Sentry Peak (19 page)

Colonel Andy appeared at Doubting George’s elbow. George almost wheeled and slashed at him, but realized who he was just in time. The aide-de-camp’s gray tunic was splashed with blood; by the way Andy moved and spoke, it wasn’t his. “Well, sir,” he said now, surprisingly cheerful in view of the situation, “I think we can be pretty sure Thraxton the Braggart’s not back at Stamboul.”

“Seems a fair bet,” George agreed, dryly enough to draw a chuckle from Colonel Andy. “What we have to do now is make sure the traitors don’t get to Rising Rock.”

“Don’t you think we can lick them, sir?” Andy asked.

“I doubt it,” George said, and Andy chuckled again. George went on, “They’ve got the bit between their teeth, the way a unicorn will sometimes. My guess is, we’ll just have to ride it out and see what’s left of us at the end of the fight. The only consolation I take is, it could be worse.”

His aide-de-camp’s eyes widened. “How?”

“They could have hit us a few days ago, when we were scattered all over the gods-damned map,” George answered. “Thraxton’s pulled extra men from somewhere—for all I know, he magicked them up. He’s got more than I ever thought he could, anyway. If he’d smashed our columns one at a time instead of letting us regroup, he could have bagged us one after another. Now, at least, we’ve got a fighting chance.”

A runner, also bloodied, came panting up and waited for Doubting George to notice him. When George did, the fellow saluted and said, “Brigadier Brannan’s compliments, sir, and he wants you to know he’s massing his engines at the crest of Merkle’s Hill, just behind our last line. If the traitors come up the hill, a demon of a lot of ’em won’t go down again. That’s what Brannan says, anyhow.”

“Good.” George slapped the runner on the back. “You hustle up to Brigadier Brannan and tell him he’s doing just the right thing. Just exactly the right thing—have you got that?”

“Yes, sir.” With another salute, the youngster hurried away.

“We’re doing as well as we can, sir,” Andy said.

“Of course we are,” George said. “We’re doing as well as any army could that gets hit from the front and the flank when it doesn’t really believe there’s any trouble around at all.” He wanted to say something a good deal harsher than that about the way General Guildenstern had handled the advance from Rising Rock, but held back.

His aide-de-camp had no trouble hearing what he didn’t say. “King Avram won’t be happy once the scryers get word of what’s happened back here to the Black Palace in Georgetown.”

“Let’s hope that still matters to us after the battle’s over,” George replied.

Colonel Andy’s eyes widened. “Do you think the traitors are going to surround us and slay us all, the way we Detinans did to the blonds at the Battle of the Three Rivers back in the early days?”

“That had better not happen,” Doubting George said severely, and managed to jerk a startled laugh from Andy. George went on, “No, what I had in mind was what the king is liable to do to us once he hears how things have gone wrong. Do you think our commander will keep on commanding after this?”

“The men like General Guildenstern,” Andy answered. “He takes good care of them, and” —he lowered his voice a little— “he has all their vices, though on a grand scale.”

“He takes good care of them on the march. He takes good care of them in camp,” George said. “If he took good care of them in battle, we wouldn’t be where we are right this minute.” Where they were, right this minute, was halfway up the slope of Merkle’s Hill, and falling back toward the line near the crest. Thraxton’s men kept up their roaring, and they kept coming as if someone had lit a fire behind them. George kicked at the dirt as he trudged up the long, low slope of the hill. “This is partly my fault. I told General Guildenstern I didn’t think Thraxton had headed north, but I couldn’t make him believe me.”

“If Guildenstern wouldn’t believe you, sir, why is that
your
fault?” Andy asked.

“I should have
made
him believe me, gods damn it,” George answered. His aide-de-camp raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, George nodded. Nobody, up to and possibly including the Lion God and the Thunderer, could make General Guildenstern do what he didn’t feel like doing.

“Lieutenant General George! Lieutenant General George!” somebody shouted from not far away. A heartbeat later, the shouter went on, to himself this time, “Where
is
the miserable old son of a bitch, anyways?”

“Here!” Doubting George yelled. A runner trotted up to him. He fixed the fellow with a mild and speculative stare. “And what do you want from the miserable old son of a bitch, anyways?” The runner flushed and stammered. “Never mind, son. I’ve been called worse,” George told him. “Just speak your piece.”

