Advance and Retreat wotp-3

by Harry Turtledove

  Colonel Andy swept the glass across Bell’s position. Before long, he was cackling, too. “They’re robbing the painter to pay the potter,” he said. “Pretty soon, it’ll be the piper they’re paying.”

  “Yes. That did occur to me,” George said. “That surely did occur to me. They’re- Now you’re squawking. What’s going on?”

  “Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men just swamped a section of that makeshift line Bell managed to cobble together,” his adjutant replied. “They’re pouring through the gap. To the hells with me if I know what Bell can do to stop ’em.”

  “As a matter of fact, he’s doing about as well as he can, considering what he’s up against,” Doubting George said. “He’s in worse shape than we were on Merkle’s Hill, there by the River of Death. We outnumber him worse than the traitors outnumbered us then. I didn’t think he’d even be able to slow down Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers, but he did.”

  “And a whole fat lot of good it did him.” Andy pointed. He looked like nothing so much as an excited chipmunk sitting up at the mouth of its burrow. “Look, sir! Just look at that! Now the line he’s holding against our footsoldiers is starting to break up, too! And there go our men, right on through.”

  “I told Marshal Bart I could whip Bell,” George said. “I told him so-and I was right, by the Thunderer’s great right hand.”

  “Yes, sir.” His adjutant’s voice held awe. “I thought we could beat them, too, but I never thought we’d manage-this.”

  “I told Bart I would wait till I was ready, and then I’d hit hard,” George replied. “I did what I said I was going to do-no more, no less-and this is what we got. I don’t know about you, Colonel, but I’ve seen men do more and get less.” Even as he spoke, another chunk of Bell’s line dissolved and disappeared like a lump of sugar in hot tea.

  Colonel Andy also noted that. He said, “Sir, for this victory I don’t see how they can help promoting you to lieutenant general of the regulars.”

  “Do you know what, Colonel?” Doubting George said. “As a matter of fact, I don’t care if you know or not, since I’m going to tell you. And what I’m going to tell you is, I don’t give a good gods-damn. They should have made me a lieutenant general of the regulars for what I did by the River of Death. They didn’t do it then, and I have a hells of a time caring now.”

  A column of muddy, disheveled northern prisoners came stumbling by, the hale helping the wounded along. Grinning soldiers in gray carrying crossbows and pikes herded the captives toward the south. One of the northerners, spotting Doubting George called, “By the gods, General, why didn’t you go and drop an anvil on us, too?”

  “What’s that?” George boomed. “What’s that you say? Don’t you think I already went and did it?” The northerner didn’t answer. He just lowered his head and trudged on into captivity.

  Before long, more prisoners followed that first column. This time, one of the guards called out to Doubting George: “We’re capturing a hells of a lot of their catapults, too, sir.”

  “Good. Good. I like to hear that.” The commanding general turned back to his adjutant. “Let’s see Baron Logan the Black come one inch-one gods-damned inch, do you hear me? — past Cloviston now. By the Lion God’s claws, I swear I’ll clap him in irons if he has the gall to try it.”

  “Yes, sir!” Colonel Andy said enthusiastically. “We don’t need anybody but you here in the east.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Doubting George said. “Having a good many thousands of soldiers who know what they’re doing makes my life a lot easier.”

  No sooner had those words crossed his lips when a messenger came tearing back to him, shouting, “Sir! Sir! The enemy’s breaking up and running. What do we do, sir?”

  Somehow, being confronted by one of his soldiers who didn’t know what he was supposed to do bothered George not in the least, not when the man brought news like that. The general commanding answered, “Chase the sons of bitches! Chase ’em hard. Don’t slow down for anything. Don’t let ’em regroup. Keep pushing ’em till you run the legs right off ’em. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, sir. We are to pursue vigorously.” Saluting, the messenger dashed back toward the north.

  “Pursue vigorously.” The words tasted bad in George’s mouth. The man had squeezed all the juice from the order. But he’d got it right, or right enough.

