Bell wouldn’t think of such a thing, went through his mind as he mounted his own unicorn and rode off at the head of a column of marchers. If some got there before the rest, he would throw in an attack with what he had and hope the latecomers could support it. No wonder we’re in the state we’re in.
Again, he wished the whole army might have been his. The only answer to that was a shrug of his broad shoulders. What he wished didn’t matter. What King Geoffrey wished did. So the gods had made it. That was what the priests said, at any rate. Roast-Beef William couldn’t help thinking the gods had made some extraordinarily sloppy arrangements for the north.
He peered. He saw no great clouds of smoke rising into the hot, muggy air. Either the southrons hadn’t yet got to Jonestown or no one was in the way to slow them down. He hoped for the former and feared the latter.
When he reached Jonestown, he found with some considerable relief that his hope was fulfilled: the southrons weren’t there yet. But when he sent scouts eastward, probing toward the glideway that led to Dothan and away toward the Great River, those scouts promptly came back, bloodied. “A whole great plenty of them bastards in gray,” was how one of them put it.
Roast-Beef William thought about pushing on regardless. Lieutenant General Bell would have; he was sure of that. To the hells with Lieutenant General Bell, he thought. My orders don’t require me to push on this instant, and I don’t intend to. If Hesmucet and his wing commanders want me, let them come here and try to get me.
“Dig in, men,” he called. “Let’s make sure we have a safe place before we go gallivanting around the landscape.”
By the way his soldiers fell to with spade and pick, they were relieved to get an order like that. They knew the value of earthworks, even if the general commanding the Army of Franklin had yet to figure it out. A trooper with several scars said, “Now we got a nest. If we see our chance, we can fly out. Or we can make those other bastards try and break in.”
“That’s right,” Roast-Beef William said. “That’s just exactly right. As long as the numbers are anywhere close to even, we can keep the southrons off the glideway line and out of Jonestown.”
A tiny alarm bell rang inside his mind. He knew only too well how many men his wing had lost during the fighting south and then west of Marthasville. He didn’t know how many the southrons had lost, only that they hadn’t suffered proportionately. And he knew they’d had more men to begin with, and enjoyed a steady stream of reinforcements. I wish I had the wherewithal General Hesmucet does, he thought enviously. People would reckon me a great soldier, too.
But he couldn’t have that sort of wherewithal, which he also knew only too well. He had to make a few tired men into the equivalent of a host of fresh ones. Earthworks helped. And, if he saw the chance, he would strike out from them, strike toward the glideway line leading east to Dothan and beyond.
Maybe we’ll get it back, he thought. Maybe things will go just right. They have before, every once in a while. But when a man had to count on it… Roast-Beef William grimaced. When a man had to count on it, his kingdom was in trouble.
IX
“Corporal Rollant!” Lieutenant Griff called.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant answered, saluting.
“Take up the standard, Corporal, for we’re moving out soon,” Griff said.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant repeated. After offering the ritual gestures of respect to the company’s banner, he lifted the staff from where it had been thrust into the ground the night before. The company-Colonel Nahath’s whole regiment-was part of General Hesmucet’s great wheeling move against the glideway lines north of Marthasville. Southron soldiers had already overrun the line leading east to Dothan. Southron mages were now busy putting that line out of commission, so that the traitors could get no use from it even if they took it back.
But Rollant didn’t think false King Geoffrey’s men would be able to do anything of the sort. The northerners hadn’t been able to do much to slow down the great wheel. If they couldn’t manage that, how would they make the southrons retreat?
“Jonestown coming up,” Smitty said around a yawn. He didn’t seem ready for another day’s march.
“Jonestown!” Rollant snapped his fingers. “That’s the name of the place. It went clean out of my head. If we grab that one, too, the traitors won’t have any glideways into Marthasville, will they?”
“Nary a one,” Smitty agreed. “But I hear tell there are already northerners around the place, so we’re going to have to fight our way in.”
“That’s the truth,” Sergeant Joram said. “I’ve talked with pickets who bumped up against them. They’re from Roast-Beef William’s wing, but nobody knows how many of ’em are in the town.”
“Doesn’t matter how many there are,” Smitty said cheerfully. “We’ll lick ’em.”
A year earlier, a boast like that would have struck Rollant as madness. Now, he found himself nodding. He thought they could clean up a whole wing from the Army of Franklin, too.
“Come on, come on, come on!” Lieutenant Griff shouted. “Time to get moving. We can’t sit around here all day.”
Smitty sighed. “He’s right, gods dammit. It’d be nice if we could, though.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Rollant hurried forward, to take his place at the head of the company. I’ll be the one they shoot at first, he thought. That’s what standard-bearers are for. That’s why they made me a corporal.
They hadn’t gone far before splashing through a little stream that never came up past their knees. Rollant enjoyed the cool water soaking his trousers, but did call out a warning he’d made before: “Check yourselves for leeches, if you know what’s good for you.” The country wasn’t very swampy, but in this part of Detina you never could tell.
And, sure enough, a couple of men made disgusted noises. “Who’s got fire?” one of them said. They had learned not just to yank off the bloodsuckers, but to touch them with a glowing coal and make them let go.
Someone had a firesafe, and got a tiny blaze going from the glowing punk he carried in it. The smoldering tip of a twig got rid of the pests. The company pressed on.
“How far to this Jonestown place, sir?” Rollant asked Lieutenant Griff.
“Not far,” the young company commander replied. “Four or five miles.”
Rollant nodded. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Griff answered, a courtesy he never would have given Rollant the year before. He walked along for a few paces, then said, “Do you know, Corporal, you’re not what I expected?”
He evidently meant it as a compliment. Rollant said, “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome,” Griff said again. “When we gave you your corporal’s stripes-Colonel Nahath and I, I mean, and Lieutenant General George, too-we didn’t think you would be able to keep them. We expected there would be quarrels, and men refusing to obey you. But that hasn’t happened. I wonder why.”
“Maybe they see I can do the job, sir,” Rollant said. He hadn’t imagined they’d talked with Doubting George before deciding they could promote him.
“Maybe.” Griff didn’t sound convinced. “I see that you’re doing it, mind you, but convincing ordinary Detinans of anything they don’t feel like believing is like herding tigers.”
He was, without a doubt, right about that. No one knew better than blonds how stubborn Detinans could be. Rollant thought for a while, then suggested, “Maybe they see the stripes on my sleeve and not the man wearing the uniform tunic.”