Another general who’d served in the Army of Southern Parthenia was known as Peg-Leg Dick these days. But he’d lost his leg below the knee, and had enough left to grip a unicorn’s barrel as he rode, even if the peg stuck out at an odd angle and made him instantly recognizable. Bell’s leg was off only a few inches below the hip. He would never have a peg. He would never be able to stay on a unicorn without help, either.

But, once helped, he could ride. He set spurs-well, spur-to the beast. It bounded away, leaving Zibeon and the serf groom behind. For a moment, Bell felt almost like the man he’d been before the fights at Essoville and the River of Death. For a moment, he felt free and strong and able. Maybe the laudanum let him forget his wounds a little longer than he would have without it.

When he reached the house where Count Joseph made his headquarters, he had to untie himself from the saddle, hand his crutches down to a waiting soldier, and then descend from the unicorn and reclaim the crutches. The process was slow, laborious, and painful. Almost everything Lieutenant General Bell did since his maiming-no, since his maimings-involved long, slow, painful processes.

Joseph the Gamecock came out of the house while Bell dismounted. Courteous as a cat, the general commanding the Army of Franklin waited for his wing commander to gather himself before bowing. “Good day, Lieutenant General,” Joseph said. “What can I do for you this lovely afternoon?”

“Is it?” Bell hadn’t noticed. He attacked conversations as directly as he attacked enemies: “The southrons are moving.”

“Indeed they are,” Joseph agreed. “Both hereabouts and in Parthenia, I am given to understand.”

Bell ignored that, too. Parthenia was, at the moment, outside his purview. “Where do we strike them?” he demanded.