Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

“What? You reckon Lord Ned’d cheat us?” Anger darkened Darry’s face. He clenched a massive fist. “I ought to break your face for you.”

Ned held up a hand. “It’s all right, Darry. I’m not mad.” Arris, he noted, hadn’t flinched. That might have meant he’d figured Ned would protect him. Or it might have meant he’d stashed a knife in his boot. Ned wouldn’t have been surprised either way. The commander of unicorn-riders continued, “He means, if I grant you land and the gods-damned southrons win, will they recognize what I’ve done?”

“If the gods-damned southrons win…” Even now, Darry’s frown showed he had trouble imagining that. Being Ned’s partisans, he and his comrades were stalwart partisans of the north, too.

“ Will they win, Lord Ned? Can they?” a blond named Brank asked. He sounded as if he didn’t want to believe it, either.

“They can. They probably will,” Ned answered. “But I think the grants will be good anyhow. They’re on lands up near Luxor that I owned before the fighting started. I didn’t get ’em while Geoffrey was King.” He feared nothing done while Geoffrey ruled in the north would stand now that Avram was returning to power here. Then he added, “And you boys are blonds. The southrons’ll likely be happy with you on account of that. You may even have it easier than if you were ordinary Detinans, in fact.”

Darry’s rugged, blunt-featured face furrowed into another frown as he tried to imagine having it easier than a Detinan. Several of the other blonds laughed to show what they thought of the idea. Arris said, “Don’t bet on it, Lord Ned.”

Ned of the Forest shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know for sure. But the reason I’m telling you is, we’re moving against Hard-Riding Jimmy now. He’s liable to lick us. Hells, he’s liable to smash us.” He’d never said anything like that before; the words hurt. “If you want to take your grants now and head for Luxor, I’ll give ’em to you. Nobody’s ever going to say you boys didn’t meet your end of the bargain.”

Arris said, “I’ll stick, Lord Ned. I reckon I’ve got a better chance of getting my land if you’re there to say I deserve it.” One by one, the rest of the blonds nodded. Arris had more brains than the others, and they had brains enough to know it.

But did the sly serf see everything that might happen? “They could put a bolt through my brisket tomorrow, you know. Or they could wait till the war’s over, call me a real traitor, and nail me to a cross.”

All the blonds shook their heads. “Oh, no, Lord Ned,” Darry said. “Nothing like that’d ever happen to you.” None of them seemed to think it was possible. Ned wished he didn’t. To the blonds, he was something not far from a god, or perhaps from a demon: something more than an ordinary man, anyhow. The scars he bore proved crossbow quarrels thought differently, though. And King Avram’s men wanted him dead; General Hesmucet had growled there could be no peace in eastern Franklin till he was. If they won the war-no, when they won the war-what would stop them from making their wishes come true? Nothing he could see.

He bowed to the blonds with as much courtesy as if they were King Geoffrey and his courtiers. There were times when he respected them much more than Geoffrey and that crowd of useless parasites in Nonesuch. “Thank you kindly, boys,” he said. “We’ll all do what we can to come out of this in one piece, that’s all.”

His riders met those of Hard-Riding Jimmy outside the town of Hayek. That was a town King Geoffrey had to hold. Both sides fought as dragoons, not as unicorn-riders in the strict sense of the term. They used their mounts to get where they were were going quickly, but they fought on foot. Scouts rode back to Ned, worried looks on their faces. “He’s got a hells of a lot of troopers with him, Lord Ned,” one of them said.

Ned of the Forest already knew that. He saw how long and thick a column of men Hard-Riding Jimmy led. “We’ve licked three times as many as we’ve got before,” he said, which was true. “We can do it again.”

He hoped he sounded as if he believed that. He wasn’t so sure, though. Jimmy’s riders had the bit between their teeth. They’d tasted victory, and they liked it. And they had those quick-shooting crossbows no northern artisan had been able to match. That made their effective numbers even greater than their actual ones.

At Ned’s shouted commands, his soldiers took the best defensive position they could. He’d never been able to spend men with the lavish prodigality of a commander of footsoldiers. Now, especially, every man he lost was one he could never have back again. Jimmy, on the other hand, looked to have been substantially reinforced since the battle in front of Ramblerton.

The southrons stormed forward, plainly hoping to overwhelm Ned’s men by weight of numbers and by the blizzard of bolts they put in the air. It didn’t happen; Ned’s veterans had been through too many fights to fail to take advantage of the ground. They gave back a murderous volley that knocked the southrons onto their heels.

“That’s the way!” Ned shouted as his troopers frantically reloaded. He wondered whether the southrons would try to rush his position again. He hoped so. If they did, he could keep killing them by swarms.

But, having been repulsed once, they paused out of crossbow range. Ned could almost see their officers’ surprise. Oh , they might have been saying as they pointed toward his line and talked among themselves. These northerners still have some fight left in them. After everything we saw down in Franklin, who could have imagined that?

Fighting flared again half an hour later. Ned would have liked to go forward himself and drive Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men while they were still shaken by their reverse. He would have liked to, but he didn’t dare. If his men left the safety of their shooting pits and trenches, the southrons’ quick-shooting crossbows would pincushion them. He knew it, and hated the knowledge.

When the southrons tried his position again, they treated it with the respect of men who knew they would be in for a brawl. He could have done without the compliment. Hard-Riding Jimmy was as lavishly supplied with engines as he was with men and unicorns. Firepots flew through the air trailing smoke. They burst in and around Ned’s lines. Men screamed when flames poured over them. Repeating crossbows sent endless streams of quarrels hissing through the air just at breastwork height. Any man who stuck his head up to shoot was asking to take a bolt in the face. Captain Watson answered back as best he could, but was able to do little to suppress the enemy’s shooting.

Under cover of that bombardment, Jimmy’s troopers advanced again. This time, they came in loose order, moving up in short rushes and then dropping to take advantage of whatever cover the ground offered. Watching them, Ned cursed. They knew what they were doing, all right. And they could do it, too.

And then, as the shooting heated up, a soldier from the left came dashing up to Ned. “They’ve got a column nipping around our flank, Lord Ned!” he cried. “They’re mounted and riding like hells. If they hit us from the side or behind, it’ll be the second day at Ramblerton all over again.”

“Gods damn it!” Ned of the Forest shouted. But, however much he cursed, he could see the dust the enemy unicorn-riders were raising. The messenger was right. If they got where they wanted to go, they could wreck his army. He said what he had to say: “Fall back! Fall back, you bastards! We can’t hold ’em here!”

If his men couldn’t hold the southrons here, they couldn’t hold Hayek, either. And if the north lost Hayek, another big log thudded onto the pyre of King Geoffrey’s hopes. Ned swore again, in anger at least half aimed at himself. He’d had a good notion this would happen when he began the campaign. Now it was here, and the end of everything looked closer by the day.