rely on me. I only got the rank because of family. I’m no real officer. But she couldn’t tell them that. They were relying on her. She was Lascanne, to them. She was all they had right now of the colonel, and the King.
There was a sudden scuffle at the fringe of the group as the woman who wasn’t Stockton was nearly shot three times while making a sudden reappearance. She kicked her way hurriedly through the mob of soldiers to get to Emily.
‘Ensign!’
‘What is it? Where’s . . . ?’
Thankfully the soldier cut her off before she could stumble over the lack of name. ‘Ensign, we found the lieutenant’s party. They’re two, three hundred yards that direction. He doesn’t know where the third division is, but . . .’ She paused to get her breath back. ‘As I was telling him where we were, we heard gunfire – lots of it. There was a big fight up ahead. He didn’t know if it was Sergeant Shalmer’s men or the Bear. The lieutenant was moving out to assist, when I left. He’s kept Breedy in case he needed to send another message.’
Thank God this woman can at least make half a report. Emily stood up to let everyone see her, as far as the mist allowed. ‘We’re going now,’ she told them. ‘Everyone loaded?’ Even as she asked, she realized that she still had no musket, but the very next moment Gallster was pushing one into her hands. Everything was falling into place. She had now started to slide, and she could not stop until she reached the bottom.
‘Everyone up!’ she called, and the division picked itself out of the mud, battered but determined. She elbowed her way to the front, because it was more than she could manage to lead them from any other position.
‘Let’s go!’ And, like Captain Goss, she did not look back to see if they were following her.
She knew they were. It frightened her worse than the Denlanders, worse than Mr Northway She was carrying the weight of their trust on her shoulders now. Her feet sank heavier in the mud because of it.
There was a distant sound of firing, no louder than pattering rain, as they reached the next slip-field. At the edge of the swamp, looking out at that bright-lit expanse ahead, Emily hesitated. Quicker if we go over it; quicker than fighting this confounded mud and root-tangle.
But another ambush and you’ll have nobody left to lead. She had no idea where Mallen was, whether he was still scouting or had been caught up in the fighting.
‘Go round!’ she called. ‘Round the edge of it,’ and she battled her way off through the foliage, sensing the relief of the soldiers closest to her.
‘Good choice, sir,’ she heard at her shoulder, not looking back to see who it was. Instead she picked up the pace, heading as fast over the twisted terrain as she could, vaulting over roots, splashing through pools and slogging through mud that wrenched at her boots. Then she took another great wall of root at a run, slung her feet over and went up to her waist in water.
The shock of it made her gasp even as she pushed onwards, feeling the black slime of the bottom ooze beneath her. Musket held high, she waded forward, seeing the bulk of her soldiers overtaking her, left and right, around the pool.
This I’ll never live down.
And then the Denlanders came through the trees ahead of them.
She felt the musket’s trigger click in her hands, realized that she had dragged it down to rest against her shoulder. There was the heartbeat of dreadful anticipation as the arc-lock spun.
The Denlanders had been hurrying across the division’s path – falling back, she assumed. She would never know whether they had, in fact, been watching over the slip-field for their enemy.
The musket bucked against her shoulder and, all around her, her troops were firing. She heard her shot go off, as a single distinct entity, before the roar of the massed fire that the others belted out. The recoil of the gun made her heels skid in the mud, and she almost lost her balance and went under completely.
When the smoke cleared, there was a score of dead Denlanders splayed and scattered before them, while the living had fled.
‘Reload and then on!’ she called, and she waded out of the pool. Someone took her musket, whereupon she snatched her pistol from her belt. It was empty