Doubting George had seen a good many strong
positions in his day. The one Joseph the Gamecock
held here in southeastern Peachtree Province looked as formidable as any, and more so than most. "We'll have a demon of a time breaking in," he told General Hesmucet. "That ridge line shelters the enemy almost as well as Proselytizers' Rise did, and I know Joseph. He'll have fortified the gaps till a flea couldn't get through them, let alone an army."
"I know Joseph, too," Hesmucet replied, "and I've got no doubt that you're right. If we put our head into one of those gaps, we'll be asking the terrible jaws of death to close on it."
"You have a gift for the picturesque phrase, sir," George replied, wondering if Hesmucet also had a gift for hard fighting. Marshal Bart must have thought so, or he wouldn't have left Hesmucet in command here in the east when he was summoned to Georgetown to oppose Duke Edward of Arlington and the Army of Southern Parthenia. No, he would have left me, George thought—not with a great deal of bitterness, but some seemed inescapable.
General Hesmucet didn't look unduly worried. "Joseph the Gamecock is strong here, but I think we can shift him," he said.
"I hope you're right, sir." Lieutenant General George looked at the forbidding terrain ahead. "I have to say, though, I have my doubts. If we try to go straight at them, they'll give us lumps."
"Who said anything about going straight at them?" Hesmucet replied. "Joseph the Gamecock is strong here—what better reason not to hit him here?"
"Ah." Doubting George heard the enthusiasm return to his voice. "What have you got in mind, then, sir?"
"Up about twenty miles northeast of here is a valley called Viper River Gap," the general commanding answered. "If we can push a force through there, we'll march right into Caesar, square in Joseph's rear. He'll have to retreat, we'll smash him up, this part of the war will be won, and we'll all be heroes."
"As simple as that," George said dryly.
"As simple as that," Hesmucet agreed. "As simple as that, provided the Gamecock doesn't make it more complicated. He may. I'd be a liar if I said anything else. But it's the best chance I can see of getting Joseph out of the position he's taken."
"Not a bad notion at all, sir," George said. He'd proposed something not too different back in the middle of winter. Nothing had come of that—he wasn't the general commanding. But he still thought the plan good, no matter who ended up with the credit for it. "Only one thing: how do we fix Joseph here while we shift part of our army toward the gap and Caesar?"
Hesmucet looked faintly embarrassed, an unusual expression for him. "Some large part of our army will have to stay here by Borders while the rest slides north."
"Some large part of our army, eh?" George said. "Why do I think I have a pretty fair notion of which large part of the army you have in mind?"
"You've proved you know how to make a convincing demonstration against strong enemy positions," Hesmucet said.
"Is that what I've proved?" Doubting George wondered. "I thought it was just a knack for banging my head against a stone wall." And also a knack for being ordered to bang my head against a stone wall, he added to himself.
"Your men were the ones who broke through at Proselytizers' Rise," Hesmucet said. "Who knows? Maybe they'll do it again, and steal the glory from Brigadier James."
"You'll send James the Bird's Eye on the flanking move?" George said.
"I will indeed." General Hesmucet grinned. "Who better to see the opportunity if it be there?" James had got his nickname at the military collegium at Annasville because of his extraordinarily keen eyesight.
"He's an able officer," George allowed. "Why not use him to make the demonstration here and send the larger force up onto Joseph's flank?"
"I thought about that," Hesmucet replied. "It seems to me that, were I to do so, Joseph would realize what I had done and shift footsoldiers north to block the move before it could have any hope of success."
Doubting George considered. He wasn't sure General Hesmucet was right about that, but he wasn't sure Hesmucet was wrong, either. "Very well, sir," he said. "I shall, of course, do whatever you require of me."
"I knew you would," Hesmucet said, in tones suggesting he'd known no such thing. "I intend to get James the Bird's Eye moving this afternoon. Your men will, I hope, keep Joseph the Gamecock too busy to use his own eyes."
"We'll do our best, sir," George said, that being the only thing he could say. No, almost the only thing, for he couldn't help adding, "I do wish my men would sometimes get the command to do themselves rather than to help their comrades do somewhere else."
"That day is coming, Lieutenant General," Hesmucet said. "You may rely on it: that day is coming. It's a hundred miles, more or less, from here to Marthasville. Only the gods know how many battles we'll fight before we get there. I'm no god. I'm just a man. But I can tell you we'll fight a lot of them, and I can tell you your men will have their chance to do great things. They can hardly help it, wouldn't you agree?"
"Put that way, I don't see how I can do anything but agree." Doubting George plucked at his long, thick beard, which was just beginning to be frosted with gray. "You plan an ambitious campaign."
"Marshal Bart aims at the traitor realm's head in his move against Nonesuch," Hesmucet replied. "Me, I intend to tear out its heart. A kingdom can't live without a head, and no more can it live without a heart. If we take both of them away from false King Geoffrey, what has he got left? Wind and air, Lieutenant General, wind and air and nothing else but. And not even a windbag like Geoffrey can make a kingdom from wind and air alone."
"I do not for a moment disagree with you, sir. It's only that . . ." Doubting George had to pause and marshal his thoughts before he could continue. "It's only that, the first three summers of this war, we were fighting battles. One of our armies would collide with an enemy force, we'd fight, and then we would see what happened next. Here"—he paused to think again—"here the battles are just incidents, parts of something bigger that you and Marshal Bart have in mind."
"And King Avram," Hesmucet said. "Never forget King Avram."
"I wouldn't dream of it," George said. "If it weren't for King Avram, we wouldn't have a war right now."
"Not right now," Hesmucet said. "But we would have fought a war over serfdom sooner or later. We almost did ten years ago, till Daniel the Weaver, Henry Feet of Clay, and John the Typhoon worked out the compromise that satisfied King Zachary and the northern nobles both. But it didn't satisfy anyone for long. This fight was coming. Now that it's here, we have to win it."
"Fair enough," George said.
He went off to confer with his own subordinates. His wing commander, Brigadier Absalom the Bear, wore a long face. "We can do what you want, sir," he rumbled in the bass growl that helped give him his sobriquet. "We can do it, sure enough, but we won't get through and we will get mangled."
"We have to try it," George replied, "for the sake of the army as a whole." He turned to Brigadier Brannan, who commanded all his siege engines and dart throwers. "What can you do to make our job easier?"
"Easier? Not fornicating much, sir." Brannan was a man who spoke his mind. "Absalom has it right: we're going to get mangled. The most I can hope to do is mangle a few more traitors than we would otherwise."
"All right. Do that," Doubting George said. "We commence this afternoon. Give us the best chance you can."
At the appointed hour, horns blared. All of Brigadier Brannan's engines, brought forward to bear on the trenches protecting the northerners, began to shoot at once. Stones and firepots flew through the air. So did streams of darts from repeating crossbows. Columns of smoke marked where firepots struck home. George's wizards, in long gray robes to match the southron soldiers' uniform tunics and pantaloons, sent bolts of lightning down from a clear sky onto the enemy's heads.
