Sentry Peak

IV

“Smite them!” Count Thraxton told the messenger. “You tell Leonidas the Priest he is to smite them!

He is not to delay, he is not to dawdle, he is to smite the foe in front of him with all the strength he commands. If he will only smite them, victory shall assuredly be ours. Tell him that. Tell him that in exactly those words.”

“Yes, your Excellency.” The messenger’s lips moved silently as he went over Thraxton’s order. Like most in his service, he had a well-trained memory. After a moment, he nodded to himself and hurried away.

“He is not to delay even an instant,” Count Thraxton called after him. The messenger nodded to show he’d heard and slammed the door on the way out.

Thraxton’s lips moved silently, as the messenger’s had. He wasn’t committing anything to memory. On the contrary: he was cursing Leonidas the Priest. A terrible thing, to curse a hierophant of the Lion God, he thought. Very likely a useless thing as well: the god is bound to protect his votary. But what a pity if he is. And what must I do to make Leonidas move?

His long, pale hands folded into long, furious fists. He’d done everything he knew how to do this side of riding up to the front from Fa Layette and kicking Leonidas the Priest in his holy backside. He’d blistered the ears of Leonidas’ scryer. The scryer, presumably, had blistered Leonidas’ ears. But Leonidas, instead of going forth to fall on the foe, had stayed in camp.

“Why am I afflicted by blundering bunglers?” Thraxton howled; his own inner anguish was too great to let him keep silent. Others looked down their noses at him for losing battles. He looked down his nose at the subordinates who would not give him victory even when it lay in the cupped palms of his hands.

And it did. As sure as the sun would rise in the east tomorrow, it did. His deep-set eyes swung toward the map. His shaggy eyebrows came down and together in a fearsome, anguished scowl that furrowed his forehead as if it were crossed by the gullies seaming the eastern plains.

“We have them,” he whispered. “We need only reach out, and we have them.”

The map plainly showed it. General Guildenstern had split up his army to pursue the one Thraxton commanded. When massed, Thraxton’s forces were greater than any one part of the southron host. He could fall on one enemy column, destroy it, and then turn on the next, and then on the third.

He could. He didn’t even need James of Broadpath’s men to do it. The southrons still didn’t believe he’d stayed so far south in Peachtree Province. They’d been sure he would scuttle up to Stamboul, or even to Marthasville. He’d laid his trap. They’d stumbled into it. And now…

And now his own generals were letting him down. He didn’t know what he had to do to make Leonidas the Priest go forward against Guildenstern’s invaders. Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill had a reputation as a splendid soldier, but he didn’t seem inclined to assail the southrons, either. And, as luck would have it, his men were posted farther than Leonidas’ from the foe.

Maybe I should order Ned of the Forest forward against the enemy, Thraxton thought. But then he shook his head. Not unless I find no other way. For one thing, he reckoned Ned better at harassing the southrons than at actually hurting them. And, for another, Count Thraxton was not inclined to give the baseborn commander of unicorn-riders the chance to win real glory for himself.

Thraxton looked up through the ceiling of the home in Fa Layette where he made his headquarters. In his mind’s eye, he saw the heavenly home of the gods. Why have you chosen to afflict me with idiots? he asked. If the gods had an answer, they did not choose to vouchsafe it to him.

He held out his hands and looked at them. They were large-palmed, with long, thin fingers: the hands of a mage-which he was-or a chirurgeon or a fiddler, not those of a general, not really. He contemplated his fingers. They quivered, ever so slightly, as he did so. Somehow, victories kept slipping through them.

“Not this time,” he said. “No, by the gods, not this time.”

Sometimes magecraft was not enough. He shook his head. Sometimes one needed magecraft of a sort different from that found in grimoires. Sometimes the direct personal presence and encouragement of the commanding general were all the magic necessary to get a laggard, sluggard subordinate moving.

“Encouragement,” he murmured, and his thin lips skinned back from his yellow teeth in a smile that would have made anyone who saw it quail. His hands folded into fists again. By the time he got done… encouraging Leonidas the Priest, the man would do what was required of him. Either that, or Thraxton would try out some of his choicer sorceries on a soldier at least nominally on his own side.

He muttered another curse. Some of the choicer sorceries he’d aimed at the southrons in battles past had unaccountably gone awry, coming down on the heads of his own troops. He’d managed not to talk about that in the reports he’d submitted to King Geoffrey. Most of the time, he managed not to think about it, too. Every so often, though, the memories would crawl out where he had to look at them.

“Not this time,” he said. “Never again. May the gods cast me into the seventh hell if such a thing ever happens again.” Even when it had happened, it hadn’t been his fault. He was sure of that.

And he was sure he could linger in Fa Layette no more. He’d sent the army forward again, and he would have to ride south to be with it, to lead it in the triumph he hoped to create.

When he came bursting out of his study, his aides jumped in surprise. “Is something wrong, your Grace?” one of the young officers asked.

“My being here is wrong,” Thraxton answered, “here in Fa Layette, I mean. I must go south to rejoin the brave soldiers who fight for King Geoffrey and our traditional way of life. I am confident that my presence at the fighting front will inspirit my men and make them more eager to fare forth against the southrons.”

A couple of the aides suffered coughing fits. One of them turned quite red despite his swarthiness. He had so much trouble recovering, another captain passed him a flask. A long swig made him turn even redder, but he did stop coughing.

“Are you certain you are all right, Nicodemus?” Thraxton asked coldly.

“Uh, yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Captain Nicodemus answered. “I had something go down the wrong pipe, I’m afraid.”

“I daresay.” One of Count Thraxton’s shaggy eyebrows twitched. “You would do better not to suffer another such misfortune any time soon, I assure you. For now, though, go make sure my unicorn is ready. We have the enemy where we want him. Now we needs must strike him before he can pull the parts of his army together to make a single whole once more.”

“Yes, sir!” Nicodemus said. He hurried to obey. If he also hurried to escape Thraxton’s presence… that did not altogether disappoint the general. Being loved had always proved elusive. Love failing, being feared would do well enough.

He grimaced. He hadn’t made Ned of the Forest fear him. Ned hadn’t conveniently got himself killed, either. Count Thraxton shrugged. Ned would have more chances.

When Count Thraxton walked across the street to the stables, the blond serfs who cared for the unicorns fawned on him. So did Captain Nicodemus. He suspected-no, he knew-the display of respect and affection from both aide and serfs was false, but he accepted it as no less than his due even so. Serfs who showed they thought themselves as good as Detinans deserved whatever happened to them, as far as he was concerned. Few estate-owning nobles in the northern provinces would have disagreed with him.

He swung himself up onto the unicorn Captain Nicodemus gave him and began riding south toward the army’s encampments. He hadn’t gone far before peevishly shaking his head. Had the fighting begun, had the officers who were supposed to obey actually carried out their orders, he could have stayed back here in Fa Layette and let them destroy Guildenstern and the southron invaders in detail. But would they heed him? Another peevish headshake. King Geoffrey had made him commander in the east, but his subordinates seemed unaware of it.

His aides came boiling out of the building he’d used as his headquarters since abandoning Rising Rock. “What about us, your Grace?” one of them called after him.

Thraxton reined in and answered over his shoulder: “Come along if you care to.” If they came, well and good. If they didn’t, he would commandeer junior officers from the staffs of his division commanders. Like serfs, like unicorns, junior officers were for all practical purposes interchangeable.

