Ned said, “Sir, by your leave, I’d like to take my riders over to the left and back into the southrons’ rear. When you lick ’em, we’ll be there in perfect position to fall on ’em as they’re running away.”
Bell didn’t need to think long. Anything but victory was unimaginable. This time, he’d follow up victory once he got it. He nodded to Ned. “Good idea. Go do it.”
Ned of the Forest started to leave the assembled officers, then stopped and turned back. “Matter of fact, sir, I reckon we can flank ’em right out of their works. If you’ll hold up a little, you won’t even need to charge ’em. That there’s liable to be a hard line to take by assault.”
Several brigadiers brightened. One man after another nodded. The longer Bell watched them, the angrier he got. He shook his leonine head. “No. We will attack.”
The commander of unicorn-riders scowled. “Why the hells do you want to pick a fight when you don’t have to… sir?” he asked. “Give me a brigade of footsoldiers to go with my riders and I will agree to flank the southrons from their works within two hours’ time. I can go down the Folly-free Gap, the one the Ramblerton road goes through, and sneak behind ’em before they even know I’m around.”
“What a fine notion you’re after having there!” Patrick the Cleaver exclaimed. “We’re asking for naught but trouble, crossing such a broad stretch of open space towards earthworks the Thunderer’s hard prong couldn’t pierce.”
Brigadier Benjamin, called the Heated Ham because he’d made a bad schoolboy actor, also nodded. The wing commander said, “Sir, I think Ned and Patrick are right. I don’t like the looks of this fight here. The southrons have a good position, and they’re well fortified.”
“No,” Bell said again. “My mind’s made up. Ned, you may use your flanking move, but with unicorn-riders only. You, at least, have shown you are not afraid to manfully fight out in the open.”
Ned of the Forest looked even angrier than he had before. The wing and brigade commanders started screaming at Lieutenant General Bell all over again, louder than ever. “How dare you call us cowards, for gods’ sake?” For Gods’ Sake John demanded.
“How dare you act like cowards?” Bell retorted, which might have been a new firepot bursting among his subordinates. Ned of the Forest stamped away, throwing up his hands in disgust.
John of Barsoom cried, “At least have the decency to tell us why you’re sending us off to be slaughtered.”
“I will tell you exactly why,” Bell said in tones of ice. “I have made the discovery that this army, after a forward march of more than one hundred fifty miles, is still seemingly unwilling to accept battle unless under the protection of breastworks, and this has caused me to experience grave concern. In my inmost heart I question whether or not I will ever succeed in eradicating this evil. It seems to me I have exhausted every means in the power of one man to remove this stumbling block from the Army of Franklin.”
“Meaning no disrespect, sir, but it seems to me you don’t know what the hells you’re talking about,” Benjamin the Heated Ham said.
Bell wondered how he would have spoken had he meant disrespect. The commanding general gave one of his one-shouldered shrugs. “I do not care how it seems to you,” he said, his voice even colder than it had been a moment before. “It seems to me that some of my subordinates have a great deal to learn about obeying orders.”
“It seems to me somebody has a deal to learn about giving orders,” Otho the Troll muttered.
“What’s that? What’s that?” Bell said. “By the Lion God’s claws, King Geoffrey trusts me to give orders for the Army of Franklin. That’s the truth, and anybody who doesn’t like it can go to the devils!”
“King Geoffrey trusted Thraxton the Braggart to give orders for this army, too,” Otho the Troll snapped. “Fat lot of good that did us.”
“If I report that to his Majesty, you’ll be sorry for it,” Bell said.
“I’m already sorry for all sorts of things. What’s one more?” Brigadier Otho waved toward the southrons’ lines. “Besides, if we go up against that, how many of us are coming back, anyhow?”
“We’re not planning on coming back. We’re planning on going through the gods-damned southrons and on to Ramblerton,” Bell said.
None of the assembled brigade and wing commanders said a word. The silence seemed to take on a life of its own. Bell’s stump hurt. His right leg hurt, too, though he had no right leg. His ruined left arm was also full of anguish. He longed for laudanum. Taking it here and now, though, taking it in front of his brigadiers, would be an obscure admission of weakness and defeat.
