Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Every day is,’ Tubal had told him. ‘Neither you nor I can change the colonel’s mind when he’s set on something, you know that.’

  Mallen spat, shaking his head, and said to his scouts: ‘Let’s go earn a living.’

  Emily looked at Leopard Passant, now almost in place. Her thought then was: Not long to go now. Her thought in retrospect would be: What was I in such a hurry for? From the inside pocket of her jacket, she took out the letter that had come to her only half an hour before. She had been given no chance to answer it. Glancing backwards, she could have seen Penny Belchere still standing with Brocky beside the store.

  ‘Remember that. Make a note that you must not die.’

  I will do my best, Mr Northway . . . Cristan. For the first time, in her mind she was Emily and he was Cristan, without qualification or equivocation. Unbarred emotion, at last, from Cristan Northway? From herself?

  She had felt the weight inside her rise up, as if to choke her, her shirt too tight, her jacket restricting, the helmet clenched around her head.

  And she wanted to weep. But she was a sergeant and her men were watching.

  If I die, he will weep for me.

  If I die, I will die loved.

  She heard the shout come from Mallarkey’s master sergeant, calling out their readiness.

  ‘Time to put on a good face, Em.’ Tubal’s hand was light on her shoulder.

  Together they had marched to the head of the company.

  *

  She crawled her way over to him through the mud, her musket forgotten behind her.

  Be alive, Tubal! What will I say to Mary if you are not?

  There were two soldiers crouching just ahead, each one firing as the other reloaded, their minds gone to that soldier’s place that revolved only around the present moment. Then Tubal was before her, not stretched out and lifeless as she had feared, but clutching weakly at his leg, breath emerging raggedly through his teeth.

  ‘Tubal!’

  ‘God, Em . . . I . . .’ His eyes were closed, face screwed up in pain. ‘How is it?’

  She choked when she looked at the wound, a hole punched bloodily through his knee. But not fatal – not yet. ‘We need to get you out of here!’

  He tried to say something, tried to smile, but the effort was too much. He looked whiter than she had ever seen a living man.

  ‘Stay with me,’ she told him. ‘Can you . . . ?’ She saw he could not walk or even stand. She needed more men, men to delegate to get him away from here and back to the camp somehow.

  All around them the battle raged, with the Lascanne forces desperately returning fire into the Denlanders’ double line. The air was smogged with gunsmoke, flecked with flying shreds of leaf and branch.

  She got a hand under Tubal’s shoulders, another tugging at his belt, and dragged him a few paces, but it was more than she could do to haul him any distance like that. She did not have the strength.

  ‘Tubal . . .’ He could not hear her. His face was locked in an agonized grimace, his fists shaking.

  The crackle of musket fire was almost constant now but she heard, through the roar of it, one of the soldiers say, ‘Sir, they’re coming.’

  She risked a look. The Denlanders were advancing, their rear line moving through the fore, taking up new positions, the front line passing forward again. Closer, closer.

  Tubal sat up, the movement wrenching a gasp from him. ‘Musket,’ he said. It was clear he would never be able to fire one.

  ‘Sir!’ the soldier repeated, more urgently.

  She drew her pistol. Not cheaply. I will not sell myself so cheaply.

  ‘God damn it,’ Tubal coughed out. ‘Didn’t think . . . end like this! Stupid bloody way . . . earn a living!’

  Emily looked up, levelled her pistol, seeing the grey of the enemy getting close now. One of the two soldiers arched backwards, mouth open but silent, and collapsed. She fired, saw a man fall because of it, then turned her attention to reloading as swiftly and cleanly as she could.

  The swamp turned bright white for her, every thing in it searing into fierce and blinding light. She screamed, covering her face with her free hand. The one thought in her head: I am dead. This is it.

  Then a wave of heat – heat as dry as the desert – blistered across her, and she knew.

  She looked up, and a single figure in a white shirt was striding across baked hard mud, wreathed in steam. His hands were outstretched and fire blazed and lashed about him, roaring forward to force the Denlanders from cover and to drive them away, flames crackling about him in a frenzied halo. She barely recognized the face of Giles Scavian, so racked was it by the power that he was channelling.

