Sentry Peak

by Harry Turtledove

  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.<
br />
  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.