WhatdoIcare about, then? he wondered, blazing at an Unkerlanter in a snow smock not much different from his own. The Unkerlanter toppled. Sidroc whooped and slogged on. Why am I giving these buggers the chance to do to me what I just did to that poor whoreson?

He whooped again when Ceorl blazed an Unkerlanter. He didn’t even like Ceorl, and he knew full well the ruffian had no use for him when they weren’t up against Swemmel’s soldiers. Oddly, that gave him an answer of sorts: Ican’t let the fellows who are in this with me down. If he stayed behind, they’d think he was a coward, and their opinions were the only ones that mattered to him these days. His mother was dead, killed when the Algarvians took Gromheort. His father remained back in Forthweg, and had no real understanding of what he was doing here. He’d killed his cousin Leofsig in a brawl. He’d brawled with Leofsig’s brother Ealstan, too-and Ealstan, from what he gathered, had run off with a Kaunian tart. Leofsig and Ealstan’s father and mother and sister hated him. Who was left, then, but the men alongside whom he fought?

More Algarvian dragons swooped down on the Unkerlanters. Behemoths died under the eggs they dropped and from the flame that burst from their jaws. The handful of behemoths that survived had had enough, and lumbered off toward woods beyond the village. The trees helped shelter them from dragon attacks.

“Forward!” shouted the Algarvian officers, and forward went the Algarvian footsoldiers and the men of Plegmund’s Brigade.

They overran the villageKingSwemmel ’s troopers had defended so fiercely. Some of the redheads had weapons Sidroc hadn’t seen before: small pottery jugs that they flung at their foes, and that burst like miniature eggs. “I want some of those. When can we get ‘em?” he askedSergeantWerferth.