As morning wore along toward noon, his sense of confidence began to grow. “By the gods, we are going to throw the cursed traitors back,” he said to Brigadier Alexander. “They can’t lick us. No way in the seven hells can they lick us.”
“I hope you’re right, sir,” Alexander replied. “I think you may be right. We’re holding pretty well, aren’t we?”
“Bet your arse we are,” Guildenstern said. But then he glanced nervously toward the right. “I wonder how Doubting George is doing over there.” When he thought of the right, he somehow couldn’t stay confident no matter how hard he tried. He swigged more spirits, to bolster his courage.
Brigadier Alexander said, “Sir, if he needed help over there, don’t you think he’d ask for it?”
“You never can tell with George,” Guildenstern insisted. No matter how hard he tried to keep his mind on other things, his eyes kept drifting back toward Merkle’s Hill. Something was going to go wrong there. Something was. He couldn’t tell how he’d grown so sure, but he had. The knowledge, the certainty, built in him, seeping up from below. It didn’t feel like conscious knowledge: more like the faith he had in the Lion God and the rest of the Detinan pantheon.
“I know you and Lieutenant General George don’t get along perfectly, sir,” Alexander said, “but he’s a solid soldier. If he needs help, I’m sure he won’t risk the battle by going without. After all, he was saying just last night that he was worried. If the worries come true, he’ll let us know.”
That made good logical sense. Somehow, though, good logical sense seemed to matter less to General Guildenstern than it might have. Trouble was brewing on the right. He felt it in his bones.
Before Guildenstern could explain as much to Alexander, Colonel Phineas came rushing up to him at a turn of speed astonishing for one so roly-poly. “General!” he cried. “Woe to us, General! Count Thraxton’s magic has defeated our best efforts to withstand it, and now runs loose in our army!”
“Ha!” Guildenstern cried. “I knew it. The Braggart’s trying to deceive me. But he won’t! No, by the gods, he won’t! I knew the right was threatened. Brigadier Alexander!”
“Yes, sir!” Alexander said smartly.
“Take Brigadier Wood’s two brigades out of the line here and send them to the aid of Doubting George on the right at once,” Guildenstern said. “At once, do you hear me?”
“That will leave us very thin on the ground here, sir, especially while we’re making the move,” Alexander said.
“Do it!” General Guildenstern thundered. “It is my direct order to you, sirrah! Do it, or find yourself relieved.” Brigadier Alexander saluted stiffly and went off to obey. Guildenstern nodded in satisfaction. And, somewhere far inside Guildenstern-or somewhere far across the battlefield-a scrawny, sour-spirited soul cried out in delight and in altogether unalloyed triumph.
James of Broadpath was sipping his early morning tea after the nighttime meeting with Count Thraxton when a man on a unicorn galloped into his encampment. Pulling the unicorn to a halt, the rider slid off it and hurried toward James. He saluted smartly. “Reporting, sir,” he said with a grin, “as not quite ordered.”
“Brigadier Bell!” James said. “What in the seven hells are you doing here? I left you behind with the part of my army the stinking glideway couldn’t carry. Where are they now?”
“Heading up from Marthasville real soon, sir,” Bell replied. “But when the scryers said the fighting here had already started, I couldn’t wait. I hopped on a unicorn and rode south as fast as I could go.” He pointed to the blowing animal from which he’d just dismounted. “This isn’t the one I started with. That one fell over dead. I’m sorry I rode it into the ground, but I’m glad I’m here.”
“You disobeyed orders,” Earl James rumbled. Bell nodded, quite unabashed. James grinned and pounded him on the back-on the right side, careful not to trouble his useless left arm. “Well, I’m cursed glad you’re here, too,” he said. “I needed somebody to lead the big attack when it goes in, and you’re one of the best in the business.”
“Thank you, sir.” One of Bell’s leonine eyebrows rose. “Why hasn’t the big attack gone in already?”
“Because I’ve got orders from Count Thraxton to hold it till he gives the word, that’s why,” James answered. “He’s working some sort of fancy magic against the southrons, and he wants me to wait till he gives the command.”
Bell frowned, looking very much like a dubious lion. “Remember, sir, this is Thraxton the Braggart we’re talking about. What are the odds this fancy magic will end up being worth anything at all?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” James of Broadpath admitted. “But I can’t disobey a direct order just because I’m not quite sure about the general who gave it, if you know what I mean.”
“Why in the seven hells not?” Bell demanded. “Are you afraid he’ll turn you into a rooster, or something like that?”
“No.” James shook his big head. Where Brigadier Bell had seemed-and often did seem-leonine, James gave the impression of a bear bedeviled by bees. “No, I’m not afraid of that. But you haven’t seen him. I have. He really thinks he can do this, and he makes me think he can do it, too.”
“Does he?” Bell shook his head, too. “Why? If he’d done everything he said he could do, we would have won the war by now. You know that as well as I do. Why are you listening to him now?”
“Why?” James of Broadpath shrugged. “I’ll tell you why. Because when he told me what to do, he looked like the pictures you see of the conqueror priests from the old days, the ones who led the armies that smashed up the blonds’ kingdoms here in the north. You could almost hear the gods talking through him.”
Brigadier Bell made a sign with the fingers of his right hand. Most Detinans would have used the left, but his left arm hung limp and useless. “Here’s hoping you’re right, sir,” he said, which was what the gesture meant in words.
To the south of them, the racket of battle picked up as the sun climbed a little higher above the horizon. James said, “I am still allowed to fight, you see: along with our men from Parthenia, I’ve taken command of the ones Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill was leading.”
“Dan’s a good man,” Bell said.
“I know he is. I feel bad about horning in on him like this. But-” James’ broad shoulders slid up and down again. “Thraxton wanted me in charge of one of his wings, and this was how he went about it when I got here. So I’ve got his men fighting, and most of the soldiers from the Army of Southern Parthenia waiting in reserve for when Thraxton gives me the word. I’m going to put you in charge of them now that you’re here.”
“What if the word never comes?” Brigadier Bell demanded.
“Sooner or later, I’ll throw you in without it,” James allowed. “But I’m not going to do that right away. Thraxton’s incanting for all he’s worth, and he’s my superior. I’ve got to give him his chance.”
“All right, sir,” Bell said stiffly. By his tone, it wasn’t all right, or even close to all right. By his tone, in fact, King Geoffrey would hear about it if things went wrong. Brigadier Bell was in good odor down in Nonesuch, probably in better odor than Earl James was himself: Geoffrey thought well of straightforward, hard-charging officers, no doubt because he’d been one himself.
“Just remember,” James murmured, “that his Majesty thinks the world of Count Thraxton.”
“I understand that.” Surprise sparked in Bell’s eyes. “How did you know what was in my mind, sir?”
“I didn’t need to read the entrails of a sacrifice to figure it out,” James of Broadpath answered. Brigadier Bell shook his leonine head, plainly still bewildered. James had all he could do not to laugh in Bell’s face. He was no straightforward hard charger; he had a nasty, devious mind, and enjoyed using it. He sometimes thought that in itself went a long way toward explaining why King Geoffrey preferred certain other soldiers to him.