“We are going to have another try at Viper River Gap tomorrow,” Hesmucet told him. “We want to take Caesar away from the traitors. Anything you can do in the sorcerous line would be appreciated.”
Colonel Phineas coughed a couple of loud, formal coughs. “If you could have given us more notice, General, we might well have been able to offer you assistance of a more comprehensive nature.”
“No doubt you’re right, Colonel,” Hesmucet said. “But you will, I trust, understand that war is not a business where we know everything ahead of time. If James the Bird’s Eye had broken into Caesar a couple of days ago, I wouldn’t be worrying about attacking the place now, would I?”
“Most disorderly,” Phineas said disapprovingly. Phineas was good at disapproving of things, less good at approving of them.
Alva said, “Don’t worry, sir. I expect I can come up with something.” He ignored the existence of every other mage in Hesmucet’s army. Considering his strength as compared to that of the other mages, Hesmucet didn’t blame him. Leaning toward the commanding general, he asked, “What have you got in mind, sir? Shall we try scaring the northerners out of their shoes, the way we did at Funnel Hill, or doing something to help our men move forward?”
“Let’s see what we can do to help our side, Major,” Hesmucet answered. “Fine as your spells were at Funnel Hill, they didn’t shift the enemy so much as I would have liked. The northerners are traitors, but they’re Detinans, too, same as we are. They don’t scare easily.”
“Right you are, sir.” Alva was an easygoing fellow, if he deigned to notice you at all. Hesmucet took a certain amount of pride in being able to draw the wizard’s attention. Alva turned to Phineas. “That variation of the befoggery we were talking about the other day…”
“On that scale?” Phineas looked dubious. He often did. The way his face settled into the expression like a fat man sinking into a soft, comfortable hassock proved as much. Shaking his head, he went on, “It’s too much for any one man, yourself included, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, don’t be afraid, sir,” Alva said, which made Phineas splutter and turn red. Alva blithely pushed ahead: “I can set it up and leave parts of it for squadrons of mages to put into operation.”
He casually assumed himself to be worth whole squadrons. By the way Phineas grunted, he assumed Alva was worth them, too, but he didn’t like the idea. “Can you set it up in that fashion?”
“Of course I can.” Now Alva sounded certain, infuriatingly certain. “Same principles of division of labor that go into a well-run manufactory. I create, the others duplicate. Should be easy.” Phineas looked appalled at that. Alva didn’t seem to notice. He turned to Hesmucet. “Do you want to know what we’re talking about, sir?”
“No,” Hesmucet told him. “I want to know what you’ll do, and when. How is your business.” Alva beamed at him. He chuckled, a bit self-consciously. More than half by accident, he’d said the right thing.
Rollant had several extra sheaves of crossbow quarrels clipped to his belt. He was far from the only man in Lieutenant Griff’s company to take such a precaution. Despite that, he wasn’t unduly astonished when Griff singled him out: “Don’t you know that’s contrary to regulations, soldier?”
You wouldn’t pick on me if my hair were black, the escaped serf thought. Aloud, he said, “Yes, sir.” He made no move to divest himself of the extra crossbow bolts. Lieutenant Griff didn’t ask him to, either. The company commander had got it out of his system by complaining. Rollant sighed. Sure enough, he was a lodestone for such gripes.
Trumpets blared. “Come on!” Griff yelled. “Form up! Nobody’s going to say this company doesn’t pull its weight in the regiment.”
So far as Rollant knew, no one had ever said any such thing. Griff always needed something to be unhappy about.
Colonel Nahath, the regimental commander, surveyed his men. “We’re going to break into Caesar, boys. There aren’t enough traitors in front of us to stop us. There aren’t enough traitors in the whole wide world to stop us. We’re good New Eborac men, and there isn’t anything at all in the whole wide world that can stop us.”
The soldiers raised a cheer. Lieutenant Griff added, “Remember, men, we got to the top of Proselytizers’ Rise. If we can do that, may the Thunderer smite me if we can’t do anything.”
Beside Rollant, Smitty murmured, “Oh, he’s right, no doubt about it. All we need is for the northerners to botch another spell, and we’ll just walk into this Caesar place.”
“We can lick the traitors,” Rollant said. That was why he’d taken King Avram’s silver: to hit back at the liege lords who’d held him down just as men with dark hair had held down his ancestors since their ancestors came ashore on the beaches of the Western Ocean.
“Of course we can,” Smitty agreed. “We wouldn’t be up here in Peachtree Province if we couldn’t. But saying the enemy is going to make another mistake and make things easy for us is just a piece of gods-damned foolishness.”
“Quiet in the ranks,” Sergeant Joram growled. He knew what his job was, and he did it.
Nahath spoke again: “We’re going to advance a little slower than usual, because the mages have something special in mind to help us.”
“Gods help us,” Rollant muttered, and Smitty nodded. The northerners were stronger mages than the southrons. Even the botch from Thraxton the Braggart that had panicked his own men on Proselytizers’ Rise was a botch on a scale the southrons wouldn’t have tried to imitate.
More horns screeched. Along with countless other men from Doubting George’s army, Rollant and his comrades advanced on the traitors’ trenches in front of Caesar. Those trenches looked like formidable works-and so, no doubt, they were. Why shouldn’t they be? Rollant thought. Plenty of serfs have spent plenty of sweat on them. Liege lords won’t dig when they’ve got blonds to do it for them.
Men in blue caps and tunics peered out of the trenches at the advancing southrons. Rollant waited for shouts of alarm to ring out. He also waited for firepots and stones to start flying from engines, and for repeating crossbows to start hosing the southrons’ ranks with death.
As he tramped forward, he yanked the bowstring on his crossbow back to the locked position and set a bolt in the groove. All he had to do now was raise the weapon to his shoulder and pull the trigger. Loading without orders went against regulations, too. He didn’t care. Neither did most of the other veterans. Sergeant Joram stalked by. He had a quarrel in the groove of his crossbow, too.
Closer and closer to the enemy lines came the southrons. “Why aren’t they shooting at us?” Smitty demanded. “We’re in range, gods know.”
“Maybe they don’t see us,” Rollant said. “Maybe… maybe our magic really is working.”
Smitty shook his head. “There’s got to be some kind of explanation that makes better sense than that.”
But the northerners kept right on not shooting even after the southrons’ crossbow bolts started landing among them, even after men started falling and crying out in pain from wounds. “What the hells is going on?” Rollant heard a man in blue yell, nothing but confusion in his voice.
And then, either because some traitor mage defeated the southrons’ spell or because the two armies drew too close together for it to hold any more, the northern men in the trenches realized there were indeed foes in front of them. They cried out again, this time in rage and fear. Those whose crossbows were loaded started shooting, but they weren’t so ready as they might have been.