  She had never seen the glory of the King’s Warlocks before, not so close, not so fierce.

  Scavian strode towards her. The Denlanders were firing at him directly now, and his mantle of fire spat and crackled, glowing white droplets arcing and dancing all around him.

  God help us, that must be molten lead!

  She fired her pistol – a meagre weapon it seemed now – and reloaded it again. The Lascanne line was advancing once more, or at least it was where it was near Scavian. The Leopard Passant was still not to be seen.

  ‘Help me!’ she called out to Scavian, and he dropped down beside her. He looked exhausted, his face drawn and lined, ten years older.

  ‘Tubal, he needs . . .’

  Scavian just nodded. On either side of them were red-clad soldiers pushing forward, the enemy shot still tearing through them.

  *

  The night before, at the Survivors’ Club.

  There was an attempt at a few hands of cards, but the real play had been in the looks thrown about the table. Brocky sat with haunted eyes, thinner now than he had been, the wound taking its toll out of him. He played with abandon, seeming most cheered whenever he lost, handing over the money like a man making his farewell gifts.

  There was Tubal, making jokes, his grin broad, taking needless risks with the cards, losing and winning with equal equanimity. His laughter pealed across the table: ‘Hell and fire, what’s a tomorrow for, anyway?’ And then, more soberly: ‘Tomorrow’s for others to worry about.’ And in his mind, surely, were Mary and his son.

  Emily herself was calculating, playing like a professional, as if each hand meant life or death to her. No second chances, she told herself; no time to correct any mistakes. Everything had to be right – and absolutely right first time over. She won but took no joy in it. There was always another hand to stake everything on.

  Daffed Mallen was curiously relaxed: his fear, his trepidation, all lying dismantled inside him. Perhaps he had sacrificed to whatever swamp gods he really worshipped. He played as though the outcome of each hand was known to him. He showed no disappointment, no triumph, no surprise at all.

  And Giles Scavian was angry still: angry with Justin Lascari, and angry with the war, and with himself. Each hand he lost – and he lost often – only served to fuel the fires inside him. Emily half fancied she could see the King’s handprint glowing out through the covering of his shirt.

  Later that evening, Brocky excused himself earlier than usual. ‘I promised Marie I’d . . .’ Leaving the sentence unfinished, he shambled away from the hut.

  ‘Not like Brocky to go while there’s still wine in the bottle,’ Tubal joked, grinning hard.

  Mallen poured out the dregs into their glasses. ‘To tomorrow.’

  Scavian shook his head stubbornly. ‘To the King.’

  ‘To the Survivors,’ came from Emily, and they drank, the wine tasting like ashes on the tongue.

  *

  The redjackets advancing past them now had Stag Rampant patches sewn on their sleeves. The Denlanders had pulled back, but she 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 expressi
ons 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 between the shoulder blades and tumbled her to the mud.

  Only a musket butt. Get up! Get up! She lurched onto her hands and knees, sabre still in her grip, lashing out at the legs of her enemies.

  Another gun butt smashed her across the side of the head, driving the rim of her helmet into her scalp. A third hooked under her ribs and she was on the ground again, the sabre sliding from her hand.

  She looked up to see a dark man in grey standing over her, his gun raised up and then descending. She saw no more.

  22

  Dear Mr Northway,

  This nice young girl explained her role to me, because there was only so long she could wait.

  Ill reading for you, I’m afraid, and the handwriting should tell the story. No sign of the Marshwic woman.

  The survivors have been trickling back for three days now, and there’s nobody here who’s holding his breath for more.

  I cannot think she is alive. I’m sorry.

  Yours sincerely,

  John Brocky, Quartermaster.

  Light. White light.

  It sheared into her skull and she bucked and writhed against it. Someone was prising her eyelids open.

  A moment later it was gone, but she was left with the realization that she was awake, and that she had not been so for some time.

  She felt firm fingers touching about her face, outlining dull pains that arose within the darkness of her head like red and purple flowers. Bruises.

