Advance and Retreat wotp-3

by Harry Turtledove

  And there stood Doubting George, looking at the rain-swollen waters of the Franklin, looking at Ned’s unicorn-riders, looking at the ignominious conclusion to what should have been glorious instead. It had been glorious, in fact. The only trouble was, they couldn’t see the glory back in Georgetown. Or maybe they could, but they didn’t think it glittered brightly enough. Is this a reverie? George wondered. He doubted it. He just felt as chilly and gloomy as the winter’s day all around him.

  Hoofbeats brought him back to himself. He looked around, blinking a couple of times. Maybe it had been a reverie after all. Up came Hard-Riding Jimmy. The brash young commander of unicorn-riders swung down out of the saddle, tied his mount to a low-hanging branch, and came over to Doubting George. He saluted crisply.

  Returning the salute, George said, “And what can I do for you?”

  “Sir, I’ve just received orders from Georgetown,” Jimmy said.

  Excitement thrummed in his voice. George could see it in his stance. “What sort of orders?” the commanding general asked, though Jimmy’s delight gave him a pretty good idea.

  And, sure enough, Jimmy answered, “Detached duty, sir. My whole contingent of unicorn-riders. I’m ordered to go down into Dothan, smash up everything in my path, and hound Ned of the Forest to death.” He sounded quiveringly eager to be about it, too.

  Doubting George was also quivering-quivering with fury. “Congratulations, Brigadier. I hope you do it, and I think you can.” He wasn’t angry at Jimmy, or not directly. “These orders came straight to you?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. They did.” Now Jimmy knew what the trouble was. “Do you mean to say you didn’t get them?”

  “That is exactly what I mean to say,” George growled. “By now, the butchers dismembering the carcass of my army must suppose I’m dead, for they don’t even bother letting me know before they hack off another limb. At least they had the courtesy to tell me when they took John the Lister away from me.”

  Hard-Riding Jimmy turned red. He stroked one end of his long, drooping mustaches. “I’m sorry, sir. I assumed you would know before I did.”

  “Ha!” Doubting George said. “Marshal Bart doesn’t think I deserve to know my own name, let alone anything else.”

  “Well…” The commander of unicorn-riders was too excited about what he was going to do to worry much about his superior’s woes. “I can’t wait to come to grips with Ned, not when I’m getting reinforced, all my men will have quick-shooting crossbows, and he can’t afford to send his troopers scattering like quicksilver. He’ll have to defend the towns in my path, because the manufactories in them make crossbows and catapults and such for the traitors. He’ll have to defend them, and I aim to take them away from him and burn them to the ground.”

  Southron brigadiers had been talking like that when they went up against Ned of the Forest since the war was young. Most of the brigadiers who talked like that had come to grief in short order. Doubting George doubted whether Hard-Riding Jimmy would, though. He was a good officer, had a swarm of good men armed with fine weapons that had already proved their worth-and the north, now, was visibly coming to the end of its tether.

  “May the gods go with you,” George said. “I wish I were going with you, too, but I can’t do a gods-damned thing about that.”

  “I wish this had been handled more smoothly,” Jimmy said. “I feel real bad about it.”

  “Nothing you can do. Nothing I can do, either,” Doubting George answered. “When you do go to Dothan with your detached command, though, you make sure you do whip those traitor sons of bitches, you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir!” Hard-Riding Jimmy saluted once more. “I’ll do it, sir.” He got back onto his unicorn and rode away.

  Doubting George stared after him. Then the commanding general turned and kicked a small stone into the Franklin. It splashed a couple of times before sinking without a trace. Might as well be my career, George thought gloomily. Not all the sons of bitches are traitors. Too gods-damned many of ’em are on King Avram’s side.

  * * *

  These days, Ned of the Forest often felt he was the only officer in Honey-indeed, the only officer in Great River Province and Dothan put together-who was behaving as if he felt the north could still win the war. In a sour sort of way, that was funny, for Bell’s disaster in front of Ramblerton had thrown the last log on the pyre of his hopes.