He didn’t let the aides delay him long. He turned toward the south and booted his mount forward once more. On toward the River of Death, he thought, and then, On toward Rising Rock again, once I give the stinking southrons what they deserve.

His left hand folded into a fist. He slammed it down on his thigh. The story that refugee had told still burned within him. So Guildenstern had marched into Rising Rock with bands playing and banners waving, had he? When I take Rising Rock back, when I free it from the gods-accursed southrons, I shall have my own parade, and everyone will cry out my name.

With a nod, he spurred his unicorn up from a walk to a trot. What could be finer than streets lined with hundreds, with thousands, of cheering people, all of them shouting things like, “Huzzah for Thraxton!” “The gods bless the great Count Thraxton!” “Hurrah for Thraxton, savior of the realm!”? Nothing in the world could be finer than that, not to Count Thraxton.

And let those envious sons of bitches call me Thraxton the Braggart after that, he thought with a sour smile. Let them try. I shall have done something worth bragging about, something none of those feeble little men could hope to match.

In his mind, he saw himself bowing before King Geoffrey, heard the King acclaiming him Duke Thraxton of Rising Rock, imagined himself taking over broad new estates, earned by the swords-well, actually by the crossbows and pikes-of the men under his command. Maybe that was an even more splendid vision than the one he’d had a moment before.

He trotted past companies of footsoldiers trudging south toward what he hoped would be the battle. Reality differed from his visions, as reality had a way of doing. He heard one crossbowman say to another, “Who’s that scrawny old bugger? He looks like a teamster, but he rides like he owns the road. Silly old fool, anyone wants to know what I think.”

“Nobody gives a fart what you think, Carolus,” another trooper answered. “Nobody ever has, and nobody ever will, not even that old geezer.”

“Shut up, the both of you,” a third man said. “That was Thraxton the Braggart, and he’d just as soon turn you into a crayfish as look at you.”

Sooner, Thraxton thought. He pointed a finger at the soldier who’d spoken scornfully of him. For good measure, he also pointed at the fellow who’d used the nickname he hated. Then he muttered the spell he’d tried to use against Ned of the Forest. It had failed against Ned. It didn’t fail here. Both men doubled over, clutching their bellies. Then they both sprinted for the bushes off to the side of the road. With a harsh laugh, Count Thraxton urged his unicorn forward.

He reached the headquarters of Leonidas the Priest as the sun was sliding down the sky toward the western horizon. But, when he stuck his head into Leonidas’ pavilion, he discovered the hierophant of the Lion God wasn’t there.

“Er-how may I serve you, your Grace?” one of Leonidas’ aides asked. He sounded nervous, probably because he hadn’t expected Count Thraxton to come down toward the River of Death. He had more reason to be nervous than that. If he didn’t realize as much, he was going to find himself in as much trouble as his principal.

“Where is Leonidas?” Thraxton demanded.

“Offering sacrifice, your Grace,” the aide replied. “As always, he hopes to win the aid of the gods through his piety, and to enspirit the men he leads.”

“To enspirit them to do what?” Thraxton asked, acid in his voice.

“Why, to drive back the accursed southrons, of course,” the young officer said.

“They why won’t he attack them when I order him forward?” Thraxton snapped. Before the aide could answer, he held up a warning hand. “I don’t care to hear your response, sirrah. I care to hear Leonidas’. Fetch him here. Fetch him at once.”

“Sir, as I say, he is at his devotions,” the aide replied.

“Fetch him,” Thraxton said for the third time. “Let the underpriests finish the sacrifice. If he doesn’t care to come, tell him he would do better to cut his own throat than the lamb’s.”

That sent Leonidas’ aide off at a run. Thraxton folded thin arms across his narrow chest and waited, none too patiently. Before his temper quite kindled, the young officer came back with Leonidas the Priest, who as usual wore the vestments of his holy office rather than uniform. He looked most unhappy, which suited Thraxton fine. “Why are you harassing me, your Excellency?” he asked.

“Why do you not obey my orders?” Thraxton roared in return. “We have the foe divided. If we can strike him thus, he is ours. But we must strike. Why do you not move on him when I command it?”

“Oh.” Leonidas’ eyebrows rose. “Considering how we’ve had to fall back and back lately, and considering how I think we ought to fall back more to defend Marthasville, I didn’t imagine you could possibly have meant your order to go forward.”

“You shall obey me!” Count Thraxton had only thought he was roaring before. That full-throated bellow made everyone within earshot whirl and stare at him. Even Leonidas, after blinking a couple of times, bowed his head in acquiescence. Thraxton hoped that acquiescence didn’t come too late. Once upon a time, someone had written, Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain. Whoever that was, he’d probably known Leonidas the Priest.

Doubting George scratched his head. Some things could no longer be doubted, even by him. He’d called his brigadiers together to see if they still found such matters doubtable.

But when he said, “Seems to me there may be more traitors around these parts than if they were hightailing for Marthasville fast as they can go,” not a one of them argued. Instead, three heads bobbed up and down in solemn agreement and the fourth officer stood mute.

“I’d say you’re likely right, sir.” Brigadier Brannan might have been the handsomest man in King Avram’s army. He had curly black hair and a curly black beard, elegant eyebrows, and a proud hooked nose. He was also a professional soldier and a connoisseur of catapults; he commanded Doubting George’s dart- and stone-throwers. He went on, “Looks to me as if Thraxton’s decided to hang around and fight.”

“Can we lick him if he does?” George asked. He knew his own opinion, but wanted to hear what his brigadiers had to say.

But then Brigadier Negley said, “May it please you, sir, I’m not altogether convinced these aren’t more holdouts making nuisances of themselves, like those dragoons a few days ago.”

“Nonsense,” Brannan said.

Negley glared at him. He was handsome, too, in a foppish way. He wore a bushy mustache and a neatly trimmed little tuft of hair under his lower lip. He hadn’t been a soldier before the war-in fact, he’d got wealthy as a horticulturalist, of all unlikely things-but he’d raised a regiment of volunteers for King Avram and had fought it well enough to win promotion from colonel to brigadier.

“It isn’t nonsense,” he said, looking from Brannan to George and back again. “Some people just think they know everything to know, that’s all.” He sniffed. Having dismissed the catapult enthusiast, he spoke to George again: “Why should the traitors fight here when everything they need to hold is so much farther north?”

George couldn’t dismiss that argument out of hand, not when it was the same one General Guildenstern had made to justify splitting up his army. He said, “By all the signs I’ve seen, by all the reports the scouts are bringing in, there are more than holdouts in front of us. Suppose Thraxton the Braggart hits this column with everything he’s got. Can we whip him?”

His brigadiers looked at one another. Absalom the Bear was first to answer, in rumbling tones that helped explain how he’d acquired his nickname: “I wouldn’t care to bet on it, sir. He’s got more men than we do here, and we’re stretched out pretty stinking thin, too.”

Brigadier Rinaldo nodded. “He could hurt us. But I don’t think he’s stayed in the south, either. What’s the point of it?”

“Nice to know someone can see sense,” Brigadier Negley murmured.

Brigadier Brannan set a hand on the hilt of his sword. “If you don’t care for the way I think, sir, we can meet at a place of your choosing and you are welcome to try to make me change my views. Make sure you let someone know where you want your urn interred, though.”

Negley returned a stiff bow. “I am altogether at your service, sir.”

