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now. But I'm not a blind man, either. If we were whipping the gods-damned
southrons, would we be up here in Great River Province riding circles around
stinking Honey to keep our poor, miserable footsoldiers from running away?"
Only one answer to that was possible, and Ned gave it: "No." But he went on,
"Irregardless of whether we're winning or losing, we've got to keep fighting
hard. Otherwise, we're not just losing we've lost."
That sergeant was also as stubborn as any other freeborn Detinan. He said,
"Well, sir, I reckon we can lose even if wedo keep fighting hard. We fought
like hells in front of Ramblerton, and a whole fat lot of good it did us."
He wasn't wrong about that, either. Again, Ned said the only thing he could:
"Lieutenant General Bell is gone. We won't make the mistakes we did on that
campaign, not any more we won't."
"Of course we won't, gods damn it." The sergeant was as plain-spoken as any
other freeborn Detinan, too. "We can't make those mistakes any more. We
haven't got enough men leftto make 'em."
One more painful truth. Ned of the Forest shrugged. "You can either do the
best you can as long as you've got a unicorn under your butt, or else I'll
muster you out and send you home right this minute. You won't be a deserter,
on account of I'll give you a discharge."
He waited. If the sergeant really was fed up and called him on that, he would
have to let him go. But the underofficer said, "Oh, I'll stick. You won't be
rid of me that easy. But I'll be gods-damned if I like the way things are
going."
"I don't reckon anybody does except the southrons, I mean," Ned said. "But
we're still here, and we've still got our crossbows. If we quit, King Avram
wins. To hells with me if I want to make things that easy for him. Now come
on."
This time, he didn't give the sergeant a chance to reply. He urged his own
unicorn up to a trot. The squad including the sergeant followed him. Ned
wasn't completely comfortable when he stayed in the saddle too long. Old
wounds pained him. He didn't grumble about them. They didn't keep him from
getting about, or from fighting. There, if nowhere else, he sympathized with
Lieutenant General Bell. Poor Bell had been a fine officer leading a brigade
when he was all in one piece. He'd been a disaster in the larger commands he'd
got after he was wounded. How much did the endless swigs of laudanum and the
inability to go forward and see for himself have to do with that? More than a
little, Ned feared.
A fine mist began drifting down from a lead-gray sky. Even this far north,
where winters were relatively mild, this time of year the land seemed dead.
Trees and bushes stood bare-branched, skeletal. Grass was yellow and brown,
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dry stalks bent and broken. Somewhere off in the distance, a raven's croak
sounded like the chuckle of a demon mocking the hopes of man.
Ned's troopers muttered among themselves. He knew what they were muttering
about, too: they were wishing they hadn't heard the raven. The big black birds
had an evil reputation, no doubt because they ate carrion. Ned felt a certain
amount of superstitious dread, too, but he suppressed it. He had other things,
things of the real world, to worry about, and for him things of the real world
always counted for more than ghosts and spirits and haunts.
Would the desertions stop? How much difference would it make if they did?
Would Doubting George or Hard-Riding Jimmy try to push past the Franklin River
and finish off the remnants of the Army of Franklin here in Honey? If they
did, what could Ned's unicorn-riders do to stop them? Anything at all?
We've got to keep trying, Ned thought. If we don't, then this war will end,
and sooner, not later. The serfs'll be off the land forever, and the
southrons'll go around telling 'em they're just as good as real Detinans. Ned
squared his broad shoulders and shook his fist toward the south in stubborn
defiance. Can't have that, gods damn it.
* * *
Marthasville again. Rollant hadn't expected to see the biggest city in
Peachtree Province again, not till John the Lister's men got the order to move
west and rejoin General Hesmucet's army. Even after boarding the glideway
carpet in northern Franklin, Rollant hadn't expected to stop in Marthasville
for very long. But here he was, cooling his heels in the town for a second day
now. Too many glideway carpets had come into the city all at once, from east
and west and north and south, and the officers in charge of such things were
still untangling the snarl.
Before the war and even during it, as long as false King Geoffrey's men held
the place Marthasville had had pretensions of being a big city. Those
pretensions made Rollant, who lived in New Eborac City,the metropolis of
Detina, laugh. More than half the streets here were nothing but red dirt red
mud, at this season of the year. Cobblestones would have done wonders to
improve them, but nobody'd bothered with or been able to afford cobblestones
here. That by itself would have been plenty to take Marthasville out of the
big-city class, as far as Rollant was concerned.
And Marthasville now wasn't what it had been before Hesmucet captured it from
the traitors. Hesmucet had burned it before setting out on his march across
Peachtree to Veldt, and his siege engines had had their way with it even
before it fell into his hands. Blackened ruins lined the muddy streets. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]