Sentry Peak

VIII

Peering down into Rising Rock from the height of Sentry Peak, Earl James of Broadpath grunted in dissatisfaction. He turned to the officer commanding one of the regiments holding Sentry Peak for King Geoffrey. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Major…?”

“Thersites, sir,” the officer replied. He was an ugly customer, and would probably be dangerous in a fight.

“Major Thersites, yes.” James nodded. “Correct me if I’m wrong, as I say, but doesn’t it look to you as if the stinking southrons are bringing more and more men into Rising Rock?”

“It surely does, your Excellency,” Thersites said. “I’ve been telling that to anybody who’d listen, but nobody cares to listen to the likes of me. If you don’t have blue blood, if you’re from Palmetto Province instead of Parthenia…”

James of Broadpath did have blue blood, but he was from Palmetto Province, too. Sure enough, the Parthenians looked down their noses at everybody else. He said, “Count Thraxton will hear about this. I’ll make sure Thraxton hears about it.” He liked saying I told you so as much as any other man.

“Is it true what they say about Thraxton and Ned?” Major Thersites asked.

“To the seven hells with me if I know,” James answered. He told the truth: neither Ned of the Forest nor the commanding general of the Army of Franklin was saying much about whatever had passed between them. Rumor, though, rumor blew faster and stronger than the wind. But James was not about to gossip with a lowly major he barely knew.

Thersites said, “Anybody wants to know what I think, I wish Ned would’ve cut his liver out and fed it to the Lion God. Maybe then we’d get ourselves a general with some notion of what in the hells he was doing.”

“Maybe,” James said, and said no more. He’d learned his discipline in the stern school of Duke Edward of Arlington. No matter how much he agreed with this regimental commander, he wouldn’t show it. In fact… “If you’ll excuse me…” He bowed and started down the northern slope of Sentry Peak, the less steep slope that faced away from Rising Rock.

A puffing runner met him while he was still halfway up the mountain. “Your Excellency, you are ordered to Count Thraxton’s headquarters over by Proselytizers’ Rise as fast as you can get there.”

“Oh, I am, am I?” Earl James wondered what sorts of plots and counterplots were sweeping through Thraxton’s army now, and what the commanding general wanted him to do about them. Cautiously, he asked, “Why?”

“Because…” The messenger paused to draw in a deep, portentous breath. “Because King Geoffrey’s there, your Excellency. He’s come east from Nonesuch to find out what the hells is going on here.”

“Has he?” James said. He’d been with the Army of Franklin for three weeks now, and he wondered about that himself. But regardless of what he wondered, only one answer was possible, and he gave it: “I’ll come directly, of course.”

He hurried down the mountain, so that he was bathed in sweat when he got to flatter ground. Heaving his bulk up onto the sturdy unicorn that bore him, he booted the beast into a gallop as he went off toward the southwest.

The unicorn was blowing hard when he reined in beside the farmhouse from which Thraxton led the army. He hadn’t made the acquaintance of the sentry who took charge of the beast. After a moment, he realized why. He’s not one of Thraxton’s men. He’s one of the king’s bodyguards.

“Go on in, your Excellency,” the sentry said. “You’re expected.” James nodded. What would have happened to him had he not been expected? Nothing good, most likely.

As he started for the farmhouse, Leonidas the Priest rode up, gaudy in his crimson ceremonial robes. Leonidas waved to him and called, “Now, if the Lion God so grant, we shall at last see justice done.”

James of Broadpath cared less than he might have about justice. Victory mattered more to him. He just nodded to Leonidas the Priest and strode into the farmhouse. Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill waited there. So did Count Thraxton. And so, sure enough, did King Geoffrey. Careless of his pantaloons, James dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Your Majesty,” he murmured.

“Arise, your Excellency,” Geoffrey said. His voice was light and true. Like his cousin and rival king, Avram, he was tall and thin as a whip. There the resemblance ended. Avram looked like a bumpkin, a commoner, a railsplitter. Geoffrey was every inch the aristocrat, with sculptured features, a firm gaze, and a neatly trimmed beard than ran under but not on his chin. As James got to his feet, Leonidas the Priest came in and bowed low to the king: he went to his knees only before his god. Geoffrey nodded to him, then spoke in tones of decision: “Now that we are met here, let us get to the bottom of this, and let us do it quickly.”

Count Thraxton looked as if he’d just taken a big bite from bread spread with rancid butter. “Your Majesty, I still feel your visit here is altogether unnecessary. This army has done quite well as things stand.”

“I know how you feel, your Grace,” Geoffrey said. He was not normally a man to care much for the feelings of others, but Thraxton was a longtime friend of his. Nevertheless, having made up his mind, he went ahead; he was nothing if not stubborn. “I have had a number of complaints from these officers here” -he waved to James, Leonidas, and Dan- “and also from several brigadiers about the way the Army of Franklin has been led since the fight at the River of Death. As I told Earl James, for the sake of the kingdom I intend to get to the bottom of these complaints, and to set the army on a sound footing for defeating the southrons.”

“Very well, your Majesty.” Thraxton still looked revolted, but he couldn’t tell King Geoffrey what to do and what not to do.

Geoffrey swung his gaze from the unhappy Thraxton to the Army of Franklin’s subordinate-and insubordinate-generals, who were just as unhappy for different reasons. “Well, gentlemen?” the king asked. “What say you? Is Count Thraxton fit to remain in command of this host, or is he not?”

James of Broadpath blinked. He’d never expected King Geoffrey to be so blunt. Geoffrey was a good man, a clever man, a brave man, an admirable man… but not a warm man, not a man to make people love him. James could see why. Avram would have handled things more deftly-but Avram wanted to wreck the foundations upon which the northern provinces were built. And so James, like the rest of the north, had no choice but to follow Geoffrey.

And, like Leonidas the Priest and Dan of Rabbit Hill, he had no choice but to answer Geoffrey’s question. Leonidas spoke first: “Your Majesty, in my view you must make a change. Count Thraxton has shown he has no respect for the gods, and so we cannot possibly expect the gods to show him any favor.”

“I agree with the hierophant, though for different reasons,” James of Broadpath said. I must not hang back, he thought. As the king said, it’s for the kingdom’s sake. “Once we beat the southrons, we should have made a proper pursuit. We should have flanked them out of Rising Rock instead of chasing them back into the town and letting them stand siege there-not that it’s a proper siege, since we don’t surround them and since they keep bringing in reinforcements.”

“They have a demon of a time doing it,” Thraxton broke in, “and they will have an even harder time keeping all those men fed.”

“They never should have had the chance to get them into Rising Rock in the first place,” James returned, his temper kindling.

King Geoffrey held up a slim hand. “Enough of this bickering. Too much of this bickering, in fact. And I have not yet heard from Baron Dan. How say you, your Excellency?”

“Oh, I agree with Leonidas and James here,” Dan of Rabbit Hill replied without hesitation. “An army is only as good as its head. With Thraxton in charge of the Army of Franklin, we might as well not have a head.”

Thraxton glared. Dan glared back. James wondered whether, in all the history of the world, a commanding general had ever had to listen to his three chief lieutenants tell his sovereign that he wasn’t fit to hold the post in which that sovereign had set him.

