Clever Arris raised an eyebrow. Ned nodded for him to speak. Arris was only about half Darry’s size, but had twice his brains. If he’d been born a Detinan, he might have made a general himself. Instead, he worried about unicorns and asses and scrounging-and about feathering his own nest, which he’d done quite nicely. Now he said, “If you grant us land, Lord Ned, will the grant be good?”
“What? You reckon Lord Ned’d cheat us?” Anger darkened Darry’s face. He clenched a massive fist. “I ought to break your face for you.”
Ned held up a hand. “It’s all right, Darry. I’m not mad.” Arris, he noted, hadn’t flinched. That might have meant he’d figured Ned would protect him. Or it might have meant he’d stashed a knife in his boot. Ned wouldn’t have been surprised either way. The commander of unicorn-riders continued, “He means, if I grant you land and the gods-damned southrons win, will they recognize what I’ve done?”
“If the gods-damned southrons win…” Even now, Darry’s frown showed he had trouble imagining that. Being Ned’s partisans, he and his comrades were stalwart partisans of the north, too.
“Will they win, Lord Ned? Can they?” a blond named Brank asked. He sounded as if he didn’t want to believe it, either.
“They can. They probably will,” Ned answered. “But I think the grants will be good anyhow. They’re on lands up near Luxor that I owned before the fighting started. I didn’t get ’em while Geoffrey was King.” He feared nothing done while Geoffrey ruled in the north would stand now that Avram was returning to power here. Then he added, “And you boys are blonds. The southrons’ll likely be happy with you on account of that. You may even have it easier than if you were ordinary Detinans, in fact.”
Darry’s rugged, blunt-featured face furrowed into another frown as he tried to imagine having it easier than a Detinan. Several of the other blonds laughed to show what they thought of the idea. Arris said, “Don’t bet on it, Lord Ned.”
Ned of the Forest shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know for sure. But the reason I’m telling you is, we’re moving against Hard-Riding Jimmy now. He’s liable to lick us. Hells, he’s liable to smash us.” He’d never said anything like that before; the words hurt. “If you want to take your grants now and head for Luxor, I’ll give ’em to you. Nobody’s ever going to say you boys didn’t meet your end of the bargain.”
Arris said, “I’ll stick, Lord Ned. I reckon I’ve got a better chance of getting my land if you’re there to say I deserve it.” One by one, the rest of the blonds nodded. Arris had more brains than the others, and they had brains enough to know it.
But did the sly serf see everything that might happen? “They could put a bolt through my brisket tomorrow, you know. Or they could wait till the war’s over, call me a real traitor, and nail me to a cross.”
All the blonds shook their heads. “Oh, no, Lord Ned,” Darry said. “Nothing like that’d ever happen to you.” None of them seemed to think it was possible. Ned wished he didn’t. To the blonds, he was something not far from a god, or perhaps from a demon: something more than an ordinary man, anyhow. The scars he bore proved crossbow quarrels thought differently, though. And King Avram’s men wanted him dead; General Hesmucet had growled there could be no peace in eastern Franklin till he was. If they won the war-no, when they won the war-what would stop them from making their wishes come true? Nothing he could see.
He bowed to the blonds with as much courtesy as if they were King Geoffrey and his courtiers. There were times when he respected them much more than Geoffrey and that crowd of useless parasites in Nonesuch. “Thank you kindly, boys,” he said. “We’ll all do what we can to come out of this in one piece, that’s all.”
His riders met those of Hard-Riding Jimmy outside the town of Hayek. That was a town King Geoffrey had to hold. Both sides fought as dragoons, not as unicorn-riders in the strict sense of the term. They used their mounts to get where they were were going quickly, but they fought on foot. Scouts rode back to Ned, worried looks on their faces. “He’s got a hells of a lot of troopers with him, Lord Ned,” one of them said.
Ned of the Forest already knew that. He saw how long and thick a column of men Hard-Riding Jimmy led. “We’ve licked three times as many as we’ve got before,” he said, which was true. “We can do it again.”
