If Bell wasn’t altogether a fool-not the most obvious proposition George had ever thought of-he wouldn’t want to fight at every little town and fortress. He’d bypass whatever he could so he could move south into Cloviston and head for the Highlow River, where he could do King Geoffrey some good and embarrass and perhaps even hurt King Avram. That seemed obvious to George. To his subordinates? No.
But Bell couldn’t ignore a big army on his flank-or at least he would be a fool if he did. Maybe he would try to ignore it-Bell was the sort who would try to ignore whatever he could if ignoring it meant he could go after something else. George hoped Bell would ignore southron soldiers on his flank. That would make life easy for him personally, and for King Avram and the south in general.
Meanwhile, he still had an army to build up… if he could, if his own officers, men who were supposed to obey his commands, would let him. They were convinced they knew what was best for them, best for their own little forces. They didn’t think about or didn’t care what was best for the kingdom. If somebody tried to point out what was best for Detina as a whole, they didn’t want to listen.
Colonel Andy came in and saluted. “What did you do to poor little Alva?” George’s adjutant asked.
“Poor little Alva? I doubt that,” Doubting George said. “After the war ends, he can get about as rich as he cares to. What did I do? I sent him up to Poor Richard, to give John the Lister a hand.”
“Oh. That explains the kicked-puppy look I saw on his face,” Andy said. “He has to pack his carpetbag and go somewhere else, and nobody will take care of him while he’s traveling.”
“He’s not all that helpless,” George said. “Gods know I’ve seen mages who were a hells of a lot worse.”
“I know,” Andy said. “But he thinks he’s helpless when he has to deal with the ordinary world, and so he acts that way, which also gives him the chance to annoy everybody around him.”
“My, you’re sour today,” George remarked. “Feel like insulting anyone else while you’re here, or can I have a turn?”
“Go right ahead, sir. You’re the commanding general, after all,” Andy replied. “Rank hath its privileges.”
Doubting George snorted and held his nose. “Rank is mostly just… rank. Look at what dear General Hesmucet left me, if you don’t believe that. Some people had to make bricks without straw. I get to make bricks without clay. There’s good reason most of these odds and sods in Franklin and Cloviston were garrison soldiers. The more I see it, the plainer it is, too: they aren’t worth a counterfeit copper in a real fight.”
“And you blame Hesmucet for that?” Andy asked.
“Of course I do. You don’t expect me to blame myself, do you? Not fornicating likely. Besides, Hesmucet’s marching through Peachtree, and he’s up against nothing but the same kind of odds and sods, except in blue uniforms. He’ll whale the living stuffing out of them, and he’ll be a big hero. Meanwhile, I’m still fighting against a real army. Do you think I’ll let him get away without a few insults flying around his ears? That’s likely the worst opposition he’ll see.”
“You don’t like him very well, do you?”
“He’s a brave soldier. He’s a good general. I wish I were doing what he really is. I’d get to be a famous hero, too. The way things are, I’ve got a hard, ugly job to do, and nobody gets famous taking care of those.” Doubting George sighed. “That doesn’t mean they don’t need doing, though.”
* * *
Corporal Rollant looked toward the Trumpeteth River, which lay between John the Lister’s army and safety in Poor Richard. He’d crossed the river coming north, on his way to Summer Mountain. At the ford, it hadn’t come up past his waist. He’d taken off his pantaloons, got the bottom of his shirt wet, and gone on about his business. Things wouldn’t be so easy heading south.
What with all the rain that had fallen, the Trumpeteth came up a lot higher than Rollant’s waist now. It would have been up over his head, even at the ford. It wasn’t quite out of its banks, but it wasn’t far from flooding, either. Any army falling back toward Poor Richard would have to bridge the stream before it could cross.
Normally, that would have been straightforward work for Joseph the Lister’s artificers and mages. Things weren’t normal now. Rollant wondered if things ever were really normal in wartime. When he said that out loud, Smitty snickered. “Of course they’re normal,” he said. “They’re always buggered up.”