By King Geoffrey’s expression, he hadn’t expected those chief lieutenants to be quite so forthright, either. But he could only go forward now. “Very well, gentlemen,” he said. “You tell me Count Thraxton does not suit you. To whom, then, should command of this army go?”

Again, Baron Dan didn’t hesitate: “The best man this army could possibly have at its head is Duke Edward of Arlington.”

Well, that’s true enough, James thought. He’d asked James of Seddon Dun for Duke Edward himself. Edward was the best man any Detinan army, northern or southron, could possibly have at its head. King Avram had thought so, too. He’d offered the duke command of the southron armies as the war began. But Edward, like most northerners, had chosen Geoffrey as his sovereign, and had been making the southrons regret it ever since.

King Geoffrey knew exactly what he had in Duke Edward. He didn’t hesitate, either, but shook his head at once. “No,” he said. “I rely on Edward to hold the southrons away from Nonesuch.”

Dan of Rabbit Hill had to bow to that. But, as he bowed, he muttered under his breath, loud enough for James to hear: “If we hang on to Nonesuch and nothing else, we’ve still lost the stinking war.”

The king, perhaps fortunately, didn’t hear him. “Earl James,” Geoffrey said, “perhaps you have another candidate in mind?”

“Perhaps I do, your Majesty,” James of Broadpath said. “If you cannot spare Duke Edward from the west, Marquis Joseph the Gamecock might do very well here. The kingdom has not got all the service it might have from him since he was wounded last year and Duke Edward took charge of the Army of Southern Parthenia. He’s a brave and skillful soldier, and I happen to know he is quite recovered from his wound.”

King Geoffrey was not a warmhearted man-that had already occurred to James. But the icy stare the king gave him now put him in mind of a blizzard down by the Five Lakes country. As Geoffrey had once before, he said, “No,” again, this time even more emphatically. “Whatever Marquis Joseph’s soldierly qualities-and I do not choose to debate them with you-he does not hold my trust. He who names him again does so on pain of my displeasure.”

Like Dan of Rabbit Hill, Earl James bowed his head. He knew too well why the king and Marquis Joseph didn’t get along. Joseph had the habit of telling the truth as he saw it. Such men did not endear themselves to princes.

“Holy sir, have you a suggestion?” Geoffrey asked Leonidas the Priest.

“Either of the men my comrades named would improve this army,” Leonidas replied, drawing another black look from Count Thraxton. Ignoring it, he went on, “If, however, they will not do, you could also do worse than Marquis Peegeetee of Goodlook.”

But, once again, King Geoffrey shook his head. “All the objections pertaining to Marquis Joseph also pertain to him in equal force. And he is better at making plans than at carrying them to fruition.”

That held some truth. Marquis Peegeetee had seized a fort in Karlsburg harbor, a blow that marked the formal break between King Geoffrey and King Avram. Between them, he and Marquis Joseph had won the first battle at Cow Jog, down in southern Parthenia. Since then, though, his luck had been less good. Even so, James would have preferred him to Count Thraxton. James, by then, would have preferred a unicorn in command to Thraxton.

King Geoffrey said, “General Pembert is a skilled soldier, and available for service here.”

That produced as much horror in the generals as their suggestions had in the king. “He’s not even a proper northern man!” Leonidas exclaimed, which was true-Pembert came from the south, but had married a Parthenian girl, and had chosen Geoffrey over Avram perhaps because of that.

“He surrendered the last fortress we held along the Great River, your Majesty,” James added. “He hauled down the red dragon and gave the place to General Bart.”

“He was forced to yield by long siege,” the king said. “In his unhappy situation, who could have done better?”

“Your Majesty, I’m sorry, but you can’t pretty it up like that,” Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill said. “If you put General Pembert in charge of the Army of Franklin, my guess is that the soldiers will mutiny against him.”

Geoffrey glared. No king ever cared to hear that he couldn’t do what he wanted to do. His mouth a thin, hard line, Geoffrey said, “I cannot accept the men your officers proposed to head this army, and it seems the officer I named does not suit you. That being so, I find myself left with no choice but to sustain Count Thraxton here in command of this force.”

Leonidas the Priest came out with something James of Broadpath had not expected to hear from a hierophant. “I thank you, your Majesty,” Count Thraxton said quietly.

“You’re welcome, my friend,” King Geoffrey replied. If Thraxton weren’t his friend, he’d be heading into the retirement he deserves, James thought. But the king hadn’t finished: “Since you remain in command, I also confirm your dismissal of your wing commanders.”

Leonidas said something even more pungent than he had before. Dan of Rabbit Hill threw his hands in the air in disgust. Geoffrey’s decision there followed logically from the one that had just gone before. Even so, Earl James was moved to say, “Your Majesty, I hope you won’t regret this.”

Geoffrey stared at him out of eyes as opaque and unblinking as a dragon’s. “I never regret anything,” the king said.

Having had King Geoffrey sustain him, Count Thraxton should have felt relief and pride. Try as he would, though, he could muster up no more than a shadow of either emotion. What filled him most of all was overwhelming weariness. I have fought so hard for this kingdom, he thought dolefully, fought so hard, and for what? Why, only to see the men I led to victory turn on me and stab me in the back.

Even dismissing Leonidas and Dan brought scant satisfaction. As he strode through the front room of his farmhouse headquarters, candlelight made his shadow swoop and slink after him, as if it too were not to be trusted when his back was turned.

He sighed and scowled and sat down at the rickety table that did duty for a desk. His shadow also sat, and behaved itself. He found himself actually letting out a small sigh of relief at that. When his shadow didn’t leap about the room like a wild thing, it reminded him ever so much less of Ned of the Forest.

He ground his teeth, loud enough to be plainly audible, hard enough to hurt. Why in the name of the gods hadn’t he done more when that backwoods savage stormed in here, fire in his eye and murder in his heart? Thraxton was no coward; no man who’d ever seen him fight would claim he was. No, he was no coward, but there for a few dreadful minutes he’d been thoroughly cowed.

But he was still the commanding general, and thanks to King Geoffrey he would go on holding that post. And, if Ned had briefly cowed him, he didn’t have to keep the man around to remind himself of his humiliation. He inked a pen and began to write.

Headquarters, Army ofFranklin, Proselytizers’ Rise. The familiar formula helped steady him, helped ease the perpetual griping pain in his belly. Count Thraxton to King Geoffrey of Detina. Your Majesty: Some weeks since I forwarded an application from Ned of the forest for a transfer to theGreatRiver for special service. At that time I withheld my approval, because I deemed the services of that distinguished soldier necessary with this army.

After looking at what he’d written, he slowly shook his head. By the gods, what a liar I am! went through his mind. All he wanted was to get Ned of the Forest as far away from him as he could, and to do it as fast as he could. If that meant telling polite lies, tell polite lies he would. He would do almost anything never again to have to face the murder in Ned’s eyes.

Pen scritching across paper, he resumed: As that request can now be granted without injury to the public interests in this quarter, I respectfully ask that the transfer be made at this time. I am, your Majesty, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Count Thraxton, general commanding.

