II
“Come on, boys,” General George boomed. “You’ll never catch up with the traitors if you don’t move faster than that.”
“Why didn’t you turn traitor, the way Duke Edward did?” one of the crossbowmen in gray returned. “You’re from Parthenia, just like him. And if you were fighting on the other side, whoever’d be leading us now wouldn’t march us so stinking hard.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” George said, and all the soldiers who heard him laughed. He knew they called him Doubting George. He didn’t mind. They could have called him plenty worse-one brigadier in King Avram’s army was known, though not to his face, as Old Bowels. George went on, “Any officer worth his pantaloons would push you hard now, because we’re going to run Count Thraxton clean out of this province.”
“You don’t think he’ll fight us, sir?” asked another crossbowman, this one a yellow-haired fellow whose liege lord was probably still looking for him.
“I hope he does, by the gods,” George answered. He’d had some serfs on his own family lands in Parthenia, but holding Detina together under the rightful king came first for him. “If he doesn’t run away himself, we’ll run him out, and we’ll smash up his army while we’re doing it.”
“What about Thraxton’s magic, General?” a soldier asked him: another blond likely to have come out of the north. He sounded a little nervous. Serfs, even escaped serfs, often had reason to be nervous about northern nobles’ magecraft.
But George just laughed-a deep, rolling chortle that made everyone who could hear him look his way. “I doubt you’ve got much to worry about,” he said, which made the crossbowmen and pikemen close by laugh again, too. “If Thraxton’s magic were half as good as he brags it is, those bastards in blue would be down in the Five Lakes country by now, instead of us pushing on them. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t got mages of our own.”
He waved to the gray-robed contingent of scholarly-looking men on assback accompanying the long columns of crossbowmen and the blocks of pikemen and the squadrons of unicorn-riders at the army’s front and wings. Most of the soldiers nodded, relieved and reassured.
George wasn’t so sure he’d reassured himself. The southron mages just didn’t look like men of war. They looked as if they would be more at home as healers or stormstoppers or diviners or fabricators who helped the manufactories in the southwest turn out the crossbows and quarrels and spearheads and catapults without which a modern army couldn’t go about its murderous business. And the wizards had excellent reason for looking that way. Almost all of them were healers or stormstoppers or diviners or fabricators. They’d had to learn military magecraft from the ground up after Grand Duke Geoffrey chose to contest Avram’s succession.
Things were different up in the north. The tradition of military magecraft had never died out there, as it had in the south. Instead, northern nobles used the sorceries that had helped their ancestors win the land to help hold down the serfs those ancestors had conquered. In the early days of the war, they’d embarrassed Avram’s armies again and again.
Doubting George knew one reason he’d risen swiftly through the ranks was that, as a Parthenian who’d held serfs, he’d known some of the northern spells and how to block them. He’d never systematically studied sorcery, as Count Thraxton and some of the other northern commanders had, but he’d never panicked when it was used against him, as, for instance, Fighting Joseph had when Duke Edward’s magic cast a cloud of confusion on the southrons and let him win the Battle of Viziersville despite being outnumbered worse than two to one.
A scout on unicornback rode up to General George. Saluting, he said, “Sir, there are stone fences up ahead with northern men behind them. They started shooting at us when we got close.”
“Are there? Did they?” George said, and the scout nodded. The general rapped out the next important questions: “How many of them? Is it Count Thraxton’s whole army?” Eagerness coursed through him. If Thraxton wanted to make a fight of it this side of Rising Rock, he’d gladly oblige the Braggart.
But the rider, to his disappointment, shook his head. “No, sir, doesn’t look that way, nor even close. If I had to guess, I’d say they were just trying to slow us down a bit before we go on into Rising Rock.”
“It could be.” George looked ahead, to Sentry Peak in the northwest and Proselytizers’ Rise due west but farther away. “Maybe they’re buying some time to let their army pull out. All right.” Decision crystallized. “If they want us to shift them, we’ll do the job.” He pointed toward the center, off to his right. “Go tell General Guildenstern what you just told me, and tell him we’re moving against the foe.”
“Yes, sir.” With another salute, the rider pounded off to obey.
Now, George thought, how long will it be before Guildenstern sticks his long, pointed nose into my business? Not very long, or I don’t know him-and I know him much too well. With Thraxton the Braggart in command of Geoffrey’s armies in the east, King Avram’s men should long since have smashed this treason. With General Guildenstern in command of the southrons, George supposed he ought to thank the gods that the traitors hadn’t long since smashed the armies loyal to the rightful king.
Meanwhile, before Guildenstern could get his hands on this fight-which Doubting George duly doubted he would handle well-the army’s second-in-command decided to take charge of it. “Deploy from column into line!” he shouted. Lesser officers echoed his orders; trumpeters spread them farther than men’s voices readily carried. “Pikemen forward! Crossbowmen in ranks behind! Cavalry to the flanks to hold off the enemy’s unicorns.” He didn’t really expect Thraxton’s men to make any sort of mounted attack, but he didn’t believe in taking chances, either.
The soldiers under his command went through their evolutions with precision drilled into them by scores of cursing sergeants on meadows and in city parks and sometimes on city streets all through the southern provinces of Detina. Hardly any of them had been soldiers before King Avram began levying troops from his vassals and from the yeomanry of the countryside and from the free cities and towns that had stayed loyal to him. But they moved like veterans now. Most of them were veterans now, and had seen as much hard fighting as professional soldiers often did in a liftetime’s service during quieter days.
And then George shouted another order: “Mages forward! Cavalry screen for the wizards!”
Some of the gray-robed men on assback nodded and urged their small, ill-favored mounts up to the best trot the beasts could give. Others looked startled and apprehensive. George wanted to laugh at them. In many cases, they’d been in the field as long as the footsoldiers, who knew exactly what was expected of them. But the mages never stopped acting surprised.
George spurred his own unicorn. With an indignant snort, the beast bounded forward. George always wanted to see for himself; one of the things that had won him his nickname was his reluctance to trust other people’s reports. He’d seen too many things go wrong because scouts brought back mistaken news or because a senior officer, not having examined the situation or the ground for himself, gave the wrong orders.
As George rode up to the top of a low hill and looked ahead, he found that things to the west did look much as the scout had described them. Not a lot of northerners were delaying the army’s advance, but they had stone fences-the likely border markers between two farms-to hide behind. One crossbowman shooting from cover was worth several out in the open.
A moment later, George discovered the enemy didn’t have only crossbowmen slowing up his advance. Trailing smoke, something large and heavy flew through the air toward his forwardmost unicorns. When it hit the ground-farther from the foe than even a crossbowman could shoot-it burst in a ball of fire. That was half artisans’ work, half mages’. The flame caught one unicorn and its rider. They dashed off, both screaming, both burning.