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Sabrino loosed the eggs slung beneath the dragon and hit it with the goad. It screeched angrily, but did finally decide to rise rather than flying into the ground. More eggs burst behind Sabrino as the rest of his dragonfliers also loosed their loads of death on the Unkerlanters. He looked back over his shoulder and nodded in solid professional satisfaction. Battered and undermanned though it was, his wing still did a solid professional job. They'd well and truly smashed in the head of this column. Swemmel's men wouldn't be coming forward here, not for a while.

But then more Unkerlanters emerged from the woods north and east of the column the dragonfliers had just attacked. And, as his dragon gained height, Sabrino saw still more men and beasts, some in rock-gray, some in white winter smocks over rock-gray, moving up from the south toward those soldiers coming out of the forest.

Sabrino didn't know whether to groan or to curse. He did both at once, with great feeling. "Powers below eat them!" he shouted to the uncaring sky. "They've got Herborn trapped in one of their stinking kettles!"

***

"Herborn surrounded." Fernao sounded out the Kuusaman words with care as he fought his way through the news sheet from Yliharma. "Large force of Algarvians trapped inside Unkerlanter lines. Demand for surrender refused."

"I've heard Lagoans who sounded worse," Ilmarinen said. Coming from him, any praise was high praise.

Fernao dipped his head. "Thank you," he said in Kuusaman. He went on in classical Kaunian, in which he remained more fluent: "Reading the news sheets, I learn many military terms. But they are not much use to me in speaking of ordinary things."

"Oh, I don't know." Ilmarinen looked around the refectory till he spotted the serving girl for whom he'd conceived an as yet unrequited passion. Waving to get her attention, he called, "Hey, Linna! If I surround you, will you surrender?"

"You are not asleep, Master Ilmarinen. You are awake," Linna answered. "You are not talking in your dreams, however much you wish you were."

"I see," Fernao said. "Aye, I followed that well enough."

"I was afraid you would," Ilmarinen said glumly. "That wench must spend an hour every morning stropping her tongue to make it sharper." He took a sip of tea, then asked, "Let me see that news sheet, will you?" Fernao passed it to him; Ilmarinen was bound to make smoother, faster going of it than he could. And, sure enough, the Kuusaman master mage soon grunted. "Here's a sweet little story: a Sibian woman who was pregnant by an Algarvian fed her husband rat poison when he came home and found out what she'd been up to."

"Sweet, aye." Fernao had a pretty good idea why Ilmarinen had picked that particular story. He had no intention of admitting as much, since that would also have meant admitting Ilmarinen had a point.

When Fernao said no more, Ilmarinen grunted again and went on, "Aye, poor Commander, ah, Cornelu won't be riding leviathans for King Burebistu any more, and his not-so-loving wife will end up a head shorter. Bad business all the way around."