Old Straight’s wing didn’t blunder past the southrons. It blundered straight into them, discovering where they were by having a volley of crossbow quarrels tear into it at close range. Screams rose from the northerners. But so did their roaring war cry. “Forward!” Gremio shouted. “Now we’ve found the sons of bitches, so let’s go get ’em!”
And, for what seemed like the first time in this campaign, the northerners had magecraft working for them. Thunderbolts crashed down on the southrons’ entrenchments. Dragons and other phantasms appeared in the sky. Gremio was a modern, well-educated man. He knew they couldn’t hurt him, and so they couldn’t. But if an ignorant farmer’s son believed the beasts could devour him or flame him, his superstitious belief gave them the power to do just that.
Roaring their throats raw, the northerners swarmed down into the enemy’s trenches. A lot of southrons there were already dead or hurt from the magecraft. Some of the ones who remained threw away their crossbows and shortswords and surrendered. But others, stubborn as if they were good northern men, fought on despite long odds.
A crossbow bolt hissed past Gremio’s ear as he jumped into the forwardmost trench. His sword spitted the southron who’d shot at him. The man in gray howled and reeled back.
“Keep moving, gods damn you!” Gremio called to his men. “This isn’t the fight we need. We’ve got to get through these trenches and seize the shrine and the high ground around it. If we can’t manage that, whatever we do here doesn’t matter.”
Sometimes the soldiers did need reminding of such things. To a lot of them, as to Florizel, fighting was an end in itself, not a means. That struck Gremio as madness, but he knew it to be true even so.
“Onward!” he yelled again, and looked along the trench to make sure the troopers could go on. Not far away, Sergeant Thisbe battled a southron who had a better idea than most of his fellows about what to do with a shortsword. Gremio ran to Thisbe’s aid. The southron cared no more than any other soldier for the notion of fighting two foes at once. He turned and fled.
“Thank you, Captain,” Thisbe said.
“You’re welcome. I know you’d do the same for me,” Gremio answered. “Now we’ve got to get moving. If we can drive them back from the shrine, we’ve really done something.”
Out of the trenches and east once more pushed the northerners. But they ran into another line of entrenchments only a furlong or so past the one they’d just cleared. Crossing the open ground cost them a lot of good men killed and wounded. This time, too, the lightnings mostly missed when they struck at the southrons’ fieldworks. Little by little, the enemy’s magic was coming up close to the level of that of King Geoffrey’s wizards.
Colonel Florizel pointed with his sword at the trenches ahead. “Charge!” he cried.
If sorcery wouldn’t do the job, crossbow quarrels and shortswords and pikes would have to. Still roaring like lions, the northern men surged toward the second line of trenches. They’d enjoyed the defenders’ advantage through most of the fights from Borders up to Marthasville. No more. Now the southrons waited for them to come, waited and took a heavy toll while they were in the open.
I can’t go back, Gremio thought. Everyone in the regiment-everyone in the army-will reckon me a coward if I do. And so he went forward, in spite of the bolts that zipped past him and tugged at the fabric of his baggy pantaloons. All around him, men fell. When he reached the second line of trenches, he leaped down into it with a roar that was more than half a cry of despair.
More fierce fighting in the trenches slowed the northerners’ advance. By the time the last southrons were down or fled, Gremio had a cut on his arm and another above his eye. Blood made tears run down his face. He blinked constantly, trying to clear his sight. When he saw how few men he had left, he wished his vision were blurrier, so they would seem to be more.
“Well fought, boys!” Colonel Florizel boomed. “They can’t hold us back when we aim to go forward, by the gods.”
To Gremio’s amazement, the northerners raised a ragged cheer. They were ready to do whatever their officers demanded of them. And if, every now and again, those officers should happen to ask the impossible… Gremio knew the answer there. He’d seen it. Sometimes the men would give it to them. Others, they died like flies proving it an impossibility after all.
“Form up! Dress your ranks!” Florizel called when they struggled out of the southrons’ second line of fieldworks. The regimental commander waited till the lines were neat enough to suit him, then nodded in fussy satisfaction. “Very good, men. Now-forward!”
Forward they went once more. After another couple of furlongs, though, they came upon a third line of entrenchments. Like the first two, this one was full of southron soldiers. They started volleying away at the northerners as soon as Gremio and his comrades came into range. And they had catapults to support them. Firepots flew through the air, splashing flames over grass-and men.
“We can’t take that position, sir,” Sergeant Thisbe said urgently. “I don’t think we can get into that trench. I’m sure we won’t come out again.”
Gremio was sure of the same thing. But he was sure of something else, too: “If the colonel orders me forward, Sergeant, forward I shall go. We’ve got to take the Sweet One’s shrine or die trying.”
“To the seven hells with the Sweet One,” Thisbe said. “She’s a stinking, lying bitch. She’ll laugh when we die, that’s all.”
“It can’t be helped, Sergeant.” Gremio thought Thisbe was right, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He looked toward Colonel Florizel. It was up to the regimental commander now.
To his dismay, Florizel was looking at him, too. Do you want me to say we should go back, sir? Gremio wondered. To the hells with me if I will. You won’t get the chance to call me craven.
But Florizel said, “It’s no good, is it, Captain?”
“I am at your command, sir,” Gremio answered.
Florizel shook his head. “It’s no good,” he repeated. “Going forward into the teeth of their defenses would be murder, nothing less. Shall I make you do duty as my barrister before the gods?”
“Colonel, I will obey any order you choose to give me,” Gremio said, “and I promise you, sir, my men will follow me.”
“But it’s no good, Captain.” The regimental commander sounded like an old and broken man. “It’s no gods-damned good, no good at all. We’d just get ourselves killed, and we wouldn’t shift the stinking southrons even an inch.”
Gremio had reached the same conclusion. If Florizel could see it, it had to be correct. He said, “Sir, the decision is yours.”
Florizel looked at him-looked through him. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’d reckon you a coward if you advised me to fall back.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen you fight. I know better now. You may not be a nobleman, but you’ve got a pair of ballocks hanging from you.”
“For which I thank you.” Punctiliously polite, Gremio bowed to his superior officer. That might have saved his life, for a crossbow quarrel whistled by over his head. He shivered a little as he straightened. “I do not believe we have any hope of taking the position in front of us, either. Nor do I see how we can seize the Sweet One’s shrine and the surrounding high ground.”
“In that case, we’d best save ourselves for the next fight, wouldn’t you say?” Florizel asked.
“There surely will be another fight, Colonel,” Gremio replied, and then, try as he would, couldn’t help letting some acid out: “After all, we’ve only failed to beat a bigger army four times in a row now. Bell will surely think that’s an accident, and send us out to try again.”
When Bell assumed command, Colonel Florizel had been ecstatic. I should have remembered that, Gremio thought. But Florizel only sighed and shrugged and said, “It hasn’t quite worked, has it? Maybe he’ll decide it won’t work. But even if we don’t go after these bastards, they’ll come after us, sure as hells.” He raised his voice to a full battlefield bellow: “Trumpeters! Blow retreat!”