his sins, dead. Lieutenant Gallien, Mallarkey’s aide, was wounded, unconscious and not expected to recover. Master Sergeant Marie Angelline was clinging still at the border of life and death, with John Brocky weeping silently beside her in the infirmary.
And here was Tubal, one leg gone and a bandage about his head where a Denlander musket butt had knocked him off his perch. Here was Giles Scavian with his hand stuffed into his shirt to hide the loss of two fingers that a sharpshooter had taken from him during the height of the fighting. Here was Captain Mallarkey, miraculously unharmed. No man would testify that he had hidden himself away in the Leopard Passant hut, but there was none who were able to say that they had seen him amidst the fighting last night. His hands twitched on the tabletop, clutching at one another, and his lip trembled. He would not meet the gaze of his peers.
Mallen came in just then, fresh from scouting, and gave the assembled a lazy salute. Save for minor scrapes and powder burns, he too had come through the fighting unscathed, though in his case not for want of the enemy trying.
‘Well, man, what’s the situation? Report!’ Mallarkey ordered him.
‘Soon as we pulled back with our wounded, they set a cordon just within the trees,’ Mallen said. ‘Plenty of men and plenty of wounded. They’re acting like men waiting for reinforcements.’
‘Reinforcements,’ Mallarkey echoed. ‘God help us.’
‘Don’t think they’ll come through today, but soon enough,’ Mallen finished. ‘More than that, couldn’t get close enough to see.’ He stood back to lean against the doorframe. It was his first concession to how tired he must feel.
‘Well . . .’ Mallarkey glanced around for Tubal, and then flinched under the man’s stare. ‘Look, it seems clear enough what the lay of the land is.’
‘Does it, Captain?’ Tubal replied.
‘Well, look, you’re new to a captain’s rank, Salander, but, let me tell you, we’re in a bad spot here.’ Mallarkey was working his way towards where he wanted to go. ‘It seems to me . . . it seems very much that in this situation there would be no dishonour in a . . . strategic withdrawal. To Locke, for example. We could reinforce there and then take stock, so to speak. I’m sure you can see what I mean.’
Tubal exchanged glances with Emily. ‘Captain, this is the choke point. At this camp we control the entire Levant front. They could get some scouts past us, but no substantial body of men. Hell, that’s why we’re here.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘There are a hundred ways around Locke, even if we could find reinforcements there. They could have two companies of men up behind the Couchant army before we could do anything about it.’
‘If we retreat from here, we’re not just conceding them the Levant, Captain,’ Scavian added. ‘We’re giving them the war.’
Mallarkey again clenched his fists on the table. ‘Well, what . . . I ask you, what in God’s name do you expect us to do?’
Tubal hesitated before speaking, and Emily knew it was because he was taking the lives of them all – of every soldier in the camp – in his hands. ‘Hold out,’ he said at last.
‘Hold out? My God, man, is that it?’
‘I don’t see there’s anything else left to us.’
Mallarkey stood up suddenly. ‘Now, you listen to me, you tradesman. I have seniority here. My God, I was an officer before you were ever drafted, Salander. I’ve told you what else is left to us. There’s no dishonour in leaving. It’s a military necessity.’
‘Dishonour?’ Scavian said. ‘We would have failed the King. We would have lost the war. If we, here in this room, make a decision to abandon this camp, we would be betraying Lascanne. We would be betraying His Majesty. Our names would go down in every history book as the greatest villains of the age.’
Mallarkey bared his teeth unhappily. ‘Well, yes, but . . .’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Emily recalled that Scavian, as a Warlock, might be said to outrank him.
‘Captain,’ Tubal said, ‘do you want to return to Locke?’ It was something he had discussed with the other Survivors, and they all watched Mallarkey for his response.
‘I . . . You’ve already heard what I have to say,’ Mallarkey replied uncertainly.
‘No, not us. You,’ Tubal said. ‘Do you want to go back to Locke.’ He took a breath before reciting the words that they had hammered out, that he had