Sentry Peak

VI

Count Thraxton sat in a rickety chair in an abandoned farmhouse not far from the River of Death, staring into the fire. Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest perched on stools to either side of him; Ned of the Forest, too active to sit, paced back and forth through the bare little room.

“We hit them a mighty blow today,” Thraxton said.

“By the Lion God, we did,” Leonidas agreed. “We’ve driven them back over a mile, and bent their army nearly double. One more strong stroke tomorrow, and they fall into our hands.”

If you’d struck them a few days ago, when I ordered you to attack, they would have already fallen into our hands, Thraxton thought resentfully. But Leonidas wasn’t wrong even now. “Strike that blow we shall,” Thraxton said.

“Almost had ’em today,” Ned of the Forest said. “I got a regiment of riders all the way around behind ’em, but they were bringing up reinforcements right where we came out, and so I couldn’t quite pull off what I had in mind.” He snapped his fingers. “Came that close, though.”

“So you said earlier this evening,” Thraxton answered. “It sounds very pretty, but it would be all the better for proof.”

That made Ned stop his pacing. The firelight flashed in his eyes as he growled, “If you’re calling me a liar, Count-”

“I said nothing of the sort,” Thraxton replied smoothly.

“You better not have,” Ned said. Thraxton ignored him. The count’s lean, somber face showed nothing. Inside, he jeered, You stupid bumpkin, do you think I’m foolish enough to do anything so overt?

“Ned’s men fought very well today on Merkle’s Hill,” Baron Dan said. “They put up such a stand against a swarm of southrons that I took them for footsoldiers, not unicorn-riders.”

“Good,” Thraxton said, but not in a tone of voice to make either Dan of Rabbit Hill or Ned think he approved. They both glowered. He looked back at them as innocently as he could. The more they squabbled, the happier he was.

Leonidas the Priest said, “I am sure the Lion God will give our just cause victory when the fight resumes tomorrow.”

Before Count Thraxton could come up with a snide comeback to that, a commotion outside distracted him. His long, pale hand paused in midair, uncertain whether to reach for the sword on his belt or the sorcerer’s staff leaning against the wall behind him. Then one of the sentries exclaimed, “Earl James!” and Thraxton’s hand fell back into his lap.

“So he got here in time for the dance after all,” Ned of the Forest said. “Next question is, did he bring his friends along?”

“Surely he would not have come alone,” Leonidas the Priest said. One of Ned’s eyebrows rose. So did one of Count Thraxton’s. Leonidas is a trusting soul, he thought. A moment later, he amended that: Leonidas is a trusting fool.

Earl James of Broadpath strode into the farmhouse. He was a bear of a man, bigger and more imposing than Thraxton had expected, burly and shaggy and, at the moment, in something of a temper. Giving what struck Thraxton as a perfunctory nod, he said, “By the gods, your Grace, I’ve been wandering over some of the wretchedest landscape I’ve ever seen, trying to find out where in the eternal damnation you’d hidden your headquarters.”

“I am glad you did at last,” Thraxton said, his bloodless tone suggesting he was anything but glad. “Allow me to introduce my subordinates to you, General-though I expect you will already know Dan of Rabbit Hill.”

James rumbled laughter. Baron Dan smiled, too. “I expect I will,” James agreed. “We’re both out of Palmetto Province, we both graduated from the officers’ collegium at Annasville the same year, and Dan’s out of the Army of Southern Parthenia, too. Good to see you again, by the Thunderer.” He clasped Dan’s hand in his own big paw.

“Touching,” Count Thraxton murmured. “Here is my other wing commander, Leonidas the Priest, and the commander of my unicorn-riders, Ned of the Forest.”

Leonidas rose and bowed. Ned was already standing. He bowed, too. James returned both bows, bending as much as a man of his physique could. He and Ned of the Forest sized each other up-like two beasts of prey meeting in the woods, Thraxton thought with distaste. Earl James said, “I’ve heard of you. By all accounts, you do good work.”

That made Ned bow again, just as if he were a real gentleman. “Thank you kindly,” he answered. “Everybody knows the Army of Southern Parthenia does good work.”

Count Thraxton fumed. Ned had just given him the back of his hand, and more smoothly than he would have expected from such a lout. Thraxton wondered if James of Broadpath had noticed. He couldn’t tell: that thicket of beard kept James’ face from showing much.

With a small sigh, Thraxton returned to business: “How many of your men have come here with you, Earl James?”

“Rather more than half, your Grace,” James replied. “Brigadier Bell is bringing the rest forward as fast as the accursed glideways in Peachtree Province will let him. The southrons don’t have to go through this sort of nonsense when they move their troops from hither to yon, believe you me they don’t.”

“That, unfortunately, is true,” Thraxton said. “Nonetheless, the men you do have will greatly augment our strength. You are senior to Baron Dan, I believe?”

“I may be,” James said quickly, “but you don’t need to do anything on my account. Dan knows what’s going on hereabouts hells of a lot better than I do.”

“Rank must be served,” Thraxton declared. “Were it not for matters pertaining to rank, would we have a quarrel with King Avram’s so-called justice?” He turned the last word into a sneer. “By your rank, your Excellency, you deserve to command the wing Leonidas the Priest does not.”

Dan of Rabbit Hill said, “It’s all right, James. I don’t mind-I know things will be in good hands with you.”

Earl James bowed to him. “Thank you very much, your Excellency. That’s gracious of you.” He nodded to Thraxton. “If you’re going to give me this, your Grace, I’ll do my best with it. Baron Dan’s men are your right wing-have I got that much straight?”

“Not just the right wing-the whole right side of my army,” Count Thraxton replied. “I look forward to seeing what a man from the famous Army of Southern Parthenia can do here among us easterners.” In another tone of voice, that would have been a graceful compliment. As things were, he implied he didn’t expect much at all from James of Broadpath.

“I’ll do my best,” was all James said. No matter how well his beard concealed his expression from the outside world, he didn’t sound very happy. That suited Thraxton fine. He reckoned happiness overrated. Since he was rarely happy himself, he found little reason for anyone else to be.

“Let us examine the map,” he said. Happy or not, he had every intention of hurling his army at the southrons again as soon as it grew light.

But Ned of the Forest said, “Hold on. You just hold on there, by all the gods. You’re supposed to be a mage along with being a general. Isn’t that so, Count Thraxton, sir?”

“I am a mage,” Thraxton said coldly. “And your point is…?”

“I’m coming to that, never you fear,” Ned said. “My point is, when we were up in Rising Rock you bragged this enormous brag about what all we were going to do-what all you were going to do-to the stinking southrons. What I want to know is, what’s General Thraxton’s brag worth? Can you do what you said you’d do, or is it all just wind and air?” He stared a challenge at Count Thraxton.

Thraxton stared back. He heartily wished Ned of the Forest dead. But wishes had nothing to do with magecraft, no matter what benighted serfs might think. Picking his words with care, Thraxton said, “I have been incanting all through the battle. Without my cantrips, we should be in far worse state today than we are.”

“So you say,” Ned jeered. “So you say. It’d be all the better for proof, that’s all I’ve got to tell you.”

