Marching Through Peachtree

VII

Having crossed the Hoocheecoochee, Rollant had hoped for a sudden, triumphant descent on Marthasville.

He’d pictured southrons marching through the city in a grand and glorious procession, as they’d done in Rising Rock at the end of the previous summer. But what he’d pictured didn’t happen. The traitors’ army remained between that of General Hesmucet and Marthasville. Whenever the southrons sent scouts to probe at the enemy’s defenses, they got a warm reception.

“We ought to be doing more,” he told Smitty one morning as the two of them heated tea over a campfire.

“Nothing I can do about it-I’m just an ordinary fellow, ordinary as they come,” Smitty answered. “But now that you’re a high and mighty corporal, you could probably stroll right up to Doubting George or General Hesmucet and tell ’em what’s on your mind. They’d hop to it, I bet.”

“It’s a good thing I already know you’re a chucklehead,” Rollant said. “If I didn’t, I’d figure you were trying to get me into trouble.”

“You’re a blond,” Smitty said. “How much more trouble do you need? — and is that water boiling yet?”

Rollant looked into the saucepan he was holding over the flames. “Not quite,” he said, and then, “You know, there’s a lot of people I’d want to belt, if they went on and on about how I’m a blond.”

“Sorry, your Corporalship, sir,” Smitty said, his mocking style, as often happened, making it hard for Rollant to tell how serious he was. “I take it all back. You’re right-having yellow hair’s no trouble at all for you.”

“Gods damn it, I didn’t mean that.” Rollant wondered if he’d ever had a day in his whole life go by where being a blond wasn’t a trouble in one way or another. He didn’t think so. “What I was trying to say was, you mostly don’t give me trouble on account of what I am. If you talk about it, I don’t mind so much.”

“Oh.” Smitty thought that over, then grinned. “You say the sweetest things, darling.” He blew Rollant a kiss. “But I bet you tell them to all the Detinans.”

That left Rollant’s cheeks hotter than the water, which had begun to boil. He took the saucepan away from the flames and poured its contents first into Smitty’s mug and then into his own. Both had ground tea leaves and sugar waiting for the hot water. Stirring the tea gave Rollant an excuse not to do anything else for the next minute or two. At last, he asked, “How did you get to be such a nuisance?”

“I work hard at it,” Smitty said, not without pride. “Just ask my father and my mother and my two older sisters and my older brother. If my other older brother was still alive, you could ask him, too.” He held up a hasty hand. “I didn’t have anything to do with him dying, though. It was the coughing fever.”

Rollant gallantly tried to get back to talking about what he wanted to talk about: “We ought to push the traitors harder. If they go all the way back into Marthasville, we ought to lay siege to ’em. If they don’t, we ought to make ’em stand and fight instead of sneaking away again.”

“Didn’t your mama ever rap you on the knuckles for being an impatient little brat?” Smitty said. “We’re just now getting the whole army, not just part of Doubting George’s Wing, over the Hoocheecoochee. Joseph the Gamecock wrecked all the bridges. We’ve especially got to get one for glideway carpets across the river. Once that happens, I expect we may fight a bit.”

“I suppose so,” Rollant said. “But the more time we spend getting ready, the more time the traitors have to dig more trenches of their own. Whenever we come at the ones they’ve dug in, they make us pay for it.” He also ground his teeth when he thought of blond serfs doing the digging for the northern soldiers.

“That’s part of the game,” Smitty answered. “The idea is to get around the bastards’ flanks and hit ’em where they aren’t dug in, or else to make them try to hit us when we are dug in instead.”

“It would be nice,” Rollant said wistfully. “It doesn’t seem to happen very often, though, does it?” He swigged at his tea. It would have been better with some spirits poured into it, but pried his eyes open even as things were.

Sergeant Joram happened to be walking by. He glowered down at Rollant. “Are you suggesting, Corporal, that the traitors have better officers than we do?”

Would he ask me a question like that if I weren’t a blond? Such thoughts were never far from Rollant’s mind. He looked up at Joram and nodded. “Sometimes, Sergeant. Otherwise, we would’ve licked ’em already, don’t you suppose? And sometimes we’re better than they are.” But not often enough, gods damn it.

He waited for Joram to burst like a flung firepot and spill flames everywhere. But the sergeant only grunted and kept walking. Smitty whistled. “You got away with it,” he said. “And I know why.”

“It’s not because Joram loves blonds any too well,” Rollant said.

“No, of course not,” Smitty agreed, as if the idea that anyone-anyone Detinan, that is-could love blonds too well was too ridiculous to contemplate… and so it probably was. The farmer’s son went on, “You got away with it on account of you’re a corporal now. If an ordinary soldier-me, for instance-said something like that, old Joram’d run over him like a herd of unicorns.”

On account of you’re a corporal now. All his life, Rollant had been on the outside looking in as far as status was concerned. Being born blond would do that in the Kingdom of Detina. Joining King Avram’s army hadn’t improved things much. A blond who was also a common soldier was at the bottom of two different hierarchies.

But now he was off the bottom of one of them. He had stripes on his sleeve. He was the only blond in the whole regiment who did. Had Joram given him the same courtesy he would have given a Detinan corporal, a corporal whose skin was respectably swarthy, whose hair was respectably black?

“By the gods, maybe he did,” Rollant said softly.

“No maybes about it,” Smitty declared. “You’re a corporal, so you’ve got it easy. You get to tell people to cut firewood and fill canteens. You don’t have to do it yourself. And you don’t get the heat people like me do. You’d have to really make a botch of things to get chewed out.”

“Maybe,” Rollant said. But he wasn’t entirely convinced. If he made a mistake, he suspected-no, he was as sure as made no difference-he would lose his rank and become a common soldier again faster than a Detinan committing the same blunder.

“Standard-bearer!” Lieutenant Griff called. “Get the flag! We’re going to move out in a few minutes.”

“Coming, sir!” Rollant scrambled to his feet, poured the last of the tea down his throat, and hurried over to the company’s banner. He saluted it and put a pinch of earth at the base of the staff as he picked it up. It wasn’t quite an object of veneration in its own right, but it wasn’t far removed from being one. Who could tell for certain, after all, what was divine and what wasn’t?

Having gone through the ritual, he took hold of the flag. Carrying it made him feel stronger and braver than he really was. Of course, carrying it also made him a target. Were that not true, he wouldn’t have gained the job. Since that’s the way things work, I’d better be as strong and brave as I can.

Colonel Nahath’s regiment-and several others-started moving north a few minutes later. The traitors had fled back of Goober Creek, a miserable little stream about halfway between the Hoocheecoochee River and Marthasville itself. Joseph the Gamecock’s men also had unicorn-riders and raiders afoot still loose in the region between the Hoocheecoochee and Goober Creek. They would snipe at General Hesmucet’s men whenever they got a chance. The southrons’ column advanced with scouts on both wings.

Rollant knew that was so, but couldn’t have proved it himself. He couldn’t see the front of the column or the rear, and he couldn’t see very far off to the sides. That was partly because Nahath’s regiment was in the middle of the long file of men in gray and partly because of the choking clouds of red dust the men in front of him had already kicked up. The dust got in his eyes. It got in his nose and made him sneeze. It got in his mouth, leaving his teeth and tongue coated in grit. It turned his tunic and pantaloons a color halfway between rust and blood. It turned his skin the same shade, except where rills of sweat ran through and showed what color he was supposed to be.