Had Joseph the Gamecock's troopers just taken their positions, the bombardment and the sorcerous assault might have driven them off. But they'd had days—weeks—in which to ready themselves for the assault they must have thought likely. Darts and firepots and levinbolts no doubt slew some of the northerners, but had not a prayer of dislodging them from their field fortifications.
Doubting George sighed. He'd expected nothing different. General Hesmucet had expected nothing different, either. If he was going to keep Joseph the Gamecock from looking north and west toward James the Bird's Eye's column advancing on Caesar, he would have to make a convincing assault on the Vulture's Nest and the Dog's Path. A convincing assault would also be an expensive assault.
With another sigh, Lieutenant General George nodded to the trumpeters standing close by him. "Forward," he said. Their martial music blared out. Obedient to his will, the southrons hurled themselves at the two gaps in Rockface Rise.
"King Avram!" the soldiers shouted, and, "Freedom!" and, "One Detina, now and forever!" Doubting George believed in all those things, especially the last. If he hadn't believed in a united Detina with all his soul, he would have gone with King Geoffrey, gone with the province of Parthenia. Instead . . .
Instead, in the name of a united Detina, I'm sending hundreds, thousands, of young men forward in an attack I know and they probably also know has no chance of getting through, he thought. I had better be right, that's all.
Regardless of whether he was right about the cause he served, he rapidly proved right about the attack's chances. Joseph and his wing commanders and brigadiers were every bit as capable as the southrons facing them. Exactly as capable, Doubting George thought. How could it be otherwise, when we all studied side by side together at the military collegium?
The men who wore blue and had followed King Geoffrey away from Detina struck back, and struck back hard, as soon as George's soldiers came into range at the Vulture's Nest, where he watched the assault. Neither bombardment nor sorcerous assault had silenced the northerners' catapults and repeating crossbows. They scythed through the southrons' ranks, as did the quarrels from the crossbowmen in the trenches across the mouth of the Vulture's Nest.
Absalom the Bear came back to him in something of a temper. "Sir, may I withdraw the men now? If I keep sending them forward for long enough, the traitors will kill every last one of them, and then where will we be?"
"In the front rank, I assume," George said mildly. His wing commander gaped at him. He went on, "No, you may not withdraw them, Brigadier. As you know, their purpose is not to break through but to distract."
"It had better not be to break through." Absalom's voice was hot. "We haven't a prayer of breaking through, any more than we did at—" He hesitated.
"At Proselytizers' Rise, you were gong to say?" Doubting George smiled.
Absalom the Bear didn't. He looked positively bedeviled by bees. "That was Thraxton the Braggart's magic going wrong. Otherwise, we'd have been battered there, too."
As if to prove him right, northern wizards struck at the men in gray trying to get into the Vulture's Nest. Their lightnings—most of their spells—were more potent than those of the southrons. Their magecraft been honed in keeping their blond serfs afraid and subjected. In the south, spells went into manufactories, and weren't so readily adaptable to war.
Runners brought back reports of how the fight was going at the Dog's Path. As far as Doubting George was concerned, they hardly needed to have come: the southrons had no more luck breaking through Joseph the Gamecock's defenses there than at the Vulture's Nest. He hadn't expected better news, but he had hoped for it. Not all hopes were realized.
Wounded men came back past him in a steady stream. Some were walking, clutching wounded arms or roughly bandaged about the head. Others lay on litters: some still and silent, others writhing and screaming out their torment to the world at large. The hot iron stink of blood grew stronger as the day wore on, so that the battlefield took on the reek of a vast outdoor butcher's shop—which, in a manner of speaking, it was.
The setting sun shone red as blood, too. When at last it touched the western horizon, George spoke again to the trumpeters: "Sound the recall. We've done everything we can do today." As the notes that surely must have relieved his army rang out, he called for a messenger. When the runner trotted up to him, he said, "Go ask General Hesmucet if what we've done here today has been worth it." Saluting, the young man dashed off.
He returned half an hour later, with twilight deepening. Saluting again, he said, "The commanding general's compliments, sir, and he says this attack did just what it was supposed to do."
"Good," Doubting George said. "Considering what we paid, I'd hate to see it wasted."
Joseph the Gamecock was about as happy as a man of his dour temperament could be. "We held them," he said to anyone who would listen, as twilight deepened around him. "By all the gods, we held them!" He was as bubbly as if he'd been drinking sparkling wine.
His good mood even survived the arrival of a runner who said, "Sir, the scryers need to see you right away."
"I'm coming," Joseph replied. "The way I feel right now, I'd come even if it were King Geoffrey looking at me out of the crystal ball." Geoffrey was his sovereign. He gave the king all due obedience. That didn't keep him from thinking his Majesty had not a clue concealed anywhere about his person when it came to running a war.
But it wasn't Geoffrey's face in the crystal ball. It was one of Roast-Beef William's brigadiers, an officer called Husham Forkbeard, who had charge of the northern garrison up in Caesar. Even in an outstandingly shaggy army, Husham's whiskers were exceptional. At the moment, so was his alarmed expression. "Sir, you've got to help me!" he exclaimed the moment he saw Joseph the Gamecock.
"What's wrong?" demanded the commander of the Army of Franklin.
"I'll tell you what's wrong, sir," Husham replied. "What's wrong is, we've got a whole great swarm of southrons pouring through Viper River Gap and coming straight for Caesar, that's what."
"I am an idiot," Joseph said softly.
"Sir?" Husham Forkbeard asked.
"Never mind," Joseph told him, which did not stop the commanding general from bitterly reproaching himself. Of course General Hesmucet wasn't so stupid as to think he could break through at the Vulture's Nest or by the Dog's Path. He'd made a big, noisy demonstration there to keep the Army of Franklin in its position, and then swung part of his own enormous force north on a flanking maneuver—and it was liable to work. "You have to hold him," Joseph said urgently. "You have to. If he takes Caesar, he's got the glideway line between us and Marthasville. We can't afford that."
The understatement there would do till somebody came up with a bigger one. Joseph the Gamecock suspected that would take a while. If he couldn't get supplies up from Marthasville, the only question was whether the Army of Franklin ran out of crossbow bolts before or after it started starving. Joseph didn't care to make the experiment.
He didn't intend to make the experiment, either. Husham Forkbeard asked, "What am I going to do, sir?"
All at once, everything became glassy clear for Joseph. "You are going to hold on till the end of tomorrow afternoon," he replied. "You are going to hold on at any cost and at any hazard, but you are going to hold on. Do you understand me, Brigadier?"
"Yes, sir. I understand you fine," Husham replied. "The only thing is, I don't know if we can do it."
"You will do it," Joseph said coldly. "It is not a matter of choice. It is obligatory. If you run short of firepots and quarrels, you will receive the enemy with pikes and shortswords. Whatever happens, however, you will not retreat from Caesar and you will not yield the glideway line. You are to fight to the last man. If your soldiers are all slain, their ghosts are to continue the struggle."