He hoped he sounded as if he believed that. He wasn’t so sure, though. Jimmy’s riders had the bit between their teeth. They’d tasted victory, and they liked it. And they had those quick-shooting crossbows no northern artisan had been able to match. That made their effective numbers even greater than their actual ones.
At Ned’s shouted commands, his soldiers took the best defensive position they could. He’d never been able to spend men with the lavish prodigality of a commander of footsoldiers. Now, especially, every man he lost was one he could never have back again. Jimmy, on the other hand, looked to have been substantially reinforced since the battle in front of Ramblerton.
The southrons stormed forward, plainly hoping to overwhelm Ned’s men by weight of numbers and by the blizzard of bolts they put in the air. It didn’t happen; Ned’s veterans had been through too many fights to fail to take advantage of the ground. They gave back a murderous volley that knocked the southrons onto their heels.
“That’s the way!” Ned shouted as his troopers frantically reloaded. He wondered whether the southrons would try to rush his position again. He hoped so. If they did, he could keep killing them by swarms.
But, having been repulsed once, they paused out of crossbow range. Ned could almost see their officers’ surprise. Oh, they might have been saying as they pointed toward his line and talked among themselves. These northerners still have some fight left in them. After everything we saw down in Franklin, who could have imagined that?
Fighting flared again half an hour later. Ned would have liked to go forward himself and drive Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men while they were still shaken by their reverse. He would have liked to, but he didn’t dare. If his men left the safety of their shooting pits and trenches, the southrons’ quick-shooting crossbows would pincushion them. He knew it, and hated the knowledge.
When the southrons tried his position again, they treated it with the respect of men who knew they would be in for a brawl. He could have done without the compliment. Hard-Riding Jimmy was as lavishly supplied with engines as he was with men and unicorns. Firepots flew through the air trailing smoke. They burst in and around Ned’s lines. Men screamed when flames poured over them. Repeating crossbows sent endless streams of quarrels hissing through the air just at breastwork height. Any man who stuck his head up to shoot was asking to take a bolt in the face. Captain Watson answered back as best he could, but was able to do little to suppress the enemy’s shooting.
Under cover of that bombardment, Jimmy’s troopers advanced again. This time, they came in loose order, moving up in short rushes and then dropping to take advantage of whatever cover the ground offered. Watching them, Ned cursed. They knew what they were doing, all right. And they could do it, too.
And then, as the shooting heated up, a soldier from the left came dashing up to Ned. “They’ve got a column nipping around our flank, Lord Ned!” he cried. “They’re mounted and riding like hells. If they hit us from the side or behind, it’ll be the second day at Ramblerton all over again.”
“Gods damn it!” Ned of the Forest shouted. But, however much he cursed, he could see the dust the enemy unicorn-riders were raising. The messenger was right. If they got where they wanted to go, they could wreck his army. He said what he had to say: “Fall back! Fall back, you bastards! We can’t hold ’em here!”
If his men couldn’t hold the southrons here, they couldn’t hold Hayek, either. And if the north lost Hayek, another big log thudded onto the pyre of King Geoffrey’s hopes. Ned swore again, in anger at least half aimed at himself. He’d had a good notion this would happen when he began the campaign. Now it was here, and the end of everything looked closer by the day.
* * *
The scryer who came up to Doubting George had the sense to wait to be noticed. George took his own sweet time, but finally nodded to the man in the gray robe. “Yes? And what exciting news have you got for me today?”
“Sir, I just got word from Hard-Riding Jimmy’s scryer,” the mage replied. “He’s taken Hayek and burnt it to the ground.”
“What? Hard-Riding Jimmy’s scryer has done that? What a remarkable fellow he must be.”
“No, no, no!” Doubting George’s scryer started to explain, then sent the general commanding a reproachful look. “You’re having me on, sir.”
“Would I do such a thing?” George said. “Heaven forfend!”
“Er, yes, sir,” the scryer said warily. “But isn’t that good news? Hard-Riding Jimmy licked Ned of the Forest-licked him high, wide, and handsome-and he took Hayek, and now he’s heading on up toward Clift. Isn’t it grand?”
