By then, Howell must have brought the army up into place. In proper country – steep, but not too steep, and wooded. There'd be barely time to prepare for the blow…
Sam had lain awake long glass-hours, the war's possible futures folding and unfolding like one of the decorated screens the Empire's ladies were said to love, colorful with signs, secrets, and portraits of their families and lovers intertwined with painted flowers.
He'd risen before dawn in cold and darkness, set his flask aside, draped his cloak, and strapped his sword on his back. Then walked icy ground to north stables and the brute imperial charger from Boca Chica – Difficult. The stableman, Corporal Brice, had tacked the big animal up – kneeing the horse's belly to burp air out of him for the cinch – stood aside while Sam mounted, then reached up to touch his knee. "Good luck, General."
"Jake – you people, the army, are my luck."
… Sam saw the camino from the ridge. Six people mounted, with four packhorses on lead, were waiting at the roadside, their cloaks blowing in a cold wind. The rising sun threw their shadows sideways. – As he'd seen the riders, they'd seen him, and watched as he spurred down the slope.
When he trotted up, Margaret heeled her horse to meet him… seemed troubled.
"Sir – "
"What is it?" Sam said, then looked past her at the others. A lieutenant of Light Cavalry, and three sergeants – one each, apparently, from Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, Heavy Cavalry. The army's four divisions represented… There was also a grinning civilian, very fat in a stained red-wool cloak, holding the packhorses' lead. Undoubtedly one of Eric's dubious people, acting as cook, hostler, strangler on occasion…
Sam knew the lieutenant. And two of the sergeants.
"Margaret, what in the fuck did you think you were doing? I said, 'presentable'!"
"Sir, the brothers, and Eric, and Phil Butler – they all insisted."
"They ordered these men here?"
"Yes, sir, ordered them with you as escort."
"I gave you a different order, Margaret. And I want it obeyed."
"… Sam, I agree with them."
He reined Difficult past her. "You men get back to camp."
The young lieutenant of Light Cavalry saluted him. "Sir, wish we could, but we've been promised hanging if we don't travel with you." The lieutenant, Pedro Darry, was wearing a marten cloak as costly as a farm. Son of one of the richest merchants in North Map-Mexico, handsome and spoiled, he'd ornamented the Emperor's court in Mexico City while serving as a factor for his father, before destroying two marriages and running one of the husbands through in a duel.
"I see, promised hanging… Then go back and be hanged, Lieutenant. And take these other men with you."
"Please, sir – if we swear to be presentable?" Red-haired, green-eyed, and slender, with a pale and elegant face, Darry smiled winningly while managing a restless gray racer.
"No," Sam said. The lieutenant, sent back north in disgrace, had managed to fight three more duels in the last four years – while on leave, so permitted though not approved of – and had killed all three men, Pedro being not only a spoiled son of a bitch, but an accomplished swordsman… And, to do him justice, one of Ned Flores' favorite troop commanders.
"Sir, if we swear word-of-honor? Otherwise, well… I'll have to resign my commission, and these men desert, so we can follow after you."
"Might be useful, sir." Margaret, behind Sam – and meaning, of course, Darry's skills at court as well as with the sword. His looks… his manner. Not the sort of young man to be considered a back-country barbarian – as another young North Mexican surely would be, ruler or not.
And it was possible that the three sergeants – professionally expressionless, and sitting their saddles at attention – though not presentable, and obviously chosen for ferocity, might also prove useful as visible reminders of the army they represented… Sam knew David Mays, a silent, squatly massive Heavy Infantryman with a face like a fighting dog's, a man avoided even by those considered dangerous themselves. Sam knew him, and Sergeant Henry Burke, a tall, lank, hunch-shouldered Heavy Cavalryman. Burke was known for his savage temper – and the ability, on a sufficient bet, to bend his knees, reach both arms under a horse's belly, and lift the animal slightly off the ground… holding it there for a count of five.
Sam didn't recognize the third sergeant – a Light Infantryman, lean and boyish, so pale a blond his hair looked white, his eyes a very light gray. He carried a longbow on his back, a short-sword on his belt.
"Name?"
"Wilkey, sir. Company of Scouts."
He smiled at Sam, seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease, containing none of the fury the other two sergeants carried locked within them – and for that reason, was perhaps the most dangerous of the three.
Sam looked past him. " – And you?"
The fat man saluted badly, with a flourish. "Ansel Carey, milord. Cook, hostler, rough-medic, and… what you will."
'What you will' Sam supposed, included any necessary murders, though the man wore no weapons… Phil, Eric, and the others must have enjoyed choosing these guards and companions. A dandy and duelist, three dangerous sergeants, and a servant with certain skills. And, of course, Margaret Mosten. On consideration, a useful party… though not perfectly presentable.
"Darry…"
"Sir?"
"If you cause any trouble in the Kingdom – any problems with women, any embarrassment at all – you will wish to Lady Weather you hadn't."
"Understood, sir."
"And the same for you men! If trouble comes, it had better come to you, not from you."
"Sir."
"Sir."
"Sir."
"Master Carey?"
"Hear an' obey, milord."
" 'Sir' will do." Sam hauled Difficult's head around, and spurred the charger down the road and into its customary punishing trot. Four days, at least, to the Gulf Entire, with a boat pigeoned to wait for them. Then, a two-day crossing to the mouth of Kingdom River… and what welcome the Kingdom chose.
It was odd to ride where no mountains rose in the distance… oddly calming, dreamlike, as if riding might continue forever.
Howell turned in his saddle, as he'd done before, to confirm that more than four thousand cavalry rode behind him, raising no dust on the prairie's frozen grass and ground. Carlo Petersen at the front of First Brigade, with his trumpeter and the banner-bearer – the great flag restless in the breeze, its black scorpion threatening on a field of gold… though scorpions were deep-south creatures. The only scorpion Howell'd seen had been in a glass bottle, looking furious.
Petersen, then the banner, then three brigades coming after, side by side in long, long columns of ten – regiments broken into squadrons, then troops, then companies. Light horse, Heavies, and militia troops as well. The horse-archer companies deployed Warm-time miles east and west. And deployed the same distance behind them.
But ahead, only two scouts rode, nearly out of sight in high, frost-killed grass, and out of sight completely when they rode down the other sides of long soft swells of land.
Howell would have preferred no scouts before him, nothing but distance with no stopping place, no purpose but going.
After almost four days over the border, guided by an iron-needle compass and two ancient Warm-time copy-maps – an Exxon (mysterious word) and half a BP (mysterious initials) – they were fifteen, perhaps twenty miles south of Fort Stockton. He could, of course, choose to ride wide around it, lead on north and north to the Wall. Perhaps ride up onto the ice itself – there must be canyons, melt-slopes that horses could manage. Then all four thousand and more might ride over endless ice to the turning tip of the world, until they slowed… and slowed… and the horses froze, the riders were frozen fast in their saddles. An army of steel and ice – shining in sunlight or coated in blizzard white – that could not harm or be harmed, could not lose or win.