“They’re all sluts anyway-Algarvian women, I mean,” Drogden said. “They deserve it-and they’re going to get it, too.”
“A lot of ‘em are running away from us as fast as they can go, for fear of what we’ll do to them,” Leudast said.
“That’s fine. I don’t mind a bit.” Drogden had a nasty chuckle when he chose to use it. “The more they clog their nice paved roads for their own soldiers, the more trouble they end up in. And when our dragons fly over, don’t they have fun?”
“Don’t they just?” Now Leudast spoke with the same savage enthusiasm as his regiment commander. “The redheads would do that to our peasants and townsfolk when they jumped on our back. Nice to let ‘em know what it feels like.”
Funny, he thought. I don’t mind seeing Algarvians torn to pieces by sorcerous energy from our eggs or flamed into charcoal by our dragons. I don’t mind that at all, except for the stink of the burnt meat. So why am I squeamish about throwing a woman down and stabbing her between her legs with my lance?
Before he could dwell on that, eggs burst close enough to make him flatten out on the ground like a snake. “They do keep trying to hit back,” Drogden said. “Well, they’ll pay for it. They’ll pay for everything.”
He was soon proved right. The Unkerlanters had many more egg-tossers up near the fighting front than the Algarvians did, and soon pounded the redheads into silence again. The push into western Algarve went on-till the redheads made a stand in a town called Ozieri. Instead of swarming into the town and fighting house to house, as they would have done earlier in the war, the Unkerlanters swept around it-a lesson they had learned from their Algarvian foes. Once Mezentio’s men inside Ozieri were cut off from help, the Unkerlanters could pound them and their strongpoint to bits at leisure and at minimum expense.
That didn’t bring out the Algarvian defenders. They’d learned their lessons in the long, bitter war, too. Their soldiers dug in among the ruins. Sooner or later, they would make the Unkerlanters pay the price for winkling them out. Sooner or later, we’ll throw second-line soldiers at them, Leudast thought. Losing those fellows won’t matter so much-and we’ll get rid of the Algarvians. Sometimes the game had steps almost as formal as a dance.
But the Algarvian civilians in Ozieri didn’t understand how the game was played. They’d never expected to have to learn; they’d left that lesson for the people of all the kingdoms bordering their own. When eggs started bursting among the homes and shops they’d cherished for generations, many of them didn’t know enough to go down to their cellars and try to wait out the attack. Those people grabbed whatever they could and fled east with it in their arms or on their backs.
What they didn’t realize was that it was too late for such flight. By the time the eggs started falling heavily, the Unkerlanters had already surrounded Ozieri. Civilians fleeing the place found themselves in just as much danger as soldiers would have-if anything, in more, because they couldn’t blaze back and didn’t know how to take cover.
Leudast blazed an old man with a duffel bag slung over one bent shoulder. He wasn’t happy about doing it, but he didn’t hesitate. For all he knew, the old Algarvian was one of the soldiers recently dragooned into the army, and the canvas sack was full of those nasty little throwable eggs the redheads had got so much use from the past few months.
Somebody blazed at him a moment later, from the direction from which the old man had come. He rolled behind a hedge, wishing the Algarvians hadn’t manicured their landscapes so neatly. A shriek from that same direction a moment later argued that some other Unkerlanter had taken care of the redhead with the stick.
Another shriek came from behind Leudast. This one was torn from a woman’s throat. By the way it went on, and by the laughs that accompanied it, he didn’t think she’d been wounded by an egg or a stick.
Sure enough, when he went back to check, he found three men holding her down and a fourth, his tunic hiked up, pumping away on top of her. The soldier grunted, shuddered, and pulled out. One of his pals took his place. “Hello, Lieutenant,” said the fellow on her right leg. “You want a turn? She’s lively.”
“She’s noisy, is what she is,” Leudast answered.
“Sorry, sir,” said the fellow who had her arms. “She bites whenever you put a hand over her mouth. We don’t want to get rid of her till we’ve all had a go.”
“Shut her up,” Leudast said. “She’s liable to bring redheads down on you, and you aren’t exactly ready to fight.” That got the soldiers’ attention. A rough gag didn’t stop the woman’s screams, but did muffle them. The man who was riding her drove deep, then sat back on his haunches with a satisfied smirk on his face.
“You going to take her, Lieutenant?” asked the soldier who had her arms. “Otherwise, it’s my turn.”
There she lay, naked-or naked enough-and spreadeagled. Would it make any difference to her if five men had her, or only four? Do I care? Leudast wondered. She’s only an Algarvian. “Aye, I’ll do it,” he said, and bent between her thighs. It didn’t take long. He hadn’t thought it would. And what had her brothers or husband-maybe even her son; he thought she was close to forty-done in Unkerlant? Nothing good. He was sure of that.
He didn’t feel particularly proud of himself afterwards: not as if he’d take a step toward overthrowing Mezentio. But he wasn’t sorry, either. Just. . one of those things, he thought.
“Behemoths!” The shout from ahead came in Unkerlanter, so Leudast supposed the Algarvians east of Ozieri had mustered a counterattack. They kept striking back whenever they could, even with the odds dreadfully against them. Here, if they could fight their way into the town, they might bring some soldiers out with them, and that might help them make a stand somewhere else.
As always, the Algarvians fought bravely. Their footsoldiers knew how to use behemoths to the best advantage. With skill and bravado, they pushed the Unkerlanters back about half a mile. But skill and bravado went only so far. Against dragons and many more behemoths and many more men, the counterattack faltered short of its goal. Sullenly, the Algarvians drew back.
Leudast waited for Captain Drogden to order the regiment forward again. That was Drogden’s way: to hit the redheads hard when they weren’t ready for it. But no orders came. “Where’s the captain?” Leudast asked.
An Unkerlanter pointed over his shoulder. “Last I saw him, he was going off behind that fancy house there. He had a redhead with him.” The soldier’s hands shaped curves in the air.
Leudast went after Drogden without hesitation. Fun was one thing, fun at the expense of the fight something else. “Captain?” he called as he went around the house, which was indeed a great deal fancier than any he’d seen in his own village. “You there, Captain?”
Amidst the yellowish brown of dead grass, rock-gray stood out. There lay Drogden, his tunic hiked up to his waist-and a knife deep in his back. There was no sign of the woman he’d had with him, or of his stick. Leudast scrambled away in a hurry-she might be lying in wait, ready to blaze whoever came after Drogden. But no beam bit or charred grass near Leudast. Still, he shook his head in blank dismay. Drogden was a careful fellow, he thought, but this once he wasn‘t careful enough. He shivered. It could have been me.
Skarnu found himself restless and discontented in Priekule. He’d thought that, when he came back after the Algarvians abandoned his beloved city, he would simply resume the life he’d led before the Derlavaian War called him into King Gainibu’s service. But going to one feast after another palled fast. He didn’t mind drinking a bit, but getting drunk night after night seemed a lot less enjoyable, a lot less amusing, than it had in peacetime.