“Well, to the hells with me if I don’t want to see Clift burnt to the ground,” Doubting George said. Few men who backed King Avram would have said anything else. Clift was where Grand Duke Geoffrey put a crown on his head and started calling himself King Geoffrey. If that didn’t make the capital of Dothan deserve whatever happened to it, George couldn’t think of anything that would.
The scryer waited to see if George would have anything more to say. When the commanding general didn’t, the young man in the gray robe shrugged and walked away. George said something then. He said several somethings, in fact, all of them pungent and all of them low-voiced so no one but him could hear them.
Indeed, Hard-Riding Jimmy was doing wonderful things-as an independent commander. John the Lister’s wing was going to help throw logs on the pyre in the west-under Hesmucet’s command. Another couple of brigades that had fought well in front of Ramblerton were now marching on Shell-under the command of Brigadier Marcus the Tall.
Doubting George did some more muttering. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said. He’d saved Avram’s hopes in the east with his stand at the fight by the River of Death. He’d smashed Lieutenant General Bell in front of Ramblerton, wrecked the Army of Franklin beyond hope of rescue or repair, murdered false King Geoffrey’s chances east of the mountains… and what had he got for it? His command pruned like a potted plant, and very little else.
Colonel Andy came up to him. George set his teeth. Andy was going to be sympathetic. George could tell, just by the way his adjutant carried himself; by the way he pursed his lips; even by the way he took a deep breath and then let it out, as if he stood by a sickbed and didn’t want to talk too loud.
“You’ll have heard, I suppose?” Andy said.
“Oh, yes.” Doubting George nodded. “Hard-Riding Jimmy’s scryer has gone and done great things.”
Andy frowned. “His scryer, sir? I don’t understand.”
“Never mind,” George said. “But isn’t it remarkable how a man becomes a genius-a paladin-the instant he escapes my command?”
“What’s remarkable,” Andy said, swelling up in righteous wrath, “is how Marshal Bart keeps nibbling away at your command. Remarkable and disgusting, if anyone wants to know what I think.”
No one did-no one who mattered, anyhow. Doubting George knew as much. Colonel Andy surely did, too. The only opinion that counted was Bart’s, and Bart didn’t want George in charge of anything much any more. King Avram could have overruled Bart, but Avram hadn’t raised up a Marshal of Detina to go around overruling him afterwards.
“With me or without me, Colonel, we are going to whip the traitors,” George said. “I console myself with that.”
Colonel Andy nodded. “Yes, sir. We are. But you ought to play a bigger part. You’ve earned the right, by the Lion God’s talons.”
“I think I have, too.” Doubting George sighed. “Marshal Bart doesn’t, and he and King Avram are the only ones who matter. Bart thinks I’m slow because I waited for all my men before I hit Bell and the Army of Franklin. I think I was just doing what I had to do. And we won, gods damn it.”
“That’s right, sir. We sure did.” Colonel Andy still had plenty of confidence in George. The only trouble was, Colonel Andy’s confidence didn’t matter. Bart’s did. And Bart had decided other men could do a better job. He was the Marshal of Detina. He had the right to do that. And if George didn’t care for it, what could he do? Nothing. Not a single, solitary thing.
“Baron Logan the Black,” George muttered. At least he’d been spared that humiliation. To be ousted by a man who wasn’t even a professional soldier… But it hadn’t happened. He had gone forward. He had won. He had got no credit for it. Nor, by all appearances, would he ever.
He found out exactly how true that was at supper. He’d just sat down to a big plate of spare ribs (though he doubted the pig they’d come from had thought them spares) when a scryer came in and said, “Sir, Marshal Bart wants to speak to you right away.”
“He would.” Doubting George didn’t want to speak to the Marshal of Detina. What a mere lieutenant general wanted in such circumstances mattered not at all. “Well, run along and tell him I’m coming.” He cast a last longing glance at the spare ribs before heading off to the scryers’ pavilion.
There was Bart’s image, staring out of a crystal ball. Bart wasn’t an impressive man to look at. In a crowd, he tended to disappear. But no one could deny he had a driving sense of purpose, a refusal to admit he could be defeated, that had served Detina well. “Good evening, Lieutenant General,” he said now when he spotted George. “How are you?”