Lieutenant Griff looked as much like a man made of red dust as did Rollant. When he spat, his spittle was brick-red. He was sweating even harder than Rollant, but was pretty red under the sweat, too. “Lion God’s tail tuft, it’s hot,” he said. “How does anybody stand this horrible weather year after year?”

“Sir, when I first came down to New Eborac from Palmetto Province, I thought I’d freeze to death every winter,” Rollant answered. “It’s all what you’re used to, I expect.” He’d done harder work than marching in hotter, stickier weather than this; Karlsburg took a back seat to nobody for dreadful summers.

“Gods-damned bugs.” Griff slapped at himself, but did nothing except raise a puff of dust from his tunic. “This is a horrible place.”

“Looks like pretty good farming country to me, sir, you don’t mind my saying so.” Rollant had had to learn how to contradict Detinans. As a serf in Palmetto Province, he never would have dared do any such thing. As a carpenter in New Eborac City, he had to. If he didn’t, everyone would have cheated him unmercifully.

Even in the army, a good many Detinans didn’t want to hear a blond telling them they were wrong. Griff took it pretty well. He said, “You’d have to have a leather hide and iron muscles to do a proper job of working it.”

“Maybe.” Rollant hid a grimace. His blond ancestors hadn’t known about iron; they’d used the softer bronze instead. Detinan swords and armor and iron-headed quarrels, along with Detinan unicorns and Detinan magecraft, had cast down the blond kingdoms of the north. Even now, some blonds had a superstitious reverence for iron. Rollant didn’t, not in the top part of his mind, but he still knew what the strong metal had done to his folk.

Just then, lightning smote from a clear blue sky, striking the head of the column. Distant screams came back to Rollant’s ears. Lieutenant Griff cursed. “They’re playing the Thunderer’s game,” he growled. “And where were our mages? Asleep, or else with their thumbs up their arses.”

Northern wizards still had the edge on their southron counterparts, although King Avram’s sorcerers were at last gaining. The northerners had always had a need for man-killing magic: they had to hold their serfs in subjection. Southron mages helped manufactories make more. That didn’t prepare them to meet lightnings.

Another crash of thunder, as if the Detinan god were indeed pounding mortals here below. More screams rose from the southrons, these louder and closer. If the traitors strike us again, Rollant thought nervously, the next bolt would hit right about… here. He looked up toward the heavens, but saw only sun and sky. Mages made lightning from nothing.

Just putting one foot in front of the other and marching on wasn’t easy. Rollant made himself do it, and made himself hold the standard extra high. “Well done, Corporal!” Lieutenant Griff called. “They can’t make us afraid if we don’t let them.”

Rollant was afraid. If Griff wasn’t, Rollant thought something had to be wrong with him. I’m not showing it, he thought. Maybe he’s just not showing it, either. Men lived behind masks. No one wanted to admit he was a coward, even to himself. And so soldiers who would sooner have run away went into battle without a murmur.

When the next lightning bolt crashed down, Rollant did flinch. He couldn’t help himself. He noticed Lieutenant Griff drawing into himself, too, which helped make him feel better. This bolt didn’t land in the roadway and on the southron soldiers; it came down wide to the right, and raised a great cloud of dust and fountain of earth in a roadside field.

“Well, well,” Griff said with a certain sardonic glee. “The mages on our side really aren’t all asleep. Who would have thought it?”

More thunderbolts smote the advancing column. Almost all of them, after the first pair, missed. But one or two more did strike home. The southrons who weren’t killed outright cried their misery to the uncaring sky. Healers ran over to them to do what they could. The trouble, as Rollant knew only too well, was that healers couldn’t do very much. A wounded man was only a little more likely to die without treatment as he was after the healers got their hands on him.

Rollant wished he hadn’t thought of that. He wished he hadn’t had to think of that. Then he marched past some of the men one of those first two levinbolts had struck. The smell of charred meat was thick in the air. Had that been meat of a different sort, his mouth might have watered. As things were, his stomach heaved. He had to fight a lonely battle to keep from puking.

Not all the men the sorcerous lightning had struck were dead. A healer gave a dreadfully burned fellow laudanum. Killing pain healers could do, even if they also often killed patients.

Not far ahead lay Marthasville. Rollant couldn’t see it now, not with all the dust in the air, but he had seen it, and it remained distinct in his mind’s eye even if invisible to those of his body. He knew what it meant: a real victory over the traitors, a burning brand tossed onto the funeral pyre of their hopes. Let us into Marthasville, he thought, and how can the north call itself a kingdom?

But the southrons weren’t there yet. They’d crossed the Hoocheecoochee, the last great natural barrier before the city. Still, Joseph the Gamecock’s army remained in front of them and, as Rollant had seen, remained full of fight. Nothing in this war had come easy up till now. Rollant didn’t suppose anything would be easy from here on out, either.

Lieutenant General George said, “Well, sir, things may be starting to run our way at last.” He spoke with some bemusement; there had been more than a few times when he’d wondered if he would ever be able to say such a thing.

Hesmucet nodded. “The lovely thing about finally being over the Hoocheecoochee is that we don’t even have to attack Marthasville to make King Geoffrey pitch a fit.”

“I hadn’t thought about that when we set out on this campaign, but it’s true,” Doubting George admitted.

“Well, nobody could see just how things would go when we set out,” Hesmucet said generously. “But here we are, and we can cause the northerners almost as much trouble by cutting off their glideway traffic toward the east as we can by taking Marthasville away from them. And if they shift men to try to stop us, how can they keep on covering the city?”

“To the hells with me if I know.” Doubting George clapped his hands. “Congratulations, sir. You’ve wrapped up the whole campaign and tied a fancy ribbon around it.”

Hesmucet laughed. “Wouldn’t it be fine if things were as easy in the field as they are when we talk about them? I could wish that were so, but I know well enough that it isn’t.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” George said, and meant every word. “Generals who build castles in the air commonly have them knocked down around their ears. That’s what happened to Guildenstern by the River of Death: he was so sure the northerners were running away from us, he didn’t take the precautions he should have on the off chance he was wrong.”

“I don’t envy his fate,” Hesmucet said.

“Who would?” George replied. “Going out to the steppes to fight the blond savages is hard duty any time, but it’s ten times as hard when we’ve got ourselves a real war here.”

When the real war here was over, a lot of men with brevet ranks of brigadier and even lieutenant general would go back to being captains. They’d go back to chasing flea-bitten blond savages, too. Most of the time, that was what the Detinan army did. George’s own permanent rank was brigadier. He wouldn’t have to spend endless years trotting across the steppe on unicornback. He’d done plenty of that before this war. He wouldn’t be sorry not to do it again, though sitting behind a desk in Georgetown and drafting reports no one would ever read also struck him as imperfectly attractive.

Hesmucet’s thoughts had gone along a different glideway. “If you ask me,” he said, “we’re going to have to kill off all the blond nomads on the steppe. We’re stronger than they are, we can’t do anything useful with them, and they’re too stupid and too stubborn to know when they’re beaten. Once we empty the steppe of them, we can fill the land with good Detinan farmers who’ll do something useful with it.”

With a smile, Doubting George said, “You’re solving all the kingdom’s problems this morning, aren’t you, sir?”

