saw a Denlander soldier putting his gun to a Lascanne woman’s back and then firing, even as the same woman was triggering her own weapon at one of his comrades. Emily tried to run at him, waving her sabre, but he was already gone so she swept up the dead woman’s musket and fired after him. The trigger clicked uselessly, the weapon already empty.
A Bear Sejant trooper swung a pike in great red-slinging arcs all about him, hacking down any Denlander within his reach. His face was splashed with blood, his mouth open in a scream that was silent beneath the roar of shot and the howling of the injured. She saw the front of his jacket jerk as a musket ball ploughed into it, but he swung on, blind and raging.
She caught sight of Tubal sitting on a box beside the ruined barricade, sighting up on a Denlander like some country gentleman on his veranda, pot-shotting at birds over breakfast. She tried to make her way over to him but a grey-coated soldier collided with her, falling over her in a tangle of limbs and spinning her sabre from her grasp. She felt his hand scrabble for her throat, but hers found the hilt of his knife and she yanked it from its sheath and buried it in him. Tubal did not even notice her.
She was surrounded by musket smoke. Shots zipped past her as she lurched towards the wall of the Stag Rampant hut. She had her pistol in her hand and levelled it at the first grey uniform she saw, but it clicked hollowly. When had she fired it?
Through the cordite air came the searing, savage beauty of Giles Scavian. Clad in burgeoning flame, he walked through the fray and his touch, his very look, scorched the enemy, boiled out their eyes and blistered their skin and exploded their powder flasks and the breeches of their guns. He was an immortal. Their shots melted in leaden spray all about him.
Reaching the wall of the storehouse, she saw John Brocky appear at the window, fire off four pistols, one after the other, then retreat to reload whilst a soldier poked a musket barrel out to take his place.
Her head was now clearing. She had no idea if she had skipped across minutes or hours of the battle, but the Denlanders seemed to have a solid wedge inside the camp, and everywhere she looked there was utter chaos, women and men – men of both sides – shooting each other in the back or hacking each other down as they ran. She could not have said who was winning. Everywhere she put her feet, there was a body.
‘Lieutenant!’ Even as rattled as she was, Emily reacted, turning smartly and coming back to herself enough to find her hands filled with pistol and sabre. Captain Pordevere came out of the smoke, grabbed her roughly and shook her.
‘Listen to me, Lieutenant!’ he bellowed, and she thought he must have had a pistol discharge right next to his ear or something similar. His voice was at top volume, ringing in her head like a bell, and he had blood all across one side of his head. ‘Can you hold here?’ he boomed.
‘I don’t know, sir!’ she tried to match him in volume, but she saw no immediate comprehension on his face.
‘Hold here, Lieutenant! That’s an order! I’m taking some squads, sabres and pikes! We’re going to flank them! Take them in the side. They’ll run, then! I hope they’ll run!’
She nodded vigorously, which was enough to reawaken the pain in her head, and it made her feel weak. Pordevere was already off, with the best part of two hundred men and women following him.
‘Hold on, Emily!’ she heard and, amongst Pordevere’s picked fighters, she saw Marie Angelline, beautiful and bright as an angel, barely touched by blood or bruise but with her sabre shining like fire in the lamplight.
‘Marie!’ Emily called after her. ‘Marie, be careful!’ And, even as she said it, she knew it was a fool’s thing to say. There was no being careful in this battle.
Then the Denlanders were upon her, a line of them on the advance. She loosed her pistol at them, and it flashed in her hand, loaded this time. Then she found herself alone against them, with only a sword between her and their guns.
But only for a moment. Then suddenly there were shots punching into the Denlanders from behind her, and a wave of