Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

“Will you let him come to you, or do you aim to go to him?”

Two straightforward questions in a row-John the Lister wondered if Strabo was feeling well. He replied, “We’re going back toward Poor Richard. If we can get there, it’s a good defensive position. And if we stay here, Bell can starve us out without fighting. To the hells with me if I aim to let him do that. Draft orders for our withdrawal down the road to Poor Richard, warning it may be a fighting retreat.”

“Yes, sir,” Strabo said, and then, after some hesitation, “Uh, sir, you do know it may be a great deal worse than that?”

“Oh, yes, I know it.” John nodded heavily. “I know it, and you know it. But if the men don’t know it, they’re likely to fight better if they have to. Or do you think I’m wrong, Major?”

“No, sir,” Major Strabo answered. “I am of the opinion that your accuracy is unchallengeable. Not only that, but I think you’re right.”

“I’m so glad,” John murmured. “Well, prepare those orders for my signature. I’ll want to get moving this afternoon, so don’t waste any time.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Strabo, who was as diligent as he was difficult. “Will you want all your unicorn-riders in the van?”

Reluctantly, John the Lister shook his head. “No, we’d better leave half of them in the rear to keep Ned of the Forest off us. Hard-Riding Jimmy looks like he’s still wet behind the ears, but he knows what he’s doing for us, and those quick-shooting crossbows his riders have make a small force go a long way. Half the men at the van will do. And we need the rest back at the rear. We couldn’t move very gods-damned fast if Ned’s men kept chewing at the hind end of our column. Write ’em that way. With Ned back there, Bell won’t have many unicorn-riders at the front of his army, either.”

“That makes sense,” Major Strabo said. “It may not be right, mind you, but it does make sense.”

“I’m glad I have you to relieve my mind,” John told him. Strabo smiled and inclined his head, as if he thought that a genuine compliment. Maybe he did; he was more than a little hard to fathom. John went on, “Draft those orders, now. The sooner you do, the sooner we see if we can’t set this mess to rights.”

“Yes, sir. You may rely on me. As soon as I pluck a quill from a goose’s wing…” Strabo made as if to grab a goose from the sky. John made as if to strangle his adjutant. They both laughed, each a little nervously.

However difficult Strabo might have been, the marching orders he prepared were a small masterpiece of concision. Along with a detachment of unicorn-riders, he also posted most of the southron wizards in the van. John nodded approval of that. He wasn’t sure how much good the wizards would do, but he wanted them in position to do as much as they could.

The army hadn’t even left Summer Mountain before John realized how much trouble it was in. Sure enough, Bell’s army was posted close to the road down which his own force had to withdraw. All the northerners had to do was reach out their hands, and his army was theirs. That was how it looked at first glance, anyhow. He hoped it wouldn’t seem so bad as he got closer to the foe.

It didn’t. Instead, it seemed worse. The northern army was drawn up in battle array perhaps half a mile west of the road leading south to Poor Richard. John felt like deploying into battle line facing them and sidling down the road crab-fashion. He couldn’t-he knew he couldn’t-but he felt like it.

Skirmishers rushed forward and started shooting bolts at his men. His repeating crossbows hosed them with death. Here and there, men on both sides fell. But it was only skirmishing, no worse, and didn’t force him to halt his march and try to drive back the traitors.

A few northern catapults came forward, too, and flung stones and firepots at his long column. Most of the missiles missed. Every once in a while, though, one of them would take a bite out of the long file of men in gray tunics and pantaloons. The dead lay where they fell-no time to gather them up, let alone to build pyres and burn them. Soldiers with crushed limbs or with burns from a bursting firepot would go into the wagons, for healers and surgeons to do what they could.

Major Strabo said, “If their main force attacks, we are dead meat.”

“Think so, do you?” John the Lister said.

“Gods-damned right I do,” his adjutant answered. “Don’t you ?”

“Well, now that you mention it, yes,” John said. “We’ve already got farther than I thought we would.”

“What’s wrong with them?” Strabo seemed almost indignant at not being annihilated. “Is our masking spell working that well?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe it.

John the Lister didn’t believe it, either. He had good, solid reasons not to believe it, too. “Can’t be, Major,” he said. “If it were, their skirmishers wouldn’t know we’re here.”

Major Strabo’s eyes slewed wildly as he watched the brisk little fight-and it was only a little fight-over on the army’s right flank. “What’s wrong with General Bell? Is he cracked? He’s at liberty to attack us whenever he pleases, and what’s he doing?”

“Nothing much.” John answered the rhetorical question. Then he asked one of his own: “Are you sorry?”

“No, sir. Or I don’t think so, sir. The only trouble is, if Bell isn’t attacking us here, I’d like to know why he isn’t. What’s he got waiting for us down the road?”

That was a good question, and anything but rhetorical. “I don’t know,” John admitted. He waved to the men in blue, most of whom still watched his army tramp past their positions. “What I do know is, he can’t have too much, because that over there has to be most of the Army of Franklin. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?”

“No, sir. Can’t do it, sir,” Strabo replied. “Hells, I didn’t think Bell had even that many men. But where’s the plug on the road? That has to be it. As soon as they force us to stop, then they’ll all swarm forward.” Again, he almost sounded as if he looked forward to it.

“I don’t know where it is. We haven’t bumped into it yet.” But even as John the Lister spoke, a unicorn-rider came galloping back toward the army. Ice raced up John’s spine. For a moment there, he’d almost known hope. Now the bad news would come, all the crueler for being late. “Well?” he barked as the rider drew near.

“The road’s clear, sir, all the way south,” the unicorn-rider said. “The traitors aren’t trying to block it, not anywhere we can find.”

“You’re joking.” John said it automatically, for no better reason than that he couldn’t believe his ears.

“No, sir.” The rider shook his head. “By the Thunderer’s lightning bolt, the way south is as empty of men as Thraxton the Braggart’s head is of sense.”

“Than which, indeed, nothing could be more empty-or should I say less full?” Major Strabo shook his head, too, and answered his own question: “No, I think not, for Thraxton the Braggart unquestionably is full of-”

“He certainly is,” John the Lister said hastily. “But that doesn’t really matter, especially since Thraxton’s not in charge of the traitors any more. What matters is, they had us all boxed in” — he waved toward the men in blue still drawn up in plain sight, the men in blue who still weren’t advancing against his own force- “they had us, and they didn’t finish the job. I don’t know how they didn’t, I don’t know why they didn’t, but they didn’t.” Most of the time, John was a serious man. Now he felt giddy, almost drunk, with relief.

“Now General Bell’s let us get away, and very soon, I think, he’ll rue the day,” Strabo declaimed.