Harry Turtledove: Into the Darkness

Istvan let out a rasping sigh of relief and went through the fellow’s pockets and pack. He found hard bread, smoked and salted salmon—a Kuusaman specialty—and dried apples and pears. The dead soldier’s canteen proved to hold apple brandy, something else of which the Kuusamans were inordinately fond. Istvan took a nip. He sighed with pleasure as fire ran down his throat.

“Szonyi?” he called in a low voice. When he got no answer, he called again, louder this time. He could have shouted and not been heard far in the din of bursting eggs.

He peered around. The only company he had was the dead Kuusaman. He cursed under his breath. He couldn’t go back up Mt. Sorong without knowing what had happened to his comrade. One warrior did not abandon another on the field. The stars would not shine for any man who did so base a thing as that.

“Szonyi?” Istvan called once more.

This time, he got an answer: “Aye?” Szonyi came through the curtain of rain toward him. The youngster had a smile on his face and a Kuusaman canteen in his hand. “I nailed one of the little whoresons,” he said. “How about you?”

“This fellow here won’t need his supper any more, so I may as well eat it for him,” Istvan said, which drew a laugh from Szonyi. Istvan went on, “Now that we’ve got a little food, let’s slide back up the side of the mountain.”

“I suppose so.” Szonyi didn’t sound happy about it. “If we do, though, we’ll have to share it with people who didn’t get any of their own.”

“And nobody has ever shared with you?” Istvan asked. Szonyi hung his head. Istvan slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on. We won’t starve for a while longer, anyhow, even if we do have to share.”

With eggs still falling almost at random, getting back up Mt. Sorong was easier than going down the sloping side of the low mountain had been. The Gyongyosian soldiers could make more noise, for with the bursting eggs it went largely unnoticed. But, just before they reached their own line, a sharp challenge rang out: “Halt! Who goes there?”

Istvan was glad to hear that challenge. If he couldn’t sneak up on his comrades, maybe the Kuusamans couldn’t, either. He gave his own name and Szonyi’s, then added, “Is that you, Kun?”

“Aye.” The mage’s apprentice sounded reluctant to admit it. He returned to soldierly formality: “Advance and be recognized.”

“Here we come,” Istvan said. “Don’t start blazing at us now, or we won’t give you any of the Kuusaman treats we’ve brought back.” Szonyi sent him a reproachful look. He pretended not to see it. With the rain, the pretense was easy enough.

Raindrops dappled the lenses of Kun’s spectacles as he too showed himself. “Salmon?” he asked hopefully. When he had the chance, he ate like a dragon, and his scrawny carcass never put on an ounce. When he couldn’t eat so much as he wanted, he got skinnier still.

“Aye, salmon, and bread and fruit, too. And that applejack the slanteyes brew,” Istvan said. “Szonyi and I have put a dent in what we got of that, but you can have a slug or two, and some of the food to go with it.”

What would have been plenty for two men wasn’t quite enough for three, but even Szonyi didn’t complain out loud. The two canteens held enough apple brandy to make complaint seem pointless to all three Gyongyosians. Presently, Szonyi landed back against the trunk of a tree and asked, “How did you spot us, Kun? You can’t be able to see much in the rain with your spectacles, and I don’t think we made any noise. Even if we did, the racket down the hill should have covered it.”

“I have my methods,” Kun said, and said no more.

His smile was so superior, Istvan wanted to kick him in the teeth. “Some fifth-rank magical trick, I don’t doubt,” he growled. “Would it have spotted Kuusamans, too? Tell me the truth, by the stars. Our necks may ride on what you know and what you don’t.”

“Unless they’re specially warded, it would,” Kun answered. “It spies men moving forward toward me.”

It didn’t spy men moving toward him from higher up Mt. Sorong, as a crashing in the brush proved a moment later. Istvan stared in astonishment at the apparition before him: an officer with the large six-pointed star of a major on each side of the collar of a uniform tunic surprisingly clean and fresh. He couldn’t have been living in that tunic for weeks, as Istvan had in his.

Istvan and Szonyi saluted without rising. Despite Kun’s assurances, Istvan didn’t know the Kuusamans hadn’t sneaked a sniper somewhere close. He noticed Kun didn’t spring to his feet, either. The major returned the salutes, then said, “Those goat-bearded lackwits said Istvan’s unit was somewhere around these parts. They had no sure notion where. Do you know of it? Am I close to it?”

“Sir—” Now, cautiously, Istvan did rise. “Sir, I am Istvan.”

“A common soldier?” The major’s eyes got wide. “By the way they spoke of you farther up the hill, I expected a captain.” He shrugged. “Well, no matter. Gather your warriors, Istvan, however many they be, and accompany me to the shipping that awaits. In this beastly weather, we need fear no Kuusaman dragons.”

“Shipping, sir?” Now Istvan was the one taken by surprise.

“Aye,” the major said impatiently. “We are transferring certain units back to the mainland, for purposes I need not discuss. Yours is among them; folk spoke highly of its fighting qualities. Now show me they were right.”

Numbly, Istvan obeyed. I’m escaping Obuda, he thought. The stars be praised. I’m escaping Obuda.

The sun shone blindingly on the snow-covered fields surrounding the village of Zossen. The glare did nothing to ease Garivald’s hangover. But he bore the pain more readily than he would have during the tail end of most winters. He’d spent less time drunk this season than in any winter since he’d started shaving.

He shook his head, even though it hurt. He’d spent less time drunk on spirits this past winter than any since he’d become a man. The rest of the time, though, he’d been drunk on words.

He glanced at the sun out of the corner of his eye. It climbed higher in the north every day. Spring wasn’t far away. The snow would melt, the ground would turn to muck, and, when the muck grew firm enough, it would be planting time. Most years, he’d looked forward to that. Not now. He’d have to work hard for a while. The more he worked, the less time he would have to make songs.

I never knew I could, he thought, and then, automatically, made a couplet of it: I never knew it could be so good. He felt like a middle-aged man who’d never had a woman till he married a young, beautiful, passionate bride: he was doing his best to make up for all the time he’d gone without.

Already, the villagers of Zossen sang his version of the now sacrificed captive’s song in preference to the one the luckless convict had known. They sang a couple of other songs of his, too, one his own try at a love song and the other an effort at putting into words what being cooped up through a longer winter in southern Unkerlant was like.

He wondered if he could make a song about what being worked to death most of the year felt like. No sooner had he wondered than words started lining up in neat rows inside his head, as if they were soldiers taking their formation at an officer’s command. Even so, he wondered if that song would be worth making. Everybody already understood everything there was to understand about working too much, understood it in the head and the heart and the small of the back, too. Songs were better when they told you something you didn’t already know.

He took a couple of steps, his boots crunching on crusted snow. Then he stopped again, a thoughtful expression on his face. He spoke the idea aloud. That helped him hold it in his mind: “I wonder if I could make a song that told people something they already know as well as the taste of black bread but made them think of something different, something they’d never thought of before.”