"It won't be much," Stafford said confidently. "Now that we've started driving them, they haven't been able to slow us down, let alone stop us. Have they?"

He waited. Sinapis couldn't very well do anything but dip his head in assent. The officer also couldn't help adding, "Because they haven't, your Excellency, doesn't mean they can't."

"Devil it doesn't," Stafford retorted. "They're whipped now. They have to know it, too, or they wouldn't hide behind earthworks. We go in, we slaughter them, and there's an end to it." Let there be an end to it, O Lord!

"Why are you so sure?" Leland Newton asked. By the way the words came out, he knew the answer as well as Stafford did. Because this has to be the end. Because the country can't stand any more.

Stafford didn't say that, not when the other Consul already knew it. He spoke to Sinapis as if Newton hadn't said a word: "They aren't waiting in the bushes to ambush us as we advance. You know they aren't-you ran enough scouts through the bushes."

"I needed to do it, too," the colonel replied with dignity. He waved toward the gently sloping sides of the valley: first to one, then to the other. "This is exactly the sort of terrain they are fond of using for an ambuscade."

"But they didn't, did they?" Stafford said. Colonel Sinapis couldn't very well claim the contrary. Stafford pressed his advantage: "And the reason they didn't is that they're too beaten down, too hard pressed. The foxes may have given us a good chase, but we've run them to earth. Now we'll bury them in it."

"You've always thought we would have an easier time against them than we turned out to," Newton said.

"Yes? And so?" Stafford answered coolly. "As soon as we root them out of their holes here, we've won. You never thought we could do it at all. It may have come later than I wanted, but not too late." Don't let it be too late!

If Newton wanted to argue, Stafford was ready. It was his own day to hold final authority, so the arguments didn't matter. But Newton didn't say anything more. As it had been when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the die was cast.

"Form up the men, Colonel, and send them forward," Stafford told Sinapis. "We've come this far. Let's get it over with."

Sinapis gave back a precise salute. "As you say, your Excellency." He might have been a valet answering a rich Englishman. Then he gave the regular officers and militia commanders their orders. The regulars would follow them. The militiamen might or might not. Sinapis kept them on the wings and in the rear, where any failures ought to matter least.

Bugles blared. The regular soldiers moved to their places like marionettes on strings. The militiamen had improved over the course of this campaign. Despite profane shepherding from their officers and sergeants, they were still slower and sloppier than the men who made their living from war.

But so what? Stafford told himself. They'll all roll over the insurrectionists, and then we'll glue things back together. We can still do it. I'm sure we can.

How much work had the insurrectionists put into their earthworks? While they shoveled, one copperskin complained to Frederick Radcliff: "I don't reckon the overseers ever drove us this hard." Then he flung another spadeful of earth up onto the growing rampart in front of their trench.

And Frederick just looked back at him and answered, "Good." When the other man stared, Frederick had condescended to explain: "God-damned overseers never needed you as much as I do now." That seemed to satisfy the copperskin, who went back to digging without another word.

Now Frederick and Lorenzo looked out over the rampart at the white men mustering against them. "We can still do it," Frederick said. "I'm sure we can."

"I hope we can," Lorenzo said. "I hope like anything we can."

Frederick's head swung away from the Atlantean soldiers and toward his own amateur marshal. "You're the one who set this up," he reminded him.

"I know. I know. Now I'm the one who's worrying about it, too-all right?" Lorenzo said. "If it goes wrong, they'll roll over us."

"Ever since the uprising started, we've known that could happen," Frederick said. "As long as we can shoot ourselves or shoot each other before they get their hands on us, we'll be fine."

"Fine?" Lorenzo bared his teeth in something halfway between a smile and a snarl. "Is that what you call it these days? We'll be dead, is what we'll be."

"We've been dead ever since I took the hoe to Matthew and the rest of you followed me back to the big house 'stead of whompin' me to death with your spades," Frederick answered. "You know it as well as I do, too."

"Well… yeah." Lorenzo grudged a nod. "Don't mean I got to like it."

"If you liked it, they would've shoveled dirt over you by now. They would've shoveled dirt over us all by now," Frederick said.

Lorenzo stared out at the white soldiers. The discipline with which they formed their ranks was daunting. "It ain't like they've quit trying," the copperskin said.

"I know." Frederick raised his voice so all the fighters in the trench, Negroes and copperskins, men and women, could hear him: "We've got to hold them here. No matter what, we've got to. If they break through this line, we're screwed. So do whatever you can. You want to be free, you want to stay free, you want your children to be free if you've got any-or even if you don't yet-this here may be the place where you can make it real. You ready?"

"Yeah!" The answering shout wasn't so loud as it might have been. The fighters could watch the white men deploying out beyond rifle-musket range, too. It was intimidating. Beyond any possible fragment of doubt, it was meant to be.

A bugle rang out, ordering the Atlantean soldiers and militiamen forward. The note was pure and sweet, almost like birdsong. Frederick spied a flash of gold that had to be sunlight sparking off the horn's polished bell.

"Here they come," somebody said. After a couple of heartbeats, Frederick realized that was his own voice.

The white men's cannon started roaring. Frederick hated artillery more than anything else-mostly because he'd never figured out how to match it. The white Atlanteans had it; the insurrectionists didn't-they just had to endure it.

In screamed the cannonballs. Some of them flew long. Others thudded into-and sometimes smashed through-the rampart in front of the trenches. A couple of them smashed into fighters after smashing through dirt. Screams rose up. The insurrectionists didn't have much in the way of surgeons. Herb women made poultices to keep wounds from going bad. Men who'd been butchers could lop off shattered limbs. Ether? They hadn't managed to steal any coming up from New Marseille. They relied on rum and thick leather straps to muffle pain.

If the Atlantean artillerists had had guns that could loft shells over the rampart and down into the trench, they would have hurt the insurrectionists worse. They did all they could with what they did have. Frederick thought the cannonading would never end. And, of course, one minute under fire seemed as long as a week of ordinary life, or maybe a year.

But the insurrectionists couldn't cower. They would die if they did. "Up!" Lorenzo yelled, reminding them. "Up and shoot! The more of 'em you shoot before they get close, the fewer you'll have to stick!"

The fewer who can get close and shoot you, he meant. Frederick could see why he didn't care to put it that way. Men who worried about what happened to their own precious flesh wouldn't be inclined to let gunfire come anywhere close to it. Who in his-or her-right mind would be so inclined?

Rifle muskets bellowed. Smoke rose in thick, fireworks-smelling clouds. Here and there, white men fell over-but only here and there. The rest kept coming. The bright morning sun shone off their bayonets, brighter than it had off the bugle but silver instead of gold.