Into the Darkness

Book 1: Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

Genres: Military Fantasy; Sword & Sorcery

Synopsis

In this epic novel Harry Turtledove tells the story of an enormous cast of characters: soldiers and generals, washerwomen and scholars, peasants and diplomats. For all the world, highborn and low, is being plunged by world war...into the darkness.

When the Duke of Bari suddenly dies, the neighboring nation of Algarve, long seething over its defeat a generation ago in the Six Years' War, sees its chance to bring Bari into the fold...an action which the other countries surrounding Algarve cannot, by treaty, tolerate. As nation after nation declares war, a chain of treaties are invoked, ultimately bringing almost all the Powers of Derlavai into a war of unprecedented destructiveness.

For modern magic is deadlier than in ears past. Trained flocks of dragons rain explosive fire down on defenseless cities. Massed infantry race from place to place along a network of ley-lines. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to help sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on in this lifetime.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: April 15, 2000

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 544

Sample

One


Ealstan's master of herblore droned on and on about the mystical properties of plants. Ealstan paid him no more attention than he had to, no more attention than any other fifteen-year-old boy would have given him of a warm summer afternoon. He was thinking about stripping off his tunic and jumping in the stream that flowed past Gromheort, about girls, about what his mother would fix for supper, about girls, about the health of the distant and ancient Duke of Bari, about girls…about everything under the sun, in short, except herblore.
He was a little too obviously not thinking about herblore. The master's voice came sharp as a whipcrack: "Ealstan!"
He started, then sprang to his feet, almost knocking over the stool on which he'd been perched. "Master Osgar!" he said, while the other boys whom Osgar taught snickered at his clumsiness—and in relief because the master had caught him instead of them.
Osgar's gray-streaked beard seemed to quiver with indignation. Like most men of Forthweg—like Ealstan himself—he was strong and stocky and dark, with an imperiously curved nose and with eyes that, at the moment, flashed fire a wardragon might have envied. His voice dripped sarcasm. "Perhaps you will do me the honor, Ealstan, of reminding me of the chiefest property of the herb snake's-grass." He whacked a switch into the palm of his hand, a hint of what Ealstan would get if he did not do him that honor.
"Snake's-grass, Master Osgar?" Ealstan said. Osgar nodded, anticipation on his face: if Ealstan needed to repeat the question, he hadn't been listening. And so, indeed, he hadn't. But his uncle had used snake's-grass the year before, which meant he knew the answer: "May it please you, Master Osgar, if you set the powder of snake's-grass and three-leaved grass under a man's pillow, he will not dream of himself afterwards ever again."
It did not please the master of herblore. His expression made that plain. But it was the right answer. Reluctantly, Osgar nodded and said, "Resume your
seat—without making the countryside fear an earthquake, if that be possible. And henceforth, make some effort to appear as if you care what passes here."
"Yes, Master Osgar. Thank you, Master Osgar." Ealstan sat as carefully as he could. For a little while, till the master of herblore stopped aiming glances sharp as a unicorn's horn his way, he paid attention to Osgar's words. There were apothecaries in his family, and he'd thought more than idly of going into that trade himself one day. But he had so many other things to think about, and…
Thwack! The switch came down, not on his back, but on that of his cousin Sidroc. Sidroc had been thinking of something else, too, and hadn't been lucky enough to get a question he could handle with what he already knew. All the boys in Osgar's class looked diligent then, whether they were or not.
After what seemed like forever, a brazen bell released them. As they filed out, Osgar said, "Study well. We meet again tomorrow afternoon." He contrived to make that sound like a threat.
To Ealstan, tomorrow afternoon felt a million miles away. So did his morning classes in Forthwegian literature and ciphering. So did the work he would have to do tonight for all of those classes and more besides. For now, as he left the gloomy corridors of the academy
and stepped out into bright sunshine, the whole world seemed his—or, if not the whole world, at least the whole town of Gromheort.
He glanced back over his shoulder at the whitewashed stone keep where Count Brorda made his residence. As far as he was concerned, neither Brorda nor Gromheort got their due from King Penda, nor from anyone else in Eoforwic, the capital. To them, Gromheort was just a medium-sized town not far from the border with Algarve. They did not grasp its magnificent uniqueness.
That this was also Count Brorda's view of the situation, and one he assiduously cultivated in the folk of Gromheort, had never crossed Ealstan's mind.
