Captain Gremio had never particularly wanted to
command a regiment. For that matter, Gremio had never particularly wanted to command a company; had his previous captain not been killed at Proselytizers' Rise, he would have been more than content to remain a lieutenant, with but a single epaulet on his shoulder.
But he had the whole regiment in his hands now, like it or not, and had it in the worst possible circumstances: a grinding retreat after a disastrous battle. And his men could hardly have had a harder time. They were worn and ragged and hungry, as was he. His shoes, what was left of them, leaked mud onto his toes at every stride. Too many of them had no shoes at all.
"What the hells am I supposed to do, sir?" one of the soldiers asked. "My feet are so gods-damned cold, how long will it be before my toes start turning black?"
"Well, we're in camp now, Jamy," Gremio answered, "camp" being a few small, smoky fires in a clearing in the woods. "Get as close to the flames as you can. That'll keep you from frostbitten toes."
"Yes, sir, we're in camp now," Jamy said. "But what am I supposed to do about tomorrow morning, when I start tramping through half-frozen muck again?"
"Find some rags. Wrap your feet in them." Gremio helplessly spread his hands wide. "I don't know what else to tell you." Jamy muttered something under his breath. It sounded like, If I let myself get captured, I don't have to worry about it any more. Gremio turned away, pretending not to hear. If Jamy did hang back, how could Gremio stop him? More than a few men had already given themselves up to the southrons.
Also muttering, Gremio went off to stand in line and get something to eat. Half a hard biscuit and some smoked meat that was rancid because it hadn't been smoked long enough weren't going to fill his belly. He asked the cooks, "What else have you got?"
They looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "You're gods-damned lucky we've got this here . . . sir," one of them said. "Plenty of folks in this here army, they get a big fat nothing for supper tonight."
"Oh." Gremio sighed and nodded. "I suppose you're right. But how long can we go on with this kind of food?"
In unison, the cooks shrugged. "Hells of a lot longer than we can go on with nothing," replied the one who'd spoken before.
The worst of it was, Gremio couldn't even argue with him. He was incontestably, incontrovertibly, right. "Scrounge whatever you can," Gremio told him. "I'm not fussy about how you do it—just do it. I won't ask you any questions. We've got to keep moving, one way or another."
One by one, the cooks nodded. "We'll take care of it, Captain. Don't you worry," said the one who liked to talk. "Pretty good, a regimental commander who tells us we can forage however we want." The rest of the cooks nodded again.
One of them added, "Sergeant Thisbe already said the same thing."
"That's a sergeant. This here is a captain. Them's two different breeds, you bet, like unicorns and asses," the mouthy cook said.
Gremio wondered whether officers were supposed to be unicorns or asses. He didn't ask. The cook was all too likely to tell him. What he did say was, "If Sergeant Thisbe told you it's all right, it is. You can bet on that."
"Oh, yes, sir," the talkative cook agreed. "Thisbe, he's got his head screwed on tight. Probably why he never made lieutenant." He didn't look a bit abashed at smearing officers. With the Army of Franklin falling to ruins, what was Gremio going to do to him? What could Gremio do that the southrons hadn't done already?
"Sergeant Thisbe has been offered promotion to officer's rank more than once, but has always declined," Gremio said stiffly.
The cooks looked at one another. None of them said a thing, not even the mouthy one. Gremio turned away in dull embarrassment. They hadn't embarrassed him; he'd done it to himself. If Thisbe was a good soldier (and Thisbe was) and if Thisbe didn't want to become an officer (and Thisbe didn't, as Gremio had admitted), what did that say about officers?
It says officers are asses, Gremio thought. Feeling very much an ass, he went off to eat his meager and unappetizing supper.
He was cleaning his mess tin when Thisbe came over to the creek to do the same thing. Scrupulous as always, Thisbe saluted. Gremio answered with an impatient wave. "Never mind that nonsense," he said. "Nobody's going to worry about it now."
"All right, sir," Thisbe said equably.
"What's this I hear about your saying it was all right for the cooks to gather food any which way they could?" Gremio inquired.
With an anxious look, Thisbe asked, "Was I wrong, sir?"
"Not so far as I'm concerned," Gremio answered. "I told them the same thing."
"We've got to keep eating," Thisbe said. "If we don't eat, we can't march and we can't fight. We might as well lay down our crossbows and shortswords and give up, and I'm not ready to do that."
"Neither am I." But Gremio thought of Jamy. How long could his men keep marching without shoes? Not forever; he knew that too well. Remembering Jamy made him ask, "How are your feet, Sergeant?"
"Not bad at all, as a matter of fact." Sure enough, shoes much newer than Gremio's covered and protected Thisbe's feet. The underofficer explained, "I found this dead southron, a little short fellow. His shoes were some too big on me even so, but I stuffed some rags into the toes, and they're all right now—a lot better than the ones I had."
"Good. That's good. Nice somebody's taken care of, one way or another," Captain Gremio said. "I wish all our men were that lucky." His laugh held nothing but bitterness. "I wish a lot more of our men were lucky enough to still be here."
"Yes, sir." Sergeant Thisbe nodded. "Sir, can we fight another battle now? If we have to, I mean?"
"Depends on what you mean by a battle—and on what Lieutenant General Bell wants us to do," Gremio answered. "We can fight plenty of these rear-guard actions—and we've got to, to keep the southrons from running over us like a brewery wagon on a downgrade. But if the Army of Franklin lines up against everything Doubting George has got . . . if that happens, we're all dead."
Thisbe nodded once more. "That's about the way I look at things, too. I just wondered whether you were thinking along with me again."
That again warmed Gremio. "When we get back to Palmetto Province, Sergeant . . ."
"Who knows what will happen, sir?" Thisbe said. "We have to worry about getting home first of all, and about whether home will even be worth getting back to if. . . ." Now the sergeant's voice trailed away.
"If?" Gremio prompted. But that wasn't fair; that was making Thisbe say something Gremio didn't want to say himself. With an effort of will, he forced it out:
"If we lose the war."
No one but Thisbe could have heard the words. Gremio made sure of that. Even so, mentioning defeat came hard, despite all the disasters the Army of Franklin had already seen. Just imagining the north could lose, imagining King Avram could rule all of Detina, felt uncommonly like treason.
So Gremio thought, at any rate. But when he said so, Thisbe faced the idea without flinching. "We'll pick up the pieces and go on, that's all," the sergeant replied. "What else can we do?"
Win. Gremio wanted to say it, but found he couldn't. With the Army of Franklin broken, with Duke Edward of Arlington penned up inside Pierreville north of Nonesuch, what did his side have with which to resist the oncoming southron armies? Not enough, not from what he could see.
"Sergeant—" he began.
Thisbe held up a hand. "This isn't the right time, is it, sir?"
"If it's not, when would be?"
"After the war is over." Thisbe looked around, too, before adding, "I don't reckon it'll be too much longer." Another pause, and then the sergeant said, "I'd kind of hate to get killed now, when dying won't make the least bit of difference one way or the other." A laugh, of sorts. "That's probably treason, too."
"If it is, they'll have to crucify me next to you," Gremio said. They smiled at each other. With a grimace, Gremio went on, "Sometimes dying can make a difference even now. Not about who wins and loses—I think that's pretty much over and done with. But if you can help some of your friends get away safe . . . Well, what else is a rear guard for?"