Leonidas the Priest said, “You must remember, the southrons have mages in their service, too, mages who wickedly seek to thwart Count Thraxton in everything he undertakes.”

“Isn’t he better than any of those fellows?” Ned rounded on Thraxton. “Aren’t you better than any of those fellows? You say you are. Can you prove it?”

“I can prove it. I will prove it,” Thraxton replied. “By this time tomorrow, neither you nor Earl James nor anyone else will be able to doubt what I can do.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Are you answered?”

“Ask me tomorrow this time,” Ned of the Forest said. “I’ll be able to tell you then. Meanwhile, I’m going back to my men.” With a mocking bow, he swept out of the farmhouse.

“Never a dull moment here, is there?” James of Broadpath remarked.

“Not hardly,” Baron Dan said, a remark almost uncouth enough to have come from Ned.

“Perhaps we should rest now, and beseech the Lion God to show us the way to victory come the morning,” Leonidas the Priest said. “If he is gracious, he will send us dreams to show the direction in which we should go.”

“I know the direction in which we should go,” Thraxton said. “I intend to take us there.” He pointed toward the southeast. “The direction in which we should go is straight toward Rising Rock.”

“Well said.” Dan of Rabbit Hill nodded. Leonidas looked aggrieved because Thraxton wasn’t giving the Lion God enough reverence, but Thraxton cared very little how Leonidas looked.

“Let me have a look at the map,” James of Broadpath said. “Dan, if you’d be so kind as to walk over here with me and tell me what the southrons might be up to that doesn’t show up on the sheet here, I’d be in your debt.”

“I’d be glad to do that, sir,” Baron Dan replied.

Leonidas the Priest got to his feet. He didn’t go over to the map. Instead, he said, “I shall pray for the success of our arms,” and left the farmhouse. That struck Count Thraxton as being very much in character for him.

Then another thought crossed his mind: and what of me? He shrugged. He was what he was, and he didn’t intend to change. And one of the things he was, was a mage. He had done a good deal of incanting this first day of the fight, but it had been incanting of a general sort, incanting almost any mage, even a bungling southron, might have tried. A bungling southron would not have done it so well, he thought. He knew his own worth. No one else gave him proper credit-to his way of thinking, no one else had ever given him proper credit, not even King Geoffrey-but he knew his own worth.

And he realized he’d not been using his own worth as he should. He was a master mage, not a journeyman, and he’d been wasting his energy, wasting his talent, on tasks a journeyman could do. Any mage could torment the other army’s soldiers. What he needed to do-and it struck him with the force of a levinbolt from the Thunderer-was torment the other army’s commander.

General Guildenstern would be warded, of course. The southrons would have wizards protecting him from just such an assault. But if I cannot overcome those little wretches, if I cannot either beat them or deceive them, what good am I? Thraxton asked himself.

Decision crystallized. “Gentlemen, you must excuse me,” he told Dan of Rabbit Hill and Earl James. “I have plans of my own to shape.”

The two officers looked up from the map in surprise. Whatever they saw on Count Thraxton’s face must have convinced them, for they saluted and left the farmhouse. Thraxton pulled out first one grimoire, then another, and then yet another. He sat by the hearth and pondered, pausing only to put more wood on the fire every so often to keep the flames bright enough to read by.

What made him realize dawn had come was having to feed the fire less often. As the light grew, so did the sounds of battle from the south. He put down the grimoires and began to cast his spell. A runner came in with a message. Without missing a single pass, without missing a word of his chant, Thraxton seared the fellow with a glance. The runner gulped and fled. Whoever had sent him would just have to solve his own problems.

Thraxton’s spell reached out for his opposite number in King Avram’s army. Strike for the head, and the body dies, he thought. But General Guildenstern was well defended, better even than Thraxton had expected. One after another, counterspells grappled with his cantrip, like so many children’s arms trying to push aside the arm of one strong man.

Driving on despite them took all the power Thraxton had. A lesser man, a less stubborn man, would have given up, thinking the spell beyond his power. But Count Thraxton persevered. This time, he thought, this time, by all the gods, I shall drive it home to the hilt.

And he did. For once, the spell did not go awry, as had happened before. For once, it did not rebound to smite his own soldiers, as had happened before. For once, Count Thraxton lived up to a brag as fully as any man might ever hope to do. He cried out in something as close to delight as his sour spirit could hold, and in full and altogether unalloyed triumph.

As Count Thraxton and his generals hashed over the first day’s battle that evening in a farmhouse close by the River of Death, so General Guildenstern and his generals spent that same night doing the same thing in another farmhouse, a widow’s miserable little hut made of logs, only a very few miles to the south.

“Well, boys, we’re in a scrap, no two ways about it,” Guildenstern said. He swigged from a bottle of brandy. “Ahhh! That’s good, by the gods. We’re in a scrap,” he repeated, hardly noticing he’d already said it once. “We are, we are. But we can still lick ’em, and we will.”

He clenched the hilt of his sword as if it were a traitor’s neck. When Thraxton’s attack went in, he’d had to do some real fighting himself. He knew there were men who questioned his generalship-he had plenty of them right here in the farmhouse with him. But no man ever born could have questioned his courage.

He looked around at the assembled military wisdom-he hoped it was wisdom, at any rate. “All right. Here we are, not quite where we wanted to be when we set out from Rising Rock. But we aren’t lost yet. Anybody who says we are is a gods-damned quitter, and welcome to go home. Question is, what will that Thraxton son of a bitch try and do to us when the fighting picks up in the morning?”

Lieutenant General George shook his head. “No, sir. That’s only part of the question.”

Guildenstern glared at him. Gods damn you, too, Doubting George, he thought. George had warned him Thraxton wasn’t retreating so fast as he’d thought himself. And George had had the nerve to be right, too. General Guildenstern did his best not to remember that as he growled, “What’s the other part?”

“Why, what we can try to do to him, of course,” George answered.

George’s Parthenian accent made it seem as if Thraxton the Braggart had an officer of his own at this council of war. But no one, not even Guildenstern, could challenge his loyalty to King Avram. And he wasn’t wrong here, either. “Fair enough,” Guildenstern said. “What can we do to that Thraxton bastard?”

“I would strengthen the right,” George answered around an enormous yawn. That yawn made Guildenstern yawn in turn, and went in progression from one officer to the next till they’d all shown how weary they were. Guildenstern had a cot to call his own. Doubting George-who yawned again-was perched on a three-legged milking stool. The rest of the generals either stood up or sat cross-legged on the rammed-earth floor.

“Of course you would strengthen the right, sir,” Brigadier Alexander said. “You are the right.”

“And if the traitors get through me or around me, everything goes straight to the seven hells,” Doubting George replied. “Ned of the Forest took a whack at it this afternoon, and the bastard almost ended up sitting on our route back to Rising Rock. If he hadn’t bumped into some of our boys coming forward, that would have been a lot worse than it was.”

“If you think the fighting wasn’t heavy in the center, too, you can think again, sir,” Brigadier Thom said.

Doubting George yawned once more. “I would strengthen the right,” he repeated. His eyes slid shut. Guildenstern wondered why he didn’t fall off his stool.