“Gods damn it, that’s what a commanding general is for,” Hesmucet declared. To George’s relief, he was also smiling. A commanding general who took such boasts seriously was a disaster waiting to happen, as the unhappy Guildenstern could attest. Hesmucet went on, “I’ll want you to move your wing north and east, Lieutenant General, to put it in position to harry the glideway lines leading east.”

“Yes, sir,” George said. “Shall I set them in motion right away, or do I have some time to prepare first?”

“You have a few days,” Hesmucet replied. “I’m still getting all my ducks in a row now that everybody’s on this side of the Hoocheecoochee. I don’t want anything to go wrong on account of my carelessness.”

General Guildenstern would never have said anything like that. “If you worry about it, sir, it’s not likely to happen,” Doubting George said. “Tell me when you need me to be ready to move, and I will be.”

“I know,” Hesmucet said. “I can rely on you.” He nodded, touched a forefinger to the front brim of his gray felt hat in what wasn’t quite a salute, and walked away.

Doubting George stared after him. It wasn’t that the commanding general was wrong: George knew he would try to do exactly what Hesmucet required of him. But, in a lot of armies on both sides in this war, that would have been a very strange thing. Plenty of wing commanders were at their superiors’ throats, wanting to lead armies themselves. Some of them went so far as to disobey and undercut army commanders, regardless of what that did to campaigns.

Fighting Joseph would undercut Hesmucet in a heartbeat, George thought. In half a heartbeat. So why not me? The answer to that was obvious: because we’re winning by doing what we’re doing with Hesmucet in command. Fighting Joseph wouldn’t care about that. I do.

He called Colonel Andy and said, “We’re going to be moving north and east before long, to cut the glideway links with the eastern part of what Geoffrey calls his kingdom. Draft the necessary orders for the move for my approval.”

“Yes, sir,” his adjutant said. “So there’s not going to be any direct attack on Marthasville, then?”

“Not right away, anyhow,” George answered. “General Hesmucet feels we can do the traitors about as much harm by cutting these links as we could by taking the city. I think he’s right; Parthenia draws men and food from the east, and Duke Edward’s army will suffer because those supplies can’t come through.”

“I hope that’s so, sir,” Andy said. “It still seems strange to me, though, to have come all this way to Marthasville and then not to try to take the place.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that we will try to take it,” Doubting George said. “But we can do this more easily-and, once we’ve done it, Joseph the Gamecock will have to respond in one way or another. Maybe we’ll be able to meet his army outside of its entrenchments. That would give us a better chance of licking it once for all.”

“Yes, sir,” his adjutant said again. “What shall I make the effective date of these orders? When will we be moving out?”

“I don’t know precisely, because General Hesmucet didn’t know precisely,” George replied. “Do you think we can be ready to move in three days’ time?”

“I certainly do, sir,” Colonel Andy said.

“All right, then-make that the effective date,” George said. “I’m pretty sure we won’t have to move sooner, and if we aren’t ordered out till later, we can just delay day by day, as necessary.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy repeated. “That makes good sense.”

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” George told him. “I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

Colonel Andy opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. He walked off without saying anything. George smiled at his retreating back. He knew his occasional fits of whimsy not only perplexed but also alarmed his adjutant. As befitted an aide, Andy was nothing if not serious. George was serious when he had to be and when he felt like it. There were times when he didn’t-and, being a general, he could get away with indulging himself now and again.

Raiders from the northern forces still operated on this side of Goober Creek. Snipers with powerful crossbows-not the quick-cocking kind most footsoldiers carried, but bigger, heavier weapons that used either a crank or a foot pedal to draw the bow, and that shot correspondingly farther than an ordinary crossbow-took a steady toll on his men. And Brigadier Spinner’s unicorn-riders did their best to disrupt the flow of supplies from Rising Rock up to General Hesmucet’s army.

They didn’t have an easy time of it. Hesmucet had assembled what was without a doubt the best set of military artificers Doubting George had ever seen. When Joseph the Gamecock retreated over the Hoocheecoochee River, he’d naturally knocked down all the bridges spanning the stream, including the one that had carried glideway carpets. Counting its approaches, that one was three hundred yards long, and thirty yards high at its highest point over the Hoocheecoochee. Hesmucet’s artificers-with some help from Colonel Phineas’ sorcerers-had taken four and a half days to re-create the span… and all the timber they used was live trees when they started the job.

Against men of such talents, even the most diligent destroyers had their work cut out for them. And the southrons kept Brigadier Spinner’s unicorn-riders too busy to let them attack the glideway line up to Rising Rock as diligently as they would have liked. Ned of the Forest might have done better; Doubting George, like every other southron general, had developed a fearful respect for the untutored, almost unlettered northern commander of unicorn-riders. But Ned was off by the Great River, and he was too busy to turn his ferocious attention to that lonely glideway line snaking up from the south.

Contemplating that, George said, “Do you know, Colonel, I’m vain enough to think I can stand up against anybody as a tactician.”

“I should hope so, sir,” Andy replied. “You’ve earned the right.”

George nodded. “I expect I have. But I will say this as well: General Hesmucet is the best strategist I’ve ever seen, and I take my hat off to him for it.” Taking himself literally, he doffed his gray chapeau.

His adjutant frowned. “How do you mean, sir?”

“He goes on throwing enough distractions at Ned of the Forest over in the east to keep Ned from coming this way and playing merry hells with our glideway,” George said. “That’s a long reach of thought.”

“Well, what if it is?” Colonel Andy said. “I’m sure it would have come to you, too.”

“I’m not,” Doubting George said, “not by any means.” Maybe that means Marshal Bart did the right thing in making Hesmucet commander here in the east, and not me, he thought, and grimaced. What a depressing notion.

“Sir,” Andy said, “just remember this: if it weren’t for you, this army wouldn’t be here today. This army probably wouldn’t be anywhere at all today, because the traitors would have smashed it to pieces by the River of Death.”

“Oh, I think the men I was in charge of then had a little something to do with that, too,” Doubting George said dryly.

“General Guildenstern was in charge of good men, too, and they ran back towards Rising Rock just as fast as they could go,” Andy said.

That wasn’t fair. Count Thraxton had ensorceled Guildenstern, so that he gave precisely the wrong order at precisely the wrong time. It was one of the very few times in the whole war that Thraxton the Braggart’s sorcery had done what he wanted it to do. Lieutenant General George knew as much. He smiled anyhow. Remembering a colleague’s embarrassment went a long way toward cheering him up.

Andy went on, “And this wing of the army has done more hard fighting since we came north than any of the others.”

“It is the biggest wing, you know.”

“Even so,” his adjutant insisted. “And it’s the biggest wing because you’re the best commander General Hesmucet has.”

Doubting George considered the competition. James the Bird’s Eye was a comer, no doubt about it, but hadn’t had nearly George’s experience leading large numbers of men. Fighting Joseph… George shook his head. He didn’t want to consider Fighting Joseph. All right, maybe I am the best commander General Hesmucet has, he thought. But that doesn’t mean I’m better than Hesmucet himself, and that’s what I want to be.

He brought his thoughts back to the essential business of winning the war. Standing outside his pavilion, he could see Marthasville. He could all but reach out and touch Marthasville. “We just have to stretch things out,” he murmured.