There. It was done. He sprinkled fine sand over the ink to dry it, then folded the letter and sealed it with his signet ring. Once the wax was dry, he called for a runner. Handing the young man the letter, he said, “Take this to the king at once.”

“Yes, sir,” the runner said, and hurried away. He asked no questions. That was as well, for Thraxton knew he had few answers.

If he went over to the crest of Proselytizers’ Rise-not a long journey at all, less than a mile from this farmhouse-he could look down into Rising Rock and see the scores, the hundreds, of fires of the southron soldiers encamped there. James of Broadpath’s words came back to haunt him. You wanted to chase Guildenstern out of Rising Rock, and you ended up chasing him into it instead.

Thraxton stepped outside and stared up at the stars. A mosquito bit him on the neck. Absently, hardly noticing what he was doing, he cursed the buzzing pest. The curse he chose might have slain an unwarded man. Used against a mosquito… The bug, which was flying off, burst into flame as if it were a firefly. But fireflies burned without consuming themselves. The mosquito’s whole substance went into the fire, and it abruptly ceased to be.

If only I could do to the southrons what I did to the mosquito. But the men who followed King Avram were warded, worse luck. He’d managed to break through those wards and cast confusion into General Guildenstern’s mind, but the effort had left him all but prostrated. And, because he did break through, the Army of Franklin had won the fight by the River of Death. But the effort winning took had left the army all but prostrated, too. Everyone who called for a hard, fierce pursuit of the southrons conveniently failed to notice that.

You swore an oath you would take back Rising Rock. You swore an oath you would chase the southrons all the way out of the province of Franklin. That didn’t look like happening any time soon.

Now, in the recesses of his mind, the caverns where insults and reproaches lay unforgotten, Ned of the Forest fleered at him once more: not this latest outburst, but the one back in Rising Rock. Thraxton knew plenty of men called him the Braggart, but few had the nerve to do it to his face.

Thraxton looked up at the stars again. I did everything I could, he thought. He’d had one man in four killed or wounded in the latest battle; the River of Death had lived up to its name. How could he pursue after that?

“I couldn’t,” he muttered, drawing a curious look from a sentry. Fortunately, the man had the sense to ask no questions.

But Thraxton held his thoughts to himself. They want me to get east of the southrons, to slip between them and their supply base at Ramblerton. How can I do that when the army has no bridges to cross theFranklinRiver? If I send men across at the fords and the river rises-as it might, after any thunderstorm-they’ll be cut off from any hope of aid. Can people see that? It doesn’t seem so.

He went back into the farmhouse, took off his boots, and lay down on the iron-framed cot that did duty for a bed: the softer one the farmer who’d abandoned the place left behind had proved full of vermin, and they, like the southrons, showed a higher degree of immunity to his spells than he would have liked.

Most of the bugs, unlike most of the southrons, were finally deceased. The ones that survived didn’t bother Thraxton much. Even so, sleep was a long time coming. He knew as well as his fractious generals that he might have got more from the fight by the River of Death, and knowing that ate at him no less than it ate at them. They were full of bright ideas. He didn’t think any of their bright ideas would work. Unfortunately, he’d come up with no bright ideas of his own. That left him… sleepless on a hard cot near Proselytizers’ Rise, when he’d hoped to go back into Rising Rock in triumph.

When sleep did come, it did a better job of ambushing him than he’d done of catching the southrons unaware as they pushed into Peachtree Province. He woke with a feeling of deep surprise, almost of betrayal: what else might his body do to him while he wasn’t looking?

He broke his fast with a couple of hard rolls and a cup of rather nasty tea. Southron galleys prowled outside the ports of the north, those that hadn’t fallen to King Avram’s men. Getting indigo out, getting proper tea in, grew harder month by month.

Count Thraxton had just finished his abstemious meal when a runner came in and said, “Your Grace, the king will see you now.”

“Very good.” Thraxton got to his feet. “I’ll come.” Only after he’d got moving did he reflect on the absurdity of that. If King Geoffrey wanted him to come, of course he would. He had no business speaking as if he were doing his sovereign a favor. He’d been commanding the Army of Franklin a long time; maybe he’d got used to the idea of having no one around of rank higher than his.

He ducked his way into the pavilion he’d had run up for the king. Dropping to one knee, he murmured, “Your Majesty.”

“Arise, old friend,” Geoffrey said. Thraxton straightened. The king seemed in a mood to put aside some of the formality of his office. He waved Thraxton to a stool and sat down on another one himself, though he sat very straight, as if his back pained him. “What can I do to help you win back Franklin?”

“Give my army another wing the size of James of Broadpath’s,” Thraxton replied without the least hesitation. “Give me the unicorn-riders and siege train and artisans that go with such a force. If I had them, I would sweep the southrons from this province as a cleaning wench sweeps dust from a parquet floor.”

“If I had such men, I would give them with both hands,” King Geoffrey replied. “I have them not, I fear. To give you Earl James and his followers, I had to rob Duke Edward in Parthenia and pray the southrons would stay quiet. We are… stretched very thin these days, you know.”

“Yes.” Thraxton’s doleful nod matched his doleful countenance. “You do know, however, that the southrons have sent reinforcements into Rising Rock?”

“I know it,” Geoffrey said. “The more men they have there, the faster they will starve. So I hope, at any rate.”

“Indeed.” Thraxton nodded again, this time in more willing agreement. “We have our hand on their windpipe to the east of here. I will do everything I can to squeeze it shut.” Maybe I’ll parade through the streets of Rising Rock yet. Maybe.

King Geoffrey nodded, too. “Good. May the gods favor our cause, then. Now… I shall transfer Ned of the Forest to the vicinity of the Great River, as you ask. I gather the two of you have known a certain amount of friction trying to work together.”

“You might say so, yes.” Thraxton remembered Ned’s index finger stabbing at his face like the point of a sword.

“Very well. I was given to understand as much.” Geoffrey paused, looking thoughtful. He’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, Thraxton thought; he needed no magecraft to realize as much. And, sure enough, the king went on, “In his own way, Ned is valuable to the kingdom. I understand why he needs to leave this army, but I would not have him leave while feeling ill-used. That being so, I intend to promote him from brigadier to lieutenant general before sending him east toward the Great River.”

“You will of course do as you please in this regard,” Thraxton said woodenly. “If it were up to me…” If it were up to me, Ned of theForest would face the worst of the seven hells before I finally let him die. But he couldn’t very well tell that to King Geoffrey, not after what the king had just told him.

“Sometimes these things can’t be helped,” Geoffrey said. “Winning the war comes first. If we do not win the war, all our petty quarrels crash to the ground along with all our hopes. Do you want to live in a world where our serfs are made into our liege lords?”

“No, by the gods,” Thraxton replied, as he had to. And he told the truth. But he didn’t care to live in a world where Ned of the Forest was allowed to prosper, either.

“I’m glad that’s settled, then,” the king said. It wasn’t settled-it was a long way from settled-as far as Count Thraxton was concerned. But, though Geoffrey was his friend, Geoffrey was also his sovereign. He couldn’t say what lay in his heart. His stomach twinged painfully. Of itself, his left hand rubbed at his belly. So far as he could tell, that did no good at all, but sorcery and medicine had failed him, too. Geoffrey went on, “Having dismissed Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas, with whom do you intend to replace them? You will need men you can trust.”

