Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men didn’t come bursting out of the woods to harry the retreating northerners. Ned didn’t run into them at all for the next couple of days, in fact. He concluded that Captain Watson had not only enjoyed putting down trip lines, he’d also done a good job of it. Watson might be a puppy, but he was a puppy who’d grown some sharp teeth.
Bell’s army stumbled through the town of Warsaw on the way up to the Franklin River. Ned of the Forest remembered crossing the river heading south a couple of months before. He’d still had hope then, hope and the confidence that, whatever happened, he would figure out some way to whip the southrons. That wasn’t going to happen now. All he could hope to do was figure out some way to keep the southrons from destroying the Army of Franklin.
In Warsaw, the townsfolk stared glumly at the retreating northerners. “What are we going to do now?” one of them called to Ned of the Forest, as if all too well aware the town would see King Geoffrey’s soldiers no more, and would have to make what peace it could with King Avram.
“Do the best you can,” Ned told him, unable to find any better answer. By the look the local sent him, that wasn’t what the fellow had wanted to hear. It wasn’t what Ned had wanted to say, either. But he had a very clear sense of what was real and what wasn’t. He hoped the other man did, too.
North of Warsaw, Ned loaded a lot of the men in the rear guard who were barefoot into unicorn-drawn wagons. That kept them from getting their feet frostbitten. If they had to fight, they could deploy from the wagons. “Pretty sneaky, Lord Ned,” Colonel Biffle said admiringly.
“Oh, yes, I’m clever as next week,” Ned said. “Think how smart I’d be if I only had something to work with.”
They went up into the province of Dothan just before they came back to the Franklin River. The weather was no better there than it had been in the province of Franklin. The river, swollen by the cold, hard rain, ran almost out of its banks. No one would find an easy way to ford it, as Doubting George had at the Smew.
Bell’s engineers and wizards didn’t have an easy time creating a pontoon bridge across the Franklin. For one thing, pontoons were hard to come by. For another, the river kept doing its best to carry them away before the engineers and mages could secure them one to another. And, for a third, precious few engineers and wizards were left to do the work; they’d suffered no less than the rest of Bell’s army.
At last, though, the job was done. Bell’s weary, footsore soldiers began crossing to the northern bank of the river. By then, the southrons were very close behind Ned of the Forest’s rear guard. Ned told his troopers, and the footsoldiers with them, “Well, boys, we’re going to have to wallop the sons of bitches one more time. Reckon you’re up to it?”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted, and “Hells, yes!” and, “You bet, Lord Ned!”
And they did. Roaring as if the Lion God had taken possession of them body and soul, they hit the advancing southrons a savage blow that sent them reeling back toward Warsaw in surprise, dismay, and no little disorder. Ned of the Forest didn’t think he’d ever been prouder of men he led than he was on that frozen field. They had to know they weren’t going to win the war with this fight. They couldn’t even turn the campaign into anything but a disaster. They struck like an avalanche all the same.
Captain Gremio came up to Ned. Saluting, he said, “Sir, I beg leave to report that my men have captured one of the southrons’ siege engines. Doesn’t begin to make up for all the army lost, of course, but now that we’ve got it, what should we do with it?”
“Well done!” Ned said, and then, “Captain Watson will take charge of it, Captain.”
“He’s welcome to it, then,” Gremio said. “I’ll have my men drag it over to him. I expect he’ll have unicorns to haul it off toward the north?”
“I expect he will,” Ned agreed. “And once you’ve done that, Captain, order your regiment ready to get moving again. You know we can’t stay around here and enjoy the victory we’ve won.”
“I understand, sir,” the other man said. “I sure as hells wish we could, though, because this is the only victory we’ve won in this whole gods-damned campaign, and the only one we’re likely to.” Bitterness came off him in waves.
“Can’t be helped,” Ned said. Captain Gremio nodded, sketched a salute, and then went off to carry out Ned’s orders.
The footsoldiers went off toward the Franklin first, with Ned’s unicorn-riders screening them. Again, the southrons held off on their pursuit for some little while; the ferocious attack Ned had put in persuaded them they would do better to wait. That being so, Ned retired as slowly as he could.
To his surprise, though, a courier came riding down from the north, from Lieutenant General Bell’s main force, urging him to move faster. “By the Thunderer’s iron fist, what’s the trouble now?” he growled.
“The southrons have galleys carrying catapults in the Franklin River, sir,” the rider answered. “They’re heading toward the bridge. If they land a couple of firepots on it before you get across, you’ll be stuck on this side of the river.”
Ned of the Forest had never yet reckoned himself stuck. He was confident he could handle whatever trouble the southrons gave him, if he had to by ordering his men to disperse and to reassemble somewhere else. He said, “Doesn’t Bell have his own engines up near the bridge to keep it safe?”
“Yes, sir,” the courier told him. “But you never can tell.”
That was altogether too true. You never could tell. And, where Bell was concerned, you might worry not just about whether things could go wrong, but about how they could go wrong. With an angry mutter, Ned said, “All right, then. Don’t fret yourself, sonny boy. We’ll step lively.”
He came to the southern bank of the Franklin a day and a half later, making better time than even he’d expected. Looking up the river, he saw no sign of southron war galleys. He did see, on the far bank, engines lined up wheel to wheel. Here, Bell hadn’t blundered.
“Get moving!” he called to the men under his command. “Let’s put the river between us and the bastards on our heels.”
Those bastards were starting to nip close again-but not close enough. Ned was sure they wouldn’t catch him. Gremio’s footsoldiers crossed over to the north bank of the Franklin. Wheels rumbling on the planks laid over the pontoons to pave the bridge, Watson’s engines and the supply wagons followed. Last came Lieutenant General Ned’s troopers, and last of all came Ned of the Forest himself.
As soon as he reached the northern bank of the river, a couple of Bell’s men set a firepot on the bridge. The pot began to burn. A moment later, so did the bridge. The Army of Franklin, or what remained of it, wended its way north and east, into Great River Province.
John the Lister saw the great column of black smoke rising into the sky from a couple of miles away. He knew what it had to mean. Cursing, he spurred his unicorn forward, toward the Franklin River.
He got to the river too late. He’d known he would be too late even as he set spurs to the flanks of his mount. He would have been too late even if he hadn’t had to delay because columns of footsoldiers and unicorn-riders and prisoners wouldn’t get out of his way as fast as he wanted them to. Having to squeeze through them did nothing to make his curses any less sulfurous, though.
Sure enough, the pontoon bridge by which the Army of Franklin had crossed was engulfed in flames, far beyond the hope of any man’s quenching it. Not even an opportune storm would save it now. And the Franklin was a formidable river, wide and swift and, now, swollen like so many other streams by the winter rains. On the far bank, most of the northerners had gone their way, but a few, tiny in the distance, still moved about on foot and on unicornback. One of them, a mounted officer, waved mockingly to the southrons on the opposite side of the river.