More arrows tore at them from the flank as they dropped back to look for a line they could hold. Lieutenant Griff did a good job of keeping them moving and fighting at the same time. Rollant admitted as much to himself later; while the retreat was going on, he just hoped to make it to some kind of safety before Thraxton’s men overwhelmed not only the company but the whole regiment-and possibly the whole brigade.
He was part of the group Griff had ordered to keep shooting to the front no matter what happened. Having a clear sense of what to do helped him do it. He would shoot a bolt or two from whatever cover he could find, reload, and scurry back behind another tree or bush or rock to do the same thing over again. If an enemy quarrel slammed into him from the left… then the group commanded to hold off the traitors on the flank weren’t doing their job. That was their worry, not his-except indirectly, of course.
“King Avram!” he shouted as he loosed a bolt at a fellow in an indigo tunic. The northerner went down, whether hit or merely alarmed Rollant didn’t know. He hoped he’d put that bolt right between the northerner’s eyes-and he hoped it was Baron Ormerod. He knew perfectly well that that was too much to hope for. He’d had one chance at his old liege lord. How likely were the gods to give him two?
“Avram and justice!” somebody else yelled, not far away. The traitors could roar as much as they liked, but they weren’t the only soldiers on this part of the field.
When Rollant burst out of the woods and into a good-sized clearing, he blinked in surprise-and in no little alarm. How were he and his comrades supposed to take cover crossing open ground like that? Then he saw the engines lined up almost hub to hub in the clearing. They were-they had to be-the ones that had punished the northerners before things went wrong on the flank.
Rollant’s company weren’t the only men bursting into that clearing. The soldiers in northern blue didn’t just roar when they burst into it. They howled and whooped with delight and rushed at the engines. Capturing catapults was every footsoldier’s dream.
Chains clattered as they went ratcheting over five-sided gears. The dart-throwers that were like concentrated essence of crossbowmen sprayed streams of death into the men who called Grand Duke Geoffrey their king. The traitors went down as if scythed. But men among the catapult crews fell, too: and not only men, but also the unicorns that moved the engines. Some of the traitors had got close enough for their crossbows to reach their foes.
And then stones and firepots started landing among the siege engines in the clearing. Rollant cursed. Whoever was in charge of the traitors’ catapults was doing a very smart job indeed of pushing them to the forefront of the fighting.
“We’ve got to pull out!” one of Avram’s officers shouted as a stone smashed a dart-thrower flat. That made Rollant curse again, but he could see the sense of it. The engines were up against more than they could handle here. If they stayed, they would either be wrecked or overrun and lost.
Harnessing unicorns to the catapults was but the work of a moment. Off they went, those that could go. Soldiers pulling ropes hauled a couple of them away, doing the work of beasts already slain. And the crews set fire to a couple of machines too badly damaged to take away but not so wrecked that Geoffrey’s men couldn’t get some use from them.
“Form skirmish line!” Lieutenant Griff shouted. “We have to give them time to get away!”
Militarily, the order made perfect sense. In the red balance sheet of war, catapults counted for more than a battered company’s worth of footsoldiers. That made standing- actually, dropping to one knee-out in the open no less lonely for Rollant.
He muttered prayers to the Lion God and the Thunderer. And, although he didn’t pray to them, he hoped the old gods of his people were keeping an eye on him, too. Those old gods weren’t very strong, not when measured against the ones the Detinans worshiped. The blonds had seen that, again and again. But the Detinans’ gods didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Rollant right now. Maybe the deities his people had known in days gone by would remember him when the strong gods forgot.
Here came more northerners, out into the clearing. “Give them a volley!” Griff said. “Don’t shoot till you hear my orders. Load your crossbows… Aim… Shoot!”
Rollant squeezed the trigger. His crossbow bucked against his shoulder. All around him, bowstrings twanged. Quarrels hissed through the air. Several blue-clad soldiers fell. “Die, traitors!” Rollant shouted, reloading as fast as he could.
