“No, no, no, no.” Joseph the Gamecock shook his head. “If we attack, we should put all our force, all our spirit, into it. Otherwise, we might as well not do it at all.” He swung his gaze back toward Bell. “Lieutenant General!”
“Yes, sir!” Bell said loudly.
“If you make this probing attack of yours and discover the enemy before you is weak, will you advance against him at all hazards?”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” Bell replied.
“All right, then,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Go ahead and do it. If the foe proves as weak as I expect, put everything you have into the blow.”
“Yes, sir,” Bell said for the third time. “If I may make so bold as to tell you, sir, you don’t need to say that to me.”
“All right,” Joseph said, also repeating himself. “I know you strike hard when you strike. I hadn’t thought getting you to strike would be so much trouble, though.” He pointed to Roast-Beef William and Leonidas the Priest in turn. “Have your men ready to move, too. If Bell’s attack shows the southrons to be as weak as I think they are, I’ll want to hit them every which way at once.”
“Yes, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. He would obey without complaining and without making anyone feel he was doing him a favor.
“Yes, sir,” Leonidas the Priest echoed. He wasn’t happy about it, and he didn’t care who knew he wasn’t happy.
Bell just nodded and made his slow way back to the buggy. He felt Joseph the Gamecock’s eyes boring into him every step of the way, but didn’t turn around to look at the commanding general. When he returned to his own smooth-floored headquarters, he sent runners to the brigades under his command, ordering them to ready themselves for battle.
“What’s going on, sir?” Major Zibeon asked.
Briefly, Bell explained. “This isn’t the best time or place for the attack,” he finished, “but I must obey.”
Zibeon nodded. “It may not be so bad as you think, sir,” he said, something like enthusiasm on his usually sour face. “If Hesmucet really has detached some large part of his force for a flanking attack, we can punish the rest before the detached portion is able to come to its rescue.”
“That is also Joseph the Gamecock’s theory,” Bell said. “How it will turn out in practice remains to be seen.”
“I know you’ve been eager to attack, sir,” his aide-de-camp said. “Now Count Joseph is giving you your chance.”
I don’t want Joseph giving me anything, Bell thought. I want to take for myself, and to do it with both hands. But he couldn’t explain that to Zibeon; he didn’t know where the major’s ultimate loyalty lay. “I intend to do everything I can,” he said, and thought he was telling the truth. Some of it, anyhow.
As Joseph had ordered, he sent his men forward against the southrons at first light the next morning. He went forward, too, tied onto his unicorn. He’d never yet ordered soldiers to advance without advancing at their head. He had no intention of changing his ways because he was mutilated, either. Major Zibeon did ride at his side, and that was a change-before his wounds, no one would have presumed to do any such thing.
As they pushed toward the main body of the southrons, they overran a few pickets and sentries and scouts wearing gray. A few others escaped and fled toward their encampment. “So far, so good,” Zibeon said.
“Yes, so far.” Lieutenant General Bell sounded suspicious. “I only hope we’re not moving forward into a trap.”
“Not much to trap us with, sir.” His aide-de-camp waved to show what he meant. “Nothing but flat land except for those trees off to our left, and there aren’t enough of them to hide anything very big.”
“May the Lion God prove you right,” Bell said piously. “I still think the southrons could cause us trouble if-”
Before he could go on, southron unicorn-riders galloped forth to challenge his host, which had advanced about a mile. Some of them shot crossbows at Bell’s men. The rest served a handful of catapults on wheeled carriages. They flung a few firepots and shot long darts. Northerners who were hit cried out in pain.
Bell’s eyes kept going to those trees on the flank. “I think they’ve got more engines hidden away in there,” he said nervously. “We’d better not go any farther, or the shots from the flank will tear us to pieces.”
“Sir, I don’t think you’re right,” Major Zibeon said, “and even if you are, we can send men over there to clear them out.”
“No, my mind’s made up,” Bell said. “We’re going back to camp. I think Hesmucet’s just lying in wait for us, and to the seven hells with me if I’ll give him a victory on the cheap.” He shouted for his trumpeters and ordered a withdrawal. Joseph the Gamecock had ordered a probe, and he’d given Joseph that much. He had no intention of giving the commanding general anything more.
Colonel Andy eyed the retreating northerners in some perplexity. “Why are they falling back?” he asked Lieutenant General George. “They might have done us a lot of harm if they’d kept coming.”
“If I knew, I would tell you,” Doubting George answered. “I’ll tell you this, though: you’re not wrong. We just dodged a crossbow quarrel there.”
“Yes, sir,” his adjutant agreed. “They came forward bold as you please, and in some numbers, too. You wouldn’t have thought they had that much zing left in ’em.”
“It doesn’t do to count the northerners as licked too soon,” George said. “General Guildenstern did that, and look what it got him.”
“A command out on the eastern steppe fighting the blond savages.” Colonel Andy shuddered. “No, thanks. That isn’t what I want to have happen to my career.”
“That isn’t what anybody wants to have happen to his career,” George said. “It’s all very well when it’s the only game in town, when we’re at peace everywhere else. But when there’s a real war to be fought, you’d better do everything you can to fight it.”
“Isn’t that the truth!” Colonel Andy said fervently. He was a colonel because of the war. As soon as it ended, he would return to his permanent captain’s rank-and, very likely, to a dusty fortress out on the steppe. Doubting George’s own prospects were rather better; he was a permanent brigadier as well as a brevet lieutenant general. But the battle to get a decent post once the fight with King Geoffrey’s men was over might well prove as fierce as any struggle in this conflict.
It could be worse, he thought. When the war was over and won-if it was to be won-the officers who’d abandoned Detina and King Avram for treason and Grand Duke Geoffrey would, George assumed, be out of the army for good. He also assumed a good many of them would go up on crosses for abandoning Detina, but that would be King Avram’s decision, not his.
He called for a runner. When one of the young messengers came up, he said, “My compliments to General Hesmucet, and the northerners’ attack appears to have fizzled out like a candle using up the last of its tallow. We can strike at the enemy here, if he likes, to keep Joseph the Gamecock from shifting forces to meet our latest flanking move. Repeat that back, if you’d be so kind.”
“Yes, sir,” the messenger said, and did. At Doubting George’s nod, he hurried away.
Hesmucet himself came riding back to George before the messenger returned. The commanding general looked over the ground. “Do you know what, Lieutenant General?” he said.
“No, sir. Tell me what,” George said gravely.
“I’ll do just that,” Hesmucet said. “Here’s what: you’re a lucky son of a bitch. We’re all lucky sons of bitches. If the traitors had pressed that attack, you might’ve been in a peck of trouble.”
“That thought did cross my mind, yes, sir,” George said. “But Lieutenant General Bell started to come at us and then seemed as though he changed his mind with his move half begun. Peculiar.”