“Oh, foof!” Guildenstern said. “Half the time, Thraxton’s spells come down on the heads of his own men, not on ours.”
“Yes, sir, that is true.” Phineas still looked thoroughly grim. “But Thraxton’s failures have come through his own errors, not because we thwarted him. He is not very careful, he is not very lucky-but he is very strong.”
“I don’t care what he is,” Guildenstern rasped. He poked Colonel Phineas’ protruding belly with his forefinger. The finger sank unpleasantly far into flesh; Guildenstern jerked it away. “What I care about, sirrah, is that we have more mages than the traitors do. If you aren’t so strong as the Braggart, then you had better work together. A dozen little men can drag down one big one.”
“We are doing our best,” Phineas repeated.
“Go on, little man,” General Guildenstern said contemptuously. “Go on. Go away. I have a battle to fight.”
Clucking like a mother hen with a missing chick, the mage hurried away. Guildenstern resisted the urge to apply his boot to Phineas’ backside. It probably would have sunk in even farther than his finger had.
And he was right when he told the wizard he had a battle to fight. Colonel Phineas hadn’t been the only man waiting for him, just the first of an endless stream. Runners dashed up to report northern attacks on the right against Doubting George on Merkle’s Hill, against Brigadier Thom’s soldiers on the far left, and against the center, where Guildenstern and Brigadier Alexander still held sway.
Guildenstern didn’t need to be told about enemy assaults on the center. He was there, and could see them for himself. The traitors flung great stones and firepots at the loyal soldiers in front. His own engines responded in kind, and he had more of them than Thraxton the Braggart did. Thraxton might have got soldiers from the Army of Southern Parthenia, but he hadn’t got any engines to go with them. Had he got some engines, life would have been even more difficult for Guildenstern’s soldiers.
Every so often, Phineas would send a messenger. All the mage’s messengers said the same thing: “We’re still grappling with Count Thraxton.”
After a while, Guildenstern got sick of hearing them. “I’m still trying to fight my battle here,” he growled.
As morning wore along toward noon, his sense of confidence began to grow. “By the gods, we are going to throw the cursed traitors back,” he said to Brigadier Alexander. “They can’t lick us. No way in the seven hells can they lick us.”
“I hope you’re right, sir,” Alexander replied. “I think you may be right. We’re holding pretty well, aren’t we?”
“Bet your arse we are,” Guildenstern said. But then he glanced nervously toward the right. “I wonder how Doubting George is doing over there.” When he thought of the right, he somehow couldn’t stay confident no matter how hard he tried. He swigged more spirits, to bolster his courage.
Brigadier Alexander said, “Sir, if he needed help over there, don’t you think he’d ask for it?”
“You never can tell with George,” Guildenstern insisted. No matter how hard he tried to keep his mind on other things, his eyes kept drifting back toward Merkle’s Hill. Something was going to go wrong there. Something was. He couldn’t tell how he’d grown so sure, but he had. The knowledge, the certainty, built in him, seeping up from below. It didn’t feel like conscious knowledge: more like the faith he had in the Lion God and the rest of the Detinan pantheon.
“I know you and Lieutenant General George don’t get along perfectly, sir,” Alexander said, “but he’s a solid soldier. If he needs help, I’m sure he won’t risk the battle by going without. After all, he was saying just last night that he was worried. If the worries come true, he’ll let us know.”
That made good logical sense. Somehow, though, good logical sense seemed to matter less to General Guildenstern than it might have. Trouble was brewing on the right. He felt it in his bones.
Before Guildenstern could explain as much to Alexander, Colonel Phineas came rushing up to him at a turn of speed astonishing for one so roly-poly. “General!” he cried. “Woe to us, General! Count Thraxton’s magic has defeated our best efforts to withstand it, and now runs loose in our army!”
“Ha!” Guildenstern cried. “I knew it. The Braggart’s trying to deceive me. But he won’t! No, by the gods, he won’t! I knew the right was threatened. Brigadier Alexander!”
“Yes, sir!” Alexander said smartly.
“Take Brigadier Wood’s two brigades out of the line here and send them to the aid of Doubting George on the right at once,” Guildenstern said. “At once, do you hear me?”
“That will leave us very thin on the ground here, sir, especially while we’re making the move,” Alexander said.
“Do it!” General Guildenstern thundered. “It is my direct order to you, sirrah! Do it, or find yourself relieved.” Brigadier Alexander saluted stiffly and went off to obey. Guildenstern nodded in satisfaction. And, somewhere far inside Guildenstern-or somewhere far across the battlefield-a scrawny, sour-spirited soul cried out in delight and in altogether unalloyed triumph.
James of Broadpath was sipping his early morning tea after the nighttime meeting with Count Thraxton when a man on a unicorn galloped into his encampment. Pulling the unicorn to a halt, the rider slid off it and hurried toward James. He saluted smartly. “Reporting, sir,” he said with a grin, “as not quite ordered.”
“Brigadier Bell!” James said. “What in the seven hells are you doing here? I left you behind with the part of my army the stinking glideway couldn’t carry. Where are they now?”
“Heading up from Marthasville real soon, sir,” Bell replied. “But when the scryers said the fighting here had already started, I couldn’t wait. I hopped on a unicorn and rode south as fast as I could go.” He pointed to the blowing animal from which he’d just dismounted. “This isn’t the one I started with. That one fell over dead. I’m sorry I rode it into the ground, but I’m glad I’m here.”
“You disobeyed orders,” Earl James rumbled. Bell nodded, quite unabashed. James grinned and pounded him on the back-on the right side, careful not to trouble his useless left arm. “Well, I’m cursed glad you’re here, too,” he said. “I needed somebody to lead the big attack when it goes in, and you’re one of the best in the business.”
“Thank you, sir.” One of Bell’s leonine eyebrows rose. “Why hasn’t the big attack gone in already?”
“Because I’ve got orders from Count Thraxton to hold it till he gives the word, that’s why,” James answered. “He’s working some sort of fancy magic against the southrons, and he wants me to wait till he gives the command.”
Bell frowned, looking very much like a dubious lion. “Remember, sir, this is Thraxton the Braggart we’re talking about. What are the odds this fancy magic will end up being worth anything at all?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” James of Broadpath admitted. “But I can’t disobey a direct order just because I’m not quite sure about the general who gave it, if you know what I mean.”
“Why in the seven hells not?” Bell demanded. “Are you afraid he’ll turn you into a rooster, or something like that?”
“No.” James shook his big head. Where Brigadier Bell had seemed-and often did seem-leonine, James gave the impression of a bear bedeviled by bees. “No, I’m not afraid of that. But you haven’t seen him. I have. He really thinks he can do this, and he makes me think he can do it, too.”
“Does he?” Bell shook his head, too. “Why? If he’d done everything he said he could do, we would have won the war by now. You know that as well as I do. Why are you listening to him now?”