“I have no reserves,” Guildenstern groaned. “I’ve sent everything I could spare to the right. I was hoping Thom would have men to give me.”
“What shall he do, sir?” the messenger asked.
“Tell him to fight as hard as he can and do his best to stem the tide with what he has,” Guildenstern answered. “That’s what I’m doing here. It’s all I can do.” The runner saluted and ran back toward the west.
No sooner had he gone than another runner hurried up to General Guildenstern and said, “Lieutenant General George’s compliments, sir. He thanks you for Brigadier Wood’s men and asks if you can spare him any more. He’s hard pressed on the right.”
Guildenstern groaned again, groaned and shook his head. “I wish I hadn’t sent him those. Thraxton’s magic made me do it-and now the traitors are pouring through the hole in my line here. I have nothing more to give him.”
“That’s… bad, sir,” the runner said. “I’ll give him your words. We’ll try to hold on there, but I don’t know how long we can do it.” As the other messenger had only moments before, he hurried away.
“Ruined,” Guildenstern muttered. It was the word he’d though to fit to Thraxton the Braggart like a glove. He looked at his own hand. He wore that word now.
He took a swig from his brandy flask, then looked up, escaping his private world of pain for the real disaster building on the battlefield. Roaring northerners in blue were almost in crossbow range of where he stood, though he’d been well back of the line not long before.
Brigadier Alexander saw the same thing. “Sir, we can’t stay here,” he said. “If we do, they’ll overrun us.”
“And so?” Guildenstern said bitterly. Dying on the field was tempting-that way, he wouldn’t have to face the blame bound to come after word of this disaster reached the Black Palace in Georgetown. But he might still be able to salvage something from the defeat, and so he nodded. “Very well, Brigadier. I fear you’re right-it’s the traitors’ day today, and not ours. Where are our unicorns?”
Alexander was already waving to the men holding them. As they came up, the wing commander said, “Maybe we can do something to stop the retreat.”
“Yes. Maybe.” Guildenstern wondered if it would stop this side of Rising Rock. He shrugged as he mounted. Alexander was right. They had to try.
But the farther he went, the more he wondered if anyone or anything could save the army. Oh, here and there men and groups of men still battled bravely to hold back the onrushing northerners. But the army, as an army, had fallen to pieces. In the center and on the left, every regiment fought-or ran away and didn’t fight-on its own. No one was controlling brigades, let alone divisions or wings.
General Guildenstern shouted and cursed and waved his sword. “Rally, boys!” he cried, again and again. “Rally! We can lick these sons of bitches!”
Men around him cheered and waved their gray hats. Here and there, a few of them would rally, for a little while. As soon as he rode out of earshot and tried to encourage other soldiers, they would resume their retreat. He might as well have been trying to hold back the waters of the Franklin River. The army kept slipping through his fingers.
“We are ruined,” he said to General Alexander. “Ruined, I tell you. Do you hear me? Ruined!”
Had Alexander been a proper courtier, he would have reassured Guildenstern and tried to make him believe everything would turn out all right. In the midst of the present disaster, that would have taken some doing, but he would have tried. He was just a soldier, though, and all he said was, “Yes, sir.”
Baron Guildenstern? Count Guildenstern? Duke Guildenstern, who’d ended the traitors’ rebellion? All that had seemed possible. Now he had to hope he wouldn’t end up Colonel Guildenstern, or perhaps even Sergeant Guildenstern.
Brigadier Alexander pointed over to the west. “Look, sir,” he said. “There’s Brigadier Thom.”
“Wonderful,” Guildenstern said sourly. “Now I know everything’s gone to the devils.”
Alexander waved. The first thing Brigadier Thom did on seeing him was grab for his sword. Then he must have realized Alexander and Guildenstern weren’t enemies, for he waved back and rode his unicorn toward them. A look of stunned astonishment was on his face. “By the Lion God’s claws, what happened, sir?” he asked Guildenstern.