“Sir?” Colonel Andy said.

“Joseph the Gamecock hasn’t got enough men,” George said. “If we make him do too many things at once, he won’t be able to manage all of them.”

“May you finally be right, sir,” Andy said. “We’ve been saying since the start of the campaign that, if we did this, that, or the other thing, Joseph the Gamecock’s army would break to pieces like a pot made of clay. We’ve been saying it and saying it, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Well, well.” Lieutenant General George eyed his adjutant in surprise. “And here I’m the fellow with the reputation for doubting. I’ve earned it, too, I must say. Have you caught the disease from me, my dear Colonel?”

“In this cursed northern heat, a man can catch any disease under the sun,” Colonel Andy replied. “The healers mostly don’t know how to cure them, either. Why shouldn’t I catch doubt along with everything else?”

“I’ll tell you why,” George replied. “Because this time we really are going to lick the traitors right out of their boots, that’s why. One of the things that has made this campaign so hard is that Joseph the Gamecock has always had room to maneuver, room to retreat. He doesn’t any more, not if he wants to hold on to Marthasville. All the chances for maneuvering work for us now.”

“I told you, sir: may it work out as you say.” Colonel Andy still looked glum. “But what do you want to bet that something will keep us from making the move to the northeast that General Hesmucet has ordered from us?”

“I can’t imagine what that would be,” George said.

“I can’t imagine what it would be, either,” his adjutant said. “But we’ve already seen a lot of unimaginable things in this campaign. What are a few more?”

George would have been happier had he had a ready answer for that, but he didn’t, and he knew it.

Joseph the Gamecock eyed his wing commanders. “Gentlemen, the thing we need most in all the world right now, it seems to me, is room to maneuver.”

“Another fancy way to talk about retreat,” Lieutenant General Bell muttered. Joseph didn’t think he was supposed to hear, but he did.

Here, though, Bell wasn’t the only discontented officer he had. Roast-Beef William clucked and said, “Sir, I don’t see how we can get room to maneuver without moving away from Marthasville, and holding Marthasville is the point of the exercise.”

“We can hold Marthasville with Duke Brown’s militiamen,” Joseph said. “The satrap’s men are starting to come into the forts around the city.”

“Hesmucet has real soldiers with him,” Roast-Beef William said glumly. “They’ll go through raw militiamen quick as boiled asparagus.”

Feeling about ready to burst from frustration, Joseph rounded on his third and newest wing commander and demanded, “How say you, Brigadier Alexander?”

“I want to strike the enemy a blow, as we all do,” Old Straight replied, “but I don’t want to uncover Marthasville to do it. My opinion is, we would do best to fight close to the city.”

“But staying close to Marthasville with our whole force means the southrons can maneuver as they please, while we’re trapped here,” Joseph protested. “They can swing all the way around the city and surround us, by the gods.”

“And in doing so, they will weaken themselves, and we can attack,” Bell said.

“I am looking for the chance to attack,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Holding the city with the militia will give us that chance.”

“What does King Geoffrey think of this plan?” William asked.

“It appalls him,” Lieutenant General Bell replied.

“How do you know that?” Joseph inquired. Instead of answering, Bell took a swig of laudanum. Joseph the Gamecock went on, “I still think we can bring it off, and I still think it would be good for our strategic position if we did. And so, gentlemen, I want you to be prepared to move north and west of Marthasville whenever I give the order.”

“It is another retreat!” Bell groaned. “I knew it. By the Thunderer’s prong, sir, you’re abandoning Marthasville to the tender mercies of Hesmucet and his stinking southrons. I don’t care to be a part of any such maneuver. I think it’s extremely ill-advised-and that’s the best thing I can say about it.”

“With all respect, sir,” Roast-Beef William told Joseph, “I must say that, in this instance, I agree with Lieutenant General Bell.”

He’d never said anything like that before. Hearing it from him infuriated Joseph. Eyes and voice deadly cold, he demanded, “Are you refusing my orders, Lieutenant General? I thought you of all people understood subordination.”

“I do, sir. I refuse you nothing,” Roast-Beef William said unhappily. “But I do not refuse you my opinion, either. And my opinion is and remains that we would do better to fight around Marthasville.”

“Very well,” Joseph the Gamecock said. It wasn’t very well; it was nowhere close to very well. But Roast-Beef William had indeed spoken respectfully, and it was indeed part of a subordinate’s duty to give his superior his unvarnished views. Fuming still, Joseph rounded on Alexander the Steward. “Will you follow me without carping, Brigadier?”

“Certainly, sir, if you require it,” Old Straight replied. “I would be lying, though, if I said I liked your plan.”

“Well, what else can we do?” Joseph the Gamecock asked, aiming the question as much at malicious fate as at his wing commanders. “If we stay here and let Hesmucet maneuver as he pleases, we are liable to lose not just Marthasville but the whole Army of Franklin.”

“We need to attack,” Bell insisted.

“You keep saying that, like a parrot trained to do it in the hope of getting a sunflower seed,” Joseph said. As Bell glared at him, he went on, “Well, Pretty Poll, I have news for you: when the enemy’s army is twice the size of your own, you had better have a gods-damned strong position before you go and bite him on the leg.”

“If you don’t attack, what point to having an army at all?” Bell asked.

“Have you ever heard of defending?” Joseph the Gamecock said.

“Indeed, sir.” Bell nodded. “You have defended Peachtree Province so well, the whole southern half of it no longer needs to be defended at all.”

“If you’d thrown the army away, as you always seem to want to do, we wouldn’t still hold Marthasville,” Joseph said.

“You always think we will lose if we attack,” Bell retorted. “If we attack and win, we hurl the southrons back and we go forward.”

“True-if,” Joseph the Gamecock agreed. “Long odds, though, when we’re so outnumbered. That’s what you keep refusing to see.”

“They’re only southrons,” Bell said contemptuously. “We can lick as many of them as we need to lick.”

“It isn’t so,” Roast-Beef William said. “I must tell you, Lieutenant General, that is not so. They are Detinans, too. We have the advantage over them, perhaps, but not to the degree you imply.”

“If it were so,” Joseph added, “we could have won this war a long time ago. It lacks a good deal of being won right now, or else I’ve been living a nightmare for the past three years and more.”

“If we have the advantage over them, why are we running away?” Bell asked.

“By the gods, you hardheaded jackass, we are not running away,” Joseph the Gamecock ground out. “We’re looking for room to maneuver.”

“We’ve been `looking for room to maneuver’ ever since Borders,” Bell said. “When you had it, you didn’t use it. Now that you haven’t got it any more, you want it.”

“That is uncalled for,” Roast-Beef William said.

“This whole campaign, such as it is, is uncalled for,” Lieutenant General Bell said.

“You have obstructed me every step of the way,” Joseph said furiously. “If this army is having difficulties, they are at least half-at least half, sir-of your making. For you to blame me now is like… is like… I don’t know what it’s like, but I know it’s vile. If the stone that smashed your leg had smashed your miserable rock of a head in its place, this army would be better off today.”

“Sir, that is also uncalled for,” William said, and Alexander the Steward nodded.

“I see,” Joseph said. “It’s fine for him to insult me and revile me, but I’m a wicked monster if I pay him back in the same coin. Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. That makes perfect sense.”

