He shouted for the spyglass again. As he raised it to his right eye, he asked Andy, “What the hells is Bell using to try to hold off Jimmy’s unicorn-riders?”
“How do I know?” Andy replied with more than a little annoyance. “You’re the one with the gods-damned glass, and I haven’t had the chance to look through it.”
“Oh. Yes. That’s right.” Doubting George felt considerable embarrassment. Having considered it, he dismissed it. He wasn’t about to let his adjutant get his hands on the spyglass till he’d had a good long look himself.
Bell had put together some kind of a line to withstand the onslaught of Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers, a line with its back to the rest of the Army of Franklin. Even as George watched, more northerners slipped out of the line facing his footsoldiers and hurried north to try to stop the unicorn-riders. Doubting George cackled like a laying hen.
“What’s so funny, sir?” Andy asked irritably.
Thrusting the spyglass at him, George said, “Here. See for yourself.”
Colonel Andy swept the glass across Bell’s position. Before long, he was cackling, too. “They’re robbing the painter to pay the potter,” he said. “Pretty soon, it’ll be the piper they’re paying.”
“Yes. That did occur to me,” George said. “That surely did occur to me. They’re- Now you’re squawking. What’s going on?”
“Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men just swamped a section of that makeshift line Bell managed to cobble together,” his adjutant replied. “They’re pouring through the gap. To the hells with me if I know what Bell can do to stop ’em.”
“As a matter of fact, he’s doing about as well as he can, considering what he’s up against,” Doubting George said. “He’s in worse shape than we were on Merkle’s Hill, there by the River of Death. We outnumber him worse than the traitors outnumbered us then. I didn’t think he’d even be able to slow down Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers, but he did.”
“And a whole fat lot of good it did him.” Andy pointed. He looked like nothing so much as an excited chipmunk sitting up at the mouth of its burrow. “Look, sir! Just look at that! Now the line he’s holding against our footsoldiers is starting to break up, too! And there go our men, right on through.”
“I told Marshal Bart I could whip Bell,” George said. “I told him so-and I was right, by the Thunderer’s great right hand.”
“Yes, sir.” His adjutant’s voice held awe. “I thought we could beat them, too, but I never thought we’d manage-this.”
“I told Bart I would wait till I was ready, and then I’d hit hard,” George replied. “I did what I said I was going to do-no more, no less-and this is what we got. I don’t know about you, Colonel, but I’ve seen men do more and get less.” Even as he spoke, another chunk of Bell’s line dissolved and disappeared like a lump of sugar in hot tea.
Colonel Andy also noted that. He said, “Sir, for this victory I don’t see how they can help promoting you to lieutenant general of the regulars.”
“Do you know what, Colonel?” Doubting George said. “As a matter of fact, I don’t care if you know or not, since I’m going to tell you. And what I’m going to tell you is, I don’t give a good gods-damn. They should have made me a lieutenant general of the regulars for what I did by the River of Death. They didn’t do it then, and I have a hells of a time caring now.”
A column of muddy, disheveled northern prisoners came stumbling by, the hale helping the wounded along. Grinning soldiers in gray carrying crossbows and pikes herded the captives toward the south. One of the northerners, spotting Doubting George called, “By the gods, General, why didn’t you go and drop an anvil on us, too?”
“What’s that?” George boomed. “What’s that you say? Don’t you think I already went and did it?” The northerner didn’t answer. He just lowered his head and trudged on into captivity.
Before long, more prisoners followed that first column. This time, one of the guards called out to Doubting George: “We’re capturing a hells of a lot of their catapults, too, sir.”
“Good. Good. I like to hear that.” The commanding general turned back to his adjutant. “Let’s see Baron Logan the Black come one inch-one gods-damned inch, do you hear me? — past Cloviston now. By the Lion God’s claws, I swear I’ll clap him in irons if he has the gall to try it.”
“Yes, sir!” Colonel Andy said enthusiastically. “We don’t need anybody but you here in the east.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Doubting George said. “Having a good many thousands of soldiers who know what they’re doing makes my life a lot easier.”
No sooner had those words crossed his lips when a messenger came tearing back to him, shouting, “Sir! Sir! The enemy’s breaking up and running. What do we do, sir?”
Somehow, being confronted by one of his soldiers who didn’t know what he was supposed to do bothered George not in the least, not when the man brought news like that. The general commanding answered, “Chase the sons of bitches! Chase ’em hard. Don’t slow down for anything. Don’t let ’em regroup. Keep pushing ’em till you run the legs right off ’em. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir. We are to pursue vigorously.” Saluting, the messenger dashed back toward the north.
“Pursue vigorously.” The words tasted bad in George’s mouth. The man had squeezed all the juice from the order. But he’d got it right, or right enough.
More prisoners came back. Each time a new column stumbled and staggered past, the guards wore bigger smiles. They understood what was happening, how the battle was going. “We’ve got ’em whipped!” one of them shouted to Doubting George. “They can take provincial prerogative and put it on the pyre, because it’s dead.”
Some of the captured northerners still had spirit left. They jeered and hooted and called out false King Geoffrey’s name. More, though, tramped along with their heads down, glum and dejected and weary. One fellow said, “To the hells with provincial prerogative. Fill my belly full and you can have King Avram, for all of me.”
Doubting George hadn’t heard that very often. He hoped he would hear more of it. Colonel Andy said, “Sir, I really think we’ve broken them.” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe it.
That irritated George. “You don’t need to seem so surprised, Colonel. Did you think this war would go on forever?”
Andy looked startled. “Do you know, sir, I think I almost did.”
“Well, by the gods, it won’t,” George declared. “It is going to end, and we are going to help end it. We are going to take the Army of Franklin and grind it to dust. And when we do, what does Geoffrey, that son of a bitch, have left east of the mountains? Not bloody much, that’s what.”
Even as he spoke, another stretch of Bell’s line, assailed from the front and both flanks, collapsed into a chaos of men running away as fast as they could go or throwing down crossbows and pikes, throwing up their hands, and surrendering. The northern soldiers had done everything a general could reasonably ask of his men. They had, very likely, done more than a general could reasonably ask of his men. In asking a small number of weary, hungry soldiers to beat more than twice as many well-fed, well-rested, well-armed ones, though, Lieutenant General Bell had wanted altogether too much. Now he was-or rather, his men were-paying the price for his asking that of them.
Colonel Andy watched that stretch of line go to pieces, too. “This is… this is what victory feels like, isn’t it? I don’t mean victory in a battle. I mean… victory.” He sounded disbelieving, but he said the word.
Doubting George nodded. “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Colonel. That’s what I’ve been telling anybody who’d listen. Up till now, nobody’s much felt like listening. Not Bart, by the Thunderer’s beard. Some people you’ve just got to show. We’ll, we’ve shown ’em, all right.”