Out of the Darkness

“I hope they do,” Dagaric said. “Other chance is that they might decide to make us pay as much as they can from here on out because everything’s lost. I hope they don’t try to do that, but we’ve got to be alert for it. I want you to let your men know it could happen. Don’t tell them about Gyorvar, not yet. I haven’t got any orders on how we’re supposed to present that to them.”

Leudast felt foolish warning his troopers the Gongs might turn desperate without telling them why. Nobody asked questions, though; curiosity was not encouraged in the Unkerlanter army. He did say, “We’ll know better when we see how things go in the morning.”

Lying there wrapped in a blanket, listening to eggs burst not so far away-- but almost all of them off to the west, falling amongst the Gyongyosians--he realized that might not be so. Dagaric had ordered him to keep the news of the destruction of Gyorvar from his men. Would officers on the other side also keep it from the shaggy soldiers they led? He wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Forward!” he shouted when first light came. Forward the men went. The Gongs continued to crumble. Their disintegration was so quick and thorough, in fact, that Leudast couldn’t tell whether they knew some dreadful sorcery had claimed their capital. Unkerlant had been hammering their armies before the news came, and went right on hammering them now.

Three days later, Dagaric’s regiment was well up into the foothills of the Elsung Mountains. Looking east, back in the direction from which he’d come, Leudast saw nothing but a sea of dark green, a sea that stretched out to the horizon and far beyond. Ahead towered the mountain peaks. Even in the summertime, they remained shrouded in snow and mist. He didn’t look forward to climbing higher in them. He’d done that once, all those years before, and found mountain warfare harder work for fewer rewards than any other kind he’d met since.

No help for it, though,

he thought, and ordered the men forward once more. But then, as the sun set ahead of him, a Gyongyosian with a white flag came out from behind a lichen-covered boulder. He waited to be recognized for what he was, then called out in musically accented Unkerlanter: “It is over. You and the slanteyes have beaten us. We can fight no more. We admit it, and we surrender.”

“By the powers above,” Leudast whispered. “I lived through it.” Those four words seemed to say everything that needed saying.

Krasta looked from the ornate parchment to the Valmieran official who’d given it to her. “What is this?” she asked in distaste; those seals and stamps meant little to her.

“It is what it says it is, milady,” the flunky replied. “It summons you to appear before his Majesty’s court day after tomorrow to testify as to your dealings during the time of occupation with a certain accused Algarvian, namely one Captain Lurcanio.”

“Why on earth would I want to do that?” Krasta demanded. She didn’t want to do it; she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less.

But the official said, “By the laws of the kingdom, your desires here are irrelevant and immaterial. Having been served with this summons, you are required to appear. Failure to do so will--not may, milady, but assuredly will--result in your being fined or imprisoned or both. Good day.”

He turned and strode down the walk, away from Krasta’s mansion. She started to shout an obscenity after him, but ended up whispering it instead. She still hoped for something like a pardon from King Gainibu. Insulting one of his servants wouldn’t help her get it.

She glared down at the summons. She wanted to tear it to pieces. As if it knew what she wanted and were mocking her, a couple of sentences in amongst the legalese leaped out. This document must be presented at your court appearance, she read. It will be counterstamped to document the said appearance. As she’d whispered curses at the man who’d brought the summons, so she aimed more at the document itself.

No help for it, though. She put on the most demure outfit she could find-- the trousers were so baggy, they might have done duty for a Forthwegian-style long tunic (or so she imagined, anyhow). Again, her wig was a confection of piled blond curls: it shouted her Kaunianity to the world. The hair underneath that was still growing out shouted something else altogether, but she refused to pay any attention to that.

The last thing she expected when she got to the royal courthouse was a pack of news-sheet scribblers standing outside. They shouted rude questions at her: “How good was the redhead, Marchioness?” “That’s really his baby, isn’t it?” “Will you tell the judges you fell in love with him?”