Sergeant Thisbe looked as unhappy as Gremio felt. "You're right, sir. You usually are." Gremio shook his head. He felt as empty—as emptied—of good answers as of everything else. Thisbe ignored him. "But even though you are right, I still think it'd be a shame."
"Oh, so do I. I don't want to get killed. I've never been what you'd call eager for that." From somewhere, Gremio dredged up a wry smile. "I've known a few men who were, or seemed to be." Bell, gods damn him. Getting mutilated—getting mutilated twice—didn't satisfy him. No, not even close. He had to cut off his army's leg, too.
By the way Thisbe nodded, the underofficer was also thinking of the commanding general. Thisbe went back by the fires, got out a blanket, and made a cocoon of it. Around a yawn, the sergeant said, "Maybe it'll look better in the morning."
Following Thisbe toward what warmth they had, Gremio doubted that. He doubted it would ever look better for King Geoffrey's cause. But he was also too weary to see straight. He rolled himself in his own blanket, using his hat for a pillow. "Good night, Sergeant. Maybe it will. It can't look much worse, can it?"
With the winter solstice close at hand, nights were long and cold. Gremio woke well before sunrise. He wasn't much surprised to find Thisbe already up and gone. He also wasn't much surprised to find Ned of the Forest prowling around on foot. Ned's eyes threw back the dim red light of the campfires like a cat's. Men's eyes weren't supposed to be able to do that, but Ned's did.
"Who's in charge of this here regiment?" he demanded of Gremio.
"As a matter of fact, I am." Gremio gave his name and rank, adding, "At your service, sir."
"I don't want service. I want to kill some of those southron bastards. Are your men up to it?"
Such straightforward bloodthirstiness appealed to Gremio. "Tell us what to do, sir. If we can, we will. If we can't, we'll try anyway."
That won him a thin smile from the commander of the rear guard. "All right, Captain. That'll do. Can't ask for anything more, in fact. Here's what I've got in mind. . . ."
An hour or so later, Gremio found himself behind a tree trunk, waiting as Ned of the Forest's unicorn-riders galloped past to the north. It looked as if even the rear guard of the Army of Franklin were breaking up in ruin, as so much of the rest of the army already had. It looked that way, but it wasn't true. Gremio hoped it wasn't, anyhow.
After a brief pause, riders in King Avram's gray pounded after Ned's troopers. The southrons weren't worried about their flanks. They weren't worried about anything. Why should they worry? Bell's men were on the run.
Gremio remembered Ned of the Forest's instructions. Don't shoot too soon, the commander of unicorn-riders had said. I'll rip the head off any fool who starts shooting too soon. Gremio didn't think he'd meant it metaphorically. He didn't think Ned would have known a metaphor if it walked up and tried to buy him a brandy (and, for that matter, he probably would have turned it down if it did—he was famous for his abstemiousness with spirits).
And so Gremio and his crossbowmen waited till the southrons were well into the trap. They were veterans. They could all figure out when that was. And they all raised their crossbows to their shoulders and started shooting at almost exactly the same moment.
Unicorns screamed like women in anguish. Unicorn-riders screamed, too, some in pain, others in fury. Unicorns crashed to the ground. Unicorn-riders crouched behind them. Those who could started shooting back.
Frantically reloading and shooting, Gremio discovered how many bolts the enemy put into the air with their quick-shooting crossbows. It was as if each of them had five or six pairs of arms, each pair busy with its own crossbow. Without the advantage of surprise, Gremio's regiment would have been mad to attack them.
But it had that advantage, and made the most of it. And Ned's unicorn-riders came hurrying back—on foot, as dragoons—as soon as the trap was sprung. Not only that, but Ned's commander of engines, a captain named Watson who seemed improbably young, got a couple of repeating crossbows placed in the roadway where they bore on the southrons. Those weapons put out even more quarrels, and quarrels that flew farther, than the southrons could manage with their quick-shooters.
Beset from front and flanks, the southrons did just what Gremio would have done in their boots: they fell back. And as they fell back, hungry, barefoot northerners dashed forward—not to push them back farther still, but to plunder the corpses they'd had to leave behind.
Gremio was no slower than anybody else. He pulled a pair of shoes—solid, well-made shoes, shoes that would last a while—about his size off the feet of a southron trooper who wouldn't need them any more. He stole the trooper's tea and hard biscuits and smoked meat, too. If he could have got his hands on some indigo dye, he would have also taken the man's tunic; it was thick wool, better suited to this cold, nasty weather than his own. But he didn't, and didn't want to get shot for wearing gray. Even after knocking the southrons back on their heels, he knew he was all too likely to get shot for wearing blue.
Ned of the Forest was as happy as he could be in his present circumstances, which is to say, not very. Everything had gone perfectly when the rear guard he led taught Hard-Riding Jimmy's troopers a sharp lesson: no matter how good they were, they couldn't have everything their own way. Everything had gone perfectly, and what had it accomplished? It made the Army of Franklin's retreat a little more secure, and that was all.
"Huzzah," Ned said sourly. That meant Bell's force might make it back to Dothan or Great River Province, and not be altogether destroyed in northern Franklin. An improvement, without a doubt, but how large an improvement? Not large enough, and Ned knew it.
Colonel Biffle rode up to him in the dismal winter woods. "We've driven them back, sir." He sounded pleased and excited.
"Well, so we have, Biff." Ned sounded anything but. "Next question is, how much good will that do us?"
Biffle's long face corrugated into a frown. After a moment's thought, he said, "It'll do us a lot more good than if they'd busted through."
Ned of the Forest had to laugh at that. "I can't even tell you you're wrong," he admitted. "But are we going to win the war because we gave Hard-Riding Jimmy a black eye? Are we going to win anything that's worth having?"
He watched Colonel Biffle's eyes cross as the regimental commander worked on that. Biffle wasn't used to thinking in such terms. He was a man you pointed at the enemy and loosed, as if he were a crossbow quarrel. Again, he paused before answering. At last, he said, "Well, we're still here to try again."
"I can't say you're wrong about that, either." Ned looked south. "And, unless I miss my guess, we're going to have to if we hang around here much longer. Jimmy won't like getting poked. He'll send more men forward, and we won't have such an easy time suckering them into an ambush. I'd say it's about time to leave. We've bought the army a few hours, anyways. That's the most we can hope for these days."
"Yes, sir." Colonel Biffle suddenly blinked several times. He frowned again, though this time for a different reason. "Gods damn it! It's starting to rain. Got me right in the eye."
He was right. It was starting to rain and, with scarcely any warning, to rain hard. "Good thing this held off till we drove the southrons back," Ned said. "We'd have looked a proper set of fools, wouldn't we, if we'd tried shooting at those bastards with wet bowstrings? Good thing we didn't."
Before he'd got out of the woods, his unicorn was squelching through mud. Big, fat, heavy raindrops poured down. With all the trees bare in winter, nothing slowed down the drops. Ned pulled his broad-brimmed felt hat down low on this face to keep the rain out of his eyes. That helped, a little.
