Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

Brannan smiled. “Good old Ducky. He’s reliable, by the Thunderer’s prong.”

“That he is.” Doubting George didn’t doubt it in the slightest. When Fighting Joseph resigned because Hesmucet had named Brigadier Oliver commander of James the Bird’s Eye’s wing rather than giving it to him, that had given the general commanding one more slot to fill. John the Lister-often called by the nickname Brannan had given him-was a thoroughly capable officer, one who did what needed doing without demanding praise before, during, and afterwards. With him on his flank, George felt much happier than he would have with Fighting Joseph there.

George’s wing started sliding around to the right, to the east of Marthasville, the next morning. He’d wondered if Bell would try to strike him a blow at once, but the northern soldiers stayed in their entrenchments. Only a few unicorn-riders in blue dogged the southron troops. Doubting George sent his own unicorn-riders forward and drove them away.

“They’re only trying to see what we’re up to,” Absalom the Bear said. “They can’t stop us.”

“I know that,” Doubting George replied. “I don’t care. I don’t want them seeing anything, either. It might cause us trouble later on.”

As his wing advanced, though, he wondered whether anything would cause the southrons in Peachtree Province trouble ever again. Hesmucet had had the right of it: but for Joseph the Gamecock’s army and Duke Edward’s over in Parthenia, King Geoffrey had little left with which to hold his kingdom together. And, now that Bell had taken the army once Joseph’s and smashed it up, little remained to hold back the men in gray as they advanced.

Oh, every now and then squadrons of unicorn-riders or Peachtree Province militiamen would skirmish with George’s vanguard. Sometimes the northerners would have the numbers to slow down George’s men for a little while. But all he had to do was send reinforcements forward and the traitors would melt away. They’d spent a couple of months skillfully contesting every inch of ground from Borders all the way up to Marthasville. This ground to the east of Marthasville was as important as any in all of Peachtree Province, but King Geoffrey had not the men to keep Hesmucet from taking it.

Seeing as much amused Absalom the Bear-as much as anything could amuse Lieutenant General George’s grim brigadier. “Geoffrey wanted Bell to get out there and fight,” Absalom said. “He got out there and he did it-and now, by the gods, Geoffrey has to wish he’d left Joseph the Gamecock in command.”

“I doubt that,” George said, which made Absalom chuckle. The wing commander went on, “I don’t think false King Geoffrey wants Joseph to have anything to do with anything. The only reason he gave him this command in the first place was that he didn’t have anybody else to fix the mess Thraxton the Braggart left behind.”

“No doubt you’re right, sir,” Absalom said. “Now who’s going to fix the mess Bell’s left behind?”

“I don’t think anyone can,” George replied. “If he stays in the city, we’ll flank him out or starve him out. And if he comes forth again, we’ll give him another set of lumps and drive him back. He hasn’t got the men to push us, not after he’s gone and thrown so many of them away.”

“There’s always magic,” Absalom said.

Doubting George wished the brigadier hadn’t said that. Sorcery was the one place where the traitors still enjoyed some advantage over King Avram’s forces. But even that edge was shrinking. George said, “By what the northerners have shown on this campaign, we can stand up to whatever they throw at us.”

“Here’s hoping you’re right,” Absalom the Bear answered. George nodded.

A unicorn-rider came back from the vanguard, reined in, and waited to be recognized. When Doubting George nodded again, this time toward him, he said, “Sir, we’ve taken some prisoners. Do you want to help question them?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” the wing commander replied. “Lead the way.”

“Yes, sir.” The messenger rode to what looked like the farm of a prosperous yeoman or a small baron. Even before George walked into the farmhouse, he could hear cursing-at the same time highly fluent and slightly mushy. At his raised eyebrows, the messenger explained: “One of the fellows we caught is this militiaman, must be fifty-five, sixty years old. He’s got false choppers-or he did, on account of he just broke ’em. That’s how come he sounds the way he does.”

“I… see,” George said. “He sounds like the fellow I ought to question, don’t you think?”

“Whatever you say, sir,” the messenger replied. “If if was up to me, I’d knock him over the head and shut him up for good.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Doubting George replied. “He sounds like he might be fun to listen to for a while.”

He walked into the farmhouse. The northern prisoner gave him a baleful stare and demanded, “Who in the hells”-because of his broken false teeth, it came out as hellsh — “are you?”

“I am Lieutenant General George, commander of this wing of King Avram’s army,” George said gravely. “Do I understand you to be a mite discouraged with the northern cause?”

“Discouraged?” the prisoner shouted. “Discouraged?” He spat on the rammed-earth floor. “ That for the fornicating northern cause. I curse the northern cause, every fornicating piece of it. I curse King Geoffrey and his ministers and his satraps and public men, clean down to the lowest pothouse politico who advocates his cause. I curse the whole fornicating Army of Franklin, from Joseph the Gamecock and Bell the Bloody Butcher down to the mangiest, most miserable jackass. I curse its downsittings and its uprisings. I curse its movements, marches, battles, and sieges. I curse all its paraphernalia, its catapults and its crossbows. I curse its banners, bugles, and drums. And I curse the whole gods-damned institution of serfdom, which brought about this miserable, fornicating war.”

By then, the fellow’s guards had tears of laughter running down their cheeks. Doubting George held his face straight, which was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “You are a man of strong opinions, sir,” he remarked.

“I know what’s what. I know eggs is eggs. I know pigs is pigs,” the prisoner said. “And I know we’ve got pigs in charge of us. Curse ’em all. Curse ’em, and make bacon of ’em, too.”

“Dare I ask your view of my side in this conflict?” George inquired.

“Futter you southrons, too,” the northern man said at once. “You bastards are winning the war by magic, and where’s the fair fight in that?”

“By magic?” George said in surprise. “Your side is the one credited with the stronger sorcerers.”

“Unicorn dung!” the prisoner exclaimed. “Stinks like it, too. Our wizards brag. You ever hear tell of Thraxton the Braggart? We brag, but your buggers really do things. We aren’t the ones who keep miles and miles of glideway tunnel in our back pantaloon pockets, way you bastards do.”

“Glideway tunnel?” Doubting George had never imagined that as something a wizard might keep handy in a pocket.

But it made perfect sense to the prisoner. “We go after your glideways, how else can you fix ’em so gods-damned fast, without you having tunnel right there ready to go and stick it through a hill? Ought to stick it up Bell’s backside, is where it ought to go.”

He went back to cursing, this time aiming his venom at the new commander of the Army of Franklin. But he’d been dead serious about the tunnels; Doubting George could tell as much. If only such a thing were possible, it would have been a good idea. When the latest string of blasphemies slowed, George asked, “How did you happen to get caught?”