But Plegmund's Brigade and the Algarvians moving forward with it pressed on toward Durrwangen. With the city battered by murderous mage-craft, Sidroc didn't see how they could fail to break in.
And then the ground shook beneath him, hard enough to knock him off his feet. As he sprawled in the mire, a great crack opened ahead. It sucked down a couple of Forthwegian troopers and slammed shut again, smashing them before they could even scream.
Sidroc felt like screaming himself. He did scream- he screamed curses at the Algarvian wizards safe behind the line: "Them, you crackbrained whoreson arseholes! Them, not us!"
"Crackbrain yourself!" Ceorl yelled. "That's not the redheads. That's Swemmel's mages killing peasants and hitting back."
"Oh." Sidroc felt like a fool, not for the first time since joining Plegmund's Brigade. That didn't even count the times he felt like a fool for joining Plegmund's Brigade. He looked to his right and left gain. The Algarvian troops to either side of the Brigade had been hit at least as hard as his Forthwegian countrymen. "How are we supposed to go forward, then?"
Ceorl didn't answer. Swarms of Unkerlanter dragons painted rock-gray flew up from the south, dropping eggs on the attackers and flaming those incautious enough to bunch together. The Algarvians' magecraft hadn't reached far enough to do anything to King Swemmel's dragon farms.
And then the ground shook and opened and closed again, almost under Sidroc's feet. More purple flames shot up from it. One incinerated an Algarvian behemoth and its crew not far away. King Swemmel didn't seem to care how many of his own folk his mages killed, so long as they halted their foes. And they'd done that. Sidroc was no general and never would be, but he could tell at a glance that the Algarvians hadn't the least chance of taking Durrwangen till after the mud of southern Unkerlant turned hard again.
Spring was coming to the Valmieran countryside. The first shoots of new green grass were springing up from the ground. Leaf buds sprouted on apple and plum and cherry trees. Early birds were returning from their winter homes in northern Jelgava and Algarve and on the tropical continent of Siaulia.
Pretty soon, Skarnu thought, it'll be time to plant the year's barley and wheat and turn the cattle and sheep out to pasture instead of feeding them on hay and silage. He laughed at himself. Before the war, he'd never thought about where food came from or how it was produced. For all he knew or cared, it might have appeared by sorcery in grocers' or butchers' shops.
He knew better now. He knew enough to make himself more than a little useful on a farm out in the country. He'd helped one farmer who hid him, and now he was doing the same for another. This fellow was as surprised as the other had been. He said, "I heard tell you were a city man. You talk like a city man, that's a fact. But you know what to do with a pitchfork, and that's a fact, too."
"I know what to do with a pitchfork," Skarnu agreed, and let it go at that. The less people knew about him, the better.
Again, he wasn't too far from Ventspils, and wanted to get farther away. The Algarvians had come too close to nabbing him- to nabbing the whole underground organization- there. Somebody'd been made to talk somewhere, or trusted someone he shouldn't have- the risks irregulars inevitably took when fighting an occupying army more powerful than they.
When fighting an occupying army and a whole great swarm of traitors, Skarnu thought sourly. As always, the first traitor whose face came to mind was his sister, Krasta. Right behind her, though, were all the Valmieran constables who served the Algarvians as steadily as they'd ever served King Gainibu. If they hadn't, he didn't see how the redheads could have held on to his kingdom and held it down.
But the fellow who came to the farm a couple of days later was neither an Algarvian nor a constable in the redheads' pay. The painter who headed up the irregulars in Ventspils found Skarnu weeding the vegetable plot by the farmhouse. Amusement in his voice, he said, "Hello, Pavilosta. Anybody would think you'd been doing that all your born days."
"Hello yourself." Skarnu got to his feet and swiped at the mud on the knees of his trousers. "Good to see Mezentio's men didn't manage to grab you, either."
"I worry more about our own," the painter said, echoing Skarnu's earlier thought. "But I came out here to talk about you, not me. What are we going to do with you, anyhow?"
"I don't know." Skarnu pointed to the plants he'd been weeding. "The scallions and leeks look to be doing nicely."
"Heh," the underground leader said: not a laugh, but the appearance of one. "You're too good a man with your hands to waste them on produce. You need to go someplace where you can give the redheads a hard time. I wish we could send you into Priekule. You'd do good things, the way you know the city."
"Trouble is, the city knows me, too," Skarnu said. "I wouldn't last long before somebody fingered me to the Algarvians." He thought of Krasta again, but she wasn't the only one- far from it. How many Valmieran nobles in the capital were in bed with the occupiers, literally or metaphorically? Too many. He sighed. "I wish I could go back to the farm by Pavilosta. I was doing fine there."
"Not safe." The painter spoke with great authority. He rubbed his chin as he thought. "I know of a couple of fellows you might want to meet. They've been away for a while- you could show 'em how things have changed."
"Why me? What in blazes do I know about anything?" Skarnu didn't try to hide his bitterness. "I couldn't even guess where the redheads were shipping those poor cursed Kaunians from Forthweg. They must have aimed their magic at Kuusamo, but it wouldn't have gone at Yliharma, or we would have heard about it." He stared down at his hands. They had mud on them, too, but in his eyes it looked like blood.
"No, not at Yliharma," the man from Ventspils agreed. "They did something nasty with the life energy they stole, something that helped them and hurt us. I don't know any more about it than that. I don't think anybody in Valmiera knows much more about it than that."
He'd succeeded in making Skarnu curious. He'd also let him know his curiosity wouldn't be satisfied. Scowling, Skarnu said, "Who are these two fellows, and how will you bring them here without bringing Mezentio's men, too?"
"I won't," the painter said. "You'll go to them. You know that little village you visited once before? Tomorrow, about noon, a wagon will stop here. The man driving it will say, 'The Column of Victory.' You answer, 'Will rise again.' He'll take you where you're going."
"What if he doesn't say that?" Skarnu asked.
"Run like blazes," the other irregular leader answered. As if he'd said everything he'd come to say, he turned on his heel and ambled back toward Ventspils.
Sure enough, the wagon turned up the next day. Skarnu warily approached. The driver said what he was supposed to say. Skarnu gave the countersign. The driver nodded. Skarnu climbed aboard. The driver flicked the reins and clucked to the horses.
They got to the village a day and a half later. By then, Skarnu thought his fundament was turning to stone. The driver seemed undisturbed. He even chuckled at the old man's hobble with which Skarnu made for the house that served as the underground's nerve center.
The woman he'd met there at his last visit let him in. She gave him bread and beer, which were both welcome, and let him sit down on a soft chair, which at the moment seemed almost as fine as falling into Merkela's arms. He let out a long sigh of pleasure before asking, "I'm to meet someone?"