  More prisoners came back. Each time a new column stumbled and staggered past, the guards wore bigger smiles. They understood what was happening, how the battle was going. “We’ve got ’em whipped!” one of them shouted to Doubting George. “They can take provincial prerogative and put it on the pyre, because it’s dead.”

  Some of the captured northerners still had spirit left. They jeered and hooted and called out false King Geoffrey’s name. More, though, tramped along with their heads down, glum and dejected and weary. One fellow said, “To the hells with provincial prerogative. Fill my belly full and you can have King Avram, for all of me.”

  Doubting George hadn’t heard that very often. He hoped he would hear more of it. Colonel Andy said, “Sir, I really think we’ve broken them.” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe it.

  That irritated George. “You don’t need to seem so surprised, Colonel. Did you think this war would go on forever?”

  Andy looked startled. “Do you know, sir, I think I almost did.”

  “Well, by the gods, it won’t,” George declared. “It is going to end, and we are going to help end it. We are going to take the Army of Franklin and grind it to dust. And when we do, what does Geoffrey, that son of a bitch, have left east of the mountains? Not bloody much, that’s what.”

  Even as he spoke, another stretch of Bell’s line, assailed from the front and both flanks, collapsed into a chaos of men running away as fast as they could go or throwing down crossbows and pikes, throwing up their hands, and surrendering. The northern soldiers had done everything a general could reasonably ask of his men. They had, very likely, done more than a general could reasonably ask of his men. In asking a small number of weary, hungry soldiers to beat more than twice as many well-fed, well-rested, well-armed ones, though, Lieutenant General Bell had wanted altogether too much. Now he was-or rather, his men were-paying the price for his asking that of them.

  Colonel Andy watched that stretch of line go to pieces, too. “This is… this is what victory feels like, isn’t it? I don’t mean victory in a battle. I mean… victory.” He sounded disbelieving, but he said the word.

  Doubting George nodded. “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Colonel. That’s what I’ve been telling anybody who’d listen. Up till now, nobody’s much felt like listening. Not Bart, by the Thunderer’s beard. Some people you’ve just got to show. We’ll, we’ve shown ’em, all right.”

  “We have. We really have.” Yes, Andy sounded dazed.

  Having shown the world, Doubting George wanted to see for himself, too. He shouted for his unicorn. When an orderly brought it, he swung up into the saddle and rode north so he could see it for himself.

  “What will you do if an enemy attacks you, sir?” Colonel Andy called after him.

  “What’ll I do? I’ll kill the bastard,” George answered. His adjutant stared. Doubting George laughed. Didn’t victory make the world seem fine?

  * * *

  Back when Rollant was a serf, he’d had to harvest rice and indigo on Baron Ormerod’s estate in Palmetto Province. Every year, the job looked enormous, far too large for the serfs on the estate to finish in time. Pitching in to do it only strengthened that feeling. But then, one day, you realized it was almost done. Usually, you realized that with something approaching astonishment. Where had all the work gone?

  Rollant had something of the same feeling now. Where had all the war gone? No one in his regiment despised the northerners more than he did. No one had better reason to despise them, though some of the other blonds had reasons just as good. But, however much he loathed the traitors, he’d always known them as me
n who fought hard. Had anyone anywhere ever fought better for a worse cause? He didn’t think so.

  Yesterday, Bell’s men had gone right on fighting hard. Yes, the southrons had driven them back, but they hadn’t had an easy time of it. The Army of Franklin had retreated to this second ridge line in good order, and they’d seemed ready enough to offer battle again today.

  And the northerners had even fought hard in the early hours of the morning, though they’d had footsoldiers coming at them from the south while Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders pressed them from the north. Before too long, though, they seemed to realize they simply did not have the men to hold off all their foes. Here, being unable to hold off all their foes meant about the same thing as being unable to hold off any of those foes. They seemed to realize that, too. The Army of Franklin’s battle was lost, lost irretrievably.

  Once Bell’s men figured that out, once it sank in, they did something Rollant had never seen them do before: they went to pieces. Rollant had northerners surrender to him without even complaining about yielding to a blond. Others, instead of taking a shot they were all too likely to make at a standard-bearer, threw away their crossbows and ran.

