Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

Beside him on the low bed, Tassi stirred and muttered. After a particularly loud roar, she stiffened and sat up and said something or other in Yaninan. Hajjaj spoke in Algarvian, the only language they had in common: “The Unkerlanters have sent dragons against Bishah again. Their eggs should not burst close to here, not when we’re up in the hills.”

“Oh,” she said, now fully awake. “I thought it was a storm.” She snuggled against him. He enjoyed the touch of her soft, bare skin. He would have enjoyed it more had sweat not sprung out wherever their bodies touched. Zuwayzi summer nights were not really made for lovers who craved clasping each other close.

“In winter, it might have been a storm,” Hajjaj replied. “At this season… I hope our dragonfliers and the Algarvians do a proper job of punishing the raiders.”

“May it be so,” Tassi said, and then, “As long as we are awake, would you like to…?”

Hajjaj chuckled. “Ask me again in a couple of days and I’ll gladly say aye. You pay me the compliment of treating me as if I were younger than I am. Itis flattering; far be it from me to deny that. But I know what this old carcass can do and what is beyond its powers these days.”

“Do you?” Tassi said, mischief in her voice. She slithered down toward the foot of the bed. “Maybe I can surprise you.”

Maybe she could have, too. She’d pleasantly surprised Hajjaj once or twice before. Kolthoum had been right, as usual; Tassi made a splendid amusement. But she hadn’t even begun when someone tapped on the bedchamber door. She let out a startled squeak. Hajjaj was a little startled, too; he always slept lightly, and his retainers knew better than to bother him in the night without urgent need. “What is it?” he called out in Zuwayzi.

“Your Excellency, you are wanted at the crystallomancer’s.”Tewfik ’s voice came from the other side of the door. “It isGeneralIkhshid.”

Despite the summer heat, ice ran up Hajjaj’s back. “I’ll come, of course,” he said, and got out of bed.

“What’s wrong?” Tassi asked in Algarvian, not following the quick conversation between the two Zuwayzin.

“I don’t know,” Hajjaj answered in the same tongue, though he feared he did. “But I had better go and find out.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, lad,”Tewfik said as Hajjaj stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. The wrinkled old majordomo’s laugh had a leer in it. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“No,” Hajjaj said, and let it go at that. “You can go back to bed now yourself, Tewfik. I’ll take care of whatever needs doing.”

ButTewfik shook his head. “I’m up. I’ll stay up. You may need more from me before the morning comes.”

How much did he know? How much did he guess? Hajjaj had no time to find out. Whatever his majordomo knew, Tewfik would keep it to himself. Hajjaj did know that. He hurried down the hall toward the chamber where the crystallomancers kept this isolated clanfather’s house in touch with the wider world.

Sure enough, GeneralIkhshid ’s image stared out at him as he sat down in front of one of the crystals there. As soon as Ikhshid saw him, the Zuwayzi officer began to speak: “Well, your Excellency, the whoresons have dropped the other boot.”

“The Unkerlanters?” Even now, Hajjaj could hope he was wrong.

But Ikhshid nodded grimly. “I’m afraid so. This isn’t just another raid on Bishah. They’re pounding us all along the front-pounding us hard, I mean. They aren’t playing games any more, your Excellency. They’ve got a demon of a lot of men and behemoths and dragons and egg-tossers.”

“Are we holding?” The Zuwayzi foreign minister asked the question he had to ask, and asked it with more than a little dread.

“For now-mostly,” Ikhshid said. “That’s by the reports I have right this minute, mind you. I don’t have reports from the whole line yet, and that worries me. Some of our brigades may not be reporting because they aren’t there to report any more. And if they aren’t…” His bushy white eyebrows came down and together in a frown.

“If they aren’t, Swemmel’s soldiers are liable to be pouring through the gaps,” Hajjaj said. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Most unhappily, GeneralIkhshid nodded. “Aye. And if they are, powers above only know how we’re going to stop them.”

“We gave them a good fight when they attacked us almost five years ago,” Hajjaj said. That was true. Also true was that the Unkerlanters had prevailed in the end.

And Ikhshid said, “What worries me most, your Excellency, is that they’re a lot better than they were back then. We haven’t changed all that much, but they’ve had three years of lessons from the Algarvians. You don’t get any better schoolmasters than Mezentio’s men.”

That didn’t sound good. No, it doesn’t sound good at all, Hajjaj thought gloomily. He asked, “Have you toldKingShazli yet?”

“I don’t mind so much waking you up,” Ikhshid said. “I thought I’d let his Majesty sleep till morning-if the Unkerlanter eggs will.”

“Wake him. He is the sovereign, and he needs to know,” Hajjaj said. “Don’t tell him you’ve told me first. Tell him you’re about to let me know, and that he doesn’t have to. I’m going to head down into the city right now.”

“All right. I’ll do it just as you say.” Ikhshid nodded to someone Hajjaj couldn’t see-presumably his crystallomancer, for the crystal flared with light and then went inert as the etheric connection was broken.

Hajjaj went out into the hall. He wasn’t surprised to findTewfik waiting. “I’m going to need a driver right away, I’m afraid,” he said.

The majordomo nodded. “I’ve already got him out of bed. He’s harnessing up the carriage.”

“Thank you, Tewfik,” Hajjaj said. “You are a wonder.” The ancient retainer nodded, accepting the praise as no less than his due.

By the time Hajjaj got down into Bishah, the Unkerlanter dragons had flown off to the south. A bit of smoke hung in the air. The moon was down, or Hajjaj judged he would have seen dark columns rising into the sky. Eggs had fallen close to the royal palace, but not on it. A few minutes after Hajjaj got to the foreign ministry, Qutuz came in.

“DidGeneralIkhshid have a crystallomancer get hold of you, too?” Hajjaj asked his secretary.

Qutuz shook his head. “No, your Excellency. The attack seemed bigger than usual, so I thought I should be here in case something was going on. I gather it is?”

“You might say so,” Hajjaj answered. “The Unkerlanters have struck the lines down by our southern border, and they’ve struck hard.”

“Are we holding?” Qutuz asked anxiously.

“We were when I spoke to Ikhshid,” Hajjaj said. “I hope we still are.”

GeneralIkhshidhimself strode into Hajjaj’s offices a little past sunrise. As he had on the crystal, he wasted no time: “They’ve broken through in several places. I’ve ordered our men back to the next line of positions farther north. Ihope we can hold them there.”

“You hope so?” Hajjaj said, and Ikhshid nodded. Like a man picking at a sore, Hajjaj elaborated: “You may hope so, but you don’t think so, do you?”

“No,” Ikhshid said bluntly. “We may slow ‘em up there, but I don’t see how we can stop ‘em. The next line north ofthat is on our old frontier. That’s a lot deeper, because we spent years building it up between the Six Years’ War and the last time Swemmel’s buggers hit us.”

“Can we stop the Unkerlanters there, then?” Hajjaj asked.

“I hope so,” Ikhshid answered, in much the same tones he’d used the last time he said that.

Hajjaj ground his teeth. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear, nor anything close to it. He hadn’t thought he would ever wish Ikhshid weren’t quite so honest. “What should the kingdom do if the soldiers can’t hold along that line?” he asked.