A couple of brigadiers started to snore, one lying on the ground, the other leaning up against the log wall of the widow’s hut. General Guildenstern took another pull at the brandy. It might not have made him think better, but it made him feel better. Right now, that would do.

It also made him sleepy. He yawned and stretched out on the cot. Some of his subordinates had higher social rank than he did, but he held the highest military rank. In wartime, that was what counted, not who was a count. The commander got the cot.

Before General Guildenstern could fall asleep, Doubting George stirred from his restless doze. “I would strengthen the right,” he said for the third time. He wasn’t looking for an answer. Guildenstern doubted he was even fully awake. But he said what was on his mind, awake or not.

He’s probably not even wrong, Guildenstern thought-no small mark of approval when contemplating the views of his second-in-command. If he needs help, or if I see the chance, I will strengthen the right.

He yawned again, rolled over, and fell asleep. The next thing he knew, morning was leaking through the narrow windows in the log hut. He muttered a prayer of greeting to the sun god, then noticed he had a headache. His hand reached out and unerringly found the brandy flask. He took a swig. “Ahh!” he said-not quite a prayer of greeting, but close enough.

With a little restorative in him, he noticed the delicious smell filling the little farmhouse. A blond steward was frying ham and eggs in a well-buttered pan over the fire in the fireplace. A couple of brigadiers already had their tin plates out, waiting for the bounty that was to come. Guildenstern wasted no time in grabbing his own. As he’d got the cot, so he would get the first helping.

“Where’s Doubting George?” he asked, noticing Brigadier Thom perched on the milking stool. “He’ll miss breakfast.”

“He went back to his wing, sir,” Thom answered. “A runner came in right at first light and said the fighting over there had started up again.”

“Curse the traitors,” Guildenstern said as the steward ladled ham and eggs onto his plate. “They’re an iron-arsed bunch of bastards indeed, if they won’t even let a man get a little food inside him before he goes back into battle.” He started shoveling food into his own face. “By the gods, that’s good. Poor old George doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Another runner came in just as Guildenstern was finishing. “Sir, there’s fighting all along the line,” he said. “And Thraxton the Braggart’s got men from the Army of Southern Parthenia fighting alongside his own, sir. We’ve captured some.”

That produced exclamations from every officer still inside the log hut. Guildenstern’s was loudest and most profane. “No wonder the gods-damned son of a bitch had the bastards to hit us with,” he said once the stream of curses had died to a trickle. “Well, we’ll whip ’em any which way.”

He got up, jammed his hat down low on his head so the wide brim helped shield his eyes from the light-which seemed uncommonly bright and fierce this morning-and went outside. Sure enough, the din of combat had begun again, not far to the north of the widow’s house. His own men were yelling King Avram’s name and cheering, while the traitors roared like lions.

Colonel Phineas hurried up to him. “Sir, the northerners are seeking to work some large and desperate sorcery,” the mage said.

“Are they?” Guildenstern said, and the wizard nodded. With a shrug, Guildenstern went on, “Well, it’s your job to see they don’t do it. Why else are you here, by the gods, if not for that?”

Phineas saluted. “We shall do everything in our power, sir.”

Guildenstern shook his head. That reminded him he had a headache. He couldn’t figure out why. Maybe a slug of brandy will help, he thought, and tried one. He wasn’t so sure about the headache, but the brandy made him feel better. He shook his head again. It still hurt, but not so much. “Ahh. No, Colonel. I don’t want you to do everything in your power.” He put a mocking whine in the last four words. “I want you to bloody well stop them. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir.” The unhappy-looking mage saluted again. “We’ll do our best, sir. But the northerners seem to be pressing this with all their strength.”

“All the more reason for you to stop them, wouldn’t you say?” Guildenstern demanded. “What are they up to, anyway? Are they probing us again?” He spoke the word with heavy-handed irony.

Phineas’ jowls wobbled as he shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir. I think this is something else. It is something unusual, whatever it is. And it has the stamp of Count Thraxton all over it.”

“All the more reason to stop it, then, wouldn’t you say?” Guildenstern asked.

“All the more reason to, yes, sir,” Colonel Phineas agreed. “But stopping Thraxton the Braggart is not so easy as stopping an ordinary man.”

“Oh, foof!” Guildenstern said. “Half the time, Thraxton’s spells come down on the heads of his own men, not on ours.”

“Yes, sir, that is true.” Phineas still looked thoroughly grim. “But Thraxton’s failures have come through his own errors, not because we thwarted him. He is not very careful, he is not very lucky-but he is very strong.”

“I don’t care what he is,” Guildenstern rasped. He poked Colonel Phineas’ protruding belly with his forefinger. The finger sank unpleasantly far into flesh; Guildenstern jerked it away. “What I care about, sirrah, is that we have more mages than the traitors do. If you aren’t so strong as the Braggart, then you had better work together. A dozen little men can drag down one big one.”

“We are doing our best,” Phineas repeated.

“Go on, little man,” General Guildenstern said contemptuously. “Go on. Go away. I have a battle to fight.”

Clucking like a mother hen with a missing chick, the mage hurried away. Guildenstern resisted the urge to apply his boot to Phineas’ backside. It probably would have sunk in even farther than his finger had.

And he was right when he told the wizard he had a battle to fight. Colonel Phineas hadn’t been the only man waiting for him, just the first of an endless stream. Runners dashed up to report northern attacks on the right against Doubting George on Merkle’s Hill, against Brigadier Thom’s soldiers on the far left, and against the center, where Guildenstern and Brigadier Alexander still held sway.

Guildenstern didn’t need to be told about enemy assaults on the center. He was there, and could see them for himself. The traitors flung great stones and firepots at the loyal soldiers in front. His own engines responded in kind, and he had more of them than Thraxton the Braggart did. Thraxton might have got soldiers from the Army of Southern Parthenia, but he hadn’t got any engines to go with them. Had he got some engines, life would have been even more difficult for Guildenstern’s soldiers.

Every so often, Phineas would send a messenger. All the mage’s messengers said the same thing: “We’re still grappling with Count Thraxton.”

After a while, Guildenstern got sick of hearing them. “I’m still trying to fight my battle here,” he growled.

As morning wore along toward noon, his sense of confidence began to grow. “By the gods, we are going to throw the cursed traitors back,” he said to Brigadier Alexander. “They can’t lick us. No way in the seven hells can they lick us.”

“I hope you’re right, sir,” Alexander replied. “I think you may be right. We’re holding pretty well, aren’t we?”

“Bet your arse we are,” Guildenstern said. But then he glanced nervously toward the right. “I wonder how Doubting George is doing over there.” When he thought of the right, he somehow couldn’t stay confident no matter how hard he tried. He swigged more spirits, to bolster his courage.

Brigadier Alexander said, “Sir, if he needed help over there, don’t you think he’d ask for it?”

“You never can tell with George,” Guildenstern insisted. No matter how hard he tried to keep his mind on other things, his eyes kept drifting back toward Merkle’s Hill. Something was going to go wrong there. Something was. He couldn’t tell how he’d grown so sure, but he had. The knowledge, the certainty, built in him, seeping up from below. It didn’t feel like conscious knowledge: more like the faith he had in the Lion God and the rest of the Detinan pantheon.