Something close to desperation in his voice, Roast-Beef William said, “Quarrels only help the enemy, sir. They can afford them, because they outnumber us. We can afford nothing at all.”

Joseph was too angry to be placated so easily. “Oh, of course we can! Just ask him.” He pointed to Bell. “We can afford to charge right out and attack the southrons, and five minutes later they’ll all be skedaddling for the Highlow River just as fast as they can. Won’t it be wonderful?”

Bell had faced a lot of nasty weapons in this war, but he didn’t stand up to sarcasm very well. “That’s not what I said,” he protested, his voice breaking like a youth’s.

“No, eh?” Joseph said. “It must be what you meant, though. Unless we win a victory like that, what’s the point of attacking Hesmucet at all?”

“You deliberately twist all my words,” Bell said.

“You deliberately twist all my deeds,” Joseph the Gamecock answered. Bell started to say something, but Joseph forestalled him: “Get out of my sight. You make me sick.”

“Sir-” Alexander the Steward began.

But Joseph had no patience for Old Straight, either. “And you,” he said. “King Geoffrey gave me this command to save his kingdom. By the Thunderer’s brass balls, I’m going to do it, too-as long as nobody gets in my way. I am sick to death of people telling me what I can do and what I can’t. I command here, and my orders shall be obeyed, or I’ll know the reason why. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Brigadier Alexander said. “You would sooner do it your way than do it right, if I understand you correctly.”

Maybe he’d thought he would shame Joseph the Gamecock. Maybe he would have, too, at another time. Not now. Now, Joseph just nodded. “That’s exactly right, Brigadier. I’m going to do it my way, and I’ll take my chances. You are dismissed.” He nodded to Roast-Beef William. “You, too.”

He could get rid of his wing commanders, but that didn’t bring him the satisfaction he craved. He’d hardly got back to the house he was using for a headquarters before a sentry stuck his head in to say, “Sir, Count Thraxton has ridden down from Marthasville. He’d speak to you, if you would.”

“Count Thraxton?” Joseph said. “What does he want?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” the sentry answered. “Will you see him, or shall I send him away?”

“I’ll see him.” Joseph had no more desire to see Thraxton than he did some demon from one of the seven hells. As a matter of fact, there had been times during the war when he’d wondered if the Braggart was a demon from one of the seven hells. But he couldn’t send the man away, not when Thraxton served as King Geoffrey’s eyes and ears in Peachtree Province.

“Count Thraxton!” the sentry announced in a loud voice, holding open the farmhouse door.

“Your Grace,” Joseph the Gamecock murmured, bowing to the general who’d commanded the Army of Franklin before him.

“Your Grace,” Thraxton the Braggart replied, returning the bow. Thraxton was tall and lean and sallow, with a face as mournful as a bloodhound’s though much bonier. A grizzled beard covered hollow cheeks; sad eyes peered out from beneath a bramble patch of eyebrows. If he’d ever been happy in all his days, he hadn’t bothered telling his face about it.

Joseph waved him to a chair. “Sit down, your Grace, please.” He didn’t like having Thraxton looming over him like a bad omen. The Braggart folded up, one section at a time, as he sat. Joseph stayed on his feet, pacing back and forth as he asked, “What can I do for you today, General?”

“I have come to tell you, sir, that King Geoffrey is not pleased with your plan to man the forts around Marthasville with Satrap Brown’s militiamen and to move the Army of Franklin away from the city,” Thraxton replied.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Why does he object to it?”

“His Majesty’s view, if I may speak frankly…” Thraxton waited for Joseph to nod. Joseph refused to give him the satisfaction. Thraxton coughed a couple of times-wet, almost consumptive coughs-and went on, “His Majesty is concerned that you intend to retreat away from Marthasville, and to leave the place undefended against the southrons. That is insupportable, both politically and militarily.”

“In the first place, he’s wrong, and, in the second place, he’s wrong,” Joseph said. “If I put my own men in the forts, how can I possibly hope to attack the southrons? With my own force and nothing more, I can defend but I can’t hope to attack.”

“King Geoffrey is less certain of this than you are,” Thraxton declared.

“Well, bully for him,” Joseph said acidly. “I’m here, and he’s over in bloody Nonesuch. Which of us is likely to know better what this army is good for and what it isn’t, do you suppose?”

“His Majesty has other sources of information besides yourself.” Thraxton’s tone was opaque, oracular.

Someone’s been telling tales out of school, was what the Braggart had to mean. As soon as the words were out of Thraxton’s mouth, Joseph the Gamecock could make a pretty good guess who that someone was, too. “Gods damn Lieutenant General Bell to the nastiest hell there is,” he growled.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Count Thraxton said, which was a lie, and a lie made all the more annoying because it was so obvious.

“Oh, I’ll just bet you don’t,” Joseph said.

Thraxton’s narrow shoulders went up and down in a shrug. He had to be dead to shame-he didn’t even care if he got caught out. “It’s beside the point, in any case,” he said. “Here is the point: will you take his Majesty’s advice on how to defend Marthasville, or will you not?”

“Did he set me over the Army of Franklin, or is he in command of it himself?” Joseph asked.

“You command the army,” Thraxton the Braggart answered, and a twist of his thin lips showed how much he wished he still commanded it himself. “You command the army, but Geoffrey rules the kingdom.”

“Fine,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Let him rule the kingdom, then, and I promise not to tell him how to do it-so long as he doesn’t tell me how to command the army. Seems a fair enough bargain to me.”

Count Thraxton’s lips got even thinner and even paler. Joseph hadn’t thought they could. “I doubt King Geoffrey will care for the joke, your Grace,” Thraxton said in frigid tones.

“I wasn’t joking,” Joseph said.

“What a pity,” Count Thraxton replied.

Lieutenant General Bell had just taken a long, grateful gulp of laudanum when his aide-de-camp stuck his head into his farmhouse headquarters. Bell was anything but glad to see Major Zibeon. He’d gone too long without the drug since his quarrel with Joseph the Gamecock; his nerves were jangling, not only from the agony of his wounds but from craving for the potent tonic that salved him. His voice had a bark in it as he demanded, “What now?”

“Sir, Count Thraxton would speak with you,” Zibeon replied.

“Thraxton?” Bell said, and the junior officer nodded. Part of Bell wished he’d waited a little longer to take the laudanum. If he was going to talk with King Geoffrey’s friend-to say nothing of the king’s snoop here in Peachtree Province-he should have had wits as clear as he could make them. But no help for that now. Clear wits or not, he had to see Thraxton. “Send him in.”

“Good day, Lieutenant General,” Thraxton said, his tone and expression suggesting that all good days were no more than figments of other men’s imaginations. “I have just come from speaking with Count Joseph.” His voice got even chillier, no mean feat.

“Good day, your Grace,” Bell said. “Is he ever going to use this army of ours, or is he just going to keep running with it?”

“Ah.” Thraxton leaned forward markedly. “So you would fight the southrons, then, if the Army of Franklin were in your hands?”

“I sure would, sir.” Bell’s wits were clear enough to leave him with no doubts on that score. “We could whip those sons of bitches, if the men only had the chance to do it.”

“You think so, do you?” Thraxton said.

“Sir, I’m sure of it,” Bell replied.

