Smitty mimed giving somebody a good kick. Maybe it was Bell and the traitors he led. By the way his foot was aimed, maybe it was Sergeant Joram, too.
“Come on,” Rollant said. “Let’s get ready to move.”
They didn’t have a whole lot of getting ready to do. They were veterans; throwing what was essential into their rucksacks took only minutes. Everything that wasn’t essential had long since been lost or left behind. Rollant had tea, crossbow bolts and strings, hard bread and smoked meat, a skillet made from half a tin canteen nailed to a stick, and a couple of pairs of socks his wife, Norina, had knitted and sent from New Eborac City. He carried more bolts on his belt, and a water bottle in place of the canteen that had long since split. Smitty’s gear was similarly minimal. They both slung their crossbows on their backs and were ready to march.
Rollant had one more piece of equipment to carry. He went to take the company banner from its shrine. Offering a murmured prayer-if he’d had wine or spirits in the bottle, he’d have poured a libation-he plucked up the staff and proudly brought it to the front of the company. Standard-bearers were always targets; he’d taken the job by seizing the banner and keeping it from falling when his predecessor was hit. He made a special target, being not just a standard-bearer but also a blond. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, the honor outweighed the risk-and the way he’d taken up the banner and gone on afterwards had won him promotion to corporal, no easy thing for a blond to win.
“Good day, Corporal,” said Lieutenant Griff, the company commander. Griff was young and skinny and weedy, with a voice that sometimes cracked. But he was brave enough, and he treated Rollant fairly. The company could have had a worse man in charge.
“Good day, sir.” Rollant saluted. “Ready when you are.”
Griff returned the salute. He was punctilious about military courtesy. “We’ll be moving soon, I’m sure. Not everyone is as swift as we are.”
“Too bad for the others,” Rollant declared.
“I like your spirit, Corporal,” Griff said. “You make… you make a good soldier.” He sounded faintly surprised at saying such a thing.
Ordinary Detinans often sounded faintly-or more than faintly-surprised when they said anything good about a blond. More often than not, they left such things unsaid. That Lieutenant Griff had spoken up pleased Rollant very much. He saluted again. “Thank you, sir!”
“You’re welcome,” Griff replied. Horns blared just then. All through the ranks, men stirred. They recognized the call to move out. Griff smiled at Rollant. “Raise that banner high, Corporal. We’ve got some marching to do.”
“Yes, sir!” Rollant said, and he did.
Ned of the Forest turned to one of his regimental commanders as he led the long column of unicorn-riders south. “Feels good to be on the move, doesn’t it, Biff?”
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Biffle answered. Gray streaked his beard. Ned’s beard remained dark, though his hair had some gray in it. “I just hope we can hit the southrons a gods-damned good lick, that’s all.”
“So do I,” Ned said. He was a big man, and a quiet one till he got in a temper or found himself in battle. Then nothing and no one around him was safe. He wore his saber on the right side, where a lefthanded man could draw it in a hurry. He also carried a short crossbow and a sheaf of bolts.
He’d had the crossbow for years. The hilt of the saber was wrapped in leather, not with the gold or silver wire some officers a good deal less wealthy than Ned affected. Unlike a lot of northern nobles, he didn’t fight because he loved war and glory. He fought because he’d chosen Geoffrey over Avram, because he wanted to do everything he could to aid his choice, and because he’d turned out to be monstrous good at war. But, to him, the tools of the trade were only tools, nothing more.
“We can lick the southrons, can’t we, sir?” Colonel Biffle asked. “We’ve whipped ’em plenty of times, after all.”
“Of course we can,” Ned said stoutly. “Of course we have. And of course we will.” He didn’t like the doubt in Biffle’s voice. He didn’t like the doubt in his own heart, either. The raids he’d led had kept the southrons off-balance in Cloviston and Franklin and in Great River Province, too. He’d sacked fortresses-once, his men had turned on and slaughtered a couple of hundred blonds at Fort Cushion when they didn’t yield fast enough-and wrecked glideways. He’d ridden into southron-held Luxor, on the banks of the Great River, and come within inches of capturing the enemy commander there. He’d heard that General Hesmucet, as grim a soldier as the south had produced, had said there would be no peace in the east till he was dead.
By the gods, I’m not dead yet, he thought.
But he felt no great assurance when he looked back over his shoulder at the force General Bell had scraped together. Even with his own unicorn-riders added in, this was a sad and sorry remnant of the army that had smashed the southrons at the River of Death-had smashed them and then failed to gather up their men who were trapped at Rising Rock in northwestern Franklin. Ned muttered under his breath, calling curses down on the sour, empty head of Count Thraxton the Braggart. Comparing what he could have accomplished with what he’d actually done…
Ned muttered under his breath again. He didn’t want to think about that. The more he did think about it, the angrier he got. I should have killed him. He’d had his chance, but he hadn’t done it.
Biffle said something. “Tell me again, Biff,” Ned said. “I was woolgathering, and I missed it.”
Colonel Biffle grinned. “I hope you were dreaming up something especially nasty for the stinking southrons.”
“Well… not exactly,” Ned said. Biffle had been along when he had his run-in with Count Thraxton. Even so, he didn’t tell the regimental commander he’d been contemplating the untimely demise of somebody on his own side. “Let me know what’s on your mind. I’m listening now, and that’s a fact.”
“I said, I don’t like the look of those clouds there.” Biffle pointed to the southwest.
His attention drawn to them, Ned of the Forest decided he didn’t like the look of those clouds, either. They were thick and black, and spreading over the sky with startling speed. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the first harbinger of the wind that carried them reached him. It felt wet and cold, a warning winter was on the way.
“We ought to step up the pace,” he said. “Best to get along as far as we can before the rain starts coming down-because it will.”
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Biffle said, but his voice was troubled. A moment later, he explained why: “We’ll get a long ways in front of the pikemen and crossbowmen if we do, won’t we, sir?”
Except in the heat of battle, Ned was a man who seldom cursed. He felt like cursing now. Relentless motion was what he depended on to win his battles. However much he depended on it, though, he couldn’t use it now. A sour laugh helped him make the best of things. “When you’re right, Biff, you’re right. We’ve got to stay with ’em, sure as sure.”
He hated that. He felt tethered. He wanted to range freely with his unicorn-riders, to hit the southrons where they least expected it. At the head of the riders, he could do that when they were on their own. When they were also the eyes and ears for the rest of the army, he couldn’t, or not so easily.
The wind got stronger and colder and wetter. Before long, the rain he’d foreseen started falling. It was a hard, chilly rain, a rain that would have been snow or sleet in another few weeks. Even as rain, it was more than bad enough. For a little while, it laid the dust the unicorns-and the asses drawing the supply wagons, and the wagons’ wheels-kicked up from the roadway. But then, when it kept falling, it started turning the road to mud.
Ned of the Forest still didn’t curse. He felt like it more than ever, though. His unicorn began to struggle, having to lift each hoof out of the thickening ooze with a separate, special effort. What his unicorn was doing, he knew every other unicorn was doing as well. They wouldn’t be able to go fast now, no matter how much they wanted to.