Guns of the Dawn (57 page)

And still the enemy held off. What had happened now? Were the Denlanders waiting for even more reinforcements, or for more intelligence? Perhaps they had spies out who were expected back with
vital word. Mallen had only two of his picked scouts left. He no longer went out hunting the Denlanders. Their agents moved unmolested, save where they came within musket range of the camp.

Tubal hobbled out from the camp to join her in staring out over the barricade, over the trench, over the fence of sharp stakes they had put up after tearing down the colonel’s command
hut.

‘Today, do you think?’

She shrugged. ‘In their place, I’d have moved already. They’re patient people, Tubal.’

He pushed himself up to perch on the barricade, leaning his crutches against it carefully. He had a Denlander gun slung over his shoulder by its strap: one never knew when the hammerblow would
come.

‘You and me together out here, it’s like a family outing,’ he said. ‘Damnedest thing, but I never really knew you back at Grammaine. You were just Mary’s other
sister.’

‘
Other
sister?’

‘Well, yes,’ he said, without apology. ‘Hell, if I’d known you were like
this
, I’d have been scared to death of you.’

They both glanced over at the sound of footsteps and saw that Scavian was coming out to join them. His maimed hand was concealed by a black glove he had found somewhere, the empty ring and
little fingers pinned back onto the palm.

‘Good morning,’ he said.

‘Good afternoon,’ Tubal corrected him. ‘Come for the view or for the healing waters?’

‘The company,’ replied Scavian firmly. He put his intact hand on Emily’s shoulder and squeezed, and she covered his fingers with her own. The look they shared was private,
filled with secrets. He had given her one thing that she could not reveal even to Mr Northway – even to the Mr Northway who would never receive her final letter.

‘Heads up,’ Tubal warned softly. ‘They’re coming.’

Emily’s heart lurched and she scrabbled for her gun, but her swift glance at the treeline registered only a small party of about a dozen, leaving the shelter of the trees. They held before
them a flag of blank white, somewhat greater in size than Caxton’s purloined handkerchief.

Parley?
They wanted to talk.

‘Truce?’ Scavian frowned. ‘What is there to talk about? In truth we’ve both sides made our positions clear over the last three years or so.’

‘Unless . . .’ Tubal’s eyes met Emily’s.

‘Something’s changed,’ she said. ‘For them, something’s changed.’ A keen edge of excitement began cutting into her. ‘It’s been so long since
we’ve had any news. Do you think . . . ?’

‘Hold your fire!’ Tubal shouted out, as some of the men at the barricade sighted down their guns. ‘Don’t you recognize a flag of parley when you see it?’ Of course,
some of the newer recruits probably didn’t.

‘The Couchant front, of course,’ Scavian exhaled. ‘With our cavalry up there, in the passes and the high plains, how long could it be, really?’

‘Don’t get too confident. It could be something else,’ Tubal warned him.

‘Such as what? What can you think of that would drive them out here to talk to us? The state of the weather?’

‘It has been unusually sunny, even for summer.’ Tubal gave a strained smile. ‘They might just want . . . to take back the bodies of their dead, or something.’

The Denlander embassy had halted now, somewhere halfway between treeline and camp, and were waiting patiently.

‘You need to go and talk to them,’ Emily told Tubal.

He kicked one shoe idly against the barricade. ‘That isn’t going to happen,’ he said philosophically. ‘Em, I think the momentous duty is yours.’

‘Mine?’

‘You’re my second. Hell, you’re actually the second-ranking officer in the entire camp right now. Also, you can have a go at running for it if things go wrong.’

She glanced between him and Scavian. ‘But I . . . What will I say?’

‘That’ll depend, I imagine, on what they say first. If, by some freak chance, they say, “We surrender!” then I suggest you accept.’

‘I’ll go with you, Emily,’ Scavian said.

‘That you won’t,’ Tubal told him evenly.

‘But—’

‘I’m not having our one and only Warlock putting himself in the line of fire. For all we know, this entire exercise is aimed solely at killing you,’ Tubal continued,
maddeningly logical. ‘You know how they feel about men of your profession. Choose anyone else, Em, but not Scavian. He stays here.’

‘But if things get ugly, I’m the only hope she has of getting clear,’ Scavian protested.

