seasons. The swamp consumed itself, burned itself in the furnaces of rot and decay, and breathed out the stench and the steam of it.
The eternal mist was thickening now, and she made haste to stay in sight of the last soldier of the column. She was supposed to look out for the enemy; for an ambush from behind. She could barely see three yards in any direction. If there were any Denlanders out there, she hoped they were as lost and blind as she was.
From ahead there came a cry and a shot simultaneously and she crouched, without thinking, into the shadow of the bank. There was no whistle, no signal from Mallen, but she let a slow count of three go by. There were voices ahead, complaining, but no more gunfire. She pushed herself to her feet, skidding in the mud, and made her halting way up along the column, telling each man or woman she passed to stay still and stay calm. And to keep an eye out.
She found one of her soldiers, a girl no older than Alice. She sat clutching her musket, white-faced. Two others stood by her, looking uncertain. There was no sign of Mallen.
‘What’s going on?’ Emily asked, as loud as she dared. ‘Where’s the master sergeant?’
The girl would not meet her eyes, but one of her escorts pointed into the mist. Emily’s eyes located Mallen across another pool, examining something on the ground. She made to join him but he waved at her to stay put. For a long moment they all sat or stood, with the ashen-faced girl still trembling, until Mallen pulled something shapeless up off the mud and padded back to them with it in his arms. The girl squealed and tried to squirm away across the mud but, before she could get away, Mallen was squatting before her and dropping something hideous at her feet. It was a monster like a husky spider, with claws on its feet and a high eye-dotted brow staved in by the shot. The creature was over a foot long.
‘Oh God, take it away, take it away!’ the girl cried, until Mallen gripped her about the jaw, cutting her words off.
‘Look at it,’ he said and, when she wouldn’t, he twisted her head until she had to. ‘Look at it. There are thousands of these all over. You’re going to shoot them all? Never, ever shoot unless it’s the enemy, understand? The next time your gun goes off it could be another squad of ours you’re putting lead into. It could be me. Understand?’
The girl looked from him to the broken creature.
‘Start shooting tarbids or otters, snakes, whatever you don’t like, you tell everyone we’re here.’ Mallen released her, and she looked up at him with tears in her eyes. Emily crouched down beside her.
‘You want to leave this to me, Sergeant?’
‘I plan to live,’ he told her impassively, the tattoos blurring any expression he might have worn. ‘A count of two hundred, and then we move again.’
He stalked off into the mist and Emily put an arm about the shaking girl’s shoulders. ‘Easy now, soldier. What’s your name?’
‘Jenny, sir. I mean Soldier-at-Arms Jenny Haworth. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. It just . . . moved all of a sudden and . . . I twitched. I couldn’t help it. It was horrible.’
‘Keep your finger off the trigger when you carry your gun,’ Emily advised.
‘I don’t like spiders, sir.’
‘It’s not a spider, soldier. It’s a . . . whatever the sergeant said it was,’ Emily assured her, privately deciding that it was the most unpleasant-looking spider that ever lived. ‘Now stand yourself up. Let’s make a good showing, shall we?’
Jenny Haworth levered herself to her feet with Emily’s help, mopping at her eyes with a dirty sleeve. ‘I . . . Do you think he hates me?’
‘Who? Mallen? Soldier, he’s already forgotten about you. I don’t think he’s the type to hold grudges.’
She was surprised when Jenny looked a little disgruntled at that. ‘Only I just want to . . . impress him, sir.’
‘Impress . . . Mallen,’ Emily repeated slowly.
‘Yes, sir. Only because he’s the master sergeant, of course, sir.’
Mallen? God save us, Emily thought. I’m in a swamp, with a score of loaded guns, and the girl has an adolescent fancy for the master sergeant. Her thoughts must have shown in her face because Jenny coloured and looked away, mumbling, ‘It’s nothing like that, sir.’