“Thank you, Captain,” Florizel answered. He wasn’t long on brains, but nobody could say he wasn’t brave.
The only question was, would bravery be enough? Another volley tore into the northerners’ ranks. More men crumpled. Behind Gremio, Sergeant Thisbe yelled, “Keep going! For gods’ sake, keep going! When we get in amongst ’em, we can pay ’em back for everything they’ve done to us!”
Hearing Thisbe’s voice, Gremio let out a sigh of relief. He’d been through too much with the sergeant to want to think about… He didn’t have to think about it. There was the southrons’ parapet, just ahead. He sprang onto it. A soldier in gray in the trench thrust up at him with a pike. He beat aside the spearhead with his sword. Shouting, “Provincial prerogative forever!” he leaped down into the trench.
He wasn’t alone there for even a heartbeat. “Follow the captain!” Thisbe shouted. Yelling King Geoffrey’s name, the northern soldiers did. Southrons rushed up to reinforce their men in the trench line. The soldiers thrust with pikes and slashed with swords and shot the bolts they had in their crossbows and then used the weapons to smash in their foes’ heads. No one on either side gave an inch of ground. Both sides fed more men into the fight.
This wasn’t war any more. This was madness. Soldiers were killed where they stood and had no room to fall down. Men clambered up on corpses to get at their foes. No one down in the trenches could hope to load a crossbow. Soldiers behind the line passed forward weapons already loaded and cocked. Whoever got them shot at the first man in the wrong-colored uniform he saw. The soldiers who got the loaded crossbows tried to shoot, anyhow. Sometimes they got shot or speared before they could. Then someone else would clamber up onto their bodies and shoot or thrust at the foe till he was wounded or killed. It went on and on and on.
Why am I still alive? Gremio wondered after perhaps half an hour went by. He had no idea, save that he was luckier than he deserved. Blood turned his blue tunic and pantaloons black, but it wasn’t his blood. Most of it wasn’t, anyhow. He had a couple of cuts and a crossbow graze that was actually a little more than a graze, but nothing he had to worry about except getting crushed to death in the press, which was anything but an idle fear.
Where was Thisbe? Gremio turned his head-at the moment, the only part of him that would move-but didn’t see the sergeant. He managed to twist his right arm free, and slashed at a southron who couldn’t hit back. It wasn’t sporting. He didn’t care. He just wanted to live, and killing southrons was the best way he knew how to do that.
After another time that might have been forever or fifteen minutes, the southrons ran out of men to throw into that part of the fight. Scrambling out of the trench over the bodies of the slain, Gremio dashed toward a farmhouse, the next southron strongpoint. And there, by the gods, came Thisbe, trotting along not ten feet away. Gremio ran harder. Maybe, in spite of everything, this was victory.
V
Rollant watched the Army of Franklin form its ranks.
He watched it advance over the flat, gently rising ground that led to the earthworks John the Lister’s army had thrown up outside of Poor Richard. As the northerners began to move, Smitty spoke with reluctant admiration: “They’ve got guts, don’t they?”
“That they do,” Rollant allowed. “And I want to see those guts scattered all over the landscape for the ravens and crows before the gods-damned sons of bitches get close enough to do me any harm.”
He made Smitty laugh. “You’re a funny fellow, your Corporalship, sir. Anybody who can tell a joke when the battle’s about to start has to be a funny fellow.”
Staring, Rollant asked, “What the hells makes you think I’m joking?”
He knew what the trouble was. Smitty didn’t take any of this quite so seriously as he did himself. Smitty was a Detinan, and fought to reunite his kingdom. Rollant was a blond. He knew why he fought, too. He wanted to see every northern liege lord and would-be liege lord dead or maimed. He had no doubt the northerners felt the same way about him, too.
Here came Bell’s men, proud banners flying before them. They were lean and fierce and terribly in earnest. If they hadn’t been in earnest, would they have marched down from Dothan, close to two hundred miles, when so many of them had no shoes? That he respected them made him want to kill them no less. If anything, it made him want to kill them more. He understood how dangerous they were.
Standing on the shooting step, he listened to the traitors roar as they came on. They thought the Lion God favored them. Rollant had a different opinion.
Not far behind him, catapults began to buck and creak. Stone balls and firepots whistled over his head. The first few fell short. But, as the northerners kept coming, the engines began clawing holes in their line. Rollant whooped and cheered when a stone took out a whole file of traitors.
“How would you like to be on the receiving end of that?” Smitty asked.
“Wouldn’t like it one gods-damned bit,” Rollant answered without hesitation. “But I like giving it to the traitors just fine. You bet I do. I hope the engines wipe them all out. Then we won’t have to do any fighting of our own.”
“That’d be good,” Smitty said. “I’m not what you’d call pleased when people try and kill me, either.”
John the Lister’s pickets shot a thin volley of their own at Bell’s men, who kept on coming despite what the engines did to them. They were brave, think what you would of them. Repeating crossbows behind Rollant started clattering. More northerners fell. The ones who weren’t hit leaned forward, as if into a heavy wind. Rollant had seen that before. He’d done it himself, when advancing into the teeth of a storm of bolts and stones and firepots.
“Be ready, men!” Lieutenant Griff called. “They’ll come into range of our crossbows soon.”
Rollant wished he had one of the quick-shooting weapons Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders used. He wanted to be able to knock down as many Detinan liege lords as he could. He laughed. He was already living every northern blond’s dream. Not only was he shooting at liege lords, he was getting paid to do it. If that wasn’t right up there with living alongside the gods, he didn’t know what was.
Only trouble was, the liege lords shot back.
They hadn’t shot till the southron pickets pulled back. They’d just kept coming, taking whatever punishment they got for the sake of striking back when they jumped down into their foes’ trenches. Rollant didn’t want them jumping in there with him. He made sure his shortsword was loose in its scabbard.
“Looks like they’re bunching toward the center,” Smitty said.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Rollant agreed. Their regiment was off to the left.
Not all of Bell’s men moved toward the center, though. Only a few paces from Rollant and Smitty, a soldier in gray tunic and pantaloons fell dead, a quarrel in his forehead. He’d been looking out from the shooting step, exposing no more than the top of his head. That was all some traitor’d needed.
“Be ready!” Griff called again. “Take aim!” Rollant nestled the stock of the crossbow against his shoulder as the company commander cried, “Shoot!”
He pulled the trigger. The crossbow kicked. The bolt he shot was one of scores flying toward the northerners. Several of them crumpled. He had no idea whether his bolt scored. The only way to improve his chances was to shoot again and again and again. Frenziedly, he loaded, cocked, aimed, and shot.
Northerners kept falling. But the ones who didn’t fall didn’t run, either. They called false King Geoffrey’s name and their fighting slogans. They roared as if the Lion God dwelt in all their hearts. They came closer and closer to the entrenchment where Rollant shot yet again.
This time, he was pretty sure he saw the bolt go home. The black-bearded Detinan clutched at his midsection and slowly fell to the ground in front of the trenches. Rollant nodded to himself. A wound like that was mortal. If it didn’t kill quickly, from loss of blood, it would in its own sweet time, from fever. Hardly anyone lived after getting shot in the belly. People said Ned of the Forest had, but people said all sorts of uncanny things about Ned. Thinking about Ned paralyzed Rollant, the way seeing a snake was supposed to paralyze a bird. A serfcatcher who’d turned into a first-rate general, and whose men had massacred blond soldiers? Yes, that was plenty to frighten him. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it.