“I know you and Lieutenant General George don’t get along perfectly, sir,” Alexander said, “but he’s a solid soldier. If he needs help, I’m sure he won’t risk the battle by going without. After all, he was saying just last night that he was worried. If the worries come true, he’ll let us know.”

That made good logical sense. Somehow, though, good logical sense seemed to matter less to General Guildenstern than it might have. Trouble was brewing on the right. He felt it in his bones.

Before Guildenstern could explain as much to Alexander, Colonel Phineas came rushing up to him at a turn of speed astonishing for one so roly-poly. “General!” he cried. “Woe to us, General! Count Thraxton’s magic has defeated our best efforts to withstand it, and now runs loose in our army!”

“Ha!” Guildenstern cried. “I knew it. The Braggart’s trying to deceive me. But he won’t! No, by the gods, he won’t! I knew the right was threatened. Brigadier Alexander!”

“Yes, sir!” Alexander said smartly.

“Take Brigadier Wood’s two brigades out of the line here and send them to the aid of Doubting George on the right at once,” Guildenstern said. “At once, do you hear me?”

“That will leave us very thin on the ground here, sir, especially while we’re making the move,” Alexander said.

“Do it!” General Guildenstern thundered. “It is my direct order to you, sirrah! Do it, or find yourself relieved.” Brigadier Alexander saluted stiffly and went off to obey. Guildenstern nodded in satisfaction. And, somewhere far inside Guildenstern-or somewhere far across the battlefield-a scrawny, sour-spirited soul cried out in delight and in altogether unalloyed triumph.

James of Broadpath was sipping his early morning tea after the nighttime meeting with Count Thraxton when a man on a unicorn galloped into his encampment. Pulling the unicorn to a halt, the rider slid off it and hurried toward James. He saluted smartly. “Reporting, sir,” he said with a grin, “as not quite ordered.”

“Brigadier Bell!” James said. “What in the seven hells are you doing here? I left you behind with the part of my army the stinking glideway couldn’t carry. Where are they now?”

“Heading up from Marthasville real soon, sir,” Bell replied. “But when the scryers said the fighting here had already started, I couldn’t wait. I hopped on a unicorn and rode south as fast as I could go.” He pointed to the blowing animal from which he’d just dismounted. “This isn’t the one I started with. That one fell over dead. I’m sorry I rode it into the ground, but I’m glad I’m here.”

“You disobeyed orders,” Earl James rumbled. Bell nodded, quite unabashed. James grinned and pounded him on the back-on the right side, careful not to trouble his useless left arm. “Well, I’m cursed glad you’re here, too,” he said. “I needed somebody to lead the big attack when it goes in, and you’re one of the best in the business.”

“Thank you, sir.” One of Bell’s leonine eyebrows rose. “Why hasn’t the big attack gone in already?”

“Because I’ve got orders from Count Thraxton to hold it till he gives the word, that’s why,” James answered. “He’s working some sort of fancy magic against the southrons, and he wants me to wait till he gives the command.”

Bell frowned, looking very much like a dubious lion. “Remember, sir, this is Thraxton the Braggart we’re talking about. What are the odds this fancy magic will end up being worth anything at all?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” James of Broadpath admitted. “But I can’t disobey a direct order just because I’m not quite sure about the general who gave it, if you know what I mean.”

“Why in the seven hells not?” Bell demanded. “Are you afraid he’ll turn you into a rooster, or something like that?”

“No.” James shook his big head. Where Brigadier Bell had seemed-and often did seem-leonine, James gave the impression of a bear bedeviled by bees. “No, I’m not afraid of that. But you haven’t seen him. I have. He really thinks he can do this, and he makes me think he can do it, too.”

“Does he?” Bell shook his head, too. “Why? If he’d done everything he said he could do, we would have won the war by now. You know that as well as I do. Why are you listening to him now?”

“Why?” James of Broadpath shrugged. “I’ll tell you why. Because when he told me what to do, he looked like the pictures you see of the conqueror priests from the old days, the ones who led the armies that smashed up the blonds’ kingdoms here in the north. You could almost hear the gods talking through him.”

Brigadier Bell made a sign with the fingers of his right hand. Most Detinans would have used the left, but his left arm hung limp and useless. “Here’s hoping you’re right, sir,” he said, which was what the gesture meant in words.

To the south of them, the racket of battle picked up as the sun climbed a little higher above the horizon. James said, “I am still allowed to fight, you see: along with our men from Parthenia, I’ve taken command of the ones Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill was leading.”

“Dan’s a good man,” Bell said.

“I know he is. I feel bad about horning in on him like this. But-” James’ broad shoulders slid up and down again. “Thraxton wanted me in charge of one of his wings, and this was how he went about it when I got here. So I’ve got his men fighting, and most of the soldiers from the Army of Southern Parthenia waiting in reserve for when Thraxton gives me the word. I’m going to put you in charge of them now that you’re here.”

“What if the word never comes?” Brigadier Bell demanded.

“Sooner or later, I’ll throw you in without it,” James allowed. “But I’m not going to do that right away. Thraxton’s incanting for all he’s worth, and he’s my superior. I’ve got to give him his chance.”

“All right, sir,” Bell said stiffly. By his tone, it wasn’t all right, or even close to all right. By his tone, in fact, King Geoffrey would hear about it if things went wrong. Brigadier Bell was in good odor down in Nonesuch, probably in better odor than Earl James was himself: Geoffrey thought well of straightforward, hard-charging officers, no doubt because he’d been one himself.

“Just remember,” James murmured, “that his Majesty thinks the world of Count Thraxton.”

“I understand that.” Surprise sparked in Bell’s eyes. “How did you know what was in my mind, sir?”

“I didn’t need to read the entrails of a sacrifice to figure it out,” James of Broadpath answered. Brigadier Bell shook his leonine head, plainly still bewildered. James had all he could do not to laugh in Bell’s face. He was no straightforward hard charger; he had a nasty, devious mind, and enjoyed using it. He sometimes thought that in itself went a long way toward explaining why King Geoffrey preferred certain other soldiers to him.

He shrugged. He couldn’t help that. He was as the gods had made him. If King Geoffrey didn’t fully appreciate him, then he didn’t, that was all.

No complications, no deviousness in Brigadier Bell. There he stood in front of James, every inch of him but his dead left arm quivering with eagerness to get into the fight. “Why did we come here from Parthenia, if we’re just going to wait in the wings?” he demanded.

“Our time will come,” James said.

“When?” It wasn’t a word-it was a howl of frustration from Bell.

“When Count Thraxton gives the order,” James repeated. “If you don’t care for that, I suggest you take it up with the count. He can do something about it, and I can’t.”

He watched Brigadier Bell weigh that. Bell was a man of impetuous, headlong courage, but even he hesitated to break in on Count Thraxton while Thraxton was at his magics. That was one of the few bits of wisdom James had ever seen him show.

James said, “Perhaps you should-” but a messenger came trotting up before he could finish telling Bell to go soak his head. He nodded to the messenger. “Yes? What is it?”

