He was smacking his lips over the restorative when one of the sentries stuck his head inside and said, “General Guildenstern, sir, Colonel Phineas would like to talk to you.”
“Ah, but would I like to talk to Colonel Phineas?” Guildenstern replied grandly. It wasn’t altogether a rhetorical question; his chief mage had and persisted in the unfortunate habit of telling him things he didn’t want to hear. He scowled. Phineas would also write a nasty report if he sent him away without listening to him. King Avram read reports like those. Scowling still, Guildenstern said what he had to say: “Very well. Send him in.”
In came Phineas, a round, agreeable man who looked more like a patent-medicine seller or a carnival barker than anyone’s usual idea of a mage. “Sir!” he said, clapping a dramatic hand to his forehead, “we have been probed!”
“Probed?” Guildenstern echoed. It didn’t sound pleasant; he was willing to admit that. What it did sound like was something a physician might do, not a sorcerer. “What exactly do you mean, Colonel?”
“What I say, of course,” Phineas answered. “We have been probed-quite thoroughly, too, I might add.”
“If you can’t explain yourself in plain Detinan so an ordinary human being can understand you, Colonel, perhaps you should find yourself another line of work,” Guildenstern said acidly. “Footsoldier springs to mind.”
As he’d thought it would, that got Phineas’ attention. “What I mean, sir, is that the northern mages have done everything they could to learn everything they could about our dispositions through sorcerous means. Perhaps you will criticize my style there. I am not used to being judged on my literary technique.”
“Never mind,” Guildenstern said: he’d finally found out what he needed to hear. “All right-they probed us, if that’s what you wizards call it. How much did they find out? I presume you fellows blocked them. That’s what we pay you for, anyhow.” He laughed at his own wit.
Colonel Phineas didn’t laugh. Colonel Phineas, in fact, looked about as somber as Guildenstern had ever seen him. “We did the best we could, General,” he said, his voice stiff and anxious. “We always do the best we can, as you must surely know. But, I have to admit, we were taken somewhat by surprise.”
Guildenstern didn’t like the way that sounded. By the miserable expression on his chief mage’s face, he had good reason not to like it. “How much did they learn?” he demanded. “They must have learned something, or you wouldn’t look as though a brewery wagon just ran over your favorite kitten.”
“They learned… perhaps a good deal, sir,” Phineas said, forcing the words out one by one. “We… might have detected the probe rather sooner than we did. We are still… not quite so good as we might wish at reacting when taken by surprise. Such things… don’t happen quite so often in civilian life.”
“You’ve gone and futtered things again, is what you’re telling me,” Guildenstern boomed, his rage fed both by brandy and by knowing such things had happened to southron armies far too often. “You’re telling me Thraxton the Braggart knows where every louse is on every man I command. That bloody well is what you’re telling me, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think it’s quite that bad, sir,” Colonel Phineas said. “But, considering how scattered our forces are…”
The commanding general took great pleasure in laughing in his face. “If that’s all you’re having puppies about, you can rest easy,” he said. “I’m already pulling them together.” Phineas blinked. That wasn’t enough for Guildenstern, who went on, “No thanks to you, gods damn you to the hells. Now get out of my sight!” Phineas fled. Guildenstern nodded. That was better. He swigged from the brandy flask again.
V
Ned of the Forest could not have been more disgusted if he’d been invited to King Avram’s coronation.
“Why have we even got an army?” he demanded of Colonel Biffle. “What good is it if we just sit around with it and don’t use it?”
“Tell you what I heard,” Biffle said.
“Well? Go on,” Ned said. “How come General Thraxton’s being an idiot this time out?” He was willing to assume Thraxton was being an idiot, for one reason or another.
But Colonel Biffle shook his head. “It’s not Thraxton’s fault this time, Ned.” He held up a hasty hand. “I know the two of you don’t see eye to eye. Everybody knows that, I expect. But what I hear is, Thraxton’s flat-out ordered Leonidas the Priest to get up off his arse and go for the stinking southrons, and Leonidas just keeps sitting on his backside and won’t move for anything.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Ned allowed. “Leonidas has got himself plenty of holy where you ought to have smart, you know what I mean? But the southrons are figuring out we didn’t run for Stamboul or Marthasville. They’re starting to pull their own army together. If we don’t start taking bites out of their separate columns pretty soon, we lose the chance for good.”
“I know that, sir,” Biffle said. “But I can’t make Leonidas move, either.”
“Only thing that’d make Leonidas move is a good, swift kick in the backside,” Ned said scornfully. He raised a bristling black eyebrow. “I will be cursed if I don’t feel a little bit sorry for Thraxton, and that’s nothing I reckoned I’d ever say.”
“Won’t be so good if Guildenstern does pull his whole army together before we get the chance to hit it,” Colonel Biffle remarked. “He’s almost done it already.”
“Won’t be good at all,” Ned agreed. “Not at all, at all.” He and his men occupied the extreme left wing of Count Thraxton’s army, with Leonidas the Priest’s force on his immediate right. A slow grin spread over his face. “We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen, that’s all. And I know how, too.”
“Do you?” Biffle asked. “What do you know that Count Thraxton doesn’t?”
“Oh, all sorts of things,” Ned answered, and his grin got wider. “But one of the things I know-and the one that really matters here-is how to get Leonidas moving irregardless of whether he wants to or not.”
“That’ll be good-if you can do it.” Biffle sounded dubious. He explained why: “I’ve seen you do things on the field that nobody’d believe if you just told the story. But how do you propose to make somebody else-somebody on your own side-move when he cursed well won’t?”
Instead of answering directly, Ned filled his lungs and let out a one-word shout: “Runners!”
As always, the young men who fought under him hurried to obey. “Lord Ned, sir!” they cried in a ragged chorus.
He pointed to one of them. “Go to Count Thraxton and tell him I am moving out to meet the enemy. Tell him I hope to have Leonidas the Priest moving with me on my right, but I’m going to attack with him or without him. Have you got that?”
“Sure do, Lord Ned,” the messenger said, and repeated it back.
“That’s fine. That’s right fine.” Ned of the Forest waved to him, and he hurried off. Ned pointed to another runner. “Now, Mort, you’re going to go to Leonidas the Priest. You tell him, I’m moving out to attack the southrons with him or without him. Tell him I hope he comes along for the ride, but I’m moving out whether he does or not. And tell him I’ve sent another runner to Count Thraxton, so Thraxton knows just exactly what I’m doing. Wouldn’t want to take Count Thraxton by surprise, no indeed.” For a moment, he sounded every bit as pious as Leonidas the Priest. “Have you got that?”
“I’ve got it, Lord Ned,” Mort replied. When he started to repeat it for the commander of unicorn-riders, he stumbled a couple of times. Ned patiently led him through it till he had it straight, then sent him off.