George was worried himself, though doing his best not to show it. “We’ve got to hold on, Colonel,” he answered. “If we don’t, where in the seven hells are we going to run to?”
Andy gave him a reproachful look. “That’s not funny, sir.”
“No, I don’t think so, either,” Lieutenant General George said. “I wish I did, but I bloody well don’t.” He peered west, toward the disaster that had engulfed the rest of General Guildenstern’s army. “If we fold up now, I don’t think any of this force will survive.”
“What happened over there, sir?” his aide-de-camp asked.
“Nothing good,” Doubting George answered. “All I know is, Albertus the so-called Great and the rest of my so-called mages all started bawling like branded unicorn colts a couple of hours ago, and then the traitors started pouring men through a great big fat hole in our line. It would almost make a suspicious man wonder if there was a connection.”
“Thraxton the Braggart’s magic did us in again,” Colonel Andy said mournfully.
“Yes, I think Thraxton’s magic did us in, too,” George agreed. “I wouldn’t say `again,’ though. This is the first time that sad-faced bastard managed to aim it at us and not at his own men.”
“An honor I could do without,” Andy said, which made George smile in spite of the lost battle from which he could only try to save what he might.
Before he could say anything, a runner came up from the west. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t deliver your message to Brigadier Negley,” the fellow said. “Most of his division joined the retreat to the south, and he went with it.”
“Too bad,” Doubting George said. “Oh, too bad! We needed him in place. There’s nothing left linking us to the rest of the army now.”
“Sir, from what I could see, the rest of the army is scooting back toward Rising Rock as fast as it can go,” the runner said. By the way he kept shifting from foot to foot, he either needed to squat behind a tree or else he too wanted to scoot back toward Rising Rock as fast as he could go.
“We can’t scoot yet, son,” Lieutenant General George said. “As long as we hold on here, we shield the retreat for the rest of the army. And the traitors haven’t licked us yet, have they?”
“N-no, sir,” the runner answered, though he sounded anything but convinced. George was also anything but convinced, but not about to admit that to anyone, even himself.
He said, “Go on up to Brigadier Brannan, there at the crest of the hill, and tell him what you just told me about Negley. Tell him he may need to swing some of his engines around to the west, because we’re liable to get attacked from that direction.”
“Yes, sir.” The runner gathered himself and hurried away.
“Miserable civilian,” Colonel Andy growled, meaning not the runner but the departed Brigadier Negley. “This is what comes of making the bastards who recruit the troops into officers with fancy uniforms. The trouble is, people who really know what they’re doing have to pay for their mistakes.”
“There’s some truth to that, but only some,” Doubting George replied.
“There’s a demon of a lot of it, if anyone wants to know what I think,” Andy said. George’s aide-de-camp had chubby cheeks that swelled now with indignation, making him look like nothing so much as an irate chipmunk.
But George repeated, “Some. It wasn’t the amateur soldiers who made this battle into a botch. It was the professional warriors, the folks who learned their trade at the Annasville military collegium, the folks just like you and me.”
“May I spend my time going between freezing and roasting in the seven hells if I think General Guildenstern’s one bit like me,” Andy said, still very much in the fashion of a chipmunk trying to pick a fight.
Before George had the chance to respond to that, another runner dashed up, this one with alarm all over his face. “Lieutenant General George!” he cried. “Lieutenant General George! Come quick, sir! The traitors have got a couple of regiments around our right flank, and they’re doing their gods-damnedest to cornhole us.”
“Oh, a pox!” Doubting George exclaimed. “Take me there this very minute.” He followed the messenger along the side of Merkle’s Hill. He’d been worried about the left, with Brigadier Negley pulling out, and hadn’t dwelt so much on the right. True, Ned of the Forest had tried sliding around that way the day before, but the northerners had left that end of the line alone after their thrust didn’t work… till now.
The shouts coming from the east would have warned him something had gone wrong if the runner hadn’t found him. Brigadier Absalom greeted him with a salute. “Things are getting lively in these parts,” he said.
“That’s one word,” George said. “What’s going on?” As he had all through the fight by the River of Death, he felt like a man on the ragged edge of disaster. The least little thing might pitch him over the edge, too, and the whole army with him. A lot of it’s already gone, he thought.
“They were coming from that way.” Absalom the Bear pointed back over his shoulder. Doubting George was glad he had the big, burly brigadier commanding here. Nothing fazed him. Absalom went on, “I got a skirmish line of crossbowmen facing the wrong way and beat ’em back.”
Doubting George set a hand on his shoulder and told him, “That’s the way to do it.” But at that moment, fresh roars broke out from behind them. Here came the northerners again, attacking the end of the line from both front and rear. If they rolled it up, they’d finish off George’s whole wing. He said, “I don’t think skirmishers will hold them this time.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Absalom agreed.
Looking around, George saw a regimental commander standing only a few feet away. “Colonel Nahath!” he called.
“Sir?” Formal as if on parade, the officer from New Eborac came to attention.
“Colonel, I desire that you face your regiment to the rear and aid our skirmishers in repelling the traitors coming from that direction,” George said.
Colonel Nahath saluted. “Yes, sir!” he said, and began shouting orders to his men.
Doubting George shouted orders, too: for another regiment to join Nahath’s in repelling the enemy, and for men to come forward to fill their places in the line. “That’s good, sir,” Absalom the Bear said. “Don’t want to leave a hole open, the way General Guildenstern did.”
“No, I don’t suppose I do,” George agreed. “Now that I’ve seen what happens with a mistake like that, I don’t much care to imitate it.” He and Absalom both laughed. It wasn’t much of a joke, but better than tearing their hair and howling curses, which looked to be their other choice.
“You chose your regiments shrewdly,” Absalom observed as the southrons George had told off collided with Thraxton’s troopers. “A good many blonds in both of them. They won’t let the northerners through, not while they’re still standing they won’t.”
“True,” Doubting George said, and so it was. But his brigadier was giving him credit for being smarter than he was. He’d grabbed those two regiments because they were closest to hand, not because they were full of men with especially good cause to hate the soldiers who followed false King Geoffrey.
George chuckled. He was willing to have his subordinates think him smarter than he really was, so long as he didn’t start thinking that himself. General Guildenstern had walked down that road-oh, surely, abetted by Thraxton the Braggart’s magic, but Guildenstern had already seen a good many things that weren’t there by then-and the results hadn’t been pretty.
Brigadier Absalom saluted. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I think they can use another fighting man back there.” Instead of drawing his sword, he bent down and picked up an enormous axe lying on the ground by his boot. George had assumed some engineer dropped it after making breastworks. But Absalom the Bear swung it as lightly as if it were a saber. “King Avram!” he bellowed, and rushed toward the traitors, looking for all the world like one of the berserk sea rovers who’d terrorized the Detinans’ ancestors long before they crossed the Western Ocean.