And Forthwegian standards did not measure up to those practiced in `Km~ Mtze_ntio's domain. Moreover, Sabrino's dragon was larger and stronger and swifter than his foe's. He outclimbed the Forthwegian and got routed behind him, despite the enemy's best efforts to twist in the air.

When Sabrino's dragon flamed, fire licked the other beast's back and left wing.

The Forthwegian dragon's hissing shriek of anguish was music to Sabrino's ears. Very likely, the Forthwegian dragonflier shrieked, too, but his cry, if he made one, was lost in the greater cry of his mount. The enemy dragon plummeted out of the sky, not just burnt but burning.

Because of the brimstone and quicksilver that had helped fuel it, dragon fire clung and clung.

Sabriino's dragon bellowed its triumph and spurted more flame. He whacked it with the goad to make it stop. It Inlight need that fire in future fights. His head swiveled as he tried to see which of his dragonfliers needed help. He spied none who did. Most of the Forthwegian dragons were falling in flames (so, he was sad to see, were a couple painted in Algarvian colors). A couple of the enemy flew west, off to the shrinking stretch of territory Forthweg still held. And one, its flier blazed off it, struck out at the dragons around it like the wild beast it was till it too tumbled out of the sky.

More dragons were flying in out of the east, these lower, and with eggs slung under their bellies. As the eggs began falling on Wihtgara, Sabrino smiled broadly. "A splendid little war!" he cried, exultation in his voice.

"Splendid!"

Occupied. Ealstan had heard the word before the war, of course. He'd heard it, and thought he'd known what it meant. Now he was learning the bitter difference between knowledge and experience.

Occupation meant Algarvian troops swaggering along the streets of Gromheort. They all had sticks at the ready, and they all expected everybody to understand Algarvian. People who didn't understand the ugly, trilling speech - in Ealstan's ears, it sounded like magpies' chatter - fast enough to suit them were liable to get blazed for no better reason than that. No one could punish the Algarvians for doing such things. Their commanders probably praised them.

Occupation meant that Ealstan's mother and sister stayed inside their house and sent him or his father out when they needed errands run. The Algarvians hadn't perpetuated that many outrages, but they'd done enough to make decent Forthwegian women uninterested in taking chances.

Occupation meant that Sidroc and his family crowded the house to overflowing. An egg had turned their home to rubble. Ealstan knew it could have been his as easily as not. Sidroc and his father - Ealstan's father's brother - still shambled around as if stunned, for his mother and sister had been in the house when the egg burst.

Occupation meant broadsheets written in awkward Forthwegian going up on almost every wall that hadn't been knocked flat. THE KAUNIAN KINGDOMS YOU LED INTO THAT WAR, some of them said. Others asked, WHY DO FORTHWEGIANS FOR KAUNIANS DIE? Ealstan had never had any particular use for the

Kaunians who lived within Forthweg's borders - except watching the blond women in their tight trousers. If the Algarvians wanted him to hate them, though, there had to be more to them than he'd thought.

Occupation meant having no idea what had happened to his brother, Leofsig. That was worst of all.

And yet, even with Count Brorda fled and an Algarvian officer ensconced in his castle, life had to go on. Ealstan's sister stuffed a chunk of garlicky sausage, some salted olives, a lump of hard white cheese, and some raisins into a cloth sack and thrust it at him. "Here," she said.

"Don't dawdle. You'll be late for school."

"Thanks, Conberge," Ealstan said.

"Remember to stop at a baker's on the way home and bring us more bread," Conberge told him. "Or if the bakers are all out, get ten pounds of flour from a miner. Mother and I can do the baking perfectly well."

"All right." Ealstan paused. "What if the millers are out of flour, too?"

His sister looked a bit harried. "In that case, we all start going hungry.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit." She raised her voice to a shout: "Sidroc!

Aren't you ready yet? Your masters will beat you black and blue, and you'll deserve it."

Sidroc was still running a tortoiseshell comb through his dark, curly hair when he hum*ed into the kitchen to receive a lunch similar to Ealstan's. "Come on," Ealstan said. "Conberge's right - they'll break switches on our backs if we're late again."

"I suppose so," Sidroc said indifferently. Maybe he needed a thrashing to bring him out of his funk. Ealstan didn't, and didn't want to get one bccause his cousin remained in a daze. He grabbed Sidroc by the arm and hauled him out on to the street.

No Algarvians were strutting past his house, for which he was duly grateful. The mere sight of kilts set his teeth on edge. Being unable to taunt the Algarvians hurt, too, but he didn't care to take his life in his hands. Women were not the only ones the occupiers outraged.

Ealstan was sure Leofsig and his comrades had done no such things while on Algarvian soil. No: that Leofsig and his comrades could have done such things never entered his mind. And even if they had, the Algarvians. would have deserved it.

When he turned the comer on to the main thoroughfare that led to his school, Ealstan could no longer pretend Gromheort remained a free Forthwegian city. For one thing, the Algarvians had checkpoints every few blocks. For another, signboards written in their script - so sinuous as to be hard to read, especially for someone like Ealstan, who was used to angular Forthwegian characters - sprouted everywhere. And, for a third, heading up the thoroughfare toward the school showed him what a battering Gromheort had taken before it finally fell.

The Algarvians had set gangs to work clearing the wreckage of ruined buildings. "Work, cursing you!" a kilted soldier shouted in bad Forthwegian. The Forthwegians and Kaunians the oc~opiers had rounded up were already working, throwing tiles and chunks of bricks and shattered timbers into wagons. A Kaunian woman bent to pick up a couple of bricks. An Algarvian soldier reached out and ran his hand along the curve of her buttocks.

She straightened with a squeak of outrage. The soldier and his com panions laughed. "Work!" he said, and gestured with his stick. Her face a frozen mask, she bent once more. He foridled her again. This time, she went on working as if he did not exist.

Ealstan hustled past the work gang, lest the Algarvians make him join it. Sidroc followed, but kept looking back over his shoulder. His eyes were wide and staring as he watched the solider amuse himself. "Come on," Ealstan said impatiently.

"Powers above," Sidroc muttered, as much to himself as to his cousin.

"Wouldn't you like to do that with a woman?"

"Sure I would, if she wanted me to," Ealstan answered, even though thinking a woman might one day want him to do such a thing required all the imagination he had. But despite that, he noted a distinction Sidroc had missed: "That soldier wasn't doing it with her - he was doing it to her. Did you see her face? If looks could kin, she'd have wiped out all those stinking redheads."

Sidroc tossed his head. "She was only a Kaunian."

"You think the Algarvian cared?" Ealstan asked, and shook his head to give the question his own answer. "He would have done it to" - he started to say to your mother, but checked himself-, that hit harder than he wanted to - "to Conberge the same way. Everybody's fair game to Mezentio's men."

"They won," Sidroc said bitterly. "That's what you get when you win: you can do as you please."

"I suppose so," Ealstan said. "I never thought we could lose."