Doubting George had no intention of talking to Major Alva. Clever young mages were useful creatures. But, because they had a lot of the answers, they often thought and behaved as if they had them all. George was a profoundly conservative man. He’d been too conservative to leave Detina with his province and with Grand Duke Geoffrey: to his way of thinking, that there had always been one kingdom was the best argument that there should always be one kingdom. His belief in the gods and their potency was likewise deep and sincere. He didn’t care to listen to a whippersnapper who would try to unsettle that belief.

If he were to try too hard, he would probably end up short a couple of teeth, George thought. I’d kick him when he was down, too. He didn’t worry for a moment what a mage might do to him.

He called to Colonel Andy, who’d discreetly stepped out of earshot while he conferred with General Hesmucet. “Be ready to move forward at my orders or at the commanding general’s,” he said. “I don’t think the traitors will trouble us much more with attacks of their own, not hereabouts.”

“Yes, sir,” his adjutant said.

“And move some of our engines forward, too,” George added. “If we do have to assault the enemy’s works, we’ll want to make this, that, and the other thing come down on his head.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy repeated, rather more enthusiastically this time.

“Don’t worry, Colonel,” Doubting George said. “As long as we keep hammering at the enemy, we’ll break him sooner or later.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what General Guildenstern said, too, sir, as you pointed out not so long ago.”

Lieutenant General George winced. It wasn’t quite what he’d pointed out, but it was pretty close. I’ve been skewered, he thought. Which of us is supposed to be the one who doubts things? I was under the impression it was me, but I’ll start wondering if Andy keeps that up.

Joseph the Gamecock put his hands on his hips and glared from Lieutenant General Bell to Leonidas the Priest and back again. “Which of us,” he asked Bell, “is supposed to be the one who wants to slug it out with the enemy, and which the one who would sooner fight positionally? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I had thought you owned the former role and I the latter. I will start wondering if you keep this up, though.”

“I am sorry, sir,” Bell said. “I truly am, but I do not see how we can hold our position east of Fat Mama if the southrons bring up their siege engines to bear on our works, as they are now in the process of doing.”

“I must agree,” Leonidas the Priest said, a lugubrious frown on his face.

“Must you?” Joseph snapped. Leonidas’ nod was lugubrious, too. Joseph rounded on Roast-Beef William. “And what about you? Are you also of the opinion that we need to take flight?”

“No, sir,” Roast-Beef William replied. “If the southrons come at us, I expect we can beat them back.”

“Well, gods be praised!” Joseph exclaimed. He did a couple of mincing, mocking steps of a triumphal dance. “Someone who hasn’t got his headquarters in his hindquarters, as that fool of a southron said he did a couple of years ago back in the province of Parthenia.”

“Sir, I resent the imputation,” Bell said.

Resent it? You don’t even know what the hells it means, Joseph the Gamecock thought sourly. “You were all for attack before, Lieutenant General,” he said. “You were for it when I was against it. It gave you something to complain about, in that I wasn’t doing what you wanted. But when I asked you for an attack, what did I get? Excuses, nothing else but.”

“Did you want me to send my brave men forward to be slaughtered?” Bell demanded. “The enemy’s siege engines on our flank would have wrecked my entire wing. Anyone on the spot would have seen the same.”

“By all I’ve heard, Lieutenant General, you were the only one who had even the slightest hint of the presence of these perhaps mythical catapults,” Joseph said. “No matter what damage you may have feared, the actual damage you suffered from them was nil.”

“I fear nothing,” Bell rumbled. From most men, that would have been a brag or a lie. From him, Joseph the Gamecock believed it. It did not, however, necessarily make things better rather than worse.

“We’ve already yielded the southrons too much land,” Roast-Beef William said. “If we have to leave Fat Mama, they hold most of the southern half of Peachtree Province.”

“If we hold our ground here and are overwhelmed, what then?” Leonidas the Priest returned. “In that case, not only is the southern half of the province lost, but also the army that could defend the rest.”

Joseph the Gamecock felt like tearing his thinning hair. “How, pray tell, is the enemy going to overwhelm us here?” he said. “These works are as strong as a swarm of serfs could make them.”

“Not strong enough,” Bell insisted. “If the southrons move forward and put their catapults on our flanks, they’ll make us sorry we ever chose to fight here.”

“We’ll be sorrier if we leave,” Joseph said. Roast-Beef William nodded, his ruddy face even redder than usual. But both Bell and Leonidas the Priest solemnly shook their heads. Joseph felt like kicking them. “What am I supposed to do?” he cried. “I want to stand my ground, but how can I possibly when two of my wing commanders think I would be courting disaster if I tried?”

“I was not the one who ordered us here to Fat Mama,” Bell said.

“No, but you and this half-witted hierophant were also the ones who told me I didn’t dare attack the southrons, and by all the signs you were wrong about that,” Joseph the Gamecock growled.

“I am not half-witted!” Leonidas cried, turning almost as red as Roast-Beef William usually was.

“Quarter-witted, then,” Joseph said with mock graciousness. Leonidas took it for the real thing for a moment, which went a long way toward proving Joseph’s point. Then the hierophant of the Lion God bellowed in fresh outrage.

“Sir, you did not pick a good site to defend,” Lieutenant General Bell said.

“You would have liked it a lot better had you picked it yourself,” Joseph said.

Instead of answering, Bell drew from his pocket the little bottle of laudanum he always carried with him. He pulled the cork with his teeth, drank, and put the bottle away again. That’s where he gets his brains, Joseph the Gamecock thought. At the start of the campaign, he’d admired Bell for his courage in staying in the field even with his dreadful wounds. Nowadays…

“If you feel the rigors of service in the Army of Franklin are excessive, Lieutenant General, you may be sure I would be of the opinion that your retirement would in no way affect your honor,” he said in hopeful tones.

“I have not the slightest intention of retiring,” Bell replied peevishly. “I aim to go forth and conquer the foe.”

“Do you?” Joseph couldn’t resist the gibe. “There he was, right in front of you, just waiting to be struck. You advanced a mile against no opposition, discovered catapults where no one else suspected them, and retired forthwith to your works. A less than heroic encounter, if I may say so.”

“We can hold here,” Roast-Beef William said, “providing we have the will to do so.”

“Provided,” Joseph corrected. William stiffened. Joseph realized he might have done better than to engage in literary criticism; William was on his side, even if imperfectly grammatical.

The wing commander had also accurately summed things up-if they had the will, they could hold their ground here. Joseph the Gamecock looked from one of his subordinates to another. Roast-Beef William had that will, or at least willingness. Leonidas the Priest? What was left of Bell? Joseph shook his head. Despair threatened to choke him.