Marching Through Peachtree

The soldiers in blue cheered louder for Thisbe than they had for Gremio. “Well said, Sergeant,” Gremio told him. “You got a better rein on what makes them go than I did.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” Thisbe said. “Trying to put in a little extra, that’s all.”

“You did splendidly,” Gremio said. “You should speak up more often.”

Before Thisbe could answer, the horns screamed again, this time ordering the Army of Franklin forward against the southrons’ entrenchments in front of Whole Mackerel. They tried ours and didn’t like them very well, Gremio thought. Why should we have an easier time with theirs?

Some of the entrenchments the northerners would be assailing were the ones their serfs had dug a few months earlier. Now King Avram’s gray-clad soldiers held them. And those men in gray seemed no more inclined to give them up than the Army of Franklin had been earlier in the year.

“Only a piddly little garrison in front of us, boys,” Colonel Florizel boomed. “They’ll run like rabbits, the gods-damned sons of bitches.”

Roaring as if possessed by the Lion God, the northerners swarmed toward the easternmost trenches. Even before they came into range, firepots and stones flew through the air. Repeating crossbows began their harsh clack-clack-clack. No, the southrons weren’t about to give up and go away.

But Florizel had been right. Yes, the southrons had men in their forward trenches and engines behind them, but they didn’t have very many men or very many engines. Lieutenant General Bell’s men pelted them with bolts and stones and firepots of their own. Before long, the southrons fell back towards Whole Mackerel, the artificers in charge of their engines hitching those to teams of unicorns and hauling them away to keep them from being captured.

“Forward!” Gremio called. “We’ve got to keep pushing them, not let them rally. Keep moving!”

When they came to the southrons’ second line of trenches, another storm of missiles greeted them. Looking ahead, Gremio saw that the enemy’s main lines of defense didn’t guard the town of Whole Mackerel itself, but rather the nearby supply depot. Sure enough, they knew what Bell wanted.

Roaring and shouting, the Army of Franklin bore down on those works. Now the southrons had no room for retreat, not unless they wanted to give up what their foes so desperately needed to take. They had to fight.

They had to-and they did. They had a great many more engines in amongst these fieldworks than they’d used farther forward. Stones and firepots and darts took a heavy toll on the northerners. The southrons whooped and cheered to watch their foes fall.

“Keep moving, men!” Gremio shouted again. “Look, there on that parapet-that’s got to be their commander. If we can kill him, maybe we’ll suck the spirit out of them.”

That wasn’t sporting. It wasn’t chivalrous. A man of noble blood probably never would have said anything so crude. None of that stopped Gremio from thinking he’d had a good idea there. His men did, too. So did the crews of a nearby battery of engines. They started aiming at the black-haired officer waving a sword, too.

A moment later, he clapped a hand to his cheek and tumbled off the parapet. Gremio and everyone close by raised a cheer. “Forward!” he yelled. “Now let’s see how tough those bastards are!”

He soon found out how tough their commander was. The man reappeared inside of a couple of minutes. He was even easier to spot than he had been before-a bloody bandage covered half his face. Gremio could hear his shouts through the din of battle: “We can whip these bastards! Who the hells do they think they are, coming around to bother honest people? Give ’em a good kick in the arse and throw ’em back!”

And the southrons obeyed. They fought with a stubborn, stolid courage different from the incandescent northern variety but no less effective for that. Some of their outer entrenchments fell to the Army of Franklin, but only after they were filled with dead men wearing tunics and pantaloons both blue and gray. And the northerners didn’t come close to overru

Towards evening, Bell ordered a withdrawal. Colonel Florizel put the best face on things he could: “Well, boys, we’ll hit ’em another lick tomorrow, and then we’ll whip ’em for sure.”

“What if the southrons send up reinforcements by then?” Gremio asked.

Florizel started to say something harsh, but checked himself. “No, you were all for forging ahead,” he reminded himself. “In that case, Captain, we don’t have such an easy time of it. Satisfied?” Gremio nodded, though that wasn’t the word he would have used.

XI

Lieutenant General Bell glowered at his scryer. “You’re sure you intercepted the southrons’ message?”

“As sure as I’m standing here before you, sir,” the scryer answered. “They might as well have been talking right into my crystal ball instead of Brigadier Murray the Coarse talking to General Hesmucet. Murray, he said, `I am short of a cheekbone, and one ear, but am able to whip all hells yet.’ And Hesmucet, he answered, `Hold the fort! I am coming!’ He was up near Commissioner Mountain then, sir, so I reckon he could come pretty gods-damned quick.”

“To the hells with him,” Bell said furiously. He could hear the moans of the wounded in his encampment here. He knew he wouldn’t be able to rouse his army to another attack before morning, and also knew morning was all too likely to be too late. Whole Mackerel had held.

Laudanum, he thought, and took a swig. The pain in his ruined arm and missing leg diminished. He could even look at the pain in his spirit with more detachment, which was really why he’d gulped down the drug. But that pain wouldn’t die, not altogether. He’d needed a win over the southrons and, yet again, he hadn’t got it.

“Anything else, sir?” the scryer asked.

“No,” Lieutenant General Bell answered. “Just pick up your crystal ball and get the hells out of here.” The scryer did.

Major Zibeon came into Bell’s tent a moment later. “You put a flea in his ear,” Bell’s dour aide-de-camp remarked. “What did he have to say?”

“That the stinking southrons are on their way here,” Bell answered. “We’ve wounded the commander here at Whole Mackerel, but he thinks he can hold out till Hesmucet arrives.”

“He’s likely right, especially if Hesmucet marches his men through the night,” Zibeon said, which was exactly what Bell didn’t want to hear. His own description of the words that had passed between Murray the Coarse and Hesmucet made them seem bloodless, businesslike. The scryer’s version hadn’t been like that. Both southron officers had sounded more than confident. That worried Bell as nothing else had. Zibeon grimaced, then asked, “Can we face the whole southron army?”

“No,” Bell answered. “No, gods damn it, we can’t.” He hated nothing more than admitting that. King Geoffrey had put him in command of the Army of Franklin to whip the southrons and to hold Marthasville. He hadn’t managed either. He didn’t like having to confront his limits and those of his army.

“What do we do, then, sir?” his aide-de-camp asked.

“We fall back,” Bell answered-strange and u

To his surprise, Major Zibeon nodded. “Not bad, sir,” he said judiciously. “Even if we don’t wreck it, how much can Hesmucet do if he’s chasing us over the landscape where we’ve already fought? And he’ll have to chase us, too, on account of this army is still too big to ignore.”

Bell didn’t care for the sound of that still. Zibeon might as well have said, This is what’s left after you went and made a hash of things. But he nodded because, tone aside, his aide-de-camp had the essence of his plan down. “That’s right, Major. If Hesmucet is such a great hero, let’s see him catch us when we don’t feel like getting caught.”