“Steady, men,” Lieutenant Griff called. He was steadier himself than Rollant had thought he could be-certainly steadier than he had been when the battle erupted. “Make every shot count,” he urged. “We can lick them.”
Did he really believe that? Rollant didn’t, not for an instant, not while the company was standing out here in the open, trying to hold back the gods only knew how many of Thraxton’s men. But Griff sounded as if he believed it, whether he did or not. And that by itself got more from the men than they would have given to a man with panic in his voice.
A couple of soldiers not far from Rollant went down, one with a bolt in the leg, the other shrieking and clutching at his belly. But then, although quarrels kept whizzing past the men in the company and digging into the dirt not far from their feet, none struck home for a startlingly long time. That was more than luck. That was… Behind Rollant, somebody said, “A mage!”
Rollant turned his head. Sure enough, a fellow in a gray robe stood busily incanting perhaps fifty yards behind the company’s skirmish line. “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Smitty said. “A wizard who’s really good for something. Who would’ve thunk it?”
“As long as he can keep the bolts from biting, he’s worth his weight in gold,” Rollant answered. “And as long as he can keep us safe like this, we’re worth a brigade.”
“That’s the truth,” Smitty said. “Do you suppose he can keep mosquitoes from biting, too? If he could do that, he’d be worth twice his weight in gold, easy.”
Before Rollant could come up with a response to that bit of absurdity, the mage let out a harsh cry, loud even through the din of battle. Rollant looked back over his shoulder again. The wizard was staggering, as if pummeled by invisible fists. He rallied, straightened, but then grabbed at his throat. Someone might have been strangling him, except that nobody stood anywhere close by. The northern wizards had found the mage. With another groan, he fell. His feet drummed against the ground. He did not rise.
An instant later, a crossbow bolt struck home with a meaty slap. A man only a few paces from Rollant howled. Whatever immunity the company had enjoyed died with the sorcerer in gray.
A runner dashed up to Lieutenant Griff through the hail of quarrels. Griff listened and nodded. The runner pelted away. Griff called, “Fall back, men! We’ve done our duty here. The gods-damned traitors won’t take those engines. And George’s whole wing is falling back on Merkle’s Hill. We’ll make our stand on the high ground there.”
“Where’s Merkle’s Hill?” Rollant asked. Smitty only shrugged. So did Sergeant Joram. Rollant hoped Griff knew where he was going. The lieutenant was right about one thing: the catapults had escaped Thraxton’s men. Now I have to get away from them myself, Rollant thought. He didn’t run to the far edge of the clearing, but his quickstep was fine, free, and fancy. And he didn’t get there first, or anything close to it.
His company-indeed, his regiment-were not the only men retreating toward Merkle’s Hill. The traitors had treated Doubting George’s wing of General Guildenstern’s army very roughly indeed. Thraxton’s soldiers kept pushing forward, too, roaring like lions all the while.
“We have to hold them, men.” Rollant looked around, and there stood Lieutenant General George. The wing commander had his sword out; blood stained the blade. “We have to hold them,” Doubting George repeated. “If they get through us or past us, we haven’t just lost the battle. We’ve lost this whole army, because they’ll be sitting on the road back to Rising Rock. So hold fast and fight hard.”
> George had a habit of telling the truth. This once, Rollant could have done without it.
* * *
“Hold fast, men!” Lieutenant General George was getting tired of saying it. He hoped his soldiers weren’t getting tired of hearing it. If they stopped holding, if they lost heart and ran, the army was ruined. He hadn’t been lying when he warned them of that. He wished he had.
Colonel Andy appeared at Doubting George’s elbow. George almost wheeled and slashed at him, but realized who he was just in time. The aide-de-camp’s gray tunic was splashed with blood; by the way Andy moved and spoke, it wasn’t his. “Well, sir,” he said now, surprisingly cheerful in view of the situation, “I think we can be pretty sure Thraxton the Braggart’s not back at Stamboul.”
“Seems a fair bet,” George agreed, dryly enough to draw a chuckle from Colonel Andy. “What we have to do now is make sure the traitors don’t get to Rising Rock.”