“Hungry, sir, if you want to know the truth,” George answered. “What can I do for you at suppertime?”
If the barb bothered Bart-if Bart even noticed it was a barb-he gave no sign. He said, “I want you to move your force to Wesleyton in western Franklin as soon as is practicable. The less delay the better. You must be in place there in two weeks’ time.”
“Move the force I have left, you mean,” Doubting George said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Bart agreed, again ignoring the sarcasm. “I have an important task for you there.”
“Do you?” George said. “I thought my sole and entire function in this army was to stay where I am and grow moss. What else am I supposed to be doing?”
“Before too long, I aim to commence operations against Duke Edward of Arlington,” Bart replied, still impassive. “If he is dislodged from the works covering Pierreville, he is likely to retreat eastward. Your men in Wesleyton will keep him from using western Franklin as a refuge, and you will be able to hold him until I can catch up with him with the bulk of my force and destroy the Army of Southern Parthenia.”
He was as calm as if talking about the qualities of pine boards. But he meant every word of it. Of that Doubting George had no doubt at all. The idea left him slightly-no, more than slightly-stunned. Ever since the beginning of the War Between the Provinces, the Army of Southern Parthenia had been a fearful prodigy to all of King Avram’s generals and armies that had to face it. It had been… but it was no more. Bart had its measure.
And for that, Doubting George admitted to himself, the nondescript little man who wouldn’t believe false King Geoffrey’s armies could beat him deserved to be Marshal of Detina.
Whether he deserved it or not, though, what he had in mind failed to delight George. “You want me to go to Wesleyton and sit there, just in case Duke Edward happens to come my way?”
“That’s right.” Bart nodded, pleased that he understood. “Of course, since you will be there with your army, Edward’s less likely to come that way. He’s slippery as a barrister, Edward is, and so we’ve got to make sure he’s shut up tight.”
“I… see,” George said slowly. “Isn’t there anything more useful I could be doing than sitting around in Wesleyton impersonating a cork?”
“I don’t believe so,” Bart answered. “It’s a useful thing to do, and the other pieces of your army are off doing different useful things in other places. This seems a good enough thing for the me
n you still have with you to do.”
“A good enough thing,” Doubting George echoed. “Gods damn it, Bart, we were more than ‘good enough’ not so long ago.”
“Finally, yes. But you could have whipped Bell sooner. You should have whipped Bell sooner. Instead, you had King Avram and me half out of our minds with worry that the Army of Franklin would get around you and head for the Highlow River.”
“Well, Marshal, if his Majesty thought that-and especially if you thought that, you were out of your minds, and not just halfway, either,” George said. “Bell wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was his army. He’d come as far as he could. If you’d had a look at his men, you could have seen that for yourself. I did. And I knew what I saw, too,” George said.
Did something glint in Marshal Bart’s eyes? George wasn’t sure. The marshal had perhaps the deadest pan in Detina, too. Bart said, “You are entitled to your opinion, Lieutenant General. I am also entitled to mine. My opinion is that sending you to Wesleyton is the best thing I can do right now, given the way the war is going. Carry out your orders.”
“Yes, sir,” Doubting George said woodenly.
Bart turned to his scryer. His image vanished from the crystal ball. George refrained from picking up the ball and chucking it into the Franklin River. He couldn’t have said why he refrained from chucking it into the river, but refrain he did. Afterwards, he decided it had to prove he was a more tolerant man than even he would have imagined.
“Carry out your orders.” In his mouth, the commonplace soldierly phrase somehow turned into a curse. Bart had the right to tell him to do it-had the right and used it. And I reserve the right to reckon Bart is a first-class son of a bitch, Doubting George thought.
That didn’t eliminate the need to do as Bart said, worse luck. The general commanding-not that George had so very much left to command any more-turned and strode out of the scryers’ tent. None of the mages in there said a word to him. In fact, they all seemed to be pretending they were somewhere else. Scryers, like other sorcerers, often missed emotions they should have seen. What Doubting George felt was too raw, too obvious, for even a scryer to miss.
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