Doubting George decided it was a good time to lose his temper, or to seem to. He slammed the palm of his hand on the folding table behind which he sat. His brigadiers all jumped at the noise. “That will be quite enough of that,” he growled. “What do you think you are, a pack of northern nobles? They’ve got the blue blood and the blue shirts, and as far as I’m concerned they’re welcome to them. You both know perfectly well that dueling is forbidden in this army, and for good reason, too. We’ve got ourselves a job to do. By the gods, we’re going to do it. Do I make myself plain?”

“Yes, sir,” Brigadier Brannan said. Brigadier Negley nodded as stiffly as he’d bowed.

“Good.” George hoped he could let it rest there. “If we have traitors in the neighborhood, what do we need to do?”

“We’d better let General Guildenstern know,” Absalom the Bear declared.

“I’ve already done that,” George said.

Absalom nodded. “Does he believe you?”

That was indeed the right question to ask. “I don’t know yet,” George replied. His smile was dry. “I have my doubts.”

All four brigadiers chuckled. They took a certain amount of pride in serving under a man who had the sort of a reputation that had won him a nickname like Doubting George. George didn’t want anyone serving under him who didn’t take that sort of pride. He’d weeded out a few officers who didn’t measure up. But he’d done it quietly, so as not to touch off doubts in anyone else.

Brigadier Brannan asked, “Have you checked with our mages, to see what they think?”

That was another good question. George thought so, at any rate. But before he could answer it, Negley snapped his fingers and said, “The mages will tell you they don’t know. That’s all they’re good for.”

“Well, not quite,” George said, though he’d been disappointed in the quality of the sorcerers who served King Avram a good many times.

Brannan’s smile showed sharp teeth as he nodded to Negley. “I presume the sorcerers aren’t much use in the flower trade, eh?” he asked with exquisite, sardonic politeness. Beneath Negley’s swarthy hide, he turned red.

Before he could snap back, before Brannan could take it any further, George said, “I’ve already told you once, that will be quite enough of that.” He’d enjoyed Brigadier Brannan’s gibe, too, but not enough to want to watch his subordinates quarrel among themselves. “We’d do better turning all our tempers against the traitors, don’t you think?”

None of the brigadiers had the nerve to say no. Absalom the Bear said, “Mages are good for something every now and again. You never can tell.”

“That’s true-you never can.” Doubting George raised his voice. “Colonel Andy!”

“Sir?” His aide-de-camp bustled into the meeting. All four brigadiers gave him matching fishy stares. He didn’t have so much rank as any of them, but he had-or they thought he had-more influence with George, so they resented him.

“Fetch me Colonel Albertus, if you’d be so kind,” George said. Colonel Andy nodded, saluted, and bustled away to get the mage. He was very good at looking busy, even when he wasn’t.

“Albertus.” Brigadier Negley sniffed. “Calls himself the Great, like a circus mountebank. Great compared to what, is what I want to know.”

He kept on fuming and muttering insults till the tent flap opened and Colonel Albertus strode into the pavilion. Then, most abruptly, Negley fell silent. Insulting a mage to his face was risky business.

But the brigadier had had a point. When Albertus the Great bowed to George and asked, “How may I serve you, your Excellency?” in deep, vibrant tones, he sounded like a circus mountebank. And he looked like one, too. He wore his gray beard very long, and trained it to a point. His eyes flashed. His posture was very erect. His hands twitched, as if he were about to pull a goldpiece from Doubting George’s ear.

George didn’t want a goldpiece. He was after something more precious still, and more elusive: the truth. “By your magecraft, Colonel, have you noted any signs that Count Thraxton’s men are nearby in numbers greater than they ought to be? You and your fellow sorcerers, I mean.”

“Yes, of course.” Even Albertus’ frown was theatrical. “Sir, I am able to give no certain answer, much as I should like to. The northerners have set so many masking spells on the landscape, my colleagues and I are hard pressed to see anything at all.”

“Why would they do that, if they didn’t have something to hide?” Brigadier Brannan asked.

“Why? I can think of several reasons,” Albertus said. “One, obviously, is to conceal their forces. But another would be to conceal that which is not there, to use magic to deceive and slow us where warriors cannot.”

“Are they such sneaky demons as that?” Brigadier Rinaldo asked.

“Do we dare think they aren’t?” Absalom the Bear said before anyone else could answer. George had to give Rinaldo credit: he very visibly thought about that before at last shaking his head.

To Colonel Albertus, the so-called Great, George said, “Can you tell whether the enemy is masking emptiness or building up his forces behind all those screening spells?”

“Maybe,” Albertus said-an answer Doubting George accepted as basically honest, if nothing else. The mage went on, “If the masking spells are laid on with enough skill and force, they will hide whatever lies behind them, whether that be nothing or a great deal. That is their function, after all.”

“Well, so it is,” George said. “But your function, Colonel, is to pierce that magic, no matter how skilfully and forcefully the traitors use it.”

“In theory, no doubt, that is true,” Albertus replied.

“If the theory’s not worth anything, Colonel, why aren’t you carrying a pike instead of your wand there?” Brigadier Absalom demanded. His manners were altogether unpolished, but he was the man George relied upon when the going got heavy.

Albertus the Great, however, looked at him as if he’d just found him on the sole of his boot. He stroked his splendid, gleaming beard and said, “I assure you, sir, we of the mystical profession are doing everything within our power to aid in King Avram’s just fight to keep Detina a single kingdom.”

That within our power was, of course, the rub. King Geoffrey’s mages were on the whole better than the ones who’d stayed loyal to Avram, even if Albertus had a more impressive beard than any of them. George said, “Colonel, we urgently need to know what, if anything, is behind those masking spells. You and your fellow mages are to attempt to learn that. You are to do whatever becomes necessary in order to learn it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir!” Albertus saluted as crisply as any soldier could have-or perhaps as crisply as an actor impersonating a soldier might have done up on the stage. His about-face also held some of that theatrical quality. He stalked out of Lieutenant General George’s pavilion.

After he was gone, Brigadier Brannan said, “It would probably be a good idea to nab some northern prisoners, too, sir, to find out what they say. Anybody who counts on mages and nothing else dooms himself to disappointment.”

“I’m already doing it, Brigadier,” George said, and Brannan grinned at him. George went on, “If we could rely on our mages, we’d’ve long since won this war.” He held up a hand before any of his fractious subordinates could speak. “I’m not done, gentlemen. If the traitors could rely on their mages, they’d’ve long since won the war.”

The meeting with his division commanders broke up a few minutes later. The four brigadiers left the pavilion, Brannan and Negley ostentatiously not speaking to each other. Doubting George stepped out with them. Part of that was so they wouldn’t go for their swords as soon as they were out from under his eye. Part of it was in the hope that the air would be cooler and a little less muggy. His two quarreling officers left each other alone, so that was a success. But hoping for cool, dry air in summer anywhere in Peachtree Province… George shook his head. No chance. No chance at all.

He glanced toward the mages’ tents. He couldn’t see anything summoning the sorcerers, but one by one they left their own tents and strode into Colonel Albertus’. Going to get crowded in there before long, he thought, but more and more magicians went inside without the tent’s bursting at the seams. Maybe there was something to this magecraft business, if magic could make tents bigger inside than out-.

Then George shrugged. He would have been happier with his mages if they’d shown better at the little skirmish by the stone fence. He would have been happier with them if they’d shown better at any number of fights in two and a half years of war.

