* * *
“Logan the Black?” John the Lister stared as if he’d never heard the name in all his born days. “Baron Logan the Black? Bart’s sending him to take over this army? He’s not even an Annasville man!”
Colonel Nahath shrugged. “That’s what I heard, sir. A couple of blonds who serve the scryers were gossiping about it, and one of my men, a corporal, listened to ’em. They didn’t shut up because he’s a blond himself. I thought you ought to know.”
“Thanks-I think,” John told the regimental commander from New Eborac.
“I understand how you must feel, sir,” Nahath said sympathetically. “If Doubting George doesn’t use this army…”
He stopped right there: that was the place where another word would go too far. If George doesn’t use this army, you ought to, might get back to Baron Logan if he did oust Doubting George. If Logan ever heard that, he was likely to make both John and Nahath sorry for it.
“Nothing we can do, is there?” Colonel Nahath said, changing course.
“Doesn’t seem to be,” John answered. “If the enemy gives us a hard time, we can always go out and fight him. I know Doubting George doesn’t seem to want to, but we can. But who’s going to protect us from the people on the same side as we are? No one ever has. No one ever will.”
“I suppose not.” Nahath sighed. “Seems a pity, doesn’t it? George has done so much good here in the east-and so have you, sir. You ripped the guts out of Bell’s army at Poor Richard, same way a tiger will rip the guts out of a sheep with his hind claws. They’re a sorry lot now. Have you seen them?”
“Seen them? I’ve even been up in an observation tower with a spyglass. They’re close enough for a man with a decent glass to see how many of ’em are barefoot.”
“I know.” Colonel Nahath nodded. “But they’ve still got pikes and crossbows and some engines. And they still don’t like us. When we do attack them, they’ll fight hard.” He sighed again. “I’ve never yet seen those bastards not fight hard. The first time would be nice. I don’t suppose I’d better hold my breath.”
“No, I don’t think you should, Colonel,” John the Lister said. “They’ll always fight hard. But if we can beat ’em once more, beat ’em the way they should be beaten, what’ll they have left to fight with after that?”
“Teeth. Fingernails. Ghosts,” Nahath answered. “That might be enough to scare some blonds-though that corporal I was telling you about would be angry if he heard me say so-but it doesn’t frighten me. If we beat ’em once more, sir, I think you’re right. I think they fall to pieces.” He tipped his hat. “I think we can give ’em that beating, too. If it’s not under Doubting George, I also think it’s a gods-damned shame you don’t get the chance to do it.” There. He’d come out and said it.
“That’s very kind of you, Colonel. I do appreciate it, believe me.”
The regimental commander shrugged. “I’m telling you what I think, sir. I’m just as much a free Detinan as Baron Logan the Black, even if he’s got a fancier pedigree than I do. He’s a brave man. He’s a good soldier, for a man who’s not a regular. But we’ve been through this whole campaign, and he hasn’t. A man who has ought to be in charge when it all pays off. That’s how I look at things, anyhow.” Nahath shrugged again. “Marshal Bart’s liable to look at it differently.”
“Looks like he does,” John said. Nahath nodded, saluted, and went on his way.
John strode down the board sidewalks and muddy streets of Ramblerton. Here was a town unusual in the Kingdom of Detina: a town with plenty of men of fighting age on the streets and going about their ordinary, everyday business. In most places, south and north, a large number of them would have been called to serve the gold dragon or the red. Not here. The southrons who occupied Ramblerton didn’t trust the locals to fight on their side, and they’d done their best to keep those men from slipping out of town and fighting for King Geoffrey. And so, in between one side and the other, the Ramblertonians had what neither side enjoyed: peace.
Having it, they refused to enjoy it. One of them jeered at John as he went by: “You southron bastards are scared to fight General Bell. You’ve never been anything but a pack of stinking cowards.”
John smiled his politest smile. “We’re winning,” he said, and kept walking.
“Blond-lover!” the Ramblertonian shouted.