“This is what I had hoped to hear from Joseph the Gamecock,” Thraxton the Braggart said. “It is what King Geoffrey has been hoping to hear from Joseph through this whole campaign. He has not heard it. I did not hear it. That being so, I am authorized to remove Count Joseph from his command here.”

“And?” Bell could say no more than that, and even the one word came out as a breathy whisper.

“And,” Thraxton continued sourly, “to offer the said command to you, Lieutenant General, should you prove willing to accept it.”

For a moment, Bell thought the laudanum had taken effect all at once, instead of gradually as it usually did. Then he realized joy could bring a feeling as intense as distillate of poppy juice. “Your Grace,” he said, “you and his Majesty honor me far beyond my deserts.”

“We had better not,” Count Thraxton answered. “The kingdom needs you to go forward and beat the southrons. We cannot afford delay-we have had altogether too much of delay-and we cannot afford defeat.”

“You may rely on me and on my brave men, sir,” Bell said.

“I do, Lieutenant General. The kingdom does,” Thraxton the Braggart replied. “It is late in the day, I know, to make this change, but King Geoffrey decided it must be made. He sends you his wishes for good fortune, and for a fresh start in driving the noxious foe from our soil.”

When he said fresh start, he hesitated as if the words tasted bad. And, when he said them, Bell saw why he himself had the command and Thraxton did not. Thraxton had already failed with the Army of Franklin. He’d proved he did not have good fortune. Maybe Bell would show he did.

“For the kingdom, sir, I will go forward,” Bell declared. “Have you yet told Joseph the Gamecock he is removed?”

Thraxton shook his head. “I have not. I wanted to be certain you would accept the command before announcing the change.”

“I am glad to accept, proud to accept,” Bell said. “Truly, this is a great day.” He could feel the laudanum now as it worked its familiar magic, building a wall between his mind and spirits and the ravaged body that had to serve them. But, even though the laudanum usually dulled his feelings as well as his feeling, joy still blazed in his heart: an enormous bonfire of delight.

“May it be so.” Count Thraxton didn’t sound as if he believed it. He didn’t sound as if he believed anything. He’s old and worn out, Bell thought. King Geoffrey is right to leave him on the sidelines. The Braggart went on, “Now that you have accepted your new post, shall we give Count Joseph the news?”

A certain gloating anticipation suffused his voice. He doesn’t like Joseph the Gamecock, either, Bell realized. Nobody likes Joseph the Gamecock. King Geoffrey surely doesn’t. But then, nobody save King Geoffrey liked Count Thraxton, either.

“Yes, let’s.” Bell hitched his slow way out of the farmhouse. Thraxton held the door wide for him. “Thanks,” Bell said.

“My pleasure,” Thraxton replied, though his voice suggested that whatever he knew of pleasure came by hearsay.

“Major Zibeon!” Bell called. When his aide-de-camp appeared, he said, “Fetch my unicorn, if you’d be so kind. I have a call to pay on Joseph the Gamecock.”

Zibeon’s eyebrows rose. “Is it that kind of call, sir?”

“It is indeed that kind of call,” Bell answered jubilantly. “By the gods, Major, the southrons have seen the backs of the Army of Franklin for the last time.”

“Congratulations, sir,” his aide-de-camp said. “May everything turn out as well as we hope.”

“A worthy prayer,” Bell said. “May the gods hear it.”

Zibeon hurried away. He returned in short order with Bell’s unicorn. Even with laudanum coursing through Bell, mounting was a painful business. Having his aide-de-camp strap him to the beast so he could stay in the saddle was also a humiliation of sorts. But Count Thraxton said, “Your courage does you credit,” and Lieutenant General Bell felt better.

Dismounting from the unicorn in front of Joseph the Gamecock’s headquarters was harder than getting aboard had been, but Bell managed. Before he and Count Thraxton could go in, Count Joseph came out. He was half a head shorter than either of the men coming to call on him, but in such a transport of fury that he seemed to tower over them. “You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch bastard,” he snarled at Thraxton. “Gods damn you to the hells and gone, you’re here to take my job away, aren’t you?”

“Your Grace, King Geoffrey has authorized me to relieve you of command of the Army of Franklin,” Thraxton replied. “After discussing the matter with him at length, I am utilizing that authorization.”

“Who’s in command?” Joseph asked. “You? Gods help the kingdom if that’s so. You won one battle your whole stinking career, and you futtered that one away afterwards.”

Count Thraxton’s sallow face darkened with anger. “Your successor will be Lieutenant General Bell here.”

Joseph the Gamecock pointed a finger at Bell. “I know what you’re going to do. I know just what you’re going to do. You’re going to take this army and throw it right at the southrons.”

“It’s about time someone got some use out of it, wouldn’t you say?” Bell returned. “The men will enjoy going forward instead of back.”

“I know the other thing you’re going to do, too,” Joseph said. “You’re going to throw this army away. You can’t lick Hesmucet by slugging toe to toe with him. You haven’t got the men for it.”

“If I don’t come out and fight, Marthasville will fall,” Bell said. “The kingdom can’t have that. And the kingdom won’t have it, either. I can drive the southrons back, and I will do it.”

Thraxton the Braggart nodded approval. “This is the spirit on account of which King Geoffrey chose the brilliant Bell as your successor, your Grace,” he told Joseph.

“If he wants spirits, let him go to a tavern,” Joseph the Gamecock snapped.

“Shall I give you a formal written order to turn command of this army over to Lieutenant General Bell?” Thraxton asked.

“Don’t bother wasting the time. You’ve told me. I believe you,” Joseph said. “Gods help our kingdom-but if the gods were paying any attention to us, they wouldn’t have let that idiot of a Geoffrey put this idiot of a Bell in charge of what’s been a perfectly good army up till now.”

In spite of the laudanum coursing through him, Bell glared at Joseph. “Now see here, sir-”

“Oh, shut up,” Joseph told him. “You can’t help being an idiot. You’re a brave man, and you think that’s all there is to being a general. You make a first-rate brigade commander, because then someone with a working brain points you at the enemy and turns you loose. Of course you try to smash everything that’s right in front of you. But for maneuver and coordination and sniffing out what the foe intends?” He shook his head. “You haven’t a clue and you haven’t a prayer.”

“You are dismissed from this encampment, General,” Bell said through clenched teeth. “If I see you around my army after today, I will kill you on sight.”

Joseph the Gamecock bowed. “Always the man of simple-and simpleminded-solutions. You need not fear. Believe me, I want to stay around here no more than you want me in these parts. Do you suppose I want to stay close by while you take the army I built back up after Thraxton here ruined it and go out and wreck it again? I’m going up to Dicon, to wait and see if Geoffrey ever decides he needs to pull me off the shelf again.” He turned his back and strode into the farmhouse, slamming the door behind him.

“Graceless lout,” Count Thraxton muttered.

“He’s retreating again, that’s all.” Bell looked around at the great expanses of tents. “So this is my army now, is it?”

“It is indeed,” Thraxton replied. “If I may make a suggestion, your first order of business should be naming a wing commander to take your own place.”

Bell didn’t want anyone making suggestions now that the Army of Franklin belonged to him. But he had to admit that Thraxton’s made sense. After a little thought-he would be giving the orders now, so who obeyed them didn’t matter so much to him-he said, “Brigadier Benjamin should do the job well enough.”

