Harry Turtledove - Sentry Peak

“When we start fighting the northerners, we have to hit them with everything we’ve got and go right on hitting them till they fall over,” Bart said. “That’s what will win the fight for us.”

“We shall win glory for King Avram,” Fighting Joseph declared.

“As long as we win the fight,” Doubting George put in. Bart decided George really didn’t care about glory, and that he’d meant what he said when he urged his own replacement if Bart thought that would help defeat Thraxton’s men. It wasn’t that he had no pride; Bart knew better. But he really did put the kingdom ahead of everything else. Bart had to admire that.

He said, “All right. I think we know what we’re supposed to do. That was the point of calling you together, so we’re through here. Lieutenant General Hesmucet, stay a bit, if you’d be so kind. I want to talk with you about weather magic when we do attack the traitors.”

“Yes, sir,” Hesmucet said as the other officers rose from their seats and headed back to their own commands. “At your service, sir.”

“At King Avram’s service,” Bart said, and Hesmucet nodded. Bart resumed: “He made us, and he can break us. That’s what being a king is all about.”

“Yes, sir,” Hesmucet repeated. “But we can make him or break him, too. That’s what fighting a civil war is all about.”

Had Fighting Joseph said that, he would have meant trying to break the king and seize the throne himself. Hesmucet’s mind didn’t work that way. Neither did Bart’s. He said, “Can we do this the way we’ve planned it?”

“I think so,” Hesmucet answered. “We’ve got more men. We’ve got more engines. We’ve got more of everything, except…” His voice faded.

“Except fancy magecraft,” Bart finished for him. Hesmucet nodded. Bart shrugged. “Most of the time, it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. If it did, the northerners would have licked us by now.”

“I know that,” Hesmucet said calmly. “But Thraxton’s sure to throw everything he’s got at us. He doesn’t want to have to fall back into Peachtree Province again.”

“We just have to stop him,” Bart said.

“Guildenstern couldn’t,” Hesmucet said. “His mages couldn’t, either. If the traitors are playing with loaded dice, we have trouble. You know that’s so.”

“Yes, I know that’s so-if they are,” Bart agreed. “But I also know I’m not going to lose much sleep over it. I’ll tell Phineas and the others to do their best. That’s all they can do. If they do their best, and if our soldiers do their best, I think we’re going to win.”

“Yes, sir.” Hesmucet didn’t sound as if he believed it himself, not at first. But then he paused, stroking that short beard, hardly more than stubble, he wore. His smile, Bart thought, was quizzical. “Do you know, sir,” he said, “there are a lot of generals who, if they said something like that, you’d right away start figuring out what would go wrong and how you’d keep from getting the blame for it. But do you know what? When I listen to you, I think you’re going to do exactly what you say you’ll do. And if that’s not pretty peculiar, to the seven hells with me if I know what is.”

“Thraxton the Braggart’s just a mage. He’s not a god,” Bart said. “He makes mistakes, the same as anybody else does. He did it down at Pottstown Pier, and he did it again at Reillyburgh. If we jog his elbow right when he’s trying to do three or four things all at the same time, he’ll likely do it once more. And if he does, we’ll lick him.”

“But if he doesn’t…” Hesmucet still had doubts.

Bart sighed. “Look at it this way, Lieutenant General: the traitors have to do everything perfectly to have a chance of beating us. We can make some mistakes and still beat them. General Guildenstern made every mistake in the book, but they couldn’t run him out of Rising Rock even so. Don’t you think the Braggart knows that as well as we do?”

“He has to,” Hesmucet said. “He’s not stupid.”

“No, that’s never been his trouble,” Bart agreed. Both men chuckled. Bart continued, “But it has to weigh on his mind, wouldn’t you think? Knowing he’s got to be perfect, I mean, knowing he’s got no margin for error. It’s easy to walk along a board lying in the middle of the road. But take that board to New Eborac and stretch it out between the top floors of a couple of blocks of flats, where you’ll kill yourself if you fall off. How easy is it then? The more a mistake will cost, the more you worry about it…”

He waited. Either he’d convinced Hesmucet or he hadn’t. Slowly, the other officer nodded. “That sounds good to me, sir. Now-did you still need to talk about Alva the weatherworker?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Bart answered. They both chuckled again. Hesmucet gave a salute so sloppy, some sergeant at the Annasville military collegium would have had an apoplexy seeing it. Bart returned an even sloppier one. When anybody could see them, they stayed formal. By themselves, they were more nearly a couple of friends than two of Avram’s leading officers.

After Hesmucet left, Bart sent a runner to summon Colonel Phineas. The army’s chief mage arrived looking apprehensive. “You wanted me, sir?”

“I certainly did,” Bart said. “I want you and your wizards to start doing everything you can to annoy the Army of Franklin. I want you to make the traitors stretch their own sorcerers as thin as they’ll go, and then a little bit thinner than that. Can you do it?”

“Of course we can, sir,” Phineas said. “But I don’t see how doing it will change things one way or the other.”

“Oh, it probably won’t,” Bart said placidly. “Do it anyhow.”

“Yes, sir,” Colonel Phineas said. After a moment, he nerved himself to add, “I don’t understand, sir.”

Shall I explain? Bart wondered. If he’s too stupid to see for himself, isn’t he too stupid to do us any good? But, in the end, he relented: “If the traitors are busy putting out lots of little fires all along their line, it’ll make them have a harder time noticing we’re setting a big fire right under their noses.”

“Ah. Deception.” Phineas beamed. He could see something if you held it under his nose and shone a lamp on it. “Very commendable. Who would have thought deception could play a true part in matters military?”

“Anyone who went to the military collegium, for starters,” Bart said.

But the army’s chief wizard shook his head. “Not from the evidence I’ve seen thus far, sir. By all the signs, the only thing most officers are good for is bashing the foes in front of them over the head with a rock… No offense, sir.”

“None taken,” Bart said, more or less truthfully. “We do try to surprise the chaps on the other side of the line every now and again. They try to surprise us every now and again, too, but we try not to let that work.”

“Yes, sir.” But Colonel Phineas sounded even less convinced than Lieutenant General Hesmucet had. Then the plump, balding Phineas brightened. “Well, we will do what we can, I promise you. Deception? What a conceit!” Off he went, though Bart hadn’t given him any sort of formal dismissal.

Colonel Horace came in a couple of minutes later. “What was the old he-witch muttering to himself about?” General Bart’s aide inquired. “He sounded happy as a pig rooting for turnips.”

“He’s amazed that I have some notion of fooling the enemy instead of just pounding him to death,” Bart replied. “We do try to play these little games with the least loss we can.”

“Of course we do, sir.” Horace bristled at the idea that anyone could think otherwise.

“And we’ll have the chance to show the northerners just how we play them,” Bart said. “Meanwhile, though, the less they see, the better.”