Darkness Descending (94 page)

“Kun, walk point,” he called as his squad went into the forest a little to the north of the road. “Szonyi, on the right. Fenyes, on the left. I’ll take rear guard for a while. Keep your eyes open, everyone. Somewhere in there, the filthy goat-buggers are waiting for us.”

The world changed when he went in among the trees. The sun disappeared, except for occasional dapplings sneaking through the thick branches overhead. The air got cooler and damper; spicy, resinous scents filled it. Istvan’s boots scuffed on red-brown fallen needles. Here and there, especially at the bases of tree trunks, lacy green ferns sprang up.

On the meadow, Istvan had been able to see for miles. Here, the trees cramped his vision, and not just from side to side. When he looked up, those dark boughs hid the sky. He shook his head. He didn’t like that.

“No stars tonight,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.

But one of his troopers heard, and answered, “They’ll see us, Sergeant, even if we can’t see them.”

“Aye,” Istvan answered, but he remained unreassured. He kept looking up. Every once in a while, he managed to spy a sliver of blue. When he did, he felt he’d won a victory.

A red squirrel holding a fir cone in its front paws peered down at him with beady black eyes and chittered in annoyance, as its cousin had out on the meadow. He raised a hand. The squirrel ducked back, putting the bulk of the branch—which was as thick as a man’s leg—between itself and what looked like danger.

Seeing it put a new thought in his mind. “Keep watching overhead,” he called to his men. “If the Unkerlanters haven’t put some snipers in the trees, I’m an even bigger fool than you think I am.”

Up ahead, Kun said something. Istvan thought he heard the word
impossible,
but he wasn’t sure. He decided not to find out.

Heading east and not getting turned around in this dim, shadowless world kept the whole squad—and probably the whole army—busy. Kun’s sorcerous training, though scanty, did come in hand there. From somewhere or other, he’d got a chunk of lodestone. He tied it on the end of a string and chanted over it. It swung in a particular direction. “That’s south,” he said confidently, and made half a turn to his left. “So
this
is east.” He pointed.

“How does the lodestone know where south lies?” Istvan asked.

“Curse me if I can tell you,” the former sorcerer’s apprentice said. “But I know
that
it does, which is what we need.”

“What we need is to bump up against the Unkerlanters, so we can knock ‘em out of the way,” Istvan said. “All this waiting is making my belly gripe.”

“It’ll loosen up when the fighting starts, that’s certain,” Szonyi said. “If you’re anything like me, you’ll thank the stars that you don’t foul yourself.”

That was no way for a member of a warrior race to talk, but Istvan just chuckled and nodded. Maybe some heroes didn’t think about what might happen to them when they went into action, but he did. He couldn’t help it.

Twilight under the trees was darkening toward real twilight when he and his countrymen ran into the first positions the Unkerlanters had built to block their path. “Down!” Kun shouted, and everyone in the squad threw himself flat. A beam zipped past above Istvan’s head. Whether it would have caught him had he not gone down, he didn’t know. It struck a tree trunk behind him and blazed through the bark deep into the wood. Aromatic steam gushed from the wounded pine.

Istvan scuttled over behind another tree. Ever so warily, he glanced around it. He saw nothing but more trees ahead. “Where are they?” he called softly.

“Up ahead somewhere,” Kun answered, which was doubtless true but imperfectly helpful. Sounding exasperated, the point man went on, “They’re Unkerlanters, curse it. They’re good at hiding to begin with, and they’ve had plenty of time to get ready for us.”

Shouts and curses and screams rang out all through the forest, as the Gyongyosian army ran into the concealed Unkerlanter defenders. The Unkerlanters had egg-tossers hidden among the trees along with their soldiers and started using them as soon as their foes collided with them.

And King Swemmel’s men had left forces in the woods who’d waited and stayed hidden while the Gyongyosians went past, then attacked from the rear after Istvan and his comrades bumped into the main defensive line. Istvan found out about that when one of them blazed at him from behind. He’d thought he had good cover, but suddenly a charred hole appeared in the tree in back of which he was hiding and only bare inches from his head.

He whirled and threw himself down on his belly. Where had the beam come from? Shouts of “Swemmel!” echoed through the darkening woods. For a moment, panic filled him. Was the whole Gyongyosian force surrounded and about to be cut to pieces? If it was, the Unkerlanters would have to go through a lot of stubborn men like him. Maybe there was something to springing from a warrior race after all.

