Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

“Well, that’s not just what I meant. I-” Alva broke off and gave Doubting George a dirty look. “You’re making fun again,” he said accusingly.

With one of his broad-shouldered shrugs, George said, “I can either make fun or I can start yelling and cursing and pitching a fit. Which would you rather?”

“Me? I think it would be entertaining if you pitched a fit.” Alva tried to project an air of childlike innocence. He didn’t have too much luck.

“You would,” Doubting George told him. “Now why don’t you disappear, so I can go back into my-what did you call it? — my reverie, that was it.”

“But you said it wasn’t a reverie, sir,” Alva said.

“It might be, if I give it a chance.”

“But if it wasn’t one in the first place, then you can’t very well go back into it, can you?”

“Did you study wizardry, or at a collegium of law?” George rumbled.

To his surprise, Major Alva laughed out loud. “Can you imagine me a barrister, sir, or even a solicitor?” he asked, and Doubting George laughed, too, for he couldn’t. With a half-mocking salute, Alva did leave.

And there stood Doubting George, looking at the rain-swollen waters of the Franklin, looking at Ned’s unicorn-riders, looking at the ignominious conclusion to what should have been glorious instead. It had been glorious, in fact. The only trouble was, they couldn’t see the glory back in Georgetown. Or maybe they could, but they didn’t think it glittered brightly enough. Is this a reverie? George wondered. He doubted it. He just felt as chilly and gloomy as the winter’s day all around him.

Hoofbeats brought him back to himself. He looked around, blinking a couple of times. Maybe it had been a reverie after all. Up came Hard-Riding Jimmy. The brash young commander of unicorn-riders swung down out of the saddle, tied his mount to a low-hanging branch, and came over to Doubting George. He saluted crisply.

Returning the salute, George said, “And what can I do for you ?”

“Sir, I’ve just received orders from Georgetown,” Jimmy said.

Excitement thrummed in his voice. George could see it in his stance. “What sort of orders?” the commanding general asked, though Jimmy’s delight gave him a pretty good idea.

And, sure enough, Jimmy answered, “Detached duty, sir. My whole contingent of unicorn-riders. I’m ordered to go down into Dothan, smash up everything in my path, and hound Ned of the Forest to death.” He sounded quiveringly eager to be about it, too.

Doubting George was also quivering-quivering with fury. “Congratulations, Brigadier. I hope you do it, and I think you can.” He wasn’t angry at Jimmy, or not directly. “These orders came straight to you?”

“Uh, yes, sir. They did.” Now Jimmy knew what the trouble was. “Do you mean to say you didn’t get them?”

“That is exactly what I mean to say,” George growled. “By now, the butchers dismembering the carcass of my army must suppose I’m dead, for they don’t even bother letting me know before they hack off another limb. At least they had the courtesy to tell me when they took John the Lister away from me.”

Hard-Riding Jimmy turned red. He stroked one end of his long, drooping mustaches. “I’m sorry, sir. I assumed you would know before I did.”

“Ha!” Doubting George said. “Marshal Bart doesn’t think I deserve to know my own name, let alone anything else.”

“Well…” The commander of unicorn-riders was too excited about what he was going to do to worry much about his superior’s woes. “I can’t wait to come to grips with Ned, not when I’m getting reinforced, all my men will have quick-shooting crossbows, and he can’t afford to send his troopers scattering like quicksilver. He’ll have to defend the towns in my path, because the manufactories in them make crossbows and catapults and such for the traitors. He’ll have to defend them, and I aim to take them away from him and burn them to the ground.”

Southron brigadiers had been talking like that when they went up against Ned of the Forest since the war was young. Most of the brigadiers who talked like that had come to grief in short order. Doubting George doubted whether Hard-Riding Jimmy would, though. He was a good officer, had a swarm of good men armed with fine weapons that had already proved their worth-and the north, now, was visibly coming to the end of its tether.

“May the gods go with you,” George said. “I wish I were going with you, too, but I can’t do a gods-damned thing about that.”

“I wish this had been handled more smoothly,” Jimmy said. “I feel real bad about it.”

“Nothing you can do. Nothing I can do, either,” Doubting George answered. “When you do go to Dothan with your detached command, though, you make sure you do whip those traitor sons of bitches, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir!” Hard-Riding Jimmy saluted once more. “I’ll do it, sir.” He got back onto his unicorn and rode away.

Doubting George stared after him. Then the commanding general turned and kicked a small stone into the Franklin. It splashed a couple of times before sinking without a trace. Might as well be my career , George thought gloomily. Not all the sons of bitches are traitors. Too gods-damned many of ’em are on King Avram’s side .

These days, Ned of the Forest often felt he was the only officer in Honey-indeed, the only officer in Great River Province and Dothan put together-who was behaving as if he felt the north could still win the war. In a sour sort of way, that was funny, for Bell’s disaster in front of Ramblerton had thrown the last log on the pyre of his hopes.

But, as far as he was concerned, the fight had to go on, hope or no hope. King Geoffrey hadn’t surrendered. Geoffrey, in fact, kept loudly insisting that he wouldn’t surrender, that he would sooner turn bushwhacker than surrender. Ned, a master bushwhacker if ever there was one, had his doubts about that, but he kept quiet about them.

His unicorn-riders kept patrolling north of the Franklin. A few of them sneaked across the river and raided southron outposts on the far bank. They behaved as if the war still were the close, hard-fought struggle it had always been.

Not so the footsoldiers who remained in Honey, the remnants of the once-proud Army of Franklin. Every day, a few-or, on a lot of days, more than a few-of them slipped out of their encampments, heading for home.

Lieutenant General Richard the Haberdasher, the general who’d taken over for Bell, summoned Ned to his headquarters in the best hostel in town. Richard, a belted earl, was King Geoffrey’s brother-in-law and had a blood connection to King Zachary the Rough and Ready, now some years dead. Despite his blue blood, he’d proved a capable soldier, and had done some hard fighting in the northeast.

To do any more fighting with what had been the Army of Franklin, Ned was convinced, Earl Richard would have to be more than a capable soldier. He’d have to be able to raise the dead. But all Ned did on walking into Richard’s suite was salute and say, “Reporting as ordered, your Grace.”

Richard the Haberdasher was tall-though not quite so tall as Ned-and handsome. He was in his late thirties, four or five years younger than the commander of unicorn-riders. “I have a favor to ask of you, Lieutenant General,” he said.

“What do you need?” Ned asked.

“I want you to put a cordon around Honey,” Richard said. “These desertions have got to stop. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can,” Ned of the Forest answered. “And I will.” He was glad to see Richard trying to take matters in hand. About time , he thought. Still, he couldn’t help adding, “You could do it with footsoldiers, too, you know.”