“None bigger,” Hard-Riding Jimmy said. “No, sir, none bigger. I’ve never seen the traitors go to pieces like this before.” He flashed that grin again. “I hope I see it some more.”
“Do you expect anything different from now on?” John asked.
Jimmy shook his head. “Not me. They’re ruined. It’d take a miracle-no, by the Thunderer’s balls, it’d take a miracle and a half — for them to rally after this. Bell’s got to be fit to be tied from what we did to him.”
“He’s still got Ned of the Forest,” John remarked, curious to see what the mention of one leading commander of unicorn-riders would do to the other.
“Ned’s a fine officer,” Hard-Riding Jimmy said with the owlish sincerity of a man who’d had a little too much to drink. “A fine officer, don’t get me wrong. But we whipped his men, and we’ll whip ’em again next time we bump into ’em, too. They’re plenty brave. Never braver-don’t get me wrong.” If he hadn’t had too much to drink, he wouldn’t have repeated the phrase. “But he hasn’t got enough troopers and he hasn’t got enough proper weapons to give us a real fight.”
“Those quick-shooting crossbows make that much difference?” John asked.
“Hells, yes! I should say so!” Hard-Riding Jimmy exclaimed. “Sir, inside of five years the ordinary crossbow will be gone from the Detinan army. Gone, I tell you! It makes a decent hunting weapon, but that’s all. With quick-shooters, we’ll sweep the blond savages off the eastern steppe like that.” He snapped his fingers, but without a sound. He tried again. This time, it worked. “That, gods damn it.”
“Well, after what you’ve done the past two days, I can’t very well tell you you don’t know your business,” John the Lister said. He clapped Hard-Riding Jimmy on the back again. Grinning still, the commander of unicorn-riders lurched off.
“Brigadier John!” a runner called. John turned and waved to show he’d heard. The messenger hurried over to him. “I’m glad I caught up with you, sir. Doubting George’s compliments, and the orders for the morning for your wing are hard pursuit. You are to take an eastern route, as best you can, and try to get ahead of the traitors. That way, with luck, we can surround them and wipe them out.”
“Hard pursuit by an eastern route,” John repeated. “I’m to get out in front of the Army of Franklin if I can. My compliments to the commanding general in return. I understand the orders, and I’ll obey them.” With another salute, the runner trotted away.
George had brought engineers forward to put more bridges across the stream that had slowed pursuit the evening before. As soon as they got near the far bank, northern snipers started shooting at them. The southrons pushed repeating crossbows up to the edge of the stream and hosed down the brush on the north bank of the stream with quarrels. They sent men in gray in there after the northerners, too. All that slowed but did not stop the sniping. Slowing it let the bridges reach the north bank and let the southrons cross with ease. After that, the snipers fell back.
Riding at the front of his column of footsoldiers, John the Lister pushed ahead as hard as the tired men would go. Every once in a while, off to the west, he got a glimpse of the remnants of the Army of Franklin, which was also moving north at something close to double time. The traitors had to be even more weary than his own men. How long could they continue that headlong withdrawal? John grinned. Not long enough, or so he hoped.
He was about to order his men to swing in on the fleeing northerners when a crossbow quarrel zipped past his head. If he could see Bell’s men, they could see him, too. And even Bell, no great general-as he’d proved again and again-could see what the southrons had in mind.
Bell’s rear guard came from Ned of the Forest’s troopers. They were, as every southron who’d ever met them had reason to know, a stubborn bunch. Here they were fighting mostly dismounted from a stand of trees that gave them good cover.
John the Lister wanted to roll over them even so. He wanted to, but discovered he couldn’t. They knocked his first attack back on its heels. Cursing, he shouted, “Deploy! We’ll flank them out, by the Lion God’s mane!”
And his men did exactly that, with some help from Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders. They did it, yes, but doing it took them an hour and a half. They didn’t damage Ned’s force very much, either. Instead of waiting to be surrounded and slaughtered, the northern troopers went back to their unicorns and rode off when their position grew difficult. They wouldn’t have any trouble catching up with Bell’s retreating column of footsoldiers.
They wouldn’t-but John the Lister’s men would. While the southrons were fighting that rear-guard action, the main body of their foes marched several miles. John did some more cursing. “Step it up, boys!” he called.
The soldiers tried. He’d feared he was asking more of them than flesh and blood could give. Toward evening, they came close to catching up with the northerners again. Again, though, a detachment of Ned’s troopers, this time backed up by footsoldiers in blue, delayed them long enough to let Bell’s main force get away.
“We’ll keep after them,” John declared. He wondered if they would be able to make the traitors stand and fight, though.
Ned of the Forest supposed he might have been more disgusted, but he had trouble seeing how. One thing that might have let him show more disgust would have been less to worry about. He was as busy as a one-armed juggler with the itch. The southrons knew they had the Army of Franklin on the run. For once, that didn’t satisfy them. They wanted the army dead-no, not just dead; extinct.
They were liable to get what they wanted, too. Bell had given Ned the dubious honor of commanding the rear guard against Doubting George’s onrushing army. Ned didn’t want the job. The only reason he’d taken it was that he couldn’t see anyone else who had even a chance of bringing it off.
“They’re going to hound us all the way out of Franklin, Biff,” he said at the end of the first day’s retreat.
“Yes, sir.” Colonel Biffle nodded. “Gods damn me to all the hells if I see how we can stop ’em, either.”
“Stop ’em?” Ned started. He didn’t know whether he felt more like laughing or crying. Since both would have made Colonel Biffle worry, he contented himself with a growl that could have come from the throat of a tiger in the far northern jungle. “By the Thunderer’s belly button, Biff, we’re not going to stop those stinking sons of bitches. If we can slow ’em down enough so they don’t eat all of Bell’s army, King Geoffrey ought to pin a medal on us just for that.”
“Yes, sir,” Biffle said, and then, after a long, long pause, “If we can’t stop ’em, though, Lord Ned, the war’s as good as lost.”
Ned of the Forest only grunted in response, as he’d tried not to show pain whenever he was wounded. He didn’t think his regimental commander was wrong-which only made the words hurt worse.
“What do we do, sir?” Biffle asked. “What do we do if… if King Avram’s bastards really can lick us?”
“The best we can our ownselves,” Ned answered firmly. “They haven’t done it yet, and I aim to make it as hard for them as I can. As long as we keep fighting, we’ve got a chance. If we throw up our hands and quit, we really are licked.”
“Yes, sir.” Colonel Biffle sounded a little happier-but only a little.
When Ned of the Forest got a good look at his own troopers after their latest encounter with John the Lister’s footsoldiers, he understood why. Their heads were down; their shoulders slumped. For the first time, they looked like beaten men. They kept on, yes, but they plainly had no faith in what they were doing.