While the general commanding wrestled with that question, Brigadier Alexander answered, “Thraxton the Braggart’s magecraft broke through our sorcerers’ screen and fuddled General Guildenstern’s wits for a moment. He pulled some men out of the line to send them on to Doubting George, and the gods-cursed traitors swarmed into the gap.”
“Didn’t they just!” Thom exclaimed.
Guildenstern wondered how well that explanation would sit with King Avram. It was, as best he could piece things together, the absolute truth. Colonel Phineas would testify to it. The failure hadn’t been his fault; Thraxton’s spell had left him less than himself, ripe to make a mistake at the worst possible time.
All true. So what? Guildenstern wondered. In the war against King Geoffrey and the northerners who followed him, the only thing that really mattered to Avram was whether the battle was won or lost. This one was lost, lost beyond hope of repair. And who had been in command when it was lost? Guildenstern knew the answer to that. King Avram would know it, too.
“What do we do now, sir?” Thom asked.
“Pull the pieces together as best we can,” Guildenstern replied. “Then we either find somewhere hereabouts to make a stand against the traitors or, that failing, we fall back on Rising Rock. I don’t see what other choices we’ve got. If you have a better notion, I’d be glad to hear it.”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir. Wish I did, sir.” Thom pointed east. “What’s happening over at Doubting George’s end of the line?”
“Nothing good,” Guildenstern said. “I got a request for more men from him just as things were going to the seven hells around here.”
“If he gives way, too, I don’t know how this army is going to make it back to Rising Rock,” Thom said.
“We will,” Guildenstern said. “We have to.” But he didn’t know how they would do it, either. He shouted, “Rally!” to the soldiers all around him. They gave him a cheer, those who still wore hats waved them-and they went right on retreating.
“They’ve given everything they have to give, these past couple of days,” Brigadier Thom said. “I don’t think we’ll get any more, not today, not when-” He broke off, not quite soon enough.
Not when you made a hash of the battle. That was what he’d started to say, that or something close enough to it to make no difference. He didn’t care that Thraxton the Braggart’s sorcery had made Guildenstern blunder. All he cared about was what had happened. If that was an omen for Guildenstern’s career, it wasn’t a good one.
Behind Guildenstern, the northerners kept roaring out their triumph. Around him and ahead of him, the men from his own army tramped back toward the southeast. They might fight to try to save their own lives. They weren’t going to fight to try to save the army.
“My gods!” Guildenstern exclaimed when he and Alexander and Thom rode into a little town. “This is Rossburgh! They’ve driven us back a good five miles.”
Some few of his men had formed a line in front of Rossburgh, but General Guildenstern didn’t think it would hold, not if Thraxton’s army hit it hard-and they would, before long. He was only too glumly certain of that.
“General Guildenstern!” somebody called.
Automatically, Guildenstern waved. “Here I am.”
As the officer who’d recognized him rode toward him on the crowded, narrow, dusty streets of Rossburgh, Brigadier Thom and Brigadier Alexander let out soft exclamations of dismay. “By the Lion God, that’s Brigadier Negley,” Thom said.
And so it was. “What’s he doing here?” Guildenstern demanded, as if either Thom or Alexander could have told him that. Guildenstern pointed to Negley. “Why aren’t you with Lieutenant Genera
l George?”
“I wish I were, sir, but my soldiers got swept away, along with what looks like everything else farther west,” Negley answered, which held an unpleasant amount of truth. He went on, “I could have retreated up onto Merkle’s Hill, but I went with them instead, to try to get them to rally.” He grimaced and waved his hand. “You see how much luck I had.”
“What of Doubting George?” Guildenstern asked. “You say he was still making a stand on Merkle’s Hill? Do you think he can hold?” He found himself tensing as he waited for Negley’s reply.
The brigadier of volunteers-the ex-horticulturalist-shrugged. “Sir, I hope he can, but I have no great faith in it. With the rest of the army broken, the traitors will surely rain their hardest blows on him now.”
He made altogether too much sense. Guildenstern sighed. “The gods damn Thraxton the Braggart to the seven hells for what he’s done to this kingdom today. What can we do now?”
