Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“All right, on with the rest of the business,” the captain said, when the last constables came out of the building. “They’ll pay. Oh, how they’ll pay.”

“Only one trouble with that,” Bembo said. Delminio raised an eyebrow. Bembo explained: “If the blonds know we’re going to do for them, why shouldn’t they try and boot us in the balls before they go west?”

His partner made a sour face. “That’s a nasty thought. You’re full of them today, aren’t you? Here’s hoping the Kaunians don’t have it, too.”

“Kaunians, come forth!” the captain shouted in front of the next block of flats. Bembo wondered why he bothered. Predictably, no blonds came forth. He just gave them another few seconds to conceal themselves before the capture squads swarmed in. The extra time didn’t seem to matter much, though. Soon, more battered Kaunians came out. The Algarvians would take their vengeance through the whole quarter.

As the holding squads took charge of the blonds the capture squads prised out of their flats, the captain kept a tally on a leaf of paper stuck in a clipboard. Bembo knew what that was all about. “Quota,” he said. “Not much point to this business if we don’t make quota, is there?”

Privately, he wondered if there was any point to it regardless of whether they made quota or not. For every Kaunian Algarve got rid of to fuel its mage-craft, what would the Unkerlanters do? Kill one of their own, or two of their own, or three, or four. Maybe KingMezentio hadn’t realized how very much in earnest about the warKingSwemmel was. If he didn’t realize it by now, he was a fool. And if he did realize it by now… maybe he was a fool anyhow, for biting off more war than he could chew.

No, I can’t say anything like that. I shouldn‘t even think anything like that. But Bembo couldn’t help it. He wasn’t blind. He wasn’t deaf. No matter what sergeants thought, he wasn’t stupid. If something hovered there in front of his nose and yelled at him at the top of its lungs, he couldn’t very well not notice it.

A lot of people he knew didn’t seem to think that way, though.

Delminio said, “I still wish we’d been on a capture squad. Some of these Kaunian wenches look pretty tasty, or they would have before our boys started roughing them up. Wouldn’t mind tearing off a piece, not even a little I wouldn’t.”

“If you want a broad that bad, pick one who suits you and throw her down on the cobblestones,” Bembo said. “Nobody’s going to do anything but cheer you on and line up behind you, not today.” He looked back toward the crumpled body of the Algarvian constable. Poor whoreson hadn’t known what hit him, anyhow. One second walking along, the next dead. There were worse ways to go.

Into the next block of flats charged the men from the capture squads. As before, they beat all the Kaunian men and most of the women before sending them out. As before, they had their sport with some of the women, too. Delminio said, “They keep on like that, they’ll be too cursed tired to finish the job.”

“They’d better not be,” the constabulary captain said. “They can do whatever they want-as long as they make quota. If they don’t make quota, they answer to me. There are still plenty of Kaunians in here, for us to harvest what we need.”

Quota. Harvest. Those were nice, bloodless words. They had very little to do with the bruised and bleeding and raped blonds huddled under the sticks of the holding squads. They let the captain do his job without thinking much about what he was doing. They’d let you do the same, if you didn’t keep poking and prodding at things, Bembo told himself. It’s only Kaunians, after all.

But the noises they made-not the words he could hardly understand, having forgotten the classical Kaunian he’d had beaten into him at school, but the wordless sounds of pain and sorrow and despair-were the same as those so many Algarvians might have made. Bembo violently shook his head. What was he doing, thinking of Algarvians in such straits? What was the war about, if not making sure Algarvians never found themselves in such straits?

One block of flats after another, the capture squads seized Kaunians and sent them down to the street. At last, the captain blew his whistle. “Quota!” he shouted. “Now let’s get ‘em to the caravan depot for transport.”

Transport. Another bloodless word. Let’s send them off to be killed. That was what the word meant. That was what the captain meant. But he didn’t have to say it, so he didn’t have to think it. Bembo shook his head. You’re thinking too much yourself again.

Some of the Kaunians were too badly battered to have an easy time walking. The constables’ solution to that was to beat them some more. They set other blonds to carrying the ones that didn’t spur into motion.

“See?” a constable said as they left the Kaunian quarter. “You’re out. Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy?”

Forthwegians on the streets jeered the Kaunians on their way to the ley-line caravan depot. By the way some of the Kaunians flinched, that hurt more than the beatings they’d taken from the Algarvians. Bembo didn’t understand that, but saw it was so.

As some desperate Kaunian had hurled the flowerpot down on the constables, so somebody-a woman-hurled one word in Algarvian at them from an upper story: “Shame!”

Delminio laughed. So did the captain leading the constables. Bembo only shrugged. The flowerpot had done some damage. What could a word do?

As always, shoving too many Kaunians into not enough caravan cars was hard work. As always, the constables did what needed doing, and barred the doors from the outside when they finished. The windows were already shuttered.

To Bembo’s surprise, the caravan glided off toward the east, the direction of Algarve and the Kaunian kingdoms beyond. “Haven’t seen that in a while,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I hear the fellows with the thick spectacles are worried about Valmiera,” Delminio answered. “If Lagoas and Kuusamo try invading, we’ll throw ‘em right back into the Strait, by the powers above.”

“Aye,” Bembo said, and then, “We’d bloody well better.”

Skarnu liked the farm the Valmieran underground leaders had found for Merkela and little Gedominu-and now for himself. It wasn’t so big as the one outside Pavilosta where she’d lived, but the land was richer. He chuckled when that thought crossed his mind. Before the war, he wouldn’t have been able to tell good farmland from bad.

He thought Merkela would laugh, too, when he told her that. But she didn’t. She said, “That’s something you should have known.” She had Gedominu on her hip. She always did when she needed to do chores, and the farm always had chores to do. The baby didn’t slow her down a bit. She got more work done with him than Skarnu did without him.

“You’re probably right,” Skarnu said. “No, you’re certainly right. But I didn’t. I didn’t know a lot of things back then.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I didn’t know what mattered to me. That’s most important.”

She flushed. She never seemed to know how to take endearments. Maybe she hadn’t got many while married to old Gedominu. That hadn’t stopped her from loving him, or from naming their baby after him. Before she could say anything in return, her eyes swung away from Skarnu and toward the road that ran by the little farmhouse. “Someone’s coming.”

Not many people came down that road; the farmhouse was a long way from the nearest village, let alone Ramygala, the nearest real town. Skarnu looked, too. Anyone who did come this way was liable to mean trouble. But then he grinned and exclaimed, “That’s Raunu!”

“You’re right.” Merkela waved to the veteran sergeant. “I’m always glad to see him come up my road.”