Later that day, a crossbow quarrel nicked his left ear. He bled all over his tunic, but it wasn’t even close to a serious wound. A healer put a stitch in it and said, “I don’t even think you’ll have a scar.”
“Oh.” Rollant almost felt cheated-with the little wound, and with the battle. The northerners gave ground, but they didn’t break. He wanted them ruined, not just driven back. He could see that that smashing victory ought to be there. He could see it, but he couldn’t-Doubting George didn’t seem able to-find a way to reach out and grab hold of it.
Captain Gremio’s regiment, along with the rest of what remained Colonel Florizel’s wing, was posted at the far right end of the Army of Franklin’s line. “Lieutenant General Bell expects the southrons to concentrate their attack against this wing,” Gremio told his company commanders-three captains, four lieutenants, and three sergeants. “You’ve got to let your men know they’d better fight hard. A lot is liable to depend on them when the southrons move. And I think the southrons are going to move today.” As if to underscore his words, the sun rose in the northeast and spilled blood-colored light over their lines and over the works in front of Ramblerton to the south.
Sergeant Thisbe raised a hand. When Gremio nodded, Thisbe asked, “How does Bell know this is where Doubting George aims to hit hardest?”
“I can’t tell you that, because Colonel Florizel didn’t tell me,” Gremio answered. “I don’t know whether Bell told his wing commanders how he knows-or why he suspects, I should say.” As usual, he spoke with a barrister’s relentless precision.
One of the other company commanders-Gremio didn’t see who-muttered, “I hope Bell’s not right the way he was when he sent us at the southrons’ trenches by Poor Richard.”
“That will be enough of that,” Gremio said sharply. He wished the other man hadn’t done such a good job of voicing his own fear. He’d lost faith in the commanding general. That did him exactly no good, as Bell was going to keep right on giving orders regardless of whether Gremio had faith in him. The regimental commander continued, “We ought to get the men fed early, too, in case we do have to fight today.”
None of the company commanders quarreled with that. They got the cooks working earlier than usual, and grumbling more than usual on account of it. Even so, only about half the men got breakfast before warning cries from the sentries in the shooting pits out in front of the main line announced that the southrons were indeed coming forth. Gremio got nothing to eat himself. His belly growled in disappointed resentment when he rushed out of the breakfast line and up toward the parapets.
When he looked to the south, his jaw dropped. That wasn’t hunger. It was shock. He’d known Avram’s soldiers would be moving against the Army of Franklin. He’d known, yes, but he’d never dreamt the move would look like… this. From one end of the line to the other, miles of southrons swarmed forward under what looked like thousands of company and regimental standards. The attack might not succeed. Whether it did or not, though, it was the most awe-inspiring thing Gremio had ever seen.
“Forward!” he shouted to his own soldiers. “By the Thunderer’s lightning bolt, come forward! We have to beat them back!”
Up came the men, some eating, others complaining they’d got no breakfast. Thisbe’s light, clear voice put paid to that: “Will you be happy if you get killed with full bellies?”
Gremio half expected some stubborn soldier to answer yes. No one did, or no one he heard. The men filed into the trenches, baggy wool pantaloons flapping as they ran. They loaded their crossbows. Some of them thrust quarrels into the dirt in front of them so they could reload faster.
On came the southrons. It was a couple of miles from their line to the one the Army of Franklin held. We came that far over open country at Poor Richard, Gremio thought, and then they tore hells out of us. Maybe we can do the same to them.
But it wouldn’t be easy. Even the part of the southron army that had fought at Poor Richard had had far more engines than the Army of Franklin boasted. Gremio shook his head. How can you boast about something you don’t have?
Not only that, unicorns were hauling the southrons’ catapults and repeating crossbows right along with the rest of the army. Yes, Gremio’s side started shooting first, but Doubting George’s men wasted no time replying in kind. A stone thudded into the front of the parapet. It didn’t plow through, but dirt flew out and hit Gremio in the face.
Farther down the line, a firepot came down on top of the parapet, sending up a great gout of flame and smoke. Another one landed in the trenches. Burning men shrieked, some not for long. With the sulfurous reek of the firepots came the stink of charred flesh.
A soldier on the shooting step suddenly toppled, shot through the head by a long, thick bolt from a repeating crossbow. The scouts in the shooting pits in front of the main line came out and dashed back toward the entrenchments. More than a few of them fell, shot in the back, before they made it. Some of them were shot by their own comrades in the trenches, too. The southrons had made the same mistake at Poor Richard. Why didn’t we learn from them? Gremio wondered.
Southrons were falling, too. A stone knocked down three men before losing its momentum. Repeating crossbows cut down more. And firepots burst among the soldiers in gray.
“Shoot!” Gremio shouted when he judged the southrons were in range of his men’s weapons. Up and down the entrenchment, crossbows clacked and snapped. Men reloaded with frantic haste. Someone not far from Gremio cursed horribly when his bowstring broke. He fit a replacement to the crossbow and went back to the business of slaughter.
Gremio didn’t need long to see that the southrons assailing his end of the line were veterans. In the face of what the northern soldiers flung at them, they went to the earth and started shooting back from their bellies. Some of them began to dig in; Gremio watched the dirt fly. Raw troops would have charged home in spite of everything, not knowing any better. They would have paid for it, too, paid gruesomely. The Army of Franklin punished the southrons here, but less than Gremio would have hoped.
Sergeant Thisbe said, “They don’t have orders to take our trenches no matter what, the way we did a couple of weeks ago with theirs.” The underofficer-now the company commander-sounded bitter. Gremio had a hard time blaming Thisbe for that, not when he was bitter himself.
“We’re holding ’em here.” Gremio peered off toward the left. “Anybody know how we’re doing along the rest of the line?”
He didn’t, even after peering. A swell of ground just a little to the east kept him from seeing much. All he could do was wonder-and worry. Even here, where the Army of Franklin seemed to be doing fine, a hells of a lot of southrons were attacking. If Lieutenant General Bell happened to be wrong, if this wasn’t the stretch where Doubting George’s army was pushing hardest, what was happening off to the left, out of Gremio’s sight but, with luck, not out of the commanding general’s?
Lieutenant General Bell? Wrong? Gremio laughed. How could anyone possibly imagine Bell making a mistake? The idea was absurd, wasn’t it? Of course it was. Up till now, Bell had conducted a perfect campaign, hadn’t he? Of course he had. The Army of Franklin had smashed John the Lister at Summer Mountain, hadn’t it? And then gone on to destroy John’s remnants at Poor Richard?
He shook his head. Some of those things could have happened. Some of those things should have happened. But they hadn’t. That was at least partly Bell’s fault. Could he make another mistake? Gremio knew too well that he could.