“I see only one thing, sir,” Brigadier Negley said. “We have to do all we can to hold Rising Rock. Without it, Thraxton cannot be said to have truly gained anything from this campaign, despite our piteous overthrow.”
Guildenstern looked from one of his brigadiers to the next. “Does anyone think we can hold this side of Rising Rock?” They eyed one another and then, one by one, shook their heads. Guildenstern didn’t think so, either. He’d hoped his brigadiers would convince him he was wrong. No such luck. He sighed and scowled and cursed. None of that did any good at all. Having done it, he said, “Do you think we have any choice, then, but retreating to Rising Rock and doing our best to hold off the traitors there?”
Again, the three brigadiers looked at one another. Again, they shook their heads. Brigadier Negley said, “Getting our hands on Rising Rock was the main reason we took on this campaign. If we can hold it, we’ve still accomplished a good deal.”
“That’s true, by the gods,” Guildenstern said. It made him feel, if not good, then better than he had. He shouted for a trumpeter. After a while, one came up and saluted. “Sound retreat,” Guildenstern told him. “We’re going back to Rising Rock.” As the mournful notes rang out, he and Brigadiers Negley, Alexander, and Thom turned their unicorns to the southeast and rode off, leaving the field in the hands of Thraxton the Braggart and the northerners.
* * *
“Can we hold on, sir?” Colonel Andy asked Doubting George. George’s aide-de-camp was not a man to give in to panic, but, with the way things looked on Merkle’s Hill, George could hardly blame him for worrying.
George was worried himself, though doing his best not to show it. “We’ve got to hold on, Colonel,” he answered. “If we don’t, where in the seven hells are we going to run to?”
Andy gave him a reproachful look. “That’s not funny, sir.”
“No, I don’t think so, either,” Lieutenant General George said. “I wish I did, but I bloody well don’t.” He peered west, toward the disaster that had engulfed the rest of General Guildenstern’s army. “If we fold up now, I don’t think any of this force will survive.”
“What happened over there, sir?” his aide-de-camp asked.
“Nothing good,” Doubting George answered. “All I know is, Albertus the so-called Great and the rest of my so-called mages all started bawling like branded unicorn colts a couple of hours ago, and then the traitors started pouring men through a great big fat hole in our line. It would almost make a suspicious man wonder if there was a connection.”
“Thraxton the Braggart’s magic did us in again,” Colonel Andy said mournfully.
“Yes, I think Thraxton’s magic did us in, too,” George agreed. “I wouldn’t say `again,’ though. This is the first time that sad-faced bastard managed to aim it at us and not at his own men.”
“An honor I could do without,” Andy said, which made George smile in spite of the lost battle from which he could only try to save what he might.
Before he could say anything, a runner came up from the west. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t deliver your message to Brigadier Negley,” the fellow said. “Most of his division joined the retreat to the south, and he went with it.”
“Too bad,” Doubting George said. “Oh, too bad! We needed him in place. There’s nothing left linking us to the rest of the army now.”
“Sir, from what I could see, the rest of the army is scooting back toward Rising Rock as fast as it can go,” the runner said. By the way he kept shifting from foot to foot, he either needed to squat behind a tree or else he too wanted to scoot back toward Rising Rock as fast as he could go.
“We can’t scoot yet, son,” Lieutenant General George said. “As long as we hold on here, we shield the retreat for the rest of the army. And the traitors haven’t licked us yet, have they?”
“N-no, sir,” the runner answered, though he sounded anything but convinced. George was also anything but convinced, but not about to admit that to anyone, even himself.
He said, “Go on up to Brigadier Brannan, there at the crest of the hill, and tell him what you just told me about Negley. Tell him he may need to swing some of his engines around to the west, because we’re liable to get attacked from that direction.”
“Yes, sir.” The runner gathered himself and hurried away.
“Miserable civilian,” Colonel Andy growled, meaning not the runner but the departed Brigadier Negley. “This is what comes of making the bastards who recruit the troops into officers with fancy uniforms. The trouble is, people who really know what they’re doing have to pay for their mistakes.”
