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  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.

  “Sir?” the young soldier said. “Your Grace?”

  “Fetch Ned of the Forest here,” Thraxton said. “Fetch him here at once.”

  “Yes, sir.” The runner saluted. Even as he turned to obey, though, his eyes widened. The whole Army of Franklin had to know about the quarrel between the two generals. Thraxton shrugged. Beating the southrons, beating Guildenstern, came first. After that, he could settle accounts with the backwoods scum on his own side who failed to have a proper appreciation for his manifest brilliance.

  Ned of the Forest came fast enough to give Count Thraxton no excuse to criticize him. His salute was sloppy, but it had never been neat. “What do you want with me, sir?” he asked-on the edge of military courtesy, but not over the edge.

  “Come to the map with me,” Thraxton said, and Ned obeyed. Thraxton went on, “You have always claimed that your unicorn-riders can cover twice as much ground as footsoldiers, and that they can fight as well as footsoldiers once they get where they are going.”

  “It’s the truth, sir,” Ned answered. “Not only just as well as footsoldiers, but just like footsoldiers, too. You can do a lot more harm to the fellows you don’t like, and do it from a lot further ways away, with crossbows than you can with sabers.”

  This man knows nothing of the glory of war, Count Thraxton thought scornfully. He might as well be a potter-it is only a job, a piece of work, to him. But then Thraxton gave a mental shrug. He is the tool I have ready to hand. I can use him. I will use him. And if, in the using, I use him up… so what?

  Aloud, Thraxton said, “You shall have your chance to prove it, sir. I require you to take your riders south to the line of the River of Death” -he ran a bony finger along it- “and patrol it. And, at all costs, I require you to keep General Guildenstern’s army from crossing the river and marching on Fa Layette.”

  Ned frowned. “Don’t reckon I can do that, if he throws his whole army at one place. Unicorns, footsoldiers, what have you-I haven’t got the men to stand against him. Way it looks to me, this whole army hasn’t got the men for it, or why would we be waiting for the troopers from the west to get here?”

  He had a point, worse luck. Count Thraxton had to backtrack, as he’d had to backtrack from Rising Rock. “Very well,” he said with poor grace. “I shall revise my command, then. Here, do this: cross over the River of Death, if that should please you, and make the southrons think you are everywhere in greater force than is in fact the truth. Delay them till Earl James reaches Fa Layette, and you shall have achieved your purpose.”

  Ned of the Forest’s eyes gleamed. This time, he saluted as if he meant it. “Fair enough, sir,” he said-now he’d been given a task he liked. “I’ll run those southrons ragged. By the time I’m through, they’ll reckon everybody in our whole army is scurrying around south of the river.”

  “That would be excellent,” said Thraxton, who doubted whether Ned could accomplish any such thing. True, the general of unicorn-riders had done some remarkable work down in Franklin and Cloviston, but mostly as a raider. Facing real soldiers, and facing them in large numbers, Thraxton thought him more likely to suffer an unfortunate accident.

  And his loss would pain me so very much, Thraxton thought, and almost smiled again.

  Ned nodded to him. “You just leave it to me, your Grace. I’ll give you something you can brag about. And then, when James’ men finally get here from Parthenia, I’ll help you make your big brag come true, even if you did aim it right at me. As long as it helps the kingdom, I don’t much care.” He nodded one last time, then turned and, without so much as a by-your-leave, strode out of the house Thraxton had taken for his own.

  “Insolent churl,” Thraxton muttered. He rubbed his hands together. With any luck at all, the insolent churl would hurl himself headlong against the southrons and come to grief because of it.

  But what if Ned’s luck ran out too abruptly? What if Guildenstern’s men smashed up the unicorn-riders and decided to press north with all their strength? That would without a doubt prove troublesome. Thraxton called for another runner.

  “Your Grace?” the youngster said, drawing himself up straight as a spearshaft. “Command me, your Grace!”

  He might have thought Count Thraxton was about to send him into the hottest part of a desperate fight, not simply to run an errand. Thraxton said, “Ask General Leonidas if he would do me the honor of attending me.” He summoned Leonidas far more courteously than he’d ordered Ned of the Forest hither.

  “Yes, sir!” The runner hurried off as if King Geoffrey would be overthrown unless he reached Leonidas the Priest on the instant.

  Leonidas, on the other hand, took his own sweet time about reporting to Thraxton’s headquarter
s. Ned had come far more promptly. When at last Leonidas did appear, resplendent in the crimson vestments of a votary of the Lion God, Thraxton snapped, “So good of you to join me.”