"Heh," Husham said nervously. Then he saw that Joseph the Gamecock was not laughing—was, in fact, deadly serious. Husham nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Stout fellow," Joseph said. "I will get reinforcements to you directly. You hang on till they arrive, that's all." He made it sound simple. He wished it were simple. He knew the problems involved in holding off a substantially larger force. He'd had to do it in Parthenia, defending Nonesuch against the massive southron attack up the Henry River.
And if I hadn't been wounded there, the Army of Southern Parthenia would still be mine, and no one, very possibly, would ever have heard anything much of Duke Edward of Arlington. Joseph the Gamecock shrugged. He couldn't do anything about that, not now. No one could do anything about that now, not even the gods. Dealing with the southron attack at Caesar was going to be trouble enough, and that was within the theoretical range of things possible.
"Hang on," he told Husham Forkbeard once more. Then he nodded to his scryer. The fellow broke the mystical connection between his crystal ball and the one up in Caesar. Husham's shaggy face vanished. Joseph the Gamecock hurried out of the tent, shouting for runners.
He sent one man off to order two brigades north right away. The others summoned his wing commanders to him as fast as they could get there. Roast-Beef William arrived first, and in a jubilant mood. "The way the men fought today goes a long way towards redeeming their sorry performance at Proselytizers' Rise," he said.
Leonidas the Priest came next. "The Lion God favored our arms with victory today," he declared.
"I presume he told you afterwards that he'd done it?" Joseph murmured. The hierophant of the Lion God gave him a wounded look, but did not reply.
Lieutenant General Bell got there last—not surprising, given his wounds. But he was, as always, full of fight. "Now we've shown the southrons they can't come in," he said. "When the sun rises tomorrow, we ought to charge out through the gaps and drive them away."
"No," Joseph the Gamecock said.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" Bell said, eyebrows rising at Joseph's bluntness.
Count Joseph had never been one to suffer fools, or even disagreement, gladly. "That is a technical term, Lieutenant General, meaning, in essence, no."
Bell had a temper of his own. "Why the devils not, sir?" he demanded, waving his good arm. "We can go forth and conquer."
"Or we can go forth and be beaten," Joseph the Gamecock said. "Since General Hesmucet has close to twice as many men as we do, which do you reckon more likely? We can't afford a beating like that, not when we have Marthasville to protect. If we beat Hesmucet, what happens? He falls back to Rising Rock, at the most. That does us very little good I can see."
"But, sir—" Bell tried again.
"No," Joseph repeated, and took no small pleasure at interrupting his insubordinate subordinate. "And I will give you one more reason, Lieutenant General: a column of southrons is pushing through Viper River Gap toward Caesar, twenty miles north of here. Don't you feel we ought to think just a little about that, perhaps even do something about it?"
"Viper River Gap? Caesar?" Bell brooded for a moment—although, after his pair of dreadful wounds, his expression was always brooding. At last, he said, "Oh. That alters the situation."
"Just a bit." Joseph the Gamecock could no more resist being waspish than Lieutenant General Bell could resist charging forward regardless of whether the situation called for it.
Roast-Beef William said, "I wouldn't be surprised if Hesmucet didn't attack so hard here to keep us busy while he sent that column up to the north."
"Exactly what I was thinking," Joseph replied, as benignly as he could. Even he had a hard time barking at someone who agreed with him.
"Very clever," Leonidas the Priest said, by which he no doubt meant he would never have thought of it himself.
"Very clever indeed," Bell said. "Sneaky. Perfidious. Underhanded." By that he no doubt meant he not only would never have thought of it himself, but also reckoned less than chivalrous the enemy who had.
"The only rule you can't break in war is that you must win," Joseph said. Bell looked ready to argue, but Joseph overrode him: "Husham Forkbeard is up at Caesar all by his lonesome. The first thing I have to do is reinforce him, so the southrons can't seize the glideway. Leonidas!"
"Sir?" the hierophant of the Lion God replied.
He wasn't a great soldier. He never would be. But he was willing, he was brave, and, even more to the point, he led the soldiers farthest north in the main body of the Army of Franklin. Joseph said, "Get your men on the road at once. I want them to reach Caesar as fast as humanly possible, and to give Husham all the help he needs to hold the place."
"Yes, sir," Leonidas said. "Ah . . . What do I do if I reach Caesar and find it fallen to the southrons?"
That was a better question than Joseph the Gamecock would have expected from him. After a moment's thought, the commanding general answered, "Counterattack. The southrons can't have enormous numbers there. But I hope—I pray, if you like, holy sir—Husham will hold the town. He's a solid fighting man, a warrior of the old school."
"All right, sir." Leonidas the Priest saluted. "I just wanted to know what you required of me." He saluted and strode away, his blood-red vestments bright even in the deepening twilight.
"What of the rest of the army, sir?" Roast-Beef William asked.
"We'll leave enough men behind at the gaps for a little while to make sure the southrons don't swarm through," Joseph answered. "As for the rest, we'll all get down to Caesar as quick as we can. Unless I'm altogether mad, that's where General Hesmucet is going. If he brings his whole army down there, we ought to give him a proper reception, don't you think?"
"I think we ought to attack," Lieutenant General Bell said.
Joseph the Gamecock shook his head. "If you ever command this army, you may lead it as you please. While I command, you will obey me. We have trenches waiting all around Caesar. Our men are going into them."
Stubbornly, Bell said, "Entrenchments weaken the fighting spirit of the men. They would be bolder, fighting out in the open."
"They would take more losses, fighting out in the open," Joseph said. "We cannot afford to take more losses. Why won't you listen to me? The idea is to make the southrons take losses, to make them take so many that they get sick of the war, give it up, and leave us alone. Have you got that?"
"The idea of fighting a war, sir, is to win it." Bell had no more give in him than did his superior.
"Go on," Joseph the Gamecock growled. "Just go on. I promise you, there will be plenty of fighting for everyone before this campaign is through. As for now . . . just go." He didn't quite scream, Get out of my sight! That he didn't he reckoned a sign of nearly godlike restraint on his part.
If the southrons break into Caesar, if Husham Forkbeard can't hold them away from the glideway, we'll all have more fighting than we want, but not for very long, he thought. The Army of Franklin would break up, and that would be the end of King Geoffrey's cause here in the east.
Riding a unicorn toward Caesar was a torment for Joseph, not because he was saddle sore but because he was in an agony of suspense. Finally, he couldn't stand it any more. He rode off into a field and motioned for a scryer to come to him. The man did his best, but said, "I can't bring Husham Forkbeard's scryer onto the crystal ball, sir. I'm sorry."
"Gods damn it, how am I supposed to know what's going on if no one will tell me?" Joseph ground out. The likeliest reason Husham's scryer wouldn't or couldn't talk was that the man was busy fighting for his life. Joseph knew that only too well. However well he knew it, though, he didn't care to think about it.
At last, when Joseph was within three or four miles of Caesar and about to boot his unicorn up into a gallop so he could find out how things were going there, the scryer said, "Sir, here's Brigadier Husham."