“Well, yes,” Rollant said. “But there’s the usual kind of mess, and then there’s this kind of mess.” He scratched his head. “If there’s a usual kind of mess, I suppose things can be normal during the war. But they’re not normal now.”
“Sure as hells aren’t,” Smitty agreed. “Not with the gods-damned traitors trying to sabotage everything we do.”
“They always try to do that,” Rollant said dolefully. “Trouble is, they’re having too much luck at it right now.”
Smitty shook his head. “That isn’t luck. They’re still better wizards than we are, even after all this time.”
“I know,” Rollant said, even more dolefully than before. “They wouldn’t have dropped our latest try at a bridge into the Trumpeteth if they weren’t.”
“And the one before that, and the one before that, don’t forget,” Smitty said. “Something tells me they don’t want us crossing over the Trumpeteth. They’re sure trying like anything to keep us from doing it, anyhow.”
“Lieutenant General Bell’s probably still mad at us for sliding past him at Summer Mountain,” Rollant said.
“I would be, if I wore his shoes-his shoe, I mean,” Smitty said.
“I bet the traitors make that joke every day,” Rollant said.
“I bet you’ve got a big mouth… Corporal,” Smitty said. For a moment, he’d forgotten Rollant outranked him. Ordinary Detinans often had a hells of a time remembering blonds could outrank them. Hastily, Smitty went on, “And I bet General Bell’s probably about ready to spit nails like a repeating crossbow on account of we did get by his bastards. Only goes to show the traitors can screw up a perfectly good position, too. Sort of reassuring, if you know what I mean.”
“We already knew they could be as stupid as we are,” Rollant said. “Remember Proselytizers’ Rise.”
“There is that,” Smitty admitted. “Yes, there is that, by the Lion God’s fangs. They should have slaughtered us.”
Rollant laughed. “You sound like you’re sorry they didn’t.”
“No, they’re the ones who’re sorry they didn’t,” Smitty said. “Only thing I’m sorry for right now is that I’ve got to stand in this miserable, muddy trench.”
“They’ve got soldiers along with their wizards,” Rollant said. “If they overrun us, we don’t get another chance to build the bridge. Besides” — he touched his crossbow, which leaned against his leg, ready to grab and pull and shoot- “anybody who tries overrunning me’ll have to kill me first.”
That wasn’t just bravado. He meant every word of it. Detinans had forced blonds in the north into serfdom because the blonds hadn’t been able to fight enough, all those centuries ago, to keep their kingdoms from being overwhelmed. Ever since then, northern Detinans had figured blonds couldn’t fight-and had taken elaborate precautions to make sure they never got the chance. The Detinans didn’t notice the paradox. Blonds did-but who cared what blonds noticed?
If Lieutenant General Bell’s men captured Smitty, he’d go into a prisoners’ camp till he was exchanged for some northerner. If Bell’s men captured Rollant, he’d go, in chains, back to the estate from whose lands he’d presumed to abscond with himself. He knew his old liege lord was dead. He’d shot Baron Ormerod himself, up at the top of Proselytizers’ Rise. But whoever owned Ormerod’s land these days still had a claim to the serfs tied to it. Whoever that was had a claim under the laws of Palmetto Province, anyhow. Rollant was rude enough to think himself entitled to the fruits of his own labor, and ready to fight to hold on to that freedom to work for
himself.
Out beyond the trenches were holes in the ground sheltering the pickets who would slow down any northern attack. Out beyond the pickets were the scouts and sentries who would spot the attack before it rolled over the southrons. That was how things were supposed to work. Most of the time, they did. Every once in a while… Rollant didn’t want to think about all the things that could go so gruesomely wrong.
For now, Bell’s soldiers didn’t care to close with John the Lister’s men. Soldiers who followed both Avram and Geoffrey had, in this fourth year of the war, become very cautious about rushing earthworks. That wasn’t to say they wouldn’t, but it was to say they looked for the likelihood of reward before pressing an assault to the limit. Rollant had seen up in Peachtree Province how important entrenchments were. Bell’s men had fought there, too. They were traitors, but they weren’t morons.