The regiment of footsoldiers who'd helped in the ambush came out of their cover and retreated along with his unicorn-riders. Ned waved to their commander, who nodded back. The fellow was only a captain, but he'd done his job well, and without fuss or feathers. "Get your boys moving," Ned called to him. "We'll keep the southrons off your back." He had the more mobile troops, and owed the footsoldiers that much.
"Thank you kindly." The captain touched the brim of his own hat, which was also pulled down low. He handled the withdrawal with the same unfussy precision he'd used against the southrons. One of his company commanders, a sergeant who'd managed to shave amazingly well considering the sorry state the Army of Franklin was in, also proved very competent. By the way the captain and the sergeant sassed each other without heat, they'd served together a long time. They might almost have been married. Ned hid his amusement. He'd seen such things before.
At the moment, he had business of his own to attend to. "Captain Watson!" he called. "Come here, if you please."
"What do you need, sir?" the young man in charge of his engines asked.
"I need you to trundle your repeating crossbows south down the road a little ways and give Hard-Riding Jimmy's men a proper hello when they start coming after us again," Ned answered.
Watson frowned. "I would, sir, but . . ."
"But what?" Ned of the Forest asked ominously. He wasn't used to having Captain Watson tell him no. Watson was the fellow who did whatever needed doing. But then Ned thumped himself in the head with the heel of his hand, a gesture of absolute disgust. "Oh. The rain."
"Yes, sir. The gods-damned rain," Watson agreed. "It's not as hard on the skeins of a repeating crossbow as it is on an ordinary bowstring, but they do lose their . . . their pop, you might say, when they get wet."
"I knew that. I know that. I just wasn't thinking straight." Ned still sounded—still was—angry at himself for forgetting. "Never mind moving 'em, then. It won't work. Have to try something else instead." He thought for a little while, then nodded to himself. "That might do it, by the Lion God's tail tuft."
"You've got something, sir. I can see it in your eyes," Watson said, a certain gleam coming into his own.
"Trip lines," Ned said. "We string a few of them between the trees on either side of the road, the southrons come swarming up to get their revenge on us, and then they go flying. Unicorns break their legs, maybe some riders break their necks. And a good driving rain makes trip lines work better, not worse, on account of they're harder to spot."
"Yes, sir!" The gleam in Captain Watson's eyes grew brighter. "I'll take care of it, sir."
"You don't need to do that," Ned said. "It's got nothing to do with engines."
"Oh, sir, it'll be my pleasure," Watson said with a jaunty grin. "And you know I've got plenty of ropes. I need 'em to pull the engines and wagons. I can set up the trip lines, and I'll enjoy doing it, too."
"All right. See to it, then." Ned of the Forest nodded decisively.
He himself rode north, leaving Watson to do what he'd said he would. At the edge of the woods, he waited. Before too long, Watson came out with the last of the engines, unicorn teams straining to haul them up the increasingly soupy road. Catching sight of Ned, Watson waved and nodded. Ned waved back.
The long retreat went on. After trying and failing to make a stand at the Smew River, Lieutenant General Bell seemed to have abandoned all hope of holding the southrons. All he could think to do was fall back as fast as he could and stay ahead of Doubting George's men. Ned of the Forest would have reckoned that more contemptible if he'd had more hope himself. Since he didn't, he found it harder to quarrel with the commanding general.
Hard-Riding Jimmy's men didn't come bursting out of the woods to harry the retreating northerners. Ned didn't run into them at all for the next couple of days, in fact. He concluded that Captain Watson had not only enjoyed putting down trip lines, he'd also done a good job of it. Watson might be a puppy, but he was a puppy who'd grown some sharp teeth.
Bell's army stumbled through the town of Warsaw on the way up to the Franklin River. Ned of the Forest remembered crossing the river heading south a couple of months before. He'd still had hope then, hope and the confidence that, whatever happened, he would figure out some way to whip the southrons. That wasn't going to happen now. All he could hope to do was figure out some way to keep the southrons from destroying the Army of Franklin.
In Warsaw, the townsfolk stared glumly at the retreating northerners. "What are we going to do now?" one of them called to Ned of the Forest, as if all too well aware the town would see King Geoffrey's soldiers no more, and would have to make what peace it could with King Avram.
"Do the best you can," Ned told him, unable to find any better answer. By the look the local sent him, that wasn't what the fellow had wanted to hear. It wasn't what Ned had wanted to say, either. But he had a very clear sense of what was real and what wasn't. He hoped the other man did, too.
North of Warsaw, Ned loaded a lot of the men in the rear guard who were barefoot into unicorn-drawn wagons. That kept them from getting their feet frostbitten. If they had to fight, they could deploy from the wagons. "Pretty sneaky, Lord Ned," Colonel Biffle said admiringly.
"Oh, yes, I'm clever as next week," Ned said. "Think how smart I'd be if I only had something to work with."
They went up into the province of Dothan just before they came back to the Franklin River. The weather was no better there than it had been in the province of Franklin. The river, swollen by the cold, hard rain, ran almost out of its banks. No one would find an easy way to ford it, as Doubting George had at the Smew.
Bell's engineers and wizards didn't have an easy time creating a pontoon bridge across the Franklin. For one thing, pontoons were hard to come by. For another, the river kept doing its best to carry them away before the engineers and mages could secure them one to another. And, for a third, precious few engineers and wizards were left to do the work; they'd suffered no less than the rest of Bell's army.
At last, though, the job was done. Bell's weary, footsore soldiers began crossing to the northern bank of the river. By then, the southrons were very close behind Ned of the Forest's rear guard. Ned told his troopers, and the footsoldiers with them, "Well, boys, we're going to have to wallop the sons of bitches one more time. Reckon you're up to it?"
"Yes, sir!" they shouted, and "Hells, yes!" and, "You bet, Lord Ned!"
And they did. Roaring as if the Lion God had taken possession of them body and soul, they hit the advancing southrons a savage blow that sent them reeling back toward Warsaw in surprise, dismay, and no little disorder. Ned of the Forest didn't think he'd ever been prouder of men he led than he was on that frozen field. They had to know they weren't going to win the war with this fight. They couldn't even turn the campaign into anything but a disaster. They struck like an avalanche all the same.
Captain Gremio came up to Ned. Saluting, he said, "Sir, I beg leave to report that my men have captured one of the southrons' siege engines. Doesn't begin to make up for all the army lost, of course, but now that we've got it, what should we do with it?"
"Well done!" Ned said, and then, "Captain Watson will take charge of it, Captain."
"He's welcome to it, then," Gremio said. "I'll have my men drag it over to him. I expect he'll have unicorns to haul it off toward the north?"
"I expect he will," Ned agreed. "And once you've done that, Captain, order your regiment ready to get moving again. You know we can't stay around here and enjoy the victory we've won."
"I understand, sir," the other man said. "I sure as hells wish we could, though, because this is the only victory we've won in this whole gods-damned campaign, and the only one we're likely to." Bitterness came off him in waves.
"Can't be helped," Ned said. Captain Gremio nodded, sketched a salute, and then went off to carry out Ned's orders.
The footsoldiers went off toward the Franklin first, with Ned's unicorn-riders screening them. Again, the southrons held off on their pursuit for some little while; the ferocious attack Ned had put in persuaded them they would do better to wait. That being so, Ned retired as slowly as he could.
