pointed to the fang and said, “You might have bought that from me, once upon a time.” A lot of Obudan men were eager to get their hands on dragon’s teeth, thinking they reflected well on their virility.

The cook fingered the heavy tooth. “Maybe I did,” he replied. No reason he shouldn’t understand Gyongyosian; Istvan’s kingdom had had a couple of spells of ruling Obuda before the Kuusamans finally seized the island. Plunging his ladle into the kettle of fish-and-barley stew-heavy on the barley, light on the fish-he gave Istvan a bigger helping than usual.

“You lucky son of a goat,” saidKun, who hadn’t got any more than the usual. Istvan only smiled and shrugged. He knew some things about getting along with people that his sour-tempered friend had never figured out.

Once they finished eating, they washed their mess tins in big tubs of water set out for the purpose. Istvan’s spoon clanked in his tray. He had another spoon hidden under the mattress of his cot, the handle scraped down to make a knife blade of sorts. He’d never mentioned that toKun, or to anyone else, but you never could tell when a weapon might come in handy. As he carried the mess kit back to his bunk for the daily inspection, he stole a glance atKun. MaybeKun had a ground-down spoon knife stashed away somewhere, too. That hadn’t occurred to Istvan till now.

A Kuusaman lieutenant strode through the barracks as the Gyongyosian captives stood at attention by their cots. A sergeant would have done a better, more thorough job. So thought Istvan, at any rate, and never once stopped to wonder if his own underofficer’s rank had anything to do with his opinion.

Once the Kuusaman was satisfied, Frigyes pointed to Istvan and the men who’d served in his squad. “Wood-chopping detail,” he said, as if Istvan didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. “This is something that needs to be done properly. Without enough wood, we don’t eat hot food.”

“Aye, Captain,” Istvan said resignedly. Still, he understood what Frigyes meant. Some of the work the Kuusamans gave their captives was designed to keep them busy, nothing more. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to mind the captives’ going through the motions on that sort of job. But firewood, as Frigyes had said, was serious.

It was, in fact, serious in several ways. The Kuusaman corporal who issued the captives their axes kept careful count of just how many he was issuing-no chance of stealing an axe and stowing it under a mattress. If the number turned in at the end of the day didn’t match the number given out at the start, there would be trouble.

Kungrumbled at chopping wood. Kun grumbled at a good many things, but he was particularly vain about his hands, which, for a soldier’s, were soft and fine. “How am I supposed to cast a proper spell with them all rough and bruised and battered?” he complained.

“You couldn’t cast much of a spell any which way,” Szonyi said. “You were only a mage’s apprentice, not a mage yourself.”Kun gave him a look full of loathing and swung his axe as if he would have liked to bring it down on Szonyi’s neck.

To Istvan, chopping wood was just a job. He’d been doing it since he was a boy. Back in his home valley, chopping wood meant staying warm through the harsh winter as well as having hot food in your belly.

He was raising his axe to split another chunk of beech when the gates to the captives’ camp, not too far away, swung open. “More poor buggers coming in,” Szonyi predicted.

“Aye, no doubt.” Istvan lowered the axe without chopping; he was willing to pause for a little while to see some new faces.

And new faces he saw-newer than he’d expected. “Who arethose fellows?” Szonyi’s deep voice cracked in surprise. “They sure aren’t Gyongyosians.”

The Kuusaman guards led in four men who towered over them, as Gyongyosians would have, but who, as Szonyi said, plainly did not come from Istvan’s kingdom. The newcomers were slimmer of build than most Gyongyosians, and their hair was coppery, not tawny. They wore Kuusaman military clothing, which did not fit them well at all.

“I know who they have to be,”Kun said. “They’re Algarvians.”

“Stars above, I think you’re right.” Istvan stared at the redheads, the only real allies his kingdom had. “But what are they doing out here in the middle of the Bothnian Ocean? Algarve is… way over on the other side of the world somewhere.” What he knew of geography would have filled the heads of perhaps two pins-even though, thanks to his army service, he’d seen much more of the world than he’d ever expected (or wanted) while growing up in the little village of Kunhegyes.

“Let’s ask them when we get off our shift,” Szonyi said.

Kunsmiled a sour smile. “And what language will you ask them in?” he inquired.

Szonyi had only one answer for that, which was no answer at all. A typical Gyongyosian peasant, he spoke only his own language. Sheepishly, he said, “I don’t suppose they know Gyongyosian.”

“About as much as you know of Algarvian, probably.” Aye, Kun enjoyed making Szonyi look like a fool.

The new captives, naturally, noticed everybody staring at them. They waved to the Gyongyosians and bowed from the waist as if they were visiting nobles. “Show-offs,” Szonyi muttered.

Then one of the Algarvians, waving again, called out, “Hello, friends! How are you?” in almost unaccented Gyongyosian.