Wheep! Ned’s sword came free from its scabbard. “I’m going to have a look,” he said. “If that is a southron, I don’t aim to let him get back and tell his pals he’s seen us.” He spurred his unicorn forward.
Most commanders would have sent out scouts to hunt down an enemy. Ned didn’t think like that, and never had. He was as good a fighting man as any he led. He’d been wounded several times, and had close to a dozen unicorns killed under him. As he rode toward the woods now, he leaned forward and a little to one side, using this mount’s body as a shield in case that southron had a crossbow aimed at him.
Ned laughed softly. If the fellow did see him and tried shooting at him, he might not have much luck. In weather like this, bowstrings soon turned soggy and useless.
When Ned reached the woods, he slid down off the unicorn and tethered it to the branch of an oak. He could move more quietly and less conspicuously on foot. That southron-if there had been a southron, if Ned hadn’t been imagining things-had gone in a couple of hundred yards from where Ned was now. Ned hurried forward, flitting from tree trunk to tree trunk like one of the ghosts the blonds believed to haunt the wilderness. Ned didn’t believe in those ghosts, though he did want to send that southron’s spirit down to the hells.
A flash of white-was that the enemy soldier’s unicorn? Ned of the Forest drifted closer. Yes, that was the unicorn, and there sat the southron, still mounted. Fool, Ned thought. You’ll pay for that. The gray-clad soldier had sword in hand, and no doubt felt very safe, very secure. What he felt and what was real were two different things, as he’d soon find out.
With a wordless bellow making do for a battle cry, Ned rushed him. The southron cried out, too, in horror. He had to twist his body awkwardly to meet Ned’s attack, for the northern commander of unicorn-riders approached on his left side, and he, like most men, used his right hand.
Swords clashed. The southron managed to turn Ned’s first stroke. The second laid open his thigh. The third tore into his belly. He shrieked. His blood poured down the unicorn’s white, white flank. Ned of the Forest pulled him out of the saddle and finished him with a thrust through the throat.
That done, Ned sprang onto the unicorn’s back. It snorted fearfully and tried to rear. He used his weight and the reins and the pressure of his knees to force it down again. Then he rode it back toward his own men, pausing to reclaim the animal he’d tethered before going hunting for the scout.
The troopers cheered when he emerged from the rain riding one unicorn and leading another. They knew what that had to mean. “Scratch one southron,” somebody called, and the rest of the riders took up the cry. Ned waved, pleased with them and pleased with himself.
“Looks like you were right, sir,” Colonel Biffle said.
Ned shrugged. “He got careless. The gods won’t help you if you don’t give ’em a chance.”
“I expect you’re right,” Biffle agreed.
“You bet I am.” But then Ned started thinking about some of the things King Geoffrey had done, most notably leaving Count Thraxton in command much too long, till far too much of the east was lost. The gods won’t help you if you don’t give ’em a chance. He wished he hadn’t put it quite like that.
* * *
Captain Gremio squelched through mud that threatened to pull off his shoes with every step he took. The road would have been bad any which way. It was even worse because Ned of the Forest’s unicorns had chewed it into a quagmire before any of General Bell’s footsoldiers marched down it.
“Come on! Keep it up! We can do it!” Gremio called to the soldiers of the company he commanded. The men from Palmetto Province slogged along in no particular order. But they did keep moving. Gremio didn’t suppose he could ask for more than that.
One of the soldiers grinned a wet, muddy grin at him. “You going to send us to jail if we don’t?” he asked.
Back in Karlsburg, Gremio had been a barrister. That made him unusual among northern officers, most of whom came from the ranks of the nobility. Baron Ormerod, whom he’d replaced, had owned an estate outside Karlsburg. But Ormerod was a year dead now, killed in the disastrous battle of Proselytizers’ Rise. Gremio had led the company since he fell.
He knew he couldn’t be too sensitive when soldiers teased him. If he were, they’d never give him any peace. He managed a grin of his own as he answered, “Not likely, Landels. My job back there was keeping people out of jail, not putting them in. Of course” — he stroked his bearded chin- “for you I might make an exception.”
