Contempt blazed from him. Part of it was contempt for the southrons, part for the army’s higher officers. And part of it, Ormerod realized, was contempt for him and people like him. He fit into the neat hierarchy of life in the north. Thersites didn’t, even if he called himself a noble and lived like a noble. He was one who’d forcibly kicked his way into the picture from the outside, and still felt on the outside looking in.
Before Ormerod had the chance to think about what he was saying, he blurted, “You remind me of Ned of the Forest.”
Lieutenant Gremio stirred beside him, plainly unsure how Major Thersites would respond to that. And Thersites in a temper was nothing any man in his right mind took lightly. But the new regimental commander only nodded. “Thank you kindly,” he said, and bowed to Ormerod. “Ned’s a man, by the gods. He doesn’t need any blue blood to make him a man, either. He just is.” He bowed again, then went off toward another campfire.
“Well, you got away with that,” Gremio said once he was out of earshot. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Neither was I,” Ormerod answered. “Thersites is… touchy.”
“Touchy!” Lieutenant Gremio rolled his eyes. “Thersites is a fellow who hates everybody that’s better than he is: everybody who’s handsomer, or who has more silver, or who has bluer blood. And since there are a lot of people like that, Thersites has a lot of people to hate.”
“He doesn’t hate Ned,” Ormerod pointed out.
“No, I see he doesn’t.” Gremio spoke with exaggerated patience. “You got lucky-Ned’s everything he wants to be.”
“But Ned hasn’t got any noble blood at all.” Ormerod didn’t think Thersites did either, not really, but nobody liked to say anything about that, not out loud. Thersites’ temper was most uncertain.
“And he’s a brigadier without it,” Gremio said. “And he got the chance to tell Count Thraxton off right to his face, if what they say is true. All Thersites can do is grumble behind Thraxton’s back. He’d probably give his left ballock to be Ned of the Forest.”
“I’d give my left ballock to be back on my own estate, with no more worries than a serf running off every now and then.” Ormerod sighed for long-gone days. “I didn’t know when I was well off, and that’s the truth.”
“Gods curse King Avram for overturning what was right and natural,” Gremio said. “We couldn’t let him get away with it.”
“Of course not,” Ormerod agreed around a yawn. “Not if we wanted to stay men.” He lay down, rolled himself in his blanket, and went to sleep.
Breakfast the next morning was hasty bites of whatever he had in his knapsack. Count Thraxton might not have pursued the southrons so swiftly as Ormerod would have liked, or down the path he reckoned proper, but Major Thersites pushed the regiment hard. It was almost as if Thersites intended to drive General Guildenstern’s army out of Rising Rock all by himself.
That wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much Thersites and Ormerod might want it. Guildenstern had too many men in the town, and they sheltered behind formidable field fortifications. But those works to the north and west of the town weren’t quite so formidable as they might have been.
“Look, boys!” Thersites called, pointing ahead. “I don’t think those sons of bitches have a single man up on Sentry Peak.”
“If they don’t, we ought to get up there and take it away from them,” Ormerod said, excitement in his voice no matter how tired he was.
Major Thersites needed nothing more to spur him into action. Maybe he wouldn’t even have needed Ormerod’s push, though Ormerod had his own strong opinion about that. But now Thersites’ nod was as sharp and fierce a motion as a tiger turning toward prey. “Yes, by the gods,” he said softly, and then raised his voice to a full-throated battlefield shout: “My regiment-to the left flank, march!”
Some of his men let out startled exclamations. They didn’t obey quite so fast as they would have moved for Colonel Florizel. But move they did, scrambling up the steep slopes of Sentry Peak toward the rock knob’s summit a couple of thousand feet above the town of Rising Rock. And not a single southron soldier shot at them or even tried to roll a rock down on their heads.
Ormerod enjoyed himself, scampering like a mountain antelope and leaping from one boulder to another with a childlike zest he hadn’t known he could still muster. If he fell during one of those leaps, he would be very sorry. All the more reason not to fall, he told himself, and leaped again.
