the risk. The thoughts came too late. She was already ducking out from behind the tent and scurrying towards the wounded officer at a crouch. She heard Caxton call after her, and then a voice call, ‘Emily, don’t go!’ In the moments before the anticipated bullet a bizarre spark of happiness kindled within her, because Giles must still be alive to worry about her.
And then she was on the ground beside the colonel, still miraculously not hit. He forced himself to look up at her, and she tried to get her arms underneath him to haul him away. Every wrenching movement forced another scream from him, the firelight catching a mist of blood from his lips. She paused, waiting; waiting for the final shot.
‘Sir . . .’
‘Marshwic . . .’ he got out. ‘Don’t want to . . . leave . . .’
‘Sir, I’ve got to—’
‘Good stock, the Marshwics . . .’ He reached out, clawing at her shoulder. ‘Help . . . Carry me . . .’
‘I’m trying, sir . . .’
‘God!’
He dragged her to the ground, fingers biting savagely into her shoulder. For a moment she was face to face with his tormented, bloody features.
He was dead.
She hunched over the body. Now that she was here, she did not want to head back in case she tempted the enemy guns still further. It was only after a long count of a hundred that she finally realized that the Denlanders must have fled back into the swamps.
They had lost only four soldiers, she discovered, with several others wounded. She guessed the Denlanders had been firing at some considerable range in poor light.
And, of course, they had lost Justin Lascari and the colonel.
Brocky came out to help her retrieve the colonel’s body and, that done, she watched as the soldiers tried to restore order to their camp, re-erecting tents and helping carry the wounded away.
‘What a bloody mess,’ the quartermaster remarked. ‘What are we going to do now?’
‘Keep better watch,’ she replied shortly.
‘Emily.’ She turned to see a white-shirted figure getting up from the ground, where he had been lying since Lascari’s last vicious attack.
‘Giles! My God, how are you?’
The face that he turned to her was pink and shiny with burn tissue. Across his front his shirt was charred to ash and one arm was ridged skewbald with blistered skin.
‘Oh, Giles . . .’ She felt herself recoil as he held out his burnt hand, and hated herself for it. ‘Oh, God, no . . .’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, against all the evidence. ‘Don’t fear for me.’
‘But . . . you’re . . .’ You’re ruined, was what she nearly said.
‘There is only one burn that ever lasts, on a wizard’s hide,’ he replied lightly. ‘Give me two days, and I shall have shed this like a snake loses his skin. So long as I live, I cannot stay burnt for long.’
She looked to Brocky for confirmation, and the big man nodded. ‘Won ten pounds off me when he first arrived. Extinguished my pipe with his little finger, bloody fool. All true, though.’
‘I’ve been shot,’ said Scavian, in mild surprise. She turned to see him fingering a hole in one sleeve. He rolled his shirt up to the shoulder to reveal a shallow graze across one shoulder. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Call that being shot?’ Brocky scoffed. ‘You want me to show you what shot is, Scavian, old lad?’ He began tugging his shirt out of his trousers until Emily stopped him with a gesture.
‘So what happens now?’ she asked.
*
Tubal looked so unchanged, sitting there at the table in the Survivors’ Club clubhouse. She could barely believe he had one foot less beneath it. It was late, gone midnight and long past, but there they all were: the entire Club plus Marie Angelline. Nobody in the Lascanne camp was sleeping much tonight.
‘Scouts,’ Brocky decided. ‘Opportunistic buggers, but just a squad of scouts.’
‘Hell, they’ve probably been studying us for nights now,’ Tubal agreed.
Mallen was shaking his head. ‘Assassins,’ he said, ‘sent to take out the top men. You and Lascari.’ He pointed to Scavian. ‘If you hadn’t already been on the ground, you’d be dead now, I wager. The colonel, he was shouting orders, made himself a target. Makes sense, if you’ve got their guns.’
‘Then they’ll be back,’ Emily said, ‘with more snipers.’
‘Maybe.’ Mallen drained his glass. ‘Or maybe not. How long’ll it take, getting a new commander appointed? They don’t know. If I were them . . . attack