Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  *

  The rain had been a solid thing for three days and Mallen had declared, with his curious certainty, that it would be a good five-day rain. Nobody made war once the clouds broke in earnest against the cliffs of the Couchant front and started to shed their load. Somewhere out in the swamps, the Denlanders would sit hunched under the canopy shelter, flicking water out of their eyes, just as the Lascanne troops did. In this weather they were all victims.

  Those that chose to could make the pilgrimage to the acerbic, toad-like quartermaster and demand their regulation-issue rain-cloaks, which in Emily’s recent experience had no water-repelling qualities whatsoever. Still, she took what shelter she could from it as she hurried across the centre of camp.

  The tent city that was the Lascanne base camp had a heart of wood. A half-dozen of what would be mere shacks anywhere else were here the epitome of architecture. Three were company headquarters, along with one for stores and one for the infirmary. The last, and grandest, was the colonel’s. This she made for, swatting her way through the rain, slipping on the treacherous, churned grass.

  The door opened just as she approached, and she stopped dead, for the figure descending the slatted steps to the ground was swathed in a mantle of dark blue, the hood shrugged up to hide his head. Twin herons held their heads high across his chest.

  She was abruptly taken back to far-off Deerlings House: the ball, the gaiety of the great and good. And, of course, he had been sent to the Levant front. The Women’s Draft, and Mr Northway, and now Tubal, these things had conspired to force him from her mind. She had never thought to meet him.

  ‘Mr Scavian!’ she declared, a society lady again for a moment, and no soldier. ‘I had not thought . . .’

  But her voice died away, for the face that stared out at her from that hood was not Giles Scavian’s but belonged to a man older by a decade and more, with hair receding from his forehead and a raptor’s cruelty about the mouth. His eyes were like flint.

  ‘Scavian, is it?’ he snapped out. ‘So, you’re one of little Giles’s playfellows,’ he snapped out.

  ‘Forgive me, sir. I merely thought . . . I saw your dress—’

  ‘Oh, Mr Scavian considers it beneath him to dress according to his station,’ the Warlock snarled. ‘Who are you, then, girl? Where did you dredge Giles Scavian from in your past?’

  ‘My name is Emily Marshwic, sir. I met him . . . just before I joined.’

  His eyes narrowed to such a sharp edge that she felt they might cut her. ‘Marshwic,’ he echoed. ‘Well, now, we’ve more than scullions and maidservants in the latest load for the grinder, have we? Marshwic, well, well . . .’

  ‘Sir, I’d like to see the colonel.’ She made to move past him, but a strong-fingered hand hooked her collar and dragged her back and round to face him. His hand, against her skin, was hot, shockingly hot, and when he pushed his head forward to look at her, she saw that the King must have been of an odd humour the day he anointed this one. The red weal of the royal hand was wrapped about the man’s throat like the mark of a strangler.

  ‘Marshwic?’ the Warlock pronounced. ‘Know me then, Marshwic: Justin Lascari, Warlock to the King, of seniority and power, I am by far the better of that creature Scavian.’ The rain sprang away from him as steam, although his clothing never smouldered. ‘I am the King here, and no other,’ he told her, and then his hand blessedly released her. She felt that she, too, must now have a raw red mark about her throat.

  His expression changed into something else, equally predatory. She realized belatedly it was a smile. ‘You interest me, Marshwic. That’s a name to conjure with,’ he said, and then he was gone, stalking off into the rain that barely touched him.

  She took a moment to calm herself, before struggling up the steps and rapping at the door.

  It was opened, quickly enough, by a man of middle years, who looked at her dully. ‘One of the women to see you, sir,’ he announced, not letting Emily step an inch out of the rain.

  From inside, safely in the dry, the colonel made some noncommittal reply, and Emily was suddenly reminded of Elise’s mad dream of becoming the colonel’s mistress. She wondered how many woman had already tried.

  ‘Ensign Emily Marshwic, if you please,’ she called out, hoping Tubal’s thoughts on names and good family were accurate ones.

  ‘Marshwic, is it? Well, let her in, Stapes.’

  The doorman stepped aside without a change of expression, and Emily gratefully hurried inside.