“Uh, yes, sir.” The runner kept on stammering, but finally said, “Uh, sir, Brigadier Negley, uh, says to tell you he’s hard pressed, sir, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on. Thraxton’s men are all over the place, sir, like syrup on pancakes.” He flushed again. “That last bit, that’s, uh, mine, sir, not Brigadier Negley’s.”

“It’s not the worst figure I’ve ever heard,” George said, which didn’t keep him from scowling. Brigadier Negley’s men held the left end of his line, the end that connected the wing he commanded to the rest of General Guildenstern’s army. “You tell Negley that he’s got to hold, that if he doesn’t hold we’re all in a lot of trouble, and him in particular. Use just those words.”

“Yes, sir.” The runner repeated them back. He saluted—much more smartly than he would have if he weren’t embarrassed; Doubting George was sure of that—and then hurried back toward the left.

“Where in the seven hells
did
Thraxton the Braggart come up with enough men to make an attack like this?” Colonel Andy demanded as he and George accompanied their retreating men up toward the crest of the hill.

George had more immediate worries—not least among them whether he could get the men to stop retreating once they neared the crest. But he answered, “I don’t think he pulled them out of
there
, Colonel. He’d have got some when the traitors’ garrison pulled out of Wesleyton before Whiskery Ambrose took it. The rest? I don’t know. Maybe Geoffrey sent soldiers from Parthenia. He’s never done that before, but maybe he did. I don’t know. Thraxton’s got ’em. I know that.”

“Yes, sir. So do I,” Colonel Andy said.

“What we really need to do,” Doubting George said, “is stop worrying about where they’re from and start worrying about how we’re going to drive them back.” He’d said that before. He’d had trouble getting anybody to listen to him. There were times when he had trouble getting himself to listen to him.

Andy asked, “If the king does sack General Guildenstern over this, who do you suppose will replace him?” Avid curiosity filled his voice.

“I’m not going to play that game,” George insisted. “Let’s worry about getting through this battle first. If we don’t do that, nothing else matters.”

Directly rebuked, his aide-de-camp had no choice but to nod. But the question, once posed, kept echoing in George’s mind. If Geoffrey had sent soldiers from the west, King Avram might pluck a general out of Parthenia to take command here in the east. Or he might promote another of the eastern generals.

Colonel Andy refused to stay squelched. He said, “Sir, it could be you.”

“Yes. It could.” Try as he would to avoid it, George found himself drawn into the quicksand of speculation. “It could, but I wouldn’t bet on it. For one thing, I’m a Parthenian, and people still wonder how loyal I am. For another, if we lose this fight, my reputation suffers along with General Guildenstern’s.”

“That’s not fair, sir,” Andy said.

“Life isn’t fair,” George answered. “If I had to put my money on any one man, I’d bet on General Bart.”

“Why?” Andy asked.

“Why? Because Bart seems to be the one man who wants to start pounding on the traitors and keep pounding till they fall over or we do,” George said. “And because King Avram thinks the world of him for taking Camphorville on the Great River earlier this summer and cutting the traitors’ realm in half.”

“He’s a man of no breeding,” Andy said. “A tanner’s son. And he drinks.”

“And General Guildenstern doesn’t?” Doubting George said. His aide-de-camp spluttered, but didn’t say anything. Andy couldn’t very well say anything, not to that. George went on, “Bart’s a solid soldier. You know it, I know it, King Avram knows it, and the northerners know it, too—to their cost. And if we can make serfs into soldiers, we can make a tanner’s son a general. We already have, as a matter of fact.”

“The northerners don’t,” Colonel Andy said.

“No?” George chuckled. “They talk about nobility, but look what they do.” He pointed to the right of his line. “Those are Ned of the Forest’s troopers taking bites out of us over there. Do you think Ned got his command on account of his blue blood?”

“Ned got his command on account of he’s a son of a bitch,” Andy answered.

“Well, that’s true enough,” George said. “But he’s a gods-damned good fighting man, too, no matter what else he is. And so is General Bart. The difference is, General Bart’s
our
son of a bitch.”

He broke off to look around again and see how his men were doing. The short answer was,
not very well
. The traitors had bent their line back into what looked like a unicornshoe on the slopes of Merkle’s Hill. If they could bend the line back on itself, if they could get around it or break through it . . . If they could do any of those things, then talk about who might take over command of this army would prove meaningless, for there would be no army left to command.

