Florizel’s face clouded. “Not so well. They’ve forced back the line there. We may-we likely will-have to fall back here, too, just to keep things straight. I don’t think any counterattack at that end will push the southrons out of our works.”
Gremio looked over his shoulder. Another ridge line stood a mile or two north of the one the Army of Franklin presently held. He jerked a thumb towards it. “I suppose we’ll make another stand there.”
“Yes, I suppose we will, too.” Florizel nodded. “We’ve hurt the southrons. They’ve hurt us, but we’ve hurt them more than a little. If we can hold off the next attack-if they can even manage another attack, tomorrow or the next day-I’d say we’ll have won ourselves a victory… and I don’t mean the kind Bell says we won at Poor Richard, either.” He made a sour face.
“You… may be right, your Excellency.” Gremio still reckoned Florizel an optimist, but he couldn’t say for certain his superior was wrong. Florizel knew more about what was going on than he did. And even an optimist could be right some of the time-Gremio supposed. He said, “Funny how we’ve held them here, where they were supposed to be pushing hardest, but we had to give ground at the other end of the line.”
“Yes, this is a mite strange,” Colonel Florizel agreed. “Still and all, though, battle’s a funny business. What you figure will happen doesn’t, and what you don’t does.”
“That’s true. I wish it weren’t, but it is,” Gremio said.
“Has my regiment fought well, Captain?” Florizel asked.
“Yes, sir,” Gremio answered truthfully.
“Good. It’s a funny business of a different sort, you know-needing to ask about the soldiers I commanded for so long.”
“You still command us, Colonel.”
“Yes, but not that way. How about your old company? That will give you some notion of what I mean.”
“My old company is doing just fine, sir, even if it does have a sergeant in charge of it,” Gremio answered.
“Good. That’s good. You know, if you’d ever wanted to promote that Thisbe to lieutenant’s rank, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. He’s a hells of an underofficer. I saw that right away.”
“Sir, I suggested promotion more than once. Whenever I did, Sergeant Thisbe said no.”
“Ah, well. There are some like that. It’s too bad. I think he would have made a pretty fair officer, and I don’t say that about every sergeant in the regiment.”
“I know, sir. I agree. But” — Gremio shrugged- “Thisbe didn’t. Doesn’t.”
“Nothing to be done about it in that case,” Florizel said. “A pity, though.”
A panting runner came up to him from the left. “Sir, you are ordered to withdraw to the ridge line to the rear,” the messenger said. “We’ve been forced back to it on the left, and we haven’t got the men to stretch from one ridge to the other. We have to keep our line as short as we can.”
“Is that what Lieutenant General Bell says?” Gremio asked. The runner nodded.
“I can’t say he’s wrong,” Florizel observed. Gremio couldn’t say the commanding general was wrong, either. He wasn’t sure Bell was right, but, as with Florizel before, that was a different story. Florizel went on, “Prepare my regiment-I’m sorry, Captain: your regiment-for withdrawal. Make sure it can still fight while pulling back. The rest of the wing will accompany it.”
“Yes, sir,” Gremio said. “Up till now, the southrons haven’t pressed us hard. I don’t suppose they will here, either.” But why haven’t they? he wondered, and found no answer that satisfied him.
* * *
Ned of the Forest had gone up against Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders pushing south, trying to flank John the Lister out of Poor Richard. He hadn’t been able to shift them. It was the first time in the whole course of the war that he’d tried to make a move and had the southrons completely thwart him. He hadn’t cared for the experience one bit.
Now Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers were the ones moving forward, and Ned had to stop them. He was discovering he liked that even less.
For one thing, he was again operating without his own full force of riders. Bell, in his infinite wisdom, had sent some of them off to raid Reillyburgh. He’d claimed the raid would help draw Doubting George out of Ramblerton and make him attack the Army of Franklin’s entrenched positions. He’d been right, too. Ned wondered how happy Bell was now about being right.
