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yourself, though."
Gremio didn't think he was any bolder than he'd ever been. He was just
quibbling over tactics, as he often did. When he complained because he thought
Bell was charging ahead when he shouldn't, Florizel reckoned him a coward.
He'd been right then, but it hadn't done any good. Now he thought Bell was
hanging back when he ought to go on.
That made the regimental commander happier, but it also wouldn't change
anything else.
Maybe I ought to keep my mouth shut, Gremio thought. For a Detinan, and
especially for a Detinan barrister, that was a very strange notion indeed.
Horns blared before daybreak the next morning, ordering the northern army into
line of battle. "We'll do the best we can, and we'll strike the enemy a strong
blow for King
Geoffrey," Gremio told his men. They raised a cheer.
"And we'll steal all the good food and the crossbow quarrels the stinking
southrons have fetched up here to Whole Mackerel from Rising Rock," Sergeant
Thisbe added.
"We'll eat like nobles, and we'll shoot like we've got repeating crossbows."
The soldiers in blue cheered louder for Thisbe than they had for Gremio. "Well
said, Sergeant," Gremio told him. "You got a better rein on what makes them go
than I did."
"Thank you very much, sir," Thisbe said. "Trying to put in a little extra,
that's all."
"You did splendidly," Gremio said. "You should speak up more often."
Before Thisbe could answer, the horns screamed again, this time ordering the
Army of Franklin forward against the southrons' entrenchments in front of
Whole Mackerel.
They tried ours and didn't like them very well, Gremio thought.
Why should we have an easier time with theirs?
Some of the entrenchments the northerners would be assailing were the ones
their serfs had dug a few months earlier. Now King Avram's gray-clad soldiers
held them. And those men in gray seemed no more inclined to give them up than
the Army of Franklin had been earlier in the year.
"Only a piddly little garrison in front of us, boys," Colonel Florizel boomed.
"They'll run like rabbits, the gods-damned sons of bitches."
Roaring as if possessed by the Lion God, the northerners swarmed toward the
easternmost trenches. Even before they came into range, firepots and stones
flew through the air. Repeating crossbows began their harsh clack-clack-clack
. No, the southrons weren't about to give up and go away.
But Florizel had been right. Yes, the southrons had men in their forward
trenches and engines behind them, but they didn't have very many men or very
many engines.
Lieutenant General Bell's men pelted them with bolts and stones and firepots
of their own. Before long, the southrons fell back towards Whole Mackerel, the
artificers in charge of their engines hitching those to teams of unicorns and
hauling them away to keep them from being captured.
"Forward!" Gremio called. "We've got to keep pushing them, not let them rally.
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Keep moving!"
When they came to the southrons' second line of trenches, another storm of
missiles greeted them. Looking ahead, Gremio saw that the enemy's main lines
of defense didn't guard the town of Whole Mackerel itself, but rather the
nearby supply depot. Sure enough, they knew what Bell wanted.
Roaring and shouting, the Army of Franklin bore down on those works. Now the
southrons had no room for retreat, not unless they wanted to give up what
their foes so desperately needed to take. They had to fight.
They had to and they did. They had a great many more engines in amongst these
fieldworks than they'd used farther forward. Stones and firepots and darts
took a heavy toll on the northerners. The southrons whooped and cheered to
watch their foes fall.
"Keep moving, men!" Gremio shouted again. "Look, there on that parapet that's
got to be their commander. If we can kill him, maybe we'll suck the spirit out
of them."
That wasn't sporting. It wasn't chivalrous. A man of noble blood probably
never would have said anything so crude. None of that stopped Gremio from
thinking he'd had a good idea there. His men did, too. So did the crews of a
nearby battery of engines. They started aiming at the black-haired officer
waving a sword, too.
A moment later, he clapped a hand to his cheek and tumbled off the parapet.
Gremio and everyone close by raised a cheer. "Forward!" he yelled. "
Now let's see how tough those bastards are!"
He soon found out how tough their commander was. The man reappeared inside of
a couple of minutes. He was even easier to spot than he had been before a
bloody bandage covered half his face. Gremio could hear his shouts through the
din of battle:
"We can whip these bastards! Who the hells do they think they are, coming
around to bother honest people? Give 'em a good kick in the arse and throw 'em
back!"
And the southrons obeyed. They fought with a stubborn, stolid courage
different from the incandescent northern variety but no less effective for
that. Some of their outer entrenchments fell to the Army of Franklin, but only
after they were filled with dead men wearing tunics and pantaloons both blue
and gray. And the northerners didn't come close to overrunning the supply
depot, though they fought all day.
Towards evening, Bell ordered a withdrawal. Colonel Florizel put the best face
on things he could: "Well, boys, we'll hit 'em another lick tomorrow, and then
we'll whip 'em for sure."
"What if the southrons send up reinforcements by then?" Gremio asked.
Florizel started to say something harsh, but checked himself. "No, you were
all for forging ahead," he reminded himself. "In that case, Captain, we don't
have such an easy time of it. Satisfied?" Gremio nodded, though that wasn't
the word he would have used.
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Contents
XI
Lieutenant General Bell glowered at his scryer. "You're sure you intercepted
the southrons' message?"
"As sure as I'm standing here before you, sir," the scryer answered. "They
might as well have been talking right into my crystal ball instead of
Brigadier Murray the Coarse talking to General Hesmucet. Murray, he said, `I
am short of a cheekbone, and one ear, but am able to whip all hells yet.' And
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Hesmucet, he answered, `Hold the fort! I am coming!' He was up near
Commissioner Mountain then, sir, so I reckon he could come pretty gods-damned
quick."
"To the hells with him," Bell said furiously. He could hear the moans of the
wounded in his encampment here. He knew he wouldn't be able to rouse his army
to another attack before morning, and also knew morning was all too likely to
be too late.
Whole Mackerel had held.
Laudanum
, he thought, and took a swig. The pain in his ruined arm and missing leg
diminished. He could even look at the pain in his spirit with more detachment,
which was really why he'd gulped down the drug. But that pain wouldn't die,
not altogether. He'd needed a win over the southrons and, yet again, he hadn't
got it.
"Anything else, sir?" the scryer asked.
"No," Lieutenant General Bell answered. "Just pick up your crystal ball and
get the hells out of here." The scryer did.
Major Zibeon came into Bell's tent a moment later. "You put a flea in his
ear," Bell's dour aide-de-camp remarked. "What did he have to say?"
"That the stinking southrons are on their way here," Bell answered. "We've
wounded the commander here at Whole Mackerel, but he thinks he can hold out
till Hesmucet arrives."
"He's likely right, especially if Hesmucet marches his men through the night,"
Zibeon said, which was exactly what Bell didn't want to hear. His own
description of the words that had passed between Murray the Coarse and
Hesmucet made them seem bloodless, businesslike. The scryer's version hadn't
been like that. Both southron officers had sounded more than confident. That
worried Bell as nothing else had. Zibeon grimaced, then asked, "Can we face
the whole southron army?"
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