He wasn’t the only one whooping like a little boy, either. Half the company, half the regiment, squealed with glee as they climbed. And, once Thersites had shown the way, the regiment wasn’t the only force scaling Sentry Peak. No one above the rank of colonel had ordered the ascent, but it made obvious good sense to everyone near the foot of the mountain.
Panting more than a little, Lieutenant Gremio said, “I do believe I would have fallen over dead if I’d tried to make this climb back before I took service with King Geoffrey’s host. It’s made a man of me. I spent too many years peering at law books. No more.”
“No, no more.” Ormerod hadn’t wasted his time with books before Geoffrey raised his banner in the north. He’d worked on his estate, worked almost as hard as the serfs whose liege lord he was. But he was a fitter, harder man after two and a half years of war, too.
When he reached the top of Sentry Peak, the first thing he felt was surprised disappointment: he wanted to keep going up and up and up. But then, as he looked around, that disappointment drained away, to be replaced by awe. He murmured, “You can see forever.”
For the first time, he grasped one of the reasons the Detinan gods lived atop Mount Panamgam: the view. There below Sentry Peak lay Rising Rock, with a loop of the Franklin River thrown around it like a serpent’s coil. Beyond Rising Rock, the flatlands of the province of Franklin stretched out endlessly, green of farm and forest gradually fading toward blue. He wondered if he could see all the way across Franklin and into Cloviston to the south.
If he turned around and looked back the way he’d come, there lay Peachtree Province. If he looked straight west, those distant mountains beyond Proselytizers’ Rise had to belong to Croatoan. And there to the northeast lay Dothan, where the blonds had had one of their strongest kingdoms before the Detinans arrived, and where, as was true in his own Palmetto Province, they still outnumbered folk of Detinan blood.
But his eye did not linger long on the distant provinces. Instead, it fell once more to Rising Rock. “If we can get engines onto the south slope of Sentry Peak here,” he said, “we can almost reach the town itself, and we can surely reach the southron soldiers in those field works down there.” He pointed to the trenches and breastworks near the base of the mountain.
“General Guildenstern was a fool for not letting this place anchor his line north of the town,” Gremio said.
“You’re right,” Ormerod agreed-he could hardly say Gremio was wrong, not when he’d just come out with such an obvious truth. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of him for being a fool.”
“No, and we’d better,” Lieutenant Gremio said. “If we didn’t have a fool commanding our own army, we’d be over there” -he pointed east- “astride the southrons’ supply line instead of here just outside of Rising Rock.”
“Maybe Count Thraxton had some reason for doing things the way he did.” Ormerod tried to make himself believe it. It wasn’t easy.
Gremio killed his effort dead: “Of course Thraxton had a reason: he’s a chucklehead.”
Ormerod looked down at Rising Rock, tiny and perfect and almost close enough for him to reach out and touch it. “Maybe we can starve the bastards out anyway. Here’s hoping.” Gremio’s look said he would sooner have had something more solid than hope. So would Ormerod, but he made the most of what he had.
* * *
Even though Earl James of Broadpath could heave his bulk up to the top of Sentry Peak and peer down into Rising Rock, even though Count Thraxton’s men also held the p
eak line of Proselytizers’ Rise, he was furious, and he made no effort to hide it. “Idiocy!” he boomed at whoever would listen. “Nothing but idiocy!”
Some of Count Thraxton’s officers did their best to shush him. “Your Excellency, nothing good can come of these constant complaints,” one of them said.
Another was blunter: “Thraxton is liable to turn his magecraft your way, your Excellency, if you don’t restrain yourself.”
“Let him try, by the gods,” James rumbled. “I’m warded by Duke Edward of Arlington’s personal mage. I think Duke Edward’s mage should be a match for just about anyone, don’t you?” The colonel who’d warned him only shrugged and went away. James of Broadpath also shrugged. Thraxton was a mighty sorcerer-when everything went right. Had things gone right for him more often, James wouldn’t have needed to come east with his division from the Army of Southern Parthenia.
