George looked north and west, too. “If Marshal Bart is setting off to tangle with Duke Edward and the Army of Southern Parthenia, don’t you suppose it’s time we paid a social call on Joseph the Gamecock and the Army of Franklin?”

“Ah,” Hesmucet said. “That must be what this little assemblage here is all about.”

Again, Doubting George spoke as if in surprise: “Well, who would ever have thought of such a thing?”

This time, Hesmucet looked back over his shoulder. The entire might of his force was mustered there: unicorn-riders aboard mounts whose horns were shod with polished iron; pikemen whose spearheads gleamed in the bright spring sun; endless regiments of crossbowmen with shortswords on their hips to give them something with which to fight in case they shot their bolts and missed; mages riding asses. The soldiers’ tunics and pantaloons and the mages’ robes were all of one shade of gray or another. Hundreds of color-bearers carried the red dragon on gold. Great columns of ass-drawn supply wagons and siege engines on wheeled carriages completed the immense warlike host.

“Are we ready?” Hesmucet asked George.

“You’re the general commanding, sir,” Doubting George replied. Hesmucet cocked his head to one side, studying the reply. George wished Marshal Bart had named him, not Hesmucet, commander over all of King Avram’s armies east of the Green Ridge Mountains. He made no bones about that. But was he so jealous and resentful as to be unable to serve as Hesmucet’s chief subordinate?

He’d better not be, Hesmucet thought. If he is, I’ll find somebody else, and I won’t waste a heartbeat before I do. For now, he gave George the benefit of the doubt. “That’s right,” he said. “I am. Let’s go, then.”