Having reminded himself, he used his knees and the reins to urge his unicorn forward. Its every step took him farther from the blond girl. He wished he hadn’t reminded himself of that. To keep from thinking about it, he loosed the brandy flask he wore next to his sword and swigged from it. Maybe the peaches from which the potent stuff was brewed had come from the province toward which he advanced. That was some consolation for leaving the wench behind. Some, yes. Enough?

Probably plenty of willing blond wenches up in Peachtree Province, he thought. That notion, possibly sparked by the brandy he’d poured down, went further toward consoling him for leaving Rising Rock.

And they’ll all fall at my feet-or into my bed-once I smash up Thraxton the Braggart’s army once for all. I can do it. I will do it. Once I get clear of these woods, I’ll outflank him again and again, the same way I flanked him out of Rising Rock, out ofFranklin altogether. He can flee or he can fight. If he flees, I throw more wood on King Geoffrey’s pyre with every mile of land I take back for King Avram. If he fights, I crush him. Guildenstern nodded and took another nip from his flask. The sun shone down brightly, as if on him alone. The breeze smelled sweet, at least to him. Victory made a better perfume than flowers or spice.

Let me crush Thraxton, Guildenstern thought. Let my scryers send word to King Avram that Marthasville is his again, that the gold dragon, the true dragon, has driven out the red. What will that mean? Earl Guildenstern? Count Guildenstern? Even Duke Guildenstern, by the gods? Duke Guildenstern. I like the sound of that.

He came from a family of merchants and artisans. No one except a couple of worthless cousins had ever gone hungry. Some of his kin enjoyed more wealth than most nobles. He’d never lacked for anything in all his days-anything except respectability. He shook his head. That was the wrong word. In the bustling south, merchants and artisans were perfectly respectable. He’d lacked… prominence.

He nodded. That fit. Becoming an officer had given him some of what he wanted. Becoming a noble would give him the rest.

“Duke Guildenstern,” he murmured, and nodded again. It had a fine ring to it.

Doubting George, now, Doubting George was already a baron over in Parthenia, though King Geoffrey-Geoffrey the traitor-had seized his estate when he stayed loyal to King Avram, just as Avram had declared Duke Edward of Arlington’s lands forfeit to the crown when Edward chose Geoffrey over him. Guildenstern was sure George scorned him because his blood wasn’t higher. Let me settle Thraxton, and it will be. Let me rescue George, in fact, and it will be.

His second-in-command had stuck close to the western flank of Sentry Peak. General Guildenstern-I outrank Doubting George, no matter how blue his blood is -moved his slightly larger force north along roads farther west still. If Count Thraxton was rash enough to have lingered in the neighborhood, Guildenstern and George would smash him between them.

But Guildenstern didn’t really believe Thraxton had done any such thing. No matter what Doubting George thought, he remained convinced Thraxton had hightailed it for Stamboul. If anything, George’s belief that the enemy might be closer made him sure Thraxton wasn’t.

He turned to Brigadier Alexander, who commanded one of the two divisions in the part of the army Guildenstern still led personally. “I say we have them on the run,” he announced.

“Hope you’re right, sir,” Alexander answered with a smile. His face usually wore one; he had a bright, easygoing disposition.

His smile was enough to make General Guildenstern give one back-which meant it was sunny indeed. Expansiveness perhaps fueled by brandy, Guildenstern said, “No wonder you’re a brigadier-your family’s given King Avram a brigade’s worth of men.”

“Oh, not quite, General.” Alexander chuckled at the commanding general’s quip, even if he’d surely heard the like before.

“How many kinsfolk of yours have come out of Highlow Province, anyhow?” Guildenstern asked with genuine curiosity.

“Seventeen in all, sir, if you count my father,” Alexander said proudly. “They wouldn’t let him come north with us-said he was too old. But when John the Hunter led his unicorns south of the Highlow River to stir things up in our part of the kingdom last year, Father went out against him. They killed him in one of the little fights down there, the bastards.” For a moment, his smile faded. But then it returned, though tinged with sorrow. “Not many of them got back over the river, and Geoffrey hasn’t tried anything like that since.”

“Seventeen.” Even Guildenstern hadn’t thought it was quite so many. “Not all brothers, surely-or your father was an even mightier man than I would have reckoned. Mightily beloved of the Sweet One, anyhow.” He extended his middle finger in the gesture sacred to the goddess.

“Well, she did smile on him, General-there are ten of us sprung from his loins,” Alexander answered. “The rest are close cousins. My brother Niel is one of your colonels of foot, and Cousin Moody leads one of your cavalry regiments. If Geoffrey wants to win this war, he’ll have to lick every one of us, and I don’t suppose he’s got enough men to do it.”

“I like that.” Guildenstern took another swig of brandy. After the spirits seared their way down to his belly, he liked it even better. And he put it to his own purpose: “No wonder Thraxton’s probably scurrying back toward Marthasville right this minute.”

“No wonder at all,” Brigadier Alexander said agreeably. “After the way you flanked the Braggart out of Rising Rock, what else could he do?”

“Not a thing. Not a single, solitary thing, by the gods.” General Guildenstern smiled again. Yes, he liked the way Alexander thought.

“No wonder about what, sir?” asked Brigadier Thom, Guildenstern’s other division commander.

“No wonder Thraxton the Braggart’s on the run,” Guildenstern replied. He gave Thom a wary look. The brigadier’s father, Count Jordan of Cloviston, had done everything he could to keep Detina a single kingdom. Count Jordan had done a great deal to keep Cloviston loyal to King Avram, too, but the divisions in the realm also split his own family, for Thom’s older brother, George the Bibber, had served as a brigadier under Geoffrey till cashiered for drunkenness. Even now, Guildenstern wondered about Thom’s loyalty.

But the dark, shaggy-bearded officer nodded without hesitation. “No wonder at all,” he said. “We’ve got him where we want him, sure as sure.”

“Well said. By the gods, Brigadier, well said!” Guildenstern boomed. He leaned over to clap Thom on the shoulder. He almost leaned too far, far enough to fall off his unicorn. Only a quick shift of weight saved him from that ignominious tumble. Having righted himself, he did his best to pretend nothing had happened. “Sure as sure, as you put it so well, Count Thraxton must ingloriously flee, or else see himself ground like wheat between the millstones of our victorious army.”

“A pretty figure, General,” Thom said, “and one we shall make true.” If he would sooner have been serving under Thraxton the Braggart, he did conceal it well. Of course, from everything Guildenstern knew about his immediate foe, even a man who might sooner serve King Geoffrey than King Avram was apt to have second thoughts about serving under Thraxton.

As General Guildenstern had during the advance on Rising Rock, he admired the concentrated might of the army he led. Crossbowmen, pikemen, unicorns cavalry, dart- and stone- and firepot-throwers, mages… He sighed, wishing mages were less necessary. But if the northerners had them-and they did-he needs must have them, too, and so he did.

On paced his unicorn. On marched the army. Rising Rock vanished in the distance behind him, obscured by bends in the road, by forest, and by the red dust boots and hooves and wheels raised. He sighed again. He would sooner have stayed back there sporting with that yellow-haired wench. She’d fit him very well, in every sense of the word. Well, no help for it-and there would be other women ahead.