Instead of using the drug he craved, he tried to hearten himself and his officers with hope: “By the gods, we can do this. We outnumber them. We’ll roll over them like an avalanche.”
More silence, colder than the late autumn afternoon. Lieutenant General Bell’s wounds throbbed and burned worse than ever. Of itself, his good hand again started toward the little bottle he always carried with him. He made it hold still: far from the easiest thing he’d ever done.
“Well,” he said at last. Again, silence all around him. He stood as straight as he could. “Well,” he said again. It seemed a complete sentence. In case it wasn’t, he spoke once more: “I have given you your orders, gentlemen. I expect you to show me what manner of men you are in the way you obey them.”
Mechanical as if they were so many machines stamped out by the manufactories of the south, the wing and brigade commanders saluted. Still, though, not one of them spoke to Bell.
He didn’t care. He was past caring. He was as sure of what wanted doing as if the Lion God had growled the plan into his ear. “We will go forward,” he said. “Brigadier Patrick!”
Directly addressed, Patrick had no choice but to answer. Saluting once more, he said, “Yes, sir?”
“Do you see the path there, the one going through the field toward the center of the enemy line?”
“Yes, sir. I see it, sir.” Patrick the Cleaver was offensively polite.
Bell matched him in fussy precision: “Good. Form your men to the right of the path, letting your left overlap the same. Give orders to your soldiers not to shoot a crossbow bolt until you run the southron skirmish line out of the first line of works, then press them and shoot them in the back as they run to their main line. Then charge the enemy’s works. Poor Richard is the key to Ramblerton, and Ramblerton is the key to independence.”
Patrick the Cleaver smiled grimly. “Sure and you have given me the hottest part of the fire to quell, your honor. Well, that is as it is, and no help for it. I will take the southrons’ works for you, sir, or I will die trying.” His salute was, of its kind, a thing of beauty. He turned and walked over to his unicorn, which was tethered to a nearby oak: no doubt a splendid tree in summer, but bare-branched and skeletal now. Mounting with a grace that roused nothing but envy in Lieutenant General Bell, Patrick rode off to the soldiers he commanded.
Did I put his men in the most dangerous position on purpose, because he has caused me so much trouble? Bell wondered. After a few seconds, he shrugged another of his painful, one-shouldered shrugs. What if I did? Someone has to be there, and Patrick the Cleaver has never been a man to shrink from striking a mighty blow. We need a mighty blow right now. He nodded to himself. If he’d ever had any serious doubts, that stifled them.
One by one, the other wing and brigade commanders straggled off toward their soldiers, some riding, others walking. Those who stayed on foot all went with bowed heads and stooped shoulders, as if trying to bear the weight of the world on their backs. They did not look like officers heading into a battle for which they were eager. Bell had seen many such officers in the early days of the war. Up till the battle by the River of Death and his second maiming, he’d been such an officer. He didn’t think many of that sort were left in King Geoffrey’s army.
A victory will make more, he told himself. We have to have a victory. Because we have to have one, we’ll get one. It�
��s as simple as that.
Last of the subordinate commanders to stay by Bell was Benjamin the Heated Ham. He looked as gloomy as any of the other brigadiers. “Are you sure you want to do this, sir?” he asked. “Are you sure we’ve got men and engines enough to do the job?”
The soldiers were starting to shake themselves out into a battle line. “I am sending everything I have,” Bell answered. “What more can I do? What more can Geoffrey’s kingdom do? If everyone gives all he has, our victory will be assured.”
Benjamin still looked as mournful as a man planning his own cremation. He said, “Yes, sir,” in a way that couldn’t possibly mean anything but, No, sir. Then, shaking his head, he too went off to command his wing.
Bell stroked his beard, deep in thought. Where to get more men? All his soldiers were here, all except those riding off for that trip around the southrons’ flank with Ned of the Forest. “By the Thunderer!” Bell exclaimed, and shouted for a messenger.
“Yes, sir?” the young man said.
