“This time, we cannot fail. We must not fail,” Bell said. “We have to win by the city, and we have to win up by Jonestown. You tend to the second, and I will take care of the first. You may rely on it.”
“I do, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. “I have to.” He strode out of Bell’s headquarters before the general commanding could respond to that. Getting out of there also kept him from thinking about how he meant it, which was probably just as well.
Go north to Jonestown. Drive the southrons away from it. Don’t let them seize the glideway line to Dicon. Reclaim the one to Dothan. Put like that, it sounded easy. Bell put it no other way. Turning those broad commands into reality was up to Roast-Beef William. So were all the myriad details of putting his wing of the Army of Franklin into motion. Details mattered little-hardly mattered at all-to Bell.
Roast-Beef William found himself unhappier than ever that Joseph the Gamecock was gone. Joseph had cared about details. Joseph had cared so much about leaves and branches and bark, in fact, that he sometimes had trouble remembering there were trees, let alone a forest. To William’s way of thinking, that was a lesser failing than barely noticing the forest because one was gazing at the kingdom of which it formed a part.
But no one cared about his way of thinking. King Geoffrey had proved that. If he decided he had to sack Joseph, why didn’t he put me in charge? William feared he knew the answer. It’s not just that I have no breeding-neither does Bell. But he’s a hero-his missing pieces prove it. All I am is a man who can get the job done. And now I have to-again.
Work with pen and paper saved him a lot of trouble. By the time he called in his brigade commanders, he had at his fingertips the details Lieutenant General Bell hadn’t bothered with. He gave them out, crisply and cleanly.
“How many men have the southrons got?” somebody asked.
“That I don’t know,” Roast-Beef William admitted unhappily. “But I must be of the opinion that their force is not overlarge. How could it be, when they’re operating fifteen miles north of Marthasville at the same time as they’re keeping the assault against the city in progress?”
No one argued with him. Had the southrons not had a large host, they wouldn’t have been able to operate in two such widely separated places at the same time at all. As far as William was concerned, Marthasville itself remained the most important target. This business of Jonestown was bound to be a distraction, a harassment, nothing more. Once he’d dealt with it, he could bring his wing back up to the city, to aid in the defense.
“Any more questions?” he asked. Hearing none, he nodded. “Very well, gentlemen. You know what’s required of you. I expect you will all do your duty, and all do it handsomely. Dismissed. We move in the morning.”
Some of the soldiers boarded carpets and went north up the glideway. Others moved by road; not enough carpets remained in Marthasville to transport his entire wing. He sent the men who would have to march up to Jonestown off ahead of those who would ride on the carpets: they would travel more slowly, and he wanted his entire force, such as it was, to get there at the same time.
Bell wouldn’t think of such a thing, went through his mind as he mounted his own unicorn and rode off at the head of a column of marchers. If some got there before the rest, he would throw in an attack with what he had and hope the latecomers could support it. No wonder we’re in the state we’re in.
Again, he wished the whole army might have been his. The only answer to that was a shrug of his broad shoulders. What he wished didn’t matter. What King Geoffrey wished did. So the gods had made it. That was what the priests said, at any rate. Roast-Beef William couldn’t help thinking the gods had made some extraordinarily sloppy arrangements for the north.
He peered. He saw no great clouds of smoke rising into the hot, muggy air. Either the southrons hadn’t yet got to Jonestown or no one was in the way to slow them down. He hoped for the former and feared the latter.
When he reached Jonestown, he found with some considerable relief that his hope was fulfilled: the southrons weren’t there yet. But when he sent scouts eastward, probing toward the glideway that led to Dothan and away toward the Great River, those scouts promptly came back, bloodied. “A whole great plenty of them bastards in gray,” was how one of them put it.
Roast-Beef William thought about pushing on regardless. Lieutenant General Bell would have; he was sure of that. To the hells with Lieutenant General Bell, he thought. My orders don’t require me to push on this instant, and I don’t intend to. If Hesmucet and his wing commanders want me, let them come here and try to get me.
“Dig in, men,” he called. “Let’s make sure we have a safe place before we go gallivanting around the landscape.”
By the way his soldiers fell to with spade and pick, they were relieved to get an order like that. They knew the value of earthworks, even if the general commanding the Army of Franklin had yet to figure it out. A trooper with several scars said, “Now we got a nest. If we see our chance, we can fly out. Or we can make those other bastards try and break in.”
“That’s right,” Roast-Beef William said. “That’s just exactly right. As long as the numbers are anywhere close to even, we can keep the southrons off the glideway line and out of Jonestown.”
A tiny alarm bell rang inside his mind. He knew only too well how many men his wing had lost during the fighting south and then west of Marthasville. He didn’t know how many the southrons had lost, only that they hadn’t suffered proportionately. And he knew they’d had more men to begin with, and enjoyed a steady stream of reinforcements. I wish I had the wherewithal General Hesmucet does, he thought enviously. People would reckon me a great soldier, too.
But he couldn’t have that sort of wherewithal, which he also knew only too well. He had to make a few tired men into the equivalent of a host of fresh ones. Earthworks helped. And, if he saw the chance, he would strike out from them, strike toward the glideway line leading east to Dothan and beyond.
Maybe we’ll get it back, he thought. Maybe things will go just right. They have before, every once in a while. But when a man had to count on it… Roast-Beef William grimaced. When a man had to count on it, his kingdom was in trouble.
IX
“Corporal Rollant!” Lieutenant Griff called.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant answered, saluting.
“Take up the standard, Corporal, for we’re moving out soon,” Griff said.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant repeated. After offering the ritual gestures of respect to the company’s banner, he lifted the staff from where it had been thrust into the ground the night before. The company-Colonel Nahath’s whole regiment-was part of General Hesmucet’s great wheeling move against the glideway lines north of Marthasville. Southron soldiers had already overrun the line leading east to Dothan. Southron mages were now busy putting that line out of commission, so that the traitors could get no use from it even if they took it back.
But Rollant didn’t think false King Geoffrey’s men would be able to do anything of the sort. The northerners hadn’t been able to do much to slow down the great wheel. If they couldn’t manage that, how would they make the southrons retreat?
“Jonestown coming up,” Smitty said around a yawn. He didn’t seem ready for another day’s march.
“Jonestown!” Rollant snapped his fingers. “That’s the name of the place. It went clean out of my head. If we grab that one, too, the traitors won’t have any glideways into Marthasville, will they?”