"Well, gods be praised!" Joseph the Gamecock snatched the crystal out of the scryer's hands and rode along with it in his lap. "Husham! Tell me at once, are we holding there?"
"Yes, sir." Husham Forkbeard's fierce features blazed with pride. They also showed a sword cut he hadn't had before. "They came at Caesar. We gave 'em a nice warm northern hello with massed crossbow volleys and all the engines, and they fell back. Right now, they're digging in across the mouth of Viper River Gap."
"Let 'em," Joseph said. "We're not trying to break out, no matter what Lieutenant General Bell says." He breathed a sigh of relief—two sighs of relief, in fact, one for holding and the other . . . "Seems to me General Hesmucet doesn't quite know what to do with his great big army yet. Good."
"Maybe that's it," Husham allowed. "I tell you for true, though, sir, if they'd hit me with everything they had, gods only know how I would've held 'em. Now I've got that brigade from Leonidas the Priest, so I'm good for a while longer, anyways. And I hear tell you're bringing more men up towards Caesar."
"I'm bringing the whole army, Brigadier," Joseph answered. "And I'll tell you something else, too: I don't think I'm the only one."
In a tent just east of Viper River Gap, General Hesmucet looked daggers at Brigadier John the Bird's Eye. "You had them," Hesmucet growled. "Gods damn it, you had them, and you let them get away. The sort of chance a soldier only gets once in a lifetime. You could have strolled right into Caesar—"
"Begging your pardon, sir," the younger man broke in, "but that isn't true at all. I tried to break into Caesar, and I took some hundreds of men killed and wounded for my trouble, and I did not succeed."
"One understrength brigade holding the town," Hesmucet grumbled. "You outnumbered the traitors three or four to one. You could have had your way with them, could have seized Caesar, could have cut Joseph the Gamecock off from Marthasville, which is the one thing in all the world—the one and only thing, mind you—he knows must not happen to his army."
"Sir," James the Bird's Eye said stiffly, "my orders were to attack the glideway line to see how it was defended, and then to dig in at the mouth of Viper River Gap and to have my men ready to pursue the northerners if they took flight. I followed them exactly as you gave them to me. If you blame me for that, sir . . ." He didn't go on, not with words, but the tip of his curly black beard quivered in indignation.
And Hesmucet, contemplating the orders he had indeed given, let out a long, rueful sigh. "Very well, Brigadier. You have a point, and you made it well. I can still wish you might have done more, but you were perfectly justified in doing as you did on the basis of what I told you."
"Thank you, sir," Brigadier James replied, his tone still aggrieved.
I meant every word of what I told you, though, Hesmucet thought. You had the sort of chance you may never see again, and you didn't take it. The northerners were strong enough to stop your first tap, and you didn't tap twice. If you had, you'd be a hero today and probably an earl tomorrow.
"May I make an observation, sir?" Joseph the Bird's Eye asked.
"Go ahead," Hesmucet said, though most men would have quailed at speaking too frankly by the way he said it.
Young James had nerve, even if he hadn't done everything Hesmucet would have wanted of him. He said, "Sir, if this was supposed to be your striking force and the one attacking the gaps farther south your holding force, you might have done better to let me assail the Vulture's Nest and the Dog's Path and to have sent Lieutenant General George up here with his much bigger army to strike at Caesar."
Hesmucet pondered that. He was not a sweet-tempered man, but he was, on the whole, a just one. However much he wanted to scorch Brigadier James for his presumption, he discovered he couldn't. "Well, gods damn it, you're right," he said.
James the Bird's Eye blinked. "Sir?" Evidently, that wasn't what he'd expected to hear from the general commanding.
"You're right," Hesmucet repeated. "I wish you weren't, but you are. I sent a boy to do a man's job, and I had a man ready to hand. That was a mistake. I hope I won't make the same one again. A good general makes mistakes once. A bad general keeps doing the same stupid gods-damned thing over and over."
"That's . . . probably something worth remembering," James said.
"So it is—for you and me both," Hesmucet said. "All right, Brigadier—you may go. It would have been nice if we could have just swarmed into Caesar and ruined Joseph the Gamecock right at the start of this campaign, but if we can't, we can't. We'll try something else, that's all."
Saluting, James the Bird's Eye ducked his way out of the pavilion. Hesmucet paused, thinking how the war had changed since its early days. Doubting George had had it right. Back then, armies on both sides had largely marched where they would. When they happened to collide with an opposing army, they would fight. Now both Marshal Bart and Hesmucet himself had clear goals in mind: Bart to hammer the Army of Southern Parthenia till it could stand no more hammering, Hesmucet to do the same to the Army of Franklin. No one in the first two years of the war could even have imagined such efforts. These truly were campaigns, perhaps the first such that had ever been fought in the Kingdom of Detina.
"What that means is, I'd better not bungle this one any more," Hesmucet muttered. He stepped out of the pavilion and called for a couple of runners. When the men came up, he said, "My compliments to Doubting George and Fighting Joseph, and ask them to attend me here at their earliest convenience."
"Yes, sir," the runners chorused. They put their heads together for a moment, no doubt deciding who would go to which general. Then they loped away.
Lieutenant General George got to Hesmucet's tent first. The commanding general would have been surprised had it been the other way round. George might not love me, but he does love the kingdom, Hesmucet thought. Fighting Joseph loves Fighting Joseph, and nobody and nothing else.
"Your flanking move didn't quite work, sir," George remarked.
"No, not quite," Hesmucet agreed. "I probably should have used James the Bird's Eye to demonstrate against the two gaps farther south and sent your bigger army through Viper River Gap against Caesar."
"I rather thought so at the time, sir, but I doubted whether I should press the point," George said. "I know you're keeping that kind of eye on me."
"Well . . . yes." Hesmucet wasn't easily nonplused, but Doubting George had done the job. "We will manage to work together, though, one way or another, I think. And I'm still figuring out what I can do with all the soldiers I've got here. This is a large command. Next time, I'll manage my moves better."
"Fair enough, sir," George said. "I don't doubt that in the slightest."
Fighting Joseph rode up just then, a procession of one. Hesmucet, an indifferent rider, had an indifferent unicorn. Doubting George, a good rider, had a fine unicorn. And Fighting Joseph, a splendid rider, had the most glorious unicorn Hesmucet had ever seen: whiter than snow, horn shod with polished silver rather than workaday iron, coat and mane and tail all combed to magnificent perfection.
Fighting Joseph looked moderately magnificent himself. He was a handsome, ruddy man whose hair had gone silver, not mere gray. He looked as if he ought to be a king, not so lowly a creature as a general. Many people—King Avram not least among them—believed he thought he ought to be king, too. Avram had given him command in the west anyhow the year before, willing to gamble victories against the chance of a usurpation after them.