And most of Thraxton’s officers agreed with James, regardless of what their commander thought. Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest had both backed him when he pushed Thraxton to make a proper pursuit. He had no doubt Ned of the Forest agreed with him, too, though Ned was fighting southwest of Rising Rock right now, holding off Whiskery Ambrose’s effort to come to General Guildenstern’s rescue from the direction of Wesleyton. And a good many lower-ranking officers had sidled up to him to say they regretted how things had turned out after the victory near the River of Death.
None of which, of course, mattered a counterfeit copper’s worth. Thraxton the Braggart commanded the Army of Franklin, and what he said went. King Geoffrey had his victory in the east. Whether he would have more than that one victory, whether he would have everything it should have brought, remained very much up in the air.
“I don’t care how fancy a mage Thraxton is,” James complained to Brigadier Bell. “He has all the vision of a blind man in a coal cellar at midnight.”
Bell looked up from the cot on which he lay. His usually fierce expression was dulled by heroic doses of laudanum. Even so, pain scored harsh lines down his cheeks and furrowed his forehead. Under the blanket that covered him, his body’s shape was wrong, unnatural, asymmetrical. I believe I would sooner have died than suffered the wounds he’s taken, James thought.
The laudanum dulled thought as well as pain. Bell’s words came slowly: “We should be on our way to…” He groped for the name of the town. “To Ramblerton. To the provincial capital. We shouldn’t be stuck here outside of… of Rising Rock.” Even drugged and mutilated, he too could see what James of Broadpath saw.
“There’s no help for it, Bell,” James said sadly. “He is the commander of this army. He gives the orders. Even if they’re stupid orders, he has the right to give them. I’ve argued till I’m blue in the face, and I had no luck getting him to change his mind. If you’ve got any notion of how to get him to do what plainly needs doing, I’m all ears.”
He was just talking; he didn’t expect Bell to come up with anything. What with the horrible wound-gods, Bell couldn’t even have fully recovered from the mangled arm he’d got down in the south less than three months before-and the potent drug, that Bell could talk at all was a minor miracle. The other officer looked up at him from the cot and spoke with terrible urgency: “Let the king know, your Excellency. If the king knows, he’ll do what needs doing.”
Gently, James shook his head. “Remember, Count Thraxton is Geoffrey’s dark-haired boy. If it weren’t for Geoffrey, Thraxton wouldn’t have held his command out here even as long as he has.”
He wondered if Bell even heard him. “Let the king know, James,” the wounded man repeated. “The king has to know.”
“All right,” James of Broadpath said. “I’ll let him know.” He didn’t mean it, but he didn’t want to upset poor Bell. The wound might still kill him, or fever might carry him off. No point tormenting him with refusals at a time like this.
But then, as James left the tent where Bell lay, he plucked at his beard in thought. Coming right out and speaking to King Geoffrey would surely fail; he remained convinced of that. Even so…
“How could I be worse off? How could we be worse off?” he murmured, and hurried away to the pavilion the scryers called their own.
One of the bright young men looked up from his crystal ball. “Sir?”
“I want you to send a message to Marquis James of Seddon Dun, over in Nonesuch,” James of Broadpath said.
“To the minister of war? Yes, sir,” the scryer said. “You will, of course, have cleared this message with Count Thraxton?”
“I don’t need to do any such thing, sirrah,” James rumbled ominously, and tapped his epaulet to remind the scryer of his own rank.
“Yes, sir,” the fellow said-he was just a first lieutenant, an officer by courtesy of his skill at magecraft rather than by blood or courage. Technically, he was in the right, but a lieutenant technically in the right in a dispute with a lieutenant general would often have done better to be wrong. The youngster had the sense to know it. Licking his lips, he bent low over the crystal ball. “Go ahead, sir.”