An ass-drawn wagon driven by teamsters in King Avram’s gray rattled past the sentries, past the pickets, and through a gap in the entrenchments not far from the position of Rollant’s company. Another followed, and another, and another. They carried logs with one end sharpened to a point: pilings for the southrons’ next effort at a bridge.
Smitty watched them go by with world-weary cynicism. “Wonder if they’ll do any better than they did the last time,” he said, and then, before Rollant could answer, “Don’t suppose they could do much worse.”
“We have to get over the Trumpeteth,” Rollant said. “We have to. Once we’re back in Poor Richard, Bell won’t dare give us any trouble.”
“Who knows what Bell will dare?” Smitty said.
“Well, he’d be an idiot if he did,” Rollant said. “If he wants to be an idiot, that’s fine with me.”
“Me, too.” Even the argumentative Smitty didn’t seem inclined to disagree with that. “Now, if I were Bell, I’d dress some of my boys up in gray and let ’em sneak through our lines. They could have us trussed and tied before we even know what’s going on.”
“That’s a dreadful idea!” Rollant exclaimed in horror.
Smitty bowed, as if at praise. “I like it, too.”
For a heartbeat, Rollant thought the farmer’s son had misheard him. Then he realized Smitty was just being his perverse self. Acknowledging him only made him worse. Rollant said, “One of these days, Smitty…”
“I know,” Smitty said. “But I’ll have fun till then.”
At dawn the next morning, heavy stones and firepots started landing in and around the entrenchments. “The traitors must have brought their engines up during the night,” Rollant said.
Smitty bowed again. “Thank you so much for that brilliant deduction, Marshal Rollant, your Grace, sir.”
“Oh, to the hells with you,” Rollant snapped. “Can’t anybody say anything without getting it twisted around and shot back at him?”
At that moment, a stone slammed into the parapet in front of them, showering them both with dirt. Rollant rubbed at his face. Smitty spat-spat brown, in fact. “Wouldn’t you sooner have me shooting words at you than the traitors shooting big rocks?” he said, and spat again. “My mouth’s full of grit.”
“So is mine,” Rollant said, “but I got some in my eye, too.”
About fifty yards down the trench line, another stone thudded home. Two men shrieked. Rollant and Smitty exchanged dismayed glances. Rollant wondered whether the stone had hit any other soldiers and killed them outright before maiming the two who cried out. It could have. He knew that altogether too well.
Lieutenant Griff said, “We are going forward, men, to capture those engines or destroy them or make the northerners pull them back.”
No one grumbled, even though coming out of the trenches was risky. This way, they could hit back. Nothing was harder to bear than staying in place and taking a pounding without being able to repay the damage in kind. Even Rollant, who would carry the company standard and wouldn’t do any actual fighting out in the open till he got close enough to the enemy to chop with his shortsword, only nodded.
Out of the trenches swarmed the men in gray. “Avram!” they shouted. “Avram and freedom! King Avram!”
Crossbow bolts hissed through the air at them. Bell had brought men forward to defend his engines, too. Rollant sighed. He’d known Bell would. “Geoffrey!” the northerners shouted, and, “Provincial prerogative forever!”
Provincial prerogative, as far as Rollant was concerned, meant nothing except the privilege of treating blonds like beasts of burden. He waved his standard, gold dragon on red, high above his head. False King Geoffrey’s partisans flew the same flag with the colors reversed.
Pok! A crossbow bolt tore through the silk. The standard had already taken a number of such wounds. Another bolt hissed past Rollant’s ear, this one not from in front of him but from behind. One of his own comrades was shooting carelessly at the traitors. Rollant hoped the fellow was shooting at them, anyhow.
Bell’s men hadn’t had time to entrench as well as Rollant was sure they would have liked. Some of them crouched behind stumps and rail fences. Others stood or knelt on one knee or lay on their bellies in the open. Seeing the men in blue-some of them in southron gray ineptly dyed blue-roused Rollant to fury, as it always did. These were the men who wanted to tie him to a little plot of land for the rest of his days. He whooped with glee when one of them crumpled to the ground, clutching at himself and kicking.
