Sentry Peak (31 page)

“If you say so, sir.” To Colonel Horace, everything that had to do with fighting was simple. You found the enemy, and then you went out and hit him. As far as Bart was concerned, that made him an excellent subordinate and would have made him a very dangerous commander.

“I do say so,” Bart replied. “Well, if Guildenstern wants to talk to me, I’m glad to talk to him, as I say. Bring him aboard.”

“Yes, sir.” His aide’s salute was as precise as if it came straight from a manufactory. Colonel Horace stalked off the glideway carpet, returning a couple of minutes later with the general formerly in command at Rising Rock.

A cloud of brandy fumes preceded and accompanied Guildenstern. General Bart felt more than a little sympathy for his fellow southron officer. He was fond of spirits himself; there had been times in his life when he’d shown himself much too fond of spirits. He fought shy of them these days for just that reason.

General Guildenstern gave him a sloppy salute. “Here you are, sir. I hope you lick the gods-damned traitors right out of their boots.”

“I hope I do, too,” Bart said. “I wish I didn’t have to try it in the wake of your defeat, General.”

“So do I, gods damn it. So do I.” Guildenstern wore a flask on his belt. He liberated it and took a long, healthy swig, then extended it to Bart. “Want a nip?”

Bart’s face froze. He was not a big man, nor a particularly impressive one, save that, when he chose, he could make his eyes extraordinarily cold and bleak. A man seeing him when such a mood took him was well advised to give way, for Bart never would. He’d got more through dogged persistence than other, cleverer, generals had from military genius.

That cold, dark stare got through even to Guildenstern, already elevated from brandy though he was. Smiling a placating smile, he said, “Er, well, maybe not,” and put the flask away in a hurry.

“Tell me of your dispositions,” was all Bart said.

“My disposition? By the Thunderer’s prick, it’s not all it might be,” Guildenstern said, and guffawed. Bart didn’t, and that cold, intent look never left his face. General Guildenstern’s chuckles died away to uneasy silence. At last, he asked, “Have you got a map of Rising Rock and the surrounding country, General?”

“I do.” Bart pulled one from a red leather folder.

“All right, then.” Brandy fumes or no, Guildenstern settled down to business and showed Bart where his men were posted and where Thraxton the Braggart’s lines ran.

“Pity you let them take Sentry Peak,” Bart said. “The top is a prime observation post, and engines on the forward slope can reach south across the Franklin River and just about into Rising Rock.”

“I would be a liar if I said I was very happy about that myself, sir,” Guildenstern replied. “Still and all, though, there are several things you might do, there and elsewhere, to shore up your lines.” Tracing ideas out with his finger, he showed Bart what he meant.

“Those are all good notions,” Bart said when he was through. He meant it; he was not and never had been a man to whom hypocrisy came naturally. All the same, he fixed Guildenstern with that piercing glance once more. “Yes, they’re excellent notions. Why didn’t you use them yourself, instead of saving them up to give them to me?”

Guildenstern stared. He opened his mouth, but not a word emerged. Slowly and deliberately, without any fuss, General Bart put the map back in its folder. By the time he’d stowed the folder in amongst his baggage, Guildenstern found his power of speech once more: “What I did or didn’t do doesn’t matter, not any more. I’m off to the south, along with Thom and Alexander and Negley. Negley can go back to his flowers. The rest of us . . . If we’re lucky, King Avram will send us out to the eastern steppe and let us chase louse-ridden blond nomads for the rest of the war. If we’re lucky, I say.”

The brandy he’d taken on no doubt helped fuel his self-pity. With a sigh, Bart said, “You could expect better, General, if the four of you hadn’t left the field before the fight was over.”

“We got swept away in the rout,” Guildenstern said hotly. “The whole fornicating army got swept away in the rout. That’s what makes a rout, the whole fornicating army getting swept away.”

“Lieutenant General George didn’t,” Bart pointed out. “If he had, if the traitors had pushed him off Merkle’s Hill, none of you would have come back safe to Rising Rock.”

“To the seven hells with Doubting George!” Guildenstern cried, and stormed away.

