Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“More like what?” Istvan said plaintively. “I still haven’t got the faintest idea what under the light of the stars you’re talking about.”

CorporalKunrolled his eyes, as he had a habit of doing when sorely tried. “You’re such a natural-born innocent, who can guess how you’ve managed to live this long? But if you’ve got any sense at all, you’ll chew those leaves tonight right around suppertime.” His axe bit into a chunk of pine. Chips flew. He smote again. The chunk split in two.

“I’m not going to do any such thing till you tell me why and have it make sense,” Istvan said stubbornly.

That only madeKun roll his eyes again. “Just as you say, then.” He was most dangerous when most exquisitely polite. “Tonight, you’ve got yourself a choice. You can leak out your arsehole and go into the infirmary and feel better in a couple of days, or else you can leak out of a cut throat and not feel better ever again. That’s it. Depending on how you choose, it may be the last choice you ever get to make.”

“Oh!” No matter how naive Istvan was, he couldn’t very well misunderstand that. He attacked the chunk of pine in front of him with more violence than it really needed. “They’re going to do it tonight?”

“No, I just want to give you the shits,”Kun replied. “That way, when you get over them, you can come back and beat the stuffing out of me. I really enjoy having people beat the stuffing out of me, especially when they’re twice my size.”

“You have leaves of your own?” Istvan asked.

“Of course not,” the former mage’s apprentice said. “I really enjoy having my own throat cut, too, so I gave you all the leaves I had.”

Istvan’s ears heated. MaybeKun didn’t deliberately treat him as if he were an idiot. On the other hand, maybeKun did, too-and maybe he’d earned it with that particular question. But he didn’t worry about it for long. He asked, “Did you give Szonyi some of these precious leaves, too?”

If he’d hit the wood harder than he had to, Kun splintered the piece in front of him with his next couple of blows. At last, he answered, “I tried to give him some, but he wouldn’t let me. He’d rather take his chances withCaptainFrigyes. You can, too, if you think he and the Algarvians andMajorBorsos will really do anything worthwhile.”

Istvan wished he thought that. Dying for Gyongyos… What could be more fitting for a warrior from a warrior race? But he wouldn’t be dying for Gyongyos here; he was too mournfully sure of that. He would be dying forCaptainFrigyes, for no one and nothing else. Even if Frigyes and Borsos and the redheads made a sorcery to blast the island of Obuda down to the bottom of the Bothnian Ocean, how much would that help Gyongyos and Ekrekek Arpad in the war against Kuusamo? Not very much, not so far as Istvan could see.

“Never mind,” he said. Now that it came down to the sticking point, he couldn’t stomach betraying his countrymen’s plot to the Kuusamans, but he didn’t want to be part of it, either. Escaping with a sore belly seemed a better way out of the dilemma than most. “I just wish you could have got Szonyi to see sense.”

“So do I,”Kun told him. “But he’s not in the mood to listen. And he told me, ‘Don’t waste the sergeant’s time, getting him to nag me, either. I know what I’m doing.’ I don’t think he does, but…” He shrugged.

“I’m glad you tried,” Istvan said. He also resolved to try to talk to Szonyi himself, no matter what the trooper had toldKun. Wood-chopping seemed to take forever. At last, the guards released the labor detail. Istvan hurried off to try to find his longtime comrade.

But Szonyi wouldn’t talk to him, not about that. “I’ve made up my mind,” was all he would say. “I’d rather go out giving the enemy one more lick than spend the rest of my days rotting away here on Obuda.”

Istvan found no good reply to that. He finally set his hand on Szonyi’s shoulder and said, “May the stars enfold you in their light forevermore, then.”

“May it be so.” Szonyi gave him an anxious glance. “You andKun won’t betray us, will you? I know you’ve talked about it.”

“No, by the stars, neither one of us,” Istvan said. “May they leave us in eternal darkness if I lie. I just don’t think you’ll do as much asCaptainFrigyes thinks you will.”

“I think you’re wrong, Sergeant.” Szonyi turned away. Istvan started to argue some more, then saw it would do no good. He walked off, shaking his head.

When he sawKun a few minutes later, the one-time mage’s apprentice raised a questioning eyebrow. Istvan shook his head. Kun sighed and shrugged.

Along with their suppers, both of them ate the leaves. Istvan had expected, or at least hoped for, a little leisure before they acted and a little dignity while they were working. He got neither. The effect put him in mind of having an egg burst in the middle of his guts. Both he andKun raced for the latrines at a dead run. Kun ’s face was pale as milk. Istvan had no doubt he looked the same way.

Neither of them made it to the slit trenches. They both had to yank down their leggings and squat in the middle of the compound while guards cursed them in Kuusaman and Gyongyosian. Istvan stayed on the ground, clutching at his belly. Kun tried to get to his feet, then sank down again. “Must be something we ate,” he moaned. That was true, too, if not quite in the way he meant it.

The guards had to drag them to the infirmary. They threw them onto cots in a room of their own and gave them chamber pots. That suited Istvan perfectly. He spent a lot of unpleasant time squatting over his as night replaced day.

“When?” he askedKun when they chanced to be squatting side by side.

“I don’t know,”Kun answered. “We’ll find out when it happens. In the meantime, shut up.” That was doubtless good advice. Istvan tried to tell his guts the same thing. They wouldn’t listen to him.

At some point that evening, Istvan asked, “What time is it now?” Since things had started for him, he’d lost a good deal of interest in the outside world, but that still mattered.

Not toKun, not at the moment. “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he grunted. That he was squatting again no doubt made him even shorter with questions than he would have been otherwise. After a bit, he added, “And I already told you to shut up. Who knows who’s liable to be listening?”

Istvan guessed-and it was only a guess-he fell into an exhausted sleep somewhere around midnight. He knew he hadn’t been asleep very long before getting jolted awake by a short, sharp earthquake. He dove under his bed, as he would have done back in his home valley, and hoped the roof wouldn’t come down on his head.

AlthoughKun came from Gyorvar, he knew enough to dive under his cot, too; most of Gyongyos was earthquake country. Through the roar of the ground and the shudder of the infirmary all around them, he shouted, “This isn’t just a regular earthquake.”

“So what?” Istvan shouted back. “That doesn’t mean it can’t kill us.”Kun didn’t answer that. Istvan concluded that, for once, he’d out-argued his clever comrade.

Even after the ground stopped shaking, rending and tearing noises went on and on, most of them from outside the captives’ camp. Kun stayed right where he was. Istvan started to come out, but seeingKun on his belly made him decide not going anywhere might be a good idea. Kun said, “Well, they managed to get the spell to work, no doubt about it.”

“So they did,” Istvan said. “Now, what have they done with it? If they’ve done enough…”If they’ve done enough, maybe I should have let them cut my throat. Maybe the stars will turn away from my spirit and leave it in eternal darkness. Am I accursed for cowardice?