It didn't cross his mind now, either. Sidroc made as if to hit him, saying, "Curse you, how did you come up with that about snake's-grass? When I strip off for the baths, everyone's going to tease me about the welt on my back."
"Uncle Wulfher used the stuff, remember, when he thought he had a sending of nightmares," Ealstan replied.
Sidroc snorted. He didn't want an answer; he wanted sympathy. Ealstan was his cousin, not his mother, and had scant sympathy to give.
Bantering with their friends, they made their way through the streets of Gromheort toward their homes. Ealstan blinked against the impact of the strong northern sun against whitewash and red tile roofs. Until his eyes got used to the light, he sighed with relief whenever he ducked under an olive tree or one full of ripening almonds. Good-byes came every couple of blocks as one boy after another peeled off from the group.
Ealstan and Sidroc were halfway home when one of Count Brorda's constables held up a ceremonial sword to halt foot traffic and wagons on their street. He shouted curses at a luckless man who didn't stop fast enough to suit him. "What's going on?" Sidroc asked, but Ealstan's ears had already caught the rhythmic clip-clop of cavalry.
Both boys shouted cheers as the unicorns trotted by. One of the officers made his mount rear for a moment. The sun shone bright as silver off its iron-shod horn and off its spotless white coat, a white that put whitewash to shame. Most of the troopers, though, had sensibly daubed their mounts with paint. Dun and sand and even muddy green were less likely to draw the notice of the foe and a streak of spurting fire, even if they seemed less magnificent than white.
A couple of slim, fair, trousered Kaunians, a man and a woman, cheered the cavalry along with everyone else. In their hatred of Algarve, they and the rest of the folk of the Kingdom of Forthweg agreed. After the constable waved traffic forward, Ealstan watched the woman's hips work in those revealing pants. He licked his lips. Forthwegian women went out in long, loose tunics that covered them from neck to ankles and kept their shapes decently disguised. No wonder people talked about Kaunians the way they did. And yet the woman strode along as if unaware of the spectacle she was creating, and chattered with her companion in their own sonorous language.
Sidroc watched her, too. "Disgusting," he said, but, by his avid voice and by the way his eyes kept following her, he was perhaps not altogether disgusted.
"Just because they dressed that way in the days of the Kaunian Empire, they think they have the right to keep on doing it," Ealstan agreed. "The Empire fell more than a thousand years ago, in case they haven't noticed."
"Because the Kaunians de-gen-er-ated from wearing clothes like that." Sidroc pronounced with exaggerated care the long word he'd learned from the history master earlier in the year.
He and Ealstan had gone a couple of more blocks when someone came running up the street behind them shouting, "He's dead! He's dead!"
"Who's dead?" Ealstan called, but he was afraid he knew.
"Duke Alardo, that's who," the man answered.
"Are you sure?" Ealstan and Sidroc and several other people asked the question at the same time. Alardo of Bari had been at death's door more than once in the nearly thirty years since his domain was forcibly detached from Algarve in the aftermath of the Six Years' War. He'd been vigorous enough to pull through every time. If only, Ealstan thought, he'd been vigorous enough to sire a son…
But the man with the news was nodding vigorously. "I have it straight from my brother-in-law, who has it from Count Brorda's secretary, who heard the message with his own ears when it reached the keep by crystal."
Like everyone else in Gromheort, Ealstan fancied himself a connoisseur of rumors. This one sounded highly probable. "King Mezentio will claim Bari," he said grimly.
"If he does, we'll fight him." Sidroc sounded grim, too, grim and excited at the same time. "He can't fight Forthweg and Valmiera and Jelgava all at once. Not even an Algarvian would be crazy enough to try that."
"Nobody knows what an Algarvian is crazy enough to try," Ealstan said with conviction. "He may have more enemies than that, too—Sibiu doesn't like Algarve, either, and the islanders are supposed to be tough. Come on—let's hurry home. Maybe we can be first with the news." They both began to run.
As they ran, Sidroc said, "I bet your brother will be glad to get the chance to slaughter some stinking Algarvians."
"Not my fault Leofsig was born first," Ealstan panted. "If I were nineteen, I'd have gone into the King's levy, too." He pretended to spray fire around, so recklessly that, had it been real, he would have burned down half of Gromheort.
He dashed into his own house shouting that Duke Alardo was dead. "What?" His sister, Conberge, who was a year older than he, came in from the courtyard, where she'd been trying to keep the flower garden flourishing despite Forthweg's savage summer heat. "What will Mezentio do now?"