“Don’t you think we can lick them, sir?” Andy asked.
“I doubt it,” George said, and Andy chuckled again. George went on, “They’ve got the bit between their teeth, the way a unicorn will sometimes. My guess is, we’ll just have to ride it out and see what’s left of us at the end of the fight. The only consolation I take is, it could be worse.”
His aide-de-camp’s eyes widened. “How?”
“They could have hit us a few days ago, when we were scattered all over the gods-damned map,” George answered. “Thraxton’s pulled extra men from somewhere-for all I know, he magicked them up. He’s got more than I ever thought he could, anyway. If he’d smashed our columns one at a time instead of letting us regroup, he could have bagged us one after another. Now, at least, we’ve got a fighting chance.”
A runner, also bloodied, came panting up and waited for Doubting George to notice him. When George did, the fellow saluted and said, “Brigadier Brannan’s compliments, sir, and he wants you to know he’s massing his engines at the crest of Merkle’s Hill, just behind our last line. If the traitors come up the hill, a demon of a lot of ’em won’t go down again. That’s what Brannan says, anyhow.”
“Good.” George slapped the runner on the back. “You hustle up to Brigadier Brannan and tell him he’s doing just the right thing. Just exactly the right thing-have you got that?”
“Yes, sir.” With another salute, the youngster hurried away.
“We’re doing as well as we can, sir,” Andy said.
“Of course we are,” George said. “We’re doing as well as any army could that gets hit from the front and the flank when it doesn’t really believe there’s any trouble around at all.” He wanted to say something a good deal harsher than that about the way General Guildenstern had handled the advance from Rising Rock, but held back.
His aide-de-camp had no trouble hearing what he didn’t say. “King Avram won’t be happy once the scryers get word of what’s happened back here to the Black Palace in Georgetown.”
“Let’s hope that still matters to us after the battle’s over,” George replied.
Colonel Andy’s eyes widened. “Do you think the traitors are going to surround us and slay us all, the way we Detinans did to the blonds at the Battle of the Three Rivers back in the early days?”
“That had better not happen,” Doubting George said severely, and managed to jerk a startled laugh from Andy. George went on, “No, what I had in mind was what the king is liable to do to us once he hears how things have gone wrong. Do you think our commander will keep on commanding after this?”
“The men like General Guildenstern,” Andy answered. “He takes good care of them, and” -he lowered his voice a little- “he has all their vices, though on a grand scale.”
“He takes good care of them on the march. He takes good care of them in camp,” George said. “If he took good care of them in battle, we wouldn’t be where we are right this minute.” Where they were, right this minute, was halfway up the slope of Merkle’s Hill, and falling back toward the line near the crest. Thraxton’s men kept up their roaring, and they kept coming as if someone had lit a fire behind them. George kicked at the dirt as he trudged up the long, low slope of the hill. “This is partly my fault. I told General Guildenstern I didn’t think Thraxton had headed north, but I couldn’t make him believe me.”
“If Guildenstern wouldn’t believe you, sir, why is that your fault?” Andy asked.
“I should have made him believe me, gods damn it,” George answered. His aide-de-camp raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, George nodded. Nobody, up to and possibly including the Lion God and the Thunderer, could make General Guildenstern do what he didn’t feel like doing.
“Lieutenant General George! Lieutenant General George!” somebody shouted from not far away. A heartbeat later, the shouter went on, to himself this time, “Where is the miserable old son of a bitch, anyways?”
“Here!” Doubting George yelled. A runner trotted up to him. He fixed the fellow with a mild and speculative stare. “And what do you want from the miserable old son of a bitch, anyways?” The runner flushed and stammered. “Never mind, son. I’ve been called worse,” George told him. “Just speak your piece.”
“Uh, yes, sir.” The runner kept on stammering, but finally said, “Uh, sir, Brigadier Negley, uh, says to tell you he’s hard pressed, sir, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on. Thraxton’s men are all over the place, sir, like syrup on pancakes.” He flushed again. “That last bit, that’s, uh, mine, sir, not Brigadier Negley’s.”
