Into The Darkness

He was thinking about water, too, though in a more immediate sense than Leudast had been. In this sun-baked country, not thinking about water was impossible. No doubt the Zuwayzin were also thinking about it, and making for that water hole themselves. At least Magnulf was thinking, which seemed to be more than any of the Unkerlanter officers could say.

Leudast scrambled back toward a stone that offered good shelter against attack from the west. As happened whenever a force found itself outflanked, some soldiers panicked and fled toward the rear. As often happened when they did, they paid the price for panic: Zuwayzi beam cut [.dicni.] down.

Howling with triumph, the Zuwayzin stormed forward. Leudast blazed a black man who showed too much of himself Several other Zuwayzin also went down, dead or shrieking in pain. Then the enemy started flitting from rock to rock again, having learned a good [.manj.] Unkerlanters still held fight.

More eggs crashed down around Leudast. The Zuwayzin must hav taken apart some light tossers and carried them on camelback. Sand and shattered rock pelted him. He wanted to claw a hole in the ground, jump in, and pull the hole shut over him. He couldn't. And, if he stayed curled up behind this rock, the Zuwayzin could move forward and blaze him a their leisure.

Understanding that was easy. Making himself get up on one knee and blaze at the enemy was much harder, but he did it. He thought he wounded another Zuwayzi, too. But he could not stay where he was any more, for the Zuwayzin were still advancing. He slipped away to another stone, and then to another.

"We have to save the water hole!" an officer shouted, realizing only now what Magnulf had seen at once. "If we lose that water hole, we lose our grip on this whole stretch of desert." He shouted orders pulling more men from what had been the advance and shifting them to the turned flank.

It wasn't going to be enough. Leudast could see it wasn't going to be enough. The Zuwayzin could see it wasn't going to be enough, too.

They knew what forcing the men of Unkerlant away from the water hole would mean. They were more clever than the Gongs, probably more clever than the Forthwegians, too. When they struck, they struck hard, and straight for the heart.

Leudast wondered if he had enough water to make it back to ihe next clean hole. It was, he knew, a long way to the south - a dreadfully long way, if a man was retreating with the enemy nipping at his heels.

Maybe he could fill up the bottle before the black men reached this water hole.

More eggs fell - but these fell on the Zuwayzin. Dragons overhead had made the scavenger birds fly off. As the dragons wheeled, he saw their upper bodies were painted rock-gray: the color Unkerlant used. Now he shouted in triumph and the Zuwayzin in dismay. Unkerlanter egg-tossers well back of the line began adding their gifts to the ones the dragons were delivering.

A man in a rock-gray tunic took shelter behind the rock next to Leudast's. "How's it look, soldier?" he asked, an officer's sharp snap in his voice.

"Not too bad, sir - not now," Leudast answered, glancing over at the newcomer. That tunic was one a common soldier might have worn, but the collar bore a large star. Leudast's eyes widened. Only one man in Unkerlant was entitled to wear that emblem. "Not too bad, my lord Marshal," he corrected himself, wondering what a man like Rathar was doing at the front.

Rathar answered that question without his asking it: "Can't find out what's going on if I don't see for myself

"Uh, aye, sir," Leudast said. The marshal hadn't just come to see. He'd come to fight, and carried a stick like any other footsoldier's. He used it, too, popping up to blaze at the Zuwayzin. Of course, he'd fought in the

Six Years' War and the Twinkings War, which meant he'd been around combat longer than Leudast had been alive. His happy grunt had to mean he'd got a beam home.

Looking around, Leudast saw Rathar had also brought his crystallomancer with him. The marshal barked out a stream of orders, which the mage relayed to his colleagues back with the reserves. Those orders sent men and egg-tossers and dragons up toward the battle. Anyone who disobeyed them or delayed by even a heartbeat speedily regretted it.

For the first time since plunging into the Zuwayzin desert, Leudast began to feel hope. Up till now, the Unkerlanters' campaign had been bugled. Listening to Rathar's crisp commands, he didn't think the bungling would go on much longer.

It was Count Brorda's birthday, a holiday in Gromheort. An Algarvian dwelt in Brorda's castle these days, but he hadn't bothered canceling the holiday. Maybe he hadn't wanted to antagonize the Forthwegians over whom he sat in judgment, although Ealstan had a hard time imagining an Algarvian who cared a fig about what the folk of Gromheort thought.

More likely, the occupiers were just too lazy to bother changing what they'd found when they overran the city.