Ned of the Forest had gone up against Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders pushing south, trying to flank John the Lister out of Poor Richard. He hadn’t been able to shift them. It was the first time in the whole course of the war that he’d tried to make a move and had the southrons completely thwart him. He hadn’t cared for the experience one bit.
Now Hard-Riding Jimmy’s troopers were the ones moving forward, and Ned had to stop them. He was discovering he liked that even less.
For one thing, he was again operating without his own full force of riders. Bell, in his infinite wisdom, had sent some of them off to raid Reillyburgh. He’d claimed the raid would help draw Doubting George out of Ramblerton and make him attack the Army of Franklin’s entrenched positions. He’d been right, too. Ned wondered how happy Bell was now about being right.
For another, between the fight near Poor Richard and this one, Jimmy had been massively reinforced. Every single one of his unicorn-riders seemed to be using a newfangled, quick-shooting crossbow. He would have badly outnumbered Ned of the Forest even had Ned had all his own riders. This way… this way, it was like trying to hold back an avalanche with his hands.
Every inch of ground between the left end of Lieutenant General Bell’s line and the Cumbersome River seemed to have a southron unicorn-rider galloping forward over it. And all of them were putting so many crossbow quarrels in the air, a man might almost have walked across the battlefield on them.
“What the hells do we do, Lord Ned?” Colonel Biffle wailed after Jimmy’s men made him give up a knoll he’d badly needed to hold. It was either give up the knoll or wait to get flanked out of the position… or wait a little longer and get surrounded and destroyed. “What the hells can we do?”
“Fight the bastards,” Ned snarled. He’d been living up to his own advice; his saber had blood on it. He laid it across his knees for a moment while he snapped off a shot at a gray-clad southron. He missed, and cursed, and reloaded as fast as he could. A southron could have got off three or four shots with his fancy weapon in the time Ned needed to shoot once.
When he shot again, though, a southron unicorn-rider crumpled in the saddle. “That’s the way!” Biffle exclaimed.
But Ned remained gloomy even as he set yet another bolt in the groove of his crossbow and yanked the string back with a jerk of his powerful arms. “They’ve got four or five times the men we do, and a lot more than that when it comes to shooting power,” he said. “How the hells are we supposed to whip ’em with odds like that?”
“If we had all the men we’re supposed to-” his regimental commander began.
“It might help a little,” Ned broke in. “I hated Bell’s guts when he stole ’em from me. I hated his guts, and I hated his empty head. But you know what, Biff? Right this minute, I’m not sure how much difference they’d make.”
Colonel Biffle stared at him. “I’ve never heard you talk this way before, Lord Ned. Sounds like you’re giving up.”
Before Ned could answer, a crossbow quarrel hummed past between the two men. “I’m not quitting. There’s no quit in me. I’ll fight till those sons of bitches kill me. Even after I’m dead, I want my ghost to haunt ’em. But by the Lion God’s claws, Biff, how am I supposed to win when I’ve got to fight everything the southrons can throw at me?”
“I don’t know, sir. I wish I did. You always have, up till now.”
“But up till now I’ve been operating on my own. If too many southrons came after me, I could always ride off and hit ’em again somewhere else. Here, though, here I’m stuck. I can’t pull away from this fight, on account of if I do, Hard-Riding Jimmy gets around the footsoldiers’ flank and eats ’em for supper. So I’ve got to stand here and take it-take it right on the chin.”
Another hillock fell, the southrons shooting at the men on it from the front, right, and left at the same time. Ned’s troopers barely escaped. If they’d waited much longer, they would have been cut off and surrounded. Watching them fall back, Colonel Biffle said, “That’s what happened to me, too.”
“I understood you,” Ned said. Yet another bolt thrummed past, wickedly close. He went on, “If it’s just a shooting match, they’re going to whip us. I don’t know of anything in the whole wide world plainer’n that.” If the southrons did push aside or beat back his unicorn-riders, they would outflank the Army of Franklin’s footsoldiers, and then… That was all too plain to Ned, too.
Biffle said, “What else can it be but a shooting match?”
“Let’s close with ’em,” Ned said savagely. This wasn’t the kind of fight he usually made, or usually wanted to make. He knew how expensive it would be. But he also knew how disastrous continuing the fight as it was going would be. “They’re tough enough with the crossbow, all right. How are they with sabers in their hands?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Biffle said in wondering tones.
Ned of the Forest wondered, too: he wondered if he’d lost his mind. But when you were desperate, you had to do desperate things. He stood tall in the saddle, brandishing his blood-streaked saber. Pointing it toward the southrons, he roared out a command: “Chaaarge!” He set spurs to his unicorn and thundered at Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men.
His troopers followed without hesitation. The southrons were a couple of hundred yards away. Ned hadn’t ridden more than half the distance before realizing he’d made a mistake. The enemy didn’t want to play his game, and they had the shooting power to make sure his side paid a high price for even attempting it. A storm of crossbow quarrels met his riders. Men pitched from saddles. Unicorns crashed to the ground, screaming like women in anguish. He wondered whether he would have any followers left by the time he got in amongst the southrons. He didn’t wonder if he would get in amongst them. He had the good soldier’s arrogance to be sure of that.
Sometimes, of course, even good soldiers were wrong. Ned of the Forest shoved that thought deep down out of sight. He had no time for it now. He never had much time for thoughts like those.
His mount lowered its head and charged for the closest enemy unicorn. A young officer with only one epaulet rode the other unicorn: a lieutenant. He shot at Ned, who hunched low on his own beast’s back. The southron missed. Cursing, he worked the lever that brought a new bolt up into the groove and cocked the crossbow at the same time. He shot again. He missed again.
Even with a fancy quick-shooting crossbow, he had no time for another shot after that. And, paying so much attention to his crossbow, he hadn’t paid enough to his unicorn. Ned’s mount gored it in the left shoulder, tearing a red, bleeding line in the perfect whiteness of its coat. The unicorn shrieked and reared. The southron lieutenant had all he could do to stay in the saddle-till left-handed Ned hacked him out of it with a savage saber stroke.
“Come on, you sons of bitches!” Ned shouted, and even he couldn’t have told whether he was yelling at his own men or King Avram’s. “Let’s see how you like it!”
He struck out at another trooper in gray. His sword bit the man’s arm. The cry that burst from the southron was as shrill as any a unicorn might have made. Most men-most men on both sides, from what Ned had seen-had little stomach for close combat. They would sooner fight at crossbow range, where they could think of their foes as targets, not as other men like themselves… and where they didn’t have to meet them face to face.
Ned was different. He might have been a wolf who knew only how to kill with his own jaws. Meeting the enemy face to face didn’t bother him-on the contrary. It helped him frighten the foe. And the more fear he spread, the easier that made the rest of his job.
He rode up to a southron sergeant. The enemy unicorn-rider had drawn his saber, but Ned attacked from his left side, which meant he had to reach across his body to defend himself. Ned’s smile was wolfish, too. Being left-handed had won him a lot of fights.