Smiling still, John answered, “Well, most of the blonds I’ve thought of loving are a lot prettier than your sister.”
The man thought about that for two or three heartbeats. Then, bellowing like an aurochs in the mating season, he lowered his head and charged. No matter how furious he was, though, he’d never really learned anything about fighting. That was what the occupation of Ramblerton had done to the men who lived there: it had deprived them of the chance to become efficient killers.
John the Lister sidestepped and hit the local in the pit of the stomach with his left fist. “Oof!” the man said: a sound more of surprise and outgushing air than of pain. Pain or no, though, he folded up like a concertina. John straightened him with an uppercut to the point of the chin.
His foe was made of solid stuff. He stayed on his feet after that shot to the jaw, though his eyes went glassy. John the Lister’s sword hissed from its scabbard. Far more often than not, a brigadier’s sword was a parade weapon, nothing more.
High-ranking officers seldom came close enough to enemies in the field to use steel against them. Half a dozen of Bell’s brigadiers had died fighting in the front ranks at Poor Richard, but that was as unusual as everything else about the battle there.
But even though John seldom used the blade, he kept it sharp. Its point caressed the Ramblertonian’s throat just below the edge of his beard. Wan late-autumn sunshine glittered off the bright blade.
“You were just leaving, weren’t you?” John inquired in honeyed tones.
Blinking-and swaying more than a little-the local stood there with his mouth hanging open, trying to make his wits work enough to answer. A small trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth down into his beard. “Yes,” he said at last. “I reckon maybe I was.”
To make sure he was, his friends grabbed him and hauled him away from John the Lister. “He’d better be careful,” John called after them. “He might run into another southron coward and not live through it.”
None of them answered, which he thought mean-spirited.
If one southron can whip one northerner, how many southrons do we need to whip all the northerners in the Army of Franklin? John wondered. Fewer than we’ve already got, I think.
Most of the other southron officers in Ramblerton came up with the same answer. Doubting George had a different one. He was in command, and so his answer was the one that counted.
But how long would he stay in command? What sort of answer would Logan the Black come up with when he got here from the west? John the Lister had no trouble figuring that out. Logan would attack. He would probably win, too. And whatever glory there was would go to him.
If it doesn’t go to George, it ought to go to me. John had thought that before. It did him exactly no good. He wasn’t the one who got to apportion such things. Marshal Bart was, and Bart had chosen Baron Logan.
He can give out glory, John thought wonderingly. If that doesn’t make a man a god on earth, what would?
Then he shook his head. Bart could give out the chance for glory. There was no guarantee Logan the Black could seize it. But after John looked north toward the Army of Franklin’s curtailed lines, he let out a long sigh. If Logan couldn’t whip Lieutenant General Bell-if anybody couldn’t whip Lieutenant General Bell-now, he didn’t deserve glory.
A man in a gray robe came out of a building on the far side of the street: a tall, skinny, graceless man who looked as if he would fall over in a strong breeze. John the Lister waved to him. “Major Alva!” he called.
After a moment of blinking and staring and obviously trying to recall who this person wanting his attention was, Alva
waved back. “Hello, sir,” he said, and trotted across the street toward John. An ass-drawn wagon full of barrels bore down on him. The teamster aboard the wagon jerked the reins hard. Braying resentfully, the asses stopped less than a yard from Alva. The teamster cursed like… like a teamster, thought John, who was too horrified at the sight of the best southron wizard east of the Green Ridge Mountains-and very possibly west of them, too-barely escaping destruction to indulge himself with fancy literary figures.
What was even more horrifying was that Alva himself had no idea he’d just escaped destruction. The braying jackasses and cursing teamster? The rattling wagon full of barrels? As far as he was concerned, they might have been in New Eborac City or on the far side of the moon. That meant he was liable to do something else just as idiotic this afternoon or day after tomorrow, and luck and a foul-mouthed teamster might not be enough to keep him safe then.