Tubal looked between them, a sad smile on his face. ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘I truly hope that nothing gets ugly, or even slightly ill-favoured. Em, you can refuse this duty.
I’m not forcing it on you. I can send one of the sergeants or something. But you can’t take
him.
I won’t risk the both of you in one errand.’

Emily looked at her brother-in-law again, and she knew Scavian must be having the same thought: how Tubal’s captaincy had grown on him. He was the commander of the camp. He had to make the
difficult decisions.

‘Then I’ll take Mallen,’ she decided. Tubal winced but nodded.

‘Mallen and . . . ? Take at least two men or you’ll look cheap.’

‘Mallen and Caxton, and ten of the Rabbit,’ she decided.

Tubal nodded and waved a hand. ‘You’d better go and collect them then.’

So it was that, a few minutes later, she was picking her way across the barricade, the trench and the stakes, with Mallen and the pale and sweating Sergeant Caxton at her
heels. The ten soldiers behind them had been hand-picked by Caxton, who knew the individuals better than she did these days. All of them carried their muskets, and she had her sabre and pistol to
hand. If this was some trap of the enemy’s, then the defenders would be ready to take their share with them as they died.

‘You reckon they’re really going to surrender?’ Caxton whispered, her eyes locked on the little group of drab-uniformed men ahead of them.

‘I have no idea, but something inside me says not . . .’ Emily halted, peering ahead and frowning.

‘Problem?’ Mallen murmured.

‘I . . .’ There were a dozen, no – thirteen of them. The parties matched each other, number for number. Her attention had been caught by the Denlander in their midst. His white
hair blew in the light breeze; he leant on a stick and was without a musket. She recognized him just from his self-effacing pose.

‘God preserve us, it’s Doctor Lam,’ she said.

Mallen signalled a halt, fingering his musket thoughtfully. ‘Want us to take him from here? We’d be back behind the barricade before they try us. Got to be now, though, understand?
Any closer and we’re dead for sure, in the return fire.’

She paused for a long, strained moment before saying, ‘No.’ Doctor Nathanial Lammegeier, who had spoken such treason to her, who had spoken of the sorrowful necessity of the fight
and how his own people hated it; Doctor Lammegeier, who would surely have had her put to the question if Mallen had not rescued her.

‘Maybe . . .’ Her voice trembled a little. ‘Maybe they do want to surrender. I can’t think what else would bring
him
out here.’

‘God be praised,’ Caxton said, as they started moving forward again, Emily adding a new spring to her step that passed itself on to the others.

She narrowed the gap to twenty yards before she saw that the Denlanders had a prisoner, head bowed but red jacket all too visible.
One of Mallen’s scouts?
No, they went about in
dark colours. Some straggler or deserter snagged by the enemy, then?

Do they want an exchange of prisoners? We have none to offer, and Doctor Lam would not concern himself personally with such a thing.

Perhaps it’s a goodwill gesture?
Her heart sped. How better to convince an enemy you want peace than to return a captive?

Doctor Lam was watching her as they approached, and she saw him raise his eyebrows, a slight smile tugging at his mouth.

‘Sergeant Marshwic,’ he called out, as they drew to a halt with five yards still between them. ‘You are a remarkable woman. I confess myself baffled as to how you escaped my
camp. Mind you,’ he added sadly ‘I never could understand women.’

‘It’s Lieutenant Marshwic now, Doctor Lammegeier.’ She allowed him the honour of using his full name, not the abbreviation so vilified amongst her fellows. ‘You have
asked for a truce. You have it. What news do you have for us?’ She glanced at Caxton, beside her, and said, ‘Have you come to offer your surrender?’

Doctor Lam’s eyes wrinkled with remorse, and he too spared a glance for his fellows. Following his eyes she saw the man behind him, the man holding the prisoner, was the same provost as
had captured her.

‘No,’ the Doctor said simply, ‘but I have come to ask for yours.’

Emily sensed a tension amongst her fellows, and the guns on both sides that had been pointing not-quite-anywhere were suddenly closer to being in line, each with its opposite number. She held
out her hands to calm her companions, and felt them unwillingly lower their weapons.

‘We do not surrender, in Lascanne,’ she said flatly. ‘You have not taken us yet. What do you have to persuade us now?’

