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and then they go flying. Unicorns break their legs, maybe some riders break
their necks. And a good driving rain makes trip lines work better, not worse,
on account of they're harder to spot."
"Yes, sir!" The gleam in Captain Watson's eyes grew brighter. "I'll take care
of it, sir."
"You don't need to do that," Ned said. "It's got nothing to do with engines."
"Oh, sir, it'll be my pleasure," Watson said with a jaunty grin. "And you know
I've got plenty of ropes. I
need 'em to pull the engines and wagons. I can set up the trip lines, and I'll
enjoy doing it, too."
"All right. See to it, then." Ned of the Forest nodded decisively.
He himself rode north, leaving Watson to do what he'd said he would. At the
edge of the woods, he waited. Before too long, Watson came out with the last
of the engines, unicorn teams straining to haul them up the increasingly soupy
road. Catching sight of Ned, Watson waved and nodded. Ned waved back.
The long retreat went on. After trying and failing to make a stand at the Smew
River, Lieutenant General
Bell seemed to have abandoned all hope of holding the southrons. All he could
think to do was fall back as fast as he could and stay ahead of Doubting
George's men. Ned of the Forest would have reckoned that more contemptible if
he'd had more hope himself. Since he didn't, he found it harder to quarrel
with the commanding general.
Hard-Riding Jimmy's men didn't come bursting out of the woods to harry the
retreating northerners. Ned didn't run into them at all for the next couple of
days, in fact. He concluded that Captain Watson had not only enjoyed putting
down trip lines, he'd also done a good job of it. Watson might be a puppy, but
he was a puppy who'd grown some sharp teeth.
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Bell's army stumbled through the town of Warsaw on the way up to the Franklin
River. Ned of the
Forest remembered crossing the river heading south a couple of months before.
He'd still had hope then, hope and the confidence that, whatever happened, he
would figure out some way to whip the southrons.
That wasn't going to happen now. All he could hope to do was figure out some
way to keep the southrons from destroying the Army of Franklin.
In Warsaw, the townsfolk stared glumly at the retreating northerners. "What
are we going to do now?"
one of them called to Ned of the Forest, as if all too well aware the town
would see King Geoffrey's soldiers no more, and would have to make what peace
it could with King Avram.
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"Do the best you can," Ned told him, unable to find any better answer. By the
look the local sent him, that wasn't what the fellow had wanted to hear. It
wasn't what Ned had wanted to say, either. But he had a very clear sense of
what was real and what wasn't. He hoped the other man did, too.
North of Warsaw, Ned loaded a lot of the men in the rear guard who were
barefoot into unicorn-drawn wagons. That kept them from getting their feet
frostbitten. If they had to fight, they could deploy from the wagons. "Pretty
sneaky, Lord Ned," Colonel Biffle said admiringly.
"Oh, yes, I'm clever as next week," Ned said. "Think how smart I'd be if I
only had something to work with."
They went up into the province of Dothan just before they came back to the
Franklin River. The weather was no better there than it had been in the
province of Franklin. The river, swollen by the cold, hard rain, ran almost
out of its banks. No one would find an easy way to ford it, as Doubting George
had at the
Smew.
Bell's engineers and wizards didn't have an easy time creating a pontoon
bridge across the Franklin. For one thing, pontoons were hard to come by. For
another, the river kept doing its best to carry them away before the engineers
and mages could secure them one to another. And, for a third, precious few
engineers and wizards were left to do the work; they'd suffered no less than
the rest of Bell's army.
At last, though, the job was done. Bell's weary, footsore soldiers began
crossing to the northern bank of the river. By then, the southrons were very
close behind Ned of the Forest's rear guard. Ned told his troopers, and the
footsoldiers with them, "Well, boys, we're going to have to wallop the sons of
bitches one more time. Reckon you're up to it?"
"Yes, sir!" they shouted, and "Hells, yes!" and, "You bet, Lord Ned!"
And they did. Roaring as if the Lion God had taken possession of them body and
soul, they hit the advancing southrons a savage blow that sent them reeling
back toward Warsaw in surprise, dismay, and no little disorder. Ned of the
Forest didn't think he'd ever been prouder of men he led than he was on that
frozen field. They had to know they weren't going to win the war with this
fight. They couldn't even turn the campaign into anything but a disaster. They
struck like an avalanche all the same.
Captain Gremio came up to Ned. Saluting, he said, "Sir, I beg leave to report
that my men have captured one of the southrons' siege engines. Doesn't begin
to make up for all the army lost, of course, but now that we've got it, what
should we do with it?"
"Well done!" Ned said, and then, "Captain Watson will take charge of it,
Captain."
"He's welcome to it, then," Gremio said. "I'll have my men drag it over to
him. I expect he'll have unicorns to haul it off toward the north?"
"I expect he will," Ned agreed. "And once you've done that, Captain, order
your regiment ready to get moving again. You know we can't stay around here
and enjoy the victory we've won."
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"I understand, sir," the other man said. "I sure as hells wish we could,
though, because this is the only victory we've won in this whole gods-damned
campaign, and the only one we're likely to." Bitterness came off him in waves.
"Can't be helped," Ned said. Captain Gremio nodded, sketched a salute, and
then went off to carry out
Ned's orders.
The footsoldiers went off toward the Franklin first, with Ned's unicorn-riders
screening them. Again, the southrons held off on their pursuit for some little
while; the ferocious attack Ned had put in persuaded them they would do better
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to wait. That being so, Ned retired as slowly as he could.
To his surprise, though, a courier came riding down from the north, from
Lieutenant General Bell's main force, urging him to move faster. "By the
Thunderer's iron fist, what's the trouble now?" he growled.
"The southrons have galleys carrying catapults in the Franklin River, sir,"
the rider answered. "They're heading toward the bridge. If they land a couple
of firepots on it before you get across, you'll be stuck on this side of the
river."
Ned of the Forest had never yet reckoned himself stuck. He was confident he
could handle whatever trouble the southrons gave him, if he had to by ordering
his men to disperse and to reassemble somewhere else. He said, "Doesn't Bell
have his own engines up near the bridge to keep it safe?"
"Yes, sir," the courier told him. "But you never can tell."
That was altogether too true. You never could tell. And, where Bell was
concerned, you might worry not just about whether things could go wrong, but
about how they could go wrong. With an angry mutter, Ned said, "All right,
then. Don't fret yourself, sonny boy. We'll step lively."
He came to the southern bank of the Franklin a day and a half later, making
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