“To the most honorable Marquis James of Seddon Dun, Minister of War to his Majesty King Geoffrey, legitimate King of Detina: greetings,” James said, declaiming as if speaking to the minister of war face to face. “May I take the liberty to advise you of our conditions and wants. After a very severe battle, we gained a complete and glorious victory-the most complete of the war, perhaps, except the first at Cow Jog. To express my convictions in a few words, our chief has done but one thing he ought to have done since I joined his army. That was to order the attack. All other things that he has done he ought not to have done. I am convinced that nothing but the hand of the gods can help us as long as we have our present commander.
“Now to our wants. Can you send us Duke Edward? In an ordinary war I could serve without complaints under anyone whom the king might place in authority, but we have too much at stake in this to remain quiet now. Thraxton cannot adopt and adhere to any plan or course, whether of his own or of someone else. I pray you to help us, and speedily. I remain, with the greatest respect, your most obedient servant, James of Broadpath.”
“Is that… all, sir?” the scryer asked. James of Broadpath nodded brusquely. The scryer had another question: “Are you… sure you want me to send it?” James nodded again. The scryer didn’t; he shook his head. But he murmured over the crystal ball, then looked up. “All right, sir. It’s on its way.” By his tone, he thought James had just asked him to send an earthquake to Nonesuch.
James hoped the scryer was right. As far as he was concerned, an earthquake was exactly what this army needed. But all he said was, “The minister of war should hear my views.” He strode out of the scryers’ tent.
In striding out, he almost collided with Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest, both of whom were striding in, grim, intent looks on their faces. “Oh, by the gods!” Dan exclaimed. “Don’t tell me he’s got you, too?”
“Don’t tell me who’s got me for what?” James asked.
Dan and Leonidas both started talking at once. Leonidas used language James would not have expected to hear from a hierophant. But he was the one who calmed down enough to give a straight answer: “Count Thraxton has ordered us removed from our commands, may he suffer in the seven hells for seven times seven eternities.”
“He’s done what?” James of Broadpath’s jaw dropped. “He won’t move against Guildenstern, but he will against his own generals?”
“That’s the size of it, your Excellency,” Dan said bitterly. “That’s just exactly the size of it. And if he thinks I’m going to take it lying down, he can bloody well think again. King Geoffrey will hear of this.”
“He certainly will,” Leonidas the Priest agreed. “And so will the Pontifex Maximus back in Nonesuch. Thraxton needs to be placed under full godly interdict.”
“What on earth made him sack both his wing commanders?” James asked, still more than a little stunned.
“We have t
he sense to see that this army should be doing more than it is, and we have had what the Braggart reckons the infernal gall to stand up on our hind legs and say so out loud,” Dan of Rabbit Hill replied. “As far as Thraxton is concerned, that amounts to insubordination, and so he sacked us.”
“Which is why, when we saw you here, we wondered whether you had suffered the same fate,” Leonidas said. “You have also seen that Count Thraxton’s conduct of this campaign leaves everything to be desired.”
“He hasn’t got round to me yet.” James felt almost ashamed that Thraxton hadn’t got round to him-or was the Braggart holding off because he properly belonged to the Army of Southern Parthenia, not the Army of Franklin? “But I just sent a message to the minister of war expressing my lack of confidence in Thraxton as a leader of this host.”
“Huzzah!” Baron Dan slapped him on the back. “Here’s hoping it does some good. Here’s hoping someone back in Nonesuch starts paying attention to the east. Someone had better. Without it, King Geoffrey has no kingdom.”
“Well said,” James told him. “That’s just why Duke Edward prevailed on Geoffrey to send me hither. The victory a few days ago opened the door for us. But we still have to go through it, and Rising Rock stands in the way.”
“It shouldn’t,” Leonidas the Priest said. Even he could see that, and he was hardly a soldier at all. “We should have pursued the southrons harder, and we should have flanked them out of it. Why didn’t we?”
“Because Thraxton’s an imbecile, that’s why,” Dan of Rabbit Hill snapped.
James was inclined to agree with him; no other explanation fit half so well. He said, “This army can still win, with a proper general at its head. I asked the minister of war for Duke Edward.”
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