  There had been a creditworthy attempt to civilize the inside of the colonel’s hut. There were portraits hanging on the walls, a white cloth spread on the central table. A small shelf held a few books that looked like histories, and the candles lighting the place were set in silver candelabra. The colonel himself sat at the table, plates and cutlery cleared off to one side, with a newspaper in front of him that she knew must be days out of date.

  ‘For the Lord’s sake, Stapes, take the poor girl’s cloak,’ he directed, and Emily gratefully slipped out of the sopping garment.

  ‘He’s a good fellow, old Stapewood,’ the colonel explained. ‘Not the quickest, mind you. Marshwic, is it? Now there’s a name.’

  She gave silent thanks to Tubal for knowing his ground.

  ‘Fought alongside a Marshwic in the Hellic wars, you know,’ the colonel recalled. ‘Damned good soldier, pardon my language.’

  ‘That would have been my grandfather or one of his brothers, sir,’ she said, sitting down when Stapewood brought a chair for her.

  ‘Grandfather, is it?’ The colonel looked a little sad at that. ‘Well, time will move on when you aren’t looking, won’t it. Will you have a little wine, dear girl?’

  ‘Thank you, sir, I will.’

  ‘You needn’t bother with the “sir”, dear girl. Old Seb Marshwic’s granddaughter, eh? And here to serve your country. He would have been proud.’

  ‘Thank you, s— Colonel.’

  ‘Resnic. Colm Resnic. Sir Colm, technically, but I won’t insist on it, eh?’ He smiled at her warmly. ‘I wasn’t sure about you women turning up. Wasn’t sure you had it in you. Gave a good showing of yourselves, I hear. Struck fear into the heart of the enemy, so they tell me.’

  Remembering those bewildering, murderous moments in the swamp, Emily said nothing.

  ‘Ah, well. Ensign, too. Quality will out, they say. We’ll make a lieutenant of you yet, I dare say – at the very least. Good of you to come by and introduce yourself, dear girl. Especially in this weather. Something foul, isn’t it?’

  She nodded. Sitting here a few hundred yards from the swamp in the pounding rain, dead friends and dead enemies on her conscience, it seemed unreal for him to be talking about the weather.

  Stapewood brought the wine, just then. The scent of it, rich and heady with home, caught at her throat.

  ‘Now, then, Miss Marshwic, what can I do for you? Settling in all right, are you?’

  Yes, sir, except for the dead friend. ‘Well, sir, I was thinking that I’d like to write a letter home, and I was told to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Ah, well, only natural. Letters home, yes. Excellent idea. Tell the people at home how the war was won.’

  She grimaced. ‘Only, I was told there was . . . a problem?’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I understand, dear girl. It’s all been a shock, this place. I don’t blame you. It’s no place for a civilized man – or woman. But the thing is, dear girl, you can hardly just write home and tell everyone what a miserable time you’re having, you see?’

  ‘Why not, sir?’

  ‘Well, it’s morale! Morale, you see. I’m sure everyone back home is distressed enough, what with having so many fine women such as yourself go off to war. They don’t want to hear how awful things can get. They want to hear how well we’re doing. They need their spirits kept up.’

  ‘My family would like to hear the truth, Colonel.’

  His smile was maddening, unthinkingl
y patronizing. ‘You may think so but, really, people just want to be comforted. Honestly, you wouldn’t want to be unduly worried, if you were back home. You wouldn’t want to frighten people.’

  I want them to worry, because my situation is worrying. I want them to fear, because my plight is fearful. ‘Colonel, please—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Marshwic, but it really is for the best. Write them something nice and reassuring. It is for the best, believe me.’

  She discovered something new within herself then. She discovered that she could dislike a man for something other than bad character. She could dislike men like the Ghyer and Mr Northway because they were bad men, and she was used to that exercise of judgement. Colonel Resnic was not a bad man: he so clearly believed what he said, and believed it to be the best thing to do. Yet she felt a sudden wave of fierce dislike spiking within her, because he was unfit. He did not understand.

  He was a fool.

  ‘Dear girl,’ he continued, and he never paused to read her expression at all, ‘if you had known what you would find, would you have come here? Well, of course you would – being a Marshwic and all. No fear, eh? But others, of the lower ranks, you can imagine they might not be so happy to march out if they knew all this would be waiting for them. It never does to spread panic, spread worry.’ He drained his wine, held his glass out for Stapewood to refill. ‘Up against a madman, we are. A mad genius, they say. You must have heard of the doctor.’

