“Captain, they’re going to break through!” Sergeant Thisbe exclaimed in dismay. What was obvious to Gremio was also obvious to other people, then.
“Hold fast! By the gods, men hold fast!” Colonel Florizel shouted, diligently whipping a dead unicorn: the soldiers on the right weren’t going to stop the southrons even if they died in place to the last man. But Florizel made more sense when he went on, “They’ll just shoot you down from behind if you run away.”
“Pikemen!” Gremio yelled, looking around for some. “We need more pikemen to hold the enemy off our crossbows!”
Not far away, another officer was roaring, “Crossbowmen! Gods damn it, where can I get some crossbowmen? The southrons are shooting down my pikemen, and I can’t answer back!”
Not enough crossbowmen, Gremio thought glumly. Not enough pikemen, either. We can put them together and have not enough of both-which is about what the north has everywhere these days. Even so, he sent a runner to the officer who commanded pikemen. They did join forces… just as the southrons rolled down on them.
And they did prove not to have enough of both. More than a little to Gremio’s surprise, they beat back the southrons’ first charge, leaving dead and wounded men lying in front of their improvised line. The pikemen did vicious work against the southrons who leaped down among them, while the crossbowmen shot down Avram’s gray-clad soldiers in droves.
Gremio was proud of the detachment he’d patched together-proud for about five minutes. Then a mournful cry rose from his left: “We’re flanked!” As if to underscore that, crossbow quarrels zipped up the line, cutting down one northerner after another. The southrons there on the left whooped with glee. They knew what they’d done.
So did Gremio. He looked around, wondering if making a stand here and selling his regiment as dearly as he could would let the rest of the Army of Franklin escape. He was willing to sacrifice the men, but only for something worthwhile.
He didn’t see the point, not here, not now. Even Colonel Florizel had stopped shouting about holding fast. Florizel was a stubborn man, but he wasn’t altogether an idiot. “Retreat!” Gremio shouted. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t like getting destroyed, either. “Fall back! Form a new line as you can!”
If you can, he should have said. A lot of his men had already started falling back without permission. Once they got it, they fell back faster. The Army of Franklin had some order left as the southrons drove its remnants north, but only some. Gremio had heard of routs before. Up till now, he’d never been part of one. Today, he was. He felt like a man staggered after a blow to the head with a club.
Because his regiment, along with the rest of Colonel Florizel’s wing, kept more cohesion than the rest of the Army of Franklin, he went on trying to form new lines and hold back the southrons while the rest of Bell’s men pelted off toward the north. Sometimes the enemy disrupted his efforts before they were well begun. Sometimes he did manage to hold them off for a while. But then, as they had before, Doubting George’s soldiers would outflank the line he’d pieced together. Then it was retreat again, retreat or stand and be massacred.
One of his men asked, “Why have the gods turned their backs on us, Captain?” He sounded not far from despair.
Gremio felt not far from despair himself, and had no time for anyone else’s. “Ask a priest,” he snapped. “Maybe he’d know, or tell you he knows. All I know is, we’ve still got to try to come out of this in one piece.”
The soldier sent him a wounded look. He had no time for those, either. Too many men were really wounded; their groans filled his ears. He looked back over his shoulders. A couple of hundred yards to the rear stood a woodlot, the trees bare-branched and skeletal now that winter was at hand. He didn’t much care about the branches. The trunks? The trunks were a different story.
Pointing to the trees, he said, “We’ll get in among them and use the trunks for cover. We haven’t got time to dig trenches, and the tree trunks will be better than nothing. When the southrons get close, we’ll give ’em a volley they’ll remember for a long time.”
His men did, too. The southrons recoiled, as much from surprise-here were northerners still showing fight-as because of the damage the volley did. But the surprise didn’t last long. Neither did the recoil. The men in gray started sliding around the woodlot to the east and west. They also brought engines forward with what was, to Gremio, truly damnable speed.
Firepots flew through the air. Some of them smashed on bare ground. Those were harmless, or near enough. But the ones that hit trees set them afire. Before long, the whole woodlot would burn. Not only that, Gremio saw the southrons’ outflanking move.
“Fall back!” he yelled once more, coughing from the lungful of smoke he’d inhaled.
“Fall back!” Sergeant Thisbe echoed. “We’ll make another stand soon. They can’t drive us like this forever.” Gremio wondered why not. What was going to stop the southrons? Not the Army of Franklin, not by what had happened today. But Thisbe had never been one to give up a fight as long as one last crossbow quarrel remained in the quiver.
Before long, Gremio began to wonder whether that last bolt was gone. Doubting George’s men were pressing him from the front and both flanks, and they’d got so far ahead of his regiment that even retreat would be like running the gauntlet. He thought about throwing aside his officer’s sword and raising his hands in the air. The war would be over for him, and he would have lived through it.
But he knew Thisbe wouldn’t surrender; Thisbe, of all people, would think it impossible, and had good reasons to think so. Gremio couldn’t stand to give up while the sergeant was watching. And then, quite suddenly, he didn’t have to. A detachment of Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders came galloping up from the east and pitched into the southrons assailing Gremio’s flank. The men in gray, taken by surprise, scattered in wild disorder. Had they had any notion Ned’s riders were close by, they surely would have put up a better fight. As things were? No.
“Thank you kindly, Colonel,” Gremio called to the rider who looked to be in charge of the detachment.
“You’re welcome,” the other officer answered, touching the brim of his hat. “Nice to know not quite everything’s gone to hells in a handbasket, isn’t it?”
“Not quite is about the size of it, I’m afraid,” Gremio said. “Do you knew where, or even if, the army is going to make some real stand?”
The colonel of unicorn-riders shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. Wish I did.”
“Colonel Biffle! Colonel Biffle, sir!” A rider hurried up to the officer, and reined in. He pointed off to the west. “More footsoldiers in trouble over there, sir.”
With a weary sigh, Colonel Biffle nodded. “Well, let’s see if we can’t get ’em out of it, then.” He tipped his hat to Gremio again. “Nice talking with you, Captain. Sorry I can’t stay longer. Good luck.” He rode off, followed by his men.
Colonel Florizel limped over to Gremio. “Still here, I see.”
“Same to you, sir,” Gremio replied.
“Oh, yes. Still here.” Florizel shrugged wearily. “For how much longer, though, who knows? They’ve whipped us right and proper this time.”
“Yes, sir.” Gremio admitted what he could hardly deny. “How do we go on after… this? How can we go on after… this?”
“I have no idea,” Florizel answered. “All I know is, nobody’s ordered me to throw down my sword. Till someone does, I’m still in the fight. Until King Geoffrey has to give up, if he ever does, he’s still in the fight. So we’ve got to keep grinding away, see what happens next, and hope it’s something good.”
He’s a simple man, Gremio thought, not for the first time. Here, though, Florizel’s simplicity amounted to strength. The wing commander didn’t worry about what he couldn’t help. He kept his mind on his own job, and did that as well as he could. Anything else? Anything else was-simply-beyond his ken, and he didn’t dwell on it. Gremio wished he could ignore the world falling to pieces around him as well as his superior managed the trick.