Saluting, the messenger said, “Count Thraxton’s compliments, sir, and you are to strike the center with all your strength as soon as may be. The time, he says, is now.”

“There, you see?” James said to Bell. Returning the messenger’s salute, he replied, “You may tell Count Thraxton we shall obey him in every particular.” The messenger hurried away. James gave his attention back to Bell. ” `As soon as may be,’ he said. He’s had some trouble getting his own officers to move fast. Let’s show him how the Army of Southern Parthenia executes orders.”

“Right you are, sir. And now, if you will excuse me…” Bell didn’t wait for an answer. He dashed off, shouting to the men he would lead into the fray. He didn’t know what lay in front of him, and he didn’t much worry about it, either. Whatever it was, he would hit it hard and hope it fell over.

Division commanders could have worse traits. A great many division commanders did have worse traits. Once pointed in the right direction, Brigadier Bell got the most from the men he led.

Unlike Count Thraxton’s commanders, Bell wasted no time. Not a quarter of an hour after he got the order, he had his men moving forward, all of them roaring with eagerness to close with the southrons at last.

And, not a quarter of an hour after Brigadier Bell sent his men into the battle, a messenger sprinted back to James of Broadpath. The young soldier in blue was almost bursting with excitement. “General James, sir!” he shouted. “There’s nobody in front of us, nobody at all. We’re rolling up the stinking southrons like a bolt of cheap cloth.”

“By the gods,” Earl James said softly. He turned away from the runner.

“What are you doing, sir?” the youngster asked.

“I am saluting Count Thraxton,” James answered. He meant it literally, and gave a salute as crisp as he ever had at the military collegium in Annasville. He’d almost called the commander of the Army of Franklin Thraxton the Braggart. He shook his head. That wasn’t right, not this time. If Thraxton had managed to magic away a big chunk of Guildenstern’s army, to get it out of the way so this attack could go in unhindered, he’d earned the right to brag.

“Orders, sir?” the runner asked.

“Turn in on the southrons once you’ve accomplished the breakthrough,” James said. “Don’t let them rally. We want General Guildenstern’s army ruined. Make sure you use that word to Brigadier Bell.”

“Yes, sir,” the runner said. “Ruined. Sir, I really think they are.” He saluted, too-not Count Thraxton, but James-and hurried away.

“Ruined,” James repeated, liking the sound of the word. He strode toward Count Thraxton’s headquarters. He’d heard any number of uncomplimentary things about Thraxton before coming east. His meeting with Thraxton the night before hadn’t left a good taste in his mouth. But if Thraxton’s magecraft had done this, the officer’s less than sterling personality didn’t matter. In battle, victory mattered, nothing else.

When he reached the farmhouse, he was shocked to see Thraxton. The commander of the Army of Franklin might have aged five years since the previous night. He looked stooped and exhausted and so thin that a strong breeze could have blown him away. But the air was calm, and Thraxton had created the breeze that would blow the southrons away from the River of Death.

“Your Grace, we’ve broken them,” James of Broadpath said, and saluted again. “The men are swarming into the gap your sorcery made for them.”

No matter how worn Count Thraxton was, triumph blazed in his deep-set eyes. “Good,” he rasped in a voice that seemed a ragged parody of the one he’d used only the day before. “We shall drive them out of Peachtree Province. We shall drive them out of Rising Rock. We shall drive them out of Franklin altogether.” He muttered something under his breath that James didn’t quite catch. It sounded like, I shall have my parade, but what was that supposed to mean?

“Give me your orders, sir, and I’ll obey them,” James said.

Thraxton yawned enormously. “For now, I am fordone. Your men cannot do wrong if they press the enemy hard.”

“Yes, sir!” James said enthusiastically. “That’s the sort of order Duke Edward of Arlington might give.”

“Is it?” Thraxton’s voice was cool, uninterested, distant. If being compared to King Geoffrey’s best general pleased him, he concealed it very well. “How nice.”

Cold fish, Earl James thought. Fish on ice, in fact. He shrugged. It still didn’t matter, not after what Thraxton had done. With another salute, James said, “I’ll be getting back to my own headquarters, sir.”

Thraxton’s nod said he would be just as happy not to see James again any time soon. Fighting to hold on to his temper, James left the farmhouse. He’d just returned to his own place when a runner dashed up and cried, “Brigadier Bell is wounded, sir!”

“Oh, gods damn it to the hells!” James of Broadpath exclaimed. “Is he badly hurt?”

To his further dismay, the runner nodded. “A stone from an engine smashed his leg, sir. The chirurgeons say they’re going to have to take it off if he’s to live. He was leading the men forward, sir, when he was hit.”

“I believe that,” James said somberly. “It’s always been Bell’s way-he never did know how to hang back and command from the rear. But oh, by the Thunderer’s lightning bolt, the price he’s paid.” He shook his head. Bell had had that arm ruined earlier in the summer in Duke Edward’s failed invasion of the south, and now a leg lost… He wouldn’t be leading attacks from the front, not any more. Trying to see if anything could be salvaged from misfortune, James asked, “Is the wound below the knee?” A peg leg might let Bell move around fairly well.

But the runner shook his head. “No, sir, it’s up here.” He touched his thigh. “I saw it myself.” James winced and grimaced. That was about as bad as it could be.

Earl James gathered himself. Even if Bell was wounded, the fight had to go on. The southrons had to be whipped. “Is Dan of Rabbit Hill in command up there now?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” the runner said. “He sent me back for your orders.”

“Tell him to keep on pressing the enemy hard,” James of Broadpath replied. “That’s also Count Thraxton’s command: I’ve just spoken with him.” The runner nodded. James went on, “Tell him to swing in and finish rolling up Alexander’s wing, and Thom’s. Once we’ve settled them, we’ll deal with Doubting George, and that will be the end of General Guildenstern’s whole army.”

“Yes, sir,” the runner said, and repeated his words back to him. When James nodded, the young man saluted and trotted away.

“Ah, Brigadier Bell,” James said, and kicked at the dirt. Bell was fierce, Bell was bold, Bell was recklessly brave-and Bell was hurt, Bell was ruined, Bell was broken. And the war ground on without him. And, James thought with grim certainty, more than Bell would be ruined by the time it finally ended.

General Guildenstern had been so very sure of himself when he ordered Brigadier Wood’s men out of their place in the line and over to the right to aid Lieutenant General George. The move had seemed so obvious, so necessary, so right, that the Lion God might have put it into his mind.

And, not a quarter of an hour after Wood’s men left the line, before any replacements could fill the gap, what seemed like every traitor in the world swarmed into it, and now the battle was ruined for fair. “How in the seven hells did they do that?” Guildenstern groaned to anyone who would listen. “They might have known the cursed hole would open up!”

“General, I think they did.” That was Colonel Phineas, so worn and wan as to look like a shadow-a fat shadow, but a shadow nonetheless-of his former self.

Guildenstern rounded on the mage. “What nonsense is that?”

“I told you the northerners had us under sorcerous assault,” Phineas answered. “I told you Thraxton’s wizardry was loose in our army. I think that wizardry was aimed at you, sir, to make you go wrong at just the right time-the right time for the traitors, I mean.”

