“And his daughter’s carrying a redhead’s bastard, the little slut,” Merkela added. “And she doesn’t even have the decency to be ashamed. I heard her bragging in the market square at Pavilosta about all the presents her man gives her. I bet she gave him one, too--the clap.” No, she didn’t need to look hard to hate.
“We’ll take care of’em,” Raunu said.
“We ought to make it look as much like an accident as we can,” Skarnu said. Blazing Negyu didn’t bother him. Blazing Negyu’s wife and his pregnant daughter felt different, even if they were as much hand in glove with the Algarvians as Negyu.
“Why?” Merkela shook her head, making her golden hair fly back and forth. “We ought to paint something like DAY AND SUNSHINE on their door to give the redheads something new to think about.”
“If we do, they’ll take hostages and they’ll blaze them,” Skarnu said. That was why her husband Gedominu was no longer among the living.
But she said, “The more hostages they blaze, the more the people will hate them.” Anything that made Valmierans hate the occupiers was fine by her. She looked to Raunu for support, since it didn’t seem forthcoming from her lover.
But the veteran shook his head. “The more hostages they blaze, the more people will fear them, too.” The glare Merkela gave him said he’d betrayed her. Raunu stood up under it without flinching; as a longtime sergeant, he’d stood up under more than his share of sour looks. Seeing that she couldn’t sway him, she flounced off. Raunu glanced at Skarnu and muttered something under his breath. Skarnu could not quite make it out, but thought it was, Better you than me.
Sometimes farm work made the day pass swiftly. Sometimes, the sun seemed nailed to one place in the sky. This was one of those latter days. Skarnu felt he’d been working for a week before he went into a supper of ale and cheese and a porridge of beans and sour cabbage and parsnips. Merkela was a good cook, but not even her skill could make the bland supper very lively.
Once it was done, once she’d washed the bowls and mugs and silverware, she took Gedominu’s hunting stick from its hiding place by the hearth. “Let’s go,” she said.
Skarnu kept their sticks--infantry weapons that blazed heavier beams farther than the one Merkela carried--hidden in the barn. After reclaiming them, they started south down the road toward Negyu’s farm. They were all ready to dive off the road and into the undergrowth to either side at the least hint of trouble. The Algarvians had declared a curfew after the murder of Count Simanu and did sometimes patrol the roads to enforce it.
About halfway to Negyu’s farm, the road passed through a wood of mixed elms and chestnuts. They weren’t in leaf yet, but they would be soon. Out of the darkness came a soft challenge: “King Gainibu!”
“The Column of Victory,” Skarnu replied--not the most original challenge and answer for Valmieran patriots, but easy for them to remember. Getting the right response, four more men stepped out into the roadway. After handclasps, Skarnu said, “Single file down the road. Raunu, you’re the best of us--you walk point. Let’s go do what needs doing.”
They obeyed without argument. To the farmers, Skarnu deserved to be obeyed because he’d been an officer in JQng Gainibu’s army. They assumed he knew what he was doing. Raunu, who’d taught him everything he did know about fighting, understood how ignorant he remained. But he’d given the right order this time, and so the sergeant kept quiet.
The night was crisp, but not so cold as it had been earlier in the winter. It said spring would come, even if not quite yet. Skarnu was warm enough and to spare in the sheepskin jacket that had been Gedominu’s even if that jacket fit him worse than it might have.
As they drew near Negyu’s farm, Raunu halted them. “All I can do is take us straight up the road,” he said. “One of you fellows who’ve lived here forever will know of some little deer track that’ll lead us right to the whoreson’s back door without the Algarvians’ ever being the wiser about how we got there.”
That produced a low-voiced argument between two of the locals, each convinced he knew the best shortcut. Finally, resentfully, one of them yielded and let the other take Raunu’s place at the head of the little column. “Leave it to me,” the farmer said proudly. “Curse me if I don’t get you there all right.”
Maybe the powers above were listening harder than they were in the habit of doing. In the middle of another dark stretch of wood, a new challenge rang out--this one in Algarvian. Skarnu and his men froze, doing their best not even to breathe. Could he have done so in perfect silence, he would have throttled their know-it-all guide.
“Who going there?” This time, the challenge came in bad, willingly accented Valmieran. Again, Skarnu and his comrades stayed perfectly still. Maybe the Algarvians would decide they’d imagined whatever they’d heard, and would go on their way.
No such luck. After a muttered colloquy, the men from the redheads’ patrol began moving toward the Valmierans who’d come to hurt their pet collaborator. Closer and closer came the footsteps, though Skarnu wasn’t sure he could see the enemy soldiers.
“Who going there?” another redhead called. No one, Skarnu thought loudly. Go away. But the Algarvians kept coming. With a moan of fright, one of the farmers who’d joined Raunu and Merkela and him--the very fellow who’d wanted and won the privilege of leading them to Negyu’s farm--broke and ran. Naturally, the Algarvians started blazing at him. As naturally, the flash from their beams revealed to them that he wasn’t the only Valmieran out breaking the curfew.
Those beams also revealed where some of the Algarvians were. Merkela was the first to blaze at them. A redhead fell with a groan. “Take cover!” Skarnu shouted to his followers, and was proud that his yell came out a split second before Raunu’s.
Then Raunu yelled something else: “Reinforcements, come in from the left!” For a moment, that made no sense to Skarnu, who knew too well that he had no reinforcements. Then he realized the redheads didn’t know he had none.
Fighting by night was a terrifying, deadly dangerous business. Every time anyone blazed, he gave away his position. That meant blazing and then rolling away at once, before an enemy looking for your beam could send one of his own at you. Skarnu had done it at the front against Algarve, back in the days--how distant they seemed now!--when Valmiera could hold a front against Algarve.
He wished he knew about how many Algarvians he was facing now. Not a company, or anything of the sort, or they would have rolled over his little band of raiders without a second thought. His comrades and he had probably been unlucky enough to stumble across a patrol with about as many in it as they had. But the Algarvians, curse them, would be carrying a crystal. They’d have more men here all too soon.
“We’ve got to break away!” he shouted. But he couldn’t slide off into the woods by himself, not without Merkela and Raunu. Keeping low, keeping to what cover he could, he scuttled toward where he thought they were, softly calling, “King Gainibu!”
After a moment, Merkela answered, “Column of Victory.” Then, in no small anger, she added, “You idiot--I almost blazed you.”
“Well, it’s not if you’re the only one trying to,” he answered. “We’d better find Raunu and slide away. We won’t get to Negyu’s tonight, or any time soon.”
“No.” Merkela’s whisper held both ice and fire. “And how did they come upon us just when we were getting so close? Who let them know we were going to visit the traitor?”
That hadn’t occurred to Skarnu. On the battlefield, he’d worried about incompetence and cowardice, not betrayal. But Merkela was right. This was--or could be--a different sort of war.