  ‘Our doctor?’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘No no, not Doctor Carlingswife. Dear me, no. Why, I mean the leader of the Denlanders. You didn’t hear? Their commander: Doctor Lam. A terrible man, they say. Brilliant, but quite mad. And cruel, so very cruel. Anyone they catch is brought to him, and he holds the scalpel, I hear, when he gets what they know out of them. I shouldn’t say this in front of a girl, but you should hear it. Doctor Lam, the Butcher of the Levant – now how would it look if we said all that to the people back home? How would they feel, do you think? Fairly downhearted, I’d say.’

  She stared at him, thinking: One insipid letter, long weeks of nothing, and then we hear that he is dead, just like that. Is that better, Colonel? Does that spare us the pain?

  ‘I can’t write, then?’ she said heavily.

  ‘Write, please do, but, you know, something nice,’ he said jovially. ‘Something pretty.’

  He beamed at her in such an avuncular way that she felt she would be sick.

  13

  Beneath the canopy, we feel as though we are under water. The sounds of all the animals and insects and the water merge into a single mumble in our ears, as stifling as silence. Even the sounds we bring ourselves, our boots through the water, our breath, the metallic clink of harness, are eaten up by that constant murmur. It is a dream there; a terrible fever dream. We cannot wake.

  She waded carefully around the edge of one of the deeper pools, eyeing the water. The heat, the closeness of the air, plastered her shirt to her body like on a summer’s day before a thunderstorm. Her jacket hung open, bunched into odd bulges by her sabre baldric.

  Something moved in the murky depths, but declined to investigate the ripples Emily was making. Gratefully she stepped up to a snaking tree root, put a hand to the slick trunk to steady herself. She looked back as the three soldiers behind her made the same journey. She watched over them as they trod carefully or slipped down to one knee with a curse. That was the only sound that broke from clear from the susurrus: a human voice. She signalled furiously for quiet, and the swearing man was righted by his fellows until they were all across, over the root and spreading out along a silt bank. At the rear came Mallen, stepping without looking at his footing, his eyes shifting all around him instead. The unseen pool lurker gave another indecisive motion, then lay still. Mallen did not even glance at it, but he knew it was there.

  He nodded acknowledgement to her, as he reached her, putting a hand on her shoulder, soldier to soldier.

  ‘You have the end, Ensign,’ he said softly as he passed, and she turned to follow them up as he moved their squad of twenty onwards.

  She took a moment to breathe, sucking in the thick, wet air. Her helm felt like lead. Her musket was weighty as a stone pillar in her hand. The heat rode on her shoulders like a fat man. Life beneath the swamp canopy sweltered with a constant patience that knew nothing of the 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 h
old 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.’

  ‘Load your gun, now, soldier,’ said Emily, deciding that it was neither the time nor the place to go into this. She could see Mallen returning, and so she signalled her readiness to march. He moved down the line of gleaming helms with his head uncovered, long hair tied back and a band of cloth keeping the sweat from his eyes. Jenny was meanwhile ramming powder down her musket barrel furiously, and Emily had to intervene and push her face further from the muzzle, in case another accident happened.

  Once Mallen gave the signal, they moved off into the hazy air again, slow and cautious. They might as well have been the only people in the world.

  They had spent the night in the swamps. For all but Mallen and one other, it had been the first time.

  Darkness had come without warning. No gradual fading skies here, from blue to a darker blue, then all the way to black. No, once the sun had passed the line of the western cliffs its fires were eclipsed in an instant, and night rode fast on its heels. In the swamps, the green air died like a fire guttering out. Then the night-shift of beasts and monsters took up where the day creatures had left off, calling and croaking at each other twice as loud to make up for the darkness. Mallen had guided them to an island formed where a succession of mosses and fungi had accumulated over a downed tree, and they had slept there in shifts. No fire, because nothing would burn, and the Denlanders might see it anyway. The darkness was not absolute, though. Certain parts of the swamp – slimes, mushrooms, the bulbous leaves of some trees – gave out a faint and weird phosphorescence. They lit up little but themselves, but they gave a reference, a point to watch. The larger beasts of the night showed up as mobile shadows across these greenish constellations, as would enemy soldiers if they were moving in the dark.