“Ride after Lieutenant General Ned,” Bell told him. “Kill your unicorn if you have to, but catch up with him. Tell him I am recalling two of his regiments. They are to report back here to me at once, for direct use against Poor Richard. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the messenger said again, and repeated it to him.
“Good-you do have it straight. Now go, and ride like the wind,” Bell said. Nodding, the messenger dashed to his unicorn, sprang aboard, roweled it with his spurs, and went off like a crossbow quarrel. Bell nodded. That would take care of that. Ned might grumble, but Bell was prepared to ignore grumbling. He commanded here, and the fight came first.
More long files of northern soldiers moved out over the field, forming themselves into a battle line. Their brave standards, red dragon proud on gold, fluttered in the chilly breeze. For all the carping and whining and grumbling Bell had heard from his brigadiers, the men complained not at all. They knew they had a job to do, and they were ready to give it everything they had in them.
With a nod, Bell turned to the trumpeter beside him. “Blow advance,” he said.
* * *
Ned of the Forest listened to Lieutenant General Bell’s messenger with a mix of fury and disbelief. “You can’t mean that,” Ned said when the youngster finished. “You can’t possibly mean that. Gods damn it, Bell can’t mean that.”
“I do, sir. He does, sir,” the messenger replied. “He requires the men at once, to help in the attack on Poor Richard.”
“That’s half my force!” Ned exclaimed. The messenger merely rode his unicorn alongside the commander of unicorn-riders without a word. Ned tried again. Maybe the young soldier would see reason: “It’ll help his attack a hells of a lot more if I can strike at the southrons’ flank with all the power I’ve got.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the fellow said uncomfortably. “I don’t give the orders. I only send them on from the general commanding.”
“This is a fool’s order.” Ned of the Forest thought hard about disobeying it, about pretending he’d never got it, even about making something unfortunate happen to this messenger so he could be convincing when he pretended that. Reluctantly, he decided he couldn’t justify something unfortunate. He didn’t know how things were back by Poor Richard. Maybe Bell did desperately need two regiments of unicorn-riders to turn John the Lister’s right flank or for some other reason. Maybe. Ned of the Forest still had a hard time believing it. But, hard time or not, he turned to the trumpeter trotting along close by and said, “Blow halt.” The words tasted putrid in his mouth, like salt beef that had gone off.
A quarter of an hour later, two regiments of unicorn-riders trotted back with the messenger. The rest of Ned’s force pressed on. Colonel Biffle, whose troopers Ned had kept with him, muttered into his beard. He didn’t need long to stop muttering and come right out and say, “This is a bad business, sir-a very bad business.”
“Don’t I know it?” Ned said bitterly. Then he laughed, and that was more bitter still. “Bell only half wanted to let me go in the first place, and so he’s ending up letting me go with only half my men. I reckon that leaves me just about half a chance of doing anything worthwhile. How do you cipher it, Biff?”
“About the same, sir. Don’t suppose anybody could cipher it any different. What the hells do we do now?”
“The best we can,” Ned of the Forest answered. “Don’t know what else there is to do.” He raised his voice to call to a couple of men riding farther away from him than Colonel Biffle: “Captain Watson! Major Marmaduke!”
By strict protocol, he should have named Marmaduke first. But he couldn’t bring himself to put a mere wizard ahead of the man who led soldiers and engines. Both the sorcerer and the commander of catapults answered, “Yes, sir?” and guided their mounts-one unicorn, one ass-closer to his.
“Are you ready to do everything-and I mean everything — to make up for the loss of the soldiers Bell just stole from us?” Ned asked them.
“Yes, sir!” they chorused again. Ned knew he could rely on Watson. No matter how young he was, he’d fought like a veteran from the day he’d taken service with the unicorn-riders. Major Marmaduke, on the other hand… Ned of the Forest sighed and shrugged. Counting on a wizard was always a roll of the dice. That was one problem the southrons had, too. It might have been the only problem they had worse than King Geoffrey’s men, as a matter of fact.
A scout rode back, calling, “Folly-free Gap just ahead, sir. There’s southrons at the far end of it, too.”
