Out of the Darkness

With a laugh, the officer said, “Well, that makes some sense. I don’t know why they chose me, I’ll tell you that. My guess is, the slanteyes drew my name out of a hat or a pot or whatever they use for such things.”

Corporal Kun asked, “Sir, do you have any idea what they’re going to show us when we get there?”

“Not the slightest clue.” The captain shook his head. “I speak some Kuusaman, and I’ve asked, but the slanteyes won’t say. They haven’t talked out of turn where I could hear ‘em, either, worse luck. Stars above be dark for them forever, they’re keeping their mouths shut tight.”

The ley-line cruiser stopped at another island east of Obuda and picked up four men from a captives’ camp there. Istvan wondered just how many Gyongyosian captives the Kuusamans held. Too many

was the first answer that occurred to him.

When the cruiser stopped a couple of miles off the beaches of Becsehely, the Kuusamans summoned all their Gyongyosian passengers to the deck. The island looked as flat and unlovely as Istvan remembered it. It also looked extraordinarily battered, as if it had been fought over only the other day, not some months before. A Kuusaman officer spoke in Istvan’s language: “Watch what we do here. When we give you back to your own people, tell the truth about it.”

Back on Obuda, Lammi had said almost exactly the same thing. By the looks on the faces of the men who hadn’t come from Obuda, they’d heard the speech before, too. Kun raised an eyebrow and murmured, “The same old song.”

But then the Kuusaman added a new verse: “Remember, this could be Gyorvar, or any other place we choose.”

As if his words were a cue, a lash of fire fell on Becsehely from a clear blue sky. It wasn’t lightning; it was flame, as if from a dragon a mile long. But there was no dragon, nothing at all in the sky over Becsehely but air. The lash fell again and again and again. Even across a broad stretch of sea, it was too brilliant to look at directly; Istvan had to squint and hold a hand up to his face to protect his eyes. Even across that stretch of sea, he could feel the heat, too. And, where the flame slid off the battered land and into the Bothnian Ocean, great clouds of steam rose up.

“Stars preserve us,” muttered the captain with whom he’d spoken at supper. “That could be Gyorvar.” Despite the heat coming from the tormented island, a chill seized Istvan and wouldn’t let him go.

As if for variety, the flames eased and bursts of sorcerous energy, as if from great eggs, pounded Becsehely. Istvan marveled that the island didn’t sink beneath the sea. At last, as abruptly as it had begun, the magecraft ended. Shimmering waves of heat still rose from Becsehely.

“We will set you free now,” the Gyongyosian-speaking officer said. “Tell your people the truth. Tell them what could happen to them if they go on with the war. Tell them it has gone on too long. It will end soon.”

The ley-line cruiser glided east, away from Becsehely and toward the few islands in the Bothnian Ocean Gyongyos still held. Down in the bowels of the ship, a crystallomancer would, Istvan supposed, try to arrange a truce to hand over the captives. I might go back to Kunhegyes, to my own valley,

he thought. Then he looked down at the scar on his hand. As long as I bear this, do I want to go home at all?

Marshal Rathar had always liked to have his headquarters as far forward as he could. With his army battering its way into the very heart of Trapani, he’d set up shop in a large house in the northern suburbs of the city, just out of reach of the last few Algarvian egg-tossers. He and General Vatran pored over a map of the city looted from a book dealer’s, stabbing pins with rock-gray heads into one landmark after another.

“They can’t hold on much longer,” Vatran said.

“They’ve already held out longer than they had any business doing,” Rathar said. He knew how many of his brigades the redheads had bled white. If they had to do much more fighting after this, they would have a hard time of it. But this was--this had to be--the end.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than a crystallomancer rushed into the dining hall that was doing duty as a map room. “Marshal Rathar!” he shouted. “Marshal Rathar!”

“Aye, that is my name,” Rathar agreed mildly. Vatran snorted.

But the crystallomancer was too full of himself, too full of his news, to pay any attention to a feeble joke. “Marshal Rathar, sir, an Algarvian general’s come out from what the redheads hold of the palace, sir, and he wants to yield up the soldiers the redheads still have fighting!” He leaped in the air with glee.

“Oh, by the powers above,” General Vatran whispered.