Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  She found a band of soldiers playing cards and elbowed her way into their circle with a display of rank and assurance. She had wondered if, after Tubal, she held the highest rank on the train, but one of the men turned a major’s badge towards her along with his broken-toothed smile as he dealt her in.

  She told them who she was, and the man’s eyebrows leapt up.

  ‘God, I’ve heard of you!’ he got out, his voice a little slurred through his ruined teeth. ‘You’re the one they couldn’t beat.’

  She felt herself blushing for the first time in a long, long while. ‘It wasn’t like that. That’s just . . . the war overtook us, is all.’

  ‘That’s not what they say,’ the major replied. ‘Damn it, I heard this from the Denlanders themselves. They’ve no reason to build you up.’

  I gave them a war that did not end in blood, she thought, but spared her companions the details, only shrugging and deflecting them with, ‘You’re from the Couchant?’

  ‘For the most part. A couple of the support from Locke, but that’s the size of it.’

  ‘May I ask . . . ?’ She didn’t know how to ask the question. It had hung about her since Doctor Lam had emerged from the trees with his flag of truce, but now it choked her. The major nodded, though, and clearly understood.

  ‘You want to know what happened? What went wrong? You’ve a right to ask that, I think.’

  And, as they played hand after hand of cards with no real tally of gains or losses, she heard about the fall of the Couchant front and how the Denlanders had won the war. The major recounted how the Lascanne army had thrust into the heart of Denland during the first month of the conflict, only to overextend and meet furious resistance on all sides. She heard how the Denlanders had simply not fought as soldiers were supposed to, using all sorts of dishonourable measures to slow the advance, and then turn it back. Then the war had separated into its two fronts. On the Couchant the army of Lascanne had regrouped and gone on the offensive once again. Superior in numbers, they had advanced at a snail’s pace, being ambushed at every canyon, beset by sharpshooters, mines and traps, so that by the end of two years of fighting they had still not quite regained the Denland border.

  And then the war had changed, for the Denlanders had brought in their new inventions. They had hauled in more artillery, of improved design. They had brought in their rifles, too: that simple idea that had revolutionized the war for them. From a grudging retreat they began to retake ground. The Lascanne soldiers were cut down at range, before they could even get close enough to fire, and when the Denlanders melted away before their charge, it was only leading to an ambush of more riflemen.

  And it became clear to Emily that in the Levant they had been blessed. The swamps, the cloudy air and tangled trees, those were no gunner’s ideal ground. Instead, there had always been the close engagements, when the Denlanders had broken and run rather than stand. The open spaces of the Couchant front were a gift for the cavalry charge that Lascanne was so proud of, but they were an even greater gift for a steady rifleman. The Couchant army of Lascanne, the great hope of the nation, had been steadily cut away by a Denlander force one-third of its size.

  In the end, the Lascanne soldiers had been ordered to take on the Denlanders in one final great battle, rather than lose man after man to the nipping teeth of the Denland rifles. They had come together in one great host – in numbers that made the whole Levant front seem trivial: a huge hammer intent on cracking the far smaller nut that was the Denlander army of the Couchant.

  The major himself told her about what the Denlanders were calling the ‘Golden Minute’. It had taken place on what had been, for all purposes, the last day of the war. The Lascanne forces had spread themselves out on a plain of the Couchant, advancing forward into the Denlander artillery, into the thunder of their fixed guns and their horse-drawn guns, and the terrible, rumbling traction-artillery that ground their way about the field like monstrous beetles, musket balls springing uselessly off their armoured plates. The Lascanne advance had begun to falter, and it had been Lord Deerling himself who had ordered the Lascanne cavalry, every mounted man available, to break up the Denland firing line and charge their big guns.

  It had been a glorious sight, the major recounted, with a tear in his eye. Nigh on a thousand men on horse, every last steed saddled and ridden, and they had arrayed themselves in perfect order before the infantry. Lord Deerling, on the lead mount, had given the order and they had set off at a leisurely canter, to start with. How fearsome they must have seemed to the Denlanders, all flashing cuirasses and helms, lances and sabres and horse-pistols. With the dignity of princes, they had advanced towards the enemy lines.

