Sidroc winced and cursed as the icy wind tore at him when he left the shelter of the peasant's hut. But he and his comrades were grinning at one another as they formed up and advanced toward the behemoths and toward the tumbled Unkerlanter corpses in the snow.

The Algarvian behemoth crews weren't grinning. "Who are these whoresons?" one of them shouted to a recognizably Algarvian lieutenant among the Forthwegians. "They look like a pack of Unkerlanters."

"We're from Plegmund's Brigade," the lieutenant answered. Sidroc followed Algarvian fairly well. He'd learned some in school, mostly beaten in with a switch, and more since joining the Brigade, which had ways of training harsher yet.

"Plegmund's Brigade!" the redhead on the behemoth burst out. "Plegmund's bloody Brigade? Powers above, we thought we were rescuing real Algarvians."

"Love you too, prickface." That was a trooper named Ceorl, like Sidroc in the squad Werferth led. He always had been and always would be more a ruffian than a soldier. Here, though, Sidroc completely agreed with him.

Major Spinello eyed the approaching Algarvian physician with all the warmth of a crippled elk eyeing a wolf. The physician either didn't notice or was used to such glances from recuperating soldiers. "Good morning," he said cheerfully. "How are we today?"

"I haven't the faintest idea about you, good my sir," Spinello replied- like a lot of Algarvians, he was given to extravagant flights of verbiage. "As for myself, I've never been better in all my born days. When do you propose to turn me loose so I can get back into the fight against the cursed Unkerlanters?"

He'd been saying the same thing for weeks. At first, the healing mages had ignored him. Then he'd been turned over to mere physicians… who'd also ignored him. This one said, "Well, we shall see what we shall see." He pressed a hearing tube against the right side of Spinello's chest. "If you'd be so kind as to cough for me…?"