For another, between the fight near Poor Richard and this one, Jimmy had been massively reinforced. Every single one of his unicorn-riders seemed to be using a newfangled, quick-shooting crossbow. He would have badly outnumbered Ned of the Forest even had Ned had all his own riders. This way… this way, it was like trying to hold back an avalanche with his hands.
Every inch of ground between the left end of Lieutenant General Bell’s line and the Cumbersome River seemed to have a southron unicorn-rider galloping forward over it. And all of them were putting so many crossbow quarrels in the air, a man might almost have walked across the battlefield on them.
“What the hells do we do, Lord Ned?” Colonel Biffle wailed after Jimmy’s men made him give up a knoll he’d badly needed to hold. It was either give up the knoll or wait to get flanked out of the position… or wait a little longer and get surrounded and destroyed. “What the hells can we do?”
“Fight the bastards,” Ned snarled. He’d been living up to his own advice; his saber had blood on it. He laid it across his knees for a moment while he snapped off a shot at a gray-clad southron. He missed, and cursed, and reloaded as fast as he could. A southron could have got off three or four shots with his fancy weapon in the time Ned needed to shoot once.
When he shot again, though, a southron unicorn-rider crumpled in the saddle. “That’s the way!” Biffle exclaimed.
But Ned remained gloomy even as he set yet another bolt in the groove of his crossbow and yanked the string back with a jerk of his powerful arms. “They’ve got four or five times the men we do, and a lot more than that when it comes to shooting power,” he said. “How the hells are we supposed to whip ’em with odds like that?”
“If we had all the men we’re supposed to-” his regimental commander began.
“It might help a little,” Ned broke in. “I hated Bell’s guts when he stole ’em from me. I hated his guts, and I hated his empty head. But you know what, Biff? Right this minute, I’m not sure how much difference they’d make.”
Colonel Biffle stared at him. “I’ve never heard you talk this way before, Lord Ned. Sounds like you’re giving up.”
Before Ned could answer, a crossbow quarrel hummed past between the two men. “I’m not quitting. There’s no quit in me. I’ll fight till those sons of bitches kill me. Even after I’m dead, I want my ghost to haunt ’em. But by the Lion God’s claws, Biff, how am I supposed to win when I’ve got to fight everything the southrons can throw at me?”
“I don’t know, sir. I wish I did. You always have, up till now.”
“But up till now I’ve been operating on my own. If too many southrons came after me, I could always ride off and hit ’em again somewhere else. Here, though, here I’m stuck. I can’t pull away from this fight, on account of if I do, Hard-Riding Jimmy gets around the footsoldiers’ flank and eats ’em for supper. So I’ve got to stand here and take it-take it right on the chin.”
Another hillock fell, the southrons shooting at the men on it from the front, right, and left at the same time. Ned’s troopers barely escaped. If they’d waited much longer, they would have been cut off and surrounded. Watching them fall back, Colonel Biffle said, “That’s what happened to me, too.”
“I understood you,” Ned said. Yet another bolt thrummed past, wickedly close. He went on, “If it’s just a shooting match, they’re going to whip us. I don’t know of anything in the whole wide world plainer’n that.” If the southrons did push aside or beat back his unicorn-riders, they would outflank the Army of Franklin’s footsoldiers, and then… That was all too plain t
o Ned, too.
Biffle said, “What else can it be but a shooting match?”
“Let’s close with ’em,” Ned said savagely. This wasn’t the kind of fight he usually made, or usually wanted to make. He knew how expensive it would be. But he also knew how disastrous continuing the fight as it was going would be. “They’re tough enough with the crossbow, all right. How are they with sabers in their hands?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Biffle said in wondering tones.
Ned of the Forest wondered, too: he wondered if he’d lost his mind. But when you were desperate, you had to do desperate things. He stood tall in the saddle, brandishing his blood-streaked saber. Pointing it toward the southrons, he roared out a command: “Chaaarge!” He set spurs to his unicorn and thundered at Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men.
