Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Tomorrow.’ The word dropped off his tongue like lead.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Goss repeated. Emily wanted to go to him in that moment, for all that she had never met him before. She remembered the colonel’s bland blather of Give him a chance to get his hand back in. It was unfair; it was too unfair. His first day, his very first minute, and he had encountered the worst he could have imagined.

  ‘Sir,’ Tubal said, hushed. ‘No man will think the worse of you if—’

  ‘No,’ Goss cut him off sharply, even as Emily was thinking, But they will. Oh, but they will. ‘I am not afraid, Lieutenant. I shall lead them out, as I have done before.’ A shudder went through him. Perhaps most of the soldiers would not have noticed, but Emily was just close enough to see. ‘Just . . . give me a junior who knows what’s going on. I will lead.’

  She knew it was coming before Tubal craned back to send her a silent, imploring look. He would not force this on her, but he had nobody else.

  Nobody would know, except him, if she declined this duty. It was over and above an ensign’s role. But she had made an oath to serve her country, not merely to do her duty to the letter. And he was family, and he needed her. This time it was as Mary’s man that he asked, and as Mary’s sister that she gave a curt, reluctant nod.

  ‘Ensign Marshwic will junior for you,’ Tubal said, gesturing her forward. Goss stared blankly at her as she approached.

  ‘You must be new, Ensign. We’ve had reinforcements in, I take it, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Tubal confirmed.

  Goss frowned at her. ‘Ensign . . .’ In a tone of utter incomprehension: ‘You’re a woman.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  Goss looked from her to the ranks of his company, stopping at every third face, seeing the women past the mannish clothes, the shorn hair.

  He said nothing. What could he say? The world had fallen crooked while he had been recovering from his wounds.

  ‘Ensign Marshwic, will you take the captain through the colonel’s plan?’

  What little there is of it. The image of that cluttered, useless little map was another weight adding to the stack of dread in her stomach. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘May I dismiss the men, sir, or would you like to address them?’

  Goss’s stare had been drawn inexorably back to the swamps, both in actuality and in his mind’s eye. He had nothing useful to say to help his men. His lips shaped the words: ‘I’m not afraid . . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Dismiss them, Lieutenant. Ensign, you’re with me.’

  That night, the Survivors’ Club met late, after Emily had left Captain Goss with Pordevere and Mallarkey, and some port, in the Bear Sejant hut.

  Despite the rules of the Club, there was a solemnity they could not shake off. Not pipe nor cards nor brandy could lift their spirits, and by unspoken consent nobody placed shillings in the jar, lest it overflow. Brocky the non-combatant’s face was raddled with misery, as though he was the one condemned and not they. That sour nature, his normal defence against the world, was showing its cracks.

  He drank immoderately, but the others little. Tomorrow, a clear head could separate life and death. Scavian looked pale, holding his glass with both hands. Tubal grinned emptily, laughing too hard at any joke the others could dredge up, and at his own. Mallen’s painted face was darkly unreadable. She wondered what they saw in her own.

  A silence descended on them, Tubal’s laugh fading away into it. Their eyes sought each other’s around the room. It seemed fragile words had been extinguished, until, ‘I had a girl, once,’ Brocky announced.

  ‘You surprise and appal me,’ jibed Tubal quickly.

  Brocky swilled the liquid in his glass, a curious smile on his face. ‘Even I, dear fellow. I once had a girl. Damn, I’ve not thought of her for many a year. We were close, so close . . . A lithe and bonny lass she was.’ His head came up angrily, daring them to challenge him. ‘We were engaged, you know.’

  ‘You, Brocky, tying the knot?’ Scavian asked doubtfully.

  ‘Oh, I cut a better figure back then, I grant you, but not that much.’ The fat man slouched further into his chair. ‘Broke my heart, she did. Poor old Brocky, eh? Went off with some fellow of a lawyer, she did, some wordy weasel from the courts. She always did love a professional man, and I was only a dispenser. I could brew a poison or cure the plague, but he could argue the toss before a judge, and so they showered gold upon him. I ask you, what kind of a world is it where men of such slight merit . . . ah, well . . .’ A monstrous sigh welled up inside him. ‘But I had a girl once, in case you ever wondered. Hurt me worse than the Hellic pox, losing her.’