“Indeed, your Majesty,” Thraxton said, in lieu of laughing in King Geoffrey’s face. Men he trusted were few and far between. When he thought about how many men put under his command had shamelessly betrayed him, he found it altogether unsurprising that that should be so.

“What do you say to Roast-Beef William, then?” Geoffrey asked.

Count Thraxton stroked his graying beard. The year before, he and Roast-Beef William had commanded armies moving more or less together down into Cloviston, toward the Highlow River. They’d had to come back to the north after accomplishing less than Thraxton would have liked, but he’d got on with the other general about as well as he got on with anyone: faint praise, perhaps, but better than no praise at all.

Geoffrey could have proposed many worse choices. If Thraxton hesitated much more, perhaps Geoffrey would propose somebody worse. And so he nodded. “Yes, your Majesty, I think he would suit me.”

“Good,” Geoffrey said. “I think his appetite for fighting matches his appetite for large slabs of red, dripping meat.”

“Er-yes.” Thraxton wondered if he’d made a mistake. He would, from time to time, have to eat with his wing commanders. His own appetite was abstemious. Having to watch Roast-Beef William demolish a significant fraction of a cow at suppertime would do nothing to improve it. The sacrifices I make for the kingdom.

“All right, then.” The king seemed to tick off another item on his agenda. “You may choose your second wing commander in your own good time. Getting one man named, though, is important.”

“As you say, your Majesty. Is there anything more?” As far as Thraxton was concerned, there’d been quite enough already.

But King Geoffrey nodded. “It is essential that you drive the southrons from as much of Franklin as you possibly can. Essential, I say. We should be hard pressed to make a kingdom without this province.”

“I understand.” Count Thraxton made himself nod. Making himself smile was beyond him. “I shall do everything as I can to carry out your wishes, your Majesty. Without more men, though…” The king glared at him so fiercely, he had to fall silent. But if the north could not get more men where they were needed most, how was it to make any sort of kingdom, with or without Franklin?

General Bart was not a happy man as the glideway brought him into Adlai, the town in southern Dothan Province closest to Rising Rock. He wasn’t happy that King Avram had had to send him to Rising Rock to repair matters after General Guildenstern met disaster by the River of Death, and he was in physical pain. A few days before, up in the steaming subtropical heat of Old Capet, General Nat the Banker had lent him a particularly spirited unicorn, and he’d taken a bad fall. His whole right side was still a mass of bruises. He could ride again, but walking remained a torment.

His aide, a hatchet-faced young colonel named Horace, strode onto the glideway carpet and said, “Sir, we’re in luck-General Guildenstern is here in Adlai, on his way south after King Avram recalled him.”

“Is he, your Grace?” Bart said, and Colonel Horace nodded. Horace was a duke’s son. That amused Bart, whose father had been a tanner. He knew he took perhaps more pride than he should at giving nobles orders; in the south, what a man could do counted for at least as much as who his father was. That was much less true in the north, where the nobles’ broad estates gave them enormous power in the land.

“He would speak to you, sir, if you care to speak to him,” Horace said.

“Of course I will,” Bart answered. “I wish I hadn’t had to make this trip, and I expect he wishes the same thing even more than I do. It’s good of him to want to talk to me at all, and not to spit in my eye.”

Colonel Horace contemplated that. “Sometimes, sir, I think you’re a little too good at seeing the other fellow’s point of view.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Bart shrugged, which hurt. “Don’t forget, Colonel, I went to the officers’ collegium with these other fellows and served alongside ’em-our officers and the ones who chose Geoffrey. Knowing how the other fellow thinks is a big help in this business.”

“If you say so, sir.” To Colonel Horace, everything that had to do with fighting was simple. You found the enemy, and then you went out and hit him. As far as Bart was concerned, that made him an excellent subordinate and would have made him a very dangerous commander.

“I do say so,” Bart replied. “Well, if Guildenstern wants to talk to me, I’m glad to talk to him, as I say. Bring him aboard.”

“Yes, sir.” His aide’s salute was as precise as if it came straight from a manufactory. Colonel Horace stalked off the glideway carpet, returning a couple of minutes later with the general formerly in command at Rising Rock.

A cloud of brandy fumes preceded and accompanied Guildenstern. General Bart felt more than a little sympathy for his fellow southron officer. He was fond of spirits himself; there had been times in his life when he’d shown himself much too fond of spirits. He fought shy of them these days for just that reason.

General Guildenstern gave him a sloppy salute. “Here you are, sir. I hope you lick the gods-damned traitors right out of their boots.”

“I hope I do, too,” Bart said. “I wish I didn’t have to try it in the wake of your defeat, General.”

“So do I, gods damn it. So do I.” Guildenstern wore a flask on his belt. He liberated it and took a long, healthy swig, then extended it to Bart. “Want a nip?”

Bart’s face froze. He was not a big man, nor a particularly impressive one, save that, when he chose, he could make his eyes extraordinarily cold and bleak. A man seeing him when such a mood took him was well advised to give way, for Bart never would. He’d got more through dogged persistence than other, cleverer, generals had from military genius.

That cold, dark stare got through even to Guildenstern, already elevated from brandy though he was. Smiling a placating smile, he said, “Er, well, maybe not,” and put the flask away in a hurry.

“Tell me of your dispositions,” was all Bart said.

“My disposition? By the Thunderer’s prick, it’s not all it might be,” Guildenstern said, and guffawed. Bart didn’t, and that cold, intent look never left his face. General Guildenstern’s chuckles died away to uneasy silence. At last, he asked, “Have you got a map of Rising Rock and the surrounding country, General?”

“I do.” Bart pulled one from a red leather folder.

“All right, then.” Brandy fumes or no, Guildenstern settled down to business and showed Bart where his men were posted and where Thraxton the Braggart’s lines ran.

“Pity you let them take Sentry Peak,” Bart said. “The top is a prime observation post, and engines on the forward slope can reach south across the Franklin River and just about into Rising Rock.”

“I would be a liar if I said I was very happy about that myself, sir,” Guildenstern replied. “Still and all, though, there are several things you might do, there and elsewhere, to shore up your lines.” Tracing ideas out with his finger, he showed Bart what he meant.

“Those are all good notions,” Bart said when he was through. He meant it; he was not and never had been a man to whom hypocrisy came naturally. All the same, he fixed Guildenstern with that piercing glance once more. “Yes, they’re excellent notions. Why didn’t you use them yourself, instead of saving them up to give them to me?”

Guildenstern stared. He opened his mouth, but not a word emerged. Slowly and deliberately, without any fuss, General Bart put the map back in its folder. By the time he’d stowed the folder in amongst his baggage, Guildenstern found his power of speech once more: “What I did or didn’t do doesn’t matter, not any more. I’m off to the south, along with Thom and Alexander and Negley. Negley can go back to his flowers. The rest of us… If we’re lucky, King Avram will send us out to the eastern steppe and let us chase louse-ridden blond nomads for the rest of the war. If we’re lucky, I say.”

The brandy he’d taken on no doubt helped fuel his self-pity. With a sigh, Bart said, “You could expect better, General, if the four of you hadn’t left the field before the fight was over.”