His troopers followed without hesitation. The southrons were a couple of hundred yards away. Ned hadn’t ridden more than half the distance before realizing he’d made a mistake. The enemy didn’t want to play his game, and they had the shooting power to make sure his side paid a high price for even attempting it. A storm of crossbow quarrels met his riders. Men pitched from saddles. Unicorns crashed to the ground, screaming like women in anguish. He wondered whether he would have any followers left by the time he got in amongst the southrons. He didn’t wonder if he would get in amongst them. He had the good soldier’s arrogance to be sure of that.
Sometimes, of course, even good soldiers were wrong. Ned of the Forest shoved that thought deep down out of sight. He had no time for it now. He never had much time for thoughts like those.
His mount lowered its head and charged for the closest enemy unicorn. A young officer with only one epaulet rode the other unicorn: a lieutenant. He shot at Ned, who hunched low on his own beast’s back. The southron missed. Cursing, he worked the lever that brought a new bolt up into the groove and cocked the crossbow at the same time. He shot again. He missed again.
Even with a fancy quick-shooting crossbow, he had no time for another shot after that. And, paying so much attention to his crossbow, he hadn’t paid enough to his unicorn. Ned’s mount gored it in the left shoulder, tearing a red, bleeding line in the perfect whiteness of its coat. The unicorn shrieked and reared. The southron lieutenant had all he could do to stay in the saddle-till left-handed Ned hacked him out of it with a savage saber stroke.
“Come on, you sons of bitches!” Ned shouted, and even he couldn’t have told whether he was yelling at his own men or King Avram’s. “Let’s see how you like it!”
He struck out at another trooper in gray. His sword bit the man’s arm. The cry that burst from the southron was as shrill as any a unicorn might have made. Most men-most men on both sides, from what Ned had seen-had little stomach for close combat. They would sooner fight at crossbow range, where they could think of their foes as targets, not as other men like themselves… and where they didn’t have to meet them face to face.
Ned was different. He might have been a wolf who knew only how to kill with his own jaws. Meeting the enemy face to face didn’t bother him-on the contrary. It helped him frighten the foe. And the more fear he spread, the easier that made the rest of his job.
He rode up to a southron sergeant. The enemy unicorn-rider had drawn his saber, but Ned attacked from his left side, which meant he had to reach across his body to defend himself. Ned’s smile was wolfish, too. Being left-handed had won him a lot of fights.
It didn’t win him this one. Another shouting southron galloped up to help the man he’d assailed. By the time he drove that second fellow off with a wounded unicorn, the sergeant had ridden away.
Lightning smashed down out of a clear sky. “About time, gods damn it!” Ned roared. He’d wondered if all of Bell’s wizards had died of old age, or maybe just of accumulated uselessness. At least they were trying.
But they weren’t succeeding. No southron troopers rode anyplace near where the lightning struck. It smote once more-again in a place where there were no southrons. Ned cursed. He’d seen that Doubting George had wizards who knew what they were doing. Men said Bell might have prevailed at Poor Richard if a southron wizard hadn’t thwarted the northerners’ sorcerous assaults.
Now it looked to be happening again. What did that say? Probably that Bell’s wizards hadn’t learned anything new since the fight at Poor Richard, which surprised Ned not a bit. Bell hadn’t learned anything much since then, so why should his mages prove any different?
Again the futile lightnings crashed. Ned of the Forest forgot about them. They wouldn’t change anything, and he had to stay alive. He traded swordstrokes with a southron who knew what he was doing with a blade in his hand. Battle swept them apart before either could wound the other.
Colonel Biffle’s shout resounded in his ears: “Lord Ned, we’ve got to pull back!”
“Hells with that,” Ned ground out. “We’re still giving ’em a hard time.”
“But they’re giving us worse,” Biffle said, “and besides, sir, the footsoldiers are falling back.”
“What’s that?” Engrossed in his own fight, Ned of the Forest had paid scant attention to what was going on off to his right. But the regimental commander had told the truth. Pressed by swarms of pikemen and crossbowmen in gray, Bell’s left wing was pulling back toward the rise a mile or two north of the position in which it had started the day.