  He blinked at them, looking sober as anything, nothing of the brandy touching him now. From one kind of loss to another, Emily understood. He could not open his heart – perhaps such men never could – but he had let them know, nonetheless.

  ‘We are a sorry pack of fools, are we not, my friends?’ Scavian said sadly. ‘In truth, what are we? A printer, a chemist, a scholar, one lady of leisure and an idle second son. No man’s heroes, surely. Is it not ridiculous, all this? We should complain to someone.’

  ‘So we should,’ Mallen echoed. It was the first thing he had said all evening.

  ‘I want to go back to my dispensary,’ Brocky mumbled. ‘I wasn’t happy there, but so what?’

  ‘I want to see my wife and son,’ whispered Tubal. His mouth twitched, holding back a tide.

  ‘I want you lot all to bugger off out of my swamps and take your stinking war with you,’ Mallen said, sparking a few smiles at least.

  ‘God protect us, all of us,’ Emily said.

  Brocky cocked a beetling eyebrow. ‘God? He doesn’t visit here.’

  ‘Do the indigenes have gods, Mallen?’

  The master sergeant nodded, regarding her curiously.

  ‘Let them protect us, then. Let us be protected,’ Emily decided. ‘Is there a thing you can do? Can you give us their blessing? Say some words or paint our faces?’

  ‘Em, this isn’t really . . .’ said Tubal, the churchgoer.

  ‘Doesn’t work like that,’ Mallen told them all stubbornly. ‘They’re not like us. Their gods aren’t like your God.’ And then a pause while his eyes switched shiftily from one face to the next. ‘But I’ll ask – inside here.’ A fist went to his chest. ‘I’ll ask.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Emily managed brightly, ‘let us meet here, tomorrow evening, when it’s done. All of us – let’s say we will.’

  They regarded her cautiously.

  ‘Just say it,’ she insisted, louder, and heard her voice tremble. ‘Brocky, lay in some supplies: something to smoke, something to drink. Let us all meet here tomorrow evening.’ By now the trembling was worse. She was holding on to her voice like the reins of a panicked horse. ‘And . . . and . . . and if we do not . . .’

  ‘Then those that live will remember,’ Scavian finished for her, once it was apparent that she could not.

  Emily nodded, dug into her inside pocket and produced a crumpled piece of paper. ‘My note. Fifty pounds, was it?’

  Brocky took it from her reverently. ‘If . . . God above! If I . . . I’ll look after your son, Salander, I swear.’

  ‘It’s yours. If it’s yours, it’s yours,’ Tubal said.

  Oh, Mary. What a weight, on this cast of the dice, for the Marshwic family. What a weight for Lascanne.

  They were late to bed, all five of them. They knew they would not sleep long, and that dawn’s pale fingers in the eastern sky would find them awake and ready.

  16

  My Dear Mr Northway,

  Today there is to be a great battle. We are all invited.

  Dawn, now, as I pen this for you. Too many things to say. Too little time.

  I am in your debt, because you have given me this opportunity. Because you have given me someone to confide in. Because you taught me a little about the world, before I came here, that I needed to know. I am
in your debt.

  I will write again, if I can write again.

  Yours,

  Emily.

  The companies were assembling before the black rim of the swamp even as the sun cast its first light over the sea. Emily bolted from her tent towards the storehouse and banged furiously on the door until its latch jumped from its mounting, leaving the portal gaping wide. She found John Brocky inside and roused him from his hammock by way of tipping him onto the floor.

  ‘Time, is it?’ he croaked, clutching his head.

  ‘Brocky, you must do something for me,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I have a letter here, and a messenger called Penny Belchere may come asking for me. Give this to her if I am not here to do so myself.’

  He blinked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, yes I do.’ She left him sitting on the storehouse floor and went to join her company.

