“Yes, sir!” The mage sounded like a tragedian playing in an amphitheater in front of images of the gods at a high festival. “I’m afraid they’ve got round behind the army, sir. We didn’t notice till too late!”
What John the Lister felt like doing was kicking the mage in the teeth. Botched wizardry had cost King Avram’s armies dear again and again. Now it looked as if it was going to cost John. Instead of doing what he felt like, he asked, “Didn’t notice what?”
“Didn’t notice General Bell’s army on the move, sir,” the mage answered miserably. “The wizards masked it from us till just now.”
“So did Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders.” John the Lister’s voice was unhappy and enlightened at the same time. He’d wondered why Ned’s men had been so active, pushing back his own pickets and generally doing their best to impersonate Bell’s whole army. He hadn’t worried much about it, not till now. Ned was always busy and active; he wouldn’t have made such a pest of himself if he weren’t.
“What will we do, sir?” the gray-robed mage howled. “What can we do?”
“Well, it seems to me that getting out of this mess would be a pretty good idea,” John replied. “Don’t you agree?”
“Y-yes, sir. But… how?”
“I don’t know yet,” John the Lister said. “I expect I’ll figure something out, though. Once I know where the enemy is, that’ll tell me a lot about what I can do.”
“Sir, he’s-he’s behind us. Between us and Poor Richard. Between us and Ramblerton.” White showed all around the irises of the wizard’s eyes, as if he were a spooked unicorn.
“That’s not so good,” John said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came along. He tried for a bigger one in his very next sentence: “If there’s one thing you don’t want, it’s the traitors sitting on your supply line, especially when the harvest is done and the foraging’s bad.”
“How can we hope to escape?” Despite John’s calm, the wizard was the next thing to frantic. “If we stay here, we’ll starve. If we try to retreat past the enemy, he’ll hit us in the flank. He’ll probably block the road, too, so we’ll have no hope of getting by.”
“This isn’t the best position to try to defend,” John said. “Too open, too exposed. Bell’s men could make a clean sweep of us, and they wouldn’t have to work very hard to do it, either. If we’re on the move, though-”
“If we’re on the move, they’ll strike us in the flanks,” the mage repeated.
“Maybe they will,” John the Lister agreed politely. “But maybe they won’t, too. Funny things can happen when you’re on the move-look at how they just diddled us, for instance. They fooled us, so maybe we can fool them, too. How’s your masking spell these days, Lieutenant?”
“Not good enough, sir, or they wouldn’t have been able to do this to us.” The wizard still seemed ready to cry.
John the Lister slapped him on the back, hard enough to send him staggering halfway across the pavilion. “Well, you and your friends should work on it, because I think we’re going to need it soon. You’re dismissed.”
Muttering under his breath, the mage left. Once he was gone, John the Lister spent a minute or two cursing his luck and the incompetence of the wizards with whom he’d been saddled. A lot of southron generals had sent those curses up toward Mount Panamgam, the gods’ home beyond the sky. The gods, unfortunately, showed no sign of heeding them.
If nothing else, cursing made John feel better. General Guildenstern would have got drunk, which would have made him feel better but wouldn’t have done his army any good. Doubting George would have loosed a volley of sardonic remarks that made him feel better and left his targets in despair. John tried to relieve his own feelings without carving chunks from anyone else. He didn’t always succeed, but he did try.
Once he’d got the bile out of his system, he ordered a runner to find his adjutant and bring him back to the pavilion. Major Strabo came in a few minutes later. “What’s the trouble, sir?” he asked. The commanding general explained. His walleyed subordinate seemed to stare every which way at once. “Well, that’s a cute kettle of cod,” Strabo said when John finished. “And what in the name of the cods’ sort of coddity let the traitors hook us like that?”
“They outmagicked us,” John replied. “They’ve done it before. They’ll probably do it again. Now we have to figure out how to keep this from ending up a net loss.”
For one brief, horrified moment, both of Strabo’s eyes pointed straight at him. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” the major said. “Sir.”