“It’s not the worst figure I’ve ever heard,” George said, which didn’t keep him from scowling. Brigadier Negley’s men held the left end of his line, the end that connected the wing he commanded to the rest of General Guildenstern’s army. “You tell Negley that he’s got to hold, that if he doesn’t hold we’re all in a lot of trouble, and him in particular. Use just those words.”
“Yes, sir.” The runner repeated them back. He saluted-much more smartly than he would have if he weren’t embarrassed; Doubting George was sure of that-and then hurried back toward the left.
“Where in the seven hells did Thraxton the Braggart come up with enough men to make an attack like this?” Colonel Andy demanded as he and George accompanied their retreating men up toward the crest of the hill.
George had more immediate worries-not least among them whether he could get the men to stop retreating once they neared the crest. But he answered, “I don’t think he pulled them out of there, Colonel. He’d have got some when the traitors’ garrison pulled out of Wesleyton before Whiskery Ambrose took it. The rest? I don’t know. Maybe Geoffrey sent soldiers from Parthenia. He’s never done that before, but maybe he did. I don’t know. Thraxton’s got ’em. I know that.”
“Yes, sir. So do I,” Colonel Andy said.
“What we really need to do,” Doubting George said, “is stop worrying about where they’re from and start worrying about how we’re going to drive them back.” He’d said that before. He’d had trouble getting anybody to listen to him. There were times when he had trouble getting himself to listen to him.
Andy asked, “If the king does sack General Guildenstern over this, who do you suppose will replace him?” Avid curiosity filled his voice.
“I’m not going to play that game,” George insisted. “Let’s worry about getting through this battle first. If we don’t do that, nothing else matters.”
Directly rebuked, his aide-de-camp had no choice but to nod. But the question, once posed, kept echoing in George’s mind. If Geoffrey had sent soldiers from the west, King Avram might pluck a general out of Parthenia to take command here in the east. Or he might promote another of the eastern generals.
Colonel Andy refused to stay squelched. He said, “Sir, it could be you.”
“Yes. It could.” Try as he would to avoid it, George found himself drawn into the quicksand of speculation. “It could, but I wouldn’t bet on it. For one thing, I’m a Parthenian, and people still wonder how loyal I am. For a
nother, if we lose this fight, my reputation suffers along with General Guildenstern’s.”
“That’s not fair, sir,” Andy said.
“Life isn’t fair,” George answered. “If I had to put my money on any one man, I’d bet on General Bart.”
“Why?” Andy asked.
“Why? Because Bart seems to be the one man who wants to start pounding on the traitors and keep pounding till they fall over or we do,” George said. “And because King Avram thinks the world of him for taking Camphorville on the Great River earlier this summer and cutting the traitors’ realm in half.”
“He’s a man of no breeding,” Andy said. “A tanner’s son. And he drinks.”
“And General Guildenstern doesn’t?” Doubting George said. His aide-de-camp spluttered, but didn’t say anything. Andy couldn’t very well say anything, not to that. George went on, “Bart’s a solid soldier. You know it, I know it, King Avram knows it, and the northerners know it, too-to their cost. And if we can make serfs into soldiers, we can make a tanner’s son a general. We already have, as a matter of fact.”
“The northerners don’t,” Colonel Andy said.
“No?” George chuckled. “They talk about nobility, but look what they do.” He pointed to the right of his line. “Those are Ned of the Forest’s troopers taking bites out of us over there. Do you think Ned got his command on account of his blue blood?”
“Ned got his command on account of he’s a son of a bitch,” Andy answered.
“Well, that’s true enough,” George said. “But he’s a gods-damned good fighting man, too, no matter what else he is. And so is General Bart. The difference is, General Bart’s our son of a bitch.”
He broke off to look around again and see how his men were doing. The short answer was, not very well. The traitors had bent their line back into what looked like a unicornshoe on the slopes of Merkle’s Hill. If they could bend the line back on itself, if they could get around it or break through it… If they could do any of those things, then talk about who might take over command of this army would prove meaningless, for there would be no army left to command.
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