“Thank you kindly, Colonel,” Gremio called to the rider who looked to be in charge of the detachment.
“You’re welcome,” the other officer answered, touching the brim of his hat. “Nice to know not quite everything’s gone to hells in a handbasket, isn’t it?”
“Not quite is about the size of it, I’m afraid,” Gremio said. “Do you knew where, or even if, the army is going to make some real stand?”
The colonel of unicorn-riders shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. Wish I did.”
“Colonel Biffle! Colonel Biffle, sir!” A rider hurried up to the officer, and reined in. He pointed off to the west. “More footsoldiers in trouble over there, sir.”
With a weary sigh, Colonel Biffle nodded. “Well, let’s see if we can’t get ’em out of it, then.” He tipped his hat to Gremio again. “Nice talking with you, Captain. Sorry I can’t stay longer. Good luck.” He rode off, followed by his men.
Colonel Florizel limped over to Gremio. “Still here, I see.”
“Same to you, sir,” Gremio replied.
“Oh, yes. Still here.” Florizel shrugged wearily. “For how much longer, though, who knows? They’ve whipped us right and proper this time.”
“Yes, sir.” Gremio admitted what he could hardly deny. “How do we go on after… this? How can we go on after… this?”
“I have no idea,” Florizel answered. “All I know is, nobody’s ordered me to throw down my sword. Till someone does, I’m still in the fight. Until King Geoffrey has to give up, if he ever does, he’s still in the fight. So we’ve got to keep grinding away, see what happens next, and hope it’s something good.”
He’s a simple man, Gremio thought, not for the first time. Here, though, Florizel’s simplicity amounted to strength. The wing commander didn’t worry about what he couldn’t help. He kept his mind on his own job, and did that as well as he could. Anything else? Anything else was-simply-beyond his ken, and he didn’t dwell on it. Gremio wished he could ignore the world falling to pieces around him as well as his superior managed the trick.
“If we can use a couple of more rear-guard actions to get some separation between our main force-” Florizel began.
“You mean, the biggest mob of soldiers running away,” Gremio broke in.
Florizel only nodded. He didn’t even bother quarreling about the way Gremio put it. “If we can get some separation,” he went on, “we can salvage something from the ruins, anyhow: an army that can keep Doubting George from marching all the way through Dothan to Shell Bay the way Hesmucet’s marching through Peachtree.”
“Maybe,” Gremio said, though he wasn’t sure the Army of Franklin could have done that even before the southrons smashed it to bits. It certainly would have had a better chance then; he couldn’t deny that, either.
“Gods damn it, we’re free Detinans,” Florizel said, as if Gremio had claimed they were blond serfs. “I’d sooner die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“Yes, sir,” Gremio said. “But I’d sooner live on my feet, if I possibly can.”
Florizel considered that. By the startled look on his face, it hadn’t occurred to him up till now. After more than a little thought, he nodded. “Yes, that would be best, wouldn’t it? It would if we could manage it, I mean. I don’t know how we’re going to.”
“We have to get away from the southrons.” Gremio preferred not to mention that only a little while before he’d almost surrendered to Doubting George’s men. Florizel didn’t need to know that. It hadn’t happened, and now-maybe-it wouldn’t. Gremio dared hope, anyhow.
But even if they did get back up to Dothan or Great River Province, what could they do then? Precious little, not after the losses they’d taken. For years, the Army of Franklin had been the heart of King Geoffrey’s power here in the east. Now it was broken, and so was that power. How could it be revived? Could it be revived? Gremio didn’t know. He shook his head. No, that wasn’t true. He did know. He just didn’t care to think about what he knew.
For as long as Lieutenant General Bell could, he looked on the second day’s fighting in front of Ramblerton much as he had on the first day’s: the southrons had pushed his men hard, but he’d held his lines together even if he had had to give some ground.
The night before, though, his wing commanders and Ned of the Forest had agreed with him, or at least not disagreed too loudly. None of them had quarreled with his intention of inviting the second day of battle. None of them had seen any better choices available to the Army of Franklin. Tonight, though… tonight, the wing commanders and Ned didn’t wait to be summoned. They sought Bell out in the pavilion he’d run up when he couldn’t find a farmhouse as night fell.
One word came from all the officers: disaster. “Sir, my wing was attacked from front, rear, and flank all at the same time,” Stephen the Pickle said. “Those gods-damned southron unicorn-riders with their quick-shooting crossbows…” He shuddered. “We didn’t break, not in any ordinary sense of the word. They tore us to shreds. Not much of what was the left is left.”
“Or of the center,” Benjamin the Heated Ham said. “The southrons tore us to pieces, too, from the front and then from the flank when the left retreated.” He nodded to Stephen. “Seeing what happened to it, I don’t know how it could have done anything but retreat.”
Bell turned to Florizel. “And you, Colonel? What have you got to say?” He’d expected the least from Florizel. He’d got the most. A fair part of Florizel’s wing remained in good fighting trim-or as good as any in the Army of Franklin.
“Well, sir,” Florizel answered, “we thought the hardest blows would fall on us, and I’d say we got the softest. That’s why we’re not in such dreadful shape-compared to the other wings, I mean.”
Even there, a knife. He’d expected to take the hardest blows because Bell had said they would fall on the right. But Bell had been mistaken. Did Florizel also think he’d been mistaken elsewhere in the campaign? The general commanding bristled. He didn’t believe that, regardless of whether anyone else did.
“Question now is, how do we pick up the pieces? If we can, I mean,” Ned of the Forest said.
“What have we got to pick up?” Stephen the Pickle asked sourly. “We left most of the pieces on the field.”
“That is not so,” Bell declared. “The Army of Franklin remains in being. It remains a fighting force.”
No one contradicted him. He found himself wishing somebody would have. The chilling silence from Ned of the Forest and the wing commanders hurt worse than any argument could have done. The officers just stood in poses of weary dismay. They didn’t bother quarreling with him. It was as if they were beyond quarreling, as if the catastrophe was too obvious to need any more quarrels.
In what was, for him, an unwontedly small voice, Lieutenant General Bell asked, “What do we do tomorrow?”
“Fall back.” Two wing commanders and Ned said the same thing at the same time. Ned added, “The southrons will be coming after us with everything they’ve got. With all those unicorn-riders and their quick-shooting crossbows and with their swarm of footsoldiers, they’ve got a lot. They’re going to want to finish us off. Unless we scoot, they’ll do it, too.”
“Can’t we stop them?” Bell said in dismay. “If we take a strong defensive position and force them to come at us-”
“They’ll roll right over us,” Benjamin the Heated Ham broke in. All the other officers nodded somber agreement.
Ned added, “That ‘pick a good place and make ’em come at us’-that’ll do for rear-guard actions. We’ll have to fight a lot of ’em, I reckon, to keep the southrons off our main body. If we can.”