Landels laughed. He had to, for the men around him were laughing, too. Show you had a thin skin and you would pay and pay and pay.
Colonel Florizel, the regimental commander, rode up on a unicorn. No one held that against him; he had a wounded foot that had never healed the way it should have. “How are things, Captain?” he called.
“As well as can be expected, sir,” Gremio answered.
Florizel nodded, apparently satisfied, and rode on. He hadn’t asked the question that most needed asking, at least to Gremio: how well can things be expected to be? Like most soldiers in General Bell’s army, Florizel seemed to think everything was fine. After all, the Army of Franklin was moving forward again, wasn’t it? Soon it would reenter the province for which it was named, wouldn’t it? How could anything be wrong when that was so?
Some people-a lot of people, evidently-had no sense of proportion. That was how things looked to Gremio. A lot of people had trouble seeing what lay in front of their faces. The realm Grand Duke-now King-Geoffrey had fought so hard to form was in trouble. King Avram’s men held the whole length of the Great River, cutting Geoffrey’s kingdom in half. General Hesmucet, against whom the Army of Franklin had fought so long and so hard, was cutting a swath of destruction through Peachtree Province as he marched toward the Western Ocean, with no one able to stop him or even to slow him down very much. The Army of Southern Parthenia was trapped in Pierreville, with no chance for Duke Edward of Arlington to break free.
Gremio sighed. General Bell loudly proclaimed that his move south would set all the new kingdom’s troubles right. Gremio hoped he knew what he was talking about. The barrister-turned-soldier didn’t believe that. He was trained to examine evidence and see where it led. He didn’t believe, but he did hope.
“Come along! Straighten it up!” Sergeant Thisbe called. “Look like men, gods damn it, not a shambling herd of goats!” Thisbe’s light, true tenor pierced the noise of the rain like a rapier piercing flesh. Unlike those of most Detinan men, Thisbe’s cheeks were bare of beard. The soldiers, as soldiers often will, paid more attention to their sergeant than they did to a captain.
Trouble seeing what lay in front of their faces… Gremio laughed, though it wasn’t really funny. How long had he had trouble seeing what lay in front of his face? Only the whole war, up until a couple of months before. If Thisbe hadn’t been wounded, Gremio knew he would still be a blind man. He also knew Thisbe wished he still were a blind man.
“How are you feeling?” he asked the sergeant.
“Just fine now, thanks,” Thisbe answered. “You see? I didn’t need to go to the healers after all.”
“You were smart not to, Sergeant,” Landels said. “Those bastards will help somebody every now and again, but they bury more than they cure.”
“I was smart not to, sure enough,” Thisbe said. The sergeant’s eyes were on Gremio. He knew just what those words meant, or thought he did. Landels and the other ordinary soldiers marching down the muddy road didn’t.
All I have to do is open my mouth, and Thisbe is gone from this company, Gremio thought. He and the sergeant both knew that. He could see some excellent good reasons for speaking up, too. On the other hand, the company would lose far and away its best underofficer if he did. And Thisbe would hate him forever, too.
He didn’t know which of those worried him more. That he didn’t know worried him all by itself. That he didn’t know was, in fact, one of his better arguments for talking thin
gs over with Colonel Florizel.
He’d thought so for weeks. No matter what he’d thought, though, he’d kept quiet up till now. That he’d kept quiet worried him, too. He stole a glance at Thisbe. Thisbe, as it happened, was looking at him. The sergeant kept trying to pretend the wound and everything that followed from it had never happened. Gremio had gone along with that up till now. He knew it couldn’t last forever, though.
How would it break down? What would happen when it did? He had no idea. Sooner or later, he would find out. Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, he kept marching through the mud. As long as he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, he didn’t have to think about anything else. Sometimes, even for a barrister, not thinking came as a relief.
Darkness fell earlier every day. Getting a fire started with wet wood wasn’t easy. “Where’s a mage when we really need one?” somebody grumbled.
