“They fight war as if it were nothing but murder,” Bell said angrily. “They have been fighting that way ever since the Marthasville campaign. General Hesmucet’s conduct during the siege was disgraceful.”
“Yes, sir,” Benjamin said.
“Yes, sir,” Stephen the Pickle echoed. “But if that’s the way they choose to fight, we have to fight the same way, or we’ll go under.”
“I know,” Bell said. “That is one of the reasons I ordered this attack. We have to show the enemy we still have the spirit to fight it out with him man to man.”
Colonel Florizel said, “But how much good does that do us, sir, if he stays in his entrenchments and shoots us down by the thousands before we can close with him? Wouldn’t we be better served making him attack us and pay the bigger butcher’s bill?”
Lieutenant General Bell glared at him. “That is what Joseph the Gamecock was doing in the Marthasville campaign before King Geoffrey relieved him and appointed me in his place. Geoffrey wants men who can fight, not soldiers who skulk in trenches.”
“We fought, sir,” Florizel said. “We fought as hard as flesh and blood can fight. I already told you that. When you’re trying to carry a position like this one, it doesn’t matter how hard you fight, though. You’ll get chewed up any which way.”
“I do not wish a defeatist to command a wing, Colonel,” Bell said coldly. “Your tenure will be temporary.”
“That suits me fine… sir,” Florizel answered. “I’m not what you’d call eager to tell my men to go forward and get cut to pieces attacking a position they haven’t got a chance in hells of taking.”
“We will attack at first light tomorrow,” Bell declared. “We will attack, and we will drive the southrons out of Poor Richard. Do you understand me? Do all of you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” the wing commanders chorused unhappily.
“Very well, then,” Bell snapped. “You are dismissed. Go back to your men and ready them for the assault to come.”
“Ready them to get their bums shot off,” somebody muttered. Bell glowered at each wing commander in turn. All three of them glowered back. He gestured peremptorily. They turned to go. By then, it was well past midnight, the moon sinking low.
A runner dashed back toward the officers, shouting, “Lieutenant General Bell! Lieutenant General Bell!”
“What is it?” Bell braced for another disaster.
One of the wing commanders, braced for the same thing, growled, “Oh, gods, what now?”
“Sir, the southrons have pulled out of Poor Richard,” the runner said. “Their fires are burning, but nobody’s around ’em. They’ve gone. They’ve left.”
“By the gods!” Bell said softly. “The field… the field is ours.” He turned to the wing commanders. “Don’t you see, men? This… this is victory!”
Colonel Andy pointed north to the outer defenses of Ramblerton. “Here they come, sir. Do you see them?”
“I can’t very well not see them, now can I?” Doubting George asked, more than a little irritably. “There are enough of them out there, wouldn’t you say?”
Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers served as escorts and outriders for the rest of John the Lister’s army. They would have held off Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders had Ned tried to harry John’s footsoldiers during the withdrawal from Poor Richard to Ramblerton. But, just as John had managed to knock Bell’s footsoldiers back on their heels, so Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men had warned Ned that hitting them again wouldn’t be a good idea. No one had contested the withdrawal into Ramblerton.
George spurred his unicorn forward. Andy rode alongside him and yet not quite perfectly level with him: the perfect place for an adjutant. George saw John the Lister at the head of the long column of men in dirty, often bloodstained gray tunics and pantaloons. John saw him, too, and saluted.
Returning the salute, Doubting George made it into a courtesy not only for John but also for the soldiers he commanded. “Well done!” George shouted in a great voice. “Well done! You have given us time to prepare the defenses of Ramblerton, and to gather men from several provinces to hold those defenses. Now, when the time is ripe, we will drive the traitors far away!”
A few of John the Lister’s soldiers raised a ragged cheer. Most of them just kept on marching. John pulled off the road and sat his unicorn in a field, watching them pass by. George-and Andy-rode over beside him. George saw what he knew he’d see: men who’d been through the mill; men with blank, stunned faces; men with bandages from wounds too minor to require them to take to the ambulance wagons. They’d seen too much, done too much, to be of much use yet.
“I had to leave a lot of the wounded behind,” John said unhappily. “We didn’t have room in the wagons for all of them. They’re in Bell’s hands now. So are our dead.”
“He’ll treat them with respect. I give him that much,” George said. “We do the same for the northerners. This has been a pretty clean war, except now and again when it bumps up against the question of the blonds.”
No sooner had he spoken than a blond corporal carrying a company standard tramped past. The fellow was as grimy and battered-looking as any of the Detinans around him. By his hollow-cheeked face, he’d seen as much hard fighting as they had, too. Looking at that face, George could wonder why there’d ever been a question about whether blonds were worth anything in war.
“I suppose he’ll come after me now,” John said. “I don’t see what else he can do. It’s less than twenty miles from Poor Richard down here to Ramblerton. He’s not about to go around the city and strike for the Highlow, not now, not after the lick I gave him. Before he goes any farther south, he has to take Ramblerton.”
“He’s welcome to try.” George’s wave encompassed the works John’s men were entering. “I can’t promise him a very hospitable reception, though.”
John the Lister seemed to take a good long look at the fortifications for the first time. “You haven’t been idle, I will say that. If Bell tries to storm these works, he won’t take a man back to Dothan alive.”
“That’s the idea,” George said. “And now I’ve got the men to fill them up, too, counting your soldiers and the ones I’ve scraped up from garrisons all over Franklin and Cloviston.”
“Fill them up, hells,” John said. “When Bell gets here, we ought to go out and trample the son of a bitch.”
“We will,” George replied. “Don’t you doubt it for a minute. When the time is ripe, we will.” He set a hand on John’s shoulder. “Other thing is, I’ll want you to get me the reports for your actions just as soon as you can. I’ll send them on to Marshal Bart and to King Avram. If you don’t get the rank amongst the regulars you deserve, there’s even less justice in the world than I always thought.”
“You’ll have ’em, just as soon as I can write ’em up,” John said. “A little real rank’d be welcome, and I won’t tell you anything different. Right now, all I’ve got is a captain’s prospects once the war is over… and if you look hard, you can see the end of the war from here.”
“You can, and I can,” Doubting George said. “I don’t think Bell can yet. Well, we’ll show him when the time comes, never you fear.”
“Shouldn’t be that tough, sir,” John the Lister said. “I left him holding the ground at Poor Richard, but may the Lion God’s claws rip out my guts if I didn’t tear the heart from his army. He had to be mad, attacking me across a couple of miles of open country-mad, I tell you. Why didn’t he just cut his own throat and save us the trouble?”
“He’s not very smart. He proved that in the Marthasville campaign,” George said. “Count Joseph the Gamecock didn’t fight nearly so often, but he gave us a much harder time. Can you imagine Joseph charging you at Poor Richard?”
“Not a chance,” John the Lister said positively. “Not a chance in the world. You’re right-Count Joseph knows what he’s doing.”