“How dare you act like cowards?” Bell retorted, which might have been a new firepot bursting among his subordinates. Ned of the Forest stamped away, throwing up his hands in disgust.
John of Barsoom cried, “At least have the decency to tell us why you’re sending us off to be slaughtered.”
“I will tell you exactly why,” Bell said in tones of ice. “I have made the discovery that this army, after a forward march of more than one hundred fifty miles, is still seemingly unwilling to accept battle unless under the protection of breastworks, and this has caused me to experience grave concern. In my inmost heart I question whether or not I will ever succeed in eradicating this evil. It seems to me I have exhausted every means in the power of one man to remove this stumbling block from the Army of Franklin.”
“Meaning no disrespect, sir, but it seems to me you don’t know what the hells you’re talking about,” Benjamin the Heated Ham said.
Bell wondered how he would have spoken had he meant disrespect. The commanding general gave one of his one-shouldered shrugs. “I do not care how it seems to you,” he said, his voice even colder than it had been a moment before. “It seems to me that some of my subordinates have a great deal to learn about obeying orders.”
“It seems to me somebody has a deal to learn about giving orders,” Otho the Troll muttered.
“What’s that? What’s that?” Bell said. “By the Lion God’s claws, King Geoffrey trusts me to give orders for the Army of Franklin. That’s the truth, and anybody who doesn’t like it can go to the devils!”
“King Geoffrey trusted Thraxton the Braggart to give orders for this army, too,” Otho the Troll snapped. “Fat lot of good that did us.”
“If I report that to his Majesty, you’ll be sorry for it,” Bell said.
“I’m already sorry for all sorts of things. What’s one more?” Brigadier Otho waved toward the southrons’ lines. “Besides, if we go up against that, how many of us are coming back, anyhow?”
“We’re not planning on coming back. We’re planning on going through the gods-damned southrons and on to Ramblerton,” Bell said.
None of the assembled brigade and wing commanders said a word. The silence seemed to take on a life of its own. Bell’s stump hurt. His right leg hurt, too, though he had no right leg. His ruined left arm was also full of anguish. He longed for laudanum. Taking it here and now, though, taking it in front of his brigadiers, would be an obscure admission of weakness and defeat.
Instead of using the drug he craved, he tried to hearten himself and his officers with hope: “By the gods, we can do this. We outnumber them. We’ll roll over them like an avalanche.”
More silence, colder than the late autumn afternoon. Lieutenant General Bell’s wounds throbbed and burned worse than ever. Of itself, his good hand again started toward the little bottle he always carried with him. He made it hold stilclass="underline" far from the easiest thing he’d ever done.
“Well,” he said at last. Again, silence all around him. He stood as straight as he could. “Well,” he said again. It seemed a complete sentence. In case it wasn’t, he spoke once more: “I have given you your orders, gentlemen. I expect you to show me what manner of men you are in the way you obey them.”
Mechanical as if they were so many machines stamped out by the manufactories of the south, the wing and brigade commanders saluted. Still, though, not one of them spoke to Bell.
He didn’t care. He was past caring. He was as sure of what wanted doing as if the Lion God had growled the plan into his ear. “We will go forward,” he said. “Brigadier Patrick!”
Directly addressed, Patrick had no choice but to answer. Saluting once more, he said, “Yes, sir?”
“Do you see the path there, the one going through the field toward the center of the enemy line?”
“Yes, sir. I see it, sir.” Patrick the Cleaver was offensively polite.
Bell matched him in fussy precision: “Good. Form your men to the right of the path, letting your left overlap the same. Give orders to your soldiers not to shoot a crossbow bolt until you run the southron skirmish line out of the first line of works, then press them and shoot them in the back as they run to their main line. Then charge the enemy’s works. Poor Richard is the key to Ramblerton, and Ramblerton is the key to independence.”
Patrick the Cleaver smiled grimly. “Sure and you have given me the hottest part of the fire to quell, your honor. Well, that is as it is, and no help for it. I will take the southrons’ works for you, sir, or I will die trying.” His salute was, of its kind, a thing of beauty. He turned and walked over to his unicorn, which was tethered to a nearby oak: no doubt a splendid tree in summer, but bare-branched and skeletal now. Mounting with a grace that roused nothing but envy in Lieutenant General Bell, Patrick rode off to the soldiers he commanded.
Did I put his men in the most dangerous position on purpose, because he has caused me so much trouble? Bell wondered. After a few seconds, he shrugged another of his painful, one-shouldered shrugs. What if I did? Someone has to be there, and Patrick the Cleaver has never been a man to shrink from striking a mighty blow. We need a mighty blow right now. He nodded to himself. If he’d ever had any serious doubts, that stifled them.
One by one, the other wing and brigade commanders straggled off toward their soldiers, some riding, others walking. Those who stayed on foot all went with bowed heads and stooped shoulders, as if trying to bear the weight of the world on their backs. They did not look like officers heading into a battle for which they were eager. Bell had seen many such officers in the early days of the war. Up till the battle by the River of Death and his second maiming, he’d been such an officer. He didn’t think many of that sort were left in King Geoffrey’s army.
A victory will make more, he told himself. We have to have a victory. Because we have to have one, we’ll get one. It’s as simple as that.
Last of the subordinate commanders to stay by Bell was Benjamin the Heated Ham. He looked as gloomy as any of the other brigadiers. “Are you sure you want to do this, sir?” he asked. “Are you sure we’ve got men and engines enough to do the job?”
The soldiers were starting to shake themselves out into a battle line. “I am sending everything I have,” Bell answered. “What more can I do? What more can Geoffrey’s kingdom do? If everyone gives all he has, our victory will be assured.”
Benjamin still looked as mournful as a man planning his own cremation. He said, “Yes, sir,” in a way that couldn’t possibly mean anything but, No, sir. Then, shaking his head, he too went off to command his wing.
Bell stroked his beard, deep in thought. Where to get more men? All his soldiers were here, all except those riding off for that trip around the southrons’ flank with Ned of the Forest. “By the Thunderer!” Bell exclaimed, and shouted for a messenger.
“Yes, sir?” the young man said.
“Ride after Lieutenant General Ned,” Bell told him. “Kill your unicorn if you have to, but catch up with him. Tell him I am recalling two of his regiments. They are to report back here to me at once, for direct use against Poor Richard. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the messenger said again, and repeated it to him.
“Good-you do have it straight. Now go, and ride like the wind,” Bell said. Nodding, the messenger dashed to his unicorn, sprang aboard, roweled it with his spurs, and went off like a crossbow quarrel. Bell nodded. That would take care of that. Ned might grumble, but Bell was prepared to ignore grumbling. He commanded here, and the fight came first.
More long files of northern soldiers moved out over the field, forming themselves into a battle line. Their brave standards, red dragon proud on gold, fluttered in the chilly breeze. For all the carping and whining and grumbling Bell had heard from his brigadiers, the men complained not at all. They knew they had a job to do, and they were ready to give it everything they had in them.