“You useless, blundering son of a bitch,” Guildenstern growled. “I ought to cut your heart out and put it on the altar for the Lion God to eat. How are we supposed to set this fornicating mess to rights now?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I really have no answer for that,” Phineas said sadly. “I wish I did.”

At the moment, Guildenstern had no answer for it, either. All he could do was watch his army fall to pieces before his eyes. And it was doing exactly that. Crossbowmen and pikemen turned their backs on the foe to flee the faster.

Siege-engine crews harnessed their unicorns to the catapults they served and hauled them away from danger. A few didn’t bother with their engines, but clambered aboard the unicorns themselves so they could get away.

“Brigadier Alexander!” he shouted. “Where in the damnation are you, Brigadier Alexander?”

“Here, sir.” Alexander looked as harried as Guildenstern felt. “Sir, they’ve knifed us right in the belly. A whole division of northerners has broken through here, maybe more. We can’t stop ’em. What in the hells do we do?”

Before Guildenstern could answer, a breathless runner gasped, “Sir, Brigadier Thom says the left is falling to pieces. The traitors are turning in and flanking out his men one brigade after another. He can’t hold, sir, not unless you’ve got reserves to give him. Even then it won’t be easy.”

“I have no reserves,” Guildenstern groaned. “I’ve sent everything I could spare to the right. I was hoping Thom would have men to give me.”

“What shall he do, sir?” the messenger asked.

“Tell him to fight as hard as he can and do his best to stem the tide with what he has,” Guildenstern answered. “That’s what I’m doing here. It’s all I can do.” The runner saluted and ran back toward the west.

No sooner had he gone than another runner hurried up to General Guildenstern and said, “Lieutenant General George’s compliments, sir. He thanks you for Brigadier Wood’s men and asks if you can spare him any more. He’s hard pressed on the right.”

Guildenstern groaned again, groaned and shook his head. “I wish I hadn’t sent him those. Thraxton’s magic made me do it-and now the traitors are pouring through the hole in my line here. I have nothing more to give him.”

“That’s… bad, sir,” the runner said. “I’ll give him your words. We’ll try to hold on there, but I don’t know how long we can do it.” As the other messenger had only moments before, he hurried away.

“Ruined,” Guildenstern muttered. It was the word he’d though to fit to Thraxton the Braggart like a glove. He looked at his own hand. He wore that word now.

He took a swig from his brandy flask, then looked up, escaping his private world of pain for the real disaster building on the battlefield. Roaring northerners in blue were almost in crossbow range of where he stood, though he’d been well back of the line not long before.

Brigadier Alexander saw the same thing. “Sir, we can’t stay here,” he said. “If we do, they’ll overrun us.”

“And so?” Guildenstern said bitterly. Dying on the field was tempting-that way, he wouldn’t have to face the blame bound to come after word of this disaster reached the Black Palace in Georgetown. But he might still be able to salvage something from the defeat, and so he nodded. “Very well, Brigadier. I fear you’re right-it’s the traitors’ day today, and not ours. Where are our unicorns?”

Alexander was already waving to the men holding them. As they came up, the wing commander said, “Maybe we can do something to stop the retreat.”

“Yes. Maybe.” Guildenstern wondered if it would stop this side of Rising Rock. He shrugged as he mounted. Alexander was right. They had to try.

But the farther he went, the more he wondered if anyone or anything could save the army. Oh, here and there men and groups of men still battled bravely to hold back the onrushing northerners. But the army, as an army, had fallen to pieces. In the center and on the left, every regiment fought-or ran away and didn’t fight-on its own. No one was controlling brigades, let alone divisions or wings.

General Guildenstern shouted and cursed and waved his sword. “Rally, boys!” he cried, again and again. “Rally! We can lick these sons of bitches!”

Men around him cheered and waved their gray hats. Here and there, a few of them would rally, for a little while. As soon as he rode out of earshot and tried to encourage other soldiers, they would resume their retreat. He might as well have been trying to hold back the waters of the Franklin River. The army kept slipping through his fingers.

“We are ruined,” he said to General Alexander. “Ruined, I tell you. Do you hear me? Ruined!”

Had Alexander been a proper courtier, he would have reassured Guildenstern and tried to make him believe everything would turn out all right. In the midst of the present disaster, that would have taken some doing, but he would have tried. He was just a soldier, though, and all he said was, “Yes, sir.”

Baron Guildenstern? Count Guildenstern? Duke Guildenstern, who’d ended the traitors’ rebellion? All that had seemed possible. Now he had to hope he wouldn’t end up Colonel Guildenstern, or perhaps even Sergeant Guildenstern.

Brigadier Alexander pointed over to the west. “Look, sir,” he said. “There’s Brigadier Thom.”

“Wonderful,” Guildenstern said sourly. “Now I know everything’s gone to the devils.”

Alexander waved. The first thing Brigadier Thom did on seeing him was grab for his sword. Then he must have realized Alexander and Guildenstern weren’t enemies, for he waved back and rode his unicorn toward them. A look of stunned astonishment was on his face. “By the Lion God’s claws, what happened, sir?” he asked Guildenstern.

While the general commanding wrestled with that question, Brigadier Alexander answered, “Thraxton the Braggart’s magecraft broke through our sorcerers’ screen and fuddled General Guildenstern’s wits for a moment. He pulled some men out of the line to send them on to Doubting George, and the gods-cursed traitors swarmed into the gap.”

“Didn’t they just!” Thom exclaimed.

Guildenstern wondered how well that explanation would sit with King Avram. It was, as best he could piece things together, the absolute truth. Colonel Phineas would testify to it. The failure hadn’t been his fault; Thraxton’s spell had left him less than himself, ripe to make a mistake at the worst possible time.

All true. So what? Guildenstern wondered. In the war against King Geoffrey and the northerners who followed him, the only thing that really mattered to Avram was whether the battle was won or lost. This one was lost, lost beyond hope of repair. And who had been in command when it was lost? Guildenstern knew the answer to that. King Avram would know it, too.

“What do we do now, sir?” Thom asked.

“Pull the pieces together as best we can,” Guildenstern replied. “Then we either find somewhere hereabouts to make a stand against the traitors or, that failing, we fall back on Rising Rock. I don’t see what other choices we’ve got. If you have a better notion, I’d be glad to hear it.”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir. Wish I did, sir.” Thom pointed east. “What’s happening over at Doubting George’s end of the line?”

“Nothing good,” Guildenstern said. “I got a request for more men from him just as things were going to the seven hells around here.”

“If he gives way, too, I don’t know how this army is going to make it back to Rising Rock,” Thom said.

“We will,” Guildenstern said. “We have to.” But he didn’t know how they would do it, either. He shouted, “Rally!” to the soldiers all around him. They gave him a cheer, those who still wore hats waved them-and they went right on retreating.

“They’ve given everything they have to give, these past couple of days,” Brigadier Thom said. “I don’t think we’ll get any more, not today, not when-” He broke off, not quite soon enough.

Not when you made a hash of the battle. That was what he’d started to say, that or something close enough to it to make no difference. He didn’t care that Thraxton the Braggart’s sorcery had made Guildenstern blunder. All he cared about was what had happened. If that was an omen for Guildenstern’s career, it wasn’t a good one.