"He will seize the Duchy." That wasn't Ealstan; it was his mother, Elfryth. She'd hurried out of the kitchen, and was wiping her hands on a linen towel. "He will seize it, and we will go to war." She did not sound excited, but about to burst into tears. After a moment, she gathered herself and went on, "I was about your age, Conberge, when the Six Years' War ended. I remember the uncles and cousins you never got to know because they didn't come home from the war." Her voice broke. She did begin to cry.
Ealstan said, "Leofsig will fight for Forthweg. He won't be dragooned into Algarve's army, or Unkerlant's either, the way so many Forthwegians were in the last war."
His mother looked at him as if he'd suddenly started speaking the language of the Lagoans, whose island kingdom lay beyond the isles of Sibiu, far southeast of Forthweg. "I don't care under which banner he fights," she said. "I don't want him to fight at all."
"Losing the last war didn't teach the Algarvians their lesson," Ealstan said. "This time, we'll hit them first." He smacked a fist into the palm of the other hand. "They won't stand a chance." That should have convinced his mother; none of his masters could have faulted his logic. For some reason, though, Elfryth looked less happy than ever.
So did Hestan, his father, when he came home from casting accounts for one or another of Gromheort's leading merchants. He had already heard the news. By then, very likely, all of Gromheort, all of Forthweg but for a few peasants and herders, had heard the news. He didn't say much. He seldom said much. But his silence seemed…heavier than usual as he drank his customary evening glass of wine with Elfryth.
He had a second glass of wine with supper, something he rarely did. And, all through supper, he kept looking, not east toward Algarve but to the west. He had nearly finished his garlicky stew of mutton and eggplant when, as if unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out, "What will Unkerlant do?"
Ealstan stared at him, then started to laugh. "Your pardon, sir," he said at once; he was, on the whole, a well-mannered boy. "The Unkerlanters are still digging out from their Twinkings War, and trying to fight Gyongyos in the far west, and snapping and snarling at Zuwayza, too. Don't you think they have enough on their plate?"
"If they hadn't fought themselves in the Twinkings War, they would still rule most of Forthweg," Hestan pointed out. Ealstan knew that, but it felt like history as old as that of the Kaunian Empire to him. His father resumed. "Anyhow, what I think doesn't matter. What matters is what King Swemmel of Unkerlant thinks—and, by all I've heard, he doesn't know his own mind from day to day."
* * *
Tealdo studied himself in the little hand mirror. He muttered something vile under his breath: one of the spikes of his mustache was not all it might have been. He applied a little more orange-scented wax, twisted the mustachio between thumb and forefinger, and studied the result. Better, he decided, but kept fiddling with the mustache and with his imperial even so. Better wasn't good enough, not here, not now. Even perfection would be barely good enough.
Panfilo came swaggering up the aisle of the caravan coach. His own mustaches, even more fiery of hue than Tealdo's, swept up and out like the horns of a bull. Instead of a chin beard, he favored bushy side whiskers. He paused to nod at Tealdo's primping. "That's good," he said. "Aye, that's very good. All the girls in the Duchy will want to kiss you."
"Sounds fine to me, Sergeant," Tealdo said with a grin. He patted the sleeve of his drab tan uniform tunic. "I just wish we could wear something with a little style to it, the way our fathers and grandfathers did."
"So do I, and I'll not deny it," Panfilo said. "But our fathers went into the Six Years' War in gold tunics and scarlet kilts. They looked like they were already blazing, and they burned—how they burned!" The sergeant went on up the aisle, snarling at soldiers less fastidious than Tealdo.
The caravan hummed south along the ley line. A few minutes later, Lieutenant Elio came through the coach and snapped at a couple of men Panfilo had missed. A few minutes after that, Captain Larbino came through and growled at men Elio had missed—and at a couple he hadn't.
Nobody growled at Tealdo. He leaned back in his seat and whistled an off-color song and watched the Algarvian landscape flow by outside the coach. Redbrick and timber had long since replaced whitewashed plaster; the southern part of the realm was cool and cloudy and not well suited to the airier forms of architecture in fashion farther north. Here, a man wanted to be sure he stayed warm of nights—and of days, too, a good part of the year.
Halfway through the afternoon, the almost subliminal hum of the caravan deepened as it drew less energy from the line over which it traveled. It slowed to a stop. Captain Larbino threw open the door to the coach. "Form up in order of march outside," he said. "Remember, King Mezentio has done us great honor by allowing this regiment to take part in the return of the Duchy of Bari to its rightful allegiance. Remember also, any man failing to live up to this honor will personally answer to me." He set a hand on the basket hilt of his officer's rapier; Tealdo did not doubt he meant that. The captain added, "And finally, remember that we are not marching into a foreign country. We are welcoming our brothers and sisters home."