It was, Gremio thought, a good question. The north had held on as long as it had in this war because its mages were generally better than the ones the southrons used. Being better for battle magic, however, didn’t necessarily mean being better for small, mundane tasks like starting fires.
Gremio looked around. He didn’t see any blue-robed mages around, anyhow. He had no idea what they were doing. His mouth twitched in what wasn’t quite a smile. A lot of the time, they had no idea what they were doing, either.
Some of his men still carried half-tents that they toggled together to give them shelter from the rain. More, though, had long since abandoned such fripperies or had never had them to begin with. Gremio’s mouth twisted again. Tents weren’t the most important thing on his mind right now. A lot of his men had no shoes. That was a far more urgent worry.
Eventually, by dousing wood with oil that wouldn’t be used on wagons now, the soldiers got some smoky fires going. They huddled around them, trying to get warm. Some poked bare toes toward the flames. Gremio pretended not to see. The only way those men would get shoes again would be by taking them off dead southrons.
Along with his men, he toasted hard biscuits over the fire. Toasting made the weevils flee, or so people said. Gremio hadn’t noticed that much difference himself. Every so often, something would crunch nastily under his teeth when he bit down. He’d learned to pay little attention. Weevils didn’t taste like much of anything.
Smoked and salted beef accompanied the biscuits. No bugs got into the beef. Gremio suspected that was because they couldn’t stand it. Every time he choked down a bite, he wondered who was smarter, himself for eating the stuff or the bugs for having nothing to do with it. He feared he knew: one more thing better left unthought about. But marching made a man hungry as a wolf. If you didn’t eat all you could, how were you supposed to keep moving dawn to dusk? You’d fall over dead instead. Gremio had seen men do it.
Thisbe said, “Another day or two and we’ll be back in Franklin.”
“Seems only right, since we’re the gods-damned Army of Franklin,” a soldier replied.
“That’s what it says on the box, anyways,” another soldier said. “But this’ll be the first time in almost a year we’ve really been there-since the stinking southrons ran us out after Proselytizers’ Rise.”
Low-voiced curses, and some not so low-voiced, made their way around the campfire. All the men who’d been with the regiment then still felt the Army of Franklin had had no business losing that battle. The southrons had swarmed straight up a steep cliff, right at everything King Geoffrey’s men could throw at them. They’d swarmed up-and the northerners had run away, leaving the field to them.
“A regiment of men could have held that line,” Thisbe said, exaggerating only a little, “but a whole army didn’t.”
“Thraxton the Braggart’s spell went wrong.” Gremio spread his hands, as if to say, What can you do? And what could they do-now? Nothing, and he knew it only too well. “The spell was supposed to fall on General Bart’s men, but it landed on us instead. We didn’t run because we were cowards. We ran because we couldn’t help it.”
“Well, to the hells with Thraxton, too,” Landels said. “Scrawny old sourpuss never did lead us to anything that looked like a victory.”
Heads bobbed up and down. Gremio and Thisbe nodded along with the ordinary soldiers. Blaming Thraxton the Braggart meant they didn’t have to blame themselves. But they knew they’d fought as well as men could. Thisbe said, “The one time we had as many men as the southrons-when we fought ’em at the River of Death-we whipped ’em. And then Thraxton threw that away, too.”
More nods, some angry, others wistful. If they’d laid proper siege to Rising Rock, if they’d starved General Guildenstern’s army into submission… If they’d done that, the whole war in eastern Detina would look different now. Could they have done it? One man in four at the fight by the River of Death had been killed or wounded. Thraxton hadn’t thought they’d had it in them. Maybe he’d been right. But if they couldn’t follow up a victory, what were they doing fighting this war? No one seemed to have an answer for that.
A runner with his hat pulled low to keep rain out of his eyes came splashing up to the smoky, stinking fire. “I’m looking for Captain Gremio,” he announced.
Gremio got up off the oilcloth sheet he’d been sitting on. He wondered why he bothered with it, since he was already good and wet. “You’ve found me.”