“There’s some truth to that, but only some,” Doubting George replied.
“There’s a demon of a lot of it, if anyone wants to know what I think,” Andy said. George’s aide-de-camp had chubby cheeks that swelled now with indignation, making him look like nothing so much as an irate chipmunk.
But George repeated, “Some. It wasn’t the amateur soldiers who made this battle into a botch. It was the professional warriors, the folks who learned their trade at the Annasville military collegium, the folks just like you and me.”
“May I spend my time going between freezing and roasting in the seven hells if I think General Guildenstern’s one bit like me,” Andy said, still very much in the fashion of a chipmunk trying to pick a fight.
Before George had the chance to respond to that, another runner dashed up, this one with alarm all over his face. “Lieutenant General George!” he cried. “Lieutenant General George! Come quick, sir! The traitors have got a couple of regiments around our right flank, and they’re doing their gods-damnedest to cornhole us.”
“Oh, a pox!” Doubting George exclaimed. “Take me there this very minute.” He followed the messenger along the side of Merkle’s Hill. He’d been worried about the left, with Brigadier Negley pulling out, and hadn’t dwelt so much on the right. True, Ned of the Forest had tried sliding around that way the day before, but the northerners had left that end of the line alone after their thrust didn’t work… till now.
The shouts coming from the east would have warned him something had gone wrong if the runner hadn’t found him. Brigadier Absalom greeted him with a salute. “Things are getting lively in these parts,” he said.
“That’s one word,” George said. “What’s going on?” As he had all through the fight by the River of Death, he felt like a man on the ragged edge of disaster. The least little thing might pitch him over the edge, too, and the whole army with him. A lot of it’s already gone, he thought.
“They were coming from that way.” Absalom the Bear pointed back over his shoulder. Doubting George was glad he had the big, burly brigadier commanding here. Nothing fazed him. Absalom went on, “I got a skirmish line of crossbowmen facing the wrong way and beat ’em back.”
Doubting George set a hand on his shoulder and told him, “That’s the way to do it.” But at that moment, fresh roars broke out from behind them. Here came the northerners again, attacking the end of the line from both front and rear. If they rolled it up, the
y’d finish off George’s whole wing. He said, “I don’t think skirmishers will hold them this time.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Absalom agreed.
Looking around, George saw a regimental commander standing only a few feet away. “Colonel Nahath!” he called.
“Sir?” Formal as if on parade, the officer from New Eborac came to attention.
“Colonel, I desire that you face your regiment to the rear and aid our skirmishers in repelling the traitors coming from that direction,” George said.
Colonel Nahath saluted. “Yes, sir!” he said, and began shouting orders to his men.
Doubting George shouted orders, too: for another regiment to join Nahath’s in repelling the enemy, and for men to come forward to fill their places in the line. “That’s good, sir,” Absalom the Bear said. “Don’t want to leave a hole open, the way General Guildenstern did.”
“No, I don’t suppose I do,” George agreed. “Now that I’ve seen what happens with a mistake like that, I don’t much care to imitate it.” He and Absalom both laughed. It wasn’t much of a joke, but better than tearing their hair and howling curses, which looked to be their other choice.
“You chose your regiments shrewdly,” Absalom observed as the southrons George had told off collided with Thraxton’s troopers. “A good many blonds in both of them. They won’t let the northerners through, not while they’re still standing they won’t.”
“True,” Doubting George said, and so it was. But his brigadier was giving him credit for being smarter than he was. He’d grabbed those two regiments because they were closest to hand, not because they were full of men with especially good cause to hate the soldiers who followed false King Geoffrey.
George chuckled. He was willing to have his subordinates think him smarter than he really was, so long as he didn’t start thinking that himself. General Guildenstern had walked down that road-oh, surely, abetted by Thraxton the Braggart’s magic, but Guildenstern had already seen a good many things that weren’t there by then-and the results hadn’t been pretty.
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