“And a whole fat lot of good it did him.” Andy pointed. He looked like nothing so much as an excited chipmunk sitting up at the mouth of its burrow. “Look, sir! Just look at that! Now the line he’s holding against our footsoldiers is starting to break up, too! And there go our men, right on through.”
“I told Marshal Bart I could whip Bell,” George said. “I told him so-and I was right, by the Thunderer’s great right hand.”
“Yes, sir.” His adjutant’s voice held awe. “I thought we could beat them, too, but I never thought we’d manage-this.”
“I told Bart I would wait till I was ready, and then I’d hit hard,” George replied. “I did what I said I was going to do-no more, no less-and this is what we got. I don’t know about you, Colonel, but I’ve seen men do more and get less.” Even as he spoke, another chunk of Bell’s line dissolved and disappeared like a lump of sugar in hot tea.
Colonel Andy also noted that. He said, “Sir, for this victory I don’t see how they can help promoting you to lieutenant general of the regulars.”
“Do you know what, Colonel?” Doubting George said. “As a matter of fact, I don’t care if you know or not, since I’m going to tell you. And what I’m going to tell you is, I don’t give a good gods-damn. They should have made me a lieutenant general of the regulars for what I did by the River of Death. They didn’t do it then, and I have a hells of a time caring now.”
A column of muddy, disheveled northern prisoners came stumbling by, the hale helping the wounded along. Grinning soldiers in gray carrying crossbows and pikes herded the captives toward the south. One of the northerners, spotting Doubting George called, “By the gods, General, why didn’t you go and drop an anvil on us, too?”
“What’s that?” George boomed. “What’s that you say? Don’t you think I already went and did it?” The northerner didn’t answer. He just lowered his head and trudged on into captivity.
Before long, more prisoners followed that first column. This time, one of the guards called out to Doubting George: “We’re capturing a hells of a lot of their catapults, too, sir.”
“Good. Good. I like to hear that.” The commanding general turned back to his adjutant. “Let’s see Baron Logan the Black come one inch-one gods-damned inch, do you hear me? — past Cloviston now. By the Lion God’s claws, I swear I’ll clap him in irons if he has the gall to try it.”
“Yes, sir!” Colonel Andy said enthusiastically. “We don’t need anybody but you here in the east.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Doubting George said. “Having a good many thousands of soldiers who know what they’re doing makes my life a lot easier.”
No sooner had those words crossed his lips when a messenger came tearing back to him, shouting, “Sir! Sir! The enemy’s breaking up and running. What do we do, sir?”
Somehow, being confronted by one of his soldiers who didn’t know what he was supposed to do bothered George not in the least, not when the man brought news like that. The general commanding answered, “Chase the sons of bitches! Chase ’em hard. Don’t slow down for anything. Don’t let ’em regroup. Keep pushing ’em till you run the legs right off ’em. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir. We are to pursue vigorously.” Saluting, the messenger dashed back toward the north.
“Pursue vigorously.” The words tasted bad in George’s mouth. The man had squeezed all the juice from the order. But he’d got it right, or right enough.
More prisoners came back. Each time a new column stumbled and staggered past, the guards wore bigger smiles. They understood what was happening, how the battle was going. “We’ve got ’em whipped!” one of them shouted to Doubting George. “They can take provincial prerogative and put it on the pyre, because it’s dead.”
Some of the captured northerners still had spirit left. They jeered and hooted and called out false King Geoffrey’s name. More, though, tramped along with their heads down, glum and dejected and weary. One fellow said, “To the hells with provincial prerogative. Fill my belly full and you can have King Avram, for all of me.”
Doubting George hadn’t heard that very often. He hoped he would hear more of it. Colonel Andy said, “Sir, I really think we’ve broken them.” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe it.
That irritated George. “You don’t need to seem so surprised, Colonel. Did you think this war would go on forever?”
Andy looked startled. “Do you know, sir, I think I almost did.”
“Well, by the gods, it won’t,” George declared. “It is going to end, and we are going to help end it. We are going to take the Army of Franklin and grind it to dust. And when we do, what does Geoffrey, that son of a bitch, have left east of the mountains? Not bloody much, that’s what.”
Even as he spoke, another stretch of Bell’s line, assailed from the front and both flanks, collapsed into a chaos of men running away as fast as they could go or throwing down crossbows and pikes, throwing up their hands, and surrendering. The northern soldiers had done everything a general could reasonably ask of his men. They had, very likely, done more than a general could reasonably ask of his men. In asking a small number of weary, hungry soldiers to beat more than twice as many well-fed, well-rested, well-armed ones, though, Lieutenant General Bell had wanted altogether too much. Now he was-or rather, his men were-paying the price for his asking that of them.
Colonel Andy watched that stretch of line go to pieces, too. “This is… this is what victory feels like, isn’t it? I don’t mean victory in a battle. I mean… victory.” He sounded disbelieving, but he said the word.
Doubting George nodded. “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Colonel. That’s what I’ve been telling anybody who’d listen. Up till now, nobody’s much felt like listening. Not Bart, by the Thunderer’s beard. Some people you’ve just got to show. We’ll, we’ve shown ’em, all right.”
“We have. We really have.” Yes, Andy sounded dazed.
Having shown the world, Doubting George wanted to see for himself, too. He shouted for his unicorn. When an orderly brought it, he swung up into the saddle and rode north so he could see it for himself.
“What will you do if an enemy attacks you, sir?” Colonel Andy called after him.
“What’ll I do? I’ll kill the bastard,” George answered. His adjutant stared. Doubting George laughed. Didn’t victory make the world seem fine?
Back when Rollant was a serf, he’d had to harvest rice and indigo on Baron Ormerod’s estate in Palmetto Province. Every year, the job looked enormous, far too large for the serfs on the estate to finish in time. Pitching in to do it only strengthened that feeling. But then, one day, you realized it was almost done. Usually, you realized that with something approaching astonishment. Where had all the work gone?
Rollant had something of the same feeling now. Where had all the war gone? No one in his regiment despised the northerners more than he did. No one had better reason to despise them, though some of the other blonds had reasons just as good. But, however much he loathed the traitors, he’d always known them as men who fought hard. Had anyone anywhere ever fought better for a worse cause? He didn’t think so.
Yesterday, Bell’s men had gone right on fighting hard. Yes, the southrons had driven them back, but they hadn’t had an easy time of it. The Army of Franklin had retreated to this second ridge line in good order, and they’d seemed ready enough to offer battle again today.
And the northerners had even fought hard in the early hours of the morning, though they’d had footsoldiers coming at them from the south while Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders pressed them from the north. Before too long, though, they seemed to realize they simply did not have the men to hold off all their foes. Here, being unable to hold off all their foes meant about the same thing as being unable to hold off any of those foes. They seemed to realize that, too. The Army of Franklin’s battle was lost, lost irretrievably.