Harry Turtledove - Sentry Peak

That set the other soldiers laughing. “He’s no fool,” one of them said. “Doesn’t feel like working himself when he can get somebody else to do it for him.” Had he used a different tone of voice, he would have been mocking a lazy serf. But he sounded more admiring than otherwise: one soldier applauding another’s successful ingenuity.

“Come on,” Rollant said again. The escaped serf ran forward and picked up almost all the water bottles. For him, bearing burdens for King Avram’s soldiers was a privilege, not a duty-and a nuisance of a duty at that. Rollant smiled as he grabbed the couple of bottles the runaway hadn’t. “When I finally got into the south, I was the same way you are now,” he told the fellow.

“My liege lord can’t tell me what to do any more,” the serf said simply. “He can’t come sniffing after my woman any more, neither.”

Rollant led the whole family of runaways back to the encampment. Sergeant Joram glared at him. “I sent you after water, not more blonds,” he growled, and then, before Rollant could say anything, “Take ’em to the captain. He’ll figure out what to do with ’em.”

Since Rollant had intended to do just that, he obeyed cheerfully. Captain Cephas eyed the newcomers and said, “We can use somebody to chop wood. You handy with an axe, fellow?” The escaped serf nodded. Cephas turned to the woman. “Can you cook? The fellow we’ve got could burn water.”

“Yes, lord, I can cook,” she answered softly.

“I’m not a lord. I’m just a captain,” Cephas said. “We’ll put the two of you on the books. Half a common soldier’s pay for you” -the man- “and a third for you” -the woman. Their delighted expressions on realizing they’d get money for their labor were marvels to behold. Rollant understood that. He’d felt the same way. Only later would they find out how little money they were getting.

Count Thraxton knew a lot of his soldiers had expected him to fall back all the way to Marthasville after retreating from Rising Rock. Of all the towns in Peachtree Province, Marthasville was the one King Geoffrey had to hold, for it was a great glideway junction, and most of the paths leading from the long-settled west to the eastern provinces passed through it. Falling back closer to it-to Stamboul, say, halfway there-might even have been prudent.

But, after his vow to Ned of the Forest, Thraxton would have reckoned himself forsworn-and, worse, the officers serving under him would have reckoned him forsworn-had he retreated that close to Marthasville. And so he didn’t go very far to the northwest, but made his new headquarters at a little town in southern Peachtree Province called Fa Layette, not far from the picturesquely named River of Death.

Death suited Thraxton’s present mood. Nor was that mood improved when a fellow who’d escaped from Rising Rock after the southrons seized it was brought before him and said, “They paraded right through the town, sir, the whole scapegrace army of ’em, all their stinking bands blaring out the battle hymn of the kingdom till your ears wanted to bust.”

“May the Hunt Lady flay them. May the Thunderer smite them,” Thraxton said in a voice so terrible, his informant flinched back from him as if he were the Thunderer himself. “May their torn and lightning-riven souls drop into the seven hells for torment eternal. That they should dare do such a thing in a city that is ours…”

“A city that was ours,” the fellow from Rising Rock said. Thraxton fixed-transfixed-him with a glare. He didn’t just flinch. He spun on his heel and fled from the chamber where he’d been speaking with Thraxton.

“Shall I bring him back, sir?” asked the young officer who’d escorted the refugee into Thraxton’s presence. “Do you think you can learn more from him?”

“No: only how great an idiot he is, and I already have a good notion of that,” Thraxton answered. The junior officer nodded and saluted and also left the chamber in a hurry.

Count Thraxton hardly noticed. He set an absentminded hand on the front of his uniform tunic. His stomach pained him. It often did-and all the more so when he contemplated the spectacle of General Guildenstern, a man with neither breeding nor military talent, parading through Rising Rock, through the city Thraxton himself had had to abandon.

I am the better soldier . Thraxton was as sure of that as he was that the sun was shining outside. I am the better mage . That went without saying. No general in either army could come close to matching him in magic. Then where are my triumphs? Where are my processions?

He could have had them. He should have had them. Somehow, they’d slipped through his fingers. Somehow, he’d ended up here in Fa Layette, a no-account town if ever there was one, while Guildenstern, his inferior in every way, victoriously paraded through Rising Rock.

It wasn’t his fault. It couldn’t possibly have been his fault. He was the one who deserved that parade, by the gods. And I shall have it , he thought. He always knew exactly what he was supposed to do, and he always did it, but somehow it didn’t always come off quite the way he’d expected. Since the mistakes weren’t, couldn’t have been, his, they had to belong to the officers serving under him.

Slowly, Thraxton nodded. That was bound to be it. Had any general in all the history of Detina-in all the history of the world-ever been worse served by his subordinates? Thraxton doubted it. Even now, the men who led the constituent parts of his army were not the warriors he would have wanted. Ned of the Forest? A boor, a bumpkin, a lout. Leonidas the Priest? No doubt he served the Lion God well, but he had a habit of being tardy on the battlefield. Dan of Rabbit Hill? Better than either of the others , Thraxton thought, but not good enough . Dan had a fatal character flaw: he was ambitious. Thraxton tolerated ambition only in himself.

A mage with the winged-eye badge of a scryer next to his lieutenant’s bars came in and saluted Thraxton. “May it please your Grace,” he said, “Earl James of Broadpath and his host have passed out of Croatoan and into Palmetto Province. They should go through Marthasville in a couple of days, and should reach us here the day following.”

“I thank you,” Thraxton said. The scryer saluted again and withdrew.

Alone in the chamber once more, Thraxton scowled. His stomach gave another painful twinge. Earl James’ imminent arrival pleased him not at all. What was it but King Geoffrey’s declaration that he couldn’t win the war here in the east by himself? And James of Broadpath would prate endlessly of Duke Edward, and of how things were done in the Army of Southern Parthenia. Thraxton could practically hear him already. He himself cared not a fig for Duke Edward or his precious army.

James’ men would let him meet Guildenstern on something like equal terms. “And I will meet him, and I will beat him,” Thraxton said. He knew what he had to do. Figuring out how to do it was another matter. Until James of Broadpath got here, he remained badly outnumbered. If General Guildenstern pushed matters, he could erupt into southern Peachtree Province and force Thraxton from Fa Layette as he’d forced him from Rising Rock.

Guildenstern, fortunately, was not given to pushing things. Few of the southron generals were. Had Count Thraxton been fighting for Avram, he wouldn’t have wanted to push things, either. But he couldn’t stomach Avram at all, any more than any of the northern nobles who’d backed King Geoffrey could.

He studied a map of the territory through which he’d just had to retreat. Slowly, he nodded. He might have smiled, had his face not forgotten what smiling was all about. After a little more contemplation, he nodded again and shouted for a runner.