To his surprise, though, a courier came riding down from the north, from Lieutenant General Bell's main force, urging him to move faster. "By the Thunderer's iron fist, what's the trouble now?" he growled.
"The southrons have galleys carrying catapults in the Franklin River, sir," the rider answered. "They're heading toward the bridge. If they land a couple of firepots on it before you get across, you'll be stuck on this side of the river."
Ned of the Forest had never yet reckoned himself stuck. He was confident he could handle whatever trouble the southrons gave him, if he had to by ordering his men to disperse and to reassemble somewhere else. He said, "Doesn't Bell have his own engines up near the bridge to keep it safe?"
"Yes, sir," the courier told him. "But you never can tell."
That was altogether too true. You never could tell. And, where Bell was concerned, you might worry not just about whether things could go wrong, but about how they could go wrong. With an angry mutter, Ned said, "All right, then. Don't fret yourself, sonny boy. We'll step lively."
He came to the southern bank of the Franklin a day and a half later, making better time than even he'd expected. Looking up the river, he saw no sign of southron war galleys. He did see, on the far bank, engines lined up wheel to wheel. Here, Bell hadn't blundered.
"Get moving!" he called to the men under his command. "Let's put the river between us and the bastards on our heels."
Those bastards were starting to nip close again—but not close enough. Ned was sure they wouldn't catch him. Gremio's footsoldiers crossed over to the north bank of the Franklin. Wheels rumbling on the planks laid over the pontoons to pave the bridge, Watson's engines and the supply wagons followed. Last came Lieutenant General Ned's troopers, and last of all came Ned of the Forest himself.
As soon as he reached the northern bank of the river, a couple of Bell's men set a firepot on the bridge. The pot began to burn. A moment later, so did the bridge. The Army of Franklin, or what remained of it, wended its way north and east, into Great River Province.
John the Lister saw the great column of black smoke rising into the sky from a couple of miles away. He knew what it had to mean. Cursing, he spurred his unicorn forward, toward the Franklin River.
He got to the river too late. He'd known he would be too late even as he set spurs to the flanks of his mount. He would have been too late even if he hadn't had to delay because columns of footsoldiers and unicorn-riders and prisoners wouldn't get out of his way as fast as he wanted them to. Having to squeeze through them did nothing to make his curses any less sulfurous, though.
Sure enough, the pontoon bridge by which the Army of Franklin had crossed was engulfed in flames, far beyond the hope of any man's quenching it. Not even an opportune storm would save it now. And the Franklin was a formidable river, wide and swift and, now, swollen like so many other streams by the winter rains. On the far bank, most of the northerners had gone their way, but a few, tiny in the distance, still moved about on foot and on unicornback. One of them, a mounted officer, waved mockingly to the southrons on the opposite side of the river.
Fury made John the Lister grab for the hilt of his sword. Half a heartbeat later, he checked the motion, knowing he'd been foolish. Even the bolt from a repeating crossbow right on the riverbank would have splashed harmlessly into the Franklin, less than halfway on the journey to that northern unicorn-rider.
Hard-Riding Jimmy came up beside John. On his face was the same frustration as John felt. "We'll be a while bridging this stream, and longer if their troopers give us a hard time while we're working at it," Jimmy said.
"I know," John answered unhappily. He shook his head toward the traitors on the far bank. "They're going to get away, gods damn them."
Jimmy tempered that as best he could: "Some of them will get away. But an awful lot of them gods-damned well won't."
"Well, I can't tell you you're wrong," John the Lister said. "Still, I wanted more. I wanted this whole army destroyed, not just wrecked. So did Doubting George."
The southrons' commander of unicorn-riders laughed. "If all our officers were so bloodthirsty, we'd've won this war two years ago."
"We're supposed to be bloodthirsty," John said. "We've spent too much time putting up with men who aren't. And d'you think Bell and Ned of the Forest didn't want to drink our gore? They knew what they wanted to do to us, all right; they just couldn't bring it off."
"I admire Ned. I hate to admit it, but I do," Jimmy said. "Wasn't that a lovely spoiling attack his men put in a couple of days ago? As pretty as anything I've ever seen, especially considering how worn they had to be."
"Yes. They're still bastards, though," John said. "He's a bastard, too, but he's a bastard who's monstrous good at war."
"That he is," Jimmy said. "And now, sir, if you'll excuse me . . ." He rode off.
Out in the Franklin River, a galley flying King Avram's flag drew near. John scowled at it. Why couldn't it have come sooner, to attack the now burning pontoon bridge before Bell's soldiers crossed it? A moment later, he got his answer to that. Cunningly hidden catapults on the northern side of the river opened up on the galley. Stones and firepots splashed into the Franklin all around it. It hastily pulled back out of range.
John the Lister shook his fist at the northerners again. But then, suddenly, he started to laugh. In the end, how much difference did it make that a few of them had managed to escape? For all practical purposes, the war here in the east was won.
Before long, the soldiers in Doubting George's army would go elsewhere—maybe after Lieutenant General Bell's men, maybe off to the west to help finish off the armies there that remained in the field for false King Geoffrey. Either way, how likely was it that Geoffrey's rule would ever be seen in this part of the kingdom again? Not very, and John knew it.
From now on, if the locals wanted to send a letter, they would have to send it through a postmaster loyal to King Avram. If they wanted to go to law against each other, they would have to do it in one of Avram's lawcourts. If one of the local barons wanted to keep on being a baron, he would have to swear allegiance to Avram. If he didn't, if he refused, he wouldn't be a baron any more. He would be an outlaw, and hunted down by Avram's soldiers.
And, from now on, all the blonds in this part of the kingdom would be free men, no longer bound to their liege lords' lands as they had been for so many hundreds of years. Ever since the invaders from the far side of the Western Ocean overwhelmed the blonds' kingdoms they'd found in the north of what became Detina, they'd looked on the people they'd conquered as little more than domestic animals that happened to walk on two legs. That had changed—changed some—in the south, where blonds had been fewer and the land itself poorer, and where serfdom never really had paid for itself. Now, no matter how little the northerners liked it—and John the Lister knew how little that was—it was going to change here, too.
King Avram had always been determined about that. He'd made his views plain long before succeeding old King Buchan. He'd made them so plain, Grand Duke Geoffrey had rebelled the instant the royal crown landed on Avram's homely head, and he'd taken all the northern provinces with him, even if some of them hadn't actually abandoned Avram till after the fighting started. Geoffrey's war was going on four years old now. It wouldn't—couldn't—last much longer. After the spilling of endless blood and endless treasure, King Avram would get his way.
John the Lister wondered how well things would work once peace finally returned to the kingdom. Like a lot of southrons (and almost all northerners), he remained unconvinced that the average blond was as good a man, as smart a man, as brave a man, as the average Detinan. He'd needed the war to convince him that some blonds could match some Detinans in any of those things. He knew one of his regiments had a blond sergeant in it, thanks to the promotion from Colonel Nahath. That a blond could rise so high, could give orders to Detinans and get away with it, still surprised him. That a Detinan with such abilities who'd started as a common soldier would probably be a captain or a major by now never once crossed John's mind.
One other thing of which John was convinced was that the Detinans in the north weren't about to accept blonds as their equals, no matter what King Avram had to say about it and even if they did lose the War Between the Provinces. The brigadier wondered how that would play out in the years to come. How many soldiers would Avram need to garrison the northern provinces to make sure his will was carried out? Would he keep them there to make sure it was? He was a stubborn man; John knew as much. But the northerners, like any Detinans, were stubborn, too.
