Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

Ned of the Forest had never yet reckoned himself stuck. He was confident he could handle whatever trouble the southrons gave him, if he had to by ordering his men to disperse and to reassemble somewhere else. He said, “Doesn’t Bell have his own engines up near the bridge to keep it safe?”

“Yes, sir,” the courier told him. “But you never can tell.”

That was altogether too true. You never could tell. And, where Bell was concerned, you might worry not just about whether things could go wrong, but about how they could go wrong. With an angry mutter, Ned said, “All right, then. Don’t fret yourself, sonny boy. We’ll step lively.”

He came to the southern bank of the Franklin a day and a half later, making better time than even he’d expected. Looking up the river, he saw no sign of southron war galleys. He did see, on the far bank, engines lined up wheel to wheel. Here, Bell hadn’t blundered.

“Get moving!” he called to the men under his command. “Let’s put the river between us and the bastards on our heels.”

Those bastards were starting to nip close again-but not close enough. Ned was sure they wouldn’t catch him. Gremio’s footsoldiers crossed over to the north bank of the Franklin. Wheels rumbling on the planks laid over the pontoons to pave the bridge, Watson’s engines and the supply wagons followed. Last came Lieutenant General Ned’s troopers, and last of all came Ned of the Forest himself.

As soon as he reached the northern bank of the river, a couple of Bell’s men set a firepot on the bridge. The pot began to burn. A moment later, so did the bridge. The Army of Franklin, or what remained of it, wended its way north and east, into Great River Province.

John the Lister saw the great column of black smoke rising into the sky from a couple of miles away. He knew what it had to mean. Cursing, he spurred his unicorn forward, toward the Franklin River.

He got to the river too late. He’d known he would be too late even as he set spurs to the flanks of his mount. He would have been too late even if he hadn’t had to delay because columns of footsoldiers and unicorn-riders and prisoners wouldn’t get out of his way as fast as he wanted them to. Having to squeeze through them did nothing to make his curses any less sulfurous, though.

Sure enough, the pontoon bridge by which the Army of Franklin had crossed was engulfed in flames, far beyond the hope of any man’s quenching it. Not even an opportune storm would save it now. And the Franklin was a formidable river, wide and swift and, now, swollen like so many other streams by the winter rains. On the far bank, most of the northerners had gone their way, but a few, tiny in the distance, still moved about on foot and on unicornback. One of them, a mounted officer, waved mockingly to the southrons on the opposite side of the river.

Fury made John the Lister grab for the hilt of his sword. Half a heartbeat later, he checked the motion, knowing he’d been foolish. Even the bolt from a repeating crossbow right on the riverbank would have splashed harmlessly into the Franklin, less than halfway on the journey to that northern unicorn-rider.

Hard-Riding Jimmy came up beside John. On his face was the same frustration as John felt. “We’ll be a while bridging this stream, and longer if their troopers give us a hard time while we’re working at it,” Jimmy said.

“I know,” John answered unhappily. He shook his head toward the traitors on the far bank. “They’re going to get away, gods damn them.”

Jimmy tempered that as best he could: “Some of them will get away. But an awful lot of them gods-damned well won’t.”

“Well, I can’t tell you you’re wrong,” John the Lister said. “Still, I wanted more. I wanted this whole army destroyed, not just wrecked. So did Doubting George.”

The southrons’ commander of unicorn-riders laughed. “If all our officers were so bloodthirsty, we’d’ve won this war two years ago.”

“We’re supposed to be bloodthirsty,” John said. “We’ve spent too much time putting up with men who aren’t. And d’you think Bell and Ned of the Forest didn’t want to drink our gore? They knew what they wanted to do to us, all right; they just couldn’t bring it off.”

“I admire Ned. I hate to admit it, but I do,” Jimmy said. “Wasn’t that a lovely spoiling attack his men put in a couple of days ago? As pretty as anything I’ve ever seen, especially considering how worn they had to be.”

“Yes. They’re still bastards, though,” John said. “He’s a bastard, too, but he’s a bastard who’s monstrous good at war.”

“That he is,” Jimmy said. “And now, sir, if you’ll excuse me…” He rode off.

Out in the Franklin River, a galley flying King Avram’s flag drew near. John scowled at it. Why couldn’t it have come sooner, to attack the now burning pontoon bridge before Bell’s soldiers crossed it? A moment later, he got his answer to that. Cunningly hidden catapults on the northern side of the river opened up on the galley. Stones and firepots splashed into the Franklin all around it. It hastily pulled back out of range.

John the Lister shook his fist at the northerners again. But then, suddenly, he started to laugh. In the end, how much difference did it make that a few of them had managed to escape? For all practical purposes, the war here in the east was won.

Before long, the soldiers in Doubting George’s army would go elsewhere-maybe after Lieutenant General Bell’s men, maybe off to the west to help finish off the armies there that remained in the field for false King Geoffrey. Either way, how likely was it that Geoffrey’s rule would ever be seen in this part of the kingdom again? Not very, and John knew it.

From now on, if the locals wanted to send a letter, they would have to send it through a postmaster loyal to King Avram. If they wanted to go to law against each other, they would have to do it in one of Avram’s lawcourts. If one of the local barons wanted to keep on being a baron, he would have to swear allegiance to Avram. If he didn’t, if he refused, he wouldn’t be a baron any more. He would be an outlaw, and hunted down by Avram’s soldiers.

And, from now on, all the blonds in this part of the kingdom would be free men, no longer bound to their liege lords’ lands as they had been for so many hundreds of years. Ever since the invaders from the far side of the Western Ocean overwhelmed the blonds’ kingdoms they’d found in the north of what became Detina, they’d looked on the people they’d conquered as little more than domestic animals that happened to walk on two legs. That had changed-changed some-in the south, where blonds had been fewer and the land itself poorer, and where serfdom never really had paid for itself. Now, no matter how little the northerners liked it-and John the Lister knew how little that was-it was going to change here, too.

King Avram had always been determined about that. He’d made his views plain long before succeeding old King Buchan. He’d made them so plain, Grand Duke Geoffrey had rebelled the instant the royal crown landed on Avram’s homely head, and he’d taken all the northern provinces with him, even if some of them hadn’t actually abandoned Avram till after the fighting started. Geoffrey’s war was going on four years old now. It wouldn’t-couldn’t-last much longer. After the spilling of endless blood and endless treasure, King Avram would get his way.

John the Lister wondered how well things would work once peace finally returned to the kingdom. Like a lot of southrons (and almost all northerners), he remained unconvinced that the average blond was as good a man, as smart a man, as brave a man, as the average Detinan. He’d needed the war to convince him that some blonds could match some Detinans in any of those things. He knew one of his regiments had a blond sergeant in it, thanks to the promotion from Colonel Nahath. That a blond could rise so high, could give orders to Detinans and get away with it, still surprised him. That a Detinan with such abilities who’d started as a common soldier would probably be a captain or a major by now never once crossed John’s mind.