He hadn't got the victories. Duke Edward of Arlington not only beat but embarrassed Fighting Joseph at Viziersville. Now Joseph commanded a wing here in the distant east, not an army in the vital west. But he still thought well of himself.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said as he dismounted and tied his unicorn to a tree branch. He saluted with a certain reluctance, as if unhappy about acknowledging any man his superior, even if only in a formal sense. "Now that we didn't break through here, what are we going to try next?"
"Breaking through again, obviously," Hesmucet said. Fighting Joseph had nerve, throwing his failure in his face like that. But then, Fighting Joseph did have nerve and to spare. What he didn't quite have was the soldierly talent to go with it.
"Just as you say, sir," Fighting Joseph replied. "I did it on the slopes of Sentry Peak, and George here did it at Proselytizers' Rise—with a little help from Thraxton the Braggart, of course." He chuckled. "I expect we can manage something along those lines for you again."
Hesmucet glared at him. He'd led troops himself in that fight, but he hadn't taken Funnel Hill south of Proselytizers' Rise—the defenses there turned out to be stronger than he and Marshal Bart had believed. To be reminded that his subordinates had done what he hadn't stung. If he showed the sting, though, he gave Fighting Joseph what he wanted.
And so he said, "I'm sure you'll do your best." He pointed westward. "Going through the Army of Franklin won't be so neat or so cheap as stealing a march on it would have been, but we do what we have to do, not always what we want to do." I have to put up with you, for instance, not least so King Avram doesn't have to do it on the other side of the Green Ridge Mountains.
Fighting Joseph peered west, too. So did Doubting George. Fighting Joseph coughed once or twice before remarking, "Those are formidable works the traitors have there."
"I know," Hesmucet said. "They set their serfs to digging like moles. If we can force them out of their trenches, though, the advantage swings to us. You and Lieutenant General George will try tomorrow at sunrise."
Faced with a direct order, Fighting Joseph said the only thing a soldier faced with a direct order could say: "Yes, sir."
When Hesmucet glanced toward Doubting George, his second-in-command nodded and also said, "Yes, sir." He added, "I hope we'll have as much magecraft as possible supporting the attack."
"You will," Hesmucet promised. "Now go ready your men." The two generals saluted again and rode off toward their own encampments. Hesmucet called for two more runners. "Fetch me Colonel Phineas and Major Alva," he said.
The mages arrived together, both of them aboard asses; for some reason Hesmucet had never been able to fathom, wizards made shockingly bad unicorn-riders. "Good day, sir," Phineas said. He was round-faced and plump and bald as a turnip. He'd been senior mage in the army since General Guildenstern commanded it. He was excellent at keeping track of things, but, like a lot of southron sorcerers, only moderately good at actual conjuration.
"Good day, Colonel," Hesmucet returned, every bit as formally. Getting the most out of Phineas involved taking him seriously, or at least seeming to.
"What can we do for you, sir?" That was Major Alva, his young voice cracking with eagerness. He was tall and skinny, with a beard still patchy in spots and with a shock of panther-black hair that wouldn't lie flat no matter how he greased and combed it, but that stuck out in all directions like the springs from a skinned sofa. He'd been Lieutenant Alva till a few months before, but he was the most potent southron mage Hesmucet had ever found. Phineas kept track of things. Alva did things, and liked doing them.
"We are going to have another try at Viper River Gap tomorrow," Hesmucet told him. "We want to take Caesar away from the traitors. Anything you can do in the sorcerous line would be appreciated."
Colonel Phineas coughed a couple of loud, formal coughs. "If you could have given us more notice, General, we might well have been able to offer you assistance of a more comprehensive nature."
"No doubt you're right, Colonel," Hesmucet said. "But you will, I trust, understand that war is not a business where we know everything ahead of time. If James the Bird's Eye had broken into Caesar a couple of days ago, I wouldn't be worrying about attacking the place now, would I?"
"Most disorderly," Phineas said disapprovingly. Phineas was good at disapproving of things, less good at approving of them.
Alva said, "Don't worry, sir. I expect I can come up with something." He ignored the existence of every other mage in Hesmucet's army. Considering his strength as compared to that of the other mages, Hesmucet didn't blame him. Leaning toward the commanding general, he asked, "What have you got in mind, sir? Shall we try scaring the northerners out of their shoes, the way we did at Funnel Hill, or doing something to help our men move forward?"
"Let's see what we can do to help our side, Major," Hesmucet answered. "Fine as your spells were at Funnel Hill, they didn't shift the enemy so much as I would have liked. The northerners are traitors, but they're Detinans, too, same as we are. They don't scare easily."
"Right you are, sir." Alva was an easygoing fellow, if he deigned to notice you at all. Hesmucet took a certain amount of pride in being able to draw the wizard's attention. Alva turned to Phineas. "That variation of the befoggery we were talking about the other day . . ."
"On that scale?" Phineas looked dubious. He often did. The way his face settled into the expression like a fat man sinking into a soft, comfortable hassock proved as much. Shaking his head, he went on, "It's too much for any one man, yourself included, I'm afraid."
"Oh, don't be afraid, sir," Alva said, which made Phineas splutter and turn red. Alva blithely pushed ahead: "I can set it up and leave parts of it for squadrons of mages to put into operation."
He casually assumed himself to be worth whole squadrons. By the way Phineas grunted, he assumed Alva was worth them, too, but he didn't like the idea. "Can you set it up in that fashion?"
"Of course I can." Now Alva sounded certain, infuriatingly certain. "Same principles of division of labor that go into a well-run manufactory. I create, the others duplicate. Should be easy." Phineas looked appalled at that. Alva didn't seem to notice. He turned to Hesmucet. "Do you want to know what we're talking about, sir?"
"No," Hesmucet told him. "I want to know what you'll do, and when. How is your business." Alva beamed at him. He chuckled, a bit self-consciously. More than half by accident, he'd said the right thing.
Rollant had several extra sheaves of crossbow quarrels clipped to his belt. He was far from the only man in Lieutenant Griff's company to take such a precaution. Despite that, he wasn't unduly astonished when Griff singled him out: "Don't you know that's contrary to regulations, soldier?"
You wouldn't pick on me if my hair were black, the escaped serf thought. Aloud, he said, "Yes, sir." He made no move to divest himself of the extra crossbow bolts. Lieutenant Griff didn't ask him to, either. The company commander had got it out of his system by complaining. Rollant sighed. Sure enough, he was a lodestone for such gripes.
Trumpets blared. "Come on!" Griff yelled. "Form up! Nobody's going to say this company doesn't pull its weight in the regiment."
So far as Rollant knew, no one had ever said any such thing. Griff always needed something to be unhappy about.
Colonel Nahath, the regimental commander, surveyed his men. "We're going to break into Caesar, boys. There aren't enough traitors in front of us to stop us. There aren't enough traitors in the whole wide world to stop us. We're good New Eborac men, and there isn't anything at all in the whole wide world that can stop us."
The soldiers raised a cheer. Lieutenant Griff added, "Remember, men, we got to the top of Proselytizers' Rise. If we can do that, may the Thunderer smite me if we can't do anything."
