Hagen burst out through the tent flap. He held a butcher knife, but hardly seemed to know it. He took a couple of stumbling steps, then fell on his face. Captain Cephas’ sword stuck out of his back.
Cephas himself came out a moment later. “I got him,” he said, and then something else, but the blood pouring from his mouth kept Rollant from understanding what. Cephas’ left hand was clasped to his undershirt, the only garment he was wearing. He swayed, said one more clear word-‘Corliss’-and crumpled as Hagen had before him.
“Oh, by the gods,” Smitty said from behind Rollant, and set a hand on his shoulder. “Looks like you were right.”
“I wish I’d been wrong,” Rollant said. “Is she still in the tent?”
Smitty went inside before anyone else could. Rollant heard him gulp. “She’s in here,” he said, and his voice wobbled. “Hagen almost took her head off with that knife.” He came out in a hurry, bent over, and was noisily sick. He might-he surely had-seen worse in battle. But you expected such things in battle. Here, after the victory was won…
“It takes the edge off,” Rollant said. “It does more than that, in fact.” He gulped, too, though he hadn’t gone into the tent. What was outside was bad enough.
Smitty spat, swigged from his canteen, and spat again. “It does for us,” he said. “But if you think the generals will care, you’re daft.” Rollant thought that over. Reluctantly, he nodded.
General Bart folded his right hand into a fist and smote his left palm, as much of a gesture of excitement as he ever allowed himself. The sun rose on as complete a triumph as the southron cause had seen in some time. He nodded to Doubting George, who was also just emerging from his pavilion. “Good morning, Lieutenant General. Now that we’ve whipped the northerners, let’s see if we can run the legs off them and break their whole army to pieces.”
“I wouldn’t mind that at all,” George said. “When General Guildenstern forced Thraxton the Braggart out of Rising Rock, he let him retreat, because he was sure Thraxton would run all the way up to Marthasville. He found out differently by the River of Death.”
“Well, that’s two lessons for us,” Bart said.
“Two?” Doubting George asked.
“Yes, two,” Bart replied. “The first is, pursue vigorously. The second is, keep your eyes open while you’re doing it.” He watched George consider that and nod. He would have been disappointed had the other officer done anything else. And he said what needed saying: “Congratulations to you and your men. They were the ones who cracked the Braggart’s position and let us win our victory.”
“Thank you very much, sir.” George grinned wryly. “I would take more credit for it if I’d actually given the order that sent my men up the slope of Proselytizers’ Rise, but thank you all the same. I do take no little pride in what my men accomplished, no matter who gave that order.”
“If anyone did,” Bart said. “Whoever he was, he’s proved remarkably shy about coming forward and taking the credit for it.” He hesitated, then went on, “Not to take anything away from whoever it was, or from you, or from your undoubtedly brave men, but Colonel Phineas gives me to understand that part of the credit for our victory and the traitors’ defeat also goes to Count Thraxton for making a hash of a spell at just the wrong time.”
“Yes, my mages told me the same thing,” Lieutenant General George replied. “We hoped it would happen in the heat of battle, and it did.”
“Give Thraxton the chance to make a mistake or make a man dislike him and he will take it more often than not,” Bart said. He turned to a blond servant hurrying up with a tray. “Yes? What is it?”
“Your breakfast, sir.” The servant sounded surprised he needed to ask. “Just what you said you wanted-a cup of strong tea, no milk, no honey, and a cucumber sliced in vinegar.”
“Perfect,” Bart said. He dipped his head to Doubting George. “If you’ll excuse me…”
“Of course, sir,” George said. “What an… interesting breakfast.”
“I eat it almost every day,” Bart said. “I’m not a man of fancy tastes. I do as I do, and I am willing to let the men under me do as they do, provided they also do as I require when the time for that comes on the battlefield.”
“You’d better be careful, sir,” George said gravely. “Such judiciousness will get you into trouble.” Only when he smiled could Bart be sure he was joking.
An aide said, “Lieutenant General Hesmucet is here, sir. Now that the traitors have left Funnel Hill, his men have occupied it.”
“Good; that’s very good.” Bart resigned himself to eating breakfast in front of his subordinates. Doubting George said nothing at all to the aide. But Bart didn’t need to be a mage to know what he was thinking. His men, who didn’t have a reputation for boldness, had taken Proselytizers’ Rise, while Hesmucet’s soldiers, who did, had spent two fruitless days assailing Funnel Hill, and hadn’t seized it till after the northerners withdrew.
Hesmucet gave the reins of his unicorn to a waiting trooper and hurried over to Bart and Doubting George. Without preamble, Hesmucet said, “Let’s chase those traitor sons of bitches to the hells and gone. The less we let ’em up, the better off we’ll be.”
“I have no quarrel with that,” Bart said.
“Neither have I,” George said, “though I do think we would be wise to scout carefully out ahead of our main line of march, to keep us from running into trouble the way General Guildenstern did.”
“Well, I have no quarrel with that,” Hesmucet said. “I can’t see how any sensible man would have a quarrel with that, although you never can tell with some people.”
“Let’s get on with it, then,” General Bart said. “Soonest begun, soonest done, or so they say. I want to drive the Army of Franklin so far into Peachtree Province that it can’t ever even dream of coming back to Franklin again.”
“That’s fine. Mighty fine, in fact,” Hesmucet said.
“It will be fine indeed, if we can bring it off,” George said. “Talking about such plans is always easier than making them work, though.”
He’s not a coward, Bart reminded himself. He’s a cautious man. There’s a difference. Hesmucet bristled at George’s words, but didn’t say anything himself. He wanted to go after the enemy, and was confident Bart would give him what he wanted.
Before Bart could make any remarks of his own, a scryer came up to him and said, “Sir, King Avram would speak with you from Georgetown.”
“Would he?” Bart replied. The scryer solemnly nodded. Bart said, “Well, if the king wants to speak to the likes of me, I don’t suppose I ought to keep him waiting. Take me to the right crystal ball and sit me down in front of it.”
“Yes, sir. Come with me, sir,” the scryer said.
Very shortly thereafter, Bart did sit down in front of a crystal ball from whose depths the long, bony face of King Avram stared out. “Congratulations, General, on the great victory you and your men have earned these past two days.”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” Bart said. “Thank you for all the confidence you’ve had in me throughout this war.”
Avram smiled a lopsided smile. Most of his smiles were lopsided. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a handsome man. Geoffrey and those who followed him made much of that, calling Avram a mistake of the gods and other, less complimentary, things. Handsome or not, though, Avram was engaging in a way the cold-blooded Geoffrey could never match. Seeing his smile, Bart had to return it; he couldn’t help himself. Avram said, “I’d better be confident in you. You have the one quality I can’t do without in a generaclass="underline" you fight.”