“We got swept away in the rout,” Guildenstern said hotly. “The whole fornicating army got swept away in the rout. That’s what makes a rout, the whole fornicating army getting swept away.”

“Lieutenant General George didn’t,” Bart pointed out. “If he had, if the traitors had pushed him off Merkle’s Hill, none of you would have come back safe to Rising Rock.”

“To the seven hells with Doubting George!” Guildenstern cried, and stormed away.

General Bart started to go after him, then checked himself. He could understand why Guildenstern was angry and upset. Doubting George had had to fall back from the River of Death, but he’d done it with his chunk of the army in good order, and after fighting Thraxton’s men to a standstill. Guildenstern and the other high-ranking officers had left too soon, and they would have to pay the price for the rest of their careers, if not for the rest of their lives.

When morning came, Bart set out for Rising Rock himself. He didn’t go by glideway, not when the traitors could reach the line into town with their engines. He had to ride a unicorn for those last thirty miles or so. It was one of the less pleasant journeys of his life, since the bruises he’d taken in the fall up north were far from healed; his whole right side, from ankle to shoulder, was black and yellow and purple and, here and there, green.

Worse still, the road between Adlai and Rising Rock hardly deserved the name. It was rough and narrow, and flanked by broken-down wagons and the scrawny carcasses of asses and unicorns. Getting supplies into Rising Rock wasn’t easy. Every so often, the officers with Bart had to dismount and lead their unicorns up and down gullies too steep for riding. When they did, they had to put Bart in a litter and carry him till the going got better. He could ride, though it hurt. He wasn’t up to much in the way of walking, even with a stick in each hand.

To Colonel Horace, he said, “It’s a good thing Thraxton hasn’t got unicorn-riders out prowling in these parts. I can’t run away, and I can’t fight, either.”

“Is it true that Ned of the Forest has gone off to fight somewhere else?” By Horace’s tone, the aide expected the northern officer to come charging out of the trees if it weren’t true.

“I believe it is,” Bart answered from the embarrassing comfort of the litter. “I’ve seen the same reports you have, Colonel. Unless the northerners are bluffing us, he’s gone. I hope he is. He caused me endless grief over by the Great River last winter, and I’d just as soon not have to cope with his marauders again.”

He got into Rising Rock just after nightfall, and after surviving a challenge from nervous southron sentries. He was glad to get past the men from his own side. More than one general in this fight had already fallen victim to crossbow bolts from soldiers mistaking their own commanders for the foe.

Lieutenant General George greeted him in front of the hostel that had been General Guildenstern’s headquarters, and before him Count Thraxton’s. “Good to see you, sir,” George said, saluting. “I know we’re in good hands now.”

“Thanks,” Bart replied, slowly and painfully dismounting and then reaching for the sticks he’d tied behind the saddle. “It’s mighty fine to see you here, George, speaking of good hands.” He’d always had a high regard for the lieutenant general, higher than he’d felt for Guildenstern even before the battle by the River of Death.

“Come in, come in,” Doubting George said now. “There’s a capon waiting for you, and a nice, soft bed. I can see by the way you’re standing that you could use one. How do you feel?”

“I’ve been better,” Bart admitted. “But food and sleep and maybe a long, hot soak between one and the other would go a long way toward setting me right.”

After supper, one of the blond maidservants at the hostel offered to scrub his back in the tub and take care of anything else he had in mind. “General Guildenstern, he liked me fine,” she boasted.

“I can see why,” Bart answered; she was pretty and shapely. “But my lady down in the south wouldn’t be happy if I spread it around, so I don’t.”

With a shrug, she answered, “That other fellow had a lady down south somewheres, too, but it didn’t bother him none.”

From everything Bart had heard about Guildenstern, that left him unsurprised. “Well, it bothers me,” he said, and then, “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone else who’d want to be friendly with you.”

“Oh, so am I,” she answered with a good-looking woman’s certainty. “Still and all, though, I was on top before, and I was hoping to stay on top now that you’re here.” She shrugged again. “Well, if nobody’s on top, I guess taking a step or two down won’t be so bad.” She strode out of the bathroom, waggling her hips a little to show him what he was missing. He laughed, although, being a polite man, he held off till she’d closed the door after her. Who would have thought serving girls ranked themselves by which generals they’d slept with?

Sleeping alone suited him just fine that evening. He felt much more nearly himself when he got up the next morning. After breakfast, Doubting George asked him, “Would you care to ride out and see some of the line we set up after we came back here to Rising Rock?”

“Can’t think of a solitary thing I’d like better,” Bart replied, even if he didn’t look forward to the process of climbing up onto unicornback again. “If you don’t get a good look at the ground with your own eyes, you’ll never understand everything you might do.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” George said. They nodded to each other. Bart had always reckoned the lieutenant general a solid soldier. The more he spoke with him, the more he looked forward to working with him here.

Along with Colonel Horace, the two of them rode north and a little east toward Rising Rock Creek, which lay between the town of Rising Rock and Sentry Peak, and which marked the front between the army now Bart’s and that of Count Thraxton. George said, “There’s a sort of a truce here, so both sides can draw water from the creek without worrying about getting a crossbow quarrel in the brisket.”

“Fair enough,” Bart said. “Sentries could shoot at each other from now till the last war of the gods without changing how this fight comes out.” He asked Doubting George, “Whose men are in the line here for the enemy?”

“James of Broadpath’s, from out of the west,” George answered. “Do you know him well?” Almost all the officers from Detina’s old army knew each other to one degree or another.

“I should hope I do,” Bart replied. “He was a groomsman at my wedding.” He reined in and dismounted, continuing, “The rest of you kindly stay back here. I should like to go up to the creek alone, so as to get my observations without drawing the enemy’s notice.”

Like one of King Avram’s common soldiers, he wore a plain gray tunic. But, as he made his slow, painful way forward with the aid of his sticks, a sentry in gray spotted his epaulets and called, “Turn out the guard-commanding general!” The other pickets in gray shouldered their crossbows and saluted.

And then, across the creek, one of King Geoffrey’s blue-clad soldiers, a wag, heard the call and raised one of his own: “Turn out the guard-General Bart!” Grins on their faces, the traitors saluted him, too.

Bart acknowledged them by lifting his hat. “Dismissed!” he called to them, and limped back to his unicorn. As he remounted, he remarked, “I knew we were fighting a civil war, but that was more civility than I expected.” He and George and Colonel Horace rode on down along the creek.

Doubting George studied the map with General Bart. “The road we have to the east is bad, but will serve us tolerably well as long as the weather stays dry,” he said. “When the winter rains start, though, we’ll starve if we have to depend on it. Rations are too low as things stand.”

“Well, then, we’ve got to do something about it,” Bart replied.

“What have you got in mind, sir?” Doubting George asked. He was particularly dubious here. General Guildenstern had been splendid at proposing this, that, or the other scheme to get Rising Rock out of its fix. He’d proposed all sorts of things, but done nothing. Bart had made a different sort of name for himself in the fighting farther east, but George wanted to see him in action before judging.

Bart’s finger came down on the little hamlet of Bridgeton, about twenty-five miles east of Rising Rock. “If we can get a secure road from Bridgeton to here, we’re safe as houses.”

