More eggs started bursting ahead. Bembo hunkered down again. Every block of Eoforwic the Algarvians took from the rebels had to get pounded flat before they could be sure of holding on to it.
“Forward!” That hateful shout again. Forward Bembo went, cursing under his breath.
From a doorway twice its natural size, somebody stepped out and flung what looked like a cheap sugar bowl. The Forthwegian fell an instant later, blazed by three beams. But then the bowl landed among the oncoming Algarvians, and the burst of sorcerous energy trapped inside flung pottery fragments in all directions.
Something bit Bembo’s leg. He yelped and looked down at himself. Blood trickled along his calf, but the leg still bore his weight. He ran on toward a doorway. When he dashed into the meager shelter it gave, he discovered he shared that shelter with Oraste. “I’m wounded!” he cried dramatically.
His old partner glanced down at the cut on his leg. “Go home to mama when this is done,” Oraste said. “She can kiss it and make it better.”
“Well! I like that!” Bembo struck a heroic pose-carefully, so as not to expose any of his precious person to lurking foes. “Here I am, injured in service to my kingdom, and what do I get? Mockery! Scorn!”
“About what you deserve,” Oraste said. “I’ve seen people get hurt worse if they scratch themselves while they’ve got a hangnail.”
“Powers below eat you!” Bembo cried. “I’m going to put in for a wound badge when we come off duty.”
“You’ll probably get one, too. From what I’ve seen, the only way you can keep from getting a wound badge is if you get killed-and then they probably give the bastard to your next of kin.” Oraste’s cynicism knew no bounds.
Before Bembo could let out another indignant squawk, somebody up ahead yelled, “Forward!” again. Oraste left the shelter of the doorway without the least hesitation. Bembo had to follow him. On he ran, puffing, marveling that the fear of looking bad in front of his comrades once more proved stronger than the fear of death.
A Forthwegian’s head appeared in a second-story window. Bembo blazed at the Forthwegian, who toppled. Bembo ran on. He had no idea whether the man he’d just blazed was a fighter or an innocent bystander. He didn’t care, either. The fellow had shown up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had to pay for that. If the penalty was death, too bad. Better his than mine or one of my pals’, Bembo thought.
More Forthwegians were holed up in a furniture shop not far ahead. No chance they were innocent bystanders: they blazed at the oncoming soldiers and constables. Bembo wasted no time ducking for cover. He wasn’t ashamed to do it, for he was far from the only one doing it.
Then several eggs crashed down around the furniture shop, and one right on it. “Surrender!” an Algarvian yelled to the Forthwegians still inside. “You can’t win!” He switched to Forthwegian so rudimentary, even Bembo could follow it: “Coming out! Hands high!”
“You no to kill we?” one of the Forthwegians called back in equally bad Algarvian.
“Not if you give up right now,” the soldier answered. “Make it snappy- this is your last chance.”
To Bembo’s surprise, half a dozen Forthwegians did come out of the wrecked shop, their faces glum, their hands up over their heads. When more eggs burst not far away, they all flinched. Not one of them tried to take shelter, though. They must have been sure the Algarvians would blaze them if they did. And they were, without a doubt, right.
“You constables!” one of the Algarvians soldiers said to Bembo and Oraste. “You know what to do with captives. Take these buggers away.”
“Right.” Bembo grunted as he got to his feet. Thatwas something he knew how to do. And, while I’m away from the lines, I’ll see how I go about asking for that wound badge, too.
Sixteen
Leudast had served in the Unkerlanter army for a long time. He’d been fighting in the Elsung Mountains in what was thenKingSwemmel ’s desultory border war with Gyongyos when the Derlavaian War first broke out between Algarve and most of her neighbors. He’d been part of the Unkerlanter force that gobbled up western Forthweg while the redheads were smashing most ofKingPenda ’s army. And he’d spent a demon of a lot of time fighting the Algarvians himself.
Two leg wounds weren’t so very much to show for all that. He’d started out a common soldier, with no hope of rising higher, and here he was, a lieutenant.
In all those years in the army, he’d never been particularly eager to go into a fight. In fact, he’d always been happiest during the brief spells of quiet he’d found. And here he was now, forced to stay quiet as he recovered from this second wound well behind the fighting front.
He hated it. He hated every minute he had to lie on his back. He hated every minute the healers used to poke and prod at his blazed leg, and hated the wise things they muttered back and forth in a language that hardly seemed to be Unkerlanter at all.
“When will you let me go?” he demanded. “When will you let me get back to my men? When will you let me get back to the fighting?”
Am I really saying that? But he was. Now, at last, after so much terror, he could begin to smell victory against the Algarvians. They still fought bravely. They still fought cleverly-more cleverly than his own countrymen, most of the time. But there weren’t enough of them to hold back the rising Unkerlanter tide no matter how bravely and cleverly they fought. And, having gone through all the black days when the Algarvians seemed sure to overwhelm Unkerlant, Leudast wanted to be there to help beat them. How much he wanted that amazed him.
But the healers shook their heads. “You will not be ready for some weeks, Lieutenant,” one of them said, and they went on to their next patient.
Alone in his cot, Leudast quietly laughed to himself. The last time he’d been wounded, down in Sulingen, his treatment had been a lot rougher than this. As soon as he could hobble around, they’d put a fresh stick in his hands and thrown him back into the fight.
Of course, he’d been only a sergeant then. Even the Unkerlanter army took better care of its officers than of its other ranks. And Sulingen had been as dreadful a struggle as any the war had seen. They’d needed everybody they could find. But even so…
He asked the healers again the next day when he could go back to the fight. They gave him another evasive answer. “Count your time here as a leave of sorts, Lieutenant,” one of them said.
“I don’t want this sort of leave,” Leudast said, whereupon all the healers looked at him as if he were daft. “If I get leave, I want it to be with my sweetheart.” They nodded then, but they still didn’t take him seriously. I’ve got strings to pull, he thought. I’m not quite an ordinary lieutenant, even if they think I am. Time to remind them otherwise. “Please get me pen and paper. I want to write toMarshalRathar and request an immediate return to duty.”
Now the healers looked at him as if he might be dangerous. Cautiously, one of them asked, “How do you knowMarshalRathar?”
“He commissioned me after I captured falseKingRaniero of Grelz,” Leudast replied. Take that.
The healers didn’t seem to know how to take it. They put their heads together and muttered among themselves. At last, one of them said, “You really are not fit to return to duty yet, you know. That leg will not support you.”
“Well, all right,” said Leudast, who could not disagree with what was obviously true. “But it doesn’t seem to me like you people are doing much to get me back to duty. You’re just letting me lay here.”
“You do need to rest and recuperate, you know, Lieutenant,” the healer said.
“If I got any more rested, I’d be bored to death,” Leudast returned. “You’re a bunch of mages. Isn’t there anything you can do to send me back faster?”
They put their heads together again. Leudast hadn’t really expected anything else. They seemed unable to do anything without consulting among themselves. The one who served as their spokesman said, “You mean, use more sorcerous energy to expedite your recovery?” He sounded faintly scandalized.