Sentry Peak (28 page)

Gently, James shook his head. “Remember, Count Thraxton is Geoffrey’s dark-haired boy. If it weren’t for Geoffrey, Thraxton wouldn’t have held his command out here even as long as he has.”

He wondered if Bell even heard him. “Let the king know, James,” the wounded man repeated. “The king has to know.”

“All right,” James of Broadpath said. “I’ll let him know.” He didn’t mean it, but he didn’t want to upset poor Bell. The wound might still kill him, or fever might carry him off. No point tormenting him with refusals at a time like this.

But then, as James left the tent where Bell lay, he plucked at his beard in thought. Coming right out and speaking to King Geoffrey would surely fail; he remained convinced of that. Even so . . .

“How could I be worse off? How could
we
be worse off?” he murmured, and hurried away to the pavilion the scryers called their own.

One of the bright young men looked up from his crystal ball. “Sir?”

“I want you to send a message to Marquis James of Seddon Dun, over in Nonesuch,” James of Broadpath said.

“To the minister of war? Yes, sir,” the scryer said. “You will, of course, have cleared this message with Count Thraxton?”

“I don’t need to do any such thing, sirrah,” James rumbled ominously, and tapped his epaulet to remind the scryer of his own rank.

“Yes, sir,” the fellow said—he was just a first lieutenant, an officer by courtesy of his skill at magecraft rather than by blood or courage. Technically, he was in the right, but a lieutenant technically in the right in a dispute with a lieutenant general would often have done better to be wrong. The youngster had the sense to know it. Licking his lips, he bent low over the crystal ball. “Go ahead, sir.”

“To the most honorable Marquis James of Seddon Dun, Minister of War to his Majesty King Geoffrey, legitimate King of Detina: greetings,” James said, declaiming as if speaking to the minister of war face to face. “May I take the liberty to advise you of our conditions and wants. After a very severe battle, we gained a complete and glorious victory—the most complete of the war, perhaps, except the first at Cow Jog. To express my convictions in a few words, our chief has done but one thing he ought to have done since I joined his army. That was to order the attack. All other things that he has done he ought not to have done. I am convinced that nothing but the hand of the gods can help us as long as we have our present commander.

“Now to our wants. Can you send us Duke Edward? In an ordinary war I could serve without complaints under anyone whom the king might place in authority, but we have too much at stake in this to remain quiet now. Thraxton cannot adopt and adhere to any plan or course, whether of his own or of someone else. I pray you to help us, and speedily. I remain, with the greatest respect, your most obedient servant, James of Broadpath.”

“Is that . . . all, sir?” the scryer asked. James of Broadpath nodded brusquely. The scryer had another question: “Are you . . . sure you want me to send it?” James nodded again. The scryer didn’t; he shook his head. But he murmured over the crystal ball, then looked up. “All right, sir. It’s on its way.” By his tone, he thought James had just asked him to send an earthquake to Nonesuch.

James hoped the scryer was right. As far as he was concerned, an earthquake was exactly what this army needed. But all he said was, “The minister of war should hear my views.” He strode out of the scryers’ tent.

In striding out, he almost collided with Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest, both of whom were striding in, grim, intent looks on their faces. “Oh, by the gods!” Dan exclaimed. “Don’t tell me he’s got you, too?”

“Don’t tell me who’s got me for what?” James asked.

Dan and Leonidas both started talking at once. Leonidas used language James would not have expected to hear from a hierophant. But he was the one who calmed down enough to give a straight answer: “Count Thraxton has ordered us removed from our commands, may he suffer in the seven hells for seven times seven eternities.”

“He’s done what?” James of Broadpath’s jaw dropped. “He won’t move against Guildenstern, but he will against his own generals?”

“That’s the size of it, your Excellency,” Dan said bitterly. “That’s just exactly the size of it. And if he thinks I’m going to take it lying down, he can bloody well think again. King Geoffrey
will
hear of this.”

“He certainly will,” Leonidas the Priest agreed. “And so will the Pontifex Maximus back in Nonesuch. Thraxton needs to be placed under full godly interdict.”

“What on earth made him sack both his wing commanders?” James asked, still more than a little stunned.

“We have the sense to see that this army should be doing more than it is, and we have had what the Braggart reckons the infernal gall to stand up on our hind legs and say so out loud,” Dan of Rabbit Hill replied. “As far as Thraxton is concerned, that amounts to insubordination, and so he sacked us.”

