“Catling’s a brave soldier,” Thisbe said. “I’d rather have him hale so he can shoot at the southrons than laid up with a bad leg.”
“You’re too kind and gentle for your own good,” Gremio said. Thisbe’s clean-shaven cheeks made his flush easy to see. Gremio kicked at the mucky ground. Calling a sergeant gentle was bound to embarrass him before the men he was supposed to lead.
“Where in the seven hells are we?” somebody asked. Considering the weather and the landscape, the question seemed more than usually apt.
Precise as always, Gremio answered, “We’re somewhere between Fort Worthless and Konigsburg. Fort Worthless is one of those places that live up to their names ninety-nine years and eleven months a century, but this is its month to shine. We’ve got to keep the stinking southrons from getting there till the army finishes pulling out of Whole Mackerel.”
“When the southrons find themselves a real wizard, you know the war isn’t what we expected when we started fighting it,” Thisbe said.
“That’s so,” Gremio agreed, “but a real wizard isn’t always just what you want. We had Thraxton the Braggart, for instance, but I’m just as well pleased he’s gone off to Nonesuch. He cost us the battle of Proselytizers’ Rise.”
“He cost us that battle a couple of different ways,” Thisbe said. “It wasn’t just that he botched the spell, though that was bad enough. But he sent James of Broadpath off to the southwest to attack Wesleyton while the southrons in Rising Rock were building up their strength. What sort of fool would do such a thing?”
“A sour one,” Gremio answered. “He’d quarreled with James-he’d quarreled with everybody, I think-and so he sent him away. Thraxton’s bad temper is why we haven’t got Ned of the Forest leading our unicorn-riders, too. We’ll end up paying a price for that along with everything else, I’d bet.”
They splashed across another stream. Turtles and frogs sitting on rocks dove into the water and frantically swam away. One luckless frog jumped almost right into a water snake’s mouth. The snake swam over and gulped. Gremio wondered uneasily if crocodiles lurked in the water, too. He hoped he and his men wouldn’t find out the hard way.
“How far is it up to Calabash Creek, sir?” Thisbe asked.
“To the seven hells with me if I know, Sergeant,” Gremio said. “I don’t know how far we’ve come-I don’t see how anybody could know how far we’ve come, considering how these roads all seem to bend back on themselves. And I don’t know how far this creek is from where we encamped. For all I do know, that miserable little rill we just crossed was it, and we’re heading straight for the southrons at Konigsburg.”
“We’d better not be,” Thisbe said.
“I don’t know why not,” Gremio said. “One thing I am sure of is that the southrons have to be as confused about all this as we are. If they’re supposed to be at Konigsburg, they’re probably somewhere else.”
“But we’re ordered to take our stand on the west bank of Calabash Creek and not let them advance on Fort Worthless.” Sergeant Thisbe sounded worried. He took orders very seriously, which made him unusual among free Detinan men. You can’t tell me what to do was one of the most common phrases in any Detinan’s mouth.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gremio said. “Sooner or later, we’ll find them, or they’ll find us, and then we’ll see what happens next.”
What he expected would happen next was for both sides to entrench as best they could in this muddy ground and then shoot crossbow quarrels at each other. The landscape didn’t offer room enough for big, sweeping charges. Not only that, both sides were less eager to make them than they had been earlier in the war. Big, sweeping charges left bodies strewn all over a battlefield, but rarely shifted the enemy if he’d already had time to dig in.
Colonel Florizel’s regiment found the foe before finding Calabash Creek. Startled shouts rang out ahead of Gremio’s company: “Southrons!” “Traitors!” Each side seemed equally appalled at stumbling on the other.
A crossbow bolt hissed past Gremio’s head. He had no idea whether his own men or the southrons had shot it. “Forward!” he shouted. “We have to help our friends!” He was an officer, and bore a sword instead of a crossbow. When he drew it, he knew a certain feeling of unreality. As a barrister back in Karlsburg, he hadn’t used a blade. Baron Ormerod, who’d led the company before him, had been a good man with his hands-which hadn’t kept him from stopping a bolt with his chest trying to stem the northern rout behind Proselytizers’ Rise.
“Forward!” Sergeant Thisbe’s clear voice echoed his. Forward the soldiers went. They’d never been shy about fighting-only the southrons’ numbers had kept them in their entrenchments through most of this campaign. Now they had, or might have, a good chance to meet the enemy on even terms. They rushed to take it.
The fight was even more confused than the woodland skirmishes before the battle by the River of Death. The overgrowth was thicker and lusher than it had been farther south; as soon as men took a few steps off the track, they had to navigate as much by ear as by eye. “Geoffrey!” the northerners cried. The southerners yelled, “Avram!” And both sides shouted, “Freedom!”-a good way to land anyone coming to what might be the rescue in trouble.
Gremio almost ran right into a southron. The man in gray shouted something a lot less complimentary than, “Avram!” and let fly with his crossbow. He couldn’t have stood more than five feet from Gremio, but missed anyhow. Gremio had no time even to thank the gods for his good luck. He charged at the southron, expecting the man to flee.
Instead, the enemy soldier threw down the crossbow, drew his shortsword, and slashed at Gremio. With his own, longer, officer’s weapon, Gremio had no trouble holding off the southron, but he couldn’t finish him. Then a crossbow quarrel caught the southron in the thigh. As he howled and crumpled and clutched at himself, Gremio lunged forward and stabbed him. The southron’s howl became a bubbling shriek. Gremio wasn’t particularly proud of the victory, but a victory it was.
“Forward!” he yelled again. The southrons were storming forward themselves. On this overgrown battlefield, who had the most men close by was anyone’s guess. Over in Parthenia, there’d been a fight in what people called the Jungle. Gremio had his doubts about what kind of place that really was, and whether it deserved its name. Here, though, here was jungle and no mistake.
Suddenly, without warning, gray-clad pikemen slammed into Colonel Florizel’s regiment. In this overgrowth, where crossbow bolts were much less effective than in open country, the southrons with their long spears were a deadly menace.
“Avram!” one of them shouted, bearing down on Gremio. “Avram and freedom!”
“Geoffrey!” Gremio yelled in return. He chopped at the enemy’s spearshaft just below the head, hoping to cut it off and leave the southron with nothing more than a pole. But a clever southron armorer had nailed a strip of iron to the spearshaft to keep a sword from doing any such thing. Gremio beat the spearshaft aside and kept himself from getting spitted, but that was all he could do.
Then, recklessly brave, Sergeant Thisbe grabbed the spearshaft. Gremio rushed at the southron. Unexpectedly deprived of the use of this weapon, he let go of it and ran away. “Are you all right?” Gremio asked Thisbe.
“Sure am,” Thisbe answered. The sergeant reversed the spear, then shook his head. “I wasn’t trained on one of these boarstickers. If I tried to use it, I’d get myself killed quick. You know what to do with it, Captain?”
Gremio shook his head. “Not me. Back before the war, if I wanted to kill a man, I’d use a writ, not a spear.”
“That’s funny.” Thisbe grinned, then threw the pike on the ground. “Are we winning or losing?”
“Probably,” Gremio answered, which jerked another grin from the sergeant. The company commander went on, “I wonder how many nasty little fights like this one are happening all over this part of Peachtree.”