“Yes, sir,” George agreed. “If we can do that, we’re fine. Looks like a pretty good if to me.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Bart said. “I’ve got a solid division under Fighting Joseph in Bridgeton right now; they were starting to come into Adlai, a little east of there, when I left Adlai for Rising Rock here. If they can move up to the Brownsville Ferry here” -he pointed again, this time only about eight miles east of town- “while we send men out that far, we’ll hold either the river or a good road all the way from Bridgeton to here.”

George studied the map. “That’s not a bad notion,” he said at last. “It might be worth trying.” Fighting Joseph was a pretty good division commander, though he’d failed as head of an army in the west.

“Glad you agree,” Bart said. “I’ve already given the orders. Joseph will move out today, and Brigadier Bill the Bald goes out of here tonight under cover of darkness with all the bridging equipment he needs to span the Franklin at Brownsville. He’s a good officer and a pretty good soldier. He shouldn’t have any trouble at all.”

“You’ve… already given the orders?” George said.

“That’s right.” Bart nodded. “I don’t see any point to wasting time. Do you?”

“When you put it that way, no sir,” George answered in some bemusement. General Guildenstern would have spent endless hours bickering in councils of war, and would have ended up sitting on his haunches while Rising Rock starved. That was what Count Thraxton hoped would happen.

“All right, then,” Bart said. “I already told you-if we’re going to set about fixing things, we’d better fix them.”

“True enough.” Doubting George studied the new commanding general. “I don’t think enough people know what to expect from you, sir.”

“If they don’t, they’ll find out,” Bart said. “If the traitors we’re up against don’t find out quite soon enough, that won’t break my heart.” He laughed briefly. “James of Broadpath’s men are holding that stretch of line. Nothing like giving my old groomsman a little surprise.”

“You’re looking forward to this!” George exclaimed.

“You bet I am,” General Bart replied. “George, you know it as well as I do-the northerners have got no business tearing this kingdom apart. If you thought different, you’d be fighting for Geoffrey, not Avram.”

“So I would-a lot of men from Parthenia are,” George said. “Brave men, too, most of them.”

“Brave men don’t make a bad cause good by fighting for it, and they’re fighting for a bad cause-a couple of bad causes, in fact,” Bart said. “Making their living from the sweat of serfs is a nasty business, nothing else but.” He paused. “I don’t mean that personally, of course.”

“Of course,” Doubting George said dryly. “I have no serfs, not any more-Geoffrey confiscated my lands when I declared for Avram.”

“Yes, I’d heard that.” Bart did something George had rarely seen him do: he hesitated. At last, he asked, “Does it bother you?”

“Having my property confiscated? Of course it does,” George answered. “I don’t imagine Duke Edward is very pleased with King Avram for doing the same thing to him.” He eyed his superior. “Or did you mean, does it bother me that I have no serfs any more?”

“The latter,” Bart replied. “Forgive me if the question troubles you. But there are few men who were liege lords serving in King Avram’s army, for in the south the serfs have been unbound from the land for a couple of generations. If my curiosity strikes you as impertinent, do not hesitate to say so.”

“By no means, sir.” George had had other southron officers ask him similar questions, though few with Bart’s diffidence-and Bart, being his commander, had the least need for diffidence. George went on, “I would sooner this were only a fight to hold the kingdom together, that everything else could stay the same. But I see it is not so, and cannot be so, and that the nobles in the north are using their serfs in every way they can short of putting crossbows in their hands to further the war against our rightful king. That being so, I see we have to strike a blow not just against Geoffrey but also against the serfdom that upholds him. But the kingdom will not be the same afterwards.”

He waited to see how General Bart would take that. The commanding general stroked his close-cropped beard. “I have judged from how you have conducted yourself in the fights you’ve led that you were a man of uncommon common sense, if you take my meaning. What you said just now has done nothing to change my opinion.”

“Thank you very much, sir.” Doubting George did not have his nickname for nothing; he’d been born with a cynical cast of mind. He was surprised at how much the commanding general’s praise pleased him-a telling measure of how much Bart himself had impressed him. “Do you know, sir, there’s a great deal more to you than meets the eye.”

“Is there?” Bart said, and George nodded emphatically. The commanding general shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “There could hardly be less, you know.”

Even in the north, he would never have been a liege lord. Everything he was, he owed to Detina’s army. Without his training at the officers’ collegium, he might have ended up a tanner himself. When he’d left the army before King Avram’s accession, he’d failed at everything he tried. People said he’d dived down the neck of a bottle. Maybe it was true; something in his eyes suggested to George that it was: a certain hardness, perhaps. But Guildenstern drank to excess in the middle of a battle, and George doubted General Bart would ever do such a thing. Bart had been through that fire, and come out the other side.

Now the commanding general shook his head slightly, as if to divert the conversation away from himself. “Once we have the road to Bridgeton secured,” he said, “once we make certain we shall not be starved out of this place, and once all our reinforcements have arrived, I believe we can lick Count Thraxton clean out of his boots. Don’t you agree?”

“Do you know, sir, I think I do.” With General Guildenstern in command, George would have had his doubts. With General Bart… “I don’t care how good a wizard Thraxton is. I don’t think his spells would faze you a bit.”

“Well, I hope not,” Bart said. “In the long run, wizardry strikes me as being like most other things-it will even out.”

“May the gods prove you right, sir,” George said. That was in large measure his view of things, too, though a good many southron generals had a different opinion. As a general working rule, the mages who backed King Geoffrey were stronger than those who’d stayed loyal to King Avram. Thraxton the Braggart, for instance, had more power than any one southron mage George could think of.

But Bart said, “If wizards were so much of a much, the traitors would be over the Highlow River in the east and pressing down toward New Eborac in the west. They may have fancier mages than we do, but we’ve got more of them, the same as we’ve got more soldiers and more manufactories. We can use that to our advantage. We have used that to our advantage-otherwise, we wouldn’t be up here on the northern border of Franklin. We haven’t done everything we might, but things aren’t so very bad.”

“If we’d done everything we might, we’d be marching up toward Marthasville today, not penned here in Rising Rock,” George replied.

“That’s true.” Bart nodded. “But we can do more. We will do more. When Thraxton beat us there by the River of Death, he showed us we needed to do more. And we can-it’s as plain as the nose on your face that we can. Thraxton won’t get any more soldiers: where would they come from? But we’ve already reinforced this army, and we’ve got lots more men on the way. Once they’re here, we’ll take care of business the right and proper way.”

George studied him. Bart didn’t shout and bluster, as General Guildenstern had been so fond of doing. But the new commanding general’s quiet confidence made him more believable, not less. When he said his army would be able to do something, he left little room for doubt in the mind of anyone who heard him. He might have been a builder talking about a house he intended to put up. How could you doubt a builder when he said the walls would stand so, the doors would be there and there, and the windows would have shutters in the latest style?

Thoughtfully, George said, “I do believe you’re right.”

“I hope so. I wouldn’t be trying it if I didn’t think I was.” Bart might have been saying, Yes, this house will stand up to a storm. He raised a forefinger. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve taken the liberty of attaching a couple of your regiments to the force Bill the Bald will lead. They were conveniently situated, and could join in his movements without drawing the northerners’ notice.”