  But, as far as he was concerned, the fight had to go on, hope or no hope. King Geoffrey hadn’t surrendered. Geoffrey, in fact, kept loudly insisting that he wouldn’t surrender, that he would sooner turn bushwhacker than surrender. Ned, a master bushwhacker if ever there was one, had his doubts about that, but he kept quiet about them.

  His unicorn-riders kept patrolling north of the Franklin. A few of them sneaked across the river and raided southron outposts on the far bank. They behaved as if the war still were the close, hard-fought struggle it had always been.

  Not so the footsoldiers who remained in Honey, the remnants of the once-proud Army of Franklin. Every day, a few-or, on a lot of days, more than a few-of them slipped out of their encampments, heading for home.

  Lieutenant General Richard the Haberdasher, the general who’d taken over for Bell, summoned Ned to his headquarters in the best hostel in town. Richard, a belted earl, was King Geoffrey’s brother-in-law and had a blood connection to King Zachary the Rough and Ready, now some years dead. Despite his blue blood, he’d proved a capable soldier, and had done some hard fighting in the northeast.

  To do any more fighting with what had been the Army of Franklin, Ned was convinced, Earl Richard would have to be more than a capable soldier. He’d have to be able to raise the dead. But all Ned did on walking into Richard’s suite was salute and say, “Reporting as ordered, your Grace.”

  Richard the Haberdasher was tall-though not quite so tall as Ned-and handsome. He was in his late thirties, four or five years younger than the commander of unicorn-riders. “I have a favor to ask of you, Lieutenant General,” he said.

  “What do you need?” Ned asked.

  “I want you to put a cordon around Honey,” Richard said. “These desertions have got to stop. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I can,” Ned of the Forest answered. “And I will.” He was glad to see Richard trying to take matters in hand. About time, he thought. Still, he couldn’t help adding, “You could do it with footsoldiers, too, you know.”

  “I could, but I’d rather not,” Earl Richard said. “I’m not sure I can rely on them. Your men, though-your men I can count on. And so, if it’s all right with you, I’d sooner do that.”

  “All right. I’ll take care of it.” Ned wished he could disagree with Richard the Haberdasher. That would have meant the remaining fragments of the broken Army of Franklin were in better shape than they really were. The commander of unicorn-riders felt he had to add, “If I set some of my troopers to riding patrols around Honey, that means I can’t use those fellows against the southrons.”

  “Yes, I know,” Richard answered. “But it also means I’ll have more pikemen and crossbowmen to send against them when I find the chance.” He seemed to hear what he’d just said, to hear it and think he had to retreat from it. “If I find the chance, I should say.”

  Ned of the Forest nodded. Bell’s successor was proving he had a better grasp on reality than the man he’d replaced. Had the one-legged officer kept his command here, he probably would have been planning yet another headlong assault on the southrons. He seemed to have wanted the Army of Franklin as thoroughly maimed as he was himself. But Richard the Haberdasher clearly realized the days of storming to the attack were gone forever for these soldiers.

  “We have to do all we can to hold the manufactories in Dothan and the smaller ones here in Great River Province,” Richard said. “With Marthasville and Veldt gone, they’re the most important ones we’ve got left this side of Nonesuch.”

  “I understand,” Ned said. “And with Marthasville and Veldt gone, gods only know how any
thing they make in Nonesuch’ll get out here to the east. That means the ones hereabouts count for even more than they would otherwise.”

  “True. Every word of it true.” Earl Richard hesitated, then said, “May I ask you something else? I swear by the Thunderer’s strong right hand that whatever you answer won’t go beyond the walls of this room.”

  The walls of that room were covered by a garishly flowered wallpaper that couldn’t have been much uglier if it tried. Ned of the Forest didn’t like to think of anything that hideous listening to him, but he nodded again. “Go right ahead.”

  “Thank you.” After another long pause, Richard said, “What do you think of our chances of carrying on the war?”

  “Well…” Ned puffed out his cheeks, then sighed loud and long and hard enough to make the flames of the candles on Richard’s desk dance. “Well, I don’t know how things are in the west. I’ve heard this and that and the other thing, but I don’t know, so I shouldn’t talk about that. Here in the east… hereabouts, would you be asking me to ride patrol against our own deserters if things were going the way they were supposed to?”

