“Oh.” Spinello whistled tunelessly. “Things can’t be going any too well if they think they’ve got to lie to us.”

“You have a nasty, suspicious mind,” Tampaste said. “I would have more to say about it if the same thought hadn’t occurred to me.” He nodded to Spinello. “Go back and set your men digging again. The more holes they have, the better their chances are. Good luck, Colonel. Powers above go with you.”

Spinello didn’t know what sort of dismissal he’d expected. Whatever it was, it was nothing so abrupt as that. He rose, saluted, and went out onto the dusty streets of Waldsolms. Here in the town, the streets were paved. Once the buildings stopped, though, the cobblestones did, too, and the wind blew hard across the endless plains. He climbed into his carriage. “Back to Gleina,” he told the driver.

The village between Waldsolms and Pewsum didn’t pretend to be anything it wasn’t. None of its streets had ever been paved. Spinello doubted any of them ever would be. A sergeant tramping along one of those dirt tracks called, “What’s the word, Colonel?”

“They’re going to hit us,” Spinello answered. “Don’t know how hard, don’t know how soon, but they’re going to hit us. If I had to guess, I’d say they won’t wait long and they won’t give us a little tap. Take it for what you think it’s worth.”

He could have said a lot of other things, but they would have amounted to more pungent versions of what he had said, so he didn’t see the point. He hopped down from the carriage. His wounded leg protested. He tried to ignore it, though he limped a little going to the hut that did duty for brigade headquarters.

Inside the hut sat a jar of raw Unkerlanter spirits that did duty for the fine brandy Spinello would have preferred. As he lifted it, he asked himself, Do you think the Unkerlanters will hit us before you can sober up? When the answer to that turned out to be no, he poured a mug’s worth out of the jar and started the serious business of getting drunk.

He hadn’t got too far when somebody knocked on the door. Muttering a curse, he set down the mug and threw the door open. “Well?” he growled.

Jadwigai flinched. “I-I’m sorry, Colonel,” the Kaunian girl stammered, turning red. “I’ll come another time.” She turned to go-more likely, to flee.

All at once, Spinello was ashamed of himself. “No, come back. Please, come in,” he said. “I’m sorry. There are plenty of people I don’t want to see, but you’re not any of them.”

Still wary, Jadwigai asked, “Are you sure?” When Spinello vigorously- just how vigorously proved he had some spirits in him-nodded, she said, “All right,” and walked past him into the hut. “I just wanted to ask how your meeting with Brigadier Tampaste went.”

“It went so well, I’m getting drunk to celebrate.” Spinello took another swig from the mug. “Want some?” Without waiting for an answer to match his own. “I’m glad you’re here, sweetheart. I can tell you more of the truth than I can my own men. Isn’t that funny?”

“I don’t know.” The brigade’s mascot took a small sip. She made a face, but then sipped again. “What is the truth?”

“The truth,” Spinello said grandly-aye, he’d poured down some spirits, all right-”is that we’re in trouble. They’re going to try to smash us flat, and they have a pretty bloody good chance of doing it.” He emptied the mug and then filled it again.

“Oh.” Jadwigai took a longer pull from her own mug of spirits. She looked west, sighed, and drank again. When she spoke once more, it was to herself, and in the classical Kaunian that was her birthspeech: “Well, I bought myself a little extra time.”

Spinello eyed her profile, the way her pale lashes fluttered, the pulse in the hollow of her throat. She thinks the luck is gone, went through him. So do I. And if it is… He used classical Kaunian, too: “Will you do something for me?”

“What?” she asked, but her eyes said she already knew before he asked the next question.

He did ask it, but, for some reason, in Algarvian: “Will you sleep with me? I won’t touch you if you say no-by the powers above, I won’t-but I want you, and I don’t think we’ve got much time.”

Jadwigai set the mug down on a stool. “Aye,” she whispered. “You could force me. We both know all about that. Since you don’t, since you haven’t- why not?”

It wasn’t much of a recommendation, but Spinello decided he would take it-and Jadwigai. Altogether sober, he might not have. He might have thought that, no matter what he said, she couldn’t very well tell him no, not unless she wanted to go from pampered mascot to cursed Kaunian in the blink of an eye. With spirits coursing through him, with Jadwigai unbuttoning her Algarvian-issue tunic, such thoughts never once entered his mind.

When she was naked, she lay down on the Algarvian-issue cot he used in lieu of the benches lining the walls of the hut. He shed his own uniform in a hurry. “I’ll do my best to make you enjoy it, too,” he promised.

Rather to his surprise, his best turned out to be good enough. He’d never managed to kindle Vanai. Of course, she’d despised him, which was half the fun of bedding her. The only time she’d shown any warmth was the last time, when he told her he’d been sent to Unkerlant-and that, without a doubt, was because it was the last time.

Jadwigai might have feared him, but she didn’t hate him. Maybe that made the difference. “You see?” he said, grinning at her after she let out a gasp that sounded distinctly startled.

She nodded. “Aye. I do see.” Sure enough, she seemed astonished.

“My turn now.” Spinello mounted her. He’d wondered if he would find her a maiden, as he had Vanai, but no. What had happened there in western Forthweg before she became the brigade’s pet? Maybe-no, certainly-such questions were better left unasked. Considering how much pleasure she gave him, Spinello didn’t want to ask any questions just then.

Afterwards, she said, “You were gentle. You were kind. You have been, all along. All the soldiers here have been kind to me. And yet…”

“What?” Spinello asked lazily. He felt too pleased with the world, too pleased with himself, to worry about any question Jadwigai might put.

Or so he thought, till she said, “How can you be like this with me and… the other way with so many Kaunians?”

Spinello shrugged. “It’s war. It’s revenge. It’s just one of those things.” He could afford to answer like that. His people built the special camps. They didn’t have to dwell in them.

Jadwigai might have had something sharp to say about that. She’d never been shy, and letting him have her might have made her think she could be frank-and she’d been drinking, too. But, before she could reply, thunder rolled in from the west. Only it wasn’t thunder. It was countless eggs, all bursting at once.

“Oh, by the powers above!” Spinello exclaimed, and sprang from the cot. He dressed with frantic haste. Jadwigai clothed herself almost as fast as he did. Even so, he hadn’t finished buttoning his tunic before eggs started bursting in and all around Gleina, too.

“It’s the attack, the one we’ve been waiting for,” Jadwigai said.

“It certainly is.” Spinello didn’t think he’d ever heard so many eggs burst all at the same time-it might have been a continuous wall of noise, and it went on and on. He’d never imagined he would hear worse than what he’d known in Sulingen, but this fit the bill.

Someone pounded on the door to the hut, shouting, “ Colonel Spinello! Colonel Spinello, sir!”

“I’m here.” Spinello opened the door. The crystallomancer outside looked as if he’d just taken a punch in the jaw: he was wobbling, glassy-eyed. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

“Sir, there are at least three breakthroughs on our brigade’s front, and I’m getting shouts for help from the north and south,” the mage answered.

“Tell ‘em no,” Spinello said. “We’ve got nothing to give.”