They are trying, he thought. Yes, they’re very trying. The sardonic second thought followed the charitable first as naturally as night followed day.

He could hear them chanting, there in Albertus’ tent. They had fine, resonant voices. He wondered what, if anything, that had to do with the price of brandy. Maybe better music made for better magecraft. He could hope so, at any rate. He’d hoped for all sorts of things from mages, and been disappointed more often than he cared to recall.

All at once, the chanting stopped. The ground shook beneath Doubting George’s feet, as if a troop of unicorns were trotting by not far away. Mages started spilling out of Albertus’ tent. By the way they fled, by their cries of horror and expressions of dismay, the shaking had been worse, a great deal worse, in there. George hadn’t thought there were so many synonyms for earthquake, or so many lewd adjectives that would cling to the term.

Colonel Albertus the Great was the last man out of the tent. George gave him some credit for that, as he would have given the captain of a sinking quinquereme some credit for being the last man off his stricken vessel. “What happened?” George called.

Colonel Albertus’ eyes were wild. So was his beard; instead of doing as he wanted, it stuck out in all directions. He staggered over to Doubting George and managed a sort of a salute. “Sir,” he said, “if you want to find out what’s on the other side of those masking spells, you’re just going to have to do it with soldiers. I’m sorry, but I must report myself… not quite fit for duty.”

He swayed and toppled. As George caught him, the general reflected that he’d got information from the mage-if only he knew what to do with it.

“Well, where are the stinking sons of bitches?” Captain Ormerod demanded. “By the gods, I’m sick of tramping through these endless woods for southrons who might as well be down in New Eborac for all we’ve seen of them.”

“Beats me,” Colonel Florizel replied. The regimental commander didn’t mind complaints, not when he was none too happy about tramping through these pine woods himself. “As far as I’m concerned, if they didn’t know exactly where the enemy was, they should have used mages or bloodhounds to find him, not soldiers. We’ve got better things to do.”

“Or Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders,” Ormerod said. “Ned’s a serfcatcher, or he was. He ought to be able to find out where the southrons are skulking if anyone can.”

“Everything started boiling after Count Thraxton paid a visit to Leonidas,” Lieutenant Gremio said. “My guess is, Thraxton wanted Leonidas to do more, and so Leonidas started flailing around every which way.”

“Leonidas the Priest is a very holy man,” Florizel said reprovingly. “The gods love him.”

“They must,” Gremio said. “Otherwise, how could such a dunderhead have become a general in the first place?”

“Now, Lieutenant,” Ormerod said, deliciously scandalized. “Do have a care what you say. Isn’t that libel?”

“Of course not,” Gremio replied with a barrister’s certainty. “Slander, yes. Libel, no. I wouldn’t waste time libeling Leonidas, anyhow-except for hymn books, there’s no proof he can read.”

Something buggy bit Ormerod. He swatted at it. Whatever it was, Gremio had proved he owned a sharper tongue than it did.

Sergeant Tybalt came out from behind a tree. He was buttoning his fly, which gave more than a hint of why he’d gone back there in the first place. Seeing Ormerod, he asked, “Sir, even if we do find the stinking southrons in this miserable country, how in the names of all the gods are we supposed to fight them hereabouts?”

“As best we can, Sergeant,” Ormerod answered. “As best we can.”

Tybalt looked dissatisfied. Ormerod didn’t blame him, but he had no better answer to give. Battles, proper battles, were usually fought in broad plains that gave both sides room to maneuver and to see farther than a few feet. But there were no broad plains here in this miserable country-Tybalt had had the right word for it-by the River of Death, only endless woods, mostly pine, some oak, punctuated by occasional farms and their mean little fields.

Colonel Florizel said, “Our ancestors beat back the blonds and broke them to servitude in country like this. If they could do it, we can do it, too.”

Lieutenant Gremio looked about to say something, too. Before he could, Ormerod contrived to kick him in the ankle. Gremio let out an indignant yelp. Ormerod looked as innocent as he could, which wasn’t very. Knowing Gremio, he had a pretty good idea of what the lieutenant would have said: something that exposed all the historical inaccuracies in Florizel’s remark.

“There’s a time and a place for everything, by the gods,” Ormerod muttered. Maybe Gremio heard him, maybe he didn’t. Ormerod wasn’t going to worry either way. Gremio kept quiet, and Ormerod did worry about that. Contradicting Earl Florizel at a feast where the audience was nobles and wealthy commoners was one thing. Contradicting Colonel Florizel, the regimental commander, and disheartening the sergeant the colonel had been encouraging was something else again. Perhaps because he was an aggressive barrister, Gremio had trouble grasping the distinction.

Before Ormerod could explain it to the lieutenant-not that Gremio, who was convinced he knew it all, would have been likely to listen-a sharp challenge rang out ahead: “Who goes there?”

“Hold up!” Ormerod called to the rest of his company. Then he pitched his voice to carry: “Who are you?”

“Third company, twenty-sixth regiment from New Eborac,” came the reply. “The sign is Avram. Give the countersign, or be known for a traitor and an enemy.”

Rage ripped through Ormerod. “The countersign is, Die you son of a bitch!” he shouted, and yanked his sword from its scabbard. “Come on, boys!” he yelled to his own company. “We’ve found some of the southrons, anyway.”

A crossbow quarrel hissed past his head and buried itself in a pine behind him. More than half its length had vanished. It would have done worse yet had it pierced him. His leg twinged. Yes, he knew what a bolt could do when it tore through flesh.

His men fought the way their ancestors had when attacked by blonds: they scurried behind trees and started shooting from in back of them. In country like this, how else could anyone fight? Captain Ormerod would have loved to come up with a different answer, a better answer, but none occurred to him.

“Geoffrey!” he shouted as he hurried toward a tree, too. He might brandish that sword, but how much good did it do him with no foeman within reach of his steel? “Geoffrey and provincial prerogative!” That was the slogan the northern provinces used to deny that Avram had the authority to make them do anything they didn’t care to do-such as freeing serfs from their ties to the land-unless their nobles consented.

“King Avram!” the southrons shouted back. “King Avram, and to the seven hells with provincial prerogative!” Other cries rose, too, wordless cries of pain as crossbow quarrels from both sides began finding targets.

A soldier near Ormerod went down. His feet drummed and thumped on the pine needles, but he wouldn’t be getting up again, not with a bolt between the eyes. Ormerod looked again at the sword in his hand. If the enemy charged, it would do him some good. Meanwhile… Meanwhile, he scrambled over and scooped up the shot man’s crossbow and pulled the sheaf of bolts off his belt. By the time he got back to his own tree, the soldier had realized he was dead and stopped kicking.

Ormerod set a quarrel in the crossbow’s groove, yanked back on the bow to cock it, and steadied his finger on the trigger. Sticking some part of his head out to look for a target gave him a certain amount of pause-supposed one of the gray-clad southrons was waiting for him to do exactly that? He would kick mindlessly for a few heartbeats and then stop, too.

This is your duty to King Geoffrey, he told himself, and made himself do what was required. A quarrel slammed into the tree trunk a couple of inches from his head. He jerked back, cold sweat springing out on his brow. When he peered out again, it was from much lower down.