“Probably,” John the Lister agreed. “But I have more important things to worry about right now. So does this whole army.”
“Your statement holds some veracity, yes.” Major Strabo’s eyes went their separate ways again. “What do you propose to do, sir?”
That was about as straightforward a question as was likely to come from John’s adjutant. The commanding general answered, “I propose to get this army out in one piece if I can. If Bell forces a fight, then we give him a fight, that’s all.”
“Will you let him come to you, or do you aim to go to him?”
Two straightforward questions in a row-John the Lister wondered if Strabo was feeling well. He replied, “We’re going back toward Poor Richard. If we can get there, it’s a good defensive position. And if we stay here, Bell can starve us out without fighting. To the hells with me if I aim to let him do that. Draft orders for our withdrawal down the road to Poor Richard, warning it may be a fighting retreat.”
“Yes, sir,” Strabo said, and then, after some hesitation, “Uh, sir, you do know it may be a great deal worse than that?”
“Oh, yes, I know it.” John nodded heavily. “I know it, and you know it. But if the men don’t know it, they’re likely to fight better if they have to. Or do you think I’m wrong, Major?”
“No, sir,” Major Strabo answered. “I am of the opinion that your accuracy is unchallengeable. Not only that, but I think you’re right.”
“I’m so glad,” John murmured. “Well, prepare those orders for my signature. I’ll want to get moving this afternoon, so don’t waste any time.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Strabo, who was as diligent as he was difficult. “Will you want all your unicorn-riders in the van?”
Reluctantly, John the Lister shook his head. “No, we’d better leave half of them in the rear to keep Ned of the Forest off us. Hard-Riding Jimmy looks like he’s still wet behind the ears, but he knows what he’s doing for us, and those quick-shooting crossbows his riders have make a small force go a long way. Half the men at the van will do. And we need the rest back at the rear. We couldn’t move very gods-damned fast if Ned’s men kept chewing at the hind end of our column. Write ’em that way. With Ned back there, Bell won’t have many unicorn-riders at the front of his army, either.”
“That makes sense,” Major Strabo said. “It may not be right, mind you, but it does make sense.”
“I’m glad I have you to relieve my mind,” John told him. Strabo smiled and inclined his head, as if he thought that a genuine compliment. Maybe he did; he was more than a little hard to fathom. John went on, “Draft those orders, now. The sooner you do, the sooner we see if we can’t set this mess to rights.”
“Yes, sir. You may rely on me. As soon as I pluck a quill from a goose’s wing…” Strabo made as if to grab a goose from the sky. John made as if to strangle his adjutant. They both laughed, each a little nervously.
However difficult Strabo might have been, the marching orders he prepared were a small masterpiece of concision. Along with a detachment of unicorn-riders, he also posted most of the southron wizards in the van. John nodded approval of that. He wasn’t sure how much good the wizards would do, but he wanted them in position to do as much as they could.
The army hadn’t even left Summer Mountain before John realized how much trouble it was in. Sure enough, Bell’s army was posted close to the road down which his ow
n force had to withdraw. All the northerners had to do was reach out their hands, and his army was theirs. That was how it looked at first glance, anyhow. He hoped it wouldn’t seem so bad as he got closer to the foe.
It didn’t. Instead, it seemed worse. The northern army was drawn up in battle array perhaps half a mile west of the road leading south to Poor Richard. John felt like deploying into battle line facing them and sidling down the road crab-fashion. He couldn’t-he knew he couldn’t-but he felt like it.
Skirmishers rushed forward and started shooting bolts at his men. His repeating crossbows hosed them with death. Here and there, men on both sides fell. But it was only skirmishing, no worse, and didn’t force him to halt his march and try to drive back the traitors.
A few northern catapults came forward, too, and flung stones and firepots at his long column. Most of the missiles missed. Every once in a while, though, one of them would take a bite out of the long file of men in gray tunics and pantaloons. The dead lay where they fell-no time to gather them up, let alone to build pyres and burn them. Soldiers with crushed limbs or with burns from a bursting firepot would go into the wagons, for healers and surgeons to do what they could.