  The major said that, through his glass, he had personally seen Lord Deerling’s sabre raised to signal the charge. Then the old man was shot from his saddle, at a range quite incredible. The cavalry had taken that cue to pick up speed, though – to build momentum and thunder down upon the Denlanders, till the dust had risen high and the ground had trembled. The Denlanders, from all accounts, had bunched themselves close, and they had looked frightened and ready to break.

  But they had not broken. They fired and fired again, twin lines kneeling and standing, then letting the next pair of lines advance into place ahead of them. The hammer of rifle shot into the charging horsemen was almost continuous, whilst here and there, across the mass of galloping riders, the plumes of cannon shell burst and scattered the carcasses of men and horses alike.

  The major could not tell for sure if the charge had slowed, or if it was just that the front ranks of riders were being scorched away so fast that it merely seemed so. For the Denlanders had held firm, and just fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. They had gone on slaughtering men and slaughtering their mounts until dust was all that moved in the air, and not one man, not one mount of all the cream of the Lascanne army was left standing.

  And through it all, the Denlanders had not paused in their advance, rank after rank, nor did they pause even when the riders had fallen, but still moved forward as inexorably as a press or a mill, as steadily as the rumbling traction-guns that crushed dead and wounded beneath their massive wheels while they lurched towards the soldiers of Lascanne.

  There had been, the major said offhand, some other fighting that day. From his face Emily guessed at a hard-fought struggle, a desperate attempt to hold the foe at bay on open ground, before those withering guns. He dismissed it, though, and laughed off his own efforts, merely remarking that the day had been lost from the moment the last horse died.

  And Emily knew in her heart that the Denlanders called it the Golden Minute, not in honour of the doomed splendour of the cavalry but for the discipline of their own advance into the teeth of Lascanne. They were celebrating the orderly firing advance of their shopkeepers and clerks and tradesmen, which had destroyed the finest professional soldiers of the age.

  Towards dawn she encountered a navy man and listened to his story, too: his wild tales of Denlander ships clad in iron, of Denlander ships driven by engines against the wind. He was a sailor, though, and, knowing his type, she did not know whether to believe him.

  *

  And the time came when the station the train slowed for was Chalcaster, and at last she had come full circle. She had helped Tubal down, but it became obvious that he was in no position to walk to Grammaine, or even to his printer’s shop in town, and there was no cart or wagon to be had.

  ‘I’ll go to Grammaine and get Grant to fetch you,’ she decided, and then smiled despite herself, because it was the old Emily speaking, who she had thought was lost. ‘No, I’ll come and fetch you myself.’

  The thought then came to her that she could far more easily seek out Mr Northway in his offices, and call on him for whatever aid she wished, but Scavian was still in her mind, like a bright fire. She did not want to have to lie to Cristan Northway, certainly not as her first action back home from the war front. And to stand before him now, and make no mention of ‘Giles Scavian’, wou
ld be a lie in all but name.

  As she left the station, she looked back, and immediately wished she had not. The soldiers stepping off the train were so few compared to those who had set out from this same station. She suffered the sight of a great crowd of mothers, children, grandparents and sisters all pushing forward, past and around her, anxious for a glimpse of one familiar face amongst the new arrivals. All too often they did not find it, and she was prompted to think about Doctor Lammegeier’s words, his sadness concerning the future of both nations after the war’s close. So many had died, on both sides. Lascanne and Denland must lean on each other or fall, he had predicted.

  When she had still been a lady of leisure, she would never have even thought of walking all the way to Chalcaster. The miles of rutted roads, the disdain of those riding past, why, no lady would ever consider such a demeaning practice.

  When she had been fresh from Gravenfield, she and Elise had made this walk, from Chalcaster to Grammaine, and it had seemed a bit of fun, an adventure, a bold way of showing off her new uniform and her new status.

