This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Count Joseph, called the Gamecock, was not a happy man. Joseph was seldom a happy man; he would have been of more service to King Geoffrey had he been. But then, he most cordially loathed his sovereign, a feeling that was mutual. Still and all, when Avram, the new King of Detina, had made it plain he intended to free the blond serfs in the northern provinces, Joseph couldn’t stomach that, either. Sooner than accepting it, he and the rest of the north had followed Avram’s cousin, Grand Duke-now King-Geoffrey, into rebellion.

A sour expression on his face, Joseph-a dapper, erect little man with neat graying chin whiskers on his long, thin, clever face-left his pavilion and stared south toward the province of Franklin, from which the foe would come… probably before too long. The air of southern Peachtree Province was warm and moist with spring. It would have been sweet with spring, too, but for the presence of Joseph’s army and its encampment by the little town of Borders. Not even the sweetest spring air could outdo thousands of slit trenches and tens of thousands of unwashed soldiers.

One of Joseph’s wing commanders came up to him. Some said Roast-Beef William had got his nickname from his red, red face, others from his favorite dish. Saluting, he said, “Good morning, your Grace.”

“Is it?” Joseph the Gamecock asked sardonically.

“Well, yes, sir, I think it is,” William replied. Unlike a lot of officers who followed King Geoffrey, he was not a man of breeding. He was a skilled tactician, and had written the tactical manual both Geoffrey’s soldiers and the southrons used. Also unlike a lot of Geoffrey’s officers, Joseph emphatically included, he was not a prickly man, always sensitive of his honor. He’d even got on pretty well-as well as anyone could-with Joseph’s luckless predecessor in command of the Army of Franklin, Count Thraxton the Braggart.

“By the Lion God’s mane, what makes you think so?” Joseph inquired with real if dyspeptic curiosity. He pointed south. “Every southron in the world-well, every southron east of the Green Ridge Mountains-who can carry a crossbow or a pike is gathering there with nothing on his mind but stomping us into the mud. Gods damn me to the seven hells if I’m sure we can stop them, either.”

“Things could be worse, sir,” Roast-Beef William said stolidly. “Things bloody well were worse when the southrons chased us up here last fall after they drove us off Sentry Peak and Proselytizers’ Rise. I was afraid this whole army would just up and fall to pieces then, Thunderer smite me if I wasn’t.”

“I know precisely how bad things were then, Lieutenant General,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Precisely.” He pronounced the word with acerbic gusto.

“How could you, sir?” William inquired, confusion on his face. “You weren’t here then.”

“How could I? I’ll tell you how. Things were so bad, King Geoffrey felt compelled to lift me from the shelf where he stowed me, dust me off, and put me back in the service of his kingdom. Things had to be pretty desperate, wouldn’t you say, for his bad-tempered Majesty to chew his cud of pride and judge a soldier only by his soldierly virtues and not by whose hindquarters he kisses?”

Earnest and honest, Roast-Beef William coughed and looked embarrassed. “Sir, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Lucky you.” Joseph’s scorn was withering as drought in high summer. “Three years of war now, and I’ve been on the king’s shelf for half that time, near enough.”

“You were wounded, sir,” William reminded him.

“Well, what if I was? I shed my blood for this kingdom in Parthenia Province, protecting Geoffrey in Nonesuch, and what thanks did I get? I was shoved aside, given an impossible assignment by the Great River, blamed when it turned out I couldn’t do the impossible, and put out to pasture till Thraxton so totally buggered up this campaign, even Geoffrey couldn’t help but notice.”

“Er, yes, sir.” Roast-Beef William nervously coughed a couple of times, then asked, “Sir, when the southrons move on Marthasville, can we hold them out of it?”

“We have to,” Joseph said. “It’s the biggest glideway junction we have left. If we lose it, how do we move men and goods between Parthenia and the east? So we have to make the best fight we can, Lieutenant General. That’s all there is to it. We have to hold the foe away from Marthasville.” He brightened as much as a man of his temperament could. “And here comes a man who will help us do it. Good day to you, Lieutenant General Bell!” He bowed to the approaching wing commander.

“Good day, sir.” Bell’s voice was deep and slow. His approach was even slower. He stayed upright only with the aid of two crutches and endless determination. He’d lost a leg leading soldiers forward in the fight by the River of Death, and he’d had his left arm crippled in the northern invasion of the south only a couple of months before that. Using the crutches was torment, but staying flat on his back was worse for him.

“How are you feeling today, Lieutenant General?” Joseph asked solicitously.

“It hurts,” Bell replied. “Everything hurts.”

Joseph the Gamecock nodded. He recalled Bell from the days before he’d got hurt, when the dashing young officer had made girls sigh all through the north. Some called Bell the Lion God come to earth. With his long, full, dark beard and his fiercely handsome features, he’d lived up to the name. He’d also lived up to it with his style of fighting. He’d thrown himself and his men at the southrons and broken them time and again.

Now he’d broken himself doing it. His features still showed traces of their old good looks, but ravaged by pain and blurred by the heroic doses of laudanum he guzzled to try to dull it. “Does the medicine do you any good?” Joseph inquired.

Bell shrugged with his right shoulder only; his left arm would not answer. “Some,” he said. “Without it, I should be quite mad. As things are, I think I am only… somewhat mad.” His chuckle was wintry. “I have to take ever more of it to win some small relief. But my mind is clear.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Joseph said. He didn’t fully believe it. Laudanum blurred thought as well as pain. But it did so more in some men than in others. Though he carried scars of his own, he didn’t like to think about what Lieutenant General Bell had become. To hide his own unease, he went on, “Roast-Beef William and I were just talking about our chances of holding the southrons away from Marthasville this campaigning season.”

“We had better do it,” Bell said in his dragging tones. Laudanum was probably to blame for that, too, but he’d reached the right answer here. Joseph was in no doubt of it whatsoever. His wing commander continued, “The southrons humiliated us at Sentry Peak and Proselytizers’ Rise. We have to keep them out of Marthasville or we become a laughingstock.”

That wasn’t the reason Joseph the Gamecock wanted to keep General Hesmucet’s army out of Marthasville, or Roast-Beef William, either, but Bell wasn’t necessarily wrong. Joseph said, “By what I hear, we humiliated ourselves at Proselytizers’ Rise.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir, not firsthand,” Bell replied. “I was, ah, trying to get used to being lopsided, you might say.” Joseph nodded, trying not to stare at the pinned-up leg of Bell’s blue pantaloons.

“I believe you’re correct, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. “Count Thraxton’s spell did not work as he’d hoped it might.”