Behind Guildenstern, the northerners kept roaring out their triumph. Around him and ahead of him, the men from his own army tramped back toward the southeast. They might fight to try to save their own lives. They weren’t going to fight to try to save the army.

“My gods!” Guildenstern exclaimed when he and Alexander and Thom rode into a little town. “This is Rossburgh! They’ve driven us back a good five miles.”

Some few of his men had formed a line in front of Rossburgh, but General Guildenstern didn’t think it would hold, not if Thraxton’s army hit it hard-and they would, before long. He was only too glumly certain of that.

“General Guildenstern!” somebody called.

Automatically, Guildenstern waved. “Here I am.”

As the officer who’d recognized him rode toward him on the crowded, narrow, dusty streets of Rossburgh, Brigadier Thom and Brigadier Alexander let out soft exclamations of dismay. “By the Lion God, that’s Brigadier Negley,” Thom said.

And so it was. “What’s he doing here?” Guildenstern demanded, as if either Thom or Alexander could have told him that. Guildenstern pointed to Negley. “Why aren’t you with Lieutenant General George?”

“I wish I were, sir, but my soldiers got swept away, along with what looks like everything else farther west,” Negley answered, which held an unpleasant amount of truth. He went on, “I could have retreated up onto Merkle’s Hill, but I went with them instead, to try to get them to rally.” He grimaced and waved his hand. “You see how much luck I had.”

“What of Doubting George?” Guildenstern asked. “You say he was still making a stand on Merkle’s Hill? Do you think he can hold?” He found himself tensing as he waited for Negley’s reply.

The brigadier of volunteers-the ex-horticulturalist-shrugged. “Sir, I hope he can, but I have no great faith in it. With the rest of the army broken, the traitors will surely rain their hardest blows on him now.”

He made altogether too much sense. Guildenstern sighed. “The gods damn Thraxton the Braggart to the seven hells for what he’s done to this kingdom today. What can we do now?”

“I see only one thing, sir,” Brigadier Negley said. “We have to do all we can to hold Rising Rock. Without it, Thraxton cannot be said to have truly gained anything from this campaign, despite our piteous overthrow.”

Guildenstern looked from one of his brigadiers to the next. “Does anyone think we can hold this side of Rising Rock?” They eyed one another and then, one by one, shook their heads. Guildenstern didn’t think so, either. He’d hoped his brigadiers would convince him he was wrong. No such luck. He sighed and scowled and cursed. None of that did any good at all. Having done it, he said, “Do you think we have any choice, then, but retreating to Rising Rock and doing our best to hold off the traitors there?”

Again, the three brigadiers looked at one another. Again, they shook their heads. Brigadier Negley said, “Getting our hands on Rising Rock was the main reason we took on this campaign. If we can hold it, we’ve still accomplished a good deal.”

“That’s true, by the gods,” Guildenstern said. It made him feel, if not good, then better than he had. He shouted for a trumpeter. After a while, one came up and saluted. “Sound retreat,” Guildenstern told him. “We’re going back to Rising Rock.” As the mournful notes rang out, he and Brigadiers Negley, Alexander, and Thom turned their unicorns to the southeast and rode off, leaving the field in the hands of Thraxton the Braggart and the northerners.

“Can we hold on, sir?” Colonel Andy asked Doubting George. George’s aide-de-camp was not a man to give in to panic, but, with the way things looked on Merkle’s Hill, George could hardly blame him for worrying.

George was worried himself, though doing his best not to show it. “We’ve got to hold on, Colonel,” he answered. “If we don’t, where in the seven hells are we going to run to?”

Andy gave him a reproachful look. “That’s not funny, sir.”

“No, I don’t think so, either,” Lieutenant General George said. “I wish I did, but I bloody well don’t.” He peered west, toward the disaster that had engulfed the rest of General Guildenstern’s army. “If we fold up now, I don’t think any of this force will survive.”

“What happened over there, sir?” his aide-de-camp asked.

“Nothing good,” Doubting George answered. “All I know is, Albertus the so-called Great and the rest of my so-called mages all started bawling like branded unicorn colts a couple of hours ago, and then the traitors started pouring men through a great big fat hole in our line. It would almost make a suspicious man wonder if there was a connection.”

“Thraxton the Braggart’s magic did us in again,” Colonel Andy said mournfully.

“Yes, I think Thraxton’s magic did us in, too,” George agreed. “I wouldn’t say `again,’ though. This is the first time that sad-faced bastard managed to aim it at us and not at his own men.”

“An honor I could do without,” Andy said, which made George smile in spite of the lost battle from which he could only try to save what he might.

Before he could say anything, a runner came up from the west. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t deliver your message to Brigadier Negley,” the fellow said. “Most of his division joined the retreat to the south, and he went with it.”

“Too bad,” Doubting George said. “Oh, too bad! We needed him in place. There’s nothing left linking us to the rest of the army now.”

“Sir, from what I could see, the rest of the army is scooting back toward Rising Rock as fast as it can go,” the runner said. By the way he kept shifting from foot to foot, he either needed to squat behind a tree or else he too wanted to scoot back toward Rising Rock as fast as he could go.

“We can’t scoot yet, son,” Lieutenant General George said. “As long as we hold on here, we shield the retreat for the rest of the army. And the traitors haven’t licked us yet, have they?”

“N-no, sir,” the runner answered, though he sounded anything but convinced. George was also anything but convinced, but not about to admit that to anyone, even himself.

He said, “Go on up to Brigadier Brannan, there at the crest of the hill, and tell him what you just told me about Negley. Tell him he may need to swing some of his engines around to the west, because we’re liable to get attacked from that direction.”

“Yes, sir.” The runner gathered himself and hurried away.

“Miserable civilian,” Colonel Andy growled, meaning not the runner but the departed Brigadier Negley. “This is what comes of making the bastards who recruit the troops into officers with fancy uniforms. The trouble is, people who really know what they’re doing have to pay for their mistakes.”

“There’s some truth to that, but only some,” Doubting George replied.

“There’s a demon of a lot of it, if anyone wants to know what I think,” Andy said. George’s aide-de-camp had chubby cheeks that swelled now with indignation, making him look like nothing so much as an irate chipmunk.

But George repeated, “Some. It wasn’t the amateur soldiers who made this battle into a botch. It was the professional warriors, the folks who learned their trade at the Annasville military collegium, the folks just like you and me.”

“May I spend my time going between freezing and roasting in the seven hells if I think General Guildenstern’s one bit like me,” Andy said, still very much in the fashion of a chipmunk trying to pick a fight.

Before George had the chance to respond to that, another runner dashed up, this one with alarm all over his face. “Lieutenant General George!” he cried. “Lieutenant General George! Come quick, sir! The traitors have got a couple of regiments around our right flank, and they’re doing their gods-damnedest to cornhole us.”

“Oh, a pox!” Doubting George exclaimed. “Take me there this very minute.” He followed the messenger along the side of Merkle’s Hill. He’d been worried about the left, with Brigadier Negley pulling out, and hadn’t dwelt so much on the right. True, Ned of the Forest had tried sliding around that way the day before, but the northerners had left that end of the line alone after their thrust didn’t work… till now.