“There are a couple of officers by that name in this army,” Count Thraxton remarked. “Which of them did you have in mind?”

“Benjamin the Heated Ham, folks call him, on account of what a bad actor he was in the plays at the military collegium at Annasville,” Bell answered. “He’s served under me through this whole campaign, and done right well. Do you know him?”

“I do.” Thraxton’s face froze. Always doleful, he now looked as if his entire family were being massacred in front of his eyes. “The gentleman in question and I… have been known to disagree.”

Since Thraxton the Braggart had been known to disagree with everyone who’d ever had anything to do with him-with the sole, and vital, exception of King Geoffrey-Bell didn’t take that too much to heart. “I’ll make the appointment anyhow, I think,” he said. “He’s brave and he’s steady and he’ll follow orders.”

“You are the commander. You must have the subordinates who suit you.” Now Thraxton looked as if his wife were being ravished before getting the coup de grace. But he didn’t say no, and that was all that really mattered to Bell. Bowing, the Braggart went on, “Now that we have effected the change, I shall withdraw. You know what his Majesty expects of you. Gods grant that you deliver it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bell said. He dipped his head instead of bowing; on two crutches and one leg, the latter was too awkward and painful to contemplate. As Count Thraxton mounted his unicorn, Bell looked around and called, “Runners!”

“Sir!” They hurried up and saluted as they came to attention before him.

“You!” He pointed at one: “Fetch me Roast-Beef William. And you!” He pointed to a second: “Get me Alexander the Steward. And you!” This to a third: “Order Benjamin the Heated Ham to report here at once.”

“Yes, sir!” The three men he’d chosen saluted again and hurried away. When he called, they came; when he pointed, they went. The power was as heady as laudanum.

Once his wing commanders had all come to the headquarters formerly belonging to Joseph the Gamecock, Bell spoke without preamble: “Gentlemen, King Geoffrey has removed Count Joseph from command over the Army of Franklin and set me in his place.”

“Congratulations, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. He was a reliable old war unicorn, and would serve well under whoever commanded him.

“Congratulations indeed,” Alexander the Steward echoed. Old Straight was reliable, too; however much Bell disliked Joseph, he’d picked a fine replacement for the late, unlucky Leonidas the Priest.

“As my first act in command,” Bell went on, “I am pleased to appoint Brigadier Benjamin here to take my place as wing commander.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” Benjamin murmured. “I’ll do my best to live up to your bold example.” He still had a tendency to overact. Since he was flattering Bell, the new commander of the Army of Franklin didn’t take it amiss.

As if on cue, Roast-Beef William asked, “And what will your second act in command be, sir?”

Bell gave a one-word answer: “Attack!”

General Hesmucet eyed the northern prisoner, a thin, dirty man in ragged blue tunic and pantaloons. “This had better be the truth from you,” he growled. “If you’re lying, you’ll end up wishing for the seven hells before you go to ’em.”

“So help me gods,” the prisoner said. “It’s like I told that other southron bastard-Joseph the Gamecock’s out and Bell’s in, sure as I’m standing here.”

“Well, well.” Hesmucet whistled softly. “That’s big news, if it’s true.” He turned to the southrons who had charge of the prisoner. “Keep him by himself. Hang on to him. If he turns out to be telling the truth, we’ll let him loose. If he’s lying…” He slashed his thumb across his throat.

“Yes, sir,” the guards chorused. One of them gave the prisoner a shove. “Come on, you. You heard the general.”

Later that day, a man who still favored King Avram and a united Detina sneaked out of Marthasville and past the traitors’ lines. He not only brought the same news as the prisoner but had a paper to prove it. Hesmucet read Joseph the Gamecock’s farewell order to the Army of Franklin and that of Lieutenant General Bell on assuming command.

“Well, well,” Hesmucet said again, and nodded to his spy. “Thanks very much. This is worth a good deal to me.”

The man eyed him. “I thought you’d be more excited about the news.”

“Who, me? No, I don’t get very excited,” Hesmucet answered-a great, thumping lie if ever there was one. But he didn’t want to discourage the northerner from bringing more news, either, if he got it. “I’ll pay you twenty-in silver.” That made the fellow’s eyes glow-real money was in short supply in King Geoffrey’s dominions, which were trying to get by with printed paper… and were watching prices soar up and up as a result. Hesmucet scribbled a note on a scrap of paper. “Take this to the paymaster, and he’ll see to it.”

“Thank you kindly, sir.” Courtly as most northerners, the spy bowed before going on his way. Hesmucet touched a forefinger to the brim of his hat in reply.

Calling for runners, he ordered them to summon his wing commanders to his headquarters. When they got there, he waved the paper at them and said, “Geoffrey’s sacked Joseph the Gamecock and put Bell in his place.”

“I doubted even Geoffrey would be such a fool,” Lieutenant General George said.

Fighting Joseph beamed at the prospect of no longer moving against his namesake. “Now maybe the traitors won’t scuttle from one line of trenches to the next,” he said. “I want to come to grips with them.”

The last time you came to grips with them, it was at Viziersville, and Duke Edward tore you to pieces, Hesmucet thought. He glanced toward his youngest wing commander. “You were at Annasville with Bell, weren’t you, Brigadier?”

“Yes, sir,” James the Bird’s Eye replied. “I think Fighting Joseph’s right this time.” That made Fighting Joseph preen, as Hesmucet had known it would. James went on, “Bell is courageous in the extreme. No one could ever doubt that.”

“If he weren’t,” Doubting George said, “he wouldn’t keep leaving pieces of himself on one battlefield or another.”

“Er-yes.” James coughed, then went on, “He’s also as bold as you please, bold to the point of rashness.”

Hesmucet grunted. “That matches what I’ve heard about the man myself. So what do you think it means that false King Geoffrey’s removed Joseph the Gamecock and put Bell in charge of the traitors’ army?”

“A fight.” The three wing commanders might have been singing in a chorus.

“I agree,” Hesmucet said. “Joseph sparred with us and held us off and stalled as best he could, and we’ve made it up to Marthasville anyhow. Unless I miss my guess altogether, Geoffrey thinks Bell can drive us away.”

“Proves he’s a fool,” George said.

“We need to warn all our brigade commanders to be ready for anything the traitors may throw at us,” Hesmucet said.

Fighting Joseph struck a pose. “We can lick them. For the sake of the army, for the sake of the kingdom, we shall lick them.”

“Of course we’ll lick them,” Hesmucet said. “If Bell thinks he can dislodge us, he’s foolish or desperate or both. But he has a better chance if he catches us by surprise, and so the warnings will go out.” He gave his unruly wing commander a hard stare. “I trust you don’t object?”

“Oh, no, sir. You go right ahead.” Fighting Joseph’s invincible self-regard armored him against sarcasm.

“Anything else, gentlemen?” General Hesmucet asked. No one said anything. Hesmucet nodded. “All right, then. You’re dismissed-and do spread the word to your brigade commanders. Brigadier James, please stay a bit, if you’d be so kind.”

“Certainly, sir,” James the Bird’s Eye replied. “What have you got in mind?”

“Let’s take a look at the map, and I’ll show you,” Hesmucet answered. He drew his sword to point at the large map spread out on a table. “You’re already on our left wing, farther north and farther west than any of our other formations.”