Gods be praised, it isn't my worry, John the Lister thought. All he had to do was carry out commands. King Avram was the one who had to give them, and to figure out what they ought to be. Most of the time, Brigadier John had the same schoolboy fancies as flowered in the heart of any other man. What if I were King of Detina? Wouldn't it be wonderful, for me and for everybody else?
Looking at what lay ahead for the kingdom, at what King Avram would have to do if he wanted to knit things back together for south and north yet at the same time cling to his principles, John decided the current king was welcome to the job. After he's straightened things out—then, maybe . . .
John got so lost in his reverie, he didn't notice another unicorn coming up beside his. A dry voice snapped him back to the here-and-now: "Well, Brigadier, it hasn't turned out too bad the past couple of weeks, has it? No matter what those bastards over in Georgetown say, I mean."
Snapping to attention on unicornback wasn't practical. John the Lister did salute. "No, sir. Not too bad at all."
"Glad you agree," Doubting George said. "Of course, Baron Logan the Black would have done everything a hells of a lot better. He's sure of it even now, I bet, and so is Marshal Bart."
Sarcasm like that flayed. John said, "Sir, I don't see how anybody could have done anything better on this campaign." Maybe his words held some flattery. He knew they also held a lot of truth.
Doubting George muttered something into his beard, something distinctly unflattering to the Marshal of Detina. Part of John the Lister hoped the general commanding would go into more detail; he liked gossip no less than anyone else in King Avram's gossip-loving armies. But all George said after that was, "Well, by the Thunderer's prick, we've done every single thing we were supposed to do with the Army of Franklin. We've done every single gods-damned thing we were supposed to do to the Army of Franklin, too."
That wasn't altogether true. The Army of Franklin still existed, at least after a fashion. George had wanted to expunge it from the field altogether. Thanks more to Ned of the Forest than anyone else, he hadn't quite managed to do it, though Bell's force wouldn't endanger Cloviston, or even Franklin, again. "What now, sir?" John the Lister asked. "Do we go up and down the river till we find a place where we can get our own pontoon bridge across? Do we keep on chasing Bell and whatever he's got left of an army?"
With a certain amount of regret—more than a certain amount, in fact—George shook his head. "Those aren't my orders, however much I wish they were. My orders are to hold the line of the Franklin and to garrison the northern part of Franklin against possible further attacks by the traitors." A chuckle rumbled, down deep in his chest. "I don't expect that last'll be too gods-damned hard. A weasel doesn't come out and bite a bear in the arse."
"They'd better not, by the Lion God's talons!" John exclaimed. "Not even Bell could be crazy enough to want to go back to the fight."
"Ha!" Doubting George said. "You never can tell what that son of a bitch'd be crazy enough to do. I'm sure he wants to fight us some more. He just doesn't have any army left to do it with, that's all, at least not so far as I can see. Our job now is to make sure we send him back with his tail between his legs if he is daft enough to try it." He paused and frowned, dissatisfied with the figure of speech. "How the hells can we send him back with his tail between his legs if he's only got one leg?"
"If that's your biggest worry, sir, this campaign is well and truly won," John said.
"I expect it is." Doubting George still sounded imperfectly ecstatic. "Did I tell you? I had a call on the crystal ball from his Imperial Bartness the other day, telling me what a clever fellow I was, and how I'd been a good little boy after all."
"No, you didn't mention that," John the Lister replied. He couldn't help echoing, "His Imperial Bartness?"
"What would you call him?" George said. "We have Kings of Detina all the time—we've got too gods-damned many Kings of Detina right this minute, but there's always at least one. But till Bart, we hadn't had a Marshal of Detina for seventy or eighty years. If that doesn't make a Marshal of Detina fancier and more important than a King of Detina, to the hells with me if I know what would. And don't you suppose a fancy, important rank deserves a fancy, important-sounding title to go with it?"
"To tell you the truth, sir, I hadn't really thought about it." John wondered if anyone but Doubting George would have thought of such a thing.
"Well, anyway, like I say, he told me I was a good little boy, and he patted me on the head and said I'd get a bonbon or two for singing my song so nice, even over and above making me lieutenant general of the regulars," the general commanding went on, not bothering to hide his disdain. "And I rolled on my back and showed him the white fur on my belly and kicked my legs in the air and gods-damned near piddled on his shoe to show him how happy I was about the bonbons."
John the Lister had an alarmingly vivid mental image of Doubting George acting like a happy, bearded puppy and Marshal Bart beaming benignly out of a crystal ball. John had to shake his head to drive the picture out of it. "You always have such an . . . interesting way of putting things, sir," he managed at last.
"You think I'm out of my mind, too," George said equably. "Well, hells, maybe I am. Who knows for sure, especially these days? But crazy or not, I won. That's what counts."
It was what counted. For a soldier, nothing else really did. John nodded and said, "This kingdom's going to be a different place when the fighting finally stops. I've been thinking about that a lot lately."
"I've been thinking about it myself, as a matter of fact," Doubting George replied. "I doubt I'm going to be very happy with all the changes, either. But it'll still be one kingdom, and that's what counts, too."
He was right again. That was what counted, too, for King Avram's side. John the Lister nodded. "Yes, sir."
What was left of the Army of Franklin straggled into the town of Honey, in the southwestern part of Great River Province. The southrons had given up their pursuit after failing to bag the army in front of the Franklin River. Now Lieutenant General Bell wanted to salvage whatever he could from the ruins of his campaign up toward Ramblerton. He even hoped to salvage what was left of his own career.
That last hope died a miserable death when he recognized the officer sitting his unicorn in the middle of Honey's muddy main street and waiting for him. Saluting, Bell spoke in a voice like ashes: "Good day, General Peegeetee. How . . . very fine to see you, your Grace."
Marquis Peegeetee of Goodlook punctiliously returned Bell's salute. "It is good to see you, too, Lieutenant General, as always," he replied, reminding Bell which of them held the higher rank. He was a short, ferret-faced man, a very fine and precise commander who would have been of more use to King Geoffrey if he hadn't been in the unfortunate habit of making plans more elaborate than his men, most of whom were anything but professional soldiers, could carry out . . . and if he weren't at least as touchy as Count Joseph the Gamecock. He went on, "We shall have a good deal to talk about, you and I."
Bell liked the sound of that not a bit. He would even rather have seen Count Thraxton the Braggart; he and the luckless Count Thraxton, at least, both despised Joseph the Gamecock. But what he liked wasn't going to matter here. With a grim nod, he said, "I am entirely at your service, your Grace." If he could be brave facing the enemy, he could be brave facing his own side, too.
Even on this chilly day, a bee buzzed by Bell's ear. He shook his head and the bee flew off. The hives around the town had helped give it its name. General Peegeetee's expression, though, could have curdled honey. He said, "Where is the rest of your army, Lieutenant General?"
There it was. Bell had known it was coming. He said what he had to say: "What I have, sir, is what you see."
Peegeetee's expression grew more sour, more forbidding, still. Bell hadn't imagined it could. The marquis blurted, "But what happened to the rest of them? I knew it was bad, but . . ."