“Colonel Florizel’s compliments, sir, and he’s meeting with all his company commanders in his pavilion,” the messenger replied.
“Now?”
“Yes, sir-as fast as all of you get there.”
“I’m on my way.” As Gremio walked toward Florizel’s tent, he reflected that that was one way to tell Geoffrey’s men from Avram’s when they spoke, for most of the differences between their dialects weren’t great. But, while men in the northern provinces said all of you, those in the south had a separate form for the plural of the second-person pronoun, with a separate set of verb endings to go with it.
Sentries in front of Florizel’s tent saluted as Gremio came up. The regimental commander was a stickler for the forms of military politeness. Returning the salutes, Gremio ducked inside.
He was glad to find only a couple of the regiment’s other nine company commanders there ahead of him. “Good evening, your Excellencies,” he said-both of them were barons, not that either was liege lord to much of an estate.
“Good evening,” they answered together, an odd mix of caution and condescension in their voices. They were nobles, and Gremio wasn’t, which accounted for the condescension. But he was not only a barrister but had more money than either one of them even if he didn’t own land. That accounted for the caution.
One by one, the rest of the company commanders came in. They were noblemen, too. Gremio and they exchanged the same sort of greetings he’d given their fellows. When the last captain squeezed into the pavilion, Colonel Florizel said, “Gentlemen” — he nodded to Gremio, as if to make sure Gremio knew he was included among that elect group- “I want you to convey to your men the certainty that we can yet win this war.”
“Hells, don’t they already know that?” demanded Captain Tybalt, one of the two who’d been there ahead of Gremio. He had courage to spare and a temper hot as dragonfire, but no one had accused him of owning a superfluity of brains. He went on, “Of course we’ll lick the gods-damned southrons.”
It hadn’t seemed like of course to Gremio for a very long time. While he tried to find some way to say that without actually coming out and calling Tybalt an idiot, Colonel Florizel said, “We’re getting entirely too many desertions. Spirits are down. Some of the soldiers seem to think we’re bound to lose. We have to fight that. We have to fight it with everything that’s in us. Do you understand?”
Some of the soldiers have the sense of ordinary human beings, Gremio thought. But Captain Tybalt didn’t seem the only company commander astonished at the idea that his men might need encouragement.
“Do you understand?” Florizel repeated.
“Yes, sir!” the captains chorused. Gremio made sure his voice was loud among theirs. He knew he would have to carry out the order. He also knew a lot of the men he led would laugh at him when he did. They hadn’t given up hoping they would win, but more than a few had given up expecting it. He’d given up expecting it himself.
“Very well, gentlemen. Dismissed,” Florizel said. “And remember, I want no more desertions from this regiment.”
“Yes, sir,” the company commanders said again. Again, Gremio made sure his voice rang out. He also wanted no more desertions. He knew better than to expect or even hope for that, though.
II
John the Lister looked over his shoulder from unicornback. He knew more than a little pride in the gray-clad army he led north from Ramblerton, the army that, from this hilltop, resembled nothing so much as a long, muscular snake. Turning to his adjutant, he said, “By the gods, I hope Lieutenant General Bell is coming south. I’ll be very happy to meet him. We’ll have a lot to talk about, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir,” Major Strabo said. “And a sharp conversation it will be.” Strabo was a walleyed man with a taste for bad puns, but a good officer despite that.
“Er-yes.” John’s eyes pointed as they were supposed to. He had, however, gone bald as a young man, and wore a hat at any excuse or none. He had a good excuse now: the rain that dripped from a sky the color of a dirty sheep’s belly.
“Can we flagellate them all by ourselves, do you think?” Strabo asked. He never used a simple word if he could find a long, obscure one that meant the same thing, either.
After a brief pause to figure out what the other officer was talking about, the southron commander nodded. “I expect we can manage that,” he said. “Unless he’s managed to scrape together more men than I think he has, we’ll be all right. And even if he has, well, we can still hurt him.”
“Here’s hoping we get the chance,” Major Strabo said.
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