  He waited. Richard the Haberdasher also waited, to see if he had anything else to say. When the nobleman decided no more was coming, he clicked his tongue between his teeth. “All right. That’s a fair answer. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I wish I could’ve had something different to tell you.” Ned sketched a salute and strode out of the room with the lurid wallpaper. He wondered if Richard would call him back. The other general didn’t.

  When Ned ordered patrols out against deserters, he rode out with them. He never sent his men to any duty he wouldn’t take himself. And, before long, the squad with which he rode came across deserters: three men in the ragged ruins of blue uniforms sneaking away from Honey across the muddy fields around the town.

  Ned spurred his unicorn toward them. The rest of the squad followed. The three footsoldiers froze in dismay. “What the hells do you think you’re doing?” Ned roared, aiming a crossbow at the leading man’s face.

  The footsoldier looked at his pals. They looked back at him, as if to say, He asked you, so you answer him. The scruffy soldier gathered himself. “I reckon we’re going home,” he said, apparently deciding he might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.

  “I reckon you’re gods-damned well not,” Ned of the Forest thundered. “I reckon all three of you sorry sons of bitches are going to turn around and go back to Honey. I reckon I’ll put a crossbow quarrel through your brisket if you don’t, too.”

  “You might as well go ahead and shoot us,” the soldier replied. “Won’t make any difference to the war either way.” Defiantly, he added, “Won’t make any difference if we go home, neither.”

  He was right. Ned had known the war was lost for weeks. He felt a certain embarrassment at not being able to admit as much to the would-be deserter, and tried to cover that embarrassment with bluster: “By the Lion God’s pointed toenails, where would we be if everybody in King Geoffrey’s army acted the way you gutless bastards are doing?”

  “Where?” the footsoldier answered. “About where we’re at now, I reckon. Don’t see how we could be much worse off, and that’s the gods’ truth.”

  One of the other unkempt soldiers plucked up enough courage to add, “That’s right.”

  And so it was, but Ned didn’t intend to admit it. “You don’t get moving back to Honey right this minute, I’ll show you how you could be worse off. You want to try me? Get the hells out of here, before I decide to crucify you on the spot to give the other cowardly fools in this army a taste of what they can expect if they try running away.”

  They blanched and turned around and started back toward the sad, sorry encampment of what had been the Army of Franklin. A couple of years before, when the war still seemed an even affair, Ned really would have crucified deserters. He’d done it a couple of times. A couple of years before, though, soldiers like these would never have thought of abandoning their army. They’d been through everything flesh and blood could bear, they’d seen hope slaughtered on the battlefield, and they’d had enough.

  Ned turned back to the other unicorn-riders. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see how many others who want to run away we can catch.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the sergeant commanding the squad. By the way he said it, his heart wasn’t in what they were doing. He proved as much by adding, “When we run into poor miserable bastards like those fellows, though, can’t we just look the other way?”

  “That’s not why we’re out here riding around,” Ned said. “We’ve got a job to do, and we’re going to do it.” Earl Richard the Haberdasher had thought his men were especially reliable. Ned had thought so himself. Now, suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. Was their hope failing, too?

  Maybe it was. The sergeant said, “Not a whole hells of a lot of point to getting killed now, is there?”

  “If you worry about getting killed, maybe you shouldn’t have turned soldier in the first place,” Ned of the Forest said coldly.

  The sergeant was a typical swarthy Detinan. Not only that, his thick black beard grew up to just below his eyes. Even so, Ned could see him flush. He said, “I’ve never run away from anything, Lord Ned, and I’m not about to start now. But I’m not a blind man, either. If we were whipping the gods-damned southrons, would we be up here in Great River Province riding circles around stinking Honey to keep our poor, miserable footsoldiers from running away?”

  Only one answer to that was possible, and Ned gave it: “No.” But he went on, “Irregardless of whether we’re winning or losing, we’ve got to keep fighting hard. Otherwise, we’re not just losing-we’ve lost.”