General Bart started to go after him, then checked himself. He could understand why Guildenstern was angry and upset. Doubting George had had to fall back from the River of Death, but he’d done it with his chunk of the army in good order, and after fighting Thraxton’s men to a standstill. Guildenstern and the other high-ranking officers had left too soon, and they would have to pay the price for the rest of their careers, if not for the rest of their lives.

When morning came, Bart set out for Rising Rock himself. He didn’t go by glideway, not when the traitors could reach the line into town with their engines. He had to ride a unicorn for those last thirty miles or so. It was one of the less pleasant journeys of his life, since the bruises he’d taken in the fall up north were far from healed; his whole right side, from ankle to shoulder, was black and yellow and purple and, here and there, green.

Worse still, the road between Adlai and Rising Rock hardly deserved the name. It was rough and narrow, and flanked by broken-down wagons and the scrawny carcasses of asses and unicorns. Getting supplies into Rising Rock wasn’t easy. Every so often, the officers with Bart had to dismount and lead their unicorns up and down gullies too steep for riding. When they did, they had to put Bart in a litter and carry him till the going got better. He could ride, though it hurt. He wasn’t up to much in the way of walking, even with a stick in each hand.

To Colonel Horace, he said, “It’s a good thing Thraxton hasn’t got unicorn-riders out prowling in these parts. I can’t run away, and I can’t fight, either.”

“Is it true that Ned of the Forest has gone off to fight somewhere else?” By Horace’s tone, the aide expected the northern officer to come charging out of the trees if it weren’t true.

“I believe it is,” Bart answered from the embarrassing comfort of the litter. “I’ve seen the same reports you have, Colonel. Unless the northerners are bluffing us, he’s gone. I hope he is. He caused me endless grief over by the Great River last winter, and I’d just as soon not have to cope with his marauders again.”

He got into Rising Rock just after nightfall, and after surviving a challenge from nervous southron sentries. He was glad to get past the men from his own side. More than one general in this fight had already fallen victim to crossbow bolts from soldiers mistaking their own commanders for the foe.

Lieutenant General George greeted him in front of the hostel that had been General Guildenstern’s headquarters, and before him Count Thraxton’s. “Good to see you, sir,” George said, saluting. “I know we’re in good hands now.”

“Thanks,” Bart replied, slowly and painfully dismounting and then reaching for the sticks he’d tied behind the saddle. “It’s mighty fine to see you here, George, speaking of good hands.” He’d always had a high regard for the lieutenant general, higher than he’d felt for Guildenstern even before the battle by the River of Death.

“Come in, come in,” Doubting George said now. “There’s a capon waiting for you, and a nice, soft bed. I can see by the way you’re standing that you could use one. How do you feel?”

“I’ve been better,” Bart admitted. “But food and sleep and maybe a long, hot soak between one and the other would go a long way toward setting me right.”

After supper, one of the blond maidservants at the hostel offered to scrub his back in the tub and take care of anything else he had in mind. “General Guildenstern, he liked me fine,” she boasted.

“I can see why,” Bart answered; she was pretty and shapely. “But my lady down in the south wouldn’t be happy if I spread it around, so I don’t.”

With a shrug, she answered, “That other fellow had a lady down south somewheres, too, but it didn’t bother him none.”

From everything Bart had heard about Guildenstern, that left him unsurprised. “Well, it bothers me,” he said, and then, “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone else who’d want to be friendly with you.”

“Oh, so am I,” she answered with a good-looking woman’s certainty. “Still and all, though, I was on top before, and I was hoping to stay on top now that you’re here.” She shrugged again. “Well, if nobody’s on top, I guess taking a step or two down won’t be
so
bad.” She strode out of the bathroom, waggling her hips a little to show him what he was missing. He laughed, although, being a polite man, he held off till she’d closed the door after her. Who would have thought serving girls ranked themselves by which generals they’d slept with?

Sleeping alone suited him just fine that evening. He felt much more nearly himself when he got up the next morning. After breakfast, Doubting George asked him, “Would you care to ride out and see some of the line we set up after we came back here to Rising Rock?”

“Can’t think of a solitary thing I’d like better,” Bart replied, even if he didn’t look forward to the process of climbing up onto unicornback again. “If you don’t get a good look at the ground with your own eyes, you’ll never understand everything you might do.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” George said. They nodded to each other. Bart had always reckoned the lieutenant general a solid soldier. The more he spoke with him, the more he looked forward to working with him here.

