And the southrons obeyed. They fought with a stubborn, stolid courage different from the incandescent northern variety but no less effective for that. Some of their outer entrenchments fell to the Army of Franklin, but only after they were filled with dead men wearing tunics and pantaloons both blue and gray. And the northerners didn’t come close to overrunning the supply depot, though they fought all day.
Towards evening, Bell ordered a withdrawal. Colonel Florizel put the best face on things he could: “Well, boys, we’ll hit ’em another lick tomorrow, and then we’ll whip ’em for sure.”
“What if the southrons send up reinforcements by then?” Gremio asked.
Florizel started to say something harsh, but checked himself. “No, you were all for forging ahead,” he reminded himself. “In that case, Captain, we don’t have such an easy time of it. Satisfied?” Gremio nodded, though that wasn’t the word he would have used.
XI
Lieutenant General Bell glowered at his scryer. “You’re sure you intercepted the southrons’ message?”
“As sure as I’m standing here before you, sir,” the scryer answered. “They might as well have been talking right into my crystal ball instead of Brigadier Murray the Coarse talking to General Hesmucet. Murray, he said, `I am short of a cheekbone, and one ear, but am able to whip all hells yet.’ And Hesmucet, he answered, `Hold the fort! I am coming!’ He was up near Commissioner Mountain then, sir, so I reckon he could come pretty gods-damned quick.”
“To the hells with him,” Bell said furiously. He could hear the moans of the wounded in his encampment here. He knew he wouldn’t be able to rouse his army to another attack before morning, and also knew morning was all too likely to be too late. Whole Mackerel had held.
Laudanum, he thought, and took a swig. The pain in his ruined arm and missing leg diminished. He could even look at the pain in his spirit with more detachment, which was really why he’d gulped down the drug. But that pain wouldn’t die, not altogether. He’d needed a win over the southrons and, yet again, he hadn’t got it.
“Anything else, sir?” the scryer asked.
“No,” Lieutenant General Bell answered. “Just pick up your crystal ball and get the hells out of here.” The scryer did.
Major Zibeon came into Bell’s tent a moment later. “You put a flea in his ear,” Bell’s dour aide-de-camp remarked. “What did he have to say?”
“That the stinking southrons are on their way here,” Bell answered. “We’ve wounded the commander here at Whole Mackerel, but he thinks he can hold out till Hesmucet arrives.”
“He’s likely right, especially if Hesmucet marches his men through the night,” Zibeon said, which was exactly what Bell didn’t want to hear. His own description of the words that had passed between Murray the Coarse and Hesmucet made them seem bloodless, businesslike. The scryer’s version hadn’t been like that. Both southron officers had sounded more than confident. That worried Bell as nothing else had. Zibeon grimaced, then asked, “Can we face the whole southron army?”
“No,” Bell answered. “No, gods damn it, we can’t.” He hated nothing more than admitting that. King Geoffrey had put him in command of the Army of Franklin to whip the southrons and to hold Marthasville. He hadn’t managed either. He didn’t like having to confront his limits and those of his army.
“What do we do, then, sir?” his aide-de-camp asked.
“We fall back,” Bell answered-strange and unnatural words to find in his mouth. They tasted bad, too, but he saw the need for them. “We fall back, and we try to hit that gods-damned glideway line somewhere else.”
To his surprise, Major Zibeon nodded. “Not bad, sir,” he said judiciously. “Even if we don’t wreck it, how much can Hesmucet do if he’s chasing us over the landscape where we’ve already fought? And he’ll have to chase us, too, on account of this army is still too big to ignore.”
Bell didn’t care for the sound of that still. Zibeon might as well have said, This is what’s left after you went and made a hash of things. But he nodded because, tone aside, his aide-de-camp had the essence of his plan down. “That’s right, Major. If Hesmucet is such a great hero, let’s see him catch us when we don’t feel like getting caught.”
Zibeon chuckled. “The southrons won’t like that.”
“Futter the southrons!” Bell exclaimed. “If they think I’m going to dry up and blow away because they squeezed me out of Marthasville, they can think again. They’ll have to work to drag us down.”
“I think that’s good, sir. I think that’s very good,” Major Zibeon said. “If the gods favor us, we may even be able to sneak back into Marthasville again.”
“That would be very fine.” Bell started to perk up, but then slumped again. “It would be very fine, I mean, but there’s not much left of Marthasville any more. Place isn’t worth having, not for anybody. And gods damn Hesmucet for that, too, along with everything else.”
“They will. I have no doubt of it.” Zibeon spoke with great conviction. “But we’d better do something to him in this world, too.”
“Draft the order for our move to the south, then,” Lieutenant General Bell said. “If he wants us, he’ll have to pin us down. And do you know what, Major? I don’t think the southrons can do it.”
“Yes, sir,” his aide-de-camp said. “And no, sir, I don’t don’t think they can pin us down, either.”
When morning came, a red-dust haze in the north warned that the southrons were approaching fast. Grunting and cursing and half blind with pain in spite of a new dose of laudanum, Bell clambered aboard his unicorn. Major Zibeon made him fast to the animal like a man lashing a sack of lentils to an ass’ back. And then, just before he was about to lead the army south, he had an idea. Calling the mages together, he asked them, “Can you make the southrons think we’ve gone east instead?”
They looked at each other: sad-faced men in blue robes, some afoot, others riding asses. The next mage Bell saw aboard a unicorn would be the first. He could manage, without one leg and with only one working arm. As for them… He shrugged, which also hurt. They could work magic-when things went well.
At last, one of them said, “I think we can, sir-for a while, anyway. Sooner or later, though, they’ll realize they’ve been following a will o’ the wisp.”
“Buy us as much time as you can,” Bell said. The mages nodded mournfully.
Bell did lead the Army of Franklin south then. He kept looking back over his good shoulder to see how close the southrons were getting. Looking back wasn’t easy, not when the dust of thousands of marching feet obscured his view. After a while, though, he did spy what looked to be just as much dust rising from the east. He hoped the mages would remember to mask the dust his army was actually making. He almost sent a rider back to remind them to be sure of that, but at the last minute checked himself. Mages had their pride, too.
A unicorn-rider from his own rear guard came trotting up to him. Saluting, the man said, “Sir, looks like the stinking southrons have swung off to the east. They aren’t coming right after us, anyways.”
“Good,” Bell said. Something had gone right, then. He made a noise halfway between a sigh and a groan. Not too many things had gone right for the Army of Franklin lately. To be relieved because the enemy’s pursuit had been drawn off was… Pitiful was the word that sprang to mind.
Another rider approached him. He eyed Roast-Beef William with more suspicion than he had the courier. Roast-Beef William hungered for his command, just as he’d hungered for it when Joseph the Gamecock had it. Was William writing letters to King Geoffrey? He’d better not be, Bell thought.
“What now?” he growled, his voice rough and edgy.