  That sergeant was also as stubborn as any other freeborn Detinan. He said, “Well, sir, I reckon we can lose even if we do keep fighting hard. We fought like hells in front of Ramblerton, and a whole fat lot of good it did us.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that, either. Again, Ned said the only thing he could: “Lieutenant General Bell is gone. We won’t make the mistakes we did on that campaign, not any more we won’t.”

  “Of course we won’t, gods damn it.” The sergeant was as plain-spoken as any other freeborn Detinan, too. “We can’t make those mistakes any more. We haven’t got enough men left to make ’em.”

  One more painful truth. Ned of the Forest shrugged. “You can either do the best you can as long as you’ve got a unicorn under your butt, or else I’ll muster you out and send you home right this minute. You won’t be a deserter, on account of I’ll give you a discharge.”

  He waited. If the sergeant really was fed up and called him on that, he would have to let him go. But the underofficer said, “Oh, I’ll stick. You won’t be rid of me that easy. But I’ll be gods-damned if I like the way things are going.”

  “I don’t reckon anybody does-except the southrons, I mean,” Ned said. “But we’re still here, and we’ve still got our crossbows. If we quit, King Avram wins. To hells with me if I want to make things that easy for him. Now come on.”

  This time, he didn’t give the sergeant a chance to reply. He urged his own unicorn up to a trot. The squad-including the sergeant-followed him. Ned wasn’t completely comfortable when he stayed in the saddle too long. Old wounds pained him. He didn’t grumble about them. They didn’t keep him from getting about, or from fighting. There, if nowhere else, he sympathized with Lieutenant General Bell. Poor Bell had been a fine officer leading a brigade when he was all in one piece. He’d been a disaster in the larger commands he’d got after he was wounded. How much did the endless swigs of laudanum and the inability to go forward and see for himself have to do with that? More than a little, Ned feared.

  A fine mist began drifting down from a lead-gray sky. Even this far north, where winters were relatively mild, this time of year the land seemed dead. Trees and bushes stood bare-branched, skeletal. Grass was yellow and brown, dry stalks bent and broken. Somewhere off in the distance, a raven’s croak sounded like the
chuckle of a demon mocking the hopes of man.

  Ned’s troopers muttered among themselves. He knew what they were muttering about, too: they were wishing they hadn’t heard the raven. The big black birds had an evil reputation, no doubt because they ate carrion. Ned felt a certain amount of superstitious dread, too, but he suppressed it. He had other things, things of the real world, to worry about, and for him things of the real world always counted for more than ghosts and spirits and haunts.

  Would the desertions stop? How much difference would it make if they did? Would Doubting George or Hard-Riding Jimmy try to push past the Franklin River and finish off the remnants of the Army of Franklin here in Honey? If they did, what could Ned’s unicorn-riders do to stop them? Anything at all?

  We’ve got to keep trying, Ned thought. If we don’t, then this war will end, and sooner, not later. The serfs’ll be off the land forever, and the southrons’ll go around telling ’em they’re just as good as real Detinans. Ned squared his broad shoulders and shook his fist toward the south in stubborn defiance. Can’t have that, gods damn it.

  * * *

  Marthasville again. Rollant hadn’t expected to see the biggest city in Peachtree Province again, not till John the Lister’s men got the order to move west and rejoin General Hesmucet’s army. Even after boarding the glideway carpet in northern Franklin, Rollant hadn’t expected to stop in Marthasville for very long. But here he was, cooling his heels in the town for a second day now. Too many glideway carpets had come into the city all at once, from east and west and north and south, and the officers in charge of such things were still untangling the snarl.

  Before the war-and even during it, as long as false King Geoffrey’s men held the place-Marthasville had had pretensions of being a big city. Those pretensions made Rollant, who lived in New Eborac City, the metropolis of Detina, laugh. More than half the streets here were nothing but red dirt-red mud, at this season of the year. Cobblestones would have done wonders to improve them, but nobody’d bothered with-or been able to afford-cobblestones here. That by itself would have been plenty to take Marthasville out of the big-city class, as far as Rollant was concerned.