Major Strabo said, “If their main force attacks, we are dead meat.”
“Think so, do you?” John the Lister said.
“Gods-damned right I do,” his adjutant answered. “Don’t you?”
“Well, now that you mention it, yes,” John said. “We’ve already got farther than I thought we would.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Strabo seemed almost indignant at not being annihilated. “Is our masking spell working that well?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe it.
John the Lister didn’t believe it, either. He had good, solid reasons not to believe it, too. “Can’t be, Major,” he said. “If it were, their skirmishers wouldn’t know we’re here.”
Major Strabo’s eyes slewed wildly as he watched the brisk little fight-and it was only a little fight-over on the army’s right flank. “What’s wrong with General Bell? Is he cracked? He’s at liberty to attack us whenever he pleases, and what’s he doing?”
“Nothing much.” John answered the rhetorical question. Then he asked one of his own: “Are you sorry?”
“No, sir. Or I don’t think so, sir. The only trouble is, if Bell isn’t attacking us here, I’d like to know why he isn’t. What’s he got waiting for us down the road?”
That was a good question, and anything but rhetorical. “I don’t know,” John admitted. He waved to the men in blue, most of whom still watched his army tramp past their positions. “What I do know is, he can’t have too much, because that over there has to be most of the Army of Franklin. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?”
“No, sir. Can’t do it, sir,” Strabo replied. “Hells, I didn’t think Bell had even that many men. But where’s the plug on the road? That has to be it. As soon as they force us to stop, then they’ll all swarm forward.” Again, he almost sounded as if he looked forward to it.
“I don’t know where it is. We haven’t bumped into it yet.” But even as John the Lister spoke, a unicorn-rider came galloping back toward the army. Ice raced up John’s spine. For a moment there, he’d almost known hope. Now the bad news would come, all the crueler for being late. “Well?” he barked as the rider drew near.
“The road’s clear, sir, all the way south,” the unicorn-rider said. “The traitors aren’t trying to block it, not anywhere we can find.”
“You’re joking.” John said it automatically, for no better reason than that he couldn’t believe his ears.
“No, sir.” The rider shook his head. “By the Thunderer’s lightning bolt, the way south is as empty of men as Thraxton the Braggart’s head is of sense.”
“Than which, indeed, nothing could be more empty-or should I say less full?” Major Strabo shook his head, too, and answered his own question: “No, I think not, for Thraxton the Braggart unquestionably is full of-”
“He certainly is,” John the Lister said hastily. “But that doesn’t really matter, especially since Thraxton’s not in charge of the traitors any more. What matters is, they had us all boxed in” — he waved toward the men in blue still drawn up in plain sight, the men in blue who still weren’t advancing against his own force- “they had us, and they didn’t finish the job. I don’t know how they didn’t, I don’t know why they didn’t, but they didn’t.” Most of the time, John was a serious man. Now he felt giddy, almost drunk, with relief.
“Now General Bell’s let us get away, and very soon, I think, he’ll rue the day,” Strabo declaimed.
“Has anyone ever called you a poet, Major?” John asked.
“Why, no, sir.” Major Strabo looked as modest as a walleyed man could.
“Well, I understand why,” John said. His adjutant sent him an injured look. The commanding general didn’t care. Something had gone wrong for the traitors. John didn’t know what, but he knew the only thing that mattered: he would gladly take advantage of it.
III
Lieutenant General Bell had taken what the healers politely called a heroic dose of laudanum, even by his own standards. He’d taken plenty to leave a unicorn flat on its back waving its hooves in the air, a silly smile on its face. For once, Bell felt no physical pain.
But Bell was sure all the laudanum in the world wouldn’t have sufficed to take the edge off his towering inferno of wrath. Had he had two working arms and two legs, he would have done murder against his wing and brigade commanders. As things were, he could only scorch them with his leonine eyes, wishing each and every one of them into the most agonizing firepit of the hottest hell.
