Two days later, Colonel Nahath’s regiment fought its way up to the very outskirts of the sacred precinct of which New Bolt Shrine formed the heart. In the face of stubborn northern resistance, their attack stalled there. In short order, the very reason for the attack became meaningless, for stones and firepots from southron siege engines reduced the shrine to smoking rubble.
That, of course, did not keep the southrons from attacking the place. They’d got their orders before New Bolt Shrine went up in flames, and the mere fact that it went up in flames didn’t seem to register with the men who composed and gave those orders. They sent the regiment forward again and again.
Joseph the Gamecock’s men defended wreckage just as stoutheartedly as they’d tried to hold the intact New Bolt Shrine, too. At last, though, a fierce assault cleared them from the precinct. Rollant strode over tumbled stones and burnt timbers. “This had better be worth something,” he said, “on account of we sure paid a hells of a price for it.”
“Maybe our wizards could make a gods-damned big magic and give us back some of the poor sons of bitches who died taking it,” Smitty said.
“If they had that kind of magic, they could have found another battlefield to use it on,” Rollant said.
Smitty gave him an impatient look. “I know that, you chowderhead. What I meant was, nothing they do here could be worth it, no matter what. There. Do I have to draw you a picture?”
Sergeant Joram spoke up: “Smitty, why don’t I draw a picture of you going down and finding a creek and coming back with full canteens for everybody?”
“Have a heart, Sergeant!” Smitty moaned. Joram folded massive arms across a wide chest. Not only did he have rank on his side, he could have torn Smitty in two. Rollant held out his water bottle to Smitty. Cursing, the farmer’s son took it.
A young fellow with a major’s epaulets and a mage’s badge prominently pinned to his tunic came up and prowled among the ruins as avidly as a hound looking for a buried bone. After a bit, his eye fell on Rollant. “You, there!” he said.
“Yes, sir?” Rollant came to attention.
“As you were, as you were.” The mage gestured. “Can’t stand that nonsense. Bunch of foolishness-and go ahead, call me a heretic. Where was I?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Rollant said truthfully.
“I know what it was,” the young mage said. He looked frightfully clever, like a child too smart for its own good. “You’d be from around these parts, wouldn’t you?”
“No, sir,” Rollant answered.
“No?” Now he’d surprised the wizard. “Why not?”
Patiently, Rollant said, “Sir, I was born near Karlsburg, and I spent the last ten years before the war in New Eborac City. This is the first time I’ve ever been anywhere near this place. Not all blonds are the same, you know, any more than a Detinan from New Eborac is the same as one from Palmetto Province.”
“Oh,” the sorcerous major said. But then he nodded. “Yes, of course. That does make good sense, now that I think on it. I was going to ask you if you knew whether these ruins had any particular sorcerous focus.”
“You’re the wizard, sir, so you’d know better than I would,” Rollant replied. “People have said there’s one somewhere about, though. Otherwise, why would we have fought so hard over it?”
“Because, as often as not, people are a pack of gods-damned fools,” the major answered. Rollant’s jaw fell. The youngster laughed. “Never underestimate that as a possible reason. People are a pack of gods-damned fools a lot of the time. If the northerners weren’t gods-damned fools, for instance, would they have tried to leave Detina in the first place?” Before Rollant could even try to find an answer for that, the mage went on, “I don’t feel any power here to speak of, either from the old days or from the Thunderer. It’s all just so much moonshine, if you want to know what I think.”
Rollant hadn’t much wanted to know what he thought. But a major didn’t have to worry about a common soldier’s opinion, especially if the common soldier was a blond. Off the mage went, leaving Rollant behind scratching his head. “What was all that about?” Smitty asked. He was festooned with water bottles now.
“Fellow says this New Bolt Shrine wasn’t really any place worth fighting about,” Rollant answered.
“Oh, he does, does he?” Smitty rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised, and how many lives have we thrown away going after it?”
“Do you know who that was?” Sergeant Joram asked. Both Rollant and Smitty shook their heads. Joram said, “That was Major Alva, that’s who. He’s supposed to be as hot as any traitor mage ever hatched-he’s the fellow who gave us such good sorcerous cover when we went into Caesar.”
“Then he ought to know what he’s talking about,” Smitty said.
That did make sense. It also made Rollant uncomfortable. Alva said there was no power lingering where the blonds had had a holy place, even after the Thunderer also had a shrine made on the same spot. Shouldn’t the gods of either blonds or Detinans have left more of an impress on the world than that? And if they hadn’t, what did it mean? Rollant wondered if he wanted to know.
Off to the north, smoke was rising from another battlefield where southrons and traitors clashed. Rollant wondered if that fight was as meaningless as the one in which he’d just taken part. How many men were dying for nothing over there?
“It’s not exactly nothing,” Smitty said when he complained aloud. “Whether we can make special sorcery here or not, we still needed to take this place if we’re going to clear the traitors out of Fort Worthless.”
Rollant grunted. “That’s true, I suppose. But still-”
“Keep quiet,” Sergeant Joram said. “If somebody tells us to go forwards, we go forwards, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Rollant said resignedly. Up on a northern plantation, Joram would have made a terrific serf-driver. If Rollant told him that, though, he might take it for a compliment.
“Well, then,” Joram said, as if he’d proved something. Maybe he had-he’d proved he could tell Rollant what to do. But Rollant already knew that. Sometimes, though, a sergeant just needed to thump his chest and bellow, as if he were a bull pawing the ground in a field. Rollant couldn’t see the sense there, but he’d seen it was true.
“If this New Bolt shrine isn’t worth anything, what do we do now?” Smitty asked-but quietly, so Rollant could hear and Joram couldn’t.
“We go forward,” Rollant answered. “We keep going forward till the traitors can’t stop us any more.” So far, he sounded like a sergeant himself. But then he added, “And we hope some of us are still alive when that finally happens.” Smitty walked off toward the creek for a couple of paces. Then, reluctantly, he nodded.
General Hesmucet had trouble deciding whether or not he ought to be a happy man. His soldiers had forced their way across Calabash Creek. They’d made Joseph the Gamecock pull out of Whole Mackerel. They’d cleared his men from New Bolt Shrine and Fort Worthless. They’d done a lot of hard fighting in some of the most miserable terrain anywhere in Detina. They’d been victorious almost everywhere-and what did they have to show for it?
Less than I’d like, gods damn it, Hesmucet thought. No matter how harried Joseph the Gamecock’s forces had been, his army remained in being, and remained between Hesmucet and Marthasville. Joseph was doing his job. Hesmucet peered west from the swampy wilderness he’d just spent a few weeks overrunning. Joseph the Gamecock, as usual, had more entrenchments waiting for him, some on a little knob called Cedar Hill, others farther west on a heavily wooded slope identified on his map as Commissioner Mountain. It didn’t look like much of a mountain to him, but the traitors had some perfectly good artificers who would have studied out the ground and turned it into much more than a molehill.