“I don’t damage my honor. You-the lot of you-damaged my honor,” Bell insisted. “If you’d only done what I told you to do, we would be celebrating an enormous victory right now. Instead, we have-this.” He gestured in disgust. “You are dismissed, every single one of you. I wish I never had to see any of you ever again. The gods don’t grant all wishes-I know that.”
“Were you after calling us together for no better purpose than to be railing at us like your Excellency was a crazy man?” Patrick the Cleaver asked. “A bad business that is, a very bad business indeed.”
Bell could at the moment think of no better purpose than the one Patrick had named. If the officer from the Sapphire Isle didn’t agree with him-well, too bad for Patrick the Cleaver. “You are dismissed,” Bell said again. “Get out of my sight, before I murder you all.”
He couldn’t make good on the threat. He knew that. His subordinate commanders had to know it, too. But if his look could have stretched them all dead on their pyres, it would have. They had to know that, too. By the way they hurried off, they feared his glare might strike them dead.
He took yet another swig of laudanum after they were gone. He hoped it would make him fall over. Again, no such luck. It didn’t even quell his fury. All it did was make him a little woozy, a little sleepy. He heaved himself to his feet: no easy job, not with a missing leg and a useless arm. Laudanum or no laudanum, sticking a crutch in his left armpit brought a stab of pain. He welcomed it like an old friend; being without pain, these days, felt unnatural.
He pushed his way out through the tent flap. The sentries guarding the pavilion stiffened to attention. They saluted. General Bell nodded in reply; returning a salute while he was on his feet-on his foot, rather-wasn’t easy.
The Army of Franklin was encamped not far from the road down which John the Lister’s southrons had escaped. Healers still worked on some of the men who’d been wounded in the skirmishes of the day before. Bell growled something under his breath and ground his teeth. His army shouldn’t have skirmished with the southrons. It should have crushed them.
One of the sentries pointed north. The motion swung Bell’s eyes in that direction, too. The soldier said, “Looks like Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders are coming in, sir.”
“Yes, it does,” Bell said. “I wish they’d been here yesterday. Say what you will about Ned, but he knows how to fight, which is more than most of the useless, worthless officers in this miserable, gods-forsaken army can do.”
Prudently, the sentry didn’t answer.
Before long, Ned’s men were pitching their tents and building campfires next to those of the footsoldiers in the Army of Franklin. Ned of the Forest himself rode toward Lieutenant General Bell’s pavilion. He swung down from his unicorn with an easy grace Bell remembered painfully-and that was indeed the way he remembered it-well. “By the gods, Bell,” Ned cried, striding up to him, “what went wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Bell answered, his bitterness overflowing. “What I know is, I’m surrounded by idiots. I know that right down to the ground.”
“We had ’em,” Ned declared. “We had ’em. All we had to do was bite down on ’em and chew ’em up. Why didn’t we?”
“I wish I could tell you,” Bell said. “I gave the necessary commands. I gave them repeatedly. I gave them, and I saw them ignored. The attack I ordered did not take place. I wish it had.”
“We won’t get another chance like that,” Ned warned.
Lieutenant General Bell nodded. “That, Lieutenant General, I do know. I wish I could cashier every brigade commander in my army, but I can’t, gods damn it.”
“There was a squabble like this here one after the battle by the River of Death,” Ned of the Forest said.
“So I’ve heard,” Bell said. “If I hadn’t been wounded in that fight, I daresay I would have been a part of it.”
“Reckon you’re right,” Ned said. “Thraxton the Braggart wanted to get rid of all of his officers, too, and we all wanted to kill him.” By the way Ned’s hands folded into fists, he meant that literally. Bell remembered stories he’d heard while recovering from his amputation, and what Ned had said not long ago. After a moment, the scowl fading from his face, Ned went on, “Thraxton got his way, on account of he’s pals with King Geoffrey-you’ll know about that, I expect. Thraxton got his way, all right-but the army was never the same again. Meaning no disrespect, sir, but it may be just as well you can’t get rid of ’em all.”
“I find that hard to believe-very hard, as a matter of fact,” Bell said.
“I’m telling you what I think,” Ned of the Forest answered. “If you don’t care for what I think…” He didn’t go on, but something nasty sparked in his eyes. If you don’t care for what I think, to the hells with you, had to be what he meant.
Even full of anger as Bell was, he hesitated before provoking Ned. He shrugged a one-shouldered shrug instead. “Maybe,” he said grudgingly.
“What are you going to do now?” Ned asked, adding, “Sir?” as an afterthought.
“We have to keep moving south,” General Bell answered. “John the Lister got away this time. When I catch him, though, I’ll make him pay.”
“My bet is, he’s heading toward Poor Richard,” Ned said. “I know that part of Franklin-I know it right well.” He spoke with great assurance. He’d fought all across Franklin and Cloviston and Dothan and Great River Province ever since the war began. Without a doubt, he knew them more intimately than most officers could hope to. He went on, “Some places around there, if the southrons dig in, they’ll be mighty hard to dig out.”
“Will John know those places?” Bell asked.
“If he doesn’t, somebody in his force will,” Ned said. “Plenty of traitors wearing southron gray.” To a soldier who followed King Geoffrey, a northerner who stayed loyal to Avram was a traitor. A fair number of men from Franklin and even more from Cloviston had chosen Avram over Geoffrey. They fought their own small, bitter war with Geoffrey’s backers in addition to and alongside of the larger struggle waged between the main armies of the two rival kings.
“Plenty of traitors to good King Geoffrey still in blue,” Bell muttered. “If my commanders had done what they were supposed to-”
Ned of the Forest held up a hand. “Plenty of people-plenty of people with fancy uniforms on-are natural-born fools. I don’t reckon anybody could quarrel with that. But you have to remember, there’s a sight of difference between a natural-born fool and a traitor.”
“Maybe,” Bell said, even more grudgingly than before. “By the Lion God’s claws, though, I wish you’d been at my van and not harassing the southrons’ rear. You’d have blocked the road down to the Trumpeteth River and Poor Richard the way it should have been blocked.”
“I hope I would,” Ned said. “But it takes more than magic to let a man be two places at once. If I hadn’t been harrying the southrons, they could’ve moved quicker, and they might’ve got out of your trap before you could spring it.”
He was right. Bell knew as much. That didn’t make his words any more palatable, though. “Bah!” Bell said: a reply that didn’t require him to admit Ned was right. Realizing he needed something more, he continued, “I trust, Lieutenant General, you will lead the pursuit of the southrons now.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Ned answered. “I’ll send the boys after ’em. I’ll do it right this minute, if you want me to.”
“No, let it wait till the morning,” Bell said. “Your unicorns are worn, and so are my pikemen and crossbowmen. No point to a strong pursuit unless we’re fit to fight.”
“My boys are always fit to fight,” Ned of the Forest declared. “If yours aren’t, too bad for them.” Having had the last word, he got back onto his unicorn and rode away, the beast’s hooves kicking up dirt at each stride.