He shot at an enemy soldier. The fellow didn’t shriek, so he supposed he missed. Cursing under his breath, he loaded and cocked the crossbow as fast as he could. He wished he were ambidextrous, so he could have put the bow to his left shoulder and pulled the trigger with his left hand. That would have let him look out from behind the tree on the side enemy sharpshooters didn’t expect.

But no such luck. Like most men, he was doomed to predictability. “Forward!” he called to his men-at the same time as an officer on the other side was also shouting, “Forward!”

Ormerod’s men had learned in a hard, bloody school. They knew how to advance through woods. Some of them shot at the enemy and made him keep his head down while others actually moved forward. Then the two groups traded roles, the ones who had been shooting now leapfrogging past the men who, in new cover of their own, kept the southrons busy.

Against raw enemy troops, such tactics were almost bound to succeed. But the third company of the Twenty-Sixth New Eborac proved to consist of veteran soldiers who fought the same way as the men from Palmetto Province whom Ormerod commanded. The southrons offered his soldiers few targets as they worked their way forward-only the occasional glimpse of a gray tunic or a dark head or, now and again, a blond one.

Blond heads… When Ormerod realized what that meant, he let out a great, full-throated bellow of rage. “They’ve got runaways fighting for ’em, the bastards!” he shouted when he finally found words. “Now we really have to make them pay!”

He wanted to throw aside the dead man’s crossbow and charge the enemy swinging his sword, as if he were a conqueror from the heroic days not long after the Detinans first crossed the Western Ocean and cast down the kingdoms the yellow-haired men had made hereabouts. But the blonds who fought for King Avram didn’t lumber around in ass-drawn chariots and wield cumbersome bronze-headed axes. Their weapons were as good as his, and they had real Detinans alongside to help stiffen them if they faltered. The sword stayed in Ormerod’s scabbard.

As he ran forward, he wondered if any of those blonds there on the other side had escaped from his estate. Maybe we’d do better coming after them with whips, to make them remember they serve us, he thought. Then another crossbow quarrel snarled past him. He shook his head. The blonds had been serfs, but some of them were soldiers now.

“Avram!” they shouted. He recognized their accent-not so very different from his own, not much like the clipped tones most proper southrons used. “King Avram! Avram and freedom!”

“Avram and ass piss!” Ormerod yelled back. Freedom, he thought. As if the serfs deserve it. Not likely. We made Detina what it is by conquering them. What would it be if we let them pretend they were as good as we are? He didn’t know what it would be. He did know it wouldn’t be any place where he cared to live. He grimaced. Without serfs to work his fields and harvest the indigo, it wouldn’t even be any place where he could make a living.

“Forward!” the southron officer shouted again.

“Forward!” Captain Ormerod echoed. As if from far away, he heard other company commanders from Colonel Florizel’s regiment shouting the same thing, and other southrons as well. He paid them only scant attention. They weren’t directly affecting him, and so he didn’t worry about them. He had plenty to worry about right here-in these woods, he couldn’t tell what most of his own company was doing, let alone anyone else’s.

He ran for a pine up ahead. Somebody else was running for it, too-somebody in a gray tunic and pantaloons. Out came the sword he’d resheathed not long before. He set the crossbow down on the ground. Once he settled with the foe, he would pick it up again.

Had the enemy soldier had a bolt in the groove of his own crossbow, Ormerod might not have had such a good time of it. But the fellow’s crossbow was also empty. He threw it aside and yanked out his own shortsword to defend himself against Ormerod’s onslaught.

Steel belled on steel. Sparks flew. Ormerod’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a fierce grin. He had a proper blade, and knew what to do with it. The southron’s sword was intended for use only after all else failed. By the way the fellow held it, he hadn’t had to use it very often up till now.

“Ha!” Ormerod said. The slash would have split the southron’s skull, but the enemy trooper jerked his head aside at the last instant. The blade hacked off most of his left ear. Howling, dripping blood, he turned and fled, throwing aside the shortsword so he could flee the faster.

Ormerod took two steps after him, then checked himself. Any farther and he risked running into the gods only knew how many southrons. He snatched up his crossbow again, slid a bolt into the groove, and cocked the piece.

“Forward!” the southron captain, or whatever he was, shouted again. His voice didn’t sound as if it came from very far away. Ormerod froze into a hunter’s crouch, as he might have done going after tiger or basilisk in the swampy near-jungle of the woods of Palmetto Province. The enemy officer went on, “We can lick these bastards-they aren’t very tough.”

“No, eh?” But Ormerod’s lips shaped the words without the slightest betraying sound. Sure enough, there stood the southron, behind an oak not fifty yards away. Ormerod brought the crossbow to his shoulder. He pulled the trigger. The bowstring thrummed. The stock kicked against him.

And the enemy captain clutched at his ribcage and slowly crumpled to the ground. “Take that, you filthy, fornicating robber!” Ormerod yowled. “King Geoffrey and victory!”

The gray-clad soldiers cried out in dismay as their leader fell. But they had no quit in them. “Come on!” someone else-a lieutenant? a sergeant?-yelled. “We can still whip these bastards!” And, instead of falling back as Ormerod had hoped, the southrons surged forward more fiercely than before.

Some of them had their shortswords out, as did some of Ormerod’s men. Usually, one side or the other gave way in a fight like this. That didn’t happen here. Both Ormerod’s troopers and the southrons wanted to get their hands on their foes, and both kept coming despite everything their foes could do to them. It wasn’t an enormous fight, but it was as fierce as any Ormerod had seen.

A big blond fellow swinging his shortsword rushed straight at Ormerod, yelling, “King Avram and freedom!” at the top of his lungs. His slash would have taken off Ormerod’s head had it connected.

It didn’t. Ormerod parried and thrust. The blond-surely an escaped serf by his accent-beat the blade aside. “King Geoffrey!” Ormerod shouted. Then he stopped and stared-and almost got killed because of it. His next word was a startled bleat: “Rollant?”

“Baron Ormerod?” Rollant’s astonishment almost got him killed. For a quarter of a heartbeat, he started to duck his head and bow, as he’d been trained to do since boyhood when the baron went by. Had he finished the motion, Ormerod would have spitted him as if he were to go over the fire.

He’d dreamt of facing his old liege lord in battle, dreamt of killing him in any number of slow and nasty ways. He’d been sure Ormerod would take service with false King Geoffrey, just as he’d taken service with Avram, who was not only the rightful king but also the righteous king.

Reality proved vastly different from his dreams, as it had a way of doing. He’d never dreamt Ormerod would swing a long sword, while he had only a short one. He’d known the baron could handle a blade. In his dreams, it hadn’t mattered. Now… Now he backpedaled. However hateful his liege lord was to him, Ormerod was also a better swordsman with a better sword. And he looked as if he wanted to kill Rollant at least as much as Rollant wanted to kill him.

“Run away from me, will you, you son of a bitch!” he shouted, and thrust at Rollant’s face. Rollant had no idea how he managed to beat the northern noble’s blade aside, but he did. Then he sprang backwards, to put a tree between them.

Cheers from the north said more traitors were coming in. Rollant darted back to another tree. Ormerod was bellowing orders. Rollant couldn’t make out the words, but he knew the tone. I’d better, he thought. He’s given me enough orders. He gave me one order too many, by the gods, and I’ll never take another one from him again.

While the baron-the enemy officer-directed his company, Rollant put more trees between them. No, the meeting hadn’t gone as he’d dreamt. He counted himself lucky that it hadn’t gone as Ormerod was likely to have dreamt.

