curtain of white that flowered before that grey firing line, and Captain Goss and two dozen others simply collapsed as though their strings had been cut.
She heard the shots immediately afterwards, the insignificant rattle of gunfire far off, as if in another place entirely. Aside from that, the world seemed to have lost all depth for her, all sound.
‘Up! Up!’ a voice was shouting. ‘Up and charge them before they reload!’ Preposterous! They have time enough twice over. But she was on her feet and running forward, heedless of the rest, and only then did she realize that the voice had been her own.
Mallen rose up before her without warning, spun on his heel and ran alongside her with easy loping strides. Ahead, the Denlanders were reloading, as she knew they would, with careful, practised motions. She could see details now: small men with dark hair or wearing leather caps, their grey clothes not quite uniform. They were noticeably ragged, bringing their muskets up. The onrush of their enemy had thrown them. When they fired, it was piecemeal, while the Lascanne line was now scattered and straggling, so that there was plenty of open space to swallow stray Denlander shot. Emily heard cries and screams behind her from plenty of those less fortunate, but she still kept pounding forward for God and the King, with Mallen beside her.
Now there was feverish activity all along the Denlander line, as they tried to ready a third volley that would butcher their enemies at close range. Their legendary efficiency seemed to be lacking, however. Surely we would have given three rounds of fire before now? And she was closer and closer, and she could not say whether they would manage it. She heard the shouts of their officers; some of the greycoats were already beginning to lift their guns.
In the teeth of the enemy, the only thing she could think to say to Mallen was, ‘Is anybody following us?’
And still the bulk of the enemy were feverishly recharging their muskets – their officers calling shrilly for a massed volley and not individual shots – and she saw more than a few pale faces looking up in alarm as she neared. ‘Firing line here!’ she called out, because it suddenly came to her that her own people were still loaded and ready to shoot.
Suddenly there was a massive crowd of Bad Rabbit soldiers on either side of her, and she put the musket to her shoulder – even as the Denlanders were starting to bring their pieces up – and yelled, ‘Fire!’
The air was briefly choked with smoke as a good seventy guns on either side of her spoke in unison with hers. With no idea if she had hit anything, she let the musket fall away and dragged out her father’s pistol with her left hand, unsheathing her stubborn sabre with her right. Denlander guns were going off all down the line in individual flashes of fire, but not the devastating mass of gunfire she had feared. A voice, high and shrill, was crying out in threat or fear, and it was hers.
Then she was out of the smoke, just a short distance from the Denlander line, and her voice was magnified a hundredfold as the soldiers of Lascanne took up her shout. It had words now: a battle cry to shake the hearts of the mighty. ‘Stag Rampant! Stag Rampant! Stag Rampant!’ Or perhaps it was ‘Bad Rabbit!’ It was impossible to tell.
The Denlander line broke.
Some were still reloading, desperate to take another shot, but she saw a tide of fear flash across the faces of them all. Terror sparked through them like a fuse as the soldiers of the Stag Rampant bore down on them. Even though a complete volley this close would have shattered their enemies, the Denlanders began falling back. Some retreated in good order; others scattered in panic. Directly in front of Emily, one of the braver souls had charged his musket, and was dragging the muzzle up towards her. The movement seemed strangely sluggish and dreamlike. Locked in the silence inside her head, she thrust the pistol towards him, watched the arc-lock spin, and a jet of smoke gout from the muzzle. The gun kicked in her hand, and the Denlander arched backwards, his musket discharging in his grasp. His shot – or another shot – whipped past her ear like the buzz of an insect. Then she had reached their lines, swinging the heavy blade of