In profound silence and dejection, Rollant began to march. No one, not even the irrepressible Smitty, had much to say during the retreat. The only sounds were those of marching feet and the occasional groans of the wounded. Rollant clutched his shortsword-his crossbow remained slung on his back, for he’d shot his last bolt-and wondered if Thraxton’s men would try to strike them as they fell back.
But the northerners let them go unmolested. As he stumbled along through the deepening twilight, Rollant wondered if Thraxton’s army was as badly battered as Guildenstern’s. For his own sake, for the sake of the army of which he was one weary part, he hoped so.
“We held them.” That was Lieutenant Griff. He sounded as tired as any of the men in his company. He’d led them well enough-better than Rollant had expected him to-and he hadn’t shrunk from the worst of the fighting. If his voice broke occasionally, well, so what? He went on, “The rest of Guildenstern’s army ran away, but we held the traitors and we’re going off in good order.”
“That’s right.” Somebody else spoke in a rumbling bass. Rollant knew who that was: Major Reuel, who’d been in charge of the regiment since Colonel Nahath went down with a bolt through his thigh. “And Lieutenant General George chose us to throw back Thraxton’s men when things looked worst. Us. Our regiment. And we did it, by the gods.”
Rollant suspected Doubting George had chosen them more because they were handy than for any virtue inherent in them, but that was beside the point. Where so many men deserved to be embarrassed, he and his comrades could walk tall. They’d done their best.
Smitty said, “Doubting George was the rock in the River of Death, and the traitors couldn’t get past him.”
“Let’s give him a cheer,” Rollant said, and a few men called out, “Huzzah for Doubting George!”
A few more men shouted out George’s name the next time, and more the next, and more still the time after that, so that soon the whole company, the whole regiment, and the whole long winding column of men were crying his name. That made Rollant walk taller, too. It made him feel much less like a soldier in a beaten army and more like one who’d done everything he possibly could.
And then he heard a unicorn’s hooves on the dirt of the roadway. He peered through the deepening gloom, then whooped. That was Lieutenant General George on the white beast. “Huzzah!” Rollant shouted, louder than ever.
Doubting George waved his hat. “Thanks, boys,” he said. “I don’t know what in the seven hells you’re cheering me for. You’re the ones who did the work.” He touched spurs to the unicorn and rode on.
Rollant felt ten feet tall after that, and ready to whip Thraxton the Braggart’s whole army by himself, and Duke Edward of Arlington’s, too. He even forgot how tired he was-till the regiment finally halted in a clearing through which the road to Rising Rock ran. When Lieutenant Griff didn’t choose him as one of the pickets to watch for the northerners and try to hold them back if they attacked, he unrolled his blanket, lay down on the grass, and fell asleep at once.
Smitty had to shake him awake the next morning. Even then, Rollant felt more like his own grandfather than himself. He ached in every bone, in every muscle. He felt as if he ached in every hair on his head. Only seeing how Smitty moved like an old man, too, made him feel a little better.
Cookfires smoked off at one side of the clearing. Rollant dug out his mess kit and lined up with other soldiers who all looked as if they could have used more sleep. A cook who looked even tireder than the men he served spooned slop onto Rollant’s tin plate. “Thanks,” Rollant said. He ate like a wolf.
He was chasing scraps with his spoon when the pickets came back from the north. “Thraxton’s men aren’t chasing us,” they reported. “We must’ve hurt them as bad as they hurt us.”
“Then how come we’re going back toward Rising Rock?” Smitty wondered aloud.
That was such a good question, Rollant wished Smitty hadn’t asked it. He did his best to answer: “They hurt us more on most of the field, but we hurt them more on Merkle’s Hill. That was too late to do the rest of the army any good, though, because it was already heading south.”
“I suppose so,” Smitty said. “And what Doubting George had with him couldn’t lick the traitors’ whole army by itself.”
“If he’d been in charge of our whole army…” Rollant said.
“If unicorns had wings, we’d all carry umbrellas,” Smitty said, which made Rollant look at a courier going by on a trotting unicorn in a whole different way. In spite of everything he’d been through, his laugh was close to a giggle.
Before long, the regiment started marching again. Easy enough to see it followed in the wake of a defeated army: it passed the wreckage war left behind. Here lay a crossbow someone had thrown away so he could flee faster, there a couple of pikes probably discarded for the same reason. Soldiers who’d already come this way had shoved a wagon with a broken axle over to the side of the road. Dead unicorns were already starting to bloat in the sun. So were the corpses of a couple of men in gray who’d died on the way south.
Rollant heaved a rock at a raven hopping around a dead man. The big black bird let out an angry croaking caw and sprang away from the body, but not far. It would, he feared, go back all too soon.
By the time his regiment got into Rising Rock, it was already full of soldiers. Some of them still had the panicked look of men who’d seen too much, done too much, and weren’t likely to be able to do anything more for some time. But others were busy building breastworks that faced north. Those breastworks had men behind them, men who looked ready to fight.
“Well, Thraxton’s not going to walk right on into Rising Rock behind us,” Rollant said. “That’s something, anyhow. If he wants it, he’ll have to take it away from us.”
“That really is something,” Smitty agreed. “I was wondered if we’d stop here at all or just keep on marching back toward Ramblerton.”
“That’s a long way from here.” Rollant knew just how far it was, too, having marched all the way from the capital of Franklin north and west to Rising Rock.
“Not a lot of good stopping places on the way, though,” Smitty said, which was also true.
And there, up near those breastworks, stood General Guildenstern. The black-bearded soldier in gray tipped back his head and swigged from a flask. “Come on, you bastards! Dig!” he shouted. “Those traitor sons of bitches whipped us once, but dip me in dung if they’re going to whip us twice. Isn’t that right, boys?”
Heads bobbed up and down as the soldiers digging paused in the labor for a moment. Then they went back to it, harder than ever. Dirt flew. Rollant said, “He’s not the worst general in the world, not even close. He takes pretty good care of his men.”
“No, he’s not the worst, but he’s not the best, either,” Smitty said. “And I wonder how much longer he’ll have the chance to go on taking care of us. King Avram’s not going to like the way this battle turned out. For all you know, Guildenstern had his beaky old nose in the brandy flask when he should have been thinking straight.”
“That’s so,” Rollant admitted. “Getting drunk isn’t taking care of your men, if that’s what happened. But I don’t know that it is, and neither do you. People are talking about Thraxton’s magic.”
“People say all sorts of stupid things,” Smitty observed. “Just because they say them doesn’t make them true, though Thraxton might have magicked Guildenstern.”
“I’m ready to believe anything when it comes to the northern nobles’ magecraft,” Rollant said. “You never lived up there. I did.” He shivered at the memory. “By the gods, I’m glad I don’t live there any more.”
Smitty started to answer, then checked himself and stared in delight. Rollant followed his gaze. “Captain Cephas!” they both exclaimed at the same time.