  Now she faced the miles stoically, and covered them with a soldier’s steady, metronomic pace, and she did not think about the journey itself, only the destination. The summer sun was strong above her, but she would call nothing hot now, save the steaming of the swamps. She bore it all without thought or complaint.

  So she slogged along the road, and then the narrower track, seldom looking much ahead of her. She felt oddly unbalanced, shorn of something, and only when the gate of Grammaine was in sight did she realize that it was the comforting weight of her musket that she missed.

  First the gate, and up the hill beyond it was the house. Grammaine’s grounds were modest: once she reached that gate, there was no hiding from the house itself. It overlooked everything. The sight of it struck her: the sheer nostalgia of it. How small it seemed! How long ago it was, half a year and yet forever, since she had last laid eyes upon it. The fear she had experienced in the war was nothing to this moment. What if the door should open and some strange face look out at her? Was her family still there, or had some bandit king or Denlander conqueror seized it as his residence? What if it has all changed? This place had been her rock, her anchor in the storm. What if it had not held, but shifted, as everything else had shifted. Where could she go, if not here?

  There are always other options: Giles; Mr Northway . . . Think like a soldier, woman! Stop fretting and go find out.

  She passed through the gate and made for the house, looking for signs of life and feeling oddly like a scout approaching enemy ground.

  In the yard she paused, seeking some movement in the windows, but there was none. Her heart had already begun to fail her. She was not sure she dared discover what had happened here since she had left. Her hand sought out the pistol at her belt, and she wished she had loaded it.

  Then a face at an upstairs window, looking down on her, in just a pale flash. She began to raise a hand and wave, but it was already gone. It might have been Jenna, the maid, though she could not swear to it. She gathered up her courage as best as she could, and made for the door.

  ‘Stop right there!’ bellowed a man from the stables. ‘You just hold there, soldier! Put your hands up where I can see them, and all.’

  She stopped dead, but she was smiling and tears pricked at her eyes. She knew that voice, and knew therefore that she was home. She turned carefully, hands extended, and looked towards the burly old man advancing from the stable block with a musket in his hands.

  ‘Right, now,’ he said. ‘You give me your business here . . .’ and he tailed off into speechless wonder.

  ‘Hello, Grant,’ she said.

  ‘God bless me,’ he said, lowering the musket in such a way that she knew it had not been loaded. ‘Miss Emily, it’s not you?’ His eyes passed back and forth across her face, seeing the bruises, the lines of pain and strain that the war had put on her.

  ‘Hello, Grant,’ she said again, voice trembling. He was so much as she remembered that it was unbearable to simply stand and look at him. She found herself running over to him, throwing her arms about him and just holding him, feeling his strong, supporting embrace about her. ‘I’m back,’ she whispered. ‘I’m back.’

  ‘Steady now,’ he said, and then added the ‘Lieutenant’ after a glance at her shoulder. ‘We never knew you were coming back. Is that the end of it then, ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, I hope so,’ she said, heartfelt. ‘Listen, Grant, Tubal’s still at the station. I have to go back for him.’

  ‘Oh, no, ma’am. That’s my job. You need to see your sisters now, and they need to see you. I’ll go fetch Mr Salander.’ He let go of her, shaking his head as he gazed at her again. ‘Soon have everything back to normal.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Not ever again. Tubal will need the buggy, Grant, not just a horse.’

  ‘Is that right, ma’am?’ There was a wisdom in Grant’s nod that told her he understood what she meant. ‘I’ll harness it up right away.’

  Heading back into the stables, he left her at the kitchen door and, after a moment’s hesitation, she knocked. She did not feel equal to simply walking into the place that had once been her home.

  It was Jenna who came to the door, staring at her blankly until Emily smiled. Then the girl shrieked with surprise and ran off into the house, leaving Emily to step in like a tinker and glance about at the kitchen, noticing how little food there was, but how Cook had kept it neat all this time. Feeling unutterably weary, she sat down heavily at the table and waited, dumping her helmet and the pistol before her.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs, not jubilant but cautious, and did not look up until a shadow fell across her.

