He knew the danger because he’d seen it happen to Unkerlanters when his own army’s mages sacrificed a regiment’s worth of Kaunians. But the Kaunians, as far as he could see, had it coming, and so did the Unkerlanters. Trasone was no more likely than anyone else to think he deserved to be on the receiving end of anything unpleasant.
The moment the ground stopped quivering, the moment trees stopped falling, Major Spinello shouted, “Be ready! Those ugly buggers are going to try to throw us out of here now, you mark my words. Are we going to let ‘em?”
As far as Trasone was concerned, the Unkerlanters were welcome to this stretch of forest, especially after they’d rearranged it so drastically. But he yelled, “No!” along with everybody else still able to talk.
“Well, then, we’d better get ready to give ‘em a proper greeting, hadn’t we?” Spinello said. Suiting action to word, he sprawled behind one of the pines that had come down but hadn’t caught fire.
Trasone was still looking for his own place to hide when eggs did start falling in the woods. He ducked down behind a big, gray, lichen-covered rock. Panfilo sprawled a few feet away, digging himself a hole with a short-handled spade while lying on his belly. “Aren’t you afraid that’ll swallow you if the Unkerlanters throw more magic at us?” Trasone asked.
“Aye, but I’m more afraid of getting caught in the open if an egg bursts close by,” the sergeant answered. Trasone pondered that, but not for long. After a moment, he yanked his own spade off his belt and started digging.
“Urra! Urra! Urra!” That cry, swelling like surf as the tide came in, announced an Unkerlanter attack. Through it, Major Spinello let loose a cry of his own: “Crystallomancer!”
“Sir?” The soldier who kept the battalion in touch with the army of which it was a part crawled toward Spinello. The major spoke urgently to him, and he in turn spoke into the clear, polished globe he carried in his pack.
“Urra! Urra! Swemmel! Urra!” Here came the Unkerlanters, pushing their way up into the wood from the south. They’d brushed aside the Algarvians who’d already passed through the trees; now they were intent on taking back the forest.
“They think we’ll be easy meat,” Spinello said. “They think they’ve rattled us. They panic when we hit them a good sorcerous lick, and they figure we’ll do the same. But they’re only Unkerlanters, and we’re Algarvians. Now we’re going to show them what that means, aren’t we?”
The only other choice was dying. Trasone didn’t think much of that. And if Spinello figured the sorcerous attack hadn’t rattled him, the dapper little major was out of his mind. The difference between a veteran and a raw recruit-Trasone had no idea whether it was the difference between Algarvians and Unkerlanters-was that he could keep going no matter how rattled he was.
Peering over the top of his boulder, he saw Unkerlanters in rock-gray rushing up the road and through the woods toward the line the Algarvians were holding. His lips skinned back from his teeth in a savage grin-by the way they were advancing, Swemmel’s men didn’t know a solidly held line was waiting for them. Well, they’d find out.
He brought his stick up to his shoulder and blazed down a couple of Unkerlanters who took no pains to hide themselves. Nor was he the only Algarvian blazing. King Swemmel’s men fell one after another. But they kept coming. As always, they were recklessly brave. And, as always, they had soldiers to spare. Soldiers to burn, Trasone thought, doing his best to make sure plenty of them did.
But, before long, he had to scramble backwards to a new hiding place to keep from getting flanked out. He wasn’t the only one, either; he wondered if Spinello could keep any kind of control over his line for long.
Then eggs started dropping on the Unkerlanters, both in the woods and beyond them. Dragons shrieked fury as they flew past at treetop height. Cries of panic replaced cries of “Urra!” The enemy attack foundered, cut off at the root.
Major Spinello blew a shrill blast on his whistle. “Forward!” he shouted. “They had their chance. Now it’s our turn. Mezentio!” He was the first to rush against the Unkerlanters. Recklessly brave fit him as well as the enemy.
“Mezentio!” Trasone yelled, and went forward, too. Caught by surprise by the dragons the crystallomancer had summoned, the Unkerlanters gave ground more readily than usual. Trasone’s battalion burst out into the open company south of the forest. Some of the grass was burning there, thanks to the Algarvian dragons. And on the blackened grass lay blackened bodies. Trasone trotted past them with hardly a sideways glance; he’d already seen plenty of dead Unkerlanters.
And, a couple of miles farther south, he saw more: not soldiers, these, but row on row of peasants-old men and women, mostly-with their hands bound behind them and their throats cut. Those corpses did make him grimace: they were the fuel for the sorcery the Unkerlanter mages had aimed at him and his comrades. The mages, unlike their victims, had fled. Grimly, Trasone trudged after them.
“Camel.” Sabrino spoke the word as if it were an obscure but potent obscenity. “If I never taste camel again, I’ll count myself lucky.”
“Dragons like it well enough,” Lieutenant Colonel Caratzas said. As far as Sabrino was concerned, the new Yaninan senior officer wasn’t a quarter the man Colonel Broumidis had been. He was, among other things, much too fond of the anise-flavored spirits his countrymen brewed. About all he really shared with Broumidis-and most other Yaninans-was a passion for expressive gestures. “The only other real choice we have is eating marmots and voles and grubs.”
“They’d have to be tastier,” Sabrino insisted. “They’d have to be more tender, too. Tell me I’m wrong. Go on, sir-I dare you.”
Instead of answering right away, Caratzas scratched his mustache, which always made Sabrino think a large black moth had landed on his upper lip. “Even if I did tell you differently, you would not think it mattered. And why should you? I am only a Yaninan, after all, good for nothing but running away.” He breathed potent, licorice-scented fumes into Sabrino’s face.
“Oh, my dear fellow!” Sabrino exclaimed. He didn’t want Caratzas knowing he thought he couldn’t rely on him; that would just make the Yaninan all the more unreliable. “I do not question your courage. Yaninan dragonfliers here have performed as well as anyone could wish-look at your predecessor’s extraordinary valor.”
“You are gracious,” Caratzas said with a sad, half-sozzled smile. “You do not speak of the sorry performance of our footsoldiers here, nor of the even sorrier performance of our footsoldiers in Unkerlant. Not all of your followers, not all of your countrymen, show so much forbearance.”
“Is that so?” Sabrino said, and the Yaninan officer inclined his head to show it was. Sabrino had a low opinion of the general level of Yaninan military skill himself. Caratzas doubtless knew as much, even if Sabrino didn’t trumpet that opinion to the skies. For his part, Sabrino had already known not all his fellow Algarvians in the land of the Ice People were so polite. “I shall discipline any man under my command who has offended you. We are allies, Algarve and Yanina.”
And what a hypocrite I am, Sabrino thought. He would sooner have been fighting in Unkerlant himself. Had the Yaninans been able to hold their own against Lagoas here on the austral continent, he would have been able to do that. As things were …
As things were, Lieutenant Colonel Caratzas said, “It cannot be helped. We are the small tagalong cousin. But it grows wearisome.”
Sabrino didn’t know what to say to that. Yanina was Algarve’s small tagalong cousin in this war, and Algarve had to keep dragging that cousin out of trouble. No wonder some of his fliers had been less courteous than they might have. Staying courteous and telling the truth weren’t easy to do in the same breath. Still, the Yaninan dragonfliers had fought well-though better when Broumidis led them. What more could Sabrino tell this tipsy lieutenant colonel?