Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

“That’s not fair, Captain,” a soldier said. “We’re hungry, gods damn it. Anything we can get is all to the good.”

“It’s not all to the good if you start stealing from one another and brawling,” Gremio replied. “We’ll do better hungry than we will if we can’t trust each other.”

“The captain’s right,” Thisbe declared. “Most of these birds aren’t any more than a couple of mouthfuls anyway. They’re not worth the trouble they’re stirring up.”

No one could say Gremio or Thisbe ate better than the common soldiers in the company. They didn’t. The soldiers might have grumbled, but they followed orders. The only trouble was, not all commanders gave those orders, so quarrels over birds elsewhere slowed the company-and a crossbow quarrel shot at a bird came down, point first, at Gremio’s feet. Had it come down on his head… One more thing he preferred not to contemplate. He stooped, yanked it out of the ground, and held it high. “Here’s another reason not to shoot things up in the air,” he said.

A voice rose from the ranks: “That’s right, by the gods. If we’re gong to shoot our officers, we should aim straight at ’em.” The marching men bayed laughter. Gremio managed a smile he hoped wasn’t too sickly.

Along came a mage in a blue robe riding on the back of an ass. He was muttering to himself, his fingers writhing in quick passes as he incanted. “An ass on an ass!” another uniformed wit called. The wizard affected not to notice-or maybe, preoccupied with the spell he was casting, he really didn’t. Whatever sort of magic it was, Gremio hoped it worked.

It must have, for the company, the regiment-the whole army-halted earlier than he’d expected. Colonel Florizel rode up with a great big grin on his face. “We’ve got ’em!” he said. “We’ve got ’em good, by the gods! This is the only way they can retreat, and they have to come right by us when they do. We’ll land on their flank, and then-!” He slashed a finger across his throat. The soldiers raised a cheer, Gremio’s voice loud among theirs.

“General John! General John, sir!” The mage shouting John the Lister’s name sounded on, or maybe just over, the ragged edge of hysteria.

“What is it?” John asked. When people started shouting in that tone of voice, it wasn’t going to be anything good.

And it wasn’t. The mage burst into John’s pavilion. Horror was etched on his face. “They’ve used a masking spell on us, sir!” he cried.

No need to ask who they were. “And what is this masking spell supposed to do?” John inquired. “Whatever it’s supposed to do, has it done it?”

“Yes, sir!” The mage sounded like a tragedian playing in an amphitheater in front of images of the gods at a high festival. “I’m afraid they’ve got round behind the army, sir. We didn’t notice till too late!”

What John the Lister felt like doing was kicking the mage in the teeth. Botched wizardry had cost King Avram’s armies dear again and again. Now it looked as if it was going to cost John. Instead of doing what he felt like, he asked, “Didn’t notice what?”

“Didn’t notice General Bell’s army on the move, sir,” the mage answered miserably. “The wizards masked it from us till just now.”

“So did Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders.” John the Lister’s voice was unhappy and enlightened at the same time. He’d wondered why Ned’s men had been so active, pushing back his own pickets and generally doing their best to impersonate Bell’s whole army. He hadn’t worried much about it, not till now. Ned was always busy and active; he wouldn’t have made such a pest of himself if he weren’t.

“What will we do, sir?” the gray-robed mage howled. “What can we do?”

“Well, it seems to me that getting out of this mess would be a pretty good idea,” John replied. “Don’t you agree?”

“Y-yes, sir. But… how?”

“I don’t know yet,” John the Lister said. “I expect I’ll figure something out, though. Once I know where the enemy is, that’ll tell me a lot about what I can do.”

“Sir, he’s-he’s behind us. Between us and Poor Richard. Between us and Ramblerton.” White showed all around the irises of the wizard’s eyes, as if he were a spooked unicorn.

“That’s not so good,” John said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came along. He tried for a bigger one in his very next sentence: “If there’s one thing you don’t want, it’s the traitors sitting on your supply line, especially when the harvest is done and the foraging’s bad.”

“How can we hope to escape?” Despite John’s calm, the wizard was the next thing to frantic. “If we stay here, we’ll starve. If we try to retreat past the enemy, he’ll hit us in the flank. He’ll probably block the road, too, so we’ll have no hope of getting by.”

“This isn’t the best position to try to defend,” John said. “Too open, too exposed. Bell’s men could make a clean sweep of us, and they wouldn’t have to work very hard to do it, either. If we’re on the move, though-”

“If we’re on the move, they’ll strike us in the flanks,” the mage repeated.

“Maybe they will,” John the Lister agreed politely. “But maybe they won’t, too. Funny things can happen when you’re on the move-look at how they just diddled us, for instance. They fooled us, so maybe we can fool them, too. How’s your masking spell these days, Lieutenant?”

“Not good enough, sir, or they wouldn’t have been able to do this to us.” The wizard still seemed ready to cry.

John the Lister slapped him on the back, hard enough to send him staggering halfway across the pavilion. “Well, you and your friends should work on it, because I think we’re going to need it soon. You’re dismissed.”

Muttering under his breath, the mage left. Once he was gone, John the Lister spent a minute or two cursing his luck and the incompetence of the wizards with whom he’d been saddled. A lot of southron generals had sent those curses up toward Mount Panamgam, the gods’ home beyond the sky. The gods, unfortunately, showed no sign of heeding them.

If nothing else, cursing made John feel better. General Guildenstern would have got drunk, which would have made him feel better but wouldn’t have done his army any good. Doubting George would have loosed a volley of sardonic remarks that made him feel better and left his targets in despair. John tried to relieve his own feelings without carving chunks from anyone else. He didn’t always succeed, but he did try.

Once he’d got the bile out of his system, he ordered a runner to find his adjutant and bring him back to the pavilion. Major Strabo came in a few minutes later. “What’s the trouble, sir?” he asked. The commanding general explained. His walleyed subordinate seemed to stare every which way at once. “Well, that’s a cute kettle of cod,” Strabo said when John finished. “And what in the name of the cods’ sort of coddity let the traitors hook us like that?”

“They outmagicked us,” John replied. “They’ve done it before. They’ll probably do it again. Now we have to figure out how to keep this from ending up a net loss.”

For one brief, horrified moment, both of Strabo’s eyes pointed straight at him. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” the major said. “Sir.”

“Probably,” John the Lister agreed. “But I have more important things to worry about right now. So does this whole army.”

“Your statement holds some veracity, yes.” Major Strabo’s eyes went their separate ways again. “What do you propose to do, sir?”

That was about as straightforward a question as was likely to come from John’s adjutant. The commanding general answered, “I propose to get this army out in one piece if I can. If Bell forces a fight, then we give him a fight, that’s all.”