Beside Rollant, Smitty murmured, "Oh, he's right, no doubt about it. All we need is for the northerners to botch another spell, and we'll just walk into this Caesar place."
"We can lick the traitors," Rollant said. That was why he'd taken King Avram's silver: to hit back at the liege lords who'd held him down just as men with dark hair had held down his ancestors since their ancestors came ashore on the beaches of the Western Ocean.
"Of course we can," Smitty agreed. "We wouldn't be up here in Peachtree Province if we couldn't. But saying the enemy is going to make another mistake and make things easy for us is just a piece of gods-damned foolishness."
"Quiet in the ranks," Sergeant Joram growled. He knew what his job was, and he did it.
Nahath spoke again: "We're going to advance a little slower than usual, because the mages have something special in mind to help us."
"Gods help us," Rollant muttered, and Smitty nodded. The northerners were stronger mages than the southrons. Even the botch from Thraxton the Braggart that had panicked his own men on Proselytizers' Rise was a botch on a scale the southrons wouldn't have tried to imitate.
More horns screeched. Along with countless other men from Doubting George's army, Rollant and his comrades advanced on the traitors' trenches in front of Caesar. Those trenches looked like formidable works—and so, no doubt, they were. Why shouldn't they be? Rollant thought. Plenty of serfs have spent plenty of sweat on them. Liege lords won't dig when they've got blonds to do it for them.
Men in blue caps and tunics peered out of the trenches at the advancing southrons. Rollant waited for shouts of alarm to ring out. He also waited for firepots and stones to start flying from engines, and for repeating crossbows to start hosing the southrons' ranks with death.
As he tramped forward, he yanked the bowstring on his crossbow back to the locked position and set a bolt in the groove. All he had to do now was raise the weapon to his shoulder and pull the trigger. Loading without orders went against regulations, too. He didn't care. Neither did most of the other veterans. Sergeant Joram stalked by. He had a quarrel in the groove of his crossbow, too.
Closer and closer to the enemy lines came the southrons. "Why aren't they shooting at us?" Smitty demanded. "We're in range, gods know."
"Maybe they don't see us," Rollant said. "Maybe . . . maybe our magic really is working."
Smitty shook his head. "There's got to be some kind of explanation that makes better sense than that."
But the northerners kept right on not shooting even after the southrons' crossbow bolts started landing among them, even after men started falling and crying out in pain from wounds. "What the hells is going on?" Rollant heard a man in blue yell, nothing but confusion in his voice.
And then, either because some traitor mage defeated the southrons' spell or because the two armies drew too close together for it to hold any more, the northern men in the trenches realized there were indeed foes in front of them. They cried out again, this time in rage and fear. Those whose crossbows were loaded started shooting, but they weren't so ready as they might have been.
A northerner stuck his head up above the rampart in front of the trench so he could see to aim. Before the enemy soldier could shoot, Rollant did. He missed; his quarrel dug into the rampart and kicked up dirt into the traitor's face. He came close enough to killing the fellow, though, to make him duck down in a hurry instead of doing any shooting of his own.
Frantically reloading, Rollant yanked back the bowstring and set a new bolt in the groove. All around him, other southrons were doing the same. Somebody right in front of him dropped a quarrel in his haste to reload. Instead of snatching another one from the sheaf, the soldier stopped and stooped to pick up the one he'd dropped. "Clumsy fool!" Rollant shouted, doing his best not to trample the man.
"Futter you, blondie," the soldier said.
Rage ripped through Rollant. Worst of it was that he couldn't fall on the fellow and give—or try to give—him the thrashing he deserved. Maybe after the battle was over, if they both came out alive, they would have something more to say to each other, with words or with fists. Now . . . now the northerners were awake to their peril. The real fight was with them, not with the man who also fought for King Avram.
But how are they and he different? Rollant wondered.
One obvious answer was that the trooper in a gray uniform like his own wasn't trying to kill him at the moment, and the traitors were. A southron only a couple of feet from Rollant went down with a groan, clutching at the quarrel that had sprouted in his belly. "Litter!" Rollant shouted. "Litter over here!" He doubted if the healers would be able to save the man; wounds that pierced the gut usually killed by fever if they didn't kill by bleeding.
He had no more time to think about that than he did about the southron who didn't love blonds. He shot at the northerners again, reloaded, and shot once more. He didn't know if any of the quarrels struck home. What he did know was that his comrades were scrambling over the rampart and starting to drop down into the trenches Joseph the Gamecock's soldiers manned. He slung his crossbow, yanked out his shortsword, and swarmed over the ramparts himself.
He'd fought in the trenches before. The only good thing he could say about it was that he could hit back at the foe. Charging the enemy when he was entrenched . . . that was worse. But this was quite bad enough. Men screamed and groaned and slashed at one another and shot one another and swung clubbed crossbows and wrestled and punched and kicked and bit.
Reinforcements in blue came rushing up from the direction of Caesar to try to hold the southrons back. But more men in gray from Doubting George's army dropped down into the trenches. A crossbow bolt scored a bleeding line across the back of Rollant's hand. Half an inch lower and it might have left the hand crippled forever.
"Forward!" Lieutenant Griff shouted shrilly.
Forward they went—for a little while. After that, the enemy got as many reinforcements as they did. That made the fighting even more desperate than it had been. Rollant was no great swordsman. He'd never used a sword before the war: only a woodworker's tools. And the shortsword was a clumsy weapon anyhow. But his blade soon had blood on it.
"King Geoffrey!" the traitors shouted, and "Provincial prerogative forever!" and "To the seven hells with King Avram!" and "To the seven hells with the blonds!" Here and there, when they surged east again in a counterattack, they would capture some of Avram's soldiers and manhandle them back to the rear. They had camps for southron prisoners, just as there were camps for northern prisoners in the south. But they didn't manhandle any blonds back to the rear. Ex-serfs who'd taken service against their liege lords almost always ended up dead on the field when things went wrong for their side.
I can't be captured. Rollant knew that. In the early days of the fighting, a few blonds had been forcibly returned to serfdom. That didn't happen any more. The northerners hadn't needed long to realize a man who'd taken up arms against them once was liable, even likely, to do it again as soon as he saw the chance.
Some time in the middle of the day, a lull fell over the field, with both sides equally exhausted. Rollant had a moment to snatch a few breaths and look around. He discovered Smitty only a few feet away, also panting and looking around to see what the attack had gained.
"Well, this isn't like going at that Vulture's Nest place," Rollant said. "We could've kept fighting there till the last war of the gods and never broken through."
"We've got a chance here, sure enough," Smitty agreed. "More room to wiggle here. That other gap, we almost had to go in there single file to get at the fornicating traitors."
Rollant pointed ahead. "You think we'll take that Caesar?"
"We'd better," his comrade answered. "If we don't, Doubting George'll eat every one of us, and without salt, too."
"You're right," Rollant said, and forced a smile. The Detinans dimly recalled the days when their ancestors had been maneaters. Those days were long gone now, and had been for centuries even before the dark-haired men crossed the Western Ocean and set foot in this land, but the memory lingered in jokes like that. So far as Rollant knew, none of his own forebears had ever done anything so barbaric.
