Ambaldo licked his lips. He wasn't a coward; no Algarvian colonel of dragonfliers was likely to be a coward. But he saw that Sabrino meant what he said and, at the moment, didn't much care whether he lived or died. With such dignity as he could muster, Ambaldo said, "I hope to speak to you again someday, sir, when you are more nearly yourself." He turned and left.

With a last soft curse, Sabrino sat down again. He re-inked his pen, hoping the fury that had coursed through him would make the words come easier. But it didn't. He'd had to write far too many of these letters, and they never came easy. And, as he wrote, he couldn't help wondering who would write a letter for him one day, and what the man would say.

Sidroc took off his fur hat and stowed it in his pack. "Not so cold these days," he remarked.

Sergeant Werferth made silent clapping motions. "You're a sly one, you are, to notice that. I bet it was all the stinking snow melting that gave you the clue."

"Heh," Sidroc said; Werferth being a sergeant, he couldn't say any more than that without landing in trouble. He could and did turn away from the sergeant and walk off down one of the lengths of trench north of Durrwangen Plegmund's Brigade was holding. His boots made squelching, sucking noises at every step. Werferth had been rude, but he hadn't been wrong. The snow was melting- indeed, had all but melted. When it melted, it didn't just disappear, either. Things would have been simpler and more convenient if it had. But it didn't: it soaked into the ground and turned everything to a dreadful morass of mud.

A couple of eggs came whizzing out from Durrwangen to burst close by, throwing up fountains of muck. It splatted down with a noise that reminded Sidroc of a latrine, only louder. He threw his hands in the air, as if that would do any good. "How are we supposed to go forward in this?" he demanded, and then answered his own question: "We can't. Nobody could."

"Doesn't mean we won't," Ceorl said. The ruffian spat; his spittle was but one more bit of moisture in the mire. "Haven't you noticed? -the redheads would sooner spend our lives than theirs."

"That's so." Sidroc didn't think anyone in Plegmund's Brigade hadn't noticed it. "But they spend plenty of their own men, too."

Ceorl spat again. "Aye, they do, and for what? This lousy stretch of Unkerlant isn't worth shitting in, let alone anything else."

Sidroc would have argued with that if only he could. Since he agreed with it, he just grunted and squelched along the trench till he came to a brass pot bubbling over a little fire. The stew was oats and rhubarb and something that had been dead long enough to get gamy but not long enough to become altogether inedible. He filled his mess tin and ate with good appetite. Only after he was done, while he was rinsing the mess tin with water from his canteen, did he pause to wonder what he would have thought of the meal were he still living soft back in Gromheort. He laughed. He would have thrown the mess tin at anyone who tried to give it to him. Here and now, with a full belly, he was happy enough.

He was also happy that none of the Brigade's Algarvian officers looked to be around. As long as they weren't there, nothing much would happen. He'd seen that they didn't trust the Forthwegian sergeants to do anything much. Forthwegians were good enough to fight for Algarve, but not to think or to lead.

The Unkerlanters launched more eggs from the outskirts of Durrwangen. These burst closer than the others had, one of them close enough to make Sidroc throw himself down in the cold, clammy mud. "Powers below eat them," he muttered as bits of the thin metal shell that had housed the egg's sorcerous energy hissed through the air. "Why don't they just run off and make things easy on us for once?"

But, despite the pounding the Algarvians had given Durrwangen, Swemmel's men showed no inclination whatever to run off. If the Algarvians wanted them gone, they would have to drive them out. After the eggs stopped falling, Sidroc stuck his head up over the parapet and peered south. "Get down, you fool!" somebody called to him. "You want a beam in the face?"

He got down, unblazed. The outskirts of Durrwangen lay a mile or so away. The Unkerlanters held on to the city, from the outskirts to its heart, like grim death. He couldn't see all the fortifications they'd put up, but that proved nothing; he'd already discovered the gift they had for making field-works that didn't look like much- till you attacked them. Whatever they had waiting in Durrwangen, he wasn't eager to find out.

Whether he was eager or not, of course, didn't matter to the Algarvian officers commanding Plegmund's Brigade. They came back from wherever they'd been with smiles as broad as if they'd just heard King Swemmel had surrendered. Sidroc's company commander was a captain named Zerbino. He gathered his men together and declared, "Tomorrow, we shall have the high honor and privilege of being among the first to break into Durrwangen."

He spoke Algarvian, of course; the Forthwegians in the Brigade were expected to understand him rather than the other way round. But, no matter what language he used, none of his troopers was eager to go forward against the heavily defended city. Even Sergeant Werferth, who loved fighting for its own sake, said, "Why am I not surprised they chose us?"

Captain Zerbino fixed him with a malignant stare. "And what, pray tell, do you mean by this, Sergeant?" he asked in his haughtiest manner.

Werferth knew better than to be openly insubordinate. But, from behind the Algarvian officer, somebody- Sidroc thought it was Ceorl, but he wasn't sure- spoke up: "He means we aren't redheads, that's what. So who gives a fornicating futter what happens to us?"

Zerbino whirled. He drew himself up to his full height; being an Algarvian, he had several inches on most of the men in his company. After a crisp, sardonic bow, he answered, "I am a redhead, and I assure that, when the order to attack is given, I shall be at the fore. Where I go, will you dare to follow?"

Nobody had anything to say to that. Sidroc wished he could have found something, but his wits were empty, too. Like all the officers assigned to Plegmund's Brigade, Zerbino had shown himself to be recklessly brave. Where he went, the company would follow. And if that was straight into the meat grinder… then it was, and nobody could do anything about it.

Sidroc slapped his canteen. It held nothing but water. He sighed, wishing for spirits. Somebody would have some, but would anybody be willing to give him any? All he could do was try to find out.

He ended up paying some silver for a short knock. "I can't spare any more," said the soldier who let him have it. "I'm going to drink the rest myself before we go at 'em tomorrow."

Sidroc wished he could get drunk for the assault, too. He wrapped himself in his blanket and tried to sleep. Bursting eggs didn't bother him; he had their measure. But thinking about what he'd go through come morning… He tried not to think about it, which only made things worse.

Eventually, he must have slept, for Sergeant Werferth shook him awake. "Come on," Werferth said. "It's just about time."

Egg-tossers and dragons were pounding the forwardmost Unkerlanter positions. "More will come when we go forward," Captain Zerbino promised. "We are not breaking into Durrwangen alone, after all; Algarvian brigades will be moving forward, too."

Which is why they'll do something more to help us along, Sidroc thought. Before he could say it aloud- not that it needed saying, not when most of the men in the company were doubtless thinking the same thing- Zerbino raised his long, tubular brass whistle to his lips and blew a blast that pierced the din of battle like a needle piercing thin, shabby cloth. And, as Zerbino had promised, he was the first one out of the muddy holes in which the men of Plegmund's Brigade sheltered, the first one moving toward the enemy.