“Back! We have to fall back!” That was Sergeant Joram. Captain Cephas was down-some traitor had put a crossbow bolt between his ribs. Rollant didn’t know what had happened to the company’s two lieutenants. He didn’t care that much, either. As far as he was concerned, neither Benj nor Griff made much of an officer: Joram was worth both of them and then some.

And if Joram said they had to fall back, they did. Rollant looked over his shoulder. No, he didn’t see any southrons coming up into this nasty little fight to give him a hand. If Geoffrey’s men had reinforcements, they were going to win it.

“I thought the traitors were running away.” That was Smitty, right at Rollant’s elbow. Rollant almost slashed at him; he hadn’t realized anybody was there. Smitty went on, “One more thing our generals got wrong. The list gets longer every day.”

“Sure enough,” Rollant said, and then, “You’re bleeding.”

Smitty looked astonished. “I am? Where?” Rollant pointed to his arm. His tunic sleeve was torn and bloody. Smitty stared down at it. “Wonder how that happened.”

“However it happened, you ought to get it seen to,” Rollant said.

“Yes, granny dear. When I have time, granny dear,” Smitty said, which made Rollant want to give him a wound more severe than the one he already had. He went on, “Besides, the thing I really need to do is get myself seen to. And so do you. If the traitors catch up with us, a scratch on the arm is the least I’ve got to worry about.”

He was inarguably right. He was, in fact, more right for Rollant than he was for himself. If the northerners caught him, he would just be a prisoner. If they caught Rollant, they were liable to send him back to Ormerod’s estate to work in chains the rest of his days. Or they might just knock him over the head, figuring a serf who’d not only run away but raised his hand against them was more trouble than he was worth.

In wondering tones, Rollant said, “That was my liege lord I was fighting back there. I did my best to kill him, but I couldn’t.” He grimaced. “I think he came a good bit closer to killing me than the other way round.”

“Your liege lord?” Smitty echoed. Rollant nodded. “The fellow who ran your estate, who told you what to do?” Smitty went on.

“That’s what a liege lord is. That’s what he does,” Rollant said impatiently.

“Don’t get all salty with me,” Smitty said. “I come from a province full of small freeholders, remember. We haven’t had liege lords in New Eborac for a demon of a long time. Anybody tried to tell me or my neighbors what to do, he’d get himself a crossbow bolt in the belly for his trouble.” He raised an eyebrow. “How come that didn’t happen more up in the north?”

There had been serf uprisings, especially in the early days of the northern provinces. The Detinans had crushed them all, without mercy. Over the past few generations, the subjected blonds had been quieter. Down on Baron Ormerod’s estate, Rollant hadn’t thought much about that. It was just how things were. When he’d fled from Ormerod’s lands to those where there were no serfs, though, it seemed more reprehensible.

He tramped on for perhaps half a minute without answering. At last, he said, “I suppose a lot of the ones who would’ve risen up went south instead.”

To his relief, Smitty nodded and said, “That makes sense, I guess.”

Sergeant Joram came over and slapped Rollant on the back. “I saw you tangling with the traitors’ captain. That was bravely done, by the gods-shortsword against an officer’s blade. Not many would have tried it.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.” Rollant knew he had to prove himself every time he went into a fight. A lot of Detinans-southrons included-had trouble believing blonds could be worth anything on the battlefield. If he’d run away, he wouldn’t just have disgraced himself. He would have let down every man of his blood.

Smitty said, “That wasn’t just the enemy captain, Sergeant. That traitor son of a bitch used to be Rollant’s very own liege lord before he ran off. His duke, or whatever in the seven hells he was.”

Rollant laughed. “Ormerod was no duke, just a baron scrabbling to get by.”

That made Smitty laugh, too. “If you had to be somebody’s serf, didn’t you ever wish you were tied to the land of someone really important?”

“I’ve known serfs who did put on airs because of who their liege lords were,” Rollant said. “I always thought it was pretty stupid, myself. It doesn’t change you any, and an important liege lord doesn’t have to treat you better than any ordinary baron.” He brought his mind back to more immediately important matters, asking Joram, “How’s the captain doing?”

“Don’t know if he’s going to make it,” the sergeant answered with a scowl. He put his hand to the right side of his chest to show where the bolt had struck. “It’s a nasty wound.”

“So Benj is in charge of us?” Rollant said.

Joram shook his head. “No, Griff. Benj took a quarrel that went like so” -he ran a finger along the right side of his head, just above the ear- “and he had to go to the rear; he was bleeding like a stuck hog. He’ll be back, though, unless the wound mortifies. If the bolt had been a couple of inches over, they’d have thrown his body on the pyre and his spirit would be standing on the Scales of Justice right this minute.”

Among the gods Rollant’s people had worshiped was the Merciful One, who’d done everything he (or, some people said, she) could to give souls a happy afterlife. The Detinans talked much more about justice than about mercy. That, as far as Rollant was concerned, was one of the more frightening things about them.

He looked back over his shoulder. “I don’t think the traitors are chasing us very hard any more,” he said.

Smitty cupped a hand behind his ear. “Doesn’t sound like it,” he agreed. “But I’ll tell you one thing: they haven’t all run away to Marthasville, the way our fancy-pantaloons generals were saying.”

“Anybody with an ounce of brains could have figured that out after Ned’s riders smashed up the front end of Doubting George’s column,” Rollant said.

“Anybody with an ounce of brains?” Smitty said. “Well, if that doesn’t leave out most of our generals, to the seven hells with me if I know what would.”

“You’d better watch your big mouth, Smitty,” Sergeant Joram said.

But Smitty shook his head. “I’ll think what I want, and I’ll say what I want, by the gods. I’m just as much a free Detinan as General Guildenstern is, and just as entitled to speak my mind.”

He sounded angry. In fact, he sounded furious. And, while Joram shook his head, too, he said not another word. Not for the first time, Rollant marveled at the way the Detinans defended what they saw as their liberties. He also marveled at the way so many of them didn’t think the serfs in the northern provinces deserved those same liberties.

After tramping on for a few more paces, he remarked, “You know, when I saw I was fighting my old baron back there, I wanted to kill him for trying to bind me to the land my whole life long.”

“Don’t blame you a bit,” Sergeant Joram said, and Smitty nodded. Perhaps because he’d fought alongside them, they understood he craved liberty as much as they did.

He went on, “But the funny thing is, he wanted to kill me just as much, because I’d had the nerve to run away from his estate.”

“Not so funny if you’re on the wrong end of the bastard’s sword,” Joram said.

“I found that out,” Rollant answered. “If we ever get some time back in camp, Sergeant, will you teach me swordstrokes? I know we’re supposed to be a crossbow company, but this is the second time in a couple of weeks that we’ve come to close quarters with the traitors.”

“I’ll show you what I can,” Joram said, “but you’d better not think a few lessons will let you stand up against somebody who’s been putting in an hour’s practice every day since he got as tall as his sword.”

“That sounds fair enough,” Rollant said. “Still, the more I know, the better the chance I’ve got of going home to my wife after this miserable war’s finally over.”

Up ahead, Lieutenant Griff called, “Third company, rally to me!” His voice was high and thin. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Rollant was convinced he’d bought his commission-he didn’t see how Griff could have got it any other way. “To me!” the new company commander called again.

To him Rollant and Smitty and Sergeant Joram went. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” Joram said. “I don’t think the traitors are pursuing us any more.”

