could hear a fearful slaughter going on, out of sight within the murk and the trees.
‘Hey! You there – soldiers!’ she shouted, and yanked a couple in to help. ‘The lieutenant’s hurt. You’ve got to get him back to camp.’
Their expressions told her eloquently enough that they would like nothing better. They hoisted Tubal between them, and at that moment the Denlander counterattack began. Enough enemy guns fired at once to set the water rippling across all the pools they could see, and she heard the calls for retreat and cover going out, all around.
‘Get him up!’ she snapped. ‘Move it!’
‘Musket . . .’ Tubal gasped. ‘Need to . . . fight!’
She cursed him savagely and pressed her pistol into his hand. He looked at it dumbly.
‘Don’t lose it,’ she warned. ‘It belonged to—’
‘I know that,’ he said. The soldiers around them were now firing, spotting grey between the green. Scavian took a deep breath, and then his hands flared with fire.
‘One squad with me, one with Mr Scavian,’ Emily said, taking a musket from the ground. The Warlock threw her a sudden frightened look and she knew he would rather have stayed with her. But this was war and she had an officer’s job to do.
‘Forward, forward to reinforce the Bear!’ she ordered.
Firing, they stepped out into bright day, the sun held briefly between Scavian’s hands before he cast it into the enemy. His screaming fire scorched across the Denlanders, burning and shrivelling them, torching the plants and exploding the pools about them into steam.
‘For the King!’ she heard him bellow. ‘Victory! For the King!’
She fired into the enemy massed Denlanders, feeling the reassuring kick of the musket butt against her shoulder. There were too many of them now, trying to advance into the defending fire of the Lascanne lines. They were packed too close, impossible to miss. Their own overwhelming numbers were working against them. She dropped to one knee to reload, letting her squad move ahead. Away and to her left, Scavian was spinning fire into the enemy, and she knew that all guns would be turning towards him.
Tomorrow’s for others to worry about. Quite. At least Tubal stood some chance of seeing home again.
The musket fire whistled past her as she forced herself into a run to keep up. Into the dense trees, with the Denlanders falling back before her; soldiers were dropping left and right. There were Denlanders up in the branches, firing down at them with cool, impossible accuracy. She dropped one from his branch and stopped to reload. The swamp was mad with gunfire, and it seemed as though it had always been that way. The fight had gone on for so long, and now she had no picture of it, no image of how the battle went, who was where or who was winning. No whistle from Mallen, no shout from Angelline. No sign of the Leopard Passant. Where the hell is Mallarkey?
There were grey uniforms passing to the left of her. She had turned and shot one dead before she realized what that meant.
Cut off.
She backed away but they had seen her, and a shot grazed her thigh, another stung her ear. She turned and ran off between fern fronds already made into ragged sieves by the musket balls. Distance, must get distance between us.
Where am I heading?
She risked a glance over her shoulder, saw the enemy there, keeping pace. No time to reload. Every step took her further from the fighting and from her comrades.
Perhaps I can get to the Leopard. They should be this direction.
She literally ran into three Denlander soldiers, scattering them like ninepins and falling over them. She was up as fast as possible, smashing the closest with her musket, watching her gun fly apart, stock separating from barrel with the force of the two-handed blow. Another grabbed for her, but she got her sabre out quickly and opened up his hand in the process.
They were all around her now, a good half-dozen. She brandished her sword. At least four still carried their muskets and, magic guns or not, they could not miss her at this range.
Their faces were the worst, still so wonderfully composed. No anger there, no hate or fury; simply the faces of tradesmen doing a demanding job.
‘Go on, then!’ she shouted at them, slashing her sabre through the air. ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!’ She made a clumsy lunge at the closest, and he backed off again. A moment later something solid struck her