"Powers below eat 'em for it, too," Ceorl said. "They've been eating and drinking and screwing themselves silly, and we've been doing their fighting and dying for them. About time they started earning their cursed keep."
"Aye, that's so," Sidroc admitted. "It won't do us much good if they do decide we're Unkerlanters, though."
For a moment, it looked as if the behemoth crews would think the men shouting and waving and advancing on them belonged to the enemy. Only when the Algarvian officers leading the Forthwegians came out in front of them did the redheads on the behemoths relax… a little.
"Plegmund's Brigade?" one of them said as Sidroc and his comrades approached. "What in the futtering blazes is Plegmund's Brigade? Sounds like a futtering disease, that's what." A couple of the other troopers on the behemoth laughed and nodded.
Not bothering to keep his voice down, Sidroc asked Werferth, "Sergeant, can we whale the stuffing out of these redheaded fools before we go on and deal with the Unkerlanters?"
With what looked like real regret, Werferth shook his head. Since Sidroc had spoken in Forthwegian, the Algarvians aboard the behemoth didn't know what he'd said. But one of the redheaded officers with the Brigade said what amounted to the same thing- "We'll show you what we are, by the powers above!" -and said it in unmistakable Algarvian.
Sidroc stood very straight, his chest swelling with pride. But Ceorl only grunted. "That means they'll spend us the way a rich whore spends coppers. They'll throw us away to prove we're brave."
"Bite your tongue, curse it!" Werferth exclaimed. Sidroc was scowling, too; Ceorl's words had a horrid feel of probability to them.
The soldiers of Plegmund's Brigade had to march hard to keep up with the advancing behemoths. "Bastards would slow down a little for their own kind," Sidroc grumbled.
"Maybe," Werferth said. "But maybe not, too. Getting there fast counts in this business."
War had already swept its red-hot rake over the countryside, swept it coming and going. All the villages had been fought over, most of them twice, some, by their look, more often than that. The Unkerlanter soldiers based in the ruined villages seemed astonished to find King Mezentio's men moving forward once more.
Astonished or not, the Unkerlanters fought hard. From everything Sidroc had seen, they always did. But footsoldiers without behemoths were at a great disadvantage facing footsoldiers with them. Sidroc had already had his nose rubbed in that lesson. Before long, and at small cost, they cleared several villages, one after the other.
"Forward!" shouted the Algarvian officers attached to Plegmund's Brigade. "Forward!" shouted the officers who led the behemoths. Across the snowy fields, Sidroc saw Algarvian footsoldiers moving forward, too.
"We've doubled back around the Unkerlanters," he said in considerable excitement. "If we can cut them off, we'll give 'em a good kick in the arse."
"Thanks, Marshal Sidroc," Ceorl said. "I'm sure you'll be telling King Mezentio where to go and what to do one fine day."
"I'll tell you where to go and what to do when the powers below drag you down there," Sidroc retorted.
And that was plenty to set Ceorl off. "Don't you talk to me like that, you son of a whore," he snarled. "You talk to me like that, I'll cut your fornicating heart out and eat it with onions."
Back in the Brigade's training camp, Ceorl had frightened the whey out of Sidroc. He was a robber, likely a murderer, and Sidroc had led a quiet, prosperous life till the war turned everything on its head. But a lot had changed since the Brigade came to Unkerlant. Sidroc had seen and done things every bit as dreadful as anything Ceorl had done. He looked at the ruffian and said, "Come ahead. I'll give you all you want."
Ceorl snarled again and grabbed for his knife. "Stop that, you stupid buggers, or you'll answer to the redheads," Sergeant Werferth growled. "After we win the war, you two can do whatever you want to each other, and I won't care a fart's worth. Till then, you're stuck with each other."
Sidroc kept his hand on his own knife hilt till he saw Ceorl lower his. As the Forthwegians marched on, he kept watching his countryman. In spite of Werferth's order, he didn't trust Ceorl. Ceorl was watching him, too. The way he watched reassured Sidroc- it wasn't contemptuous, but a look that said Ceorl had something to worry about, and knew it.
Werferth was watching both of them. "Powers above, you lackwits, show some sense," he said after about half a mile. "What's the point in going after each other when the Unkerlanters are liable to do worse to you than either one of you could dream of?"
That held an unpleasant amount of sense. Sidroc saw as much at once. For a wonder, Ceorl saw it, too. The frozen, twisted corpses lying in the snow they passed made it easier for Werferth to get his point across.
Someone up ahead shouted and pointed. There were more Unkerlanters, tramping south across the plains. They had a few behemoths with them, but only a few. Officers' whistles squealed in Plegmund's Brigade and among the Algarvians. The same order rang out among them alclass="underline" "Forward!"
Swemmel's men, intent on their retreat, didn't notice the attack developing against their flank till too late. Sidroc soon discovered why: they were falling back under pursuit from the north. Eggs burst among them, kicking up puffs of snow and knocking over footsoldiers and a couple of behemoths. One of the behemoths, to his disappointment, scrambled back to its feet, though without most of its crew.
His comrades and he flopped down in the snow and started blazing at the Unkerlanters. The Algarvian behemoths plastered them with more eggs. Beams from heavy sticks seared three Algarvian behemoths in quick succession. They also sent up great gouts of steam when they bit into the snow.
"Forward!" the officers cried, and the men of Plegmund's Brigade, along with their Algarvian allies, got up again and rushed toward the enemy.
We're going to get killed, Sidroc thought, even as he slogged through the snow. He'd seen Unkerlanter troops fierce in attack and stubborn in defense. Now, for once, he saw them taken by surprise and panic-stricken. A few of the men in rock-gray tunics stood their ground and blazed at the Algarvians and Forthwegians, but more simply fled. Quite a few threw their hands in the air and surrendered.
"You're a Grelzer?" one of those asked Sidroc as Sidroc stole his weapon and money and food. Unkerlanter and Forthwegian were cousins; Sidroc had no great trouble understanding the question.
"No. Plegmund's Brigade," he answered. That didn't seem to mean anything to the captive. Well, we'll make it mean something to these whoresons, Sidroc thought. He gestured with his stick. The Unkerlanter, hands still high, headed north, away from the fighting. Sooner or later, someone would take charge of him. He was far from the only captive who needed to be gathered in.
King Swemmel's soldiers kept running. A few tried to make a stand in a little village in the path of Plegmund's Brigade, but the Forthwegians were so close behind them, they got in among the houses at almost the same time as the Unkerlanters did.
Shrieks from a couple of peasant huts brought howls of delight from the men of the Brigade. "Women!" somebody yelled, as if those screams needed to be identified. Either the local peasants had never left this place or they'd returned, thinking men who fought for Mezentio would never come so far again. If that was what they'd thought, they'd miscalculated.
They'd also given the Forthwegians one more reason to finish off the enemy soldiers in the village as fast as they could. The Unkerlanters wouldn't have lasted long anyhow, not when they were badly outnumbered and unable to form a defensive line. As things were, they vanished as if they had never been.