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major and a major by courtesy,
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at that what he required. That was later. At the time, it seemed the most
natural thing in the world.
And Alva nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world, too. "Yes,
sir, thanks very much," he said. "I
think
I've done it, but I want to make sure."
Off dashed another runner. He came back panting even harder than his
predecessor had, but with an enormous grin stretched across his face. "Sir,
that came down on the traitors who were moving up to reinforce their position
near the farmhouse, and it tore the hells out them."
At that news, John the Lister whooped and reached up to smack the taller
wizard on the back. He almost knocked Alva over, and had to steady him to keep
him from falling. "Well done, Major!" he exclaimed.
"We're holding them everywhere else, so they're really stopped if we can stop
them there."
"Good. That's good, uh, sir," Alva answered. "They'll try to break free of
what I've done to them, you know. I don't think they can, but there is the off
chance that I'm wrong."
"What then?" John asked. "Can they beat down your magic?"
"I don't think so, sir," the mage said. "But they might make me do some more
work. You never can tell."
Even as he spoke, another thunderbolt smote the battlefield. Blinking against
the greenish-purple afterimages, John the Lister said, "I think that came down
on the same part of the field as the last one. If it did, it came down on the
northerners' heads again, didn't it?"
"I think so, sir. I hope so, sir," Alva said. "We'd better find out, though,
because I can't say for certain."
"All right." John sent forth yet another runner.
This one didn't even need to speak when he came sprinting back. The expression
on his face said everything that needed saying. But he announced the news even
so: "They dropped another one on their own men!"
John the Lister whooped and Major Alva hastily moved out of the way so he
wouldn't get walloped again. "I've got the deflection where I want it, sure
enough," he said once he was out of range of John's strong right arm. "Now the
only question is, how stubborn are they? Will they keep pounding their own
people, or will they give it up as a bad job?"
"Bell commands them," John said.
"Which means?" Alva asked. At John's expression, he explained, "I don't pay
much heed to soldiers."
"Yes, I'd noticed that," John said, even more dryly than before. After a
moment, he added, "You really should, you know. They're the opponents you're
facing."
"I suppose so. I hadn't really looked at it that way. All a wizard usually
worries about is other wizards."
With the air of a man making a large concession, Alva went on, "Tell me about
Bell, then."
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"If he weren't a man who charges like a unicorn in heat and kicks like an ass,
would he have attacked us here?" John asked.
"Hmm. Maybe not. We have hit him hard, haven't we?" Alva might have been
noticing for the first time the carnage around him as carnage rather than as a
problem and not much more than an elementary problem, at that in sorcery.
"If we hit him any harder . . ." John the Lister shook his head. "I don't see
how we could have hit him any harder. He must have lost three or four times as
many men as we have. We've had reports of several northern brigadiers falling
when they fought right up at the front like common soldiers."
"That's brave of them," Alva said. "Isn't it kind of stupid, too?"
"Soldiers fight. If they didn't fight, they wouldn't be soldiers any more,"
John said, his voice clotted with
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disapproval.
"Sometimes, evidently, they aren't soldiers any more even if they do fight,"
Alva replied.
Before John had to worry about how to respond to that, lightning smashed down
yet again in the same spot it had already struck twice. John didn't need to
send a runner. What had happened was very obvious. "Do you see?" he asked
Alva. "
Do you see, by the gods?"
"Yes, sir. I see." The wizard sounded more respectful than he had up till now.
"You were right, sir."
That's the key to it, John the Lister realized. I was right. He takes people
who are right seriously. If you happen to be wrong . . . gods help you if
you're wrong around him. Maybe he'll be a little less heartless when he gets
older. Maybe not, too.
As if to prove how very right John was, one more bolt of lightning smote that
same place. "He a is stubborn fool, isn't he?" Major Alva said. "His wizards
are pretty stupid, too, to keep banging their heads against a wall they can't
knock over. Well, that's their worry."
"Yes. It is." John allowed himself the luxury of a long sigh of relief. The
northerners wouldn't break through in the middle now, and they'd never come
close to breaking through on the wings. His army would live. Sooner or later,
Bell's men would give up the attack and pull back. Then he could get his own
force on the road south, get back into the works at Ramblerton.
I hope Doubting George thinks I've slowed Bell down enough, John the Lister
thought. He'd better, by the gods. No matter what happened to the Army of
Franklin here, we've paid a heavy price, too.
* * *
"I'm sorry, sir. I'm very sorry," one of the blue-robed mages told Lieutenant
General Bell. "We've done everything we know how to do, but that gods-damned
southron won't let us loose. It's like . . . like wrestling, sir. Sometimes
you're pinned, and that's all there is to it."
"Sometimes you're useless, is what you mean," Bell snarled. "If you'd gone on
pounding them there, we would have finished smashing them by now."
"Sir, they've got a stronger wizard than we do," the sorcerer replied. "I hate
like hells to say that, since the son of a bitch is a southron. We ought to
eat up southron mages the way we eat fried fish. We ought to, but we can't,
not with this one."
"We were in amongst them," Bell said. "We are in amongst them. But how can we
break through if this mage of theirs stifles your spells?"
"Well, sir," the wizard picked his words with care "if magic won't do it for
us, pikes and swords and crossbows will have to."
"I told Patrick the Cleaver he dared not fail. I
told him," Bell muttered. He shouted for a runner. "Go up to the front and
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tell Brigadier Patrick we require a breakthrough at all costs. At all costs,
do you hear me?"
"Yes, sir. A breakthrough at all costs." The messenger hurried away. Bell
might have sentenced him to death, sending him up to the part of the front
where the fighting was hottest. The young man had to know that. So did Bell,
though he didn't give it a second thought; he'd gone into plenty of hot
fighting himself. Had the runner hesitated, he would have had something to
say. This way, he took a pull at his little bottle of laudanum and waited.
He was just starting to feel the drug, just starting to feel the fire recede
from his shoulder and his missing leg, when the runner returned, which meant
something close to half an hour had gone by. "Well?" Bell
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barked.
"Sir, we haven't got the men in the center to break through," the runner said.
Laudanum or no laudanum, Bell's temper didn't merely kindle it ignited.
"Haven't got the men?" he shouted. "Who the hells told you that? Patrick the
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