Was that a rock-gray tunic? Istvan blazed. An Unkerlanter groaned and tumbled out from behind the trunk of a spruce. Istvan yanked a folding shovel off his own belt and began digging a hole in the soft dirt. He’d named himself rear guard for the squad. That meant he was the one who had to be first defender against threats from behind.

He smelled smoke. No matter how moist the forest was, all the blazes and bursting eggs had set it afire. He dug harder than ever, but wondered even as dirt flew whether he was doing anything more than digging his own grave. He also wondered whether anyone, Unkerlanter or Gyongyosian, would come out of the forest alive.

As Krasta came downstairs from her bedchamber, Colonel Lurcanio was pacing back and forth in the hall at the bottom of the stairway. His green eyes sparked as he glared up at her. “What took you so long, milady?” he growled. But then, however unwillingly, he bowed over her hand and kissed it. “You do look very lovely tonight, I must say, which almost makes the delay worthwhile.”

Had he left off the
almost,
Krasta would have known she’d created just the effect she wanted. Lurcanio was difficult—sometimes impossible—to manage. But she didn’t wish she’d got Captain Mosco instead, not anymore. Off in the trackless wilds of Unkerlant. . . She didn’t want to think about that.

“I’m sure your driver will be able to get us to the reception in good time,” she said. “He doesn’t dawdle over everything, the way mine does.”

“He is an Algarvian, and he is a soldier,” Lurcanio said. The angry rumble had left his voice; Krasta decided he’d put it there to see if he could make her afraid. This time, it hadn’t worked. And he didn’t push it, either, as he sometimes did. He slipped his arm around her waist. “Let us be off, then.”

His driver was indeed an Algarvian and a soldier. The fellow proved that by leering at Krasta as Lurcanio handed her up into the carriage. He was tall and young and handsome, but surely had no breeding at all. Krasta did not believe in rutting with her social inferiors.

Lurcanio spoke to the driver in their own language. The driver nodded, flicked the reins, and got the horses going. Despite what Krasta had said about him, he didn’t drive very fast, not when all the streets of Priekule were lit only by a sinking crescent moon. Lagoan dragons didn’t fly up to the capital of occupied Valmiera very often, but the Algarvians made things as hard as they could for tliem on principle.

Taking advantage of the darkness, Lurcanio set a hand on Krasta’s leg just above the knee and slowly slid it higher and higher along her thigh. “You’re in a bold mood tonight,” she said, amused.

“I am in a happy mood tonight,” Colonel Lurcanio declared, and moved his hand higher still. “And do you know why I’m in a happy mood tonight?”

“I can think of a reason,” Krasta said archly, setting her hand on his.

He chuckled. “Oh, that, too, my dear,” he said, “but I can get that anytime I want.”

Her back stiffened. “Not from me, you can’t. Not if you talk that way.”

“If not from you, then from someone else. Finding it isn’t hard, not in a conquered kingdom.” Lurcanio sounded annoyingly smug. The trouble was, Krasta knew he was right—and if she threw him out of her bed in a fit of pique, she would be left without an Algarvian protector. When she didn’t rise to his bait, Lurcanio went on, “No, the chief reason I am happy tonight is that we have smashed the attack the Unkerlanters made on our positions south of Aspang.”

“Good,” Krasta said, though she couldn’t have found the city on a map to save herself from the headsman’s axe.

“Oh, aye, it is,” Lurcanio replied. “Swemmel’s men spent most of the winter smashing us, which is the main reason Captain Mosco’s bastard will likely never see his—or even her—father. Had they kept on smashing us now that spring has come, it would have been a great deal less than amusing.”

“They’re only Unkerlanters, after all,” Krasta said.

Lurcanio nodded. “Even so. And they are once more proving they are
only
Unkerlanters, if you take my meaning.”

Krasta didn’t, not altogether. She didn’t trouble herself to go looking for it, either. Instead, she craned her neck for a better look at the skyline. “It still seems wrong not to have the Column of Victory standing tall and white and pretty there.”

“It wouldn’t be lit up now, not in wartime.” Lurcanio could be annoyingly precise. “Maybe one day King Mezentio will build a new and grander column in its place: an Algarvian Column of Victory, to last for all time, not just a paltry double handful of centuries.”

