Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“Make peace as fast as we can, and get the best termsKingSwemmel will give us.” Again, GeneralIkhshid spoke without the least hesitation. “If the Unkerlanters break through at the old frontier, powers below eat me if I know how we can stop them-or even slow them down very much-this side of Bishah.”

“It’s summer,” Hajjaj said, looking for hope wherever he might find it. “Won’t the desert work for us?”

“Some,” Ikhshid said. “Some-maybe. What you have to understand, though, and what I don’t think you do, is that the Unkerlanters are alot better at what they’re doing than they were the last time they struck us a blow. We’re some better ourselves: Thanks to the Algarvians, we’ve got more behemoths and dragons than we did then. But curse me if I know whether it’ll be enough.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a young captain hurried past Qutuz and saluted. “Sir,” the junior officer said to Ikhshid, “I’m sorry to have to report an enemy breakthrough atSabAbar .”

Ikhshid cursed wearily. Odds were he hadn’t slept all night. He said, “That’s not good. SabAbar is in the second defensive line, not the first. If they’ve got through there already… That’s not good at all.”

“How could they have reached the second line so fast?” Hajjaj asked. “How could they have broken through it so fast?”

“They probably got there about as fast as we did,” Ikhshid said unhappily. “It’s not a neat, pretty fight when both sides are moving fast, especially if the whoresons on the other side have got their peckers up. And the stinking Unkerlantersdo, powers below eat ‘em. They think they can lick anybody right now, and when you think like that, you’re halfway to being right.”

Qutuz asked the next question before Hajjaj could: “If they’ve broken through at thisSabAbar place, can we hold the second line, even for a little while?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see.”GeneralIkhshid sounded harried. “We’ll do everything we can, but who knows how much that will be?” He bowed to Hajjaj. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Excellency, I’d better head back. In fact, unless I miss my guess, I’ll be going down south before too long. As I say, we have to do what we can.” With another bow, he tramped away, the young captain in his wake.

“What are we going to do, your Excellency?” Qutuz asked.

“The best we can,” Hajjaj answered. “I have nothing better to tell you, any more than Ikhshid had anything better to tell me. What I have to do now, I think, is letKingShazli know we have… difficulties.”

He didn’t know what Shazli could do. He didn’t know what anyone could do. It was up to Zuwayza’s soldiers now. If they did what he hoped, the Unkerlanters still had their work cut out for them. If they didn’t… If they didn’t, Zuwayza might not need a foreign minister much longer, only an Unkerlanter governor ruling from Bishah, as one had back before the Six Years’ War.

One of the nice things about serving as an Algarvian constable, even an Algarvian constable in occupied Forthweg, was that Bembo hadn’t had to go to war. It was always other poor sods who’d had to travel west and fight the Unkerlanters. They’d hated him for his immunity, too. He’d known they hated him, and he’d laughed at them on account of it.

Now that laughter came home to roost. The war had come home, too, or at least come to Eoforwic, which he had to call home these days. For one thing, the Forthwegians in the city kept on fighting as if they were soldiers. And, for another, Swemmel’s men sat right across the Twegen from Eoforwic. If they ever swarmed across the river…

Bembo clutched his stick a little tighter. These days, he always carried an army-issue weapon, not the shorter one he’d used as a constable. For all practical purposes, he wasn’t a constable any more. All the Algarvians still in Eoforwic came under military command nowadays.

Ever so cautiously, he peered out from behind a battered building. He ducked back again in a hurry. “Seems all right,” he said. “No Forthwegian fighters in sight, anyhow.”

Oraste grunted. “It’s the buggers who aren’t in sight you’ve got to watch out for,” Bembo’s old partner said. He and Bembo and half a dozen real soldiers had been thrown together as a squad. “You never see the one who blazes you.”

“Or if you do, he’s thelast thing you see,” a trooper added cheerfully.

“Heh,” Bembo said. If that was a joke, he didn’t find it funny. If it wasn’t a joke, he didn’t want to think about it.

Running feet behind him made him whirl, the business end of his stick swinging toward what might be a target. The Algarvians held-and held down-this section of Eoforwic, but their Forthwegian foes kept sneaking fighters into it and making trouble. Bembo had no desire to find himself included in some casualty report no one would ever read.

But the fellow heading his way was a tall redhead in short tunic and kilt: an Algarvian constable like himself. Relaxing a little-relaxing too much was also liable to land you in one of those reports-he asked, “What’s up?”

“Nothing good,” the newcomer answered. “You know how a bunch of our important officers have come down with a sudden case of loss of life?” He waited for Bembo and the men with him to nod, then went on, “Well, the brass-the ones who’re still left alive, I mean-think they’ve figured out what’s gone wrong.”

“Tell, tell!” That wasn’t just Bembo. Several of his comrades spoke up, too. Disliking the men in command was one thing. Wanting to see all of them dead was something else again-at least, Bembo supposed it was.

With the self-importance of a man who knows he has important news, the other constable said, “Well, what happened is-or the big blazes think what happened is-the fornicating Forthwegians have worked out a spell that makes them look like us. What could be better for assassins?”

“Like the cursed Kaunians looking like Forthwegians, by the powers above!” Bembo exclaimed.

“Aye, it sounds wonderful,” Oraste said. “Now all we need is a spell that makesus look like Kaunians, so we can go off and cut our own throats and save the Forthwegians and the Unkerlanters the trouble.”

“That isn’t much of a joke,” one of the soldiers said, echoing Bembo’s thought.

“Who says I was joking?” Oraste’s face and voice were cold as winter in the south of Unkerlant.

The soldier glared back at him. That was enough to intimidate most Algarvian constables pressed into combat duty. It would have been plenty to intimidate Bembo, who knew perfectly well that he was softer than the men who went to real war. But Oraste glared right back-anyone who reckoned himself the harder man would have to prove it by beating him. And the soldier looked away first. Bembo was impressed.

He was also worried. “How in blazes are we supposed to know the whoresons with us are proper Algarvian whoresons and not disguised Forthwegian whoresons just waiting to cut our throats?” he asked the fellow who’d brought the bad news.

“They’re still working on that,” the other constable answered. “Some of the Forthwegians don’t trim their beards enough before they go into disguise, so they end up looking fuzzier than we usually do. And some of them have that foul accent of theirs when they try and speak Algarvian. But some of em… We wouldn’t have so many dead men if they were all easy to spot. If you don’t know the fellows around you, keep an eye on ‘em.” He sketched a salute and hurried off to spread the news further.

“Well, that’s jolly,” Bembo said. “Can’t trust the Forthwegians, can’t trust the Kaunians”-and didn‘t we do that to ourselves? he thought-”and now we can’t trust each other, either.”