“Yes, sir.” James grinned. “I like to be at the edge of things-the cutting edge of things, you might say.” He set a hand on the hilt of his own sword.

Hesmucet smiled, too. “I know. That’s why I’ve used your wing so often to flank the traitors out of their positions. I want you to make what’s more or less another flanking move, over to your left again, so that you seize the glideway coming into Marthasville from Julia. Do you think you can do it?”

“I expect I can, sir,” the young wing commander answered. “Only problem I see with the move is that it’s liable to open a gap between my men and Fighting Joseph’s. Do we want to do that when the northerners have a new commander who’s going to be looking for a chance to attack?”

“Hells, yes, we do,” Hesmucet answered without the least hesitation. “The faster Bell comes out of his trenches and fights, if that’s what he intends to do, the happier I’ll be. I’ll give him bait, if he’s fool enough to take it.”

“Ah.” James the Bird’s Eye nodded. “Fair enough, sir.” He eyed the map again, then said, “There is one other drawback to this, you know.”

“Oh, certainly. I see it, too,” Hesmucet said. “He can concentrate his men wherever he does decide to attack, which makes him stronger there than we are.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what I meant,” James said.

“Thought so,” Hesmucet said. “But the other side of that coin is, he’s weakening himself along every other part of his line. And he won’t be the only one doing the attacking. We’ll keep him busy, I promise you.”

“Good, sir. I expected as much.” James the Bird’s Eye grinned, which made him look even younger than he really was. He was tall and handsome and brave, too. Hesmucet, not far past forty himself, felt positively decrepit when he considered his dashing wing commander. “Whatever they do, sir, we’ll deal with them,” James promised.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Hesmucet said. “They had their chance after the battle by the River of Death. They had it, and they bungled it. Now it’s our turn-and, by the gods, I don’t think they can stop us.”

After James the Bird’s Eye had left, Hesmucet went out of his headquarters and stared north toward Marthasville. He could see the city clearly. He could also see the traitors’ lines that still, despite everything, held his men away from the town at which they’d aimed for so long. How much more could Bell stretch his smaller army? He would have to do something to counter James the Bird’s Eye’s next outflanking move.

James expected Bell to attack. And James knew him better than any other southron general-or, at least, better than any other under Hesmucet’s command. Everyone else agreed with the young wing commander, too. “Come ahead,” Hesmucet murmured eagerly. “You come right on ahead.” If Bell obliged him, he wouldn’t complain. No, he wouldn’t complain at all.

He snapped his fingers and called for a runner. Wouldn’t do to make a stupid mistake like that, he thought. Don’t want to let the traitors have an easier time than they ought to.

When the runner returned, he brought Colonel Phineas, puffing, in his wake. Phineas saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” the army’s senior mage said. He took off his hat and used it to fan his round, bald head.

“Good to see you, Colonel,” Hesmucet said. “I’ve just got word that Joseph the Gamecock has been replaced by Lieutenant General Bell at the head of the Army of Franklin.”

“By the gods!” Phineas exclaimed. “Are you certain, sir?”

“It’s in a Marthasville paper. I can’t be much more certain than that,” Hesmucet answered. If I had really good mages working for me, they would have let me know before I found out from a prisoner or a spy, he thought. Perhaps that was unfair; the northerners’ wizards would have been doing everything they could to keep news from leaking out. But only Alva could have hoped to penetrate whatever deceptions they were spreading, and Alva hadn’t thought to look.

Phineas said, “This will probably change the way the campaign is going. Doesn’t Bell have a name for being a more, ah, aggressive fighter than Joseph?”

“That’s exactly why I called you here, Colonel,” Hesmucet said, pleased to see even so much wit from Phineas. “Everyone’s best guess is that there will be an enemy attack, and soon. I suspect the traitors will try to hit us with their magecraft as well as with their soldiers.”

“That does seem very likely, yes, sir,” Phineas agreed.

“I want you to have all your mages on alert, too, to be ready to beat back such assaults,” Hesmucet said. “I have confidence in our crossbowmen and pikemen and unicorn-riders. And I have confidence in the wizards with us.”

Sourly, Colonel Phineas said, “You have confidence in Major Alva, you mean. The rest of us are just here to watch him.”

That was, in large measure, true. Even so, Hesmucet shook his head. Phineas and the other southron wizards did have some use, and disheartening them would make that less true. The commanding general said, “Major Alva will be busy, but so will the rest of you.”

“To fetch and carry for him.” Yes, Phineas was sour, all right.

Hesmucet shook his head. “By no means, Colonel. Major Alva is best at striking back against the traitors. The rest of you will keep them from striking at us. He is sword, you are shield. We need both.”

“Hmm.” Phineas considered that. “Very well, sir. You may rest assured that all of us-and I mean all — will do everything in our power for the kingdom.”

“Thank you,” Hesmucet said. Phineas’ feathers remained ruffled, but perhaps not so much now. Hesmucet waved toward the north. “We can see Marthasville from where we stand. We had better not let it slip through our fingers now.”

“I could hardly disagree with that, sir.” Phineas bowed stiffly. “We shall give you what you require, to the best of our ability.”

“Can’t ask for more than that.” Hesmucet clapped the tubby wizard on the shoulder. “Let all the men who share your art learn what I want of them.”

“Yes, sir,” Phineas said. “We’ll do everything we can, sir.”

“I know that. I’ve known that all along.” Hesmucet clapped the mage on the back again, hard enough to stagger him this time. Without Alva, it wouldn’t be enough, Hesmucet thought. When we didn’t have Alva, the traitors’ wizards always got the drop on us. Well, no more, by the gods.

Phineas made more promises that he and his sorcerous colleagues might or might not prove able to live up to. Hesmucet made more polite protestations that he didn’t really mean. At last, with what seemed like relief, Phineas decamped. With what Hesmucet knew to be relief, he watched the wizard waddle away.

He looked toward Marthasville once more. One thing at a time, he thought. Let James the Bird’s Eye get a solid stranglehold on the glideway line to Julia. Then I’ll send Doubting George over Goober Creek. If we can lick the northerners there, we ought to be able to bring our engines up close enough to start flinging stones and firepots into Marthasville itself.

He didn’t want the fight for the city to come down to a siege. He wanted to storm in and take the place away from the Army of Franklin. He was by nature almost as much an attacker as Lieutenant General Bell over on the other side, and Joseph the Gamecock’s delaying campaign had left him badly frustrated. But what he wanted most of all was Marthasville. How he got it didn’t really matter. If he had to starve the traitors into yielding, he would do that.

He wasn’t sorry to see Joseph the Gamecock go. Joseph had been like one skilled swordsman holding off two as he retreated down a long, narrow corridor. He hadn’t let them get past him, not even once; to do so would have been fatal. Now Bell would try to come up the corridor against the same two swordsmen, or so everyone assumed.

“Let him come,” Hesmucet murmured again. He wasn’t a particularly pious man, nor one to send up prayers to the gods at any excuse. The gods, he’d always reckoned, would do as they pleased, and let people pick up the pieces as best they could. This time, though, the general commanding doffed his hat and looked up to the mountain beyond the sky. “Please, Thunderer; please, Lion God. Let him come.”

He got no immediate answer to his petition. He’d expected none. No Detinan had seen a heavenly choir in years. Even so, looking north once more, he doubted he would have long to wait before finding out whether the gods were listening.