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lot. They mean I can give orders I don't have to take 'em my whole life long." Smitty eyed him as he cocooned himself in the thick wool blanket. "You may be a blond, your Sergeantly Magnificence," he said, "but I swear by all the gods you talk more like a Detinan every day." file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Bureaubl...%20Advance%20&%20Retrea t%20(HTML)/0743435761___9.htm (11 of 21)2-2-2007 17:07:59 Page 171 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html - Chapter 9 "It's rubbed off on me like the itch," Rollant answered, and fell asleep. "Up! Up! Up!" Lieutenant Joram shouted at some ungodsly hour of the morning. All Rollant knew when his eyes came open was that it was still dark. He groaned and unwrapped himself and relieved his own misery by booting out of their bedrolls the men who'd managed to ignore the racket Joram was making. After hot, strong tea and oatmeal thick and sweet and sticky with molasses, the soldiers started after the Army of Franklin again. Rollant had had to get used to the idea of eating oatmeal when he came down to New Eborac. In Palmetto Province, oats fed asses and unicorns, not people. Right now, though, he would have eaten anything that didn't eat him. Marching and fighting took fuel, and lots of it. The northerners had also abandoned their encampments, a few miles north of those of Doubting George's army. But they'd left Ned of the Forest's unicorn-riders and a small force of footsoldiers behind to slow down the retreating southrons. The troopers and crossbowmen would take cover, fight till they were on the point of being outflanked, and then fall back to do it again somewhere else. They weren't fighting to win, only to delay their foes. That, they managed to do. Even though the rear guard kept the southrons from falling on the Army of Franklin one last time and destroying it, Bell's army kept falling to pieces on its own from the hard pursuit. More and more men in blue tunics and pantaloons gave up, stopped running, and raised their hands when King Avram's soldiers came upon them. Most went off into captivity. A few those who came out of hiding too suddenly, or those who just ran into southrons with grudges met unfortunate and untimely ends. Such things weren't supposed to happen. They did, all the time, on both sides. Even after surrendering, northerners stared at Rollant. "What is this world coming to, when blonds can lord it over Detinans?" one of them exclaimed. "It's simple," Rollant said. "I wasn't stupid enough to pick the losing side. You were. Now get moving." The prisoner looked from one ordinary Detinan in gray to the next. "You fellows going to let him talk to me like that?" he demanded indignantly. "We have to," Smitty answered, his voice grave. "What do you mean, you have to?" the prisoner said. "He's a blond. You're supposed to tell him what to do." "Can't," Smitty said. "He's the sergeant. We tell him off, he gives us the nastiest duty he can find, just like a regular Detinan would." "I think you people have all gone crazy," said the man from the Army of Franklin, setting his hands on his hips. "Maybe we are crazy," Rollant said. "But we're winning. If we can win while we're crazy, what does that make you traitors?" " I'm not a traitor." The northerner got irate all over again. "It's you people who let blonds do things the gods didn't mean to have 'em do you're the traitors, you and that gods-damned son of a bitch of a King Avram." "If the gods didn't want me to do something, they'd keep me from doing it, wouldn't they?" Rollant said. "If they don't keep me from doing it, that must mean they know I can do it, right? And since you traitors are losing the war, that means the gods don't want you to win it, right?" His comrades in gray laughed and whooped. "Listen to him!" Smitty said. "He ought to be a priest, not a sergeant." file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Bureaubl...%20Advance%20&%20Retrea t%20(HTML)/0743435761___9.htm (12 of 21)2-2-2007 17:07:59 Page 172 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html - Chapter 9 And Rollant saw he'd troubled the captured northerner. The man said nothing more, but he looked worried. He hadn't before. He'd looked angry that the southrons had taken him prisoner, and at the same time relieved that he wouldn't be killed. Now, his brow furrowed, he seemed to be examining the reasons for which he'd gone to war in the first place. Rollant jerked a thumb toward the south. "Take him away. I'd like to give him just what I think he deserves, but I have to follow orders, too." Off went the prisoner, still looking worried. From not far away, Lieutenant Joram boomed out an order Rollant had heard a great many times since joining the army, but one he'd come to enjoy the past few days: "Forward!" "Forward!" Rollant echoed, and waved the company standard. And forward the company went. Sooner or later, Ned of the Forest's troopers would try to slow them down again. Even if the northerners managed to do it, they wouldn't delay King Avram's men for long. If something happens to Joram not that I want it to, but if will they make me a lieutenant? Rollant wondered. It wasn't quite impossible; there were a handful of blond officers, though most of them were healers. But it also wasn't even close to likely, and he had enough sense to understand as much. He'd been lucky to get two stripes on his sleeve, amazingly lucky to get three. For that matter, considering the fighting he'd seen, he'd been amazingly lucky to come through alive, and with no serious wounds. He wanted that luck to go on, especially with the war all but won. Next to staying in one piece, what was rank? If they'd offered to make him a lieutenant general like Bell, but with Bell's missing leg and ruined arm, would he have taken them up on it? Of course not. The war couldn't last too much longer . . . could it? He wanted to live through it and go home to Norina. Getting killed even getting hurt now would be doubly unfair. He'd done everything any man could do to win the fight. Didn't he deserve to enjoy the fruits of victory? He snorted. He was a standard-bearer. He had no guarantee of staying alive for the next five minutes. "Forward!" he shouted again. If anything did happen to him, he would be facing the foe when it did. And if that wasn't a quintessentially Detinan thought, when would he ever have one? * * * Lieutenant General Bell sat in a carriage as the Army of Franklin tramped over a wood bridge to the northern bank of the Smew River. The Smew ran through rough, heavily wooded country in northern Franklin. Bell wished he were on a unicorn, but days of riding had left his stump too sore for him to stay in the saddle. If he didn't travel by carriage, he would have been unable to travel at all. No matter how obvious that truth, it was also humiliating. He felt like a civilian. He might have been going to a temple on a feast day, like any prosperous merchant. To his relief, the men didn't seem bothered about how he got from one place to another. They waved to him as they trudged past. Some of them lifted their hats in lieu of a more formal salute. Bell waved back with his good arm. "We'll lick 'em yet, General!" a soldier called. "By the gods, we will !" Bell answered. "Let's see them try to drive us off the line of the Smew!" He wanted to make a stand while he still remained here in Franklin. Even if the Ramblerton campaign had accomplished less than he would have liked that was how he looked at it, through the most rose- colored of mental spectacles he didn't want to have to fall back into Dothan or Great River Province. Staying in Franklin would show the doubters (he didn't pause to think about Doubting George) both in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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