"Sir, the ones who survive and were not captured are with me," Bell said.
"By the Thunderer's big brass balls!" Marquis Peegeetee muttered. "You cannot have left more than one man out of four from among those who set out from Dothan in the fall. It is a ruin, a disaster, a catastrophe." When it came to catastrophes, he knew exactly what he was talking about. He'd been in command at Karlsburg harbor, where the war between Geoffrey and Avram began. He and Joseph had led the northern forces at Cow Jog, the first great battle of the war, down in southern Parthenia, which had proved that neither north nor south yet knew how to fight but both had plenty of brave men. And he'd taken over for Sidney the War Unicorn after Sidney bled to death on the field at the Battle of Sheol, a hellsish conflict if ever there was one.
"We made the southrons pay a most heavy price, your Grace," Bell said stiffly.
"They paid—and they can afford to go on paying," Peegeetee said. "But what of this army?" He shook his head. "This army is not an army any more."
"We can still fight, sir," Bell insisted. "All we need to do is refit and reorganize, and we'll soon be ready to take the field again."
"No doubt." This time, General Peegeetee's politeness was positively chilling. "I am sure your host—your small host, your diminished host—can defeat any enemy army of equal or lesser size." He did not sound sure of even so much, but continued before Bell could call him on it: "Unfortunately, my good Lieutenant General, Doubting George's force is now about five times the size of yours. You will correct me if I chance to be mistaken, of course."
He waited. Bell thought about protesting that the southrons surely could not have more than four times as many men as he did. He might even have been right to claim that. But what difference would it make? Four times as many men or five, Doubting George had far too many soldiers for the Army of Franklin to hope to withstand.
When Bell kept silent, Peegeetee nodded to himself. As calmly and dispassionately as if talking about the weather, he remarked, "King Geoffrey is most unhappy—most vocally unhappy, you understand—about the manner in which this campaign was conducted."
Again, a hot retort came to the tip of Lieutenant General Bell's tongue—came there and went no further. He was unhappy about a whole great raft of things Geoffrey had done, too. Once more, though, what difference did it make? Geoffrey was the king. Bell wasn't. All he said was, "By the gods, General, we tried as hard as mortal men could."
"Have I tried to deny it?" Peegeetee replied. "No one denies your valor, Lieutenant General, or the valor of the men you lead—those of them who survive. Unfortunately, no one doubts your lack of success, either." He steepled his fingertips and looked past Bell's right shoulder. "This now leaves you with a certain choice."
"A choice?" Bell echoed, frowning in incomprehension. "What kind of choice?"
Marquis Peegeetee still didn't seem to want to meet his eyes. "You may pay a call on the headsman, or you may fall on your own sword. This, I fear me, is the only choice remaining to you at the moment. A pity, no doubt, but such is life."
For a moment, Bell thought he meant the words literally. Figurative language had always been a closed book to the man who led the Army of Franklin. Here, though, he found the key. "You mean his Majesty will sack me if I don't lay down my command?"
"But of course," Peegeetee told him. "As I say, I regret this, but I can do nothing about it save convey the choice to you."
Bell thought about making Geoffrey dismiss him. That would show the world he thought he'd done nothing wrong. But what counted except results? Nothing. And what had come from this campaign? Also nothing, worse luck. Shrugging—the motion sent a wave of agony through his ruined left shoulder, making him long for laudanum—he said, "You may convey to his Majesty my resignation, and my readiness to serve him in any capacity in which he believes I may be of use."
Peegeetee bowed in the saddle. "Your sentiments do you credit."
"I want no credit, your Grace. What I wanted was to beat our enemies. Since that was denied me . . ." Bell shrugged again, not so much careless of the pain as embracing it. Once it had washed over him, he asked, "And who will succeed me in command of this army?"
To his surprise, Marquis Peegeetee looked past him again. "I am afraid, Lieutenant General, that that is not such an easy question to answer."
"Why not?" Bell demanded. "Someone has to, surely."
"Well . . . no. Not necessarily," Peegeetee replied. "King Geoffrey plans to send part of your army to Count Joseph the Gamecock, who is gathering forces in Palmetto Province to try to hold off the southrons. Veldt, you know, fell to General Hesmucet a couple of weeks ago. His Majesty fears Hesmucet will turn south, aiming to join Marshal Bart in an assault against Nonesuch. The rest of your force here . . ." He shrugged, too, a dapper little shrug. " . . . will be able to carry on without the formal name of the Army of Franklin."
Rage ripped through Lieutenant General Bell. "What?" he growled. "You'd gut my army to feed soldiers to that useless son of a bitch of a Joseph?"
With icy courtesy, Peegeetee replied, "It seems to me, Lieutenant General, that you are the one who has gutted your army."
Bell ignored him. "Gods damn it, if I'd known Geoffrey was going to do that, I never would have resigned. As a matter of fact, I withdraw my resignation!"
"I am going to pretend I did not hear that," the marquis said. "Believe me when I say you are lucky I am going to pretend I did not hear it. I told you his Majesty was disappointed in the Army of Franklin's performance. I did not tell you how disappointed, and how . . . how wrathful, he was. If you fail to resign, he will sack you, Lieutenant General. And he will do worse than that. 'Lieutenant General Bell, give me back my army!' he cried when word of your sad, piteous overthrow before Ramblerton reached him. If he sacks you, you will go before a court-martial, one with membership of his choosing. Perhaps you will only see the inside of a prison. Perhaps, on the other hand, you will see a cross."
"A . . . cross?" Bell said hoarsely. "He would do that to me, for fighting a campaign the best way I knew how? By the Thunderer's strong right hand, where is the justice in this world?"
"A cross not for the fight, I would say." General Peegeetee judiciously pursed his lips as he paused to find just the right words. "A cross for throwing away Geoffrey's last hope east of the mountains—his last hope, really, of ruling a kingdom that amounts to anything."
A tiny flicker of disdain, gone from his face almost—but not quite—before Bell was sure he saw it, said Peegeetee shared King Geoffrey's opinion of Bell and of what he had—and hadn't—done. That scorn hurt him worse than either his missing leg or his ruined arm. "Excuse me," he said thickly, and fumbled for his little bottle of laudanum. He gulped, careless of the dose. Poppies and fire chased each other down his throat.
"I regret the necessity of bringing you such unfortunate news when your wounds trouble you so," Peegeetee murmured.
Bell doubted he regretted it. If he had to guess, he would have said Peegeetee derived a sneaking pleasure from his pain. And, for once, the wounds weren't what troubled the general commanding—no, the general formerly commanding—the Army of Franklin. Could laudanum also dull torment of the spirit? If it couldn't, nothing could. That possibility sent a cold wind of terror howling through Bell's soul.
"Have you now reconsidered your reconsideration?" the marquis inquired.
"I have," Bell replied in a voice heavy as lead. "But, your Grace, no matter what you say, I aim to go to Nonesuch to put my case before his Majesty."
"I would not dream of standing in your way," Peegeetee said. "I do offer two bits of advice, however, for whatever you may think they are worth. First, do not get your hopes up. King Geoffrey has always been touchy, and he is all the touchier now that the war is going . . . less well than he would have liked."
"And whose fault is that?" Bell said, meaning it was Geoffrey's.
