Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“That makes good sense.” Palasta sent him a speculative look. “You seem to have a very logical mind. Why didn’t you ever think about becoming a mage?”

“I don’t know,” Skarnu answered. “I never did, that’s all. I’ve never seen any signs I’d have the talent for it, either.” As a marquis, of course, he’d never had to worry about making a living. Since his parents’ untimely death, he’d never had to worry about anything till he took command of his company when war broke out. He’d done that as well as he could, and done a lot of other things since. Krasta, now-Krasta hadn’t worried about anything but shops and lovers her whole life long. The corners of his mouth turned down as he thought about his sister’s latest, Algarvian, lover.

“Talent does count,” Palasta said, “but only so much.”

“As may be,” Skarnu said. “It’s too late for me to worry about it now.” Palasta looked at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking Unkerlanter. Too late meant little to her: a telling proof of how young she was. More roughly than he’d intended to, Skarnu continued, “Come on. Let’s see how close we can get you.”

Palasta didn’t say anything as they walked on toward the ravaged camp. She didn’t have to. Watching her face was fascinating. She either didn’t know how to or else didn’t bother with hiding anything she thought or felt. She seemed to grow more astonished, more interested, more excited with every step they took. She also grew more puzzled. “I don’t know what they did,” she said. “I don’t know how they did it. But I don’t think magecraft will ever be the same.”

Skarnu wanted to laugh at her. She was much too young to speak with such self-assurance. But she was also too self-assured for him to dwell too much on her youth. She’d shown him she knew what she was talking about. What would she sense, what would she learn, if she could walk through the heart of the shattered camp?

He didn’t get to find out. About a quarter of a mile short of the camp, an Algarvian soldier popped out of a hole in the ground so well hidden by bushes that Skarnu had no idea he was there till he emerged. “No going farther,” he said in accented Valmieran. “Forbidden military area, by ordering ofGrand DukeIvone.”

Ivone was the highest-ranking Algarvian in Valmiera. As a man of the underground, Skarnu knew that. Would he have known it if he were as ordinary as he wanted to seem? Maybe-but maybe not, too. He said. “My sister and me, we just want to go on down to the beach to hunt for crabs.” He deliberately tried to sound none too bright.

The soldier shook his head. “Not here. Forbidden. You wanting crabs, you going back to town, finding wrong girlfriend.” He guffawed at his own wit.

Try to bribe him? Skarnu wondered. He decided against it. More redheads were surely lurking around the camp. “Plenty of good crabs on this beach,” he grumbled, for the Algarvian’s benefit. “Lobsters, too.” When the soldier shook his head again, Skarnu took Palasta’s arm. “Come on, sis. We’ll find ‘em somewheres else.”

“You leaving her with me, you go looking,” the Algarvian suggested. That made Skarnu retreat in a hurry. The redhead had thrown out the notion in a casual way. Skarnu hustled Palasta away from him before he decided she ought to be his because he was an occupier and he had a stick in his hands.

To Skarnu’s relief, she waited till they’d got out of earshot of the guard to ask, “Can we sneak around to the camp some other way?”

“I doubt it,” he answered regretfully. “They’re bound to have more than one man keeping an eye on it. If they send us away from it once, that probably won’t mean much to them. If they catch us trying to get there once they’ve told us no, that’s liable to be a different story.” He hesitated. “Unless you think you really have to get inside. If it’s that important, I’ll do my best to get you past the guards. You might have to use some of your magecraft, too.”

“No,” Palasta said after brief thought. “I’ve learned enough-and perhaps the biggest thing I’ve learned is how much I don’t know.” She spoke in riddles, but she sounded pleased doing it, so Skarnu supposed he should be pleased, too. And he was, for his own reasons: now he could go back to Merkela and little Gedominu.

Eight

Not for the first time, MarshalRathar reflected on how glad he was to get out of Cottbus, to get away from the direct influence ofKingSwemmel. Away from the capital, he was his own man. Inside Cottbus, inside the palace, he might have been fitted for strings at the wrists and ankles, at the elbows and knees, for he knew himself to be nothing more than the king’s puppet.

Even in getting away from Cottbus, though, Rathar followed Swemmel’s will rather than his own. He would sooner have gone back to the Duchy of Grelz, to finish driving the Algarvians from it. But Swemmel was convinced Unkerlant had the battle in the south well enough in hand to entrust it toGeneralVatran. Vatran was a capable commander; he and Rathar had worked well together down in the south for a couple of years. Still, Rathar wanted to finish what he’d started.

As usual, KingSwemmel cared nothing for what his subjects wanted. He’d sent Rathar up to the north, to a region where he hadn’t laid his hand on the fighting. And he’d sent with himGeneralGurmun, who’d proved himself the best commander of behemoths Unkerlant had.

The two of them rode horses east toward Pewsum, a town the Unkerlanters had taken back from Algarve and then held in spite of counterattacks delivered with the redheads’ usual skill and ingenuity. Looking around at the devastation through which he rode, Rathar said, “Nothing comes easy fighting Mezentio’s men. It never has. By the time we drive them off a piece of ground, it’s not worth having any more.”

Gurmun pondered that. He was younger than Rathar-in his early forties-with hard, blunt features and cold, cold eyes. He’d risen through the ranks despite, or perhaps because of, KingSwemmel ’s purges. He said, “They’re tough, aye, but we can whip them. We’ve done it before; we’ll do it again. And every time we do whip them, we leave them that much less to fight back with.”

Ten months ago, his behemoths had stopped the Algarvians’ last desperate push in the Durrwangen bulge, the push that might have torn the whole position open had it succeeded. Hundreds of the great beasts from both sides were left dead on the field. Unkerlant had been able to make good its losses. The Algarvian behemoth force hadn’t been the same since the battles by Durrwangen.

Rathar said, “I just wonder how much of our kingdom will be standing by the time the war ends.”

Gurmun shrugged. “As long as some of it’s standing and there’s nothing left of Algarve.” That was also Swemmel’s attitude. Rathar could hardly disagree with it.

In fact, he didn’t disagree with it. But he did say, “The more we have left standing, the better.”

“Well, of course,” Gurmun said. “The better we keep our secrets, the more we’ll be able to manage there. The redheads couldn’t have been plainer about what they had in mind around Durrwangen if they’d hung up a sign-we’re going to attack here. Stupid buggers.” He spat in the muddy roadway.

His scorn madeMarshalRathar blink. To Rathar, the Algarvians were the touchstone of the military art. He’d spent the first couple of years of the war against them learning how they did what they did well enough to imitate it. Had he failed, Unkerlant would have gone under. That Gurmun could show contempt for the redheads proved he’d succeeded. It still disconcerted him, though.

Ropes dyed red warned soldiers and surviving locals away from a field by the side of the road. Rathar said, “One of these days, we’ll have to clear out all the eggs we and the Algarvians have buried.” The red ropes said that field was sown with Algarvian eggs. A crater not far from the road said some luckless fellow had discovered at least one of them the hard way.