“Whatever you think best, of course,” Doubting George replied. Had Guildenstern done such a thing without telling him, it would have irked him. He found himself meaning what he’d said to General Bart.

“I’m glad it’s all right with you.” Bart sounded genuinely relieved. As if explaining why he’d used stone instead of brick, he went on, “When I strike a blow, I always try to strike the hardest one I can.”

“Good!” George said. “That was what cost us so much not long ago. We were spread out over the whole landscape, and could hardly strike at all.”

“I suspect that wasn’t your idea.” Before George could answer, Bart held up a hand. “Never mind, Lieutenant General; never mind. I don’t need to know every gory incident, and General Guildenstern isn’t around any more to give his side of things.” His eyes twinkled, just for a moment. “Can’t say I’m sorry about that. I expect I would have heard about it in great detail.”

King Avram’s army was full of backbiting. So was King Geoffrey’s. So, no doubt, was every army back to the beginning of time, or perhaps before that-the gods were supposed to squabble among themselves, too. Rarely, though, had George heard such a good-natured snide remark.

Just for a moment, he even stopped doubting and said, “If we can keep on like this, sir, I think we’ll do fine. One of the things we need to do is believe in ourselves, and you make us do that.”

“I don’t make us do a solitary thing except for what I order,” Bart said.

Now George laughed. “Oh, I doubt that, sir.”

But General Bart ignored the joke-which he’d hardly even heard before-and went on as if George hadn’t spoken: “I do believe a united kingdom is stronger than a divided one can hope to be. That may give us an edge against the traitors. I hope it does. But what good is an edge unless you go out and take advantage of it? None, not that I can see.”

That was nothing but good, hard common sense. Good, hard common sense had been in moderately short supply in this camp lately: one more thing about which even Doubting George entertained no doubts. He came to stiff attention and saluted. “With you in charge in these parts, I think we’ll grab every edge we can find.”

“No, no,” Bart said mildly. “You don’t grab the edge. You grab the hilt and give the enemy the edge.” He chuckled.

So did George, rather dutifully. He’s fond of foolish jokes, he thought, and then decided it didn’t matter much. He’d known worse commanders with habits much more obnoxious than that.

Out in the street, a newly arrived regiment of Avram’s soldiers tramped by, band blaring and thumping at their head. “More reinforcements,” George said happily. “Even with the roads as bad as they are, even with the traitors where they are, we’re bringing in what we need.”

“So we are,” Bart agreed. After some hesitation, he inquired, “Ah… what tune are they playing there?”

Now Doubting George doubted he’d heard correctly. “Why, the Battle Psalm of the Kingdom, of course,” he replied.

“Oh.” General Bart let out another chuckle, this one aimed at himself. “I only know two tunes, you see. One’s the Royal Hymn, and the other one-the other one isn’t.”

Another foolish joke. George laughed again, too. Then, seeing the wistful look on the commanding general’s face, he wondered if Bart had been joking.

Rollant yawned enormously. He’d been doing that ever since Sergeant Joram gave him a boot in the backside and got him out of his bedroll. Beside him, Smitty was yawning, too. They weren’t the only ones unhappy at having to make a night march. Everyone in the whole regiment seemed no better than half awake.

“This had better work,” Smitty grumbled. “If they made me lose sleep on account of some gods-damned brainless noble’s brainstorm, I’m really going to be hot.”

Such talk still faintly scandalized Rollant, even though the former serf had been living in the free and easygoing south for some years. Back in Palmetto Province, no one-and especially no blond-would have mocked the nobility so. He tried to hide his feelings with raillery of his own: “I’m sure all the dukes and counts and barons are trembling in their boots, Smitty.”

“They’d better be.” Smitty sounded as if he meant it. “It’s us commoners who do most of the work and make most of the money, and the bluebloods don’t remember it nearly often enough.”

That scandalized Rollant, too, and more than a little. He took the nobles and their privileges for granted; he was just glad to be out from under Baron Ormerod. “How would we run things if there weren’t any nobles?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but I expect we’d manage,” Smitty said. “Free Detinans can do whatever we set our minds to do.”

He did mean it. Rollant didn’t know whether he was right or wrong, but he did mean it. Most Detinans thought that way. They were convinced they were going somewhere important, and they all seemed eager for the journey. Rollant, now, Rollant had his doubts. But he’d grown up on an estate where the only place he could go was where Baron Ormerod told him to. That made a big difference. Nobody had an easy time telling free Detinans what to do. Even here in the army, they talked back to their sergeants and officers, and tried to come up with better ideas than the ones the generals had.

“Let’s go!” Sergeant Joram bellowed. “Come on! We can do it! We’re gods-damned well going to do it.”

No one talked back to him then. Rollant felt like it. Marching through the middle of the night wasn’t his idea of fun. But nobody asked what his idea of fun was. People just told him to do things and expected him to do them. He didn’t usually have too hard a time with that; he’d had practice obeying on Ormerod’s estate. Tonight, though, he was very tired.

Tired or not, he marched. So did everybody else-the army treated flat-out disobedience from soldiers even more ruthlessly than northern liege lords rooted it out among their serfs. “Watch where you’re putting your feet,” somebody not far from Rollant grumbled-in the darkness, he couldn’t see who.

“How can I watch?” somebody else said-maybe the offender, maybe not. “I can’t see the nose in front of my face.”

“It ain’t that dark, Lionel,” yet another soldier said, “and you’ve got yourself a cursed big nose.” Lionel expressed loud resentment of this opinion. Several other people spoke in support of it.

Rollant thought Lionel had a big nose, too. He thought most Detinans had pretty good-sized beaks. He didn’t join the debate, though. The Detinans were willing to let blonds fight for them. They were much less willing to hear what blonds had to say. That didn’t strike him as fair, but a lot of things didn’t strike him as fair.

Then somebody stepped on his heel, almost stripping the boot from his foot. “Careful, there,” he said.

“Sorry.” Whoever was marching along behind him didn’t sound very sorry, but he didn’t step on Rollant any more, either.

They tramped east. It was, Rollant realized little by little, a large column. Whatever he was part of-nobody’d bothered explaining it to him-looked to be something important. He didn’t suppose they would have sent out the column on a night march if it weren’t important. He hoped they wouldn’t, anyhow.

Somebody rode by on a unicorn. “Keep going, men,” he called. “When we get to the river, we’ll give the traitors a surprise.” He raised his hat. Starlight gleamed from his shiny crown.

“That’s Bill the Bald!” Smitty exclaimed. “He must be in charge of this whole move.”

“I’d like it better if we had Doubting George in charge of us,” Rollant said. “If he kept us from getting licked by the River of Death, I expect he can do just about anything.” Smitty didn’t argue with him.

Dawn began turning the eastern sky gray and then pink. Rollant started to be able to see where he was putting his feet. He tried to see more than that, to see where the enemy was. He couldn’t, not yet.

Smitty said, “Next thing we’ve got to find out is if the pontoons make it to where they’re supposed to be when we make it to where we’re supposed to be. If we can’t cross the river, we sure as hells can’t do the fighting we’re supposed to do.”