But General Peegeetee answered, "In his opinion, yours. I also note that Nonesuch is not the place you think it to be."
"I am familiar with Nonesuch," Bell said. "It is less than a year and a half ago that I last passed through it. Surely it cannot have changed much in so short a time."
"It can. It has," General Peegeetee told him. "With Marshal Bart's army clinging to the siege of Pierreville as a bulldog clings to a thief's leg, the shadow of the gibbet and the cross falls ever darker on the city. It is not without its gaiety even yet, but that gaiety has a desperate edge."
"I care nothing for gaiety," Bell snapped. "I care only for victory, and for vindication."
"Both of which, I fear, are in moderately short supply in Nonesuch these days." Peegeetee shrugged. "This is not my concern, however. I, like you, wish it were otherwise. And please believe me when I tell you I wish you good fortune in your quest. As I say, though, do please also be realistic in your expectations."
Bell had never been realistic, either in the field or in his maneuverings with and against other officers serving King Geoffrey. His headlong fighting style had made him a hero. It had also left him a twice-mutilated man. He had risen to command the Army of Franklin—and, in commanding it, had destroyed it. When he told Marquis Peegeetee, "I shall, of course, take your advice, most seriously," he meant, I shall, of course, pay no attention whatsoever to you.
With another bow in the saddle, Peegeetee replied, "I am most glad to hear it," by which he meant, I don't believe a word of it.
"Which men will be sent to Palmetto Province?" Bell asked. By putting it that way, he didn't have to mention, or even have to think of, Count Joseph the Gamecock. The less he thought of Joseph, the better he liked it. That Joseph might not care to think of him, either, had never once entered his mind.
Marquis Peegeetee pulled a sheet of paper from the breast pocket of his gold-buttoned blue tunic. "You are ordered to send the wing commanded by Colonel Florizel . . ." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "A wing, commanded by a colonel?"
"Senior surviving officer," Bell said. "When we fight, your Grace, we fight hard."
"Fighting well would be even better," Peegeetee murmured, and Bell glared furiously. Ignoring him, the nobleman continued, "You are also ordered to detach half the brigades from the wing commanded by Brigadier Benjamin, called the Heated Ham—how picturesque. The said brigadier is to accompany the attached brigades. Have you any questions?"
"No, sir, but do please note you are taking half the army's strength," Bell said.
"Not I, Lieutenant General. I am but delivering his Majesty's orders. And the Army of Franklin—the former Army of Franklin, I should say—is from this moment on no longer your official concern."
"I understand that . . . your Grace." Bell held his temper with no small effort. "Even so, its fate, and the fate of the kingdom, still interest me mightily, as they should interest any man with a drop of patriotic blood in his veins. I have, you know, spent more than a drop of my blood on King Geoffrey's behalf." He glanced down toward the stump of his right leg.
Peegeetee's gaze followed his own—but only for a moment. Then the marquis looked away, an expression of distaste crossing his narrow, clever features. Still not meeting Bell's gaze, he muttered, "No one has ever faulted your courage." He gathered himself. "But would you not agree it is now time to let other men shed their blood for the land we all hold dear?"
"I am still ready—still more than ready—to fight, sir," Bell said.
"That, I regret to repeat, you must take up with his Majesty in Nonesuch," General Peegeetee replied. Bell nodded. To Nonesuch he would go. He had scant hope, but he would go. His good hand folded into a fist. By all he could see, Geoffrey's kingdom had scant hope, either. Righteously, Bell thought, I did all I could.
"Come on," Captain Gremio called to his regiment. "Get aboard the glideway carpets. Fill 'em up good and tight, too. We don't have as many as we need."
Beside him, Sergeant Thisbe murmured, "When have we ever had as much of anything as we need? Men? Food? Clothes? Siege engines? Glideway carpets?"
That was so obviously unanswerable, Gremio didn't even try. He said, "What I'm wondering is, how the hells are we going to get to Palmetto Province? We ought to go through Marthasville—just about all the glideways from the coast out here to the east pass through Marthasville. But the southrons have held the place since last summer."
He felt foolish as soon as he'd spoken. Thisbe knew that as well as he did. The Army of Franklin—the army now breaking up like rotting ice—had done all it could to keep Hesmucet and the southrons out of Marthasville. All it could do hadn't been enough. Gremio didn't think the attack orders Lieutenant General Bell had given after taking command from Joseph the Gamecock had helped the northern cause, but he wasn't sure Marthasville would have held even absent those orders. Any which way, it was much too late to worry about them now.
One after another, soldiers in blue stepped up onto mounting benches and from them up onto the carpets. From time out of mind, men had told stories of magic carpets, of carpets that flew through the air like birds, like dragons, like dreams. But, up until about the time Gremio was born, they'd been only stories. Even now, glideway carpets didn't rise far above the ground. They traveled at no more than the speed of a galloping unicorn, though they could hold their pace far longer than a unicorn. And they could only follow paths sorcerously prepared in advance: glideways. As so often happened, practical magecraft proved very different from the romance of myth and legend.
Colonel Florizel limped toward Gremio, who came to attention and saluted. "As you were, Captain," Florizel said.
"Thank you, sir." Gremio relaxed. "We're heading back towards our home province, eh? Been a long time."
"Yes." A frown showed behind Florizel's bushy beard. "Under the circumstances, I worry about desertion. Can you blame me?"
"No, sir. I understand completely," Gremio answered. "I wouldn't worry so much if the war were going better. As things are . . ." He didn't go on.
Florizel nodded heavily. "Yes. As things are." It wasn't a complete sentence, but what difference did that make? Gremio understood him again. Florizel continued, "What makes it so bad for my regiment—excuse me, Captain: for your regiment—is that we are ordered back to our homes in the middle of a war that is . . . not going well. If our men think, to hells with it, what is to stop them from throwing down their crossbows and heading back to their farms or wherever they happen to live?"
"Not much, sir, I'm afraid. Maybe things will go better, or at least seem better, once we get to Palmetto Province. If they do, the men will be less likely to want to run away, don't you think?"
"Maybe. I hope so." Colonel Florizel still sounded profoundly dubious. Shaking his head, he went on down the line of glideway carpets. Gremio wondered whether he doubted things would go better in Palmetto Province or that it would make any difference to the men if they did—or maybe both.
Gremio could have given Florizel even more to worry about. Being convinced the war was lost and not just going badly, he'd begun to think about deserting himself. No one in Karlsburg would have anything much to say if he returned before the fighting formally finished. He was sure of that. He could resume his career as a barrister easily enough.
He felt Sergeant Thisbe's eyes on his back. Sure enough, when he turned he found the underofficer looking at him. Thisbe quickly turned away, as if embarrassed at getting caught.
Gremio quietly cursed. He wasn't cursing Thisbe—far from it. He was cursing himself. He knew he wasn't going to desert as long as the sergeant kept fighting for King Geoffrey. He couldn't stand the idea of losing Thisbe's good opinion of him.
And if Hesmucet storms up through Palmetto Province with every southron in the world at his back? Gremio shrugged. If you get killed because you're too stupid or too gods-damned stubborn to leave while you still have the chance? He shrugged again. Even then.
It wasn't anything he hadn't already known, and known for months. Now, though, he'd spelled it out to himself. He felt none of the fear he'd thought he might. He simply liked having everything in order in his own mind.