  Leonidas gave him a wounded look, which he ignored. “How may I serve you, your Grace?” the hierophant asked.

  “By coming sooner to find out what I require of you, for starters,” Thraxton snapped. He had heard that his underlings complained he was hard on them. With such fools for underlings, what else can I be but hard?

  Stiffly, Leonidas said, “Your messenger found me offering sacrifice to the Lion God, that he might favor us and close his jaws upon the accursed armies of our opponents.”

  “Let the Lion God do as he will,” Count Thraxton said. “I intend to close my jaws on the southrons, and to do that just as soon as Earl James’ men reach me.”

  Leonidas the Priest looked shocked. “Without the support of the gods, your Grace, we are as nothing, and our plans as vapors. I shall pray to the Lord of the Great Mane that he put this wisdom in your heart.”

  “Pray later,” Thraxton told him. “I require you to move your army down to the northern bank of the River of Death, and to stand in readiness to repel the southrons if by some mischance they overwhelm Ned of the Forest, whose riders will be harrying them south of the river.”

  “Very well, sir,” Leonidas said, though his voice remained stiff with disapproval. “I shall of course do as you require. But I also suggest that you offer up your own prayers and sacrifices to the Lion God, lest he grow angry at you for flouting him. We would not want his might inclined toward the southrons, after all.”

  “No, indeed not.” Thraxton could not imagine the Lion God-or, for that matter, any of the other Detinan gods-inclining toward King Avram and his misguided followers. The gods had led the Detinans to victory over the blond savages who’d once had this splendid kingdom all to themselves. If that wasn’t a sign the gods wanted the Detinans to go right on ruling the blonds, Thraxton couldn’t dream of what such a sign might be. He nodded to Leonidas the Priest. “Go now. Set your men in motion, as I have commanded.”

  “Very well, sir,” the priest of the Lion God repeated. “Again, though, I urge on you suitable prayer and sacrifice.”

  “Of course,” Count Thraxton said. Leonidas left, though he didn’t look as if he believed the general. And he was right to disbelieve, for Thraxton had no intention of sacrificing. Why should I? he thought. I am right, and the gods must know it.

  III

  As Lieutenant General George had known he would, General Guildenstern made his headquarters in the finest hotel Rising Rock boasted. As George had feared he would, Guildenstern grew less diligent about going after Thraxton the Braggart than he had been before Rising Rock fell. George suspected the army commander had found something lively in the female line here, but judged coming right out and asking would only make Guildenstern’s always uncertain temper worse.

  At supper a couple of days after King Avram’s army paraded into Rising Rock, Doubting George did ask General Guildenstern when he intended going after Count Thraxton. “The sooner the better, sir,” George added, “if you care for what I think.”

  By Guildenstern’s expression, he didn’t care a fig-not even a moldy fig-for what his second-in-command thought. But he did his best to make light of his feelings, waving his hand and speaking in airy tones: “I don’t think we need to worry about Thraxton for a while now. By the way he scuttled out of here with his tail between his legs, he’s skedaddled down to Stamboul, and that’s if he hasn’t gone all the way to Marthasville. We’ll settle him in due course, never you fear.” He lifted a glass of amber spirits to his lips and gulped down half of what it held.

  “If he’s skedaddling, we ought to push him,” George said stubbornly.

  “And we will.” General Guildenstern finished the spirits and waved for a refill. A blond maidservant-not a serf any more, Doubting George reminded himself-hurried up with a corked jug and poured more of the potent stuff into the glass. Guildenstern’s eyes followed her as she swayed away. Doubting George sighed. He’s more interested in what’s between her legs than in the tail he thinks Thraxton has between his. But Guildenstern did bring himself back to the matter at hand: “In a few days, we will.”

  “Why wait, sir?” George asked. He’d already seen more than one victory count for less than it should have because the general in charge of Avram’s army failed to push hard after winning the initial battle. And he doubted his superior’s sincerity here. “If we’ve got the traitors in trouble, shouldn’t we do everything we can to keep them there?”

  General Guildenstern looked down his long, pointed nose at George. “Eager, aren’t you?” By the way he said it, he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  But George didn’t care how he meant it. “Yes, sir,” he answered. “If we’ve got ’em down, we ought to kick ’em.”

