“Fight the bastards,” Ned snarled. He’d been living up to his own advice; his saber had blood on it. He laid it across his knees for a moment while he snapped off a shot at a gray-clad southron. He missed, and cursed, and reloaded as fast as he could. A southron could have got off three or four shots with his fancy weapon in the time Ned needed to shoot once.
When he shot again, though, a southron unicorn-rider crumpled in the saddle. “That’s the way!” Biffle exclaimed.
But Ned remained gloomy even as he set yet another bolt in the groove of his crossbow and yanked the string back with a jerk of his powerful arms. “They’ve got four or five times the men we do, and a lot more than that when it comes to shooting power,” he said. “How the hells are we supposed to whip ’em with odds like that?”
“If we had all the men we’re supposed to-” his regimental commander began.
“It might help a little,” Ned broke in. “I hated Bell’s guts when he stole ’em from me. I hated his guts, and I hated his empty head. But you know what, Biff? Right this minute, I’m not sure how much difference they’d make.”
Colonel Biffle stared at him. “I’ve never heard you talk this way before, Lord Ned. Sounds like you’re giving up.”
Before Ned could answer, a crossbow quarrel hummed past between the two men. “I’m not quitting. There’s no quit in me. I’ll fight till those sons of bitches kill me. Even after I’m dead, I want my ghost to haunt ’em. But by the Lion God’s claws, Biff, how am I supposed to win when I’ve got to fight everything the southrons can throw at me?”
“I don’t know, sir. I wish I did. You always have, up till now.”
“But up till now I’ve been operating on my own. If too many southrons came after me, I could always ride off and hit ’em again somewhere else. Here, though, here I’m stuck. I can’t pull away from this fight, on account of if I do, Hard-Riding Jimmy gets around the footsoldiers’ flank and eats ’em for supper. So I’ve got to stand here and take it-take it right on the chin.”
Another hillock fell, the southrons shooting at the men on it from the front, right, and left at the same time. Ned’s troopers barely escaped. If they’d waited much longer, they would have been cut off and surrounded. Watching them fall back, Colonel Biffle said, “That’s what happened to me, too.”
“I understood you,” Ned said. Yet another bolt thrummed past, wickedly close. He went on, “If it’s just a shooting match, they’re going to whip us. I don’t know of anything in the whole wide world plainer’n that.” If the southrons did push aside or beat back his unicorn-riders, they would outflank the Army of Franklin’s footsoldiers, and then… That was all too plain to Ned, too.
Biffle said, “What else can it be but a shooting match?”
“Let’s close with ’em,” Ned said savagely. This wasn’t the kind of fight he usually made, or usually wanted to make. He knew how expensive it would be. But he also knew how disastrous continuing the fight as it was going would be. “They’re tough enough with the crossbow, all right. How are they with sabers in their hands?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Biffle said in wondering tones.
Ned of the Forest wondered, too: he wondered if he’d lost his mind. But when you were desperate, you had to do desperate things. He stood tall in the saddle, brandishing his blood-streaked saber. Pointing it toward the southrons, he roared out a command: “Chaaarge!” He set spurs to his unicorn and thundered at Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men.
His troopers followed without hesitation. The southrons were a couple of hundred yards away. Ned hadn’t ridden more than half the distance before realizing he’d made a mistake. The enemy didn’t want to play his game, and they had the shooting power to make sure his side paid a high price for even attempting it. A storm of crossbow quarrels met his riders. Men pitched from saddles. Unicorns crashed to the ground, screaming like women in anguish. He wondered whether he would have any followers left by the time he got in amongst the southrons. He didn’t wonder if he would get in amongst them. He had the good soldier’s arrogance to be sure of that.
Sometimes, of course, even good soldiers were wrong. Ned of the Forest shoved that thought deep down out of sight. He had no time for it now. He never had much time for thoughts like those.
His mount lowered its head and charged for the closest enemy unicorn. A young officer with only one epaulet rode the other unicorn: a lieutenant. He shot at Ned, who hunched low on his own beast’s back. The southron missed. Cursing, he worked the lever that brought a new bolt up into the groove and cocked the crossbow at the same time. He shot again. He missed again.
Even with a fancy quick-shooting crossbow, he had no time for another shot after that. And, paying so much attention to his crossbow, he hadn’t paid enough to his unicorn. Ned’s mount gored it in the left shoulder, tearing a red, bleeding line in the perfect whiteness of its coat. The unicorn shrieked and reared. The southron lieutenant had all he could do to stay in the saddle-till left-handed Ned hacked him out of it with a savage saber stroke.
“Come on, you sons of bitches!” Ned shouted, and even he couldn’t have told whether he was yelling at his own men or King Avram’s. “Let’s see how you like it!”
He struck out at another trooper in gray. His sword bit the man’s arm. The cry that burst from the southron was as shrill as any a unicorn might have made. Most men-most men on both sides, from what Ned had seen-had little stomach for close combat. They would sooner fight at crossbow range, where they could think of their foes as targets, not as other men like themselves… and where they didn’t have to meet them face to face.
Ned was different. He might have been a wolf who knew only how to kill with his own jaws. Meeting the enemy face to face didn’t bother him-on the contrary. It helped him frighten the foe. And the more fear he spread, the easier that made the rest of his job.
He rode up to a southron sergeant. The enemy unicorn-rider had drawn his saber, but Ned attacked from his left side, which meant he had to reach across his body to defend himself. Ned’s smile was wolfish, too. Being left-handed had won him a lot of fights.
It didn’t win him this one. Another shouting southron galloped up to help the man he’d assailed. By the time he drove that second fellow off with a wounded unicorn, the sergeant had ridden away.
Lightning smashed down out of a clear sky. “About time, gods damn it!” Ned roared. He’d wondered if all of Bell’s wizards had died of old age, or maybe just of accumulated uselessness. At least they were trying.
But they weren’t succeeding. No southron troopers rode anyplace near where the lightning struck. It smote once more-again in a place where there were no southrons. Ned cursed. He’d seen that Doubting George had wizards who knew what they were doing. Men said Bell might have prevailed at Poor Richard if a southron wizard hadn’t thwarted the northerners’ sorcerous assaults.
Now it looked to be happening again. What did that say? Probably that Bell’s wizards hadn’t learned anything new since the fight at Poor Richard, which surprised Ned not a bit. Bell hadn’t learned anything much since then, so why should his mages prove any different?
Again the futile lightnings crashed. Ned of the Forest forgot about them. They wouldn’t change anything, and he had to stay alive. He traded swordstrokes with a southron who knew what he was doing with a blade in his hand. Battle swept them apart before either could wound the other.
Colonel Biffle’s shout resounded in his ears: “Lord Ned, we’ve got to pull back!”
“Hells with that,” Ned ground out. “We’re still giving ’em a hard time.”
“But they’re giving us worse,” Biffle said, “and besides, sir, the footsoldiers are falling back.”
“What’s that?” Engrossed in his own fight, Ned of the Forest had paid scant attention to what was going on off to his right. But the regimental commander had told the truth. Pressed by swarms of pikemen and crossbowmen in gray, Bell’s left wing was pulling back toward the rise a mile or two north of the position in which it had started the day.