Forward they went once more. After another couple of furlongs, though, they came upon a third line of entrenchments. Like the first two, this one was full of southron soldiers. They started volleying away at the northerners as soon as Gremio and his comrades came into range. And they had catapults to support them. Firepots flew through the air, splashing flames over grass-and men.

“We can’t take that position, sir,” Sergeant Thisbe said urgently. “I don’t think we can get into that trench. I’m sure we won’t come out again.”

Gremio was sure of the same thing. But he was sure of something else, too: “If the colonel orders me forward, Sergeant, forward I shall go. We’ve got to take the Sweet One’s shrine or die trying.”

“To the seven hells with the Sweet One,” Thisbe said. “She’s a stinking, lying bitch. She’ll laugh when we die, that’s all.”

“It can’t be helped, Sergeant.” Gremio thought Thisbe was right, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He looked toward Colonel Florizel. It was up to the regimental commander now.

To his dismay, Florizel was looking at him, too. Do you want me to say we should go back, sir? Gremio wondered. To the hells with me if I will. You won’t get the chance to call me craven.

But Florizel said, “It’s no good, is it, Captain?”

“I am at your command, sir,” Gremio answered.

Florizel shook his head. “It’s no good,” he repeated. “Going forward into the teeth of their defenses would be murder, nothing less. Shall I make you do duty as my barrister before the gods?”

“Colonel, I will obey any order you choose to give me,” Gremio said, “and I promise you, sir, my men will follow me.”

“But it’s no good, Captain.” The regimental commander sounded like an old and broken man. “It’s no gods-damned good, no good at all. We’d just get ourselves killed, and we wouldn’t shift the stinking southrons even an inch.”

Gremio had reached the same conclusion. If Florizel could see it, it had to be correct. He said, “Sir, the decision is yours.”

Florizel looked at him-looked through him. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’d reckon you a coward if you advised me to fall back.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen you fight. I know better now. You may not be a nobleman, but you’ve got a pair of ballocks hanging from you.”

“For which I thank you.” Punctiliously polite, Gremio bowed to his superior officer. That might have saved his life, for a crossbow quarrel whistled by over his head. He shivered a little as he straightened. “I do not believe we have any hope of taking the position in front of us, either. Nor do I see how we can seize the Sweet One’s shrine and the surrounding high ground.”

“In that case, we’d best save ourselves for the next fight, wouldn’t you say?” Florizel asked.

“There surely will be another fight, Colonel,” Gremio replied, and then, try as he would, couldn’t help letting some acid out: “After all, we’ve only failed to beat a bigger army four times in a row now. Bell will surely think that’s an accident, and send us out to try again.”

When Bell assumed command, Colonel Florizel had been ecstatic. I should have remembered that, Gremio thought. But Florizel only sighed and shrugged and said, “It hasn’t quite worked, has it? Maybe he’ll decide it won’t work. But even if we don’t go after these bastards, they’ll come after us, sure as hells.” He raised his voice to a full battlefield bellow: “Trumpeters! Blow retreat!”

The mournful notes rang out. In their trenches, the southrons raised a cheer. The horn calls of both armies were the same. And why not? Gremio thought. It was all one army not so long ago.

Florizel’s wasn’t the only regiment falling back. A couple of units tried last assaults against the southrons’ works, which only got more men shot and burned to no purpose. Then they too withdrew toward the line from which they’d begun.

“Lieutenant General Bell won’t be very happy when he gets word of what happened here,” Florizel predicted.

“Too bad,” Gremio said. “I’m not very happy about it, either.” His wounds were minor, but they still stung. With a shrug, he went on, “Of course, nobody cares what I think.”

Florizel only growled and scowled and shook his head. He didn’t care what anybody thought, not right then. But Sergeant Thisbe said, “That isn’t true, sir!”

“Thank you,” Gremio said, and felt better about retreating than he had.

Doubting George stood atop the parapet in front of the earthworks the northerners had held between Goober Creek and Marthasville. These days, Bell’s army held a line just outside Marthasville’s southern outskirts. Lieutenant General George was more than a little amazed the traitors still held the city. Bell was stubborner than he’d thought.

General Hesmucet was making Bell pay for his stubbornness, too. From where George stood, he had a fine view of the southrons’ siege engines lobbing destruction into Marthasville. Pillars of smoke rose here and there in the besieged city. Even as he watched, another fire started.

Brigadier Brannan came walking along what had been the traitors’ line. The siege-engine specialist looked pleased with himself. He looked even more pleased with the way things were going. “Good morning, sir,” he said, beaming at Doubting George. “Now we get to see what our toys can do.”

“Well, I thought we already had a pretty fair notion of that,” George replied. “Now Lieutenant General Bell gets to see what our toys can do, and we’ll find out how he likes it.”

“Yes, sir. That’s more or less what I meant, sir,” Brannan said. “Getting besieged can’t be much fun when we’ve got the power to burn the place where he’s sheltering down around his ears.”

“I wouldn’t think so, anyhow,” George said. “And it’s not even as if Marthasville had a strong central keep. By the gods, the town’s only a generation old, and nobody ever bothered building one here.”

“No one ever saw the need,” Brannan said, no little scorn in his voice for men who hadn’t looked far enough ahead. “No one thought there would be a war between the provinces, or that we would come so far if there were.”

“A keep wouldn’t do Bell much good anyhow,” Doubting George observed. “Even if he managed to stay inside it, we’d still squeeze the life out of Marthasville-we’d seize the glideways, and we’d wreck the manufactories.”

“That’s right, sir.” Brigadier Brannan nodded and grinned. “If Bell wants to go out in a blaze of glory, we’re giving him the chance.” As if to underscore his words, yet another big fire broke out in Marthasville.

“If you were Bell,” George said, “what would you do to get yourself out of the mess you’d got yourself into?”

Brannan’s grin got wider. “You mean, besides wish like hells Geoffrey’d never, ever, chosen me commander of the Army of Franklin?”

George smiled, too. “Yes, besides that. By now, he’s seen he can’t force us back from the city. He’s tried four times, he’s thrown away what has to be the third part of his army, and he hasn’t moved us a foot. I expect he’s finally drawing the right conclusions from that, eh?”

“A blind man would. By the gods, sir, a dead man would,” Brannan answered. “Of course, whether Bell would remains an open question.”

“Naughty, Brigadier-distinctly naughty,” George said. “If he can’t force us away from here, what can he do? I see two possibilities.”

“Magic is one,” Brannan said.

“Magic is always one, where the northerners are concerned,” Doubting George agreed. “The other is turning his unicorn-riders loose and wrecking the glideway line that comes up from Rising Rock and keeps us in food and firepots and such.”

“Congratulations, sir,” Brigadier Brannan said. George raised a questioning eyebrow. Brannan explained: “I think you’ve just spelled out the meaning of what they call a theoretical possibility.”