And then, that evening, Lagoan dragons did come flying into the army’s unhappy camp--eleven of them, no more, and all in the last stages of exhaustion. The men who flew them were hardly in better shape. “Leviathan,” one of them said, gulping at the flask of spirits a soldier pressed into his hand. “Cursed leviathan, or more likely a pod of them. We never knew we were in any trouble, either dragon transport, till the eggs they planted against our sides burst. By then they were long gone underwater. And not long after that, both our ships went under the water, too. Most of the dragons, most of the fliers, never made it out.” He swigged again, tilting the flask so he could drain it dry.
“What will we do without enough dragons to fight the Algarvians?” someone asked. The question hadn’t been aimed at Fernao, but he saw only one thing the Lagoans could do: they would have to retreat.
“We are not satisfied,” King Swemmel told Marshal Rathar. “By the powers above, how can we be satisfied, with the cursed redheads still infesting so much of the richest part of our kingdom?”
Rathar bowed his head. Had he been in Swemmel’s audience chamber, he would have gone down on his belly, but the king had come to his office, and so that indignity was spared him. He said, “Your Majesty, we may not have done so much as you’d hoped, but we have done a great deal. Even after the mud fully dries, the Algarvians will be hard pressed to mount another assault on Cottbus. The last one cost them dear, and we have new fortifications protecting the way west toward thie capital.”
He’d hoped his words would please the king, but Swemmel’s eyes blazed angrily. “We care little for what the Algarvians may seek to do to us,” he growled. “We care far more for what we can do to the Algarvians.”
Within limits, that was a good attitude for a soldier to have. King Swemmel had never recognized limits, not for himself, not for those he commanded. Rathar said, “We will hit back at Mezentio’s men in the south. But we must also make sure the capital is safe. When the ground lets the redheads move, they won’t stand idle, waiting to be attacked.”
The marshal of Unkerlant wondered how big an understatement that was. The previous summer and fall’s campaign had proved the Algarvians had taken too big a bite to swallow at once. It hadn’t proved they couldn’t swallow it in several gulps rather than one. And Rathar remained uneasily aware that, man for man, Mezentio’s soldiers were better than Swemmel’s. He thanked the powers above that Unkerlant had more men.
Swemmel said, “We had better not rest idle, either. As soon as the ground dries, we want us to move first, before the Algarvians can.” He walked over to the map on the wall by Rathars desk. “You are always talking about flanking attacks. If we can flank them out of Aspang here, their whole position in Grelz crumbles.”
Rathar nodded. The king had been furious for some time because the Unkerlanters hadn’t driven King Mezentio’s men out of Aspang. Having the redheads there didn’t thrill Rathar, either. He’d managed to talk Swemmel out of a headlong assault on the city; Unkerlant had already tried that and bloodily failed. The marshal had no compunction about spending lives but wanted to buy something with what he spent.
And if he’d managed to get the king thinking about flanking maneuvers, he’d accomplished something as important as winning a major battle. “I believe you’re right, your Majesty. I would like to go south and prepare that attack myself. . ..”
But King Swemmel shook his head. “From your own mouth came the words: the Algarvians will not stand idle when the ground dries. What will they do, Marshal? What would you do, did you wear Mezentio’s kilt?”
Swemmel was having a good day. He couldn’t have found a more pertinent question to ask. Rathar did his best to think his way into King Mezentio s mind. One answer emerged: “I would strike again for Cottbus, here in the center. It’s still as important as it ever was. No matter how well we’ve fortified the ground in front of it, the Algarvians will still want it.”
“We agree,” Swemmel said. “And, because we agree, we are going to keep you here in front of the capital, to defend it against the redheads.”
“I obey, your Majesty,” Rathar said glumly. He wished he could fault Swemmel’s logic. But if he was the best general Unkerlant had and Cottbus the vital place likeliest to be endangered, where better to station him than here?
“Of course you obey us,” Swemmel said. “Did you not, we should have got ourselves a new marshal some time ago. Now--ready this assault against the Algarvians around Aspang, pick a general who will run it well, and set it in motion as soon as may be.” The king swept out of the office.
Major Merovec looked inside. When Rathar nodded, his adjutant came in. “What now?” Merovec asked cautiously.
Rathar told him what now. The marshal did not try to hide his frustration. Even if Merovec reported him to the king, Swemmel would have a hard time blaming him for wanting to go out and fight. That wasn’t to say Swemmel couldn’t blame him, but the king would have to work at it.
“Whom will you choose to command in the south, since you may not go yourself?” Merovec asked.
“General Vatran has fought as well as anyone could reasonably expect down there,” Rathar answered, which was true: not even King Swemmel had complained of Vatran. “I’ll leave him there till he proves he can’t do the job--or till a more important one comes along and I promote him into it.”
Merovec thought that over, then nodded. “He seems capable enough. Not like the early days of the fight with the redheads, when generals got the sack about once a week.”
“They got what they deserved,” Rathar said. “One thing war does in a hurry that peace can’t do at alclass="underline" it sorts out the officers who know how to fight from the ones who don’t. And now, since I can’t go south to lead the attack there, I am going to go to the lines in front of Cottbus, to see what we can do to help Vatran when the attack goes in.”
The lines were a good deal in front of Cottbus these days. A finger’s breadth between two pinholes on the map translated into three hours’ travel in a ley-line caravan car through some of the most ravaged countryside Rathar had ever seen. Neither the Unkerlanters nor their Algarvian foes had asked for or given quarter. Every town and village had been fought over twice, first when the Algarvians advanced towards Cottbus and then when they fell back from it. A wall that hadn’t been knocked down was unusual, a building unburnt and intact a prodigy.
About two-thirds of the way to the front, the caravan halted. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get out now, Marshal,” an apologetic mage said. “We haven’t cleared all the Algarvian sabotage from the ley line east of here. We can’t afford to lose you.”
“You’d better have a horse waiting for me, then,” Rathar growled.
“Oh, aye, sir, we do,” the mage said. Sure enough, a groom held a peppy-looking stallion not far from where the caravan car had halted. Rather, no splendid equestrian, would have preferred a gelding, but expected he could manage a more headstrong beast. He was a pretty headstrong beast himself.
The stallion must have been at the front for a while. It shied neither at the sharp stink of wood smoke as it trotted past one more burned-out village nor at the reek of dead meat, which seemed to be everywhere, sometimes faint, sometimes sickeningly strong.
One reason the horse was able to trot, as opposed to sinking hock-deep in mud, was that it stuck to a roughly corduroyed path leading east. Rather rode past a gang of Algarvian captives laying boards in the roadway under the sticks of a squad of Unkerlanter guards. He wished every one of the soldiers who served King Swemmel could have looked at these filthy, scrawny, thoroughly cowed Algarvians. The redheads sometimes seemed to go forward for no better reason than that both they and the Unkerlanters they fought were convinced they could. This gang of Algarvians would never raise that particular awe in their enemies again.