“Cross the river?” Rollant said. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” Smitty said. Rollant nodded, but he still meant what he’d said. He always got rumors more slowly than most of the others in the company. He knew why, too: he was a blond. He’d mostly given up complaining about it. Complaining didn’t make people talk to him any more, and it did make them think he was a whiner. He didn’t think so, but one of the lessons of serfdom and the army alike was that hardly anybody cared what he thought.

Lieutenant Griff still led the regiment; Captain Cephas wasn’t fit to march or fight. Griff pointed ahead, toward the Franklin River. “That’s Brownsville Ferry, where we’re going,” he called to the company. He actually sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. “We’ve got more men coming, I hear. Between them and us, we’ll drive the traitors back and open up a proper supply route.”

“Why didn’t he tell us all that before we started marching?” Rollant asked.

“He probably didn’t know himself,” Smitty answered. “How much you want to bet somebody briefed him while we were on the road here?”

Rollant thought about it. It didn’t take much thought. He nodded. “That sounds right.” As the company commander had, he pointed. “Look at those big wooden boxy things floating in the river.”

“Those are the pontoons.” Smitty’s voice cracked with excitement. “And see? We’ve got the wizards in place to do what needs doing with ’em. By the gods, that didn’t always happen when General Guildenstern was in charge of things.”

Sure enough, the mages on this bank of the Franklin were busy incanting-and the northerners on the far bank of the river didn’t seem to have any sorcerers in place to challenge their spells. Under their wizardry, the pontoons formed a line straight across the Franklin River. More mages-and some down-to-earth, unmagical artificers, too-spiked planks on the pontoons to form a makeshift bridge. The blue-clad traitors did have a few soldiers in place on the far side of the river. They started shooting at the artificers as soon as they got within range. They hit some of them, too, but not enough to keep the bridge from getting finished. Rollant whooped, even though that completed bridge meant he was going into danger. He wasn’t the only one cheering, either-far from it.

Trumpets blared. Gray-clad soldiers swarmed onto the bridge and charged toward the enemy: unicorn-riders first, then pikemen, then crossbowmen like Rollant and his comrades. “We are to drive back the enemy wherever we find him,” Lieutenant Griff said grandly.

Rollant set a quarrel in the groove of his crossbow and cocked the weapon. The rest of the soldiers in his company did the same. They couldn’t do much in the way of driving unless they could shoot. More and more of King Avram’s men flooded over the bridge. By now, the sun had risen. Rollant saw the men who followed King Geoffrey running away, some of them pausing every now and then to shoot at his comrades and him. It wasn’t that they weren’t brave; he knew too well that they were. But General Bart’s sudden, strong move to seize this river crossing had caught them by surprise, and they didn’t have enough troopers close by to stop it.

Then his own feet were thudding on the timbers of the pontoon bridge. “King Avram!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “King Avram and freedom!”

He didn’t hear anyone yelling for King Geoffrey and provincial prerogative. His boots squelched in the mud on the far riverbank. He looked around wildly for somebody to kill.

But there weren’t that many northerners around. The men who’d gone over the pontoon bridge ahead of Rollant had killed some of them, while others had run away, seeing themselves so outnumbered. Rollant shot at one traitor who’d decided to run a little later than his comrades. His bolt caught the enemy soldier right in the seat of the pantaloons. The fellow let out a howl Rollant could clearly hear and ran faster than ever, one hand clapped to the wound.

“Nice shot!” Smitty said, laughing. “He’ll remember you every time he sits down for the next year.” He waved to Sergeant Joram. “Put it in the report, Sergeant-Trooper Rollant has made himself a pain in the arse to the enemy.”

“What are you talking about?” Joram demanded-he hadn’t seen the shot. Smitty explained. The sergeant condescended to chuckle. “All right, that’s not bad. But our job is to kill the whoresons, not just stick pins in their backsides.”

All Rollant said was, “Yes, Sergeant.” He wanted to kill the traitors, too. He didn’t want to kill them because they were traitors, or because they were trying to tear the kingdom to pieces. All that was for ordinary Detinans. He wanted to kill them because one of their number had used him like a beast of burden till he was a grown man and able to run away, because uncounted thousands of them used other blonds the same way (and used their women worse), because almost every Detinan in the north wished he were a liege lord and able to use blonds so. If that wasn’t reason enough to want the traitors dead, Rollant was cursed if he knew what would be.

“Soldiers coming!” somebody called. “Coming out of the east!”

Rollant wasted no more time worrying about reasons to want to kill the enemy. The most basic reason was simplicity itself: if he didn’t kill northerners, one of them would be delighted to kill him. He put a new quarrel in his crossbow with frantic haste, then yanked back the string to cock the weapon.

Smitty had sensibly found shelter behind a low stone fence. Rollant got down behind the fence with him. Crouching on one knee, he peered over the fence in the direction of the rising sun. Sure enough, there came the cloud of dust that bespoke marching men.

It was a large cloud. “A lot of those bastards heading this way,” Smitty said.

“I know,” Rollant answered. “Well, we wondered where they were. Now we know. They want us, they’ll have to pay for us.”

“That’s right,” Smitty said. “They made us charge fences, back there in front of Rising Rock. Now we’ll see how well they like it, gods damn them.”

Rollant nodded. One of the things soldiers in this war quickly learned was how much protection mattered. A man behind a solid stone wall could stand off several out in the open-provided an engine or a wizard didn’t knock down the wall. That, unfortunately, happened, too.

And then, to his surprise, Rollant heard cheers from King Avram’s soldiers farther east. Some of the cheers had words attached to them. And those words were among the most welcome he’d ever heard: “They’re ours!”

When he heard those words, he cheered, too. He cheered, yes, but he didn’t show himself, not yet. When Detinans fought Detinans, one army looked all too much like another. Men had killed their own generals before, and you were just as dead with a friend’s bolt through you as with a foe’s.

But then somebody yelled, “Those are Fighting Joseph’s men, come to help us hold the supply line against Geoffrey’s traitors.”

At that, Rollant did get to his feet. If people could see who led the newcomers, he was willing to believe they followed King Avram. Then he saw the general himself, and did some yelling of his own: “There’s Fighting Joseph!”

A lot of men were yelling Fighting Joseph’s name, and he waved to the ordinary soldiers. He was an extraordinarily handsome man, with ruddy features and a piercing glance. Back in the west, he’d promised to lead his army straight to Nonesuch. If he had, people wondered if his next move would have been to overthrow King Avram and seize the throne for himself. They’d stopped wondering in a hurry, when Duke Edward of Arlington used half as many men as Fighting Joseph led to whip him soundly at Viziersville. He still made a good division commander, though.

“Hello, boys!” he called now from the back of the fine unicorn he rode. “We’re here, and there’s plenty more coming along after us. Your days on short commons are done, and once you’ve filled your bellies, we’ll throw the traitors out of here and boot them back to Peachtree Province once and for all.”

Everybody cheered. Rollant shouted himself hoarse. Smitty threw his hat in the air-and then recovered it in a hurry, before Sergeant Joram could growl at him for going without it. As he put it back on his head, he said, “It may not be so easy. Geoffrey’s men’ll try and knock us out of here, you wait and see if they don’t.”