Along with Colonel Horace, the two of them rode north and a little east toward Rising Rock Creek, which lay between the town of Rising Rock and Sentry Peak, and which marked the front between the army now Bart’s and that of Count Thraxton. George said, “There’s a sort of a truce here, so both sides can draw water from the creek without worrying about getting a crossbow quarrel in the brisket.”

“Fair enough,” Bart said. “Sentries could shoot at each other from now till the last war of the gods without changing how this fight comes out.” He asked Doubting George, “Whose men are in the line here for the enemy?”

“James of Broadpath’s, from out of the west,” George answered. “Do you know him well?” Almost all the officers from Detina’s old army knew each other to one degree or another.

“I should hope I do,” Bart replied. “He was a groomsman at my wedding.” He reined in and dismounted, continuing, “The rest of you kindly stay back here. I should like to go up to the creek alone, so as to get my observations without drawing the enemy’s notice.”

Like one of King Avram’s common soldiers, he wore a plain gray tunic. But, as he made his slow, painful way forward with the aid of his sticks, a sentry in gray spotted his epaulets and called, “Turn out the guard—commanding general!” The other pickets in gray shouldered their crossbows and saluted.

And then, across the creek, one of King Geoffrey’s blue-clad soldiers, a wag, heard the call and raised one of his own: “Turn out the guard—General Bart!” Grins on their faces, the traitors saluted him, too.

Bart acknowledged them by lifting his hat. “Dismissed!” he called to them, and limped back to his unicorn. As he remounted, he remarked, “I knew we were fighting a civil war, but that was more civility than I expected.” He and George and Colonel Horace rode on down along the creek.

*   *   *

Doubting George studied the map with General Bart. “The road we have to the east is bad, but will serve us tolerably well as long as the weather stays dry,” he said. “When the winter rains start, though, we’ll starve if we have to depend on it. Rations are too low as things stand.”

“Well, then, we’ve got to do something about it,” Bart replied.

“What have you got in mind, sir?” Doubting George asked. He was particularly dubious here. General Guildenstern had been splendid at proposing this, that, or the other scheme to get Rising Rock out of its fix. He’d proposed all sorts of things, but done nothing. Bart had made a different sort of name for himself in the fighting farther east, but George wanted to see him in action before judging.

Bart’s finger came down on the little hamlet of Bridgeton, about twenty-five miles east of Rising Rock. “If we can get a secure road from Bridgeton to here, we’re safe as houses.”

“Yes, sir,” George agreed. “If we can do that, we’re fine. Looks like a pretty good
if
to me.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Bart said. “I’ve got a solid division under Fighting Joseph in Bridgeton right now; they were starting to come into Adlai, a little east of there, when I left Adlai for Rising Rock here. If they can move up to the Brownsville Ferry here” —he pointed again, this time only about eight miles east of town— “while we send men out that far, we’ll hold either the river or a good road all the way from Bridgeton to here.”

George studied the map. “That’s not a bad notion,” he said at last. “It might be worth trying.” Fighting Joseph was a pretty good division commander, though he’d failed as head of an army in the west.

“Glad you agree,” Bart said. “I’ve already given the orders. Joseph will move out today, and Brigadier Bill the Bald goes out of here tonight under cover of darkness with all the bridging equipment he needs to span the Franklin at Brownsville. He’s a good officer and a pretty good soldier. He shouldn’t have any trouble at all.”

“You’ve . . . already given the orders?” George said.

“That’s right.” Bart nodded. “I don’t see any point to wasting time. Do you?”

“When you put it that way, no sir,” George answered in some bemusement. General Guildenstern would have spent endless hours bickering in councils of war, and would have ended up sitting on his haunches while Rising Rock starved. That was what Count Thraxton hoped would happen.

“All right, then,” Bart said. “I already told you—if we’re going to set about fixing things, we’d better fix them.”

“True enough.” Doubting George studied the new commanding general. “I don’t think enough people know what to expect from you, sir.”

“If they don’t, they’ll find out,” Bart said. “If the traitors we’re up against don’t find out quite soon enough, that won’t break my heart.” He laughed briefly. “James of Broadpath’s men are holding that stretch of line. Nothing like giving my old groomsman a little surprise.”