"Hang our brothers," said the soldier next to Tealdo, a burly fellow named Trasone. "I want one of our sisters in Bari to welcome me home, and then screw me till I can't even walk."
"I've heard ideas I liked less," Tealdo said as he got to his feet. "Lots of them, as a matter of fact." He filed toward the door, then jumped down from the coach, which floated a couple of feet above the ground, and took his place in the ranks.
Captain Larbino's company was not the first in the regiment, but was the second, which let Tealdo see ahead well enough. In front of the first company stood the color guard. He envied them their gaudy ceremonial uniforms, from gilded helms to gleaming boots. The man in the middle of the color guard, who had surely been chosen for his great height, bore the banner of Algarve, diagonal slashes of red, green, and white. The soldier to his left carried the regiment pennon, a blue lightning bolt on gold.
Just ahead of the color guard stood a squat brick building also flying the Algarvian national banner: the customs house on the border—what had been the border—between Algarve and Bari. Its turnstile was raised, inviting the Algarvian soldiers forward. An almost identical brick building stood a few feet farther south, on the other side of the border. Bari's banner, a white bear on orange, floated on a staff beside it. Its wooden turnstile still made as if to bar the road into the Duchy.
Out of that second building came a plump man in uniform. His tunic and kilt were of different color and cut from those of the Algarvians: not tan, but a brown with green mixed in. Duke Alardo, powers below curse his ghost, had liked running his own realm; he'd been the perfect cat's-paw for the victors of the Six Years' War.
But he was dead now, dead without an heir. As for what his people thought…The plump man in the mud-and-moss uniform bowed to the Algarvian banner as the color-bearer brought it up to the border. Then he turned and bowed to the Barian banner before running it down from the pole where it had floated for a generation and more. And then he let it fall to the ground and spurned it with his boots. He raised the turnstile, crying, "Welcome home, brothers!"
Tealdo shouted himself hoarse but could hardly hear himself, for every man in the regiment was shouting himself hoarse. Colonel Ombruno, who commanded the unit, ran forward, embraced the Barian—the former Barian—customs officer, and kissed him on both cheeks. Turning back to his own men, he said, "Now, sons of my fighting spirit, enter the land that is ours once more."
The captains began singing the Algarvian national hymn. The men joined them in a swelling chorus of joy and pride. They marched past the two customs houses now suddenly made useless. Tealdo poked Trasone in the ribs and murmured, "Now that we're entering the land, let's see if we can enter the women too, eh, like you said." Trasone grinned and nodded. Sergeant Panfilo looked daggers at both of them, but the singing was so loud, he couldn't prove they hadn't taken part. Tealdo did start singing again lustily, in every sense of the word.
Parenzo, the Barian town nearest this stretch of the border with Algarve—no, nearest this stretch of the border with the rest of Algarve—lay a couple of miles south of the customs houses. Long before the regiment reached the town, people began streaming out of it toward them. Perhaps the fat Barian customs officer had used his crystal to let the baron in charge of the town know the reunion was now official. Or perhaps such news spread by magic less formal but no less effective than that by which crystals operated.
Whatever the reason, the road was lined with cheering, screaming men and women and children before the regiment got halfway to Parenzo. Some of the locals waved homemade Algarvian banners: homemade because Alardo had forbidden display or even possession of the Algarvian national colors in his realm while he lived. In the handful of days since the Duke's death, quite a few Barians had dyed white tunics and kilts with stripes of green and red.
The crowds didn't just line the road, either. In spite of Colonel Ombruno's indignant shouts, men dashed out to clasp the hands of the Algarvian soldiers and to kiss them on the cheeks, as he had done with the customs officers. Women ran out, too. They pressed flowers into the hands of the marching Algarvians, and national banners, too. And the kisses they gave were no mere pecks on the cheeks.
Tealdo did not want to let go of a sandy-haired beauty whose tunic and kilt, though of perfectly respectable cut, were woven of stuff so filmy, she might as well have been wearing nothing at all. "March!" Panfilo screamed at him. "You are a soldier of the Kingdom of Algarve. What will people think of you?"
"They will think I am a man, Sergeant, as well as a soldier," he replied with dignity. He gave the girl a last pat, then took a few steps double-time to resume his place in the ranks. He twirled his mustache as he went, in case the kisses had melted the wax out of it.
