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bolts in the air. More than a few of them struck home.
"Keep on! Keep on, gods damn it!" Colonel Nahath shouted, his voice cracking
with excitement. "Push 'em hard! Keep pushing! Drive 'em! We've got 'em where
we want 'em! Now we finish 'em off!"
In all his time in King Avram's army, Rollant had never heard orders like
that. No one on the southron side had ever had an excuse for giving orders
like that. Now people did they had that excuse and made the most of it.
"Come on!" Sergeant Joram bellowed. "They haven't got much fight left in 'em.
Let's kick 'em while they're down. The harder we pile on this time, the easier
the next battle gets if there is a next battle."
If there is a next battle. No, Rollant hadn't heard anything like that
before, either. But he didn't think Joram was wrong. Waving the company
standard, he charged past blue-uniformed northerners crumpled in death, past
blue-uniformed northerners writhing in the torment of their wounds, and past
blue-uniformed northerners throwing up their hands and hoping they could yield
before someone killed them.
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Here and there, by ones and twos and small groups, some few of Bell's
soldiers still showed fight. But even when a whole company held together under
a stubborn officer, how long could it hold back the southrons? Not long, as
Rollant and his comrades proved again and again and again. Even the bravest
northern soldiers found that, when attacked from three sides at once, as they
were repeatedly, they could fall back or die. Those were the only choices they
had. They could not stem the southron tide.
"Keep after 'em!" Sergeant Joram yelled. "Don't let 'em get away!" One more
order whose like Rollant had never heard. He liked it. Joram looked around.
"Where's the company standard?"
"Here, Sergeant!" Rollant waved the banner.
"Good. That's good." Joram looked around again. "Come on, you lugs! Don't get
lazy on me now, gods damn it!"
They didn't. They tasted triumph as surely as the northerners tasted
disaster. This was what they'd waited for ever since they'd joined King
Avram's army. Many of them, no doubt, had wondered if it would ever come.
Rollant knew he had. Now that it was here at last, they intended to make the
most of it.
Waving the standard, Rollant trotted past a pair of repeating crossbows the
men of the Army of Franklin had abandoned in their desperate retreat. He eyed
the engines with the respect they deserved. How many southrons had they slain?
Now his own side would use them against their former owners. He'd never
understood the phrasepoetic justice . Suddenly, he did.
The soldiers of the Army of Franklin were falling back to the west and then
to the north, trying to wriggle out of the trap whose jaws were Doubting
George's footsoldiers and Hard-Riding Jimmy's unicorn-riders with their
quick-shooting crossbows. Some of the traitors got away. More didn't, or so it
seemed to Rollant.
However much the southrons pushed, their officers never seemed satisfied.
Colonel Nahath kept right on shouting for the men of his regiment to press the
pursuit. Joram, a company commander now but still not an officer, did the same
for his soldiers. Rollant, not an officer and certain never to become one, did
his share of shouting, too. Why not? The stripes on his sleeve gave him the
right.
His regiment, along with the rest of John the Lister's wing, followed Bell's
men west and north. Although Rollant would never make an officer, he could see
what John wanted: to bring the Army of Franklin to battle one last time, to
roll over it, and to wipe it off the face of the earth. If they could make the
northerners stop and fight, theywould wipe them off the face of the earth.
Rollant could see that, too.
Much as John wanted it, it didn't quite happen. There was a time in the
middle of the afternoon when Rollant thought it would. One of the southrons'
columns was moving faster than the shattered force of traitors it pursued. If
it could swing in, hit Bell's men from the flank while the rest of the
southrons assailed them from the rear . . .
Rollant always believed the southrons waited a little too long to try. Before
they could, a regiment of Ned of the Forest's unicorn-riders pitched into the
head of that flanking column. The unicorn-riders couldn't hope to beat the
southrons. But they could slow them down, and they did. Meanwhile, the remnant
of the Army of Franklin got over a bridge across a rain-swollen stream. The
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southrons, once they drove off Ned's men, looked for another bridge or, that
failing, a ford. They didn't find one.
Southron soldiers around Rollant cursed furiously when their comrades came up
short. No less than he, they understood what a successful attack then would
have meant. "War'll go on a while longer now," Smitty said in disgust.
"I'm afraid so," Rollant agreed. "But it's going our way. By the gods, it
really is. How far do you suppose we've come today?"
"Hells with me if I know." Smitty looked back toward Ramblerton. Rollant had
no idea what good that did; several rows of ridges hid the town from sight.
But maybe it helped Smitty make whatever arcane calculations he required, for
he went on, "Has to be six, eight miles, easy."
Rollant thought it over, then nodded. "Yes, that feels about right. My feet
are that tired, I'd say."
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