General George peered west. He wished he knew how the fight was going for the rest of Guildenstern’s army. Odds were it wasn’t going any too well, or the commanding general would have sent him reinforcements. He could use them, but maybe Guildenstern couldn’t afford to send anyone his way. That didn’t seem good.

And then George stopped worrying about the bigger picture and started using the sword that was supposed to be a ceremonial weapon. As had happened farther northwest, Thraxton’s troopers broke through the line in front of him. The men he commanded had to fall back or die. And he had to fight or die or end up ignominiously captured.

The thought of living off Thraxton the Braggart’s hospitality, of enduring the traitor lord’s society, was plenty to make Doubting George fight like a madman. Crossbow quarrels whistled past him. He didn’t worry about those; he couldn’t do anything about them, anyhow. The roaring northerner in front of him was a different matter. The fellow swung his shortsword as if he were carving meat. “Geoffrey!” he shouted. “Geoffrey and freedom!”

“King Avram!” George yelled back, as if his gray tunic and pantaloons weren’t enough to announce which king he served. “King Avram and one Detina!”

“To the seven hells with King Avram!” the northerner bawled. He slashed again. He was strong as a bull; George felt the blow all the way up his arm and into his shoulder. But strength was all he had going for him. He would never make a real swordsman, not without long training. And he would never get the chance to have such training. Doubting George, like most nobles, had begun swordplay while still a boy. Unlike most nobles, he’d had his skills refined by the tough, unforgiving swordmasters at Annasville while training to become an officer in Detinan service.

He sidestepped a third slash and thrust for the northerner’s throat. The force of the fellow’s own stroke had bent him half double; he had no chance of getting his own blade up in time. Blood spurted when George’s point punched through the soft, vulnerable flesh under his neck. The northerner gobbled something, but blood filled his mouth, too, and made the words meaningless. He stumbled, staggered, fell. He wouldn’t get up again.

Another one of Thraxton’s men, though, had Colonel Andy in trouble, attacking so furiously that the aide-de-camp couldn’t do much against him. George drove his own sword into the blue-clad man’s back. The fellow shrieked and threw up his hands, whereupon Andy ran him through.

“That wasn’t even slightly sporting, sir,” Andy said as the two of them went up the slope of Merkle’s Hill.

“You’re right. It wasn’t,” George replied. “Now ask me if I care. I meant to kill the son of a bitch, and I cursed well did.”

They fell in with more of their own men, and then got behind a hasty breastwork of felled trees. Crossbowmen worked a slaughter on Geoffrey’s soldiers trying to drive them back. Soldiers who could shoot from cover always had an edge on those who fought in the open. And Brigadier Brannan’s engines pounded the northerners, too.

“Hold ’em, boys!” Doubting George shouted. “The River of Death isn’t far from here. Up to us to be the rock in it, not to let the traitors by.”

The men in gray cheered. Colonel Andy set a hand on George’s arm. “Sir,
you’re
the rock in the River of Death.”

“Me? Nonsense,” George said. “Can’t do a thing without good soldiers.” The men cheered again. He waved his hat. “Let’s beat ’em back!” he yelled. “We
can
do it!”

Ned of the Forest scowled at the slopes of Merkle’s Hill. “Damn me to the seven hells if they’re making it easy for us,” he said.

“It’d be nice if they would, eh?” Colonel Biffle said. “How’s your arm, Lord Ned?”

“Not too bad,” Ned answered. After gulping Biffle’s spirits, he’d hardly thought about the wound, so he supposed they’d done their job. “We could use some magecraft to help finish off those southron bastards.”

“Don’t look at me, sir,” Biffle said. “Only magic I know is how to make some of the gals friendly, and I don’t think that’ll do us much good here. In fact, if you want to get right down to it, it’s not even magic, not rightly, anyhow.” He looked smug.

“I wasn’t expecting it from
you
, Biff,” Ned said. “But where’s Thraxton the Braggart? Back when we were still in Rising Rock, he bragged me as big a brag as you’d ever want to hear about how he would lick Guildenstern’s army, lick him out of Rising Rock, lick him clean out of Franklin. He’s supposed to be such an all-fired wonderful he-witch, why isn’t he
doing
anything?”