  ‘Skull all intact,’ said a voice indistinctly. ‘Can you hear me, in there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She tasted dried blood on her lips. ‘What . . . ?’

  ‘Try not to strain yourself.’ The voice was strange, but there was a reassuring familiarity to it as well: a doctor’s calm mannerisms. ‘Tell me, can you hear this?’ A sharp click at one ear.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this?’ The other ear.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Patient’s directional hearing is adequate.’

  ‘Is . . . ? What’s . . . ?’

  ‘Try not to strain yourself She felt her hand being prised out of the fist it was apparently clenched in, the fingers moved one after another. Some were tender, but none seemed broken. ‘Good,’ the doctor said again. There was something about his voice that was starting to make her uneasy.

  ‘Now I am going to ask you to open your eyes, one at a time,’ he said. ‘Left first, please.’

  She tried to obey, but the light – the drilling, searing light – was too intense. The unseen doctor gave a little sigh and her eyelid was rolled up again with precise care.

  ‘Follow my finger, please.’

  ‘I . . . don’t see . . .’

  She saw a movement, a blur of a blur, and tracked it automatically. The doctor said, ‘Good,’ again, and let her slip back into blessed darkness. Then the other eyelid was forced up, in the same procedure. This time she started to see the finger properly, started to focus through the shocking brightness.

  ‘Doctor, I—’

  ‘Try not to strain yourself.’

  But she did, clenching herself against the pain in her chest and side to try and sit up. She could not; there were restraints about her wrists.

  ‘Doctor, what . . . ?’

  ‘Please, young lady, you must remain still.’

  ‘I don’t know you, do I?’

  ‘You do not, no.’

  She screamed briefly as he pressed at her side, but he did not stop, just explored his way across her ribcage with a methodical efficiency. When he left off, she felt weak and ill in the stomach.

  ‘A slight crack to the fourth rib, left side, I think.’

  ‘Slight? she hissed through her teeth. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Please stay calm.’

  ‘Are you . . . ?’ A ghoulish thought as his cool, dry fingers explored the bare skin of her leg, so professional as to be sexless. ‘You’re not Doctor Carling are you?’ Rem
embering the dead doctor’s wife. Where am I?

  Is this it? Death is a doctor’s surgery?

  The doctor’s hands had withdrawn sharply as she spoke that name, and so she knew it must be true. She fought to open her eyes, so as to look him in the dead face at last. The light was not so intense now, or perhaps her eyes had become more accustomed. What had seemed the sun shrank to the distinct flares of lamps, past which moved the shadow that was the doctor. She fixed her gaze on him, craning her neck, trying to focus.

  ‘Am I Doctor . . . ?’ he asked her slowly.

  ‘Doctor Carling?’ she whispered.

  ‘Ah, I am afraid not. My name is Doctor Craulen. I misheard you, for a moment.’

  Seeing his pale clothes swim slowly into greater clarity, she mumbled, ‘Craulen? But that’s a . . .’

  His grey clothes: not a doctor’s smock but a grey jacket, bisected by a baldric hung with a powder flask, just as hers was.

  That’s a Denlander name . . . A Denlander accent and a Denlander name.

  Then she fought. She wrenched at the coarse ropes at her wrists and ankles, feeling every joint and muscle cry out, every bruise and cut awake into shrieking life. The interior of the lean-to wheeled around her, and she felt whatever she was tied to creak and complain, but she had not the strength, not yet. She could not break it, or break free of it. Doctor Craulen had retreated from her and was staring at her with concern.

  ‘Please,’ he insisted. ‘You will only injure yourself further. Your rib—’

  ‘Get me out of this!’ she rasped at him. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  It was a frame built of canes, splaying her out like a rat ready for dissection. They bent and groaned as she yanked at them, then snapped back straight, wrenching her shoulders. Doctor Craulen left the lean-to hurriedly as she continued to strain furiously, then she sagged back, dizzy and exhausted.

  In the aftermath of her striving, she realized that she was near-naked, and must have been completely so not long before. The shirt and undergarment she was wearing now must be Denlander issue, ill-fitting and definitely not her own. Had they—