  Instead of answering right away, Guildenstern took another swig of spirits. “Ahh,” he said, and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his gray tunic. “That’s the real stuff.” George could only nod; Franklin was famous for the spirits it distilled. After yet another gulp, something kindled in Guildenstern’s eyes. It didn’t look like something pleasant. George hoped he was wrong, but-again-he doubted it. His superior said, “So you really want to go after Thraxton the Braggart, do you?”

  “Yes, sir!” Lieutenant General George didn’t hesitate, no matter what the gleam in General Guildenstern’s eye meant. “If we chase him, we’ll catch him, and if we catch him, we’ll lick him.”

  “Here’s what I’ll do, then,” Guildenstern said. George leaned forward. He was sure he wouldn’t get everything he wanted. For him to have got everything he wanted, General Guildenstern would have had to set the army in motion day before yesterday, or even the day before that. Guildenstern breathed spirituous fumes into his face, fumes potent enough to make him marvel that the commanding general’s breath didn’t catch fire when it passed over the flame of the rock-oil lamp on the table. “I’ll give you half the army, and you go after Thraxton with it the best way you know how. I’ll follow behind with the rest.”

  “Half our army is smaller than the whole of his,” George said slowly. “Not a lot smaller, mind you, but it is.”

  “So what?” General Guildenstern answered, airily once more-or perhaps the spirits were starting to have their way with him. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times: my guess is that he’s hightailing it for Stamboul.”

  “I’m still not sure you’re right about that, sir,” Doubting George said, in lieu of some stronger and less politic expression of disagreement.

  “So what?” Guildenstern repeated. That struck George as a cavalier attitude even for a cavalier. But then the commanding general went on, “Suppose I am wrong. Suppose Thraxton the Braggart’s lurking in the undergrowth just outside of town here. Suppose he hits you when you come after him.”

  “I am supposing all that, sir,” George replied. “I don’t suppose I like any of it very much.”

  “By the gods, why not?” Guildenstern said. “You said it yourself: half our army isn’t much smaller than all of his. Suppose he does attack you. Don’t you think you can keep him in play till I come up with the rest of our troopers? Don’t you think we can smash him between us, the way you’d smash a hickory nut between two stones?”

  Now Lieutenant General George was the one who said, “Ahh.” He took a pull at his own glass of spirits. Maybe Guildenstern wasn’t the best general in the world (as long as Duke Edward of Arlington kept breathing, Guildenstern surely wasn’t the best general in the world). But he wasn’t the worst, either. The move that flanked Thraxton the Braggart out of Rising Rock had been his idea. And this ploy here… It puts me in danger, Doubting George thought, but it gives me the chance to show what I can do, too… if Thraxton really is hanging around not far north of here. George nodded. “That just might do the job, sir.”

  “I think so myself,” Guildenstern said compla
cently. “How soon can you have your half of the army ready to move?”

  “Sir, I can put them on the road tomorrow at sunrise,” George answered. “I know you’ll be ready to follow close on my heels.”

  He knew nothing of the sort. And, just as he’d expected, the commanding general looked appalled. “That strikes me as too precipitate,” Guildenstern said. “The army should have at least two or three days more to recover itself before plunging on.”

  “We’ve already had all the time we need, sir,” Lieutenant General George said. “Why, just today I had a delegation of soldiers asking me why we weren’t already up and doing.” That was fiction of the purest ray serene. George didn’t care. If it got General Guildenstern moving, he was of the opinion that it benefited King Avram and the whole Kingdom of Detina.

  “Insolent rogues!” Guildenstern rumbled. “I hope you gave ’em what they deserved.” If he wanted to be up and doing, it was more likely in a bedchamber than anywhere else.

  “Why, yes, sir,” Doubting George said. “I gave ’em each two silver crowns from my own pocket, for being true Detinan patriots.”

  What General Guildenstern gave him was a harassed look. Guildenstern might have outmaneuvered Thraxton around Rising Rock, but George had just outmaneuvered the commanding general here. “Very well,” Guildenstern said. “If you set out tomorrow, you may rest assured I’ll follow the day after.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Doubting George said. “I knew I could rely on you. I knew the kingdom could rely on you.”

  He knew nothing of the sort. What he did know was what a devilish liar he’d turned into. He hoped the Thunderer would have mercy on him. It’s not for my own advantage, he thought apologetically. It’s for Detina. No lightning bolt crashed through the roof and smote him where he sat. He chose to believe that meant the god knew he was telling the truth.