“Which is why, when we saw you here, we wondered whether you had suffered the same fate,” Leonidas said. “You have also seen that Count Thraxton’s conduct of this campaign leaves everything to be desired.”

“He hasn’t got round to me yet.” James felt almost ashamed that Thraxton hadn’t got round to him—or was the Braggart holding off because he properly belonged to the Army of Southern Parthenia, not the Army of Franklin? “But I just sent a message to the minister of war expressing my lack of confidence in Thraxton as a leader of this host.”

“Huzzah!” Baron Dan slapped him on the back. “Here’s hoping it does some good. Here’s hoping someone back in Nonesuch starts paying attention to the east. Someone had better. Without it, King Geoffrey has no kingdom.”

“Well said,” James told him. “That’s just why Duke Edward prevailed on Geoffrey to send me hither. The victory a few days ago opened the door for us. But we still have to go through it, and Rising Rock stands in the way.”

“It shouldn’t,” Leonidas the Priest said. Even he could see that, and he was hardly a soldier at all. “We should have pursued the southrons harder, and we should have flanked them out of it. Why didn’t we?”

“Because Thraxton’s an imbecile, that’s why,” Dan of Rabbit Hill snapped.

James was inclined to agree with him; no other explanation fit half so well. He said, “This army
can
still win, with a proper general at its head. I asked the minister of war for Duke Edward.”

Dan whistled softly. “Do you think we’ll get him?”

“Not likely,” James answered with genuine regret. “King Geoffrey wants to keep him between Nonesuch and the southrons. He figures his capital is safe as long as Duke Edward’s there, and he’s probably right.”

“Still, it is a telling cry of distress,” Leonidas the Priest observed.

Now James nodded. “Just so. That’s why I sent the message. If it doesn’t draw King Geoffrey’s eye to this part of the front, I don’t know what will. If it doesn’t draw his eye hither, I fear nothing will.”

“That must not be,” Leonidas said. “True, we can lose the war if Nonesuch falls, and Nonesuch is not far north of the border with the southrons. But we can also lose the war in these eastern parts, and Count Thraxton in his arrogant idiocy is doing everything he can to make that unhappy result come to pass.”

“We aren’t the only ones muttering, I’ll have you know,” Dan of Rabbit Hill told James. “Some few—some more than a few—of the brigadiers under us are circulating a petition amongst themselves, expressing their lack of confidence in the Braggart.”

“Are they?” James said, and Dan and Leonidas both solemnly nodded. James shook his head in slow wonder. “We are spending as much of our substance fighting amongst ourselves as we are against the gods-damned southrons, and we have less to spare than they do.”

“True. Every word of it true—and every bit of it Thraxton the Braggart’s fault,” Baron Dan said. “And yet we beat the foe at the River of Death. We could have won a bigger victory, and we could have won another victory afterwards. But did we?” His dismissive wave proclaimed what Thraxton’s Army of Franklin had done—and what it had failed to do.

“We didn’t.” Leonidas the Priest stated the obvious. “I shall pray once more to the Lion God to look more kindly upon us—after I protest my dismissal. If you will excuse me, your Excellency . . .” He pushed past James of Broadpath and into the scryers’ tent.

“I still have that to attend to myself.” Dan of Rabbit Hill also bowed to James. “I hope to have the chance to discuss these things with you at greater length when we both have more leisure and when we both find ourselves in a better temper . . . if such happy days should ever come.”

“May it be so,” James said. “We shall have a great deal to discuss in those happy days—of that I am certain.”

“Indeed.” Ducking past him, Dan followed Leonidas into the tent.

“A great deal to discuss,” James repeated, this time to himself. Everything had gone just as he’d hoped it would. His men had let Thraxton win a smashing victory against General Guildenstern, a smashing victory that turned out not to be quite smashing enough.

He looked south and east toward Rising Rock. Driving the southrons out of the city now wouldn’t be easy, wouldn’t be cheap, and might well prove beyond the power of Thraxton’s army. Besieging them would have been easier had Thraxton thrown a proper line around the place when he had the chance. Which left . . . James cursed. He had no idea what it left.