Other small things reminded Rollant he wasn't quite an ordinary Detinan, even if he fought alongside thousands of them. Pointing ahead again, he said, "Who or what's a Caesar?" He had no idea.
To his surprise, Smitty only shrugged. "Beats me. Probably just a made-up name."
"Suppose you're right." Rollant seized the moment to plunge his sword into the nearly blood-red dirt of southeastern Peachtree Province—very different from the black mud he'd grown up with in the swamp country of Palmetto Province—to clean it. He said, "Our magecraft did work, at least pretty much."
"So it did." Smitty nodded. "That's something. I bet the traitors are mad enough to spit nails like a repeating crossbow, too."
"Probably." Rollant cocked his own hand-held crossbow, fit a bolt to the groove, and took a shot at motion in the trenches the northerners still held. As often happened, he couldn't tell whether he hit or missed.
That one shot seemed to be a signal to resume the fight. A thirty-pound stone ball from a northern catapult thudded down only a few paces away. Some of that blood-red dirt splashed up and hit Rollant in the face. A southron soldier the stone struck screamed, but not for long. More southrons started shooting at the enemy. Before long, the battle blazed at full fury once more.
And at full fury it remained for the rest of the day. Try as they would, the southrons didn't manage to break into Caesar. But Rollant was sure the enemy spent men like coppers holding them out. "They can't go on doing that," he said as the sun sank behind the town. "They won't have an army left if they do."
"That's always been one thing we could do," Smitty said. "If all else fails, we can grind the bastards down till they've got nothing left. Only trouble with that is, it grinds down an awful lot of us, too."
"I know," Rollant said dolefully. "But it's pretty plain we aren't any smarter than they are, even with General Hesmucet in charge instead of General Guildenstern. So we'd better be tougher, wouldn't you say?"
"We'd better be something, anyhow," Smitty answered. "The something I am right now is gods-damned tired." He took his blanket from his knapsack, cocooned himself in it, and started to snore.
Rollant stayed awake a good deal longer. Maybe that meant he'd had more sleep the night before. Maybe—and more likely—it just meant he was too keyed up after the day's hard fighting to wind down in a hurry.
The traitors seemed very much awake, too. Their campfires burned brightly all the way back to Caesar. Every once in a while, a bolt or a stone or a firepot would land among the southrons. By all the signs, they needed to be ready to fight again in the morning, or perhaps in the middle of the night.
Rollant had just dozed off when Sergeant Joram shook him awake for sentry-go. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he stared off to the west. "What's going on there?" he asked, pointing to two new blazes beyond the profusion of northern campfires.
"Gods damn me if I know," Joram answered. "Maybe they're burning what they can't use."
But what Joseph the Gamecock's men were burning, dawn revealed, was the pair of wooden bridges over the Rubicon, the river that ran west of Caesar. They'd kept campfires going close to the southrons, but they'd had only a handful of men around them. Now their whole army had crossed the Rubicon, and was retreating toward Marthasville as fast as it could go.
Lieutenant General Bell could not have been more revolted if he'd faced the prospect of losing his other leg and having his other arm crippled. His men tramped glumly north, along with the rest of the Army of Franklin. The only man in the whole army who seemed satisfied with what they'd done at Viper River Gap was Joseph the Gamecock.
"We hurt them," he said when Bell, strapped onto his unicorn, rode up to remonstrate. "We hurt them badly."
"But they hold the field . . . sir," Bell growled.
"But the field is not important," Joseph answered. "No field this side of Marthasville is important. We'll find another miserable little place to defend in a few days and let them squander more lives attacking it."
"When do we attack them?" Bell asked.
"If we see a chance, we can do that," Joseph said. "More likely, though, we'll go on defending."
That made Bell take a swig from his jar of laudanum. But not even the potent drug eased the turmoil in his mind. As soon as the army stopped for the evening, he began a new letter to King Geoffrey. May it please your Majesty, he began with malice aforethought, knowing that what he had to say would not please the king at all, I have just witnessed and been compelled by circumstances to take part in the most disgraceful and disgusting withdrawal ever recorded in the annals of warfare.
"Is that too strong?" Bell wondered aloud. He shook his big, leonine head. It wasn't. He would have taken oath to any and all gods that it wasn't.
Joseph the Gamecock ordered this army out of its works and into retreat, abandoning all parts of Peachtree Province from Caesar northward to the provincial border to the foe. The Army of Franklin—the Thunderer grant that it see once more the province for which it was named—was not defeated in the fieldworks it was trying to defend. Caesar was not on the point of falling when the general commanding abandoned it to an evil fate.
He paused to ink his pen once more and to look up at the ceiling of his pavilion, seeking inspiration from the gods or wherever he might find it. A moment later, the pen was racing across the paper again. However well the Army of Franklin fought in the fieldworks, I have seen no sign that it can fight outside of them. Entrenching does indeed kill soldiers' spirits. The sorcery is slow and exceedingly subtle, but no less sure for that.
"What to do?" he muttered. "What to do?"
So long as the general commanding has and is known to have your confidence, your Majesty, we can but obey his orders and hope they will serve, however unlikely that may seem. But it would be disastrous and unfortunate to see this campaign come to an ignominious conclusion when you have officers who would gladly serve you for the sake of the glory they might win in the said service.
I have, sir, the honor to remain your most humble and obedient servant. . . . Bell signed his name, sanded the letter dry, sealed it, and sent it out in the same clandestine way he had with his earlier missive. He didn't know what results that one had had—none he could see yet. He hoped this one would do more.
"Cowardice," he muttered. "If it's not cowardice, it must be treason. They are there. How can we drive them away without hitting them?"
It all seemed obvious to him. It seemed so obvious, he started to hitch his painful way over to Joseph the Gamecock's pavilion and confront him. After heaving himself to his feet—no, to my foot, he thought—he checked himself. Even he could see that that would do him no good.
He took the bottle of laudanum from his pocket, pulled the cork with his teeth, and swigged. As always, it tasted vile. As always, he didn't care. "Ahhh," he said, the soft, sated sigh of a man returning to the bosom of his beloved. He waited for the potent mix of spirits and poppy juice to work its will on him. He had not long to wait.
Calm flowed through him. He no longer wanted to do anything dreadful to Joseph the Gamecock. He recognized that that would not be a good idea: if without leave he assailed the general commanding, had he any hope of afterwards ascending to the command? No. Surely it would go to a plodder like Roast-Beef William. Best to wait, then, and let his letters work . . . if they would.
As the laudanum took its soft, sure grip on his soul, he floated away from some, at least, of the pain tormenting him. And as the pain receded, so did some of his anger at Joseph the Gamecock. With enough laudanum in him, Bell could look at things more disinterestedly. James was assuredly loyal to the kingdom if not to the king. He was doing what he thought best, what he thought right.