Because of such distractions, the two-mile march to Parenzo ended up taking twice as long as it should have. Colonel Ombruno went from apoplectic at the delay to placid when a statuesque woman in an outfit even more transparent than that of the girl who'd kissed Tealdo attached herself to him and showed no intention of letting go till she found a bed.
Trasone snickered. "The good colonel's wife will be furious if word of this ever gets back to her," he said.
"So will both his mistresses," Tealdo said. "The bold colonel is a man of parts—and I know the part he intends using tonight."
"The same one you do, once we billet ourselves in Parenzo," Trasone said.
"If I can find that same lady again—why not?" Tealdo asked. "Or even a different one."
A shadow flicked across his face, and then another. He craned his neck. A flight of dragons, their scaly hides painted red, green, and white, flew down from Algarve into Bari: one of many entering the Duchy, no doubt. High as they flew, the rhythmic whoosh of their wingbeats was easy to hear on the ground.
Tealdo made as if to clap his hands when the dragons flew past Parenzo. "Dragonfliers always get more than their share of women," he said. "For one thing, most of them are nobles. For another, they've got the lure of the beasts."
"Not fair," Trasone agreed.
"Not even close to fair," Tealdo said. "But if they don't land anywhere close to us, it doesn't matter."
In, the town square of Parenzo, the local baron stood on a wooden rostrum. He had the intent look of a man who was either going to make a speech or run for the latrine. Tealdo knew which he would have preferred, but no one consulted him.
The speech, inevitably, was long and boring. It was also in the fast, clucking Barian dialect, so that Tealdo, who came from the foothills of northeastern Algarve, not far from the Jelgavan border, missed about one word every sentence. Duke Alardo had tried to make the Barian dialect into a language of its own, further sundering his people from the rest of Algarve. He'd evidently had some luck. But when the count led the regiment in singing the national hymn, he and King Mezentio's soldiers understood one another perfectly.
Colonel Ombruno ascended to the rostrum. "Noble Baron, I thank you for your gracious remarks." He looked out over the neat ranks of soldiers. "Men, I grant you permission to fraternize with your fellow countrymen of Parenzo, provided only that you return to this square for billeting before the chimes of midnight. For now—dismissed!"
He came down and slipped an arm around the waist of the woman in the filmy tunic and kilt. With whoops and cheers, the regiment dispersed. Tealdo did his share of backslapping and wrist clasping with his fellow countrymen, but that wasn't the only thing on his mind.
Having been blessed with a good sense of direction, he went farther from the central square than did most of his comrades, thereby reducing his competition. When he walked into a cafe, he found himself the only soldier—indeed, the only customer—in the place. The serving girl was pretty, or even a little more than pretty. Her smile was friendly, or even a little more than friendly, as she came up to him. "What can I get you, hero?" she asked.
Tealdo glanced at the bill of fareon the wall. "We're not far from the sea," he answered, smiling back, "so how about the stewed eels with onions? And a yellow wine to go with them—and a glass for yourself, sweetheart, if you'd like one."
"I'd like one fine," she said. "And after supper, would you like to get your own eel stewed? I have a room upstairs." Her sigh was low and throaty. "It's so good to be in Algarve again, where we belong."
"I think it'll be good, coming into Bari," Tealdo said, and pulled the serving girl down onto his lap. Her arms twined around him. Suddenly, he didn't care whether he got supper or not.
* * *
Krasta peered into her closet, wondering what she had that was suitable to wear to a declaration of war. That problem had never before vexed the young marchioness, although her mother had surely had to make the same difficult choice at the outset of the Six Years' War, when Valmiera and her allies last sought to invade and subdue Algarve.
Her mouth thinned to a narrow line. She could not make up her mind. She picked up a bell and rang it. Let a servant figure out the permutations. That was what servants were for.
Bauska hurried in. She was wearing a sensible gray tunic and trousers, sensible and boring. "What shall I put on to go to the palace, Bauska?" Krasta asked. "Should I be cautious with a tunic, or show our grand Kaunian heritage by wearing trousers and blouse?" She sighed. "I really fancy a short tunic and kilt, but I don't suppose I can wear an Algarvian style when we're declaring war on that windbag, Mezentio."
"Not unless you care to be stoned through the streets of Priekule," Bauska replied.
"No, that wouldn't be good," Krasta said peevishly. She plucked a cinnamon-flavored sweet from a gold-chased bowl on the dresser and popped it into her mouth. "Now—what should I do?"