“Is something wrong, sir?” he asked, which meant that John the Lister’s horror must have been even more obvious than he thought.
“You should be more careful when you cross the street, Major,” John got out after considerable effort.
“You’re right,” Alva said gravely. That cheered John till the mage went on, “I almost stepped in a couple of mud puddles there. Only fool luck I didn’t, I suppose.”
“Mud puddles,” John muttered. He shook his head. “The gods must watch over you, because you certainly don’t seem to be able to take care of it for yourself.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Alva asked. John spread his hands. It wasn’t that he couldn’t explain. But he could see explaining would be as useless as explaining the facts of life to a bullfrog. Then Alva brightened. “Whatever it is, I hope it can wait. I’ve been meaning to congratulate you on your promotion, and this is the first chance I’ve had.”
“Er-thank you.” John wouldn’t have bet that Alva knew the difference between a captain and a brigadier. His attitude toward subordination argued against it.
But the wizard said, “You’re welcome. Making brigadier in the regulars will set you up for after the war.”
He’d already shown he was thinking about what he would do once the War Between the Provinces finally ended. Maybe he was thinking about what everyone would do once the war ended. John nodded and said, “I hope so, anyhow. Are the traitors up to anything sorcerous that’s strange or out of the ordinary?”
“What an interesting question, sir,” Major Alva said. “As a matter of fact, I was checking on them yesterday afternoon. You never can tell about those people.”
“Well, no,” John the Lister said. “We are fighting a war with them, if you recall. What did your check show?”
“Nothing,” Alva replied. “Oh, not a great big glow-in-the-dark Nothing, the kind that can only mean somebody’s hiding a great big ugly, nasty Something behind it. But as far as I can tell, Bell’s mages are just doing the usual kinds of things mages in an army do-healing, scrying, investigating for a what-do-you-call-it…”
He didn’t explain. “A what-do-you-call-it?” John asked.
“You know, where they try to find out whether a son of a bitch really is a son of a bitch,” Alva said helpfully.
However helpful he meant to be, he wasn’t. And then, all of a sudden, a light went on inside John’s head. “A court-martial!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, one of those.” It was, plainly, all the same to Alva. The wizard went on, “Anyhow, uh, sir, they’re doing that kind of thing, but I don’t see them doing anything much else: nothing that they’re showing, anyhow.”
“Could they hide it from you?” John the Lister asked.
Alva looked indignant. No-Alva looked offended. “The bunglers Bell’s got with him? They couldn’t hide their prongs when they pull up their pantaloons… sir,” he said scornfully.
John the Lister had never heard a southron wizard talk that way about his northern opposite numbers. Most southron sorcerers viewed the northerners with fearful respect. Most of them needed to. Not Alva, and he didn’t.
The thump of drums, the skirl of horns, and the wail of pipes came from the south, from the banks of the Cumbersome. Alva peered. “Look!” he said in childish delight. “A parade!”
And so it was. Their musicians leading the way, flags flying, regiment after regiment of tough-looking southron soldiers in gray tunics and pantaloons marched from the river north toward the encampments by Doubting George’s field fortifications. For a little while, John the Lister simply watched them, as Major Alva did. Then, realizing who those soldiers had to be, he muttered, “By the gods!”
“What is it, sir?” Alva asked.
“Curse me if those aren’t the two brigades from the far side of the Great River.”
“That’s nice,” the wizard said agreeably. “What about ’em?”
“What about ’em?” John echoed. “This about ’em: they’re the men Doubting George has been waiting for the past two weeks. He’s said he couldn’t attack Bell without ’em. Now they’re here. I wonder if he really will attack now that they are.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Alva asked. “I mean, if he did say that-”
“People can come up with all sorts of excuses for not doing what they don’t want to do,” John answered. “I don’t know whether George has done that. By the Lion God’s fangs, I hope he hasn’t. But we’re going to find out, because he hasn’t got any other excuses left.”