The retreat was orderly, the men in blue giving a good account of themselves as they withdrew. No signs of panic showed. But a retreat it unquestionably was.
And Biffle had also told the truth about Ned’s charge. Not many of his unicorn-riders remained on their mounts. Like the footsoldiers, they’d done all they could. But they’d come up against too many men and too many quick-shooting crossbows. They’d slowed the southrons, yes. The price they’d paid for slowing them…
“All right. All right, gods damn it,” Ned said. “Now we can pull back without everything going to hells and gone. And we can anchor our new line on the one the footsoldiers are setting up.”
That sounded good. But the farther north from Ramblerton they fell back, the wider the loop of the Cumbersome River became. Ned knew he could keep Hard-Riding Jimmy off the footsoldiers’ flank. But who was going to keep the southrons from getting around his flank and into the Army of Franklin’s rear?
Nobody. Nobody at all. That was the only answer he could see. He glanced toward the west, where the sun had slid far down the sky. Things hadn’t gone too badly today. Darkness would force the fighting to stop before long. If the southrons had enough left to push again tomorrow, though…
“They’d better not, gods damn it,” Ned muttered.
His men, the survivors, broke off their hand-to-hand struggle with Jimmy’s unicorn-riders. Another volley of crossbow quarrels helped speed them back toward their comrades. But the riders in gray didn’t try to close with them. That charge might not have done-hells, hadn’t done-everything Ned wanted, but it had knocked the southrons back on their heels. Better than nothing.
And better than nothing was about as much as the north could hope for these days. Ned knew that all too well. His own years of campaigning in Dothan and Great River Province, in Franklin and even down in Cloviston, had driven it home. He’d needed one desperate makeshift after another to keep his unicorn-riders in the field. Had he had any lingering doubts, Bell’s all but hopeless lunge down into Franklin would have murdered the last of them.
“One more day, and we’re still here fighting,” Colonel Biffle said.
“That’s right. That’s just right, gods damn it,” Ned said. “And we gave the southrons all they wanted, and then a little more, too.” He spoke loudly, to make sure his men listened. He wanted their spirits as high as possible. He feared they would need to do more hard fighting when the sun came up tomorrow.
He’d succeeded in heartening Biffle, anyhow. The regimental commander nodded. “After the botch the footsoldiers made of the fight at Poor Richard, I was afraid they’d fold up and run when the sout
hrons hit ’em. But they didn’t. They fought like mad bastards, and no mistake.”
“Like mad bastards, yes.” Ned of the Forest didn’t echo that and no mistake. Too many people had already made too many mistakes in this campaign. Far too many of those people wore northern generals’ uniforms. Some of them were now dead. Some… weren’t.
With the darkness, quiet settled over the battlefield, quiet punctuated by occasional challenges and flurries of fighting, and by the groans of the wounded. What were Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men doing in the darkness? Ned sent out scouts, but they couldn’t learn much. The southrons’ patrols were very aggressive, very alert. We’ll find out tomorrow, Ned thought, and tried to fight down worry.
VIII
Lieutenant General Bell hadn’t just listened to the moans of wounded men on the battlefield. At Essoville in the west and at the River of Death, he’d added his own moans to the mix. Better than most of his subordinates, he knew what the wounded were going through, for he’d gone through it himself. He’d given up trying to escape the laudanum bottle. It was as much a part of him now as his ruined left arm.
All things considered, though, he was more pleased than not with the day’s fighting. He wished the Army of Franklin could have held its original line, but it hadn’t had to fall back too far. The army remained in good order. It hadn’t been routed. It had hurt Doubting George’s men as they came forth to attack. If things hadn’t gone exactly as Bell hoped, they hadn’t missed by much, either.
He levered himself off a stool and made his slow way across the pine boards flooring the shack that was, for the moment, Army of Franklin headquarters. Runners waited on the front porch, shivering against the chill of evening. They came to attention and saluted when he stuck his head out.
“Fetch me my wing commanders and my commander of unicorn-riders,” he told them. “We have to plan tomorrow’s fighting.”
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