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"They've got snowshoes," Werferth said. "The Algarvian behemoths, I mean. They didn't last winter, you know. The Algarvians hadn't figured they'd have to fight in the snow. It cost 'em."

Werferth didn't just like fighting, he liked going into detail about fighting. Sidroc didn't think that way. He'd joined Plegmund's Brigade mostly because he hadn't been able to get along with anybody back in Gromheort. A lot of the men in the Brigade were similar misfits. Some of them were out-and-out robbers and bandits. He'd led a sheltered life till the war. Things were different now.

Some of the behemoth crews waved to the defenders of Hohenroda, urging them out in pursuit of King Swemmel's men. Sidroc had no intention of pursuing anybody unless his own officers gave the order. He muttered under his breath when shouts rang out from inside the village: "Forward! South!"

Those shouts were in Algarvian. Algarvian officers commanded Plegmund's Brigade, and all orders came in their tongue. In a way, that made sense: the Brigade had to fight alongside Algarvian units and work smoothly with them. In another way, though, it was a reminder of who were the puppets and who the puppeteers.

"Let's go," Werferth said. He would never be anything more than a sergeant. Of course, had Forthweg's independent army survived, he would never have been anything more than a sergeant, either, for he had not a drop of noble blood.

Sidroc winced and cursed as the icy wind tore at him when he left the shelter of the peasant's hut. But he and his comrades were grinning at one another as they formed up and advanced toward the behemoths and toward the tumbled Unkerlanter corpses in the snow.

The Algarvian behemoth crews weren't grinning. "Who are these whoresons?" one of them shouted to a recognizably Algarvian lieutenant among the Forthwegians. "They look like a pack of Unkerlanters."

"We're from Plegmund's Brigade," the lieutenant answered. Sidroc followed Algarvian fairly well. He'd learned some in school, mostly beaten in with a switch, and more since joining the Brigade, which had ways of training harsher yet.

"Plegmund's Brigade!" the redhead on the behemoth burst out. "Plegmund's bloody Brigade? Powers above, we thought we were rescuing real Algarvians."

"Love you too, prickface." That was a trooper named Ceorl, like Sidroc in the squad Werferth led. He always had been and always would be more a ruffian than a soldier. Here, though, Sidroc completely agreed with him.

***

Major Spinello eyed the approaching Algarvian physician with all the warmth of a crippled elk eyeing a wolf. The physician either didn't notice or was used to such glances from recuperating soldiers. "Good morning," he said cheerfully. "How are we today?"

"I haven't the faintest idea about you, good my sir," Spinello replied- like a lot of Algarvians, he was given to extravagant flights of verbiage. "As for myself, I've never been better in all my born days. When do you propose to turn me loose so I can get back into the fight against the cursed Unkerlanters?"