  ‘Hello, Alice,’ she said.

  Her sister stood wide-eyed, open-mouthed, a woman who has just seen the dead come back to life.

  ‘Emily? Emily? But we heard . . . the war . . . we thought you all must have died!’

  ‘You’re always so melodramatic.’ Emily tried a weak smile. ‘Some of us got out.’ And some of us did not.

  ‘Did you escape the Denlanders? Are you on the run?’

  Emily did not know whether to laugh or cry. ‘We surrendered, Alice. Does that disappoint you?’

  ‘But . . . we thought they’d kill everyone . . .’

  The politics, the details, Doctor Lam’s philosophy, it was all far too much to explain, and she found that she had no energy left to even begin. ‘I’m here, Alice. They let me come home. I suppose they’re not as bad as you’ve heard, when it comes down to it. Let that be enough.’

  ‘You . . . you look terrible,’ said Alice. ‘You’ll have to grow your hair back.’

  Emily coughed out some incredulous laughter. ‘Alice, I’m back from the damned war and you’re complaining about my hair?’

  Alice pursed her lips. ‘Well, it does need looking after. Have you brought . . . a man back, from the war? A soldier . . . ? Why are you laughing at me?’

  ‘Because you haven’t changed.’ Emily levered herself up from the table then, hearing footsteps.

  Mary came in, with Jenna crowding behind, and stopped dead. She looked so much older than Emily remembered, so much more worn. It had been hard on her, all this time, even though she had stayed at home. ‘You’re . . . alone,’ she whispered.

  ‘He lives, Mary,’ Emily told her. ‘Grant’s gone to fetch him. He’s . . . hurt.’

  ‘Oh, God, as long as he’s alive, I don’t care,’ Mary burst out, and was in Emily’s arms the next second, hugging her tight. ‘We’d given up hope. We’d given up hope for either of you. Oh, God, I thought I was a widow, Emily! I thought I’d lost you and Tubal, as well as poor Rodric.’

  And Emily held her, and wondered how many other families were having such tearful reunions today, and how many men and women would be at the train station, waiting, waiting, until there were no more soldiers to come, and no more trains, and they had still not seen the face they sought.

  * />
  She slept until noon the next day, and was still weary when she awoke. Opening her eyes, she at first could not work out where she was. What was this room, this sunlight, this bed? Where were the cramped confines of her tent? Where were the sounds of the camp, and the smell of rot drifting off the swamps? When Jenna opened the door, she jumped, scrabbling for a gun that was not there.

  ‘Miss, are you all right, miss?’ the maid asked nervously, for the look on Emily’s face had taken her aback.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, Jenna. I overslept.’

  ‘Mrs Salander said you should be left to sleep as long as you wished, miss,’ Jenna explained. ‘Only . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s a gentleman here to see you, miss, if you wanted to rise. Otherwise I can tell him to go away, if you want.’

  ‘A . . . Is it a Denlander?’ Where’s the pistol? Don’t tell me I left it in the kitchen. No, there was the hilt of it, protruding from beneath her crumpled jacket.

  ‘No, miss. It’s Mr Northway, from Chalcaster. Shall I tell him you can’t see him?’

  Mr Northway, the same name that had dogged her family, had ruined her father, had once tormented her. That ill-omened name she had come to hate, before. The name at the foot of so many letters clandestinely delivered, secretly read. The only words from home, the repository for her hidden thoughts, the name that had been custodian of her sanity in the madness that had been the war. Oh, God, what can I say to Mr Northway? What on earth will I say?

  She found her heart beating even faster than it had when she was fighting. She repeated his name to herself, and it brought no memories of his well-ordered office in Chalcaster. Just as the smell of cordite would forever mean only the war for her, washed of its association with her father’s death, so his name took her to the front, and the moments she had been given to read his letters. His name brought to mind that he, selfish and corrupt, had taken to breaking laws on her account, not on his own; that he, avaricious as he was, had promised money for her rescue when she had gone astray. What kind of man had she brought out that had been so well hidden within his drab clothes?