Ned swore. He’d hoped he could get through the gap and into the southrons’ rear before meeting up with their unicorn-riders. Then he would have had the edge, or more of it, even if Bell had robbed him of half his force. He shrugged again. What you hoped for in war and what you got were all too likely to be different animals.
He turned to Watson and Marmaduke. “You heard that?” he asked. They both nodded. He went on, “All right, then. We’re going to have to shift the gods-damned sons of bitches. Do everything you know how to do.”
“Yes, sir,” they said once more. Watson added, “I’ll bring the engines up as close to the enemy as I can.”
“I know you will,” Ned said. Major Marmaduke made no such promises. Odds were, he didn’t know how he would be useful till the moment came. Ned hoped he would figure it out then.
Colonel Biffle had heard the scout’s report, too. As the leading unicorn-riders entered Folly-free Gap, the regimental commander asked, “You aim to move as near as we can mounted and then attack on foot, sir?”
“Best way to do it, far as I can see,” Ned answered. “I wish we had more cover coming down on ’em, gods damn it.” In summertime, the low, gentle slopes of the gap would have offered plenty of concealment, and he might have sneaked around the southrons before they knew he was there. No chance of that now, not with all the branches bare. If he wanted to unplug the gap, he’d have to knock the enemy riders out of it.
Colonel Biffle pointed ahead. “Nice little stand of woods there where we can tether our unicorns. We’ll only need to leave a handful of men behind to watch ’em.”
“I don’t want to leave any, not after Bell went and robbed me.” Ned of the Forest drummed the fingers of his left hand against his thigh. “You’re right, though, Biff. We’ve got to leave a handful, I reckon. By the Thunderer’s beard, we won’t leave many.”
Tiny in the distance, southrons on unicorns rode back toward their main body of men. Ned could easily see the unicorns because they were so very white. He laughed. One of these days, if he ever got the chance, he would have to slap brown paint on his men’s beasts so they wouldn’t stand out so much from the terrain over which they rode. That might let him give King Avram’s unicorn-riders a nasty surprise.
No surprises here. This would be straight-up, toe-to-toe slugging. Ned hated this kind of fight, but the ground dictated it. So did Bell’s insistence on slamming straight ahead at Poor Richard. Ned muttered into his chin whiskers.
If only Bell had had some sense to go with his undoubted courage…
The unicorn-riders reached the copse Colonel Biffle had seen. They scrambled off their mounts, tethered them, and trotted toward the southrons. They didn’t move in neat lines, as footsoldiers did. All they wanted to do was close with the enemy or find some way to outflank him. Once they managed that, they were convinced the rest would be easy. It usually had been up till now.
A few of Ned’s men stayed behind to guard the tethered unicorns. A few of the unicorns went forward: those ridden by officers, Ned among them, and those pulling Captain Watson’s catapults and repeating crossbows. Major Marmaduke went forward still mounted, too. Again, though, Ned had trouble taking a man who rode an ass seriously. A fellow who rode an ass was all too likely to be one, too…
As usual, Ned sent his unicorn trotting out ahead of his men. He wanted to make the southrons start shooting at him, so he could discover where they were. He also wanted them to see him, to know who he was. He won as much by intimidating the enemy as by outfighting them.
A firepot arced through the air and burst about twenty feet in front of him. The unicorn sidestepped nervously. He fought it back under control. Waving his sword, he pointed to the stand of trees from which the firepot had flown. “Captain Watson, there’s some of what the bastards have waiting for us!” he shouted.
“Right, sir,” the young officer said gaily. He waved the siege engines he led forward. Because he came forward with them-ahead of them, in fact-the men who served the catapults and repeating crossbows didn’t hesitate in advancing. They set up in the open and got to work shooting at the southrons’ engines.
Dismounted soldiers in gray came up in the same irregular way as Ned’s own troopers. Ned recognized it at once, recognized it and didn’t like it. The southrons weren’t supposed to fight as dragoons, and weren’t supposed to look as if they knew what they were doing when they did. Ned also recognized what Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men were up to. If they could get close enough to Watson’s engines to reach them with their crossbows, they could pick off the soldiers serving the engines. Yes, they knew what they were doing as dragoons, all right.
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