Florizel shrugged. “I don’t have much to go forward with, sir. If you give the order, we’ll try.”
Before Bell could reply, Benjamin the Heated Ham came riding up from the left. Bell asked him the same question. Benjamin shook his head. “Go forward? Not a chance, sir. If the southrons strike us, I’m not sure we can hold our ground. We’ve been shot to pieces. I don’t know how else to say it.”
Last of all, Brigadier Stephen the Pickle, a sour-faced man not far from Bell’s age, rode up from the right. He looked even more sour when Bell asked him if he could attack in the morning. But he answered, “I have a couple of brigades that haven’t gone into the meat-grinder yet, sir. If you want to throw them at the southrons, they’ll advance. But I don’t know how many of them will come back again. Those lines are solid.”
“Muster your men,” Bell said. His wave encompassed the three wing commanders. “Muster your men, all of you. Care for the wounded. Pile up the dead and make them ready for the fires. We will go forward.”
“Care for the wounded?” Benjamin the Heated Ham exclaimed. “Half the time, we can’t even drag them back out of range. The southrons are too gods-damned alert and up too close for that. They shoot anybody who tries to save a comrade or a friend.”
“They fight war as if it were nothing but murder,” Bell said angrily. “They have been fighting that way ever since the Marthasville campaign. General Hesmucet’s conduct during the siege was disgraceful.”
“Yes, sir,” Benjamin said.
“Yes, sir,” Stephen the Pickle echoed. “But if that’s the way they choose to fight, we have to fight the same way, or we’ll go under.”
“I know,” Bell said. “That is one of the reasons I ordered this attack. We have to show the enemy we still have the spirit to fight it out with him man to man.”
Colonel Florizel said, “But how much good does that do us, sir, if he stays in his entrenchments and shoots us down by the thousands before we can close with him? Wouldn’t we be better served making him attack us and pay the bigger butcher’s bill?”
Lieutenant General Bell glared at him. “That is what Joseph the Gamecock was doing in the Marthasville campaign before King Geoffrey relieved him and appointed me in his place. Geoffrey wants men who can fight, not soldiers who skulk in trenches.”
“We fought, sir,” Florizel said. “We fought as hard as flesh and blood can fight. I already told you that. When you’re trying to carry a position like this one, it doesn’t matter how hard you fight, though. You’ll get chewed up any which way.”
“I do not wish a defeatist to command a wing, Colonel,” Bell said coldly. “Your tenure will be temporary.”
“That suits me fine… sir,” Florizel answered. “I’m not what you’d call eager to tell my men to go forward and get cut to pieces attacking a position they haven’t got a chance in hells of taking.”
“We will attack at first light tomorrow,” Bell declared. “We will attack, and we will drive the southrons out of Poor Richard. Do you understand me? Do all of you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” the wing commanders chorused unhappily.
“Very well, then,” Bell snapped. “You are dismissed. Go back to your men and ready them for the assault to come.”
“Ready them to get their bums shot off,” somebody muttered. Bell glowered at each wing commander in turn. All three of them glowered back. He gestured peremptorily. They turned to go. By then, it was well past midnight, the moon sinking low.
A runner dashed back toward the officers, shouting, “Lieutenant General Bell! Lieutenant General Bell!”
“What is it?” Bell braced for another disaster.
One of the wing commanders, braced for the same thing, growled, “Oh, gods, what now?”
“Sir, the southrons have pulled out of Poor Richard,” the runner said. “Their fires are burning, but nobody’s around ’em. They’ve gone. They’ve left.”
“By the gods!” Bell said softly. “The field… the field is ours.” He turned to the wing commanders. “Don’t you see, men? This… this is victory!”
* * *
Colonel Andy pointed north to the outer defenses of Ramblerton. “Here they come, sir. Do you see them?”
“I can’t very well not see them, now can I?” Doubting George asked, more than a little irritably. “There are enough of them out there, wouldn’t you say?”
Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers served as escorts and outriders for the rest of John the Lister’s army. They would have held off Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders had Ned tried to harry John’s footsoldiers during the withdrawal from Poor Richard to Ramblerton. But, just as John had managed to knock Bell’s footsoldiers back on their heels, so Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men had warned Ned that hitting them again wouldn’t be a good idea. No one had contested the withdrawal into Ramblerton.
George spurred his unicorn forward. Andy rode alongside him and yet not quite perfectly level with him: the perfect place for an adjutant. George saw John the Lister at the head of the long column of men in dirty, often bloodstained gray tunics and pantaloons. John saw him, too, and saluted.
Returning the salute, Doubting George made it into a courtesy not only for John but also for the soldiers he commanded. “Well done!” George shouted in a great voice. “Well done! You have given us time to prepare the defenses of Ramblerton, and to gather men from several provinces to hold those defenses. Now, when the time is ripe, we will drive the traitors far away!”
A few of John the Lister’s soldiers raised a ragged cheer. Most of them just kept on marching. John pulled off the road and sat his unicorn in a field, watching them pass by. George-and Andy-rode over beside him. George saw what he knew he’d see: men who’d been through the mill; men with blank, stunned faces; men with bandages from wounds too minor to require them to take to the ambulance wagons. They’d seen too much, done too much, to be of much use yet.
“I had to leave a lot of the wounded behind,” John said unhappily. “We didn’t have room in the wagons for all of them. They’re in Bell’s hands now. So are our dead.”
“He’ll treat them with respect. I give him that much,” George said. “We do the same for the northerners. This has been a pretty clean war, except now and again when it bumps up against the question of the blonds.”
No sooner had he spoken than a blond corporal carrying a company standard tramped past. The fellow was as grimy and battered-looking as any of the Detinans around him. By his hollow-cheeked face, he’d seen as much hard fighting as they had, too. Looking at that face, George could wonder why there’d ever been a question about whether blonds were worth anything in war.
“I suppose he’ll come after me now,” John said. “I don’t see what else he can do. It’s less than twenty miles from Poor Richard down here to Ramblerton. He’s not about to go around the city and strike for the Highlow, not now, not after the lick I gave him. Before he goes any farther south, he has to take Ramblerton.”
“He’s welcome to try.” George’s wave encompassed the works John’s men were entering. “I can’t promise him a very hospitable reception, though.”
John the Lister seemed to take a good long look at the fortifications for the first time. “You haven’t been idle, I will say that. If Bell tries to storm these works, he won’t take a man back to Dothan alive.”
“That’s the idea,” George said. “And now I’ve got the men to fill them up, too, counting your soldiers and the ones I’ve scraped up from garrisons all over Franklin and Cloviston.”
“Fill them up, hells,” John said. “When Bell gets here, we ought to go out and trample the son of a bitch.”
“We will,” George replied. “Don’t you doubt it for a minute. When the time is ripe, we will.” He set a hand on John’s shoulder. “Other thing is, I’ll want you to get me the reports for your actions just as soon as you can. I’ll send them on to Marshal Bart and to King Avram. If you don’t get the rank amongst the regulars you deserve, there’s even less
justice in the world than I always thought.”
“You’ll have ’em, just as soon as I can write ’em up,” John said. “A little real rank’d be welcome, and I won’t tell you anything different. Right now, all I’ve got is a captain’s prospects once the war is over… and if you look hard, you can see the end of the war from here.”
“You can, and I can,” Doubting George said. “I don’t think Bell can yet. Well, we’ll show him when the time comes, never you fear.”
“Shouldn’t be that tough, sir,” John the Lister said. “I left him holding the ground at Poor Richard, but may the Lion God’s claws rip out my guts if I didn’t tear the heart from his army. He had to be mad, attacking me across a couple of miles of open country-mad, I tell you. Why didn’t he just cut his own throat and save us the trouble?”
“He’s not very smart. He proved that in the Marthasville campaign,” George said. “Count Joseph the Gamecock didn’t fight nearly so often, but he gave us a much harder time. Can you imagine Joseph charging you at Poor Richard?”
“Not a chance,” John the Lister said positively. “Not a chance in the world. You’re right-Count Joseph knows what he’s doing.”