“Come on!” he shouted to his own comrades, waving the standard again. “Let’s get rid of all these bastards!”
They didn’t get the chance. Perhaps Bell hadn’t expected John the Lister’s men to sally so aggressively against his men. In this part of the field, southrons outnumbered northerners, though Lieutenant General Bell’s army was a lot bigger than John’s. The traitors hitched their catapults to asses and unicorns and hauled them away. The crossbowmen and pikemen protecting them fought a rear-guard action till the valuable engines had escaped. Then they too fell back.
Rollant was all for charging after them. His superiors weren’t. The trumpeters blew withdraw. Reluctantly, he returned to the southrons’ trench line. Litter bearers hauled back the wounded and the dead. Healers and surgeons would do what they could for the wounded. Soldiers and runaway serfs now laboring in Avram’s army would have to chop wood for the pyres of the dead. Rollant likely would have drawn that duty before he got promoted. Not now, not as a corporal.
Both forces had lost a few men, seen a few men hurt. The little fight wouldn’t change how the war turned out, not in the least. He wondered why either side had bothered making it. You could, if you had the right sort of mind, then wonder if even a big battle meant much in the grand scheme of things. Rollant didn’t have that sort of mind. He knew what those battles meant-serfs escaping from bondage who would still labor for their liege lords if southron armies hadn’t won and given them hope and protected them when they fled.
Axes were still thudding into lumber when a messenger came up to the trenches from the direction of the Trumpeteth. Lieutenant Griff called, “Men, we’re to pull back from this line toward the river. The bridges are said to be ready to cross.” By the way he spoke, he had trouble believing it. He was very young, and he’d been callow when he joined the company. He’d seen a lot since then, as had the men he commanded.
Rollant certainly had trouble believing it, too. Turning to Smitty, he said, “What do you want to bet the traitors’ wizards will have sunk these so-called bridges by the time we get there?”
“You’re a corporal. You already make more money than I do,” Smitty said. “If you think I want to give you any of mine, you’re mad.”
“If you think I want to give you any of mine, you’re mad, Corporal,” Sergeant Joram growled. That Rollant was an underofficer counted for more with him than that he was a blond. Not all Detinans, even in the south, felt the same way.
When they got to the river, Smitty started to laugh. “I should have taken you up on that one, your Corporalship,” he said.
“Yes.” Roll
ant tried to hide his astonishment. The bridges-which, by their faint glow, seemed compounded more of magecraft than of mere material things-did indeed stand. Men were already tramping over them toward the south bank of the Trumpeteth.
A scrawny young mage in a gray robe stood on the north bank of the river. He looked weary unto death. Even as Rollant watched, the mage swayed-he supposed under yet another sorcerous assault from the northern wizards. But, though the mage swayed, the bridges held. They didn’t suddenly vanish and pitch the burdened soldiers on them into the Trumpeteth, where those men would without a doubt have drowned.
Seeing others safely cross the river, Rollant didn’t hesitate when his turn came. He held the company standard high as he set foot on the bridge. It felt solid under his shoes, even if it was mostly magical. How it felt was all that mattered. If he let out a sigh of relief when he got to the far bank of the river-well, if he did, maybe nobody noticed. And if anybody did, he wasn’t the only one.
* * *
Ned of the Forest rode his unicorn up to the southern bank of the Trumpeteth River. He actually rode the great white beast into the river; muddy water swirled around its forelegs. Turning to Colonel Biffle, he said, “Well, Biff, they slid through our fingers. They might have been greased, the way they slipped by us.”
“’Fraid you’re right, sir,” Biffle agreed mournfully.
“And look at what’s left of this here bridge.” Ned pointed. Only a few wooden pilings emerged from the Trumpeteth. “Look at it, I tell you.”
“Not much to look at,” his regimental commander said.
“Sure isn’t,” Ned said. “Sure as hells isn’t. And it doesn’t look like the stinking southrons burned their bridges once they’d used ’em, either. They couldn’t have, by the Thunderer’s lightning bolt-we’d’ve seen the flames. No way on earth they could’ve hidden those from us.”
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