Darkness Descending by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

forward, curse you! If we don’t hold the line of the river, we’ll have to fall back past Wirdum, and King Swemmel will pitch a fit.” He glanced up and saw Rathar. In a voice full of defiance, he said, “If you want to haul me away for lese majesty, my lord Marshal, here’s your chance.”
    “I want to halt the Algarvians,” Rathar said. “That’s the only thing I want, and I’m not fussy about how I do it.”
    Ortwin snorted, which made his nose hairs quiver like grass in the breeze. “Why aren’t you shorter by a head?” he asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. “Everybody thought you were going to be, this past fall.”
    Rathar shrugged. “His Majesty believes I do not want to be king, I think. Powers above know it’s a true belief. But I came here to escape the court, not to gossip of it.” He strode forward. “Show me how you are doing.”
    “None too bloody well,” Ortwin answered, which would have served as commentary for the entire Unkerlanter fight against Algarve. “When you set out, we still had a decent force on the east side of the Klagen. This morning, though, the cursed Algarvians threw us back over the river, and powers below eat me if I see how we’re going to keep them from crossing.” He pointed to the map to show what he meant.
    “Why didn’t you reinforce your men on the east side?” Rathar asked.
    “My lord Marshal, what do you think I tried to do?” Ortwin retorted. “I haven’t got a fancy hat with a feather in it like an Algarvian general, but I’m not stupid—not too stupid, anyhow. I tried. I couldn’t. Their dragons kept dropping eggs on the fords of the Klagen, and their behemoths thundered right through the line our men put up.”
    “Where were our behemoths for a counterattack?” Rather inquired.
    “Spread too thin to do much,” Ortwin told him. “They bunched theirs, and they broke through with them.”
    Rather exhaled angrily. “Shouldn’t that have given you a hint, General? We’re going to have to learn to fight like the Algarvians if we intend to throw them back.”
    Ortwin said, “My lord Marshal, I didn’t have enough of the beasts to make any great counterattack with them anyhow.” He held up a hand whose back was gnarled with veins like old tree roots. “And before you ask why I didn’t get some from the north or the south, the redheads are driving back our armies there, too, and no general has enough for himself, let alone to spare any for his neighbors.”
    “That is not good,” Rathar said, an understatement if ever there was one. “We must be able to concentrate our behemoths, as the Algarvians are doing, or else they will go right on smashing through us.”
    “You are the marshal of Unkerlant,” Ortwin said. “If anyone can make it so, you are the man.” He cocked his head to one side. “Listen to the way the eggs are falling. Sure as sure, Mezentio’s men are trying to get over the Klagen.” Rathar cocked his head to one side, too. Ortwin was right. Most of the bursts came from the southeast, where the Unkerlanters were fighting to hold the line of the river. One of the crystallomancers turned and spoke urgently to the general.
    “I came here to see the fighting,” Rathar said as he started out of the tent. “I am going up toward the line there.”
    “Crystals,” Ortwin called after him. “We need more crystals, too. Seems as though the stinking Algarvians have ‘em on every behemoth and every dragon, and we’ve got regiments out there without any. They fight smoother than we can, if you know what I mean.”
    “I do know,” Rathar flung back over his shoulder. “The sorcerers are working night and day to activate more. But we have to keep so many of them busy turning out sticks and eggs, we can’t do as much with crystals as we’d like.” Unkerlant was a bigger, more populous kingdom than Algarve. King Mezentio’s domain, though, had more trained mages and artisans than did King Swemmel’s. Algarve