Harry Turtledove - Sentry Peak

“Absolutely, sir.” Colonel Horace was fiercely loyal. That made him a splendid aide. “High time they get the punishment they deserve.”

“I wish this weren’t necessary,” Bart said. “I wish we weren’t fighting.” Even if that meant you were still a drunken failure? Yes, by the gods, even then . “But since we are fighting, we’d better win. Having two kingdoms where there should just be Detina is unbearable.”

“It won’t happen.” Horace was also an all but indomitable optimist. “When we hit Thraxton, we’ll break him.”

“May it be so,” Bart said. “Our job is to make it so, and we’re going to do our job. Wouldn’t you agree, Colonel?”

Horace’s expression declared that Bart hadn’t needed to ask the question. “Thraxton will never know what hit him.”

“That’s the idea,” General Bart said. “I don’t want him knowing what’s going to hit him, not till it does-and not then, not altogether.”

“How are things back by Rising Rock?” James of Broadpath asked Count Thraxton’s scryer after that scryer finished relaying Thraxton’s latest demand that he take Wesleyton on the instant, if not sooner.

With a shrug, the fellow answered, “The southrons keep throwing little pissant magics at us every which way, so much so that nobody quite seems to know what’s going on here right now, sir.”

“Oh, really? Why does that not surprise me?” Earl James rumbled. A moment later, he realized the remark was odds-on to get back to Count Thraxton. A moment later still, he decided he cared not a fig. Thraxton the Braggart already knew what he thought of him. Thraxton, James thought, had many flaws, but stupidity was not among them.

“Along with everything else, sir, the weather around here’s been so nasty and misty, there could be a southron-or a regiment of southrons-right outside the tent and I wouldn’t know about it till the bolts started flying,” the scryer said. “That’s got something to do with it, too.”

“The fog of war,” James said vaguely. He forced his mind back to things he could hope to learn: “How is Brigadier Bell doing?”

“Damn me to the hells if he isn’t healing up, your Excellency,” the scryer answered.

James of Broadpath’s eyebrows leaped. “Oh, really?” he said again, this time in honest amazement. Any man who could survive two wounds such as Bell had taken with so little time between them was made of stern stuff. “The gods must love him.”

“I don’t know about that, sir. He’s still in pain, lots of it,” the scryer said. “He pours down enough laudanum to knock a tiger on its tail, and it doesn’t seem to help much. But he is talking about wanting to command again.”

“That sounds like him,” Earl James agreed. “He won’t be leading from the front any more, though.”

“No, sir,” the scryer said. “Farewell, sir.” The crystal ball went back to being no more than a sphere of glass.

James sighed. Leading from the front is why Bell will be a cripple to the end of his days , he thought, and shivered a little. It could happen to any commander who wanted to mix it up with the foe and to see at first hand how his men were fighting. At Viziersville, between Nonesuch and Georgetown, King Geoffrey’s soldiers had shot Thomas the Brick Wall, Duke Edward’s great lieutenant, off his unicorn and killed him. James shivered again, a bit harder this time. A goose just walked over my grave . His hand twisted in the sign the Detinans had borrowed from their blond serfs to turn aside omens.

He strode out of the scryers’ tent and peered west toward Wesleyton. No fogs, no mists here: only the sun shining bright but cold out of a sky the blue of a swordblade. This time, James’ shiver had to do with nothing but the weather, which came as rather a relief.

Looking toward Wesleyton, however, brought him no relief at all. Whiskery Ambrose had more men than he did and plainly intended doing nothing with them but trying to hold on to the town he’d taken. Given that defenders, shooting from entrenchments and from behind ramparts, were likely to take fewer losses than attackers, who had to show themselves to come forward, he didn’t like his chances of breaking into the place.

When he sighed, his breath smoked, another sign that autumn was marching toward winter. Quickmarching, too-every day, the sun sped faster across the sky and spent less time above the horizon. The sun god always went north for the winter.

“I have to try to take Wesleyton,” he muttered, and his breath smoked when he did that, too.

He looked around the camp. His men seemed more worried about staying warm than about attacking. He had trouble blaming them. He did wish Whiskery Ambrose wanted to come out and fight. That would have made his own life much easier. Unfortunately…

When he gathered together his wing commanders and leading mages, they seemed no more enthusiastic about attacking than he was. “Sir, the odds against our seizing the town strike me as long,” said Colonel Simon, his chief mage.

Those odds struck James as long, too. Nonetheless, he said, “We have to make the effort. If the southrons stay here in western Franklin, they can stir up endless trouble for King Geoffrey.” All the assembled officers grimaced. They knew only too well that he was right. Serfs were few on the ground in this mountain country, and a great many of the yeoman farmers hereabouts preferred Avram to Geoffrey. A southron army aiding and abetting them was the last thing the already beleaguered north needed. “We have to try,” James repeated.

“Do you really think we can do it?” asked Brigadier Falayette, one of his wing commanders. “Should we risk breaking up this army with an attack unlikely to reach its goal?”

“As I said, taking Wesleyton back is important,” James of Broadpath replied. “Count Thraxton is right about that.” No matter how little else he’s right about . James wished Brigadier Bell were well enough to have come with the army. He never counted the cost before an attack. Sometimes that was unfortunate. It had been unfortunate for him personally-the gods knew that was true. But sometimes an officer like that could lead men to victory where they would never find it otherwise.

“Not wrecking ourselves is important, too,” Brigadier Falayette insisted. “If we need to come to Thraxton’s aid against the southrons, or to return to the Army of Southern Parthenia in a hurry…”

“Suppose we think about how we’re going to beat the southrons,” James said, glowering from under bushy eyebrows at Falayette. “Let’s let them worry about how to lick us.”

“Yes, sir,” the brigadier said. Any other choice of words would have brought more wrath down upon him.

James unfolded a map of Wesleyton and its environs. His plump, stubby forefinger stabbed down at one of the forts warding the eastern side of the town. “Here,” he said. “If we can break in at Fort WiLi, we can roll up the southrons. Brigadier Alexander!”

“Sir?” said the officer in charge of James’ engines.

“Concentrate your engines in front of that fort. Nothing like a good rain of firepots to make the enemy lose his spirit.”

“Yes, sir.” Brigadier Alexander was young and eager. Unlike Brigadier Falayette, he didn’t worry about whether something could be done. He went out and did his best to do it.

But, given the dispositions of James’ men… “Brigadier Falayette!” James waited for the wing commander to nod, then went on, “As your men stand before Fort WiLi, you shall make the assault upon it. As soon as you have gained control, rapidly send soldiers north and south so as to secure as much of the enemy’s line as you can, easing the way for our other forces.”