Advance and Retreat

“Well, sir,” — the wizard picked his words with care- “if magic won’t do it for us, pikes and swords and crossbows will have to.”

“I told Patrick the Cleaver he dared not fail. I told him,” Bell muttered. He shouted for a ru

“Yes, sir. A breakthrough at all costs.” The messenger hurried away. Bell might have sentenced him to death, sending him up to the part of the front where the fighting was hottest. The young man had to know that. So did Bell, though he didn’t give it a second thought; he’d gone into plenty of hot fighting himself. Had the ru

He was just starting to feel the drug, just starting to feel the fire recede from his shoulder and his missing leg, when the ru

“Sir, we haven’t got the men in the center to break through,” the ru

Laudanum or no laudanum, Bell’s temper didn’t merely kindle-it ignited. “Haven’t got the men?” he shouted. “Who the hells told you that? Patrick the Cleaver? Patrick the coward? I’ll cashier the white-livered son of a bitch, so help me gods I will.”

But the messenger shook his head. “No, sir. Patrick’s down. He’s dead,” he added, to make himself perfectly plain.

“Oh.” Bell could hardly accuse a dead man of dereliction of duty. “Who’s in command there, then? Otho the Troll? Otho knows what we’re supposed to do-what we have to do.”

“No, sir. Brigadier Otho’s shot, too-shot dead.” Again, the ru

“Oh,” the general commanding repeated, this time on even more of a falling note. “Well, by the Lion God’s fangs, who is in command in the center?”

“A colonel from Palmetto Province, sir-a man named Florizel,” the ru

The news couldn’t be good, not if a colonel was trying to command a wing. “Can we get help from the right or left, put the men where they’ll do the most good?”

“For Gods’ Sake John’s been shot dead, too, over on our right,” the ru

“Oh.” Bell was getting tired of saying that, but he didn’t know what else he could say. “What about Benjamin the Heated Ham, then, over on our left?” That was the only straw he had left to grasp.

“I don’t know, sir,” the ru

Bell didn’t know, either, not in detail. He did know the men on the left wing hadn’t broken into the southrons’ trenches, which wasn’t the best news in the world, or even anything close to it. With a sigh, he said, “I’d better find out, then.”

“Will you send me again, sir?”

“No.” Bell shook his head. “You’ve gone into danger once already.” The ru

“Yes, sir? What can I do for you?” This one sounded as eager as the last. The general commanding explained what he required. The ru

Bell cocked his head, listening to the fighting ebb. He growled something his thick mustache and beard fortunately muffled. By the sound of things, his men had given everything they had in them. Even if the left had soldiers to shift to the center, could they revive the fight?

All he could do was wait till the ru

“Yes, sir,” the messenger answered, “but John of Barsoom and Hiram the Cranberry are both dead, sir, so he’s got two brigades commanded by colonels. And that whole wing’s been shot to pieces.”

Oh seemed inadequate: that was more bad news than it could bear. Instead, Bell said, “What the hells happened?”

“The way Benjamin tells it, sir, the southrons’ right gradually sticks out. As the wing went forward, heading in toward the center, John the Lister’s men enfiladed them. That put them in trouble even before the enemy started shooting at them from the front.”

“Why didn’t Benjamin suppress the enfilading shots before he went through with the rest of the right?” Bell asked.

“I can’t tell you that, sir, not for sure. You’d have to ask him,” the ru

He tried, but found out he couldn’t. It sounded like something a priest would say before lighting a funeral pyre. And how great would the pyres be after this fight? For once, even Bell, who seldom counted the cost in a battle, shied away from thinking about that.

“Anything else for me, sir?” the ru

“Eh?” Bell had to call himself back to the here-and-now. “No, never mind. You’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir.” The youngster saluted again and left.

Bell stared after him like a man suddenly realizing he was trapped in nightmare. The commanding general shook his head, as if trying to wake. He opened his mouth, starting to say, “No!” but checked himself at the last instant.

Seeing the motion, the nearest ru

What are your orders? It was a good question. Bell wished he had a good answer for it, or any answer at all. With his right and left wings smashed, with his center thwarted, what could he do? What could the Army of Franklin do?

“Sir?” the ru

He had to respond. The youngster was starting to stare. But all that came out was, “I have none.”

“Oh,” the ru

“I’ll wait for more news to come in.” Bell tried to put the best face on things he could. “Then I’ll decide what we need to do next.”

“Yes, sir.” The ru

Maybe it wasn’t. On the other hand, maybe it was. Lieutenant General Bell reached for the laudanum bottle again, longing for the haze the drug could put between him and the pain of reality.

Messengers from the front came back to him, some on foot, others on unicornback. Their news was all the same: the northerners were pulling back from the forwardmost positions they’d won, back to lines they might hold if John the Lister’s men counterattacked. One of the ru

“Are they?” Bell said tonelessly, and the soldier nodded. Bell muttered, then bestirred himself and waved to his own corps of ru

Colonel Florizel was the first wing commander to arrive. He slid down off a unicorn and limped up to Bell. Saluting, he said, “Reporting as ordered, sir. We have done everything flesh and blood can do. You may rely on that.”

“Very well, Colonel,” Bell said. “Are you badly hurt there?”

“This is an old wound, sir,” Florizel answered. “I went through everything today without a scratch, though I lost a mount. I aim to offer up a lamb to the Lion God for thanksgiving. I can’t tell you how I got through-seemed like the crossbow bolts were thick enough to walk on.”