Dismounted soldiers in gray came up in the same irregular way as Ned’s own troopers. Ned recognized it at once, recognized it and didn’t like it. The southrons weren’t supposed to fight as dragoons, and weren’t supposed to look as if they knew what they were doing when they did. Ned also recognized what Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men were up to. If they could get close enough to Watson’s engines to reach them with their crossbows, they could pick off the soldiers serving the engines. Yes, they knew what they were doing as dragoons, all right.
“Well, gods damn them, let’s see how they like this,” he growled, and spurred his unicorn toward them. If he killed a couple, the rest might run away. He’d seen that happen before.
He didn’t see it this time. He didn’t see the crossbow quarrels buzzing past his head, either. They were going too fast for that. He didn’t see them, but he heard them. They sounded like a swarm of angry wasps. For a moment, he thought a big repeating crossbow had decided to open up on him alone, an honor he could have done without.
Then he realized it wasn’t one big repeating crossbow, but a lot of quick-shooting weapons in the hands of southron troopers. They seemed to be crank- and lever-operated and to shoot ten-bolt clips, and they put more quarrels in the air than anything he’d ever imagined. One tugged at the brim of his hat. A couple of inches to one side and it would have hit him in the face.
Another bolt glanced off his blade, sending a shiver up his left arm. And another caught his unicorn in the neck. The beast’s scream of pain turned to a gurgle. It staggered, stumbled, toppled.
Were this Ned’s first unicorn lost in battle, he might have been badly hurt. But, having had so many mounts killed under him, he knew what to do. He kicked free of the stirrups even before the unicorn went down. When it did, he rolled away instead of getting crushed beneath its body. And then he was on his feet and running forward, shouting, “Come on, boys! Let’s get ’em!”
On came his riders, all of them roaring like the Lion God: the fierce northern war cry that struck fear into southron souls. They shot as they advanced, too. Ned of the Forest didn’t believe in closing with the sword as the be-all and end-all of battles. If crossbow quarrels would kill the foe, that was fine with him. That the southrons ended up dead mattered. How they ended up that way didn’t.
Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men were still shooting, too, shooting as if they’d brought all the bolts in the world with them. More quarrels hissed past Ned’s head. One snipped a slice from his sleeve. It might have been a friend, pulling on his arm to urge him to go that way. It might have been, but it wasn’t.
And he was one of the lucky ones. All around him, dismounted unicorn-riders in blue fell. The cries of the wounded echoed through Folly-free Gap. He wondered how the place had got that name. However that had happened, it was badly miscalled. Trying to force his way through was turning out to be nothing but folly.
“How many of those southron sons of bitches are there?” a trooper howled after two quarrels buried themselves in the dirt at his feet and a third snarled by his body.
“And how long can they keep shooting those gods-damned crossbows of theirs?” another soldier complained.
“Don’t you know about that?” asked a third, who at least wasn’t disheartened. “They load ’em on the day they sacrifice to the Lion God and keep shooting ’em all week long.”
Ned of the Forest laughed. He would have laughed harder if the soldier hadn’t told too much of the truth in sour jest. The enemy’s quick-shooting crossbows made him seem to have at least three times as many soldiers as he really did. Since he probably outnumbered Ned’s men anyway, that just made matters worse.
To the hells with Lieutenant General Bell, too, Ned thought angrily. He might have had some chance in spite of those fancy crossbows if he’d had his whole force along. With only half of it? He shook his head. Barring a miracle, it wasn’t going to happen, and the gods had been chary about handing the north miracles lately.
Then Ned shook his head again. There was a miracle, or what would do for one: Colonel Biffle remained on his unicorn and unwounded, though he was even closer to the enemy than Ned. He kept urging his men on. They would surge forward, whereupon a blizzard of bolts would knock them back till they could nerve themselves for another surge.
Ned looked for Major Marmaduke. Maybe magic would help. But Marmaduke was down with a quarrel in his shoulder; a soldier stooped beside him to bind up the wound. There would be no fancy wizardry today, even if Marmaduke had had such a thing in him, which was anything but obvious.
Spying Ned, Biffle called, “We can’t do it, sir, not the way they’re shooting.”
Before Ned could answer, a bolt plucked the hat off his head. Calm as if no one were taking aim at him, he turned, stooped, picked it up, and set it back in place. “If we get in amongst ’em-”
“How?” Colonel Biffle asked bluntly.
Ned started to reply, but realized he had nothing to say. His men were not going to get in amongst the southrons, not with the enemy spraying so many quarrels all over the landscape. He’d been in a lot of hard fights in more than three years of war, but this was the first time he’d had to own himself whipped. Pain and wonder in his voice, he said, “What can we do, then, Biff?”
“I only see two things,” Biffle said. “We can hang on here and keep getting shot to no purpose, or we can pull back, maybe see if we can outflank these sons of bitches, maybe just wait and see how Bell does back at Poor Richard and hope that makes them leave the gap on their own.”
“Pull back.” The words tasted foul in Ned’s mouth. But they weren’t going forward here, and they weren’t going to outflank Hard-Riding Jimmy, either.
Folly-free Gap was the only way through the hills. Oh, Ned’s unicorn-riders could filter past a few men at a time, but far too slowly to do them any good. “It’s up to Bell, then,” Ned said, hoping that wasn’t so bad an omen as it seemed.
As Captain Gremio mustered the men of his company along with the rest of Colonel Florizel’s regiment, along with the rest of the wing, Brigadier Patrick the Cleaver came riding up on his unicorn to look over the ground his men would have to cross before closing with the southrons entrenched outside of Poor Richard.
Seeing Patrick’s face, Sergeant Thisbe whistled softly. “He doesn’t look very happy, does he?” the underofficer said in a low voice.
“He sure doesn’t,” Gremio answered, also quietly. Patrick stared toward the waiting field fortifications sheltering John the Lister’s men, then shook his head. His sigh was loud enough to make people thirty or forty paces from him turn and look his way.
Colonel Florizel rode his unicorn out toward Patrick. The young brigadier from the Sapphire Isle reined in. He managed a weary nod for Florizel. The two high-ranking officers spoke together not twenty feet in front of Gremio and Thisbe.
“We must be after doing it, Colonel.” Patrick pointed toward the southrons’ works. “Come what may, we have to take them. There’s to be no shooting till the skirmishers amongst those southron spalpeens flee back to their line. So says the great and mighty Lieutenant General Bell, and he is to be obeyed.”
“I shall so order my company officers, sir,” Florizel said stiffly.
“You do that. They all must know. I’ll not give Bell the least excuse to tell me I would not follow his orders in every particular.” Yes, Patrick sounded weary and gloomy beyond his years.
Florizel also eyed the long, long stretch of ground the northern army would have to cross before closing with John the Lister’s soldiers. He saluted Patrick the Cleaver, then remarked, “Well, sir, there will not be many of us that will get back to Palmetto Province.”