Doctor Lam looked over his shoulder and motioned for the prisoner to be brought forward. ‘She will tell you,’ he said, and the red-jacketed figure was pushed forward past him, the
provost tilting her head up to show her bruised face.

Ice coursed through Emily’s veins. It was Penny Belchere.

‘Penny!’ Emily took an instinctive step forward and guns were levelled again on both sides.

‘Keep order!’ Doctor Lam instructed his men. ‘Remember why we are here.’ There was no triumph on his face as he turned back to Emily. She saw none of the satisfaction of
the conjuror revealing his final trick, only an urgency about his eyes that surprised her.

‘Soldier Belchere,’ Emily said, with more control of herself. ‘Have you been mistreated?’

Penny’s responding gaze was full of mute appeal. ‘Not yet,’ she got out.
Get me out of here
, was the unspoken plea. She was chalk-white with fear, and Emily belatedly
remembered that she was only a messenger, and had never been in battle or fired a gun.

‘What is this, Doctor?’ she asked.

Doctor Lam looked at his feet, biting his lip as he came to a decision. ‘Would you walk with me, Lieutenant? You and my captive, and the provost here. Let your men and mine retire to some
distance where they are less danger both to us and to each other, and I will speak candidly to you.’

‘Candidly?’ she queried cautiously.

‘Words best spoken to you alone, as de facto leader here, rather than openly where they might trigger excesses of, shall we say, national pride.’

‘Don’t do it, sir,’ Caxton whispered. ‘It has to be a trap.’

She looked at Doctor Lam, then at the provost. ‘Just you and me and the prisoner, Doctor. She’s a non-combatant, and bound.’

She saw the provost shake his head and knew it was in fear for his commander, and that reassured her. Doctor Lam nodded reluctantly, though.

‘I will trust you, Lieutenant Marshwic. Someone must make the first move.’

Under their combined direction, the two groups of soldiers backed away from each other, until each was too far to readily taunt the other, although the trio in the middle remained within easy
shot of either.

Emily folded her arms, surreptitiously checking on the position of her pistol. ‘Doctor Lammegeier, you have my attention.’

He smiled almost nostalgically. ‘You really must tell me how you escaped my camp, Lieutenant Marshwic. I’ve been losing sleep over it.’

She sensed he was speaking only to put off the inevitable. ‘You didn’t come here just to play Twenty Questions. I thought the only thing you were asking was for our
surrender.’

He sighed. ‘Ah, well, so much for idle curiosity. Your surrender, yes, Lieutenant. The surrender of all Lascanne forces in the Levant. Does that sound absurd to you?’

‘Not at all,’ she told him. ‘If I’d been beaten back three times, as you have, I’d try a new tack myself. But it isn’t going to happen. We can’t
surrender to you, and you know why. We’re the last line of defence for Lascanne. You need to move past us to reinforce your armies in the Couchant. We can’t surrender.’

She saw him take a deep breath and ready himself. ‘A valid conclusion, no doubt, if your premise was correct.’

‘Don’t riddle with me, Doctor.’

‘I have imagined this conversation a score of times before coming out here, yet now the words escape me. Lieutenant, when did you last hear from Locke?’

The words sent an uneasy chill through her. ‘Twelve days ago, or so.’

‘I have heard more recently than that.’ He braced himself. ‘
We
hold Locke now.’

She almost failed to understand what he was saying, and then burst out: ‘That’s impossible! You couldn’t have got so many men past us without us knowing. A few scouts, yes,
but—’

‘Lieutenant.’ His voice was steely now. ‘
I
have not captured Locke. Locke is in the hands of Denland because the Couchant front has been won. Won by us, Lieutenant. The
war is over.’

She felt her hand twitch towards her pistol and restrained it by main willpower.
Over? The war isn’t over. We’re still here, aren’t we?
‘I don’t
understand.’

‘The Denland army of the Couchant has broken your Lascanne resistance, Lieutenant. The war is over. We are even now sending soldiers into Lascanne itself. The only part of the Lascanne
army currently armed and in open resistance is under your command.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t believe a word of this.’

‘You would not,’ he acknowledged. ‘That is why I have brought my witness. This woman was captured by my scouts even as she left Locke. And she left Locke when it
fell
,
Lieutenant. Take her, she’s yours, but listen to what she has to say, please.’