  That didn’t always do them any good. Rollant and his comrades pursued, and pursued hard. Not only that, Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers still lay between the northerners and escape. Some of Bell’s men surrendered to them. Others never got the chance. Troopers with quick-shooting crossbows put a lot of bolts in the air. More than a few of them struck home.

  “Keep on! Keep on, gods damn it!” Colonel Nahath shouted, his voice cracking with excitement. “Push ’em hard! Keep pushing! Drive ’em! We’ve got ’em where we want ’em! Now we finish ’em off!”

  In all his time in King Avram’s army, Rollant had never heard orders like that. No one on the southron side had ever had an excuse for giving orders like that. Now people did-they had that excuse and made the most of it.

  “Come on!” Sergeant Joram bellowed. “They haven’t got much fight left in ’em. Let’s kick ’em while they’re down. The harder we pile on this time, the easier the next battle gets-if there is a next battle.”

  If there is a next battle. No, Rollant hadn’t heard anything like that before, either. But he didn’t think Joram was wrong. Waving the company standard, he charged past blue-uniformed northerners crumpled in death, past blue-uniformed northerners writhing in the torment of their wounds, and past blue-uniformed northerners throwing up their hands and hoping they could yield before someone killed them.

  Here and there, by ones and twos and small groups, some few of Bell’s soldiers still showed fight. But even when a whole company held together under a stubborn officer, how long could it hold back the southrons? Not long, as Rollant and his comrades proved again and again and again. Even the bravest northern soldiers found that, when attacked from three sides at once, as they were repeatedly, they could fall back or die. Those were the only choices they had. They could not stem the southron tide.

  “Keep after ’em!” Sergeant Joram yelled. “Don’t let ’em get away!” One more order whose like Rollant had never heard. He liked it. Joram looked around. “Where’s the company standard?”

  “Here, Sergeant!” Rollant waved the banner.

  “Good. That’s good.” Joram looked around again. “Come on, you lugs! Don’t get lazy on me now, gods damn it!”

  They didn’t. They tasted triumph as surely as the northerners tasted disaster. This was what they’d waited for ever since they’d joined King Avram’s army. Many of them, no doubt, had wondered if it would ever come. Rollant knew he had. Now that it was here at last, they intended to make the most of it.

  Waving the standard, Rollant trotted past a pair of repeating crossbows the men of the Army of Franklin had abandoned in their desperate retreat. He eyed the engines with the respect they deserved. How many southrons had they slain? Now his own side would use them against their former owners. He’d never understood the phrase poetic justice. Suddenly, he did.

  The soldiers of the Army of Franklin were falling back to the west and then to the north, trying to wriggle out of the trap whose jaws were Doubting George’s footsoldiers and Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders with their quick-shooting crossbows. Some of the traitors got away. More didn’t, or so it seemed to Rollant.

  However much the southrons pushed, their officers never seemed satisfied. Colonel Nahath kept right on shouting for the men of his regiment to press the pursuit. Joram, a company commander now but still not an officer, did the same for his soldiers. Rollant, not an officer and certain never to become one, did his share of shouting, too. Why not? The stripes on his sleeve gave him the right.

  His regiment, along with the rest of John the Lister’s wing, followed Bell’s men west and north. Although Rollant would never make an officer, he could see what John wanted: to bring the Army of Franklin to battle one last time, to roll over it, and to wipe it off the face of the earth. If they could make the northerners stop and fight, they would wipe them off the face of the earth. Rollant could see that, too.

  Much as John wanted it, it didn’t quite happen. There was a time in the middle of the afternoon when Rollant thought it would. One of the southrons’ columns was moving faster than the shattered force of traitors it pursued. If it could swing in, hit Bell’s men from the flank while the rest of the southrons assailed them from the rear…

  Rollant always believed the southrons waited a little too long to try. Before they could, a regiment of Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders pitched into the head of that flanking column. The unicorn-riders couldn’t hope to beat the southrons. But they could slow them down, and they did. Meanwhile, the remnant of the Army of Franklin got over a bridge across a rain-swollen stream. The southrons, once they drove off Ned’s men, looked for another bridge or, that failing, a ford. They didn’t find one.

