Читать «Rulers of the Darkness (хвв-4)» онлайн - страница 378

Leudast crawled over toward Recared. Somebody in the village saw the motion and blazed at him. The ground was wet: steam puffed up where the beam bit, a few feet in front of his head. He froze. In southern Unkerlant, with winter coming on fast, that could easily be a literal as well as a metaphorical statement. After shivering for half a minute, he dashed forward again, and found shelter behind another tree trunk. The Grelzer blazed at him again, and missed again.

"Death to those who follow the false king!" Captain Recared roared.

"Sir," Leudast said, and then, when Recared didn't notice him right away, "Sir!"

"Eh?" That second time, he'd spoken loud enough to make Recared jump. The young regimental commander turned his head. "Oh, it's you, Sergeant. What do you want?"

"Sir, if you don't mind, don't shout about death so much," Leudast answered. "It just makes the cursed Grelzers fight harder, if you know what I mean. Sometimes they'll surrender, if you give 'em the chance."

Recared chewed on that: visibly, for Leudast watched his jaw muscles work. At last, he said, "But they deserve death."

"Aye, most of 'em do." Leudast didn't want to argue with his superior; he just wanted him to shut up. "But if you tell 'em ahead of time that they'll get it, then they've got no reason not to fight as hard as they can to keep from falling into our hands. Do you see what I'm saying?"

The winter before, Recared wouldn't have. Now, reluctantly, he nodded, though he said, "I still have to make our men want to fight."

"Haven't you noticed how it is, sir?" Leudast asked. "Advancing makes a big difference there." Unkerlanter egg-tossers began pelting the enemy-held village. Leudast grinned wider at each burst. "And so does efficiency. They see we really can lick the whoresons on the other side."

"Of course we can," Recared exclaimed, as if the first two desperate summers of the war against Algarve had never happened. He knew how to take advantage of the egg-tossers, though. He raised his voice to a shout again: "They've got to keep their heads down, boys, so we can take 'em. Forward! King Swemmel and victory!"

"Swemmel and victory!" Leudast echoed, also at the top of his lungs. Nothing wrong with that war cry, nothing at all. A lot of Unkerlant- and a good big stretch of the Duchy of Grelz here- had been recaptured behind it.

Recared ran forward- he was brave enough and to spare. Leudast followed him. So did everybody within earshot, and then the rest of the Unkerlanter soldiers who saw their comrades moving. "Urra!" they shouted, and, "Swemmel and victory!"

Shouts rose from inside the village: "Raniero!" and "Swemmel the murderer!" Advancing Unkerlanters went down. Some howled out cries that held no words, only pain. Others lay very still. These Grelzers weren't about to surrender regardless of what the Unkerlanters yelled.