“I believe you’re right, Sergeant,” Griff answered. “But what are they doing here? What are they doing here in such numbers? By the gods, they’re supposed to be running, not sneaking back to bushwhack us. That’s not what our officers said they’d do.” He sounded furious. He sounded doubly furious, in fact: furious at the northerners for handling the company roughly, and as furious at them for turning up in an unexpected place.

Gently, Sergeant Joram said, “Sir, maybe you’ll have noticed that things don’t always turn out just the way the people with the fancy uniforms think they will.” He might have been explaining the facts of life to a youngster who was at least as likely to find them appalling as interesting.

Lieutenant Griff certainly looked appalled. He said, “But they wouldn’t be wearing those fancy uniforms if they didn’t know what was going on.”

“There’s a pile of difference between wouldn’t and shouldn’t, Smitty said. “Sir.”

Rollant added, “Besides, sir, there are plenty of fellows in fancy uniforms on the other side, too.”

“Keep your mouth shut, soldier,” Griff snapped. He hadn’t complained when Joram tried to correct him, or even when Smitty did. Of course, they were both of Detinan blood, as he was. Rollant was only a blond.

I’m good enough to die for my kingdom, but not to speak up for it, he thought. The first few times such things had happened to him, he’d been both angry and humiliated. He still was, but only to a degree. All he could do to keep them from happening so often was to show, over and over if need be, that he knew what he was doing and knew what he was talking about. Lieutenant Griff hadn’t seen that yet, but maybe he would one of these days.

Or maybe he never would. Some southron Detinans, like most of their northern counterparts, refused to believe blonds could be anything more than beasts of burden that chanced to walk on two legs.

“We’d better get back to the encampment,” Griff said. Rollant couldn’t argue with him about that.

At the encampment, Griff hurried off to report to his superiors. Rollant hoped the news would soon get to someone with the wit to see what it meant. He had his own opinions about which general officers in the army owned such wit and which carried their headquarters in their hindquarters, as a wag had put it.

Hagen, the runaway serf he’d brought back to the company, said, “Where are the rest of you?”

“Where in the seven hells do you think?” Rollant answered irritably. “We ran into the traitors-more of ’em than we expected-and some of us stopped bolts. That’s part of what war’s about, worse luck.”

“Where is Captain Cephas?” That was Corliss, Hagen’s wife.

“He got shot,” Rollant said. As Joram had, he put his hand to the right side of his chest. “I didn’t see it happen, but I hear it’s not so good.”

“Oh, no,” Corliss said softly, turning pale. Then she started to sob. Rollant stared at her. So did Hagen. Cephas had let the two serfs and their children stay with the company as laborers. Was that enough to set Corliss crying so? Maybe. But maybe not, too. What else had Cephas done for-or with-Corliss in particular?

Rollant didn’t know. Hagen looked as if he didn’t know, either, and as if he was wondering the same thing. It wasn’t Rollant’s worry. At the moment, he was very glad it wasn’t his worry, too.

“Gods damn it to the hells, maybe the stinking traitors haven’t all scurried north to Stamboul.” General Guildenstern admitted even so much with the greatest reluctance.

“I’m afraid you may be right, sir,” Brigadier Alexander agreed.

“Of course I’m right,” Guildenstern snarled. He rarely doubted himself, even, perhaps, when he should have. “Bugger Thraxton the Braggart’s arse with a red-hot poker, why isn’t he behaving the way he’s supposed to? Does the stinking son of a whore think he can beat me?” He paused in his tirade to pour more brandy down his throat, then resumed: “If he thinks he can beat me, I’ll kick his scrawny backside so hard, he’ll end up in Marthasville whether he wants to or not.” He gulped from the flask again, only to discover he’d drunk it dry. That set off a fresh barrage of foul language.

His division commander said, “It certainly is surprising that he would dare to try conclusions with you.”

“Surprising? It’s bloody idiotic, that’s what it is,” Guildenstern thundered. “I’ve seen beers with better heads on ’em than Thraxton’s got, if he’s enough of a moron to want to join battle with us when our army outnumbers his close to two to one.”

Brigadier Alexander coughed a couple of times, the coughs of a man who’s just had an uncomfortable thought. “Our whole army outnumbers his close to two to one, yes, sir. But his is larger than any of our three separate forces. If he were to concentrate against one of them…”

“That’s why I sent Doubting George out by his lonesome, you nincompoop,” Guildenstern said. He shook his flask. It was empty, and he remained thirsty. That he couldn’t do anything about his thirst at the moment only made him more irritable. Ignoring Alexander’s wounded look, he went on, “I wanted to lure Thraxton into trying to hit him, so the rest of us could land on the traitors like a ton of bricks and get rid of them once for all.”

“Yes, sir. I understand that, sir,” the division commander said carefully. “But with Lieutenant General George well east of us and with Brigadier Thom so far off to the west, Thraxton might be able to, to hurt one of our wings before the others could come to its rescue.”

Thraxton might be able to smash one of our wings. That was what Alexander had intended to say. You can’t fool me, Guildenstern thought. I know what you meant, you mealy-mouthed son of a bitch. Even with brandy (not enough brandy, gods damn it) coursing through him, Guildenstern had no trouble seeing through his subordinate’s deceptions.

But had he somehow failed to see through one of Thraxton the Braggart’s deceptions? The trouble was, Brigadier Alexander, however mealy-mouthed he might be, had a point. If Thraxton was lingering in southern Peachtree Province, he might indeed handle one of King Avram’s isolated forces very roughly before the other divisions could get to it.

Guildenstern’s mouth twisted into a thin, bitter line. As if every word tasted bad-and every word did taste bad, as far as he was concerned-he said, “Maybe-just maybe-there is something to what you say. Maybe we ought to bring the wings of the army closer together.”

Brigadier Alexander’s face lit up. “Sir, I think that would be a wonderful idea!” he exclaimed, as if he expected to see Ned of the Forest’s unicorns rampaging through the division he commanded any minute now. “If we’re all together, the Braggart would have to come up with reinforcements before he could even think about attacking us, and where can he find them?”

“He can’t.” General Guildenstern spoke with great certainty. “There aren’t any in this part of the kingdom.”

“I’m sure you’re right, sir,” Alexander said. “And so-a united army for a united kingdom, eh?” He chuckled stagily. “King Avram would surely approve.”

“Yes.” Guildenstern had no trouble holding the enthusiasm from his voice. He didn’t particularly love King Avram. But he thoroughly despised Grand Duke Geoffrey-false King Geoffrey, these days. And he even more thoroughly despised the northern nobles who backed Geoffrey. They had everything he wanted-rank, wealth, elegance. No… They had almost everything he wanted. He turned to Brigadier Alexander and coughed a significant cough. “By the gods, I’m thirsty.”

“Here, sir.” Alexander took the bottle off his belt and handed it to the general.

“Thanks.” Guildenstern yanked out the stopper, took a long pull-and then spat in disgust. He all but threw the flask to the brigadier. “You’ve got your nerve, giving a thirsty man water.”

Alexander blushed bright red, as if he were a blond. “I-I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered. “I-I’m not fond of spirituous liquors myself, and so it never occurred to me that-”

“Dunderhead,” Guildenstern growled. The commanding general turned his back on his luckless subordinate and stalked off toward the scryers’ tent. Brigadier Alexander took a couple of steps after him, then broke off the pursuit, sure it would do no good. And in that, if in nothing else, Guildenstern thought, the brigadier was absolutely right.

