His twitching stopped. Joseph peered down toward the southrons and their engine, wondering if they were going to send another stone his way. But they seemed satisfied to have scattered his companions and him. He wondered if they knew they’d hit anyone.

“By the gods,” Roast-Beef William said, staring at the smashed corpse of his fellow wing commander.

“Yes, by the gods,” Joseph the Gamecock agreed. “The Lion God will have himself a new servant, up there on the mountain beyond the sky.” And may Leonidas serve his favorite god better than he ever served King Geoffrey and me.

Another officer said, “I think, sir, we can withdraw from this spot without fear of dishonor.”

Joseph hadn’t thought about that. But he recognized truth when he heard it. “Yes, we’d better,” he agreed, “or else they may decide to send us another present. Somebody grab poor Leonidas’ legs and haul him off. He deserves to go on a proper pyre.”

They retreated farther up Cedar Hill. The southrons down below seemed satisfied with the results of their one shot. Leonidas the Priest’s body left a trail of blood as junior officers dragged him along. Joseph the Gamecock never stopped being amazed at how much blood a man’s body held.

“What do we do now, sir?” Roast-Beef William asked.

“We do what we have to do, Lieutenant General,” Joseph answered. “We appoint a new wing commander and we go on. Leonidas was a brave and pious man, but we have to go on without him.” Leonidas had also been an idiot who didn’t like taking orders, but Joseph the Gamecock didn’t dwell on that, not aloud. When a man died, you looked for the good he’d had in him. If, with the hierophant of the Lion God, you had to look a bit harder than you might with someone else… Stop that, Joseph the Gamecock told himself.

The southrons kept pounding away at Cedar Hill. Roast-Beef William said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to fall back to Commissioner Mountain, sir.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Joseph said. “If General Hesmucet cares to launch a frontal attack against us there, he’s welcome to try it for all of me.”

“You don’t want to make things too easy for him, though,” Roast-Beef William protested.

“Oh, no,” Joseph agreed. “I don’t intend to do anything of the sort. But this position can be turned. I’d like to see Hesmucet try to turn our lines along Commissioner Mountain and Snouts Stream.” Even as he spoke, rain began to fall. He smiled; to him right now, rain was a friend. “I’d especially like to see Hesmucet try one of his outflanking moves in this muck.”

His surviving wing commander nodded. “If he did, we’d be on his flank like a tiger on an ox.”

William had missed a point: the rain hindered Joseph’s movements no less than those of the southrons. But even Joseph the Gamecock, who picked nits as naturally as he breathed, didn’t correct him. He didn’t need to attack. He needed nothing more than to hold on, and to hold Hesmucet out of Marthasville. As long as he succeeded in doing that, he was living up to the responsibility with which King Geoffrey had entrusted him.

Not that Geoffrey will thank me for it, he thought. Geoffrey never thanks me for anything. No-that’s not true. He’d thank me if I dried up and blew away. But he was desperate enough to put me here, and now he has to make the best of it.

He knew Geoffrey wasn’t happy that he’d had to yield so much of southern Peachtree Province. On the other hand, Duke Edward of Arlington and the Army of Southern Parthenia had yielded just about all of southern Parthenia to Marshal Bart. Bart was a lot closer to Nonesuch-and to King Geoffrey-than Hesmucet was to Marthasville.

“To whom will you give command of Leonidas’ wing?” Roast-Beef William asked.

There was a question to make even a moody man like Joseph the Gamecock stop brooding. But for piety and courage, Leonidas the Priest had been singularly, even plurally, lacking in the military virtues. If his wing acquired a commanding officer who knew what he was doing… Joseph didn’t smile. That would have been disrespectful to the dead, especially with Leonidas still unburned and with his spirit, therefore, still free and vengeful. Whether he smiled or not, though, he was far from brokenhearted.

“I think I shall appoint Brigadier Alexander-not James of Broadpath’s engines chief, who’s back in Parthenia now, but the man they call the Steward,” he said. “He’s a solid fellow.”

“Old Straight? I should say so!” William nodded vigorous approval. “Solid as the day is long. Brave, industrious, knows what he’s doing.”

“It will make a pleasant change, won’t it?” Joseph said. That was unkind to the memory of the hierophant of the Lion God, but not too much so.

William added, “I’m sure Lieutenant General Bell will also think well of the choice.”

“It’s not his to make. It’s not his to approve of,” Joseph said testily. Day by day, he grew less happy with Bell. The man carped and complained about everything, yet was reluctant to strike when ordered to do so. It must be the pain, Joseph thought. He’s only a shell of the man he used to be. Too bad, because I could use that man. The one I have…

As the officers came back up Cedar Hill, Joseph told off some ordinary soldiers he saw to take charge of Leonidas’ body. Then he and his comrades went off to his headquarters. He sent a runner to summon Alexander the Steward, and another to give Bell word of Leonidas the Priest’s untimely demise. With a little luck, the new wing commander would prove less recalcitrant than Leonidas had been. He could hardly prove more recalcitrant, Joseph thought.

The runner he’d sent to Bell returned. “The lieutenant general’s compliments, sir,” the fellow said, “and he asks if having a new wing commander means we’re more likely to advance against the enemy.”

“We would be more likely to advance against the enemy,” Joseph the Gamecock said icily, “if Lieutenant General Bell were in the habit of following orders.”

“Uh, shall I take that message back to him, sir?” the runner asked.

“No, never mind,” Joseph said. “He either knows it already or is unlikely to believe it from my lips.”

Before long, another man approached him: not a soldier this time, but a fellow in maroon velvet tunic and pantaloons of civilian cut who wore on his head a hat that put Joseph the Gamecock in mind of an inverted chamber pot. Bowing, the newcomer said, “Your Grace, I have the honor to represent Duke Brown, who is of course King Geoffrey’s satrap for Peachtree Province.”

“Of course,” Joseph replied. His opinion of the provincial satrap was indeed brown; he gave the duke far higher marks for mouth than for brains. Wondering what had caused Brown to send out this chap, he inquired, “And what does his Grace think I can do for him?”

His tone suggested that, whatever it might be, Duke Brown was undoubtedly laboring under a delusion. The man with the maroon pantaloons and ugly hat gave no sign of noticing that tone. He said, “The satrap sent me here to remonstrate with you.”

“To remonstrate with me? Why?” Joseph asked. “What have I done to him?” What have I done to set off the gods-damned fool now?

“Sir, he feels he must protest your excessive utilization of the province’s glideway carpets,” Duke Brown’s man replied. “Your constant traffic in this part of the province is having a most deleterious effect on civilian travel in Peachtree Province.”

“You are joking,” Joseph the Gamecock said.

“By no means, your Grace,” the study in maroon said. “The satrap has received numerous complaints from nobles and commoners alike as to the adverse impact on their travel requirements the continued requisitioning of carpets for your forces has caused, and feels he must respond to the citizenry.”

“I see,” Joseph said.

The civilian beamed. “I knew you would be reasonable, sir. Ah… what is that you are writing?”