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raised his banner in the north. He'd worked on his estate, worked almost as
hard as the serfs whose liege lord he was. But he was a fitter, harder man
after two and a half years of war, too.
When he reached the top of Sentry Peak, the first thing he felt was surprised
disappointment: he wanted to keep going up and up and up. But then, as he
looked around, that disappointment drained away, to be replaced by awe. He
murmured, "You can seeforever ."
For the first time, he grasped one of the reasons the Detinan gods lived atop
Mount Panamgam: the view. There below Sentry Peak lay Rising Rock, with a loop
of the Franklin River thrown around it like a serpent's coil. Beyond Rising
Rock, the flatlands of the province of Franklin stretched out endlessly, green
of farm and forest gradually fading toward blue. He wondered if he could see
all the way across Franklin and into Cloviston to the south.
If he turned around and looked back the way he'd come, there lay Peachtree
Province. If he looked straight west, those distant mountains beyond
Proselytizers' Rise had to belong to Croatoan. And there to the northeast lay
Dothan, where the blonds had had one of their strongest kingdoms before the
Detinans arrived, and where, as was true in his own Palmetto Province, they
still outnumbered folk of Detinan blood.
But his eye did not linger long on the distant provinces. Instead, it fell
once more to Rising Rock. "If we can get engines onto the south slope of
Sentry Peak here," he said, "we can almost reach the town itself, and we can
surely reach the southron soldiers in those field works down there." He
pointed to the trenches and breastworks near the base of the mountain.
"General Guildenstern was a fool for not letting this place anchor his line
north of the town," Gremio said.
"You're right," Ormerod agreed he could hardly say Gremio was wrong, not when
he'd just come out with such an obvious truth. "But that doesn't mean we can't
take advantage of him for being a fool."
"No, and we'd better," Lieutenant Gremio said. "If we didn't have a fool
commanding our own army, we'd be over there" he pointed east "astride the
southrons' supply line instead of here just outside of Rising Rock."
"Maybe Count Thraxton had some reason for doing things the way he did."
Ormerod tried to make himself believe it. It wasn't easy.
Gremio killed his effort dead: "Of course Thraxton had a reason: he's a
chucklehead."
Ormerod looked down at Rising Rock, tiny and perfect and almost close enough
for him to reach out and touch it. "Maybe we can starve the bastards out
anyway. Here's hoping." Gremio's look said he would sooner have had something
more solid than hope. So would Ormerod, but he made the most of what he had.
* * *
Even though Earl James of Broadpath could heave his bulk up to the top of
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Sentry Peak and peer down into Rising Rock, even though Count Thraxton's men
also held the peak line of Proselytizers' Rise, he was furious, and he made no
effort to hide it. "Idiocy!" he boomed at whoever would listen. "Nothing but
idiocy!"
Some of Count Thraxton's officers did their best to shush him. "Your
Excellency, nothing good can come of these constant complaints," one of them
said.
Another was blunter: "Thraxton is liable to turn his magecraft your way, your
Excellency, if you don't restrain yourself."
"Let him try, by the gods," James rumbled. "I'm warded by Duke Edward of
Arlington's personal mage. I think Duke Edward's mage should be a match for
just about anyone, don't you?" The colonel who'd warned him only shrugged and
went away. James of Broadpath also shrugged. Thraxtonwas a mighty
sorcerer when everything went right. Had things gone right for him more often,
James wouldn't have needed to come east with his division from the Army of
Southern Parthenia.
And most of Thraxton's officers agreed with James, regardless of what their
commander thought. Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest had both backed
him when he pushed Thraxton to make a proper pursuit. He had no doubt Ned of
the Forest agreed with him, too, though Ned was fighting southwest of Rising
Rock right now, holding off Whiskery Ambrose's effort to come to General
Guildenstern's rescue from the direction of Wesleyton. And a good many
lower-ranking officers had sidled up to him to say they regretted how things
had turned out after the victory near the River of Death.
None of which, of course, mattered a counterfeit copper's worth. Thraxton the
Braggart commanded the Army of Franklin, and what he said went. King Geoffrey
had his victory in the east. Whether he would have more than that one victory,
whether he would have everything it should have brought, remained very much up
in the air.
"I don't care how fancy a mage Thraxton is," James complained to Brigadier
Bell. "He has all the vision of a blind man in a coal cellar at midnight."
Bell looked up from the cot on which he lay. His usually fierce expression
was dulled by heroic doses of laudanum. Even so, pain scored harsh lines down
his cheeks and furrowed his forehead. Under the blanket that covered him, his
body's shape was wrong, unnatural, asymmetrical.I believe I would sooner have
died than suffered the wounds he's taken , James thought.
The laudanum dulled thought as well as pain. Bell's words came slowly: "We
should be on our way to . . ." He groped for the name of the town. "To
Ramblerton. To the provincial capital. We shouldn't be stuck here outside of .
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