Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

They took the local ley-line caravan to the stop where Pekka had got out so often on her way home from Kajaani City College. Then they walked up the hill to the lane with her house and Elimaki’s beside it. By then, full darkness had fallen. Lights were few and far between. Pekka worried more about slipping and turning an ankle than about footpads. Robbers were few and far between in Kajaani: an advantage to provincial towns, though Kuusamans generally were law-abiding folk.

Elimaki’s house lay closer to the opening of the lane than did Pekka’s. “Why don’t you come in with me?” her sister said. “I’ll fix some supper and something for both of us to drink, and we can go on from there.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Pekka said.

“What’s wonderful is to see you,” Elimaki answered. “Now I have someone I can let my hair down to.” She sighed. “I’m jealous of you and Leino. Isn’t that terrible?”

Pekka’s ears heated. “Not really.” She changed the subject in a hurry: “I’ll help in the kitchen.”

Elimaki didn’t let her do much, but she did fix them both stiff drinks. Uto hung around while the halibut steaks cooked. He stared wide-eyed at his mother all through supper. Elimaki, these days, surely felt more like a mother to him than Pekka. After supper, though, he hurried off to play. Before long, a horrible crash came from a back room. “What was that?” Elimaki called as she and Pekka carried dishes back to the kitchen to wash them.

“Nothing,” Uto answered sweetly. Pekka snickered. She knewthat tone altogether too well.

She and Elimaki had a couple of more drinks while they did the dishes, and they took more brandy out to the parlor. Eventually, Elimaki called Uto and told him to go to bed. He sent Pekka the look of appeal she knew too well and hadn’t seen in too long. “Do I have to, Mother?”

“Is this the time you usually go to sleep?” Pekka asked. Powers above! I don’t even know! Reluctantly, Uto nodded-Elimaki would give him the lie if he did anything else. “Then you do,” Pekka told him. “But come give me a kiss first.” He ran to her. They clung to each other. Then, with less fuss than she’d expected, he went off to the back of the house. Pekka glanced over to Elimaki. “He’s growing up.” She emptied her glass.

“Aye-when he feels like it,” her sister said. “He’s probably reading under the covers for a while. Sometimes I let him get away with that.” Elimaki drained her glass, too, then poured it full again and filled Pekka’s with it. “You haven’t said two words about yourself since you got off the caravan car.”

“Well…” Discretion warred with brandy. For the moment, discretion won. Pekka said, “There are a lot of things I can’t talk about.” She could hear the beginning of a slur in her words. Brandy hadn’t lost by much.

“I knowthat,” Elimaki said impatiently. “I don’t care about what youdo. I wouldn’t understand most of it anyway-I’m no mage. I want to know how youare.”

“Do you?” Pekka said. Her sister nodded, the motion exaggerated enough to show she’d had a good deal to drink, too.“Do you?” Pekka repeated. Elimaki nodded again. And Pekka, surprising herself even as the words poured out, told her.

Silence stretched and stretched after she finished. Ishouldn‘t have done that, she thought, and blamed the brandy. But it wasn’t just the brandy, and she knew it. One of the reasons she’d come home was to talk with Elimaki about Fernao. Now she’d done it. If only Olavin hadn’t chosen the most inconvenient possible time to take up with someone else, too.

At last, Elimaki said, “I don’t know what to say. I… never expected anything like this-from Olavin or from you. Especially from you, I think.”

“I didn’t reallyexpect it, either,” Pekka said, and knocked back the brandy Elimaki had poured her. “It just… happened. These things do, sometimes.”

“I know. I ought to know.” Elimaki’s face twisted. She paused again, then asked, “What are you going to do? What are you going to tell Leino?”

“I don’t know,” Pekka answered. “I just don’t know. I haven’t the faintest idea in the world. I’ll cross that ice when I come to it.”

“Ididn’t expect it of you,” Elimaki said again. “If anybody in the family was going to go off and take a lover, I thought it would be me. Here I was, sitting at home by myself-except for Uto, and that’s a pretty big ‘except.’ But I… sat here. I was lonely, but it wasn’t that bad. And now this.” Her goggle-eyed look also came only in part from the brandy.

“I know. But-” Pekka stopped, unsure how to go on.

Her sister held up a hand. “Never mind. Your face says it all. If I doused every one of the lamps, you’d still glow.”

“Does it? Would I?” Pekka asked. Very solemnly indeed, Elimaki nodded. So did Pekka. “Well, it’s the truth. It’s how I feel. I know it’s not the way I’m supposed to feel, but I do.”

“I don’t know whether to be green with envy of you or to want to hit you over the head with a brick,” Elimaki said. “These things usually don’t have happy endings, you know.”

“Of course I know,” Pekka said. “At least we aren’t Algarvic people, where they go to knives sometimes instead of solicitors.” And then, even before her sister could say anything, she remembered Fernaowas of Algarvic blood. That gave her something brand new to worry about. As if I didn‘t have enough, she thought.

Behind Garivald-who was getting used to thinking of himself as Fariulf- lay the Twegen River. Behind him also lay a good many artificers frantically repairing the bridges over the Twegen the Algarvians had knocked down with their sorcerously guided eggs. Ahead of him, to the east, were the rest of Forthweg and all the redheads trying to keep his countrymen and him from taking any more of it.

To the north, smoke rose from the burning city of Eoforwic. Garivald supposed the Algarvians could have given this bridgehead even more trouble than they had if they weren’t trying to put down the rebellious Forthwegians in their capital.

That didn’t mean Mezentio’s men were idle here. Garivald wished it would have. Eggs started bursting not far away. They were of the plain, ordinary, unsteered variety, but if one burst in the hole where he crouched it would kill him just as dead as the fanciest product of inventive Algarvian sorcery. The eggs kicked up great, choking clouds of brown dust. Coughing a little, Garivald marveled at that. Down in the Duchy of Grelz, it would have been raining now-the fall mud time-with snow on the way. Here, rain fell mostly in the late fall and winter, and snow was uncommon. So he’d been told, anyhow. He had trouble believing it, but it looked to be true.

“Stay alert!”LieutenantAndelot shouted. “They like to attack after they plaster us with eggs. They think that’s an efficient way to do things. Our job is to show ‘em they’re wrong.”

“That’s right,” Garivald said. From what he’d seen of Algarvian soldiers, they were alarmingly efficient, but he had to back up his officer. That was part of what being a corporal was about. And he spoke the absolute truth when he added, “We’ve got to hold on to this bridgehead, no matter what.”

A moment later, somebody else let out a frightened yell: “Here they come!”

Garivald quickly looked every which way. There were the kilted Algarvians loping forward. Some of them shouted, “Mezentio!” as they ran. They still acted as much like world-beaters as they had when they overran his home village of Zossen. True, they’d been driven out of Unkerlant, but that didn’t seem to be because they were bad soldiers, only because there weren’t quite enough of them to overwhelm the larger kingdom.