Not being a hereditary noble, Bauska had to make her wits work. She plucked at a loose wisp of pale hair—pale but not so pale as Krasta's—while she thought. At last, she said, "Tunic and trousers would show solidarity with Jelgava, and to some degree with Forthweg, though folk of Kaunian blood don't rule there—"
Krasta sniffed. "Kaunians in Forthweg bore me to tears, with their endless chatter about being oldest of the old."
"Those claims hold some truth, milady," Bauska said.
"I don't care," Krasta said. "I don't care at all. They're still dull."
"As you say, milady." Bauska held a finger in the air. "But tunic and trousers might offend the envoys from the islands of Sibiu and from Lagoas, for their ancestors have close ties to the ancestors of the Algarvians."
"They all spring from the same pack of barbarian dogs, you mean, even if some of them might be on our side now." Krasta barely refrained from boxing Bauska's ears. "You still haven't told me what I ought to wear!"
"You cannot know till you reach the palace whether or not you have made the perfect choice," her servant answered, mild as ever.
"It's not fair!" Krasta cried. "My brother doesn't have to worry about things like this. Why should I?"
"Lord Skarnu has no choice in his apparel because he wears King Gainibu's uniform," Bauska said. "I am sure he will make Valmiera proud of his brave service."
"I am sure I don't know what to put on, and you're no help at all," Krasta said. Bauska bowed her head. "Get out!" Krasta shouted, and the servant fled. That left Krasta alone with her choice. "I can't get good help," she fumed, taking gray wool trousers and a blue silk top from their hooks and putting them on.
She studied the effect in the mirror. It didn't satisfy her, but then very little satisfied her. A few pounds lighter, a couple of inches taller…and she probably would have remained dissatisfied, though she didn't think so. Grudgingly, she admitted to herself that the blue of her tunic set off the almost matching blue of her eyes. She belted the trousers with a rope of white gold and put a thinner rope around her neck. They played up the paleness of her hair.
She sighed. This would have to do. She went downstairs and called loudly for the carriage. Her estate had sat by the edge of Priekule for centuries, long before all the ley lines around the power point at the heart of the city were charted and exploited, and so stood near none of them. Even if it had, she would not have cared to ride a public caravan to the palace and subject herself to the stares of barmaids and booksellers and other vulgar, common folk.
She got more stares riding in the carriage, but she didn't have to notice those; they weren't so intimate as they would have been in the cramped confines of a caravan coach. The horses clopped along the cobblestones past square modern buildings of brick and glass (at which she sneered because they were modern); past others whose marble colonnades and painted statues imitated forms from the days of the Kaunian Empire (at which she sneered because they were imitations); past some a couple of hundred years old, when the ornate Algarvian architectural influence was strong (at which she sneered because they looked Algarvian); and past a few true Kaunian relics (at which she sneered because they were decrepit).
The carriage had just passed the famous Kaunian Column of Victory—now at last fully restored after fire damage during the Six Years' War—when a green-uniformed fellow held up a hand to bar the way. "What is the meaning of this?" Krasta demanded of her driver. "Never mind that oaf—go on through."
"Milady, I had better not," he answered cautiously.
She started to rage at him, but then the first Valmieran footsoldiers started tramping through the street from which she'd been barred. The river of men in dark green trousers and tunics seemed to take forever to flow past. "If I am late to the palace because of these soldiers, I shall be very unhappy—and so shall you," she told the driver, tapping her foot on the carpeted floor. She smiled to see him shiver; all her servants knew she meant what she said when she said things like that.
Great troops of horse cavalry and unicorn cavalry followed the infantrymen. Krasta curled her lip to see unicorns made as ugly as horses. And then she curled her lip again, for a squadron of behemoths followed the unicorns. They were ugly already, and thus did not need to be made so. Except for their horns—as long as those of the unicorns, but far thicker, and wickedly curved—they resembled nothing so much as great, hairy, thick-legged pigs. Their sole virtue was strength: each effortlessly carried not only several riders but also a heavy stick and a thick blanket of mail.
At last, men and beasts cleared the road. Without Krasta's having to say a word, the driver whipped the horses up into a gallop as soon as he could. The carriage shot through the narrow, winding streets of Priekule, almost mowing down a couple of women unwise enough to try to cross in front of it. They shrieked at Krasta. She angrily shouted back: had the carriage hit them, she might have been late to the palace.
As things were, she did arrive in good time. A bowing servant took charge of the carriage. Another hel