Into the Darkness Read Free Page A

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. Red brick 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 Ban 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