“I don’t like the sound of that,” Hesmucet said. “What are they hiding?”
“I’m not sure,” Alva answered. “I’m not sure they’re hiding anything. But I’m not sure they’re not, either.”
“What are we supposed to be doing about that?” Hesmucet asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” Alva replied. “You’re the commanding general.”
Hesmucet grunted. After some thought, he said, “All we can do is go on. If they throw sorcery at us, we’ll do our best to throw it back. And we’ll lick them any which way. By the gods, we will.”
X
Firepots kept bursting inside Marthasville, spreading destruction farther with each passing day. North of the city, southron soldiers began moving toward the west and south, aiming at completing the ring around it. With all the glideways leading into the place in southron hands, only wagons could bring in victuals through the narrowing gap in the enemy’s lines. Roast-Beef William knew all too well that wagons could not keep the Army of Franklin fed, no matter how badly its numbers had shrunk because of the recent string of lost battles.
When he said as much to Bell, the general commanding gave him a cold stare. “If your men had held at Jonestown, Lieutenant General, we would still hold a glideway with which to bring in necessities,” Bell said.
“I am sorry, sir.” Roast-Beef William did his best to hold on to his temper. “With my little force, I was a boy trying to do a man’s job. We must have been outnumbered three or four to one. No one could have held against those odds.”
“So you say now,” Bell snapped. “What it looks like to me is that your soldiers were too afraid to come out of their entrenchments and give the southrons a proper fight.”
That did it. “You may criticize me all you please,” William said, “but, sooner than criticizing the courage of my men-who are, I remind you, also your men-you would do better to look in the mirror. You were the one who sent me north to Jonestown, sure the southrons would have only a small force in the neighborhood. Your judgment there proved as wrong as most of your other judgments since taking command of this army. Sir.”
Lieutenant General Bell flushed. “You are insubordinate.”
And you are incompetent. But if Roast-Beef William said that, he would be insubordinate. A dogged sense of duty kept him from doing anything likely to get him removed from command of his wing, though escape from the Army of Franklin looked more inviting with every passing day. Without false modesty, he was sure whoever replaced him would do worse. He didn’t know how much he could help the army in its present agony, but he didn’t want to hurt it.
He said, “I told you several days ago that I did not think we could hold Marthasville. Nothing has happened since to make me change my mind. Did your correspondence with General Hesmucet bear any fruit?”
Bell flushed again. “None whatsoever,” he growled. “He does not fear the gods. He is blind to shame. He has proved himself a liar of the purest ray serene.”
He will not do what I wanted him to do: that was what Bell had to mean. Roast-Beef William had no great trouble making the translation. “That being so, sir, what’s now to be done?” he asked.
Bell’s head went back and forth, back and forth, like that of a caged animal. “I don’t know, gods damn it. I just don’t know.”
The comparison to a caged animal, unfortunately, was all too apt. “Will you lose Marthasville, sir, or will you lose Marthasville and your army?” William inquired. “That’s the only choice you have left.”
“I can’t leave Marthasville,” Bell moaned. “I don’t dare leave Marthasville. What will King Geoffrey say if I do?”
“What will the king say if you don’t?” William returned. “What will he say if you’re trapped here with your army?”
“Go away,” Bell said. “This is not a choice I have to make on the instant, and I do not intend to.”
“Yes, sir,” Roast-Beef William replied, polite again. “But don’t take too long-there, I beg you on bended knee. If the manacles close around us, I don’t think we can break free of them.”
“Go away,” Bell said again, and William went.
Men marched to and fro through the streets of Marthasville. Roast-Beef William looked on the activity as he would have looked on the thrashings of a man about to die of smallpox: they seemed dramatic, but in fact meant nothing. The man would die; the city would fall. William didn’t know when and he didn’t know how, not yet. Of the thing itself he had no doubts whatever.
He rode back to his own headquarters, which he kept as far from that of Lieutenant General Bell as he could. He still hadn’t forgiven Bell for sending him up to Jonestown without enough men to do the job required of him. Bell had thought he could not only hold the southrons but drive them back. But Hesmucet’s army had proved larger and stronger than Bell imagined.
I was the one who had to pay the price for his mistake, Roast-Beef William thought as he dismounted from his unicorn. I had to pay for it, and I got blamed for it. Otherwise, he would have had to blame himself, and it’s plain he’s not very good at that.
A couple of wizards in long blue robes came out of the house William was using and hurried up the street in the direction from which he’d come. “Where away so fast?” William called after them.
One of the mages condescended to turn around. He answered, “Lieutenant General Bell has summoned us, sir. He aims to strike yet another blow against the gods-damned southrons.”
“Does he?” Roast-Beef William said. The wizard nodded, then hustled off down the street. William started to hurl another question after him, then decided not to bother. Here, for once, he completely approved of whatever Bell tried to do. The southrons had too many men, too many engines, to make charging into battle against them a good bet. Bell had needed four stinging defeats to see as much, but Roast-Beef William was glad he finally had. In magecraft, though, where the balance of power lay wasn’t nearly so obvious.
Maybe we’ll get some good out of this, William thought. It would be nice if we got some good somewhere. We haven’t seen much lately.
All he could do was send orders to his men to keep them alert in case the southrons in front of them tried to storm Marthasville. He wasn’t sure they could hold back the southrons, but he did intend to try.
“Four lost battles,” he grumbled, though no one was listening. Even after he’d been driven out of Jonestown, Bell had struck at the southrons again, this time east of Marthasville. That hadn’t worked, either. Roast-Beef William shook his head. Bell seemed to have a hard time learning some lessons.
William braced himself for lightnings and thunderbolts and dragons in the air and all the rest of the extravagant wizardry northern mages had at their disposal. He didn’t know whether wizardry could win the day hereabouts. He did know nothing else was likely to, not for King Geoffrey’s cause.
When darkness fell at noon the next day, hope surged in Roast-Beef William. When lightnings crackled through the darkness, he sent up prayers to the Lion God and the Thunderer. When the earth trembled beneath his feet, he cried out for joy, certain the sorcerers had found ways to do what Lieutenant General Bell could not.
But the southrons didn’t flee their lines in wild disorder. They didn’t flee at all. The lightnings crackled, but few smote. The shaking earth didn’t shake their trenches to pieces and entomb the enemy soldiers in them. And the darkness that had fallen at noon lifted by half past one.
When the mages attached to Roast-Beef William’s wing returned from the headquarters of the general commanding, they were in a sad state. They all looked thinner than they had on going off to serve Lieutenant General Bell. Their robes were limp and stained with sweat; the sharp reek of fear filled William’s nostrils.