* * *
Lieutenant Griff looked up and down the trench. His larynx, big as an apple, bobbed up and down in his throat. He called, “Are you men ready to do all you can for good King Avram and for Detina?”
“Yes, sir!” Corporal Rollant shouted. He gripped the staff of the company standard hard enough to whiten his knuckles. His voice wasn’t the only one eagerly raised, either. He hoped Bell’s men were too far away to hear the southrons yelling. He thought they were, but he wasn’t sure. His comrades all along the line were making a lot of noise.
“We’ve waited a long time for this now,” Griff said. “Some people will tell you we’ve waited too long. There’s all sorts of stupid talk going about. You’ll have heard it. Some folks say a new commander for us is coming from the west. Some folks say Marshal Bart is on his way here. Some even say a new commander and Bart are heading this way. In a few days, maybe all that would have mattered. But it won’t now. And do you know why?”
“Why?” the men called.
Lieutenant Griff, who’d cupped a hand in back of his ear waiting for just that call, grinned at them. “I’ll tell you why. Because we’re going to lick the hells out of the gods-damned traitors before anybody can get here from the west. That’s why!”
A great cheer erupted, as if the southrons had already gone and won their battle. Rollant gripped the flagpole harder than ever. Were they all deaf over there in Bell’s lines? Well, it wouldn’t matter for long, because the southrons were going to come forth from the line of forts they’d held for the past couple of weeks. When they did, the northerners would no longer have any possible doubt about what they intended.
Rollant’s regiment, along with the rest of the wing John the Lister commanded, was stationed on the right of Doubting George’s line. John’s men were, in fact, the rightmost footsoldiers in the line. Out beyond them were only Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders.
Horns screamed, all along the southrons’ front. “Forward!” Colonel Nahath shouted in a great voice. “Forward for good King Avram! Forward for freedom! Forward because smashing this army of traitors into the dust at last takes a long step toward winning the war!”
“Forward!” Lieutenant Griff yelled. “Avram and victory!” His voice would never be very deep, but it didn’t crack. He was, bit by bit, growing up.
“Forward!” Sergeant Joram boomed. “We’ll whip the stinking traitors out of their boots, or I’ll know the reason why.” Like any sergeant worth his silver, he wanted his men to fear him more than the enemy.
“Forward!” Rollant yelled. He was an underoffic
er; he wanted to, and had the right to, make his voice heard. “Forward for freedom!” For him, no other war cry mattered. In the north, he wouldn’t have been allowed to wear a sword on his hip, let alone a corporal’s stripes on his sleeve.
Beside him, Smitty said, “I’m confused, your high and mighty Corporalship, sir. Which direction should we go in?”
Laughing, Rollant answered, “You can go to hells, Smitty-but take some traitors with you before you do. Come on!”
His breath smoked as he scrambled out of the trench. The day was clear but cold, the sun low in the northeast. He waved the company standard back and forth. More and more southrons came out of the works in front of Ramblerton. They formed their lines and advanced.
Off to the right, Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers swept out on what looked to be a looping path around the far left of the Army of Franklin. Rollant saw that much, and then stopped worrying about the riders. They still had to beat Ned of the Forest. He knew all about Ned-and when had southrons ever come close to matching what he’d done? Rollant knew the answer to that only too well: never.
He looked to the left. The standard he carried was one of scores-hundreds-sweeping forward at the same time. The right was a little in front of the center, where the banners seemed a little farther apart. Off to the left, he thought the standards were tightly bunched once more. He wasn’t so sure of that, though, as the left was a long way off.
Here and there, stones and firepots arced through the air toward the oncoming southrons from behind the northerners’ lines. The first ones fell short. Then they began clawing holes in the ranks of the men in gray. Repeating crossbows clattered into action, too. Engineers were pushing the southrons’ own catapults and repeating crossbows forward as fast as they could. They soon started shooting back.
Lieutenant Griff brandished his sword. He said, “It must be true what they say about Bell’s army-they haven’t got a whole lot of engines left.”
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