“Come on into Ramblerton,” Doubting George said. “Look at the works from the inside, not just the outside. You’ll see we have some little suspicion about what we’re doing, too.”
“Let my men go in first,” John said. “They bore the brunt of it. Lieutenant General Bell may be-hells, he is — a gods-damned idiot, but his soldiers still fight like sons of bitches. Next sign of quit I see in ’em’ll be the first. No matter how stupid he was to attack us there, they almost carried the position.”
“They’re Detinans, too. They’re as stubborn as we are,” George said. “Sometimes even the stubbornest fellows get licked, though, and we’ll lick ’em.”
“Yes, sir.” John nodded. He had heavy dark circles under his eyes. How much sleep had he had the night before? The night before that? Any at all? George had his doubts.
“We’ll pour you a good, full mug of spirits,” he said. “And we’ll give you a nice, soft bed, and, by the gods, I don’t care if Bell invests this place five minutes after you lie down-we won’t wake you till you get up on your own. I expect we’ll manage to keep Ramblerton out of that bastard’s hands till then.”
“I thank you very m…” John’s voice trailed off into an enormous yawn. When at last he managed to close his mouth, he laughed ruefully. “I suppose I just proved I could use a long winter’s nap, didn’t I?”
“Let’s say you gave me a pretty good hint.” Doubting George might have added more to that, but he noticed Major Alva riding by on an ass that looked almost as weary as John the Lister. Alva waved, but then remembered to salute. After returning the courtesy, George turned back to John. “How did that young whippersnapper serve you?”
“Whippersnapper’s the word for him, all right. He kept going on and on about the gods-damned Inward Hypothesis till I wanted to kick him,” John replied.
“I know. Makes me seasick just thinking about it,” George said. “But he’s a pretty fair mage, or I thought he was when I sent him to you.”
John the Lister nodded. “He is. He is indeed. I wouldn’t try to deny it. Last night, the traitors’ wizards were punishing us in the center. Bell’s men might’ve broken through. If they had, I wouldn’t” — he yawned again- “be here now. But Alva stopped ’em. All by his lonesome, he stopped ’em cold. We held in the center, and we ended up giving Bell a thrashing.”
“That’s what I was hoping you would do,” Doubting George said. John’s wagons rattled past. The general commanding wished he didn’t have to hear the groans from the wounded men inside them. He turned to John. “Shall we go in now?” Regardless of what he wished, he would listen to them all the way into Ramblerton.
“Yes, sir,” John the Lister said.
He proved too worn to look very hard at the fortifications from the inside. George took him back to his headquarters, gave him the promised glass of spirits, and led him to a comfortable bed. John lay down without bothering to take off his boots. He fell asleep before George left the room.
A couple of hours later, after listening to preliminary reports from some of John’s officers, George got in touch with Marshal Bart by scryer. “Good day, Lieutenant General,” Bart said, peering out of the crystal ball at George. He was a stubby man, not very tall and not very wide, with a close-trimmed dark beard. “Haven’t heard from you for a while. What’s on your mind?”
“As of now, Marshal, John the Lister’s a regular captain. After what he just did to Bell and the Army of Franklin, I believe he deserves better.” George summed up what had happened at Poor Richard.
“Bell was fool enough to charge at him over open ground?” Bart said when he finished. George nodded. Marshal Bart shrugged. “Even so, you’re right. That was well done, and no mistake. A disaster there would have hurt us badly. Tell John I’ll recommend his promotion to brigadier of the regulars to King Avram.”
What Marshal Bart recommended, King Avram would approve. Doubting George whistled softly. It wasn’t that John the Lister didn’t deserve to be a brigadier in Detina’s regular army. He did; not even George could doubt that. But raising him to brigadier from captain in one fell swoop… George had expected Bart to make him a colonel, and then to promote him to brigadier’s rank later if he continued to give good service.
“I’ll tell him tomorrow, I think,” George said.
Bart frowned. Most of the time, he looked like the most ordinary Detinan in the kingdom. Anybody who thought he was ordinary, though, did so at his peril. “Why not tell him now?” the marshal asked, in tones suggesting George had better have a good reason.
