Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

How big a difference? Sabrino wondered, returning the bow. But thinking about dragons naturally led him to his next question: “How are you fixed for cinnabar?”

Scoufas shrugged again. “Not very well. Such is life, these days. The Unkerlanters have plenty. Their dragons can flame farther than ours, thanks to all the quicksilver they give them. We fly better than they do, though, which takes away some of their advantage.”

“All right.” It wasn’t all right-it wasn’t even close to all right-but Sabrino couldn’t do anything about it. “Let’s get my dragons seen to, let’s get my men settled, and then you’ll show me the map.”

“Everything shall be just as you say, of course,” Scoufas replied with another bow.

The Yaninan dragon handlers did seem capable enough. They fed the newly come Algarvian dragons chunks of meat rubbed in ground brimstone, and they gave them some meat rubbed in cinnabar-about as much, or rather as little, as their Algarvian opposite numbers would have had available. The Yaninans had huts waiting and ready for Sabrino’s dragonfliers. Sabrino could think of major generals who would be sleeping rougher than he was.

But when he got a look at the map, he forgot about everything else. “Powers above!” he burst out. “If they push hard-no, when they push hard-how in blazes do you propose to stop them?”

“I am not a major of footsoldiers,” Scoufas said, which wasn’t an answer. “We shall do everything in our power, I assure you,” he added, which wasn’t an answer, either. Then that rather nasty glint came back to his eyes. “Of course, you Algarvians have had a certain amount of trouble stopping the Unkerlanters, too.”

Sabrino would have resented that more if it hadn’t been true. From the freezing Narrow Sea in the south to the warm Garelian Ocean in the north, the Algarvians were stretched too thin against their bigger foe. This, though-what passed for the Yaninan line looked like a wool tunic after an army of moths had found it in a closet.

Scoufas added, “You Algarvians often say Yaninans can’t fight. Then you go to war with your great plenty of all the tools. The Unkerlanters-they too have a great plenty of all the tools. And what have we? Bodies. With bodies, Colonel, we do what we can.”

Sometimes what those bodies did was run away as fast as they could go, sometimes even throwing away their sticks to flee the faster. Sabrino knew that. Scoufas doubtless knew it, too, even if he didn’t feel like owning up to it. Like a lot of Yaninan officers, he had pride and to spare. And he needed it, for it was about the only thing of which he had plenty.

“My men and I will do what we can for you, Major,” Sabrino said.

The Yaninan shrugged another pessimistic shrug. “If your wing were not battered and used up, your superiors would never have sent it here,” he said. “We know we get your leavings.” He waited for Sabrino to argue. Sabrino didn’t. He couldn’t. That was also true. When he didn’t, Scoufas raised an elegantly arched eyebrow and asked, “Tell me, if you would be so kind, what you did to get yourself sent among Yaninans?”

“Do you want to know the truth?” Sabrino asked, and Scoufas dipped his head. Yaninans often did that instead of nodding; Sabrino had seen as much down in the land of the Ice People. He went on, “I toldKingMezentio he was wrong about something, and I happened to be right.”

“Ah,” Scoufas said. “If you had done such a thing withKingTsavellas, it might have proved a fatal error.”

Who says it isn‘t? Sabrino thought. But he would not say that to a Yaninan. Instead, he said, “I’ve been a colonel a long time. I’ll keep right on being a colonel for a long time to come.”Unless I get killed, of course. He shrugged. /have only my wife to provide for these days, now that Fronesia’s squeezing money out of that footsoldier instead.

“What did you, ah, say to your king to fall from his good graces?” Scoufas asked.

Sabrino didn’t intend to answer that, but decided it couldn’t make any difference. “I told him sacrificing Kaunians for the sake of strong sorcery would turn out to be a mistake, and it did.”

“Well.” Whatever Scoufas had expected, that plainly wasn’t it. “You surprise me, Colonel. I thought all Algarvians killed Kaunians with a smile on their faces, I have not seen any who did not, at any rate, not till now.”

“Life is full of surprises,” Sabrino said, at which Scoufas dipped his head again.

Two days later, when Sabrino’s wing flew their first mission alongside Scoufas’ Yaninan dragonfliers, he got another surprise. It wasn’t that the Yaninans performed well enough. He’d looked for that, remembering how wellColonelBroumidis ’ men had flown down on the austral continent. What really startled him was how weak the Unkerlanter forces opposite the Yaninans were. His wing came back from smashing up the enemy’s outposts not only without losing a man but also without the feeling of having been in real danger.

“Maybe I should have said even more rude things to his Majesty,” Sabrino toldCaptainOrosio once they got back to the dragon farm. “This isn’t war-it’s more like the rest cure they give consumptives.”

“Swemmel’s whoresons sure fight us a lot harder than they go after these buggers,” Orosio agreed. “Till we got here, I didn’t think the Unkerlantershad a second team. We’ve never seen it before, by the powers above.”

“Of course,” Sabrino said musingly, “itis all they need against the Yaninans.”

“Oh, aye-no doubt about that.” His squadron commander didn’t bother hiding his scorn. “Powers above, if Swemmel had a third team, he could get away with using that, too. Hit Tsavellas’ odds and sods with a real army and they’d break like a dropped pot.”

“Aye, they would, wouldn’t they?” Sabrino looked around, more than a little nervously. He wished Orosio hadn’t put it quite that way.

Bembo swaggered through Eoforwic exactly as he’d swaggered through Gromheort farther east. Thanks to Delminio, his new partner, he’d already made the acquaintance of a good many taverns and eateries and bakeries where a hungry man could get what he needed to sustain himself through a long, hard, wearying shift on the beat. He was sustaining himself so much, he was thinking of letting out the belt that held up his kilt another notch.

He didn’t enjoy going into the Kaunian quarter when his partner and he drew that duty, but he didn’t shrink from it. And it had compensations patrolling the rest of Eoforwic didn’t offer. As Delminio put it, “The blond women throw themselves at our feet or on their knees or however we want them.” By the smug smile on his face, he’d had no trouble getting at least one exactly how he wanted her.

“Aye, no doubt about it,” Bembo agreed. He’d had good luck with Kaunian women, too. As an Algarvian constable, one could hardly help having good luck with Kaunian women. “Hardly seems sporting, does it? They’ll do anything, or a lot of ‘em will, on account of they think we can keep ‘em alive if we want to.”

“Sporting?” Delminio shrugged. “Who cares about sporting? What I care about is getting my ashes hauled.”

“Sounds right,” Bembo said. Delminio didn’t hate Kaunians the way Oraste, his old partner, had. But Delminio didn’t hesitate in taking advantage of the blonds whenever he saw the chance, either. Since Bembo rarely hesitated himself when he saw that kind of chance, they got along fine.

After walking on for a few paces, Bembo said, “There are times I wish we hadn’t started sending ‘em west. I don’t know what in blazes it’s got us. The Unkerlanters are doing their own dirty work, and it pretty much cancels ours out.”