“You idiots!” he roared. “You bunglers! You fools! You knaves! How could you let the gods-damned southrons escape you? How? How?” The word came out as an agonized howl. “Are you cowards or are you traitors? Those are the only two choices I see.”
His officers stirred. He didn’t think any of them would have the effrontery to answer him, but Patrick the Cleaver did: “In that case, sir, you’d better get new fletching for your sight so it’ll carry farther.”
“Oh, unicorn shit!” Bell bellowed. “I watched you botching boobies there on the field. I watched you, and what did I see? Nothing! Nothing, gods damn it! You would not close with them. None of you would, you spineless squid! The best move in my career as a soldier I was thus destined to behold come to naught. To naught! You disgrace the uniforms you infest. A half-witted dog could have led an attack that would have swept the southrons away. Would I’d had one in an officer’s uniform!”
The subordinate commanders stirred again, more angrily. A brigadier whose parents had given him the uncompromising name of Provincial Prerogative hissed, “You have no business to use us so… sir.”
“You had no business to use me so!” Bell yelled, still in a perfect transport of fury. “Did I order you to attack the retreating southrons? I did. And did you attack them? You did not. They escaped. And whose fault is that? Mine? No, by the gods. Yours!”
A very red-faced young brigadier called Hiram the Cranberry said, “You have no business calling us cowards and dogs.”
“You have no business acting like cowards and dogs,” Bell raged. “You were supposed to act like soldiers. Did you? Did you?” He was screaming again. He half hoped he would have an apoplexy and die so he could escape this mortification.
“Sir, we did the best we could,” said another brigadier, a short, squat fellow known as Otho the Troll.
“Then gods help King Geoffrey and his kingdom!” Bell said.
“You go too far, sir; you truly do,” Patrick the Cleaver said. “Indeed and it’s a sore trial to our honor.”
“Have you any? It’s news to me.” Lieutenant General Bell wished he could simply turn his back on the wing and brigade commanders. Being a cripple brought with it all sorts of humiliations, some less obvious than others.
“For gods’ sake, sir!” another brigadier burst out. That was his favorite ex
pression; because of it, he was widely called For Gods’ Sake John. Twirling one end of his fiercely outswept mustache, he went on, “You damage your own honor, sir, when you impugn ours.”
“That’s right. That is well said,” agreed a brigadier known as Count John of Barsoom after the Peachtree Province estate where he’d grown goobers before the war. He thought very well of himself.
“I don’t damage my honor. You-the lot of you-damaged my honor,” Bell insisted. “If you’d only done what I told you to do, we would be celebrating an enormous victory right now. Instead, we have-this.” He gestured in disgust. “You are dismissed, every single one of you. I wish I never had to see any of you ever again. The gods don’t grant all wishes-I know that.”
“Were you after calling us together for no better purpose than to be railing at us like your Excellency was a crazy man?” Patrick the Cleaver asked. “A bad business that is, a very bad business indeed.”
Bell could at the moment think of no better purpose than the one Patrick had named. If the officer from the Sapphire Isle didn’t agree with him-well, too bad for Patrick the Cleaver. “You are dismissed,” Bell said again. “Get out of my sight, before I murder you all.”
He couldn’t make good on the threat. He knew that. His subordinate commanders had to know it, too. But if his look could have stretched them all dead on their pyres, it would have. They had to know that, too. By the way they hurried off, they feared his glare might strike them dead.
He took yet another swig of laudanum after they were gone. He hoped it would make him fall over. Again, no such luck. It didn’t even quell his fury. All it did was make him a little woozy, a little sleepy. He heaved himself to his feet: no easy job, not with a missing leg and a useless arm. Laudanum or no laudanum, sticking a crutch in his left armpit brought a stab of pain. He welcomed it like an old friend; being without pain, these days, felt unnatural.
He pushed his way out through the tent flap. The sentries guarding the pavilion stiffened to attention. They saluted. General Bell nodded in reply; returning a salute while he was on his feet-on his foot, rather-wasn’t easy.
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