  They were all falling into place, eight-hundred-odd soldiers of the Stag Rampant, and as many for each of the other two companies. It was a vast force of armed men and women, the whole strength of the Levant; for all she knew it was only a fraction of Lascanne’s force in the grander war being fought on the Couchant front up west. Were those soldiers also mustering at this daybreak hour? Were they also embarking on their own Big Push? Perhaps the fate of Lascanne would hang in the balance of a single coin toss today.

  ‘Emily! Ensign!’ Tubal hurried up to her. ‘Have you seen Mallen?’

  She shook her head and he gave her a frustrated look. ‘His scouts are taking point. We need him here now. Go find him, will you?’

  Behind him, Captain Goss was walking slowly along the front rank of soldiers, saying nothing, his eyes heavy with emotion.

  She found Mallen quickly enough, tucked in behind the company shack. He was squatting on his haunches, and it was a moment before she spotted the two indigenes crouching with him. They spoke softly in the creatures’ own garbled language, and she wondered whether she should wait, to see what would come of it. Instead, she coughed pointedly to announce herself, and Mallen jumped to his feet.

  ‘They need you, Master Sergeant,’ she told him.

  He gave her another of his unreadable looks, of which he seemed to have an endless store, and muttered a few more foreign words to the indigenes. Straight away they were off, scurrying low, towards the swamps. She had lost sight of them long before they reached the trees.

  ‘What was that about?’ she asked Mallen, and at first he simply looked at her and muttered something about it not being an ensign’s place to question him.

  ‘Tubal’s going to want to know,’ she pointed out, as they both jogged back towards the company.

  He hissed through his teeth. ‘They must not be near the Denlanders when we attack. They had to know that.’

  She stopped abruptly. ‘You told them to get away from the Denland camp?’

  A nod from him, no more.

  ‘But . . . if the enemy realize . . .’ She gaped at him. ‘Mallen, they’ll know we’re coming!’

  He stared back at her. Scholar or not he had the close-faced pride and dignity of a savage prince. ‘So what, then?’ he said. ‘They will die caught between the lines, else. This is their home – my home. Before we turned it into our battleground.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Will they notice when the indigenes leave? No. But if they do? We come here to die, Marshwic. This is their place to live, and they have no other. I will not betray them.’

  ‘Tubal . . .’

  ‘Will understand.’ And he was off again, leaving her to catch up. By the time she had found her place in line, Mallen had his two score scouts away from the main force, giving them their briefing.

  She spilled out to Tubal all her worries, even as Captain Goss approached down the line. There was a grimace on the face of the lieutenant, but in the end he merely shrugged.

  ‘Hell, I can’t say I couldn’t have guessed he’d do that. He virtually grew up with them. I can’t blame him. We’ll just have to hope.’

  ‘Hope?’ Emily echoed, and then Captain Goss was upon them.

  ‘All accounted for, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Three divisions. I’ll take far west: point of the pincer. You’re centre. I’ve put Sergeant Shalmer on east, alongside the Bear. We need to make rapid going of it, Lieutenant. I know Huill intends taking the swamps at a run, punching into the Denlanders before they get the slightest warning. We need to be there to support him.’

  ‘Yes, sir. What about the Leopard?’

  Goss bared his teeth. ‘If we waited for Mallarkey to put in an appearance, who knows what kind of a defence Denland will have had time to put together. No, he can make his own time. But I spoke with Huill last night. We’re going in fast as we can.’

  And already the great plan falls apart.

  ‘Mallen’s scouts will screen for us, pick up any enemy spotters in our path. Ensign Marshwic?’

  She jumped on hearing her name. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘You’re my second, since Salander here vouches for you. Lieutenant, go choose your own.’

  Tubal cast a helpless look at Emily. ‘But—’

  ‘Go, man. We haven’t the time.’ Goss’s fingers clenched about his sabre hilt were white. ‘Ensign, get a third of the company under orders to advance along the cliff-line.’

  Tubal looked ready to argue, to snatch Emily back from Goss’s command. She could see that it would not work: Goss was on broken glass here, dragging himself through it step after bare-footed step. He would smash down any opposition, because he had no give left in him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and gave Tubal’s arm a reassuring squeeze she did not fully feel confident in. When she went off to carry out the orders, her mind and his mirrored each other’s thoughts, she was sure: Will I ever see him again?

