“Be careful how you speak,” Gremio said coldly. “You tread close to treason.”
“Futter you, too, pal,” the farmer said. “I talk like a free Detinan, on account of I gods-damned well am one. If you don’t like it, too bad. You think we’ve got a chance of winning against King Avram’s bastards? You got to be crazy if you do, and you don’t look like no crazy man to me.” He stormed off, still cursing.
Captain Gremio stared after him. He didn’t think he was a crazy man, and he didn’t think it likely King Geoffrey’s men could beat King Avram’s. After more than three years of war, that seemed a very forlorn hope indeed. Why go on fighting, then? he wondered.
He shrugged. The Army of Franklin wasn’t beaten yet. As long as Lieutenant General Bell could still strike the encroaching southrons, the northern cause wasn’t lost. We have to keep trying, Gremio thought. As long as we keep trying, something good may happen. If we give up, it surely won’t.
Was that reason enough? Gremio shrugged again. He didn’t know. He did know some detachments of provost marshals were crucifying deserters. That was another good reason to stay on.
General Hesmucet’s men had unicorn-riders patrolling well east of the glideway line. Gremio got only a glimpse of them as they rode off to the west to let the main body of southrons know they’d spotted the Army of Franklin. He sighed. “I wish we could have taken Whole Mackerel by surprise.”
“When the southrons came at it, they came at it from out of the east, and now we’re doing the same thing,” Sergeant Thisbe said. “That’s strange.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that, but you’re right,” Gremio said. “One thing: the foraging won’t be so good from here on out. The southrons will have been there before us. We’ll just have to run them out of the place and take away all the food they’ve stored up in town.”
He made it sound very easy. If fighting the southrons were easy, though, Bell would have done better all through this campaign. Of course, Hesmucet had always had the advantage of numbers. He wouldn’t here. Gremio didn’t know how big the garrison at Whole Mackerel was, but it couldn’t hope to match the whole Army of Franklin. The rest of Hesmucet’s army would still be up near Marthasville.
That meant… “We’d better move fast,” Gremio said. “We have to take the town before they can reinforce it.”
“That makes good sense, sir,” Sergeant Thisbe agreed.
It might have made good sense to them. It didn’t seem to have crossed Bell’s mind. He paused to camp for the night about five miles outside of Whole Mackerel. “We ought to keep going,” Gremio said discontentedly.
“I’m pleased to see your spirit,” Colonel Florizel told him. “Still and all, though, we’ll do better going in fresh and well rested.”
“True, sir,” Gremio said. “But the southrons will have all night to get ready for us, and that won’t help our attack.”
“You really are bolder than you were,” Florizel said. “You can’t attack by yourself, though.”
Gremio didn’t think he was any bolder than he’d ever been. He was just quibbling over tactics, as he often did. When he complained because he thought Bell was charging ahead when he shouldn’t, Florizel reckoned him a coward. He’d been right then, but it hadn’t done any good. Now he thought Bell was hanging back when he ought to go on. That made the regimental commander happier, but it also wouldn’t change anything else.
Maybe I ought to keep my mouth shut, Gremio thought. For a Detinan, and especially for a Detinan barrister, that was a very strange notion indeed.
Horns blared before daybreak the next morning, ordering the northern army into line of battle. “We’ll do the best we can, and we’ll strike the enemy a strong blow for King Geoffrey,” Gremio told his men. They raised a cheer.
“And we’ll steal all the good food and the crossbow quarrels the stinking southrons have fetched up here to Whole Mackerel from Rising Rock,” Sergeant Thisbe added. “We’ll eat like nobles, and we’ll shoot like we’ve got repeating crossbows.”
The soldiers in blue cheered louder for Thisbe than they had for Gremio. “Well said, Sergeant,” Gremio told him. “You got a better rein on what makes them go than I did.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” Thisbe said. “Trying to put in a little extra, that’s all.”
“You did splendidly,” Gremio said. “You should speak up more often.”
Before Thisbe could answer, the horns screamed again, this time ordering the Army of Franklin forward against the southrons’ entrenchments in front of Whole Mackerel. They tried ours and didn’t like them very well, Gremio thought. Why should we have an easier time with theirs?
Some of the entrenchments the northerners would be assailing were the ones their serfs had dug a few months earlier. Now King Avram’s gray-clad soldiers held them. And those men in gray seemed no more inclined to give them up than the Army of Franklin had been earlier in the year.
“Only a piddly little garrison in front of us, boys,” Colonel Florizel boomed. “They’ll run like rabbits, the gods-damned sons of bitches.”
Roaring as if possessed by the Lion God, the northerners swarmed toward the easternmost trenches. Even before they came into range, firepots and stones flew through the air. Repeating crossbows began their harsh clack-clack-clack. No, the southrons weren’t about to give up and go away.
But Florizel had been right. Yes, the southrons had men in their forward trenches and engines behind them, but they didn’t have very many men or very many engines. Lieutenant General Bell’s men pelted them with bolts and stones and firepots of their own. Before long, the southrons fell back towards Whole Mackerel, the artificers in charge of their engines hitching those to teams of unicorns and hauling them away to keep them from being captured.
“Forward!” Gremio called. “We’ve got to keep pushing them, not let them rally. Keep moving!”
When they came to the southrons’ second line of trenches, another storm of missiles greeted them. Looking ahead, Gremio saw that the enemy’s main lines of defense didn’t guard the town of Whole Mackerel itself, but rather the nearby supply depot. Sure enough, they knew what Bell wanted.
Roaring and shouting, the Army of Franklin bore down on those works. Now the southrons had no room for retreat, not unless they wanted to give up what their foes so desperately needed to take. They had to fight.
They had to-and they did. They had a great many more engines in amongst these fieldworks than they’d used farther forward. Stones and firepots and darts took a heavy toll on the northerners. The southrons whooped and cheered to watch their foes fall.
“Keep moving, men!” Gremio shouted again. “Look, there on that parapet-that’s got to be their commander. If we can kill him, maybe we’ll suck the spirit out of them.”
That wasn’t sporting. It wasn’t chivalrous. A man of noble blood probably never would have said anything so crude. None of that stopped Gremio from thinking he’d had a good idea there. His men did, too. So did the crews of a nearby battery of engines. They started aiming at the black-haired officer waving a sword, too.
A moment later, he clapped a hand to his cheek and tumbled off the parapet. Gremio and everyone close by raised a cheer. “Forward!” he yelled. “Now let’s see how tough those bastards are!”
He soon found out how tough their commander was. The man reappeared inside of a couple of minutes. He was even easier to spot than he had been before-a bloody bandage covered half his face. Gremio could hear his shouts through the din of battle: “We can whip these bastards! Who the hells do they think they are, coming around to bother honest people? Give ’em a good kick in the arse and throw ’em back!”