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stinking southrons
outside of Fat Mama, but one of our wing commanders saw ghosts in the bushes
and got a cold foot, and so the attack did not go in."
"Now see here, sir " Bell began, he being the wing commander in question.
"Oh, shut up," Joseph told him. "When we go into position behind Goober Creek
and when I see what we can do against Hesmucet, I may decide I want to listen
to you again.
Till then, no."
"What we can do against Hesmucet?" Bell jeered. "You won't do anything but
retreat. By the gods, sir, it's all you ever do."
Joseph the Gamecock set a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Gentlemen, please!"
Roast-Beef William said, edging his unicorn between Joseph's and Bell's. "When
we quarrel, who gains? King Avram, no one else."
"There is some truth in what you say, Lieutenant General," Joseph said.
"Some but not enough."
"Not enough, indeed," Bell said. "We need a man in charge of this army, not
someone who takes to his heels whenever the enemy comes near."
They both started reaching for weapons again. "You were the one who wouldn't
go forward when I needed you!" Joseph shouted.
"Gentlemen!" Roast-Beef William said again. "I really must insist that you
remember we are all on the same side."
"If certain people would act like it " Joseph the Gamecock said.
"Yes, indeed, if only they would," Lieutenant General Bell broke in. They
glared at each other.
"We must all serve the north," William said. "We can settle our differences
once victory is ours. Until then, we have to work together."
"I serve the north, by the gods," Joseph said. "In fact, I daresay my service
to the north is more pure, more disinterested, than that of any other man in
the army. The kingdom always comes first for me, not least because I " He
broke off.
Because I
despise the king might be true in fact, certainly was true but would gain him
no points in this argument. "Because I was one of the first men out of
Detina's old army and into this new one," he finished lamely.
"We need a fighter at the head of our force, a true battler," Bell said. "Then
we'd show the southrons what our army can do."
"And if this army gets that kind of battler" Joseph the Gamecock looked hard
at
Bell "what the southrons will show him is that they have too many men and too
many engines to be driven off as easily as he thinks."
"How would you know?" Bell retorted. "You've only gone backwards. You don't
know what we can do if we can go forwards."
"Yes, I do," Joseph said. "We can throw the war away. If you go forward
against a host bigger than your own, that's what you do."
"Duke Edward of Arlington would not agree," Bell sniffed.
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"I know Duke Edward, sir. We have our differences, but I will say that Duke
Edward is a friend of mine." Joseph the Gamecock fixed his unruly wing
commander with a steady, scornful stare. "And I will also say one other thing:
you, Lieutenant General, are no Duke Edward."
That got home. Bell quailed and went red under his swarthy skin. Using his
good arm, he jerked his unicorn's head away and rode off at something not far
from a gallop.
Joseph watched him go with considerable satisfaction. Roast-Beef William
looked less happy. "That won't do us any good, sir," he said.
"By the Lion God's fangs, it did me a lot of good," Joseph said. "I'm entitled
to vent my spleen now and again, too." He set a hand on his abdomen. He wasn't
quite sure whereabouts in there his spleen resided, but he was sure it had
been well and truly vented.
Somewhere not far ahead lay Goober Creek. If he could get the satrap to use
his militiamen in the forts around Marthasville, that would free up the whole
Army of
Franklin to strike at the invaders. Hesmucet had come a long way. He'd had a
lot of men killed or wounded, and was using a lot of them to guard the
glideway line back to Rising
Rock that kept his army fed and supplied.
I can do him quite an injury
, Joseph the
Gamecock thought.
I can, and, by the gods, I will
.
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Contents
VII
Having crossed the Hoocheecoochee, Rollant had hoped for a sudden, triumphant
descent on Marthasville.
He'd pictured southrons marching through the city in a grand and glorious
procession, as they'd done in Rising Rock at the end of the previous summer.
But what he'd pictured didn't happen. The traitors' army remained between that
of General
Hesmucet and Marthasville. Whenever the southrons sent scouts to probe at the
enemy's defenses, they got a warm reception.
"We ought to be doing more," he told Smitty one morning as the two of them
heated tea over a campfire.
"Nothing I can do about it I'm just an ordinary fellow, ordinary as they
come,"
Smitty answered. "But now that you're a high and mighty corporal, you could
probably stroll right up to Doubting George or General Hesmucet and tell 'em
what's on your mind.
They'd hop to it, I bet."
"It's a good thing I already know you're a chucklehead," Rollant said. "If I
didn't, I'd figure you were trying to get me into trouble."
"You're a blond," Smitty said. "How much more trouble do you need? and is that
water boiling yet?"
Rollant looked into the saucepan he was holding over the flames. "Not quite,"
he said, and then, "You know, there's a lot of people I'd want to belt, if
they went on and on about how I'm a blond."
"Sorry, your Corporalship, sir," Smitty said, his mocking style, as often
happened, making it hard for Rollant to tell how serious he was. "I take it
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all back. You're right
having yellow hair's no trouble at all for you."
"Gods damn it, I didn't mean that
." Rollant wondered if he'd ever had a day in his whole life go by where being
a blond wasn't a trouble in one way or another. He didn't think so. "What I
was trying to say was, you mostly don't give me trouble on account of what I
am. If you talk about it, I don't mind so much."
"Oh." Smitty thought that over, then grinned. "You say the sweetest things,
darling."
He blew Rollant a kiss. "But I bet you tell them to all the Detinans."
That left Rollant's cheeks hotter than the water, which had begun to boil. He
took the saucepan away from the flames and poured its contents first into
Smitty's mug and then into his own. Both had ground tea leaves and sugar
waiting for the hot water. Stirring the tea gave Rollant an excuse not to do
anything else for the next minute or two. At last, he asked, "How did you get
to be such a nuisance?"
"I work hard at it," Smitty said, not without pride. "Just ask my father and
my mother and my two older sisters and my older brother. If my other older
brother was still alive, you could ask him, too." He held up a hasty hand. "I
didn't have anything to do with him dying, though. It was the coughing fever."
Rollant gallantly tried to get back to talking about what wanted to talk
about: "We he ought to push the traitors harder. If they go all the way back
into Marthasville, we ought to lay siege to 'em. If they don't, we ought to
make 'em stand and fight instead of sneaking away again."
"Didn't your mama ever rap you on the knuckles for being an impatient little
brat?"
Smitty said. "We're just now getting the whole army, not just part of Doubting
George's
Wing, over the Hoocheecoochee. Joseph the Gamecock wrecked all the bridges.
We've especially got to get one for glideway carpets across the river. Once
that happens, I
expect we may fight a bit."
"I suppose so," Rollant said. "But the more time we spend getting ready, the
more time the traitors have to dig more trenches of their own. Whenever we
come at the ones they've dug in, they make us pay for it." He also ground his
teeth when he thought of blond serfs doing the digging for the northern
soldiers.
"That's part of the game," Smitty answered. "The idea is to get around the
bastards'
flanks and hit 'em where they aren't dug in, or else to make them try to hit
us when we are dug in instead."
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