I wonder if the scryers will have anything worth drinking, Guildenstern thought as he ducked through the tent flap. He doubted it. And even if they did, odds were they wouldn’t share with him.

The bright young men sitting behind their crystal balls sprang to attention when the commanding general walked in. One of them sprang so enthusiastically, he knocked over his folding chair and then had to bend and fumble to pick it up. “What can we do for you, sir?” asked Major Carmoni, who headed the scryers’ section.

“I need to send some messages,” Guildenstern answered. “What did you think I came in for, roast pork?”

Several of the bright young men snickered. Major Carmoni said, “Yes, sir: I understand you need to send messages. To whom, sir, and what do you need to say?”

That was business. So Guildenstern took it, at any rate. He was too elevated by brandy to suppose it might be scorn. “Send one to Doubting George,” he answered, “ordering him to move toward me. And send the other to Brigadier Thom, also ordering him to move toward me. We shall concentrate our forces.” He spoke the long word in the last sentence with great care.

“Yes, sir.” Carmoni turned to the scryers. “Esrom, your crystal ball’s attuned to the ones in Lieutenant General George’s wing. And you, Edoc, you can deliver the message to Brigadier Thom’s wing.”

Both scryers nodded. One of them (Esrom? Edoc? the commanding general neither knew nor cared) turned to Guildenstern and murmured, “By your leave, sir.” He nodded. The scryers sat down and bent over their crystals. They muttered in low voices. First one crystal began to glow, then the other. The scryers passed on General Guildenstern’s orders. He heard those orders acknowledged. As the scryers looked up from the crystals, the glass globes went dull and dark again.

“It is accomplished, sir,” Major Carmoni said.

“It had bloody well better be,” Guildenstern said. “I wouldn’t put it past George to pretend he’d never got the order so he could go on after Thraxton the Braggart all by his lonesome. He’s a glory-sniffer, if you ask me.” Off he went, not quite realizing how much juicy gossip he’d just left in his wake.

He still remained imperfectly convinced that the northern traitors really were loitering here by the southern border of Peachtree Province. He wouldn’t have done it himself, which made it harder for him to believe Count Thraxton would. And the column in which he advanced, the column led by Brigadier Alexander, hadn’t been assailed the way Doubting George had-the way Doubting George said he had, at any rate. Oh, a few bushwhackers had shot crossbows at the men in gray from the underbrush, but that happened marching along any road in any northern province.

Musing this, he glumly tramped back to his own pavilion. His stride grew glummer still when he bethought himself that no one soft and young and round and friendly was waiting for him in the pavilion. He sighed and scowled and kicked at the dirt. By all the gods, I should have brought that wench with me when we marched out of Rising Rock, he thought. I expected to be heading up toward Stamboul by now. Bound to be plenty of women once I get into settled country-plenty of serfs who want to be nice to King Avram’s general. But there aren’t any at all in this wilderness.

If he couldn’t have a woman, more brandy needs must do. He didn’t know where to get his hands on a woman, but brandy-or something else just as potent, such as the amber spirits for which Franklin was famous-was never hard to come by, not in any army on either side of this civil war.

Just before General Guildenstern went into his pavilion, shouts rose from the mages’ tents not far away: “Sorcery! Magecraft! Wizardry!” The men started rushing about in the gray robes that always made them look-to Guildenstern, at least-as if they’d just come from the baths. They would run from one tent and then into another, calling out all the while.

Guildenstern’s lip curled. Mages were always running around yelling about magic, whether it was there or not. Guildenstern couldn’t sense it, which made him doubt it was there. He wanted to see mages running around yelling about cauliflowers. He rumbled laughter. With cauliflowers, at least, an ordinary human being would have some hope of telling whether or not the mages were flabbling over nothing.

Sentries saluted as Guildenstern came up to the pavilion. “Cauliflowers,” he muttered. Their eyebrows rose. But they didn’t ask questions. Asking questions wasn’t their job. Into the pavilion he strode. Sure enough, he had no trouble coming up with a bottle of brandy from which he could restore his sadly depleted flask-and from which he could restore his sadly depleted self.

He was smacking his lips over the restorative when one of the sentries stuck his head inside and said, “General Guildenstern, sir, Colonel Phineas would like to talk to you.”

“Ah, but would I like to talk to Colonel Phineas?” Guildenstern replied grandly. It wasn’t altogether a rhetorical question; his chief mage had and persisted in the unfortunate habit of telling him things he didn’t want to hear. He scowled. Phineas would also write a nasty report if he sent him away without listening to him. King Avram read reports like those. Scowling still, Guildenstern said what he had to say: “Very well. Send him in.”

In came Phineas, a round, agreeable man who looked more like a patent-medicine seller or a carnival barker than anyone’s usual idea of a mage. “Sir!” he said, clapping a dramatic hand to his forehead, “we have been probed!”

“Probed?” Guildenstern echoed. It didn’t sound pleasant; he was willing to admit that. What it did sound like was something a physician might do, not a sorcerer. “What exactly do you mean, Colonel?”

“What I say, of course,” Phineas answered. “We have been probed-quite thoroughly, too, I might add.”

“If you can’t explain yourself in plain Detinan so an ordinary human being can understand you, Colonel, perhaps you should find yourself another line of work,” Guildenstern said acidly. “Footsoldier springs to mind.”

As he’d thought it would, that got Phineas’ attention. “What I mean, sir, is that the northern mages have done everything they could to learn everything they could about our dispositions through sorcerous means. Perhaps you will criticize my style there. I am not used to being judged on my literary technique.”

“Never mind,” Guildenstern said: he’d finally found out what he needed to hear. “All right-they probed us, if that’s what you wizards call it. How much did they find out? I presume you fellows blocked them. That’s what we pay you for, anyhow.” He laughed at his own wit.

Colonel Phineas didn’t laugh. Colonel Phineas, in fact, looked about as somber as Guildenstern had ever seen him. “We did the best we could, General,” he said, his voice stiff and anxious. “We always do the best we can, as you must surely know. But, I have to admit, we were taken somewhat by surprise.”

Guildenstern didn’t like the way that sounded. By the miserable expression on his chief mage’s face, he had good reason not to like it. “How much did they learn?” he demanded. “They must have learned something, or you wouldn’t look as though a brewery wagon just ran over your favorite kitten.”

“They learned… perhaps a good deal, sir,” Phineas said, forcing the words out one by one. “We… might have detected the probe rather sooner than we did. We are still… not quite so good as we might wish at reacting when taken by surprise. Such things… don’t happen quite so often in civilian life.”

“You’ve gone and futtered things again, is what you’re telling me,” Guildenstern boomed, his rage fed both by brandy and by knowing such things had happened to southron armies far too often. “You’re telling me Thraxton the Braggart knows where every louse is on every man I command. That bloody well is what you’re telling me, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it’s quite that bad, sir,” Colonel Phineas said. “But, considering how scattered our forces are…”

The commanding general took great pleasure in laughing in his face. “If that’s all you’re having puppies about, you can rest easy,” he said. “I’m already pulling them together.” Phineas blinked. That wasn’t enough for Guildenstern, who went on, “No thanks to you, gods damn you to the hells. Now get out of my sight!” Phineas fled. Guildenstern nodded. That was better. He swigged from the brandy flask again.