"Well, Sergeant, our men seem to be aboard the carpets," he said to Thisbe. "Shall we get on ourselves?"
"Yes, sir," Thisbe said. "After you, sir."
"No, after you," Gremio answered. "I'm still the captain of this ship: last on, last off."
Thisbe tried to argue, but Gremio had both rank and tradition on his side. Clucking, the sergeant climbed up onto the closest carpet and sat crosslegged at the edge. Gremio followed. He found a place by Thisbe; soldiers crowded together to make a little more room for them.
A man in a glideway conductor's black uniform came by. "No feet over the edges of the carpet," he warned. "Bad things will happen if you break that rule."
The men all knew that. Most of them also probably knew, or knew of, someone who'd broken a foot or an ankle or a leg against a rock or a tree trunk that happened to lie too close to a glideway line. Detinans were stubborn people who delighted in flouting rules, no matter how sensible those rules might be.
Silently, smoothly, the carpets slid west along the glideway. The silence persisted. The smoothness? No. The spells on the glideway line badly needed refurbishing. No mages seemed to have bothered doing that essential work. The wizards the north had were all busy doing even more essential work: trying to keep the southrons from pushing deeper into King Geoffrey's tottering realm. They weren't doing any too well at that, but they were trying.
Great River Province and Dothan had suffered relatively little from the war. Even in those provinces, though, everything had a shabby, rundown look to it, as if no one had bothered taking care of anything that wasn't vital since the war began. Gremio saw a lot of women working in the fields, sometimes alongside blond serfs, sometimes by themselves. No Detinan men who didn't have white beards were there to help them. If they didn't take care of things themselves, who would? Nobody.
A measure of how little the war had touched Great River Province and Dothan was that serfs were working in the fields. Down in Franklin, most of the blonds had fled their liege lords' holdings, choosing with their feet liberation from feudal ties. Northern nobles had long proclaimed that blonds preferred the security of being tied to the land. The evidence looked to be against them.
Here and there, the path the soldiers detached from the Army of Franklin took twisted like a drunken earthworm. Even here, so far north, southron raiders had sometimes penetrated. Their wizards had dethaumatized stretches of the glideway. On those stretches, the carpets might as well have lain on the floor of some duke's dining hall, for all the inclination toward flight they displayed. The soldiers had to roll them up and carry them along till they reached a working stretch of glideway once more.
And then, more slowly than they should have, the glideway carpets reached Peachtree Province. They had to skirt Marthasville, which had been the hub of all glideway routes. It still lay in the southrons' hands, and the garrison there was far too strong for this ragtag force to hope to overcome. Instead, Florizel's men and those led by Benjamin the Heated Ham went west and then north. They passed through the swath of destruction Hesmucet's army had left a couple of months before, marching west from Marthasville to the Western Ocean.
That swath was a good forty miles wide. The southrons had ruined the glideways along with everything else. The men who'd set out from Honey had to march across it, and they got hungry on the way. Hesmucet's men had burned every farm and castle they came upon. They'd ravaged fields, cut down fruit trees, and slaughtered every animal they caught. Skeletons with bits of hide and flesh still clinging to them dotted the landscape. Vultures still rose from the bones, though the carrion birds had long since battened on most of the bounty presented them. The stench of death lingered.
No blonds remained here. They'd run off with the southrons by the thousands.
"How could Hesmucet's men do such a thing?" Thisbe wondered.
"How? Simple," Gremio answered grimly. "They were strong enough, and we couldn't stop them."
Everyone was grim by the time the detachment reached the far edge of that strip of devastation torn across Peachtree Province. It had to run all the way from Marthasville to the ocean. Had Geoffrey's kingdom been strong, Hesmucet's men never could have done such a thing. Since they had . . .
Colonel Florizel wasn't far from despair by the time his men got to unravaged soil. He came up to Gremio, asking, "How can I ask even the bravest soldiers to give their lives for King Geoffrey's realm when everything is falling into ruin here at the heart of it?"
"I don't know, sir," Gremio answered. "How much more can we take before . . . before we go under?" Before the disaster in front of Ramblerton, he wouldn't have dared ask his superior such a question. Florizel would have called him a defeatist, maybe even a traitor. Now not even Florizel could believe the north's prospects were good.
He looked at Gremio for a long time before he shook his head and said, "I don't know, either, Captain. By the Thunderer's strong right arm, though, we'd better find out soon." He stumped away without waiting for a reply.
Later that evening, Gremio and Thisbe sprawled wearily in front of a campfire. Gremio said, "I think even the colonel is losing hope." He told Thisbe what had passed between Florizel and him.
"What do you think, sir?" Thisbe asked, staring into the yellow flames as if they were a crystal ball. "Is it all over? Shall we go home when we get to Palmetto Province, or do we still have a chance if we still keep fighting?"
"I'll fight as long as you will, Sergeant." Gremio had thought that before, but now he amplified it: "If you decide you've had enough, I won't say a word."
Thisbe swung around to face him. "That's not fair, sir—putting it all on me, I mean."
"I'm sorry, Sergeant," Gremio said. "I just thought—"
"You didn't think, sir," Thisbe said with a shake of the head. "You're the officer, so it's really up to you. You said so yourself, when we were getting on the glideway carpet at Honey."
"I do believe I've just been hoist with my own petard." Gremio mimed taking a deadly wound.
Although Thisbe laughed, the underofficer's face remained serious. "If it is up to you, sir, what will you do?"
"I'll see how things look when we get into Palmetto Province, and I'll make up my mind then," Gremio answered. "What will you do?"
"Follow you," Thisbe said without hesitation. "I know you'll come up with the right thing to do. You always have."
"Thank you. I only wish it were true."
Before they could say any more, a rider came up from the southwest. "Are you the men coming to the aid of Joseph the Gamecock?" he asked tensely, looking ready to gallop away in a hurry if the answer were no.
But Gremio said, "That's right. How are things in Palmetto Province these days? A lot of us are from there."
"Been a lot of rain," the unicorn-rider answered. "Plenty of what would be roads most of the year are underwater now. That ought to slow down the gods-damned southrons. If it doesn't, we're in a hells of a lot of trouble, on account of those fornicating bastards outnumber us about five to one."
Gremio and Sergeant Thisbe looked at each other. That was what had happened to Lieutenant General Bell. Once you came to a certain point, bravery stopped mattering much. No matter how brave you were, you'd get hammered if you were outnumbered badly enough.
One of Gremio's soldiers said, "Well, it ain't so bad any more, on account of now you've got us."
The unicorn-rider managed a nod, but the look on his face was pained. Gremio didn't, couldn't, blame him for that. A good many farmers who put on Geoffrey's blue tunic and pantaloons had hardly more education than blond serfs. The men who'd come from Bell's shattered army to the one Joseph the Gamecock was trying to build might mean his force was outnumbered only four to one. How much would that help him when he tried to hold back Hesmucet? The answer seemed obvious to Gremio, if not to the common soldier.
"What do we do now, sir?" Thisbe asked.
It wasn't a question about how they should proceed on the next day's travel. Gremio knew it wasn't, and wished it were. It would have been much easier to deal with as that sort of question. He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, Sergeant. I just don't know."