"That doesn't mean it is right, though," Bell rumbled. Laudanum might ease his mind, but didn't change it.
He grabbed his crutches, heaved himself upright, and went out into the hot, muggy, firefly-punctuated night. "Good evening, sir," Major Zibeon said smoothly, materializing at his side.
"And what, by the gods, is so good about it?" Bell demanded. "Did you see one chance, one single, solitary chance, where we might have struck the enemy today?"
"No, sir," his aide-de-camp answered. "And I was looking for such a chance, too."
"So was I," Bell said. "I didn't see one, either. If I had, I would have hurled my men against the gods-damned southrons in the open field, and to the seven hells with what Joseph the Gamecock had to say about it."
"I have no doubt you would have, sir." Zibeon did not sound approving.
"We've got to hit the southrons a blow," Bell insisted, as he'd been insisting since before the campaign began. "How far north will we go before we dare turn and face them again? All the way to Marthasville?"
"Not so far as that, sir," Major Zibeon said, sounding as much like a good servant as a soldier. "From what I hear, the general commanding intends to halt at the fieldworks outside Fat Mama."
"Hells of a name for a town," Bell muttered; that one penetrated even laudanum. Then, more slowly than he would have done before he was maimed and had to drug himself to hold anguish at bay, he called up a map in his mind. "Fat Mama? That's bad enough—it's halfway to Marthasville, by the Lion God's fangs."
"Not quite, sir," his aide-de-camp replied. "And the position is quite strong. With any luck at all, we should be able to hold them there for some time."
"I doubt it," Bell said, unconsciously imitating Lieutenant General George. "Joseph will decide we're too fornicating outnumbered, and he'll find an excuse to skedaddle again."
"As Hesmucet comes farther up into Peachtree Province, the glideway path on which he depends for food and crossbow bolts and firepots and such grows longer and longer," Zibeon said. "He needs more and more men to guard it, which leaves him with fewer and fewer men to put in in the field against us."
Bell fixed him with a stare so cold and fierce, it might indeed have come from the Lion God. Campfirelight only gave his eyes a cold glitter that made his aide-de-camp involuntarily give back a step. "So what?" Bell said. "Joseph won't care. You mark my words. He doesn't want to fight, is what's wrong with him."
"I think you're mistaken in that, sir," Major Zibeon said, gathering himself. "And Joseph is looking for ways to get Ned of the Forest to attack Hesmucet's supply line. When Ned strikes a glideway track, you may be sure it is properly struck. Ned plays the game for keeps."
"It is not a game," Bell insisted. "It is a war for the safety of our kingdom, one we must not lose. But if such as Joseph remain in charge over us, the war will be lost before it is well begun, for we shall do no fighting in it."
"Joseph believes the war is already lost, if it be a matter of man against man, for the southrons have too many more men than we do," Major Zibeon said. "To him, our best hope is to make the southrons weary of spending their lives to subdue us."
"I have heard Joseph upon this subject more times than I care to. He would, I am certain, make a most excellent bookkeeper," Bell said, acid in his voice. "Up until this time, I was unaware that casting accounts had become a cardinal military virtue."
Zibeon was an imperturbable sort of man, but he winced. "Your outspokenness may land you in difficulty, sir," he remarked.
"So what?" Bell said with a laugh. "What can my friends do to me that my foes haven't done already?" He made certain the crutch under his right armpit was secure before gesturing at his ruined body.
Did Major Zibeon flush? In the firelight, Bell couldn't be sure. His aide-de-camp said, "If you offend those set above you badly enough, they can remove you from your command."
"Only Joseph the Gamecock is set above me in all the Army of Franklin," Bell said. "Should he dare to have the nerve to seek my removal, you may rest assured I would appeal to the king."
"Would Geoffrey hearken to such an appeal?"
He'd better, Bell thought. But not even Major Zibeon knew of the letters he was writing to the king in Nonesuch. And so Bell stuck to what everyone in the northern provinces—and probably half the southrons, too—knew: "King Geoffrey and Count Joseph have been known to disagree in the past. Anyone who disagrees with Joseph may have Geoffrey on his side."
"May, I believe, is the critical word," Zibeon said. "Remember, sir, that we left Detina over the question of who was and who should be at the top of the hierarchy. Geoffrey's natural instinct is to support those who are higher against those who are lower. That means Joseph, not you."
"My natural instinct is to go out and smash the enemy," Bell retorted, "and Joseph the Gamecock has done a good, thorough job of stifling it. I am no bookkeeper on the battlefield, regardless of what he may be."
"When we get to Fat Mama—"
"No." Bell cut off his aide-de-camp with a toss of the head. "I told you once, and I tell you again, he'll find some excuse to run away from there, too. You mark my words and wait and see."
"Yes, sir," Major Zibeon said tonelessly. "If you will excuse me, sir . . ." He strode off into the night.
Lieutenant General Bell grunted. He didn't think he'd convinced Zibeon. On the other hand, he didn't worry about it very much. His aide-de-camp had gone on and on about hierarchies. In the hierarchy of the northern army, Bell ranked far above Zibeon. He didn't have to worry about what the major thought unless he chose to do so.
Unfortunately, the same did not apply to Joseph the Gamecock's opinions. Joseph could do as he pleased here—could and would, unless King Geoffrey reined him in. "Fat Mama," Bell said contemptuously. He turned around and stumped back into his pavilion.
When he lay down, he couldn't sleep. He took another slug of laudanum. The doses he poured down would have felled a man not used to the drug: would have knocked him out and might have stopped his heart. But the laudanum didn't even make Bell sleepy. If anything, it energized him, so that he lay on his cot with thoughts whirling like comets through his brain. Not all of them would be the best thoughts; he knew that. He would have to look at them in the morning, or whenever he turned out to be less drugged.
When I'm drugged all the time, though, how do I choose between the good ideas and those that aren't so good? he wondered. He shrugged, then wished he hadn't; even with the unicorn-stunning dose of laudanum in him, pain shot through his ruined left shoulder.
He did eventually fall asleep, whether in spite of the laudanum or because of it he could not have said. And as he slept, he dreamt. In his dream, he was whole. He had two legs. His arm did everything an arm should do. And, indeed, he did more than a mortal man might expect to do, for he found himself flying up to the mountain beyond the sky where the gods dwelt.
"What is your wish?" the Lion God asked him. The god had a lion's head on a hero's body, though his hands and feet were clawed and a tail lashed from the base of his spine.
Even facing the gods, Bell did not hesitate. "Lord, let me lead this host!" he said fervently.
"What will you do with it if you lead it?" the Thunderer asked.
"Go forth and fight the foe wherever I find him," Bell answered.
The two martial gods looked at each other. "So shall it be," they said together.
Lieutenant General Bell woke up then, with the sound of the gods' voices ringing in his ears, ringing in his soul. He knew he remained a cripple. For a moment, for one precious moment, it didn't matter. "The Army of Franklin shall be mine," he whispered. He hadn't asked the gods how well he would do with the army if he got it. He didn't worry about it now that he was awake, either.