Riding for all they were worth, the southrons hurried off toward the southwest, where Whiskery Ambrose still held Wesleyton. Had they been on dogs instead of unicorns, their mounts would have had their tails between their legs. Ned of the Forest whooped to see them flee before him. If he’d had even a few regiments of footsoldiers to go with his riders, he might have taken Wesleyton back from the southrons.

Captain Watson’s little collection of siege engines had, as usual, kept right up with the rest of Ned’s riders. Watson sent a last couple of firepots after the retreating southron riders. One burst between a couple of unicorns and drenched both them and the men aboard them with flames. Ned whooped again. “Good shooting, by the gods!” he shouted. “Real good shooting.”

Watson waved to him. “Thank you, Lord Ned.”

“Thank
you
, Captain.” Ned was ready, even eager, to give praise where it was due. And Watson, even though he couldn’t raise a proper crop of whiskers yet, was as praiseworthy a soldier as Ned had found. “Those fellows won’t be bothering us again any time soon.”

A scryer rode toward him, calling, “Lord Ned! We’ve got orders from Count Thraxton, sir!”

“Do we?” Ned rumbled; orders from Thraxton the Braggart were the last thing he wanted right this minute. But, with the scryer’s having made that public, he couldn’t very well ignore them—
not unless they’re really stupid
, he thought. With a sigh, he said, “And what does the count want with us?”

“Sir, we’re ordered back to the rest of the army, north and west of Rising Rock,” the scryer told him. That wasn’t so bad; he’d been intending to rejoin the main force soon anyhow. Then the scryer lowered his voice and went on, “Some powerful strange things are going on back there right now, if half of what the fellow who sent the order to me said alongside of it is true.”

“Is that a fact?” Ned said, and the scryer solemnly nodded. The cavalry commander asked the next question: “What kind of strange things?”

“Well, he didn’t exactly know, sir—not exactly,” the scryer said. Ned glared. When he asked a question like that, he expected a proper answer. Flushing under swarthy skin, the scryer did his best: “From what he says, everybody who’s in command of anything is screaming bloody murder at everybody else.”

“Is that a fact?” Ned of the Forest repeated. The scryer gave him a nervous nod. Ned forgot the man in front of him. He plucked at his chin beard, thinking hard. At last, he said, “So I’m not the only one who reckons we should ought to have done more to get the southrons out of Rising Rock, eh?”

“I don’t know anything about that, sir, not for sure I don’t,” the scryer said. “I’m just telling you what I heard from the fellow back there.”

“All right.” Ned let him off the hook. Turning to the trumpeters who always accompanied him, he said, “Blow
recall
.”

The unicorn-riders reined in in some surprise; Ned of the Forest wasn’t in the habit of breaking off pursuit so soon. They’d whipped Whiskery Ambrose’s men, but they hadn’t crushed them. Colonel Biffle asked, “What’s up, sir?”

“Thraxton wants us back close to home,” Ned told him. “And, from what the scryer says, there’s some kind of foofaraw back at the camp. Maybe it’s just as well he ordered us back. I want to find out what’s going on.”

“He’d better not try messing with you, Lord Ned,” Colonel Biffle said.

Ned of the Forest hadn’t thought of that. His hands closed hard on the reins. “You’re right, Biff. He’d better not try that. He’d be one of the sorriest men ever born if he did.”

But he did his best to stay cheerful as he rode back toward the Army of Franklin’s encampment outside Rising Rock. Maybe Thraxton was finally deciding to try to get between the southrons and their supply base over in Ramblerton. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him to do that.

But if that was the reason he wanted the unicorn-riders back, why were all the high officers screaming at one another?

He brought his men into Thraxton’s encampment a little before sunset. He’d hardly dismounted before excited footsoldiers started passing gossip to his riders, gossip that quickly reached him: Leonidas the Priest and Dan of Rabbit Hill sacked, James of Broadpath screaming to Nonesuch, and every sort of story under the sun about Count Thraxton. Even Ned, who was inclined to believe almost anything of his commander, found the rumors swirling through the encampment hard to swallow.

And then a runner came up to him and said, “Sir, you are requested and required to report to Count Thraxton’s headquarters immediately upon your arrival.”

“Oh, I am, am I?” Ned said. “Why didn’t Thraxton order me to come in to him
before
I got back?” The runner just stared in confusion. Ned sighed. “Never mind, sonny boy. Lead me to him. I’ll follow you.”