“In Priekule? That would be—” For once, Krasta remembered in the nick of time who and what her companion was, and swallowed a remark that would have got her in trouble with Lurcanio.

A few minutes later, the carriage pulled up in front of the mansion that belonged to Sefanu, the Duke of Klaipeda’s nephew. The duke had commanded Valmiera’s beaten army in the war against Algarve. He’d since retired to his country estates. His nephew was quite happy playing host to the occupiers.

As usual at these affairs, Algarvian and Valmieran men were present in about equal numbers. All the women, though, were blondes, and all young and pretty: Krasta wasted no time before looking over the potential competition. Some of the Valmieran women were nobles like her, some commoners she’d seen at other functions, and some new faces. Her lip curled. The Algarvians could pick and choose and discard as they pleased, and they did.

Some of the new faces topped painfully thin bodies. Several of that type congregated at the buffet, exclaiming over meats and cheeses the likes of which they hadn’t seen for a long time. No noblewoman would have stuffed herself as they did. But their Algarvian escorts stood around watching with amused smiles.
Probably brought them here just to fatten them up,
Krasta thought spitefully.

Rather more Valmieran noblewomen than commoners wore Algarvian-style kilts. Krasta scowled when she noticed that. Some of the Valmieran men had taken to wearing the Algarvian style, too. Krasta liked that no better.

Sure enough, here came Viscount Valnu, in a kilt so short, he would have had trouble staying modest if he bent over. His bonily handsome face wore a dazzling smile. “Hello, darling!” he said, fluttering his fingers at Krasta. He hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, then hugged Lurcanio and kissed him on the cheek, too. “Hello, my lord Count! And how are you?”

“Well enough, thanks,” Lurcanio said, and kept his distance from Valnu from then on. Algarvian men were more apt to kiss than Valmierans, but they didn’t usually do it quite like that—though Krasta recalled seeing Valnu at one party with an Algarvian officer who was definitely like that.

Valnu, to her certain knowledge, wasn’t, or wasn’t altogether. “What
have
you been doing lately?” she asked him, more than a hint of malice in her voice.

“Why, whatever I can, of course,” he answered. “Come with me, and I’ll tell you all about it.” He turned to Lurcanio. “I wouldn’t steal your lady without your leave, my lord Count. That were rude indeed.”

“It’s all right,” Lurcanio said indulgently. By his tone, he thought he was safe enough entrusting Krasta to this creature of no obvious gender.

Krasta knew better, and the thought of being unfaithful to her redheaded lover suddenly looked delightful, not so much for Valnu’s sake as to put one over on Lurcanio. She took hold of Valnu’s arm. “Aye,” she gushed, “tell me
everything”

Valnu’s smile grew brighter yet. “Oh, I will,” he said, and led her off through the crowd. Behind her, Lurcanio laughed. Krasta was laughing, too, but inside, where it didn’t show.
You don’t know as much as you think you do.

She steered Valnu over to the bar so she could collect a mug of ale, then let him steer her out of the mansion and onto the street. “You do need to know that I came here with Lurcanio’s driver, not my own,” she murmured.

“Oh, I do, do I?” Valnu said. “And why is that?”

“Because you can’t have this fellow drive along some quiet road while we do whatever we want in the carriage,” Krasta answered. “He’d blab to Lurcanio, sure as sure.”

“While we do whatever we want?” Valnu laughed softly. “The last time we tried that, you shoved me out of the carriage and left me to walk home alone in the dark. I don’t know about you, my dear marchioness, but that isn’t what
I
had in mind when we started on the ride.”

Krasta shrugged impatiently. “You deserved it, for picking just the wrong time to start chattering about shopgirls.”

“I won’t say a word about them now, I promise you.” Valnu slid his arm around her. “Stroll with me. We can look up at the stars together, or do anything else we happen to think of.”

There were more stars to look at than there had been when Priekule was at peace. With the city dark, they shone in great, glittering profusion: multicolored jewels scattered across black velvet. After one brief glance, Krasta forgot about them. She hadn’t come out with Valnu to stargaze. She’d come out to enjoy revenge on an Algarvian keeper who took her for granted.

But Valnu really did feel like strolling, or so it seemed. Fuming a little, Krasta went along for a block or so. Then she got mulish. Planting her feet firmly on the slates of the pavement, she took hold of Valnu and said, “If you brought me out here to trifle, what are you waiting for?”