“Hello, boys!” he called now from the back of the fine unicorn he rode. “We’re here, and there’s plenty more coming along after us. Your days on short commons are done, and once you’ve filled your bellies, we’ll throw the traitors out of here and boot them back to Peachtree Province once and for all.”

Everybody cheered. Rollant shouted himself hoarse. Smitty threw his hat in the air-and then recovered it in a hurry, before Sergeant Joram could growl at him for going without it. As he put it back on his head, he said, “It may not be so easy. Geoffrey’s men’ll try and knock us out of here, you wait and see if they don’t.”

IX

“Those sons of bitches!” Major Thersites shouted in a perfect transport of rage. “Those idiotic, gods-damned sons of bitches! What in the hells have we got generals for in the first place, if they can’t keep things like that from happening?”

Captain Ormerod had never seen him so furious. He wished Colonel Florizel were still commanding the regiment; Florizel was gentleman enough to keep his annoyance under control. He was also gentleman enough to tell the officers under him why he was annoyed. Cautiously, Ormerod asked, “What’s gone wrong now, sir?”

“I’ll tell you what’s gone wrong,” Thersites snapped. “The great mages and mighty scholars who command us have let the stinking southrons put a decent supply line back together, that’s what. How are we supposed to starve those buggers out of Rising Rock if they can bring in as many victuals as we can?”

“Oh, dear,” Ormerod said, in lieu of something a good deal stronger. “How did that happen?”

“How? I’ll tell you how,” Thersites growled. “All our bright boys were sound asleep, that’s how. They hit Brownsville Ferry from east and west at the same time, and ran our soldiers right out of there. Of course we never expected it. Why would the southrons want to keep themselves fed?”

Maybe he was right about how the unfortunate event had happened, maybe he was wrong. He was, as always, so full of bile against those set above him that Ormerod had trouble trusting his own judgment there. But Thersites was surely right about what the southrons’ advance meant. “We have to push them back,” Ormerod said.

“You can see that.” Thersites didn’t have any trouble with Ormerod-he outranked him. “I can see that. But can the great philosophers over on Proselytizers’ Rise see that? Not bloody likely!” He spat in fine contempt.

A couple of hours later, though, Earl James of Broadpath came riding up to the base of Sentry Peak on a unicorn that would have done better hauling a winery wagon. “Come on, you lazy good-for-nothings,” he called. “We’ve got some southrons to clear out east of here.”

“How did they get there in the first place?” Thersites asked him.

“Pulled a march on us, caught us by surprise,” James of Broadpath answered. “It’s war. These things happen. What matters is whether you fix them or not. Get your men ready to fight, Major.”

“Yes, sir,” Thersites said. James nodded and rode on. Thersites turned to Ormerod. “You heard the man. Let’s get ready to move.”

“Yes, sir,” Ormerod said, as Thersites had before. “Who will take our place here?”

“I have no idea, Captain,” the regimental commander answered. “But I’m not going to worry about it, either. I hope the big brains will see they need to move somebody else in if they move us out. I hope so, but you never can tell.”

With that something less than ringing reassurance, Ormerod had to be content. He hurried back to his own company, shouting for the men to line up ready to march. “What now?” Lieutenant Gremio asked in some exasperation. “Are they going to throw us at Rising Rock? They’re asking for us to get slaughtered if they do.”

“No, it isn’t that,” Ormerod said, and explained what it was. He added, “Remember what happened to Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest. Criticizing the commanding general isn’t smart.”

“Getting ourselves in this mess isn’t smart, either,” Gremio retorted. “If I see that someone is an imbecile, should I keep quiet about it?”

“I don’t know. Should you?” Ormerod said. “Thersites certainly hasn’t. Do you want to be just like him?”

As he’d thought it would, that gave Gremio pause. The barrister from Karlsburg grimaced and said, “All right, Captain, you’ve made your point. And this is something that needs doing, no doubt about that. Will anyone replace us here?”

“I don’t know,” Ormerod said. “Nobody bothered to tell me.” Gremio grunted and rolled his eyes.

Ormerod’s company was the second one ready to march. That spared him and his men the rough side of Major Thersites’ tongue. “This isn’t a ladies’ social, Captain,” Thersites snarled at the commander of the last company to assemble. “If you don’t care to run the risk of getting shot, you shouldn’t have come along in the first place. You could be back in Palmetto Province happy and safe, you know.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” the luckless company commander said through clenched teeth. Colonel Florizel would never have used him so; Colonel Florizel was a true northern gentleman. Major Thersites, as far as Ormerod could see, was a first-class son of a bitch. But, with Florizel wounded, he was also the regimental commander, and the company commanders had to put up with him.

“Let’s go,” Thersites said. Off went the regiment, along with several others from the slopes of Sentry Peak. Ormerod wondered if they would have enough men to shift the southrons. He couldn’t do anything about that except wonder. When he wondered out loud, Gremio said, “They’ve been getting plenty of reinforcements. Where are our fresh troops coming out of the east? Or anywhere else, for that matter?”

“Haven’t seen ’em,” Ormerod answered, just as the regiment began to move. He raised his voice: “Come on, men! We can do it! Forward-march!” What a liar I’m turning into, he thought, not having the faintest idea whether they could do it or not.

“We should have come this way weeks ago,” Gremio said. “If we had, we really could have starved the southrons out.”

“What did I tell you before?” Ormerod asked.

“If you want to report me to Thraxton the Braggart, go right ahead,” Gremio said. “He’s sent away better officers than the ones he’s kept, with the possible exception of Leonidas the Priest.”

Ormerod didn’t want to report him to Count Thraxton. For one thing, he’d have to report him through Major Thersites, and Thersites said worse things about Thraxton than Gremio ever had. For another, Ormerod wanted nothing more than to close with the southrons and to drive them out of the north. Here he was, finally getting his chance. He just shook his head and kept marching.

It wasn’t going to be easy. The closer he got to the southrons’ positions, the more obvious that became. Avram’s men were taking advantage of every fence and clump of trees and tiny hillock they could. Whoever was in charge of them plainly knew his business.

And they had unicorn-riders, too, men who galloped out, shot their crossbows at the advancing northerners, and then hurried away before anything very much could happen to them. It was like getting stung by gnats, except that some of the stings from these gnats killed.

“Where’s Ned of the Forest when we really need him?” Lieutenant Gremio said.

“Off to the Great River,” Ormerod answered. Gremio’s expression was eloquent.

As the northern force approached the enemy line, engines opened up on them. The engines opened up a little too soon, as a matter of fact, almost all the stones and bursting firepots falling short. Ormerod felt better to see that: it was nice to know the southrons could make mistakes, too.

In a great voice, Major Thersites shouted, “Form line of battle!”

“Form line of battle!” Ormerod echoed to his men. Veterans, they knew how to go quickly from column into line, where raw troops would have been all too likely to make a hash of the job. And, he saw, they would have a good, solid screen of pikemen in front of them. That would help. If anything helped, that would help.