  Less than an hour after dawn, all three companies of the Levant army were marching into the swamps. Colonel Resnic, whose idea it all was, watched them go.

  Once under the shadow of the cliffs’ overhang, it seemed to Emily that the sun would never penetrate the dark. Between the towering cliffs and the dense trees of the swamp itself, she might as well have been in a valley. Surely dawn never broke here, just as the sun never set. Certainly, beneath the trees, the best showing day could make was a gloomy twilight. With Captain Goss forging ahead, she was left with three hundred soldiers to marshal, their neat line broken into unruly clumps as they pushed through the dense undergrowth that somehow thrived in fecund abandon even here. Goss himself she kept a close eye on. He was locked down tight. He could face his fears rigidly or he could crack, she guessed. His experiences had left him with no leeway, nothing flexible. He did not even look back to see if anybody was following him.

  He carried no musket, she noticed. She had heard he had been shot in the shoulder, and his right arm was held stiffly as he walked. She only hoped he had pistols about him, or that he could handle a sabre left-handed.

  Tubal would be even deeper into the swamps on her right and, beyond that, the mass of Stag Rampant company, straggling amidst the fog, the pools, the treacherous ground. This was no place to fight a land war. If there was an ambush, they would only know about it by the shots. And she knew, by now, how hard it was to locate a sound in this thick, cloudy air.

  If the Denlanders know we are coming, they could kill four score of us before we could mount an effective response.

  She felt she understood the captain, then. March on, march on, because any other options are gone. March on; or turn and flee, and never look in the mirror again.

  ‘Keep up. Keep the line together,’ she told the nearest soldiers, trusting them to pass it on. It was a hopeless endeavour. ‘Keep in sight of your neighbours,’ she added. That was the only means she had found to keep even a small squad together.

  Light struck her and for a moment she was blinded. To either side of her was a staggered line of soldiers shading their eyes. They had broken
into the first of the slip-fields, a vast open meadow of grass and briars rising almost up to waist height. The morning light cutting over the canopy of the swamps was fierce and unsparing. Captain Goss was already forging ahead, most of the division accompanying him, but she stood, stunned for a second. Without the canopy, without the all-consuming heat, how was this different to some overgrown field near Chalcaster? A summer’s day . . . a different world.

  ‘Keep up, sir,’ came a muttered aside, as a soldier passed her, and she kicked herself into motion again, pressing forward to catch up with Captain Goss.

  An ambush now . . . ? But Mallen’s scouts were ahead of them, ready to fall back and cry a warning if the enemy were near. If Mallen can be trusted. But she baulked at the thought. Of course he can be trusted. He is one of us. But he is of the swamp, too. You cannot blame him for wanting to save the creatures he has made his friends . . .

  Animals. Sub-human things. How could he weigh them against his comrades? But he saw them differently: he must do. She would not blame him.

  Ahead, Captain Goss re-entered the shadow of the forest canopy without a tremor, and she made sure she was one of the next to go in. She had to set an example. The rotting heat struck her like a hammer after the mere warmth of the slip-field. The atmosphere of air and light became fetid and insect-clogged. Instantly she was splashing through a pool, watching a great reptile flick lazily away from the crashing boots of her soldiers. No shots yet; no whistles.

  They forced their way through ever-thicker undergrowth, man-high ferns and cycads, vines strung like nets, great uneven moss mounds bulging knee-high. She stumbled, steadying herself with her musket butt, then hauled another soldier to his feet when he went down. Captain Goss had his sabre out, hacking fiercely at the foliage, carving out his anger on it. She remembered his ‘I am not afraid.’ He was afraid, but he made it push him forward, not hold him back.

  Not too far ahead, please, sir. She increased her pace again, slipping and skidding on the poor footing. Gnats alighted on her, lanced her with their little daggers, and fled away when vast-winged dragonflies gave chase. Banded serpents eyed her from above, and water-scorpions fled from beneath her feet. Around her, the line became ever more ragged, and she gave a frantic signal for them all to keep up. She had no idea how many could even see her. Oh, for a whistle like Mallen’s!