And George did: “Because he’s liable to sleep till tomorrow, sir. He just got in to Ramblerton, and I don’t think he’s shut his eyes the last two days.”
“Oh.” Bart nodded. “All right. Yes, when you’re that worn down, you don’t care about anything. He’d probably strangle you if you woke him, and he might not remember anything you told him.”
“True enough. And if he did strangle me, I couldn’t very well tell him again.”
“Er, right.” Marshal Bart-the first marshal Detina had had in a long lifetime, the grandest soldier in the land-had no more idea what to do with Doubting George’s foolishness than did Colonel Andy. Unlike Andy, Bart had the privilege of changing the subject: “Do you expect Bell to follow John up toward Ramblerton?”
“Yes, sir.” George got down to business again. “I don’t know what else he can do, sir. About the only other thing would be to turn around and march back up to Dothan, and I can’t imagine Bell doing that. As long as he’s got soldiers who will follow his orders, he’ll take them into battle. If he attacked around Marthasville, if he attacked at Poor Richard, he’ll attack anywhere.”
Bart nodded again. “I think you’re right. As soon as he gets up there, Lieutenant General, I want you to hit him with everything you’ve got.”
“I will hit him, sir. You don’t need to worry about that,” George answered. “As soon as I’m ready, I will hit him a lick the likes of which he has never known before.”
“Don’t waste time,” Bart told him. “Hit him just as soon as you can. Do not give him the chance to slip around you. Smash him. Send him back to Dothan with his tail between his legs. Send him back there whether he wants to go or not.”
“Sir, I will strike him when I am ready. I will not let him get away,” George promised. “The Army of Franklin will not slip by me. It will not get down into Cloviston. You may rely on that.”
“Bell has the last northern army in the field that can still maneuver and cause us trouble,” Bart said worriedly. “I do not want us embarrassed, not when the war looks like being won.”
He commanded all the southron armies. He had the right to say what he said. That made it no less galling to Doubting George. “Sir, when he comes here and I am ready, I will strike him,” he repeated
.
“I want him smashed like a bug under a boot,” Marshal Bart said. “I want him… I want him suppressed, by the Thunderer’s pizzle.”
A couple of years earlier, Duke Edward of Arlington had used that contemptuous word in ordering the Army of Southern Parthenia forward to smash King Avram’s soldiers at the second Battle of Cow Jog. John the Hierophant, who’d commanded Avram’s men then, was off in the east these days with the equally luckless General Guildenstern, chasing blond savages. Bart took more than a little pleasure in applying the term to false King Geoffrey’s Army of Franklin.
“Sir, when the time is ripe, I will suppress him,” Doubting George said. “He won’t beat me, and he won’t get away.”
“He’d better not.” Bart still sounded fretful. George sighed. He feared the marshal would go right on nagging him even though a province and a half lay between them. Gods damn crystal balls, anyhow, George thought unhappily.
* * *
More times than Captain Gremio cared to remember, he’d seen a soldier hit square in the chest with a crossbow quarrel. Very often, the man would stagger on for a few paces and perhaps even fight a little before realizing he was dead and falling over.
Never, till now, had Gremio seen an army take a similar blow. But if, after the battle in front of Poor Richard, the Army of Franklin wasn’t a dead man walking, then Gremio had never seen any such thing. He wished he hadn’t. He wished he weren’t seeing such a thing now. But he wasn’t blind, and couldn’t make himself so. He knew what his eyes told him.
Somehow, like one of those men shot in the chest, the Army of Franklin kept lurching forward. Gremio trudged south down a muddy road, south toward Ramblerton. Since the Battle of Poor Richard, he commanded not just his company but the whole regiment. That wasn’t from any enormous virtue on his part. He was the senior captain left alive and not badly wounded, and Colonel Florizel, as the senior colonel alive and not badly wounded, was for the moment still leading the whole wing.
Commanding the regiment felt like a smaller promotion than it would have before the fight by Poor Richard, anyhow. Only a couple of companies’ worth of men were still fit for duty.
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