  Southron soldiers around Rollant cursed furiously when their comrades came up short. No less than he, they understood what a successful attack then would have meant. “War’ll go on a while longer now,” Smitty said in disgust.

  “I’m afraid so,” Rollant agreed. “But it’s going our way. By the gods, it really is. How far do you suppose we’ve come today?”

  “Hells with me if I know.” Smitty looked back toward Ramblerton. Rollant had no idea what good that did; several rows of ridges hid the town from sight. But maybe it helped Smitty make whatever arcane calculations he required, for he went on, “Has to be six, eight miles, easy.”

  Rollant thought it over, then nodded. “Yes, that feels about right. My feet are that tired, I’d say.”

  “Not just my gods-damned feet-all of me. What I wouldn’t give for a nice, soft featherbed and a nice, soft… girl to keep me company there.”

  He’d probably been on the point of saying blond girl when he remembered Rollant was a blond himself. Blond women had a reputation for being easy even among southrons who’d never seen a blond, woman or man, in all their lives. Rollant knew why his people had that reputation: Detinans in the north, especially but not only nobles, took blond women whenever they wanted to. If the women already had husbands… well, so what? Either they could keep their mouths shut or they could end up dead-and so could those husbands. Blonds died easily in the north. No one asked a lot of questions when they did.

  “I’ll take the featherbed. You can have the girl,” Rollant said. “If this miserable war really is somewhere close to getting done, I’ll go home to my wife before too long. I hope so, by the gods. I miss her.”

  “You could grab whatever you find, the way most married men do out in the field,” Smitty said. “She’d never know.”

  “I would,” Rollant answered. Smitty shrugged and scratched his head. Rollant’s fidelity to Norina never failed to bemuse him.

  “Forward!” Sergeant Joram yelled. His voice was raw and hoarse from all the shouting he’d done the past couple of days. He pointed to the bridge Bell’s men had used to get over the stream. “If we can cross
there ourselves, we’ll keep the heat on those northern sons of bitches. They don’t have much in front of the bridge, and they’ve been running all day. They’ll run some more if we push ’em. We can do it. King Avram!”

  “Avram!” Rollant shouted. “Avram and freedom!” He didn’t know whether the men from the Army of Franklin would run. He didn’t much care, either. If they tried to make a stand, the southrons would roll over them. Only as he trotted toward the soldiers in blue did he blink. Even yesterday morning, he wouldn’t have assumed victory would come so easy.

  Run the northerners did. They ran like rabbits, in fact, before the southrons even got within crossbow range. They scampered over the bridge to jeers from John the Lister’s soldiers: “Cowards!” “Yellow-bellies!” “Come back here and take your whipping, you nasty, naughty little boys!”

  That last, shouted out by Smitty, made Rollant laugh so hard he got a stitch in his side and had to slow down. He was still short of the bridge when lightning crashed down on it and set it ablaze. The northerners hadn’t had much luck smiting southron soldiers with thunderbolts. But nothing, no spell, seemed to keep them from calling down lightning on a place where no soldiers stood.

  Balked, Rollant and the rest of the southrons stared from the southern branch of the stream at the escaping northern soldiers. A few northerners took shots at them before retreating. Most didn’t bother. They’d had enough.

  “Engineers!” Colonel Nahath shouted and waved. “We need pontoons here! By the gods, we need ’em fast, too. The traitors are getting away.”

  The engineers did eventually come forward. They did eventually bridge the stream. By then, though, more than an hour of precious daylight on one of the shortest days of the year had been lost. The soldiers who would go after the Army of Franklin understood as much, too. Even though the pursuit would have taken them into new danger, they cursed and fumed at the delay. They knew a shattering victory when they saw one, and they wanted to finish off Bell’s army and crush it altogether.