The shouts coming from the east would have warned him something had gone wrong if the runner hadn’t found him. Brigadier Absalom greeted him with a salute. “Things are getting lively in these parts,” he said.

“That’s one word,” George said. “What’s going on?” As he had all through the fight by the River of Death, he felt like a man on the ragged edge of disaster. The least little thing might pitch him over the edge, too, and the whole army with him. A lot of it’s already gone, he thought.

“They were coming from that way.” Absalom the Bear pointed back over his shoulder. Doubting George was glad he had the big, burly brigadier commanding here. Nothing fazed him. Absalom went on, “I got a skirmish line of crossbowmen facing the wrong way and beat ’em back.”

Doubting George set a hand on his shoulder and told him, “That’s the way to do it.” But at that moment, fresh roars broke out from behind them. Here came the northerners again, attacking the end of the line from both front and rear. If they rolled it up, they’d finish off George’s whole wing. He said, “I don’t think skirmishers will hold them this time.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Absalom agreed.

Looking around, George saw a regimental commander standing only a few feet away. “Colonel Nahath!” he called.

“Sir?” Formal as if on parade, the officer from New Eborac came to attention.

“Colonel, I desire that you face your regiment to the rear and aid our skirmishers in repelling the traitors coming from that direction,” George said.

Colonel Nahath saluted. “Yes, sir!” he said, and began shouting orders to his men.

Doubting George shouted orders, too: for another regiment to join Nahath’s in repelling the enemy, and for men to come forward to fill their places in the line. “That’s good, sir,” Absalom the Bear said. “Don’t want to leave a hole open, the way General Guildenstern did.”

“No, I don’t suppose I do,” George agreed. “Now that I’ve seen what happens with a mistake like that, I don’t much care to imitate it.” He and Absalom both laughed. It wasn’t much of a joke, but better than tearing their hair and howling curses, which looked to be their other choice.

“You chose your regiments shrewdly,” Absalom observed as the southrons George had told off collided with Thraxton’s troopers. “A good many blonds in both of them. They won’t let the northerners through, not while they’re still standing they won’t.”

“True,” Doubting George said, and so it was. But his brigadier was giving him credit for being smarter than he was. He’d grabbed those two regiments because they were closest to hand, not because they were full of men with especially good cause to hate the soldiers who followed false King Geoffrey.

George chuckled. He was willing to have his subordinates think him smarter than he really was, so long as he didn’t start thinking that himself. General Guildenstern had walked down that road-oh, surely, abetted by Thraxton the Braggart’s magic, but Guildenstern had already seen a good many things that weren’t there by then-and the results hadn’t been pretty.

Brigadier Absalom saluted. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I think they can use another fighting man back there.” Instead of drawing his sword, he bent down and picked up an enormous axe lying on the ground by his boot. George had assumed some engineer dropped it after making breastworks. But Absalom the Bear swung it as lightly as if it were a saber. “King Avram!” he bellowed, and rushed toward the traitors, looking for all the world like one of the berserk sea rovers who’d terrorized the Detinans’ ancestors long before they crossed the Western Ocean.

George eyed the two battle lines. He’d never expected to have to fight back to back like this, but things in front of him still seemed to be holding pretty well in spite of the two regiments he’d pulled out of the line. The fight in the rear, on the other hand… Brigadier Absalom was right. They were going to need every man they could find to throw back the traitors.

“King Avram!” Doubting George yelled as his own blade came out of the scabbard. He didn’t look like an axe-wielding barbarian, as Absalom the Bear did, and he probably wasn’t a figure to frighten the northerners, but he did know what to do with a blade. Were that not true, he would already have died here by the River of Death.

A crossbow quarrel hissed past his head. Soldiers with crossbows didn’t care how good a swordsman he was. If they got their way, he would perish before he had the chance to use his sword. Colonel Andy would have called him a gods-damned fool for this. But Andy was near the top of Merkle’s Hill, and Doubting George was here.

“King Avram!” he shouted again, and he rushed at the closest northerner he saw. The fellow had just shot his crossbow. He started to reach for another bolt, but realized Doubting George would be upon him before he could slide it into the groove and yank back the string. A lot of crossbowmen, in King Avram’s army and King Geoffrey’s, would have run away from a fellow with a sword who pretty obviously knew how to handle it.

Not this northerner, though. The traitors would have been easier to beat were they cowards. That thought had gone through George’s mind before. Of course, since he was from Parthenia himself, he knew the mettle of the men who fought against King Avram. This fellow, now, set down his crossbow-carefully, as if he expected to use it again very soon-yanked out his shortsword, and, with a cry of, “King Geoffrey and freedom!” rushed at George as George ran toward him.

Courage the northerner had. Anything resembling sense was another matter. He wasn’t so ignorant of swordplay as a lot of southrons from the cities were, but he hadn’t learned in the hard, remorseless school that had trained Doubting George. Maybe he’d thought to overpower his foe with sheer ferocity. Whatever he’d thought, he’d made a mistake. George parried, sidestepped, thrust. The blue-clad northerner managed to beat his blade aside, but sudden doubt showed on his face. George thrust again, at his knee. The northerner sprang back. Now he looked alarmed. Bit off more than you could chew, eh? George thought. His blade flickered in front of him like a viper’s tongue.

And then, before he could finish the traitor, a crossbow quarrel slammed into the fellow’s side. The northerner shrieked and clutched at himself. George drove his sword home to finish the man. That wasn’t sporting, but he didn’t care. If his soldiers couldn’t stop the northerners here, everything would unravel.

Not far ahead of him, Absalom the Bear’s axe rose and fell, rose and fell. Somewhere or other, the broad-shouldered brigadier had actually learned to fight with the unusual weapon. He beat down enemy soldiers’ defenses and felled them as if felling trees. Before long, nobody tried to stand against him.

Nor could the northerners in Doubting George’s rear stand against his hastily improvised counterattack. He’d sent only a couple of regiments against them, but their own force was none too large. Instead of breaking through and rolling up his line, they had to draw back toward their own comrades, leaving many dead and wounded on the field and carrying off other men too badly hurt to retreat on their own.

Lieutenant General George caught up with Brigadier Absalom as the traitors sullenly fell back. Absalom plunged his axe blade into the soft ground again and again to clean it. He nodded to George. “That was a gods-damned near-run thing, sir,” he said.

“Don’t I know it!” George said fervently. “And it’s not over yet. We just stopped them here.”

“If we hadn’t stopped them here, it would be over,” Absalom the Bear observed.

That was also true. Doubting George surveyed the field. He couldn’t see so much of it from here at the bottom of Merkle’s Hill as he would have liked. After pausing to catch his breath, he asked, “Where did you learn to fight with an axe?”

“I read about it in that fellow Graustark’s historical romances,” Absalom answered, a little sheepishly. “It sounded interesting, so I found a smith who was also an antiquarian, and he trained me as well as he knew himself.”

“I’d say he knew quite a bit.” George kicked at the bloody dirt. “I wish I knew what was happening farther west. Nothing good, gods damn it.” He kicked at the dirt again.