At last, James the Bird’s Eye broke the silence with a sensible question: “What do we do now, sir?”
Hesmucet gave him the same sort of answer he’d given the scryer: “We’ll try to keep Ned busy over by the Great River, and we’ll keep Joseph’s unicorn-riders close to home so they can’t go after the glideway.”
James gravely considered that. In due course, he nodded. “Makes sense to me, sir,” he said. “We’ve come a long way doing what we’ve been doing. If we keep doing it and hit hard, we ought to end up in Marthasville before too long.”
“We’d better,” Lieutenant General George said. “There are grumblings down south about how long this fight is taking and how many men we’re spending to make it. I have friends who send me the news bulletins. I’m sure the rest of you have friends like that, too. What I’m not so sure of is whether they’re really friends.”
“Bloodsucking ghouls is what they are,” Fighting Joseph said. “They haven’t the ballocks to fight themselves, and so they pass their time by making the men who do fight doubt themselves.”
“It’s more complicated than that, I fear,” Doubting George said.
Fighting Joseph, by his expression, plainly didn’t believe it for a moment. Hesmucet did. He knew how weary the south was of the war against false King Geoffrey, and of its cost in both silver and blood. Victory would make that cost seem worthwhile. As long as the north held Marthasville, as long as Joseph the Gamecock’s army remained intact and in the field, the south saw no victory. If the farmers and burghers got sick of sending their sons and husbands and brothers off to die for what they saw as no good purpose, King Avram would have to recognize his rebellious cousin as his fellow sovereign. Hesmucet aimed to do everything he could to keep that from happening.
“Let’s take a crack at Cedar Hill, then,” he said. “Once we drive the traitors away from it, we’ll be in position to move against Commissioner Mountain.”
“Good enough,” James the Bird’s Eye said. Now Fighting Joseph agreed without hesitation. Whatever else you could say about the man, he wasn’t shy about going into a fight.
The only one showing any doubts was George. “It had better be good enough,” he said. “We’ll just have to do our best to make it good enough.”
When morning came, Hesmucet assembled his force and moved it west. He expected Joseph the Gamecock’s men to have solid entrenchments on the forward slopes of Cedar Hill, and so they did. In spite of a pounding from his siege engines, their lines held firm. Both sides got less use not only from engines but also from crossbows than they would have in better weather; an awful lot of bowstrings were wet. Hesmucet’s men slogged on, cleaning out one trench after another.
Toward midday, Hesmucet glanced up to one of the higher crags of Cedar Hill. There looking down at him-there looking down at his whole host-stood half a dozen northern officers in blue. They observed the men moving against them with the detachment of so many instructors at the military collegium at Annasville.
Rage ripped through Hesmucet. Unlike those cool, detached traitors, he took war personally. He spotted Brigadier Brannan, Doubting George’s commander of siege engines, who’d just wrestled some of his catapults forward. “Brannan!” he called, and pointed up toward the knot of northerners. “Can you smash a couple of those bastards for me?”
Brigadier Brannan studied the enemy officers. “A long shot, especially uphill,” he said, “but I’ve got a chance. Want me to try?”
“Yes, by the Thunderer’s balls!” Hesmucet exclaimed.
“All right.” Brannan called orders to his crew. They tightened the skeins and set a thirty-pound stone in the trough. Brannan himself squeezed the trigger. The catapult bucked and jerked and clacked. Away flew the round stone, almost faster than the eye could follow it.
“Look out!” Joseph the Gamecock shouted as the southrons’ catapult sent a stone flying toward the knot of officers he headed. Spry for a man of his years, he wasted not a heartbeat taking his own advice: he dove behind a boulder. Someone else dove on top of him. Other northerners scattered in all directions.
Joseph listened for the thud of the stone slamming into muddy dirt. Even skipping along the ground, it could be deadly dangerous. He’d heard of a foolish sergeant who’d tried to stop a rolling catapult ball with his foot-and lost the foot as a result.
The stone smacked down, alarmingly close to Joseph the Gamecock. But the sound it made wasn’t the heavy thud of rock hitting mud. It was a wetter noise, a solid smack that made the general commanding the Army of Franklin wince and curse. The southrons had aimed that stone too well. Someone in his retinue had gone down under it.
“Let me up, gods damn it,” Joseph growled to whoever had landed on him. When the officer didn’t move fast enough to suit him, Joseph lashed out with an elbow. That did the trick.
Scrambling to his feet, Joseph looked around. There stood Roast-Beef William, and there were a couple of junior officers, also upright and unscathed. But Leonidas the Priest sprawled on the ground, and plainly would never get up again. He still twitched, but that was only because his body hadn’t yet realized he was dead. When a thirty-pound flying stone hit a man square in the chest, he was unlikely to get up again. Blood soaked into the red dirt, reddening it further. Leonidas’ blood was even redder than the crimson vestments he wore.
His twitching stopped. Joseph peered down toward the southrons and their engine, wondering if they were going to send another stone his way. But they seemed satisfied to have scattered his companions and him. He wondered if they knew they’d hit anyone.
“By the gods,” Roast-Beef William said, staring at the smashed corpse of his fellow wing commander.
“Yes, by the gods,” Joseph the Gamecock agreed. “The Lion God will have himself a new servant, up there on the mountain beyond the sky.” And may Leonidas serve his favorite god better than he ever served King Geoffrey and me.
Another officer said, “I think, sir, we can withdraw from this spot without fear of dishonor.”
Joseph hadn’t thought about that. But he recognized truth when he heard it. “Yes, we’d better,” he agreed, “or else they may decide to send us another present. Somebody grab poor Leonidas’ legs and haul him off. He deserves to go on a proper pyre.”
They retreated farther up Cedar Hill. The southrons down below seemed satisfied with the results of their one shot. Leonidas the Priest’s body left a trail of blood as junior officers dragged him along. Joseph the Gamecock never stopped being amazed at how much blood a man’s body held.
“What do we do now, sir?” Roast-Beef William asked.
“We do what we have to do, Lieutenant General,” Joseph answered. “We appoint a new wing commander and we go on. Leonidas was a brave and pious man, but we have to go on without him.” Leonidas had also been an idiot who didn’t like taking orders, but Joseph the Gamecock didn’t dwell on that, not aloud. When a man died, you looked for the good he’d had in him. If, with the hierophant of the Lion God, you had to look a bit harder than you might with someone else… Stop that, Joseph the Gamecock told himself.
The southrons kept pounding away at Cedar Hill. Roast-Beef William said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to fall back to Commissioner Mountain, sir.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Joseph said. “If General Hesmucet cares to launch a frontal attack against us there, he’s welcome to try it for all of me.”