“Have you fired the houses of families? Will they find women and children with arrows in them or the marks of the sword upon them? If they do, they will be treated as we treat anyone who slaughters women and children.”

I think at that moment he wished to die just as much as I did.

As we fled through the dark streets, Soldier’s Boy listened for the sound of pursuit. There was none, though we heard scattered gunshots behind us. “They are killing those you left behind,” I told him brutally, even though I was not sure that was so. “They are shooting the wounded where they lie.” Spink would not have allowed such a brutality, if it came to him to give the command, but in times of battle, men follow first the commands of their own hearts, and sometimes their officers are too late to rein them in.

A winter dawn, gray and bleak, was seeping across the eastern sky. Smoke curtained it, but soon the light would break through. Time for all Specks to be gone, if the attack had gone as planned. Soldier’s Boy had been delayed too long in the maze of the fort. His men would not have the cover of night to help them retreat. Neither would he. Clove had his head, the bit clamped in his teeth, and the big horse cared nothing for secrecy, only escape. He left the last of the scattered huts behind and galloped on over the wastelands. When he came to the end of the packed snow trail, Soldier’s Boy was finally able to pull him in. Clove pranced a few more steps, then abruptly halted, blowing and snorting. A long black streak of blood marked Clove’s sweaty neck. There was dried blood along his flank, too, an injury that Soldier’s Boy hadn’t noticed before. Heart thumping, lungs gasping, Soldier’s Boy looked back the way he had come and tried to think of his next move.

The red light of the flames was reflected in the smoke overhead, giving an odd orange cast to the day and to Gettys in particular. With the dawn came a wind. Ash and cinders rode it. Soldier’s Boy rubbed his sooty face, blinked, coughed, and turned Clove’s head toward the foothills. The big horse was tired now. Soldier’s Boy had to kick him to get him to move uphill through the unbroken snow. It offered them the closest cover. In the furrows and scrub brush of the foothills, Soldier’s Boy could become invisible while he worked his way back to the rendezvous. He was operating mindlessly now, not thinking of honor or victory or even defeat, but only the very practical question of how to live through the next ten minutes.

At the first substantial rise of ground, he pulled Clove in and looked back. Smoke was still climbing in tall columns from blackened ruins, and in half a dozen places flames still leapt strongly. The watchtower that overlooked the prison was burning well. High overhead, murders of crows coasted in on the wind. Above them and unmistakable even at that distance were the wide wings of the endlessly circling croaker birds. Always, the sounds of battle and the smoke of destruction brought such scavengers. They would not care if they feasted on Speck or Gernian or seared horsemeat. They’d all feed well on this disaster. He bared his teeth at them, full of hate, and then looked down again on the burning fort and town.

From his vantage, he could see that he had dealt both fort and town a significant blow, but it was not the complete destruction that he had yearned for. Folk would still find shelter there, and the walls of the fort, though scorched in many places and smoldering in one, were still intact. The cavalla troops stationed at Gettys would regroup and find themselves more fired by the night’s attack than daunted by it. He had failed. Failed badly. As he watched, a small band of mounted men, regimental colors aloft, came into view riding a circuit around the outskirts of the town. Prudently, he urged Clove over the hilltop and out of sight. He felt a coward as he fled alone. Where were his warriors? He’d disdained them a few days before, thinking they were not the troops he deserved to lead. Perhaps the truth was that they were exactly the sort of soldiers he had deserved, as green as he was, and as incapable at planning for all contingencies. He hadn’t led disciplined troops into battle. He’d led a raiding party. And if he was any judge at all of the Gernians, they’d mount a retaliatory force before the fires were even out. Time to get himself and whatever of his warriors he could find to safety.

He set his teeth. He’d abandoned his troops. Not willingly, but he’d done it. He scoffed at his own stupidity now. He’d thought he’d dash in, deal a resounding blow, vanish, and then come back to mop up. Instead, here he was, alone, and each of his warriors alone as well. All he could hope was that they would remember to return to the rendezvous point. When they got there, he would be waiting for them. That was the best he could do for anyone right now.

The day grew lighter as he pushed Clove through the untrodden snow in the shallow vales between the hillsides in a wandering path toward the rendezvous point. He hoped that his warriors would have the good sense to stay out of sight as they worked their own way back toward the forest of the ancestor trees. He tried not to think of them, on foot, in weather they were not accustomed to, weary, hungry, cold, and perhaps injured. He forced himself to ignore his own raging hunger and weariness and the cold that found every gap in his clothing. He would face it all when he had to. For now, getting to the rendezvous alive was his sole focus.

Twice his meandering course brought him closer to the road than he liked. At intervals, he heard angry horns blaring out to one another. The Gernian troops were up, mounted, and hunting for Speck stragglers. He tried to cheer himself by thinking of how adept the Specks were at blending into the forest, but I pointed out to him that what worked in summer did not in winter. Bushes were skeletons, bare of obscuring leaves now. Men left tracks in snow.

Midmorning was gone by the time Soldier’s Boy reached the place where they had all camped the night before. At first he was heartened to see that others had arrived there first. He recognized the horse that Dasie had ridden and a number of her warriors. He gritted his teeth to think that she had probably succeeded where he had failed; the town fires had burned well, and she seemed to have withdrawn her troops in good order. She sat on a fallen log, her wide back to him, in front of a small fire. He smelled cooking food and, despite his rumbling stomach, scowled at that; there should be no fires just now, nothing that might give a hint as to where they waited.

All such considerations were driven from his mind when one of Dasie’s feeders saw him. The man gave a cry of relief and leapt up from where he had crouched beside his Great One’s feet. He ran through the snow toward Soldier’s Boy and the beseeching hands he lifted to him were red to the elbow with fresh blood. He was crying out his words even before he reached Soldier Boy’s stirrup.

“I cannot stop her bleeding, Great One, and she says her magic is gone. They have shot her with iron! Quick, come quick, you must take it out and heal her!”

Such faith they had in him, and all of it misplaced. The warrior tried to take hold of Clove’s bridle with his bloody hands. The big horse had had enough. He threw back his immense head and even managed to rear slightly. Soldier’s Boy had already loosened one foot from the stirrup preparing to dismount. When Clove came down, he came off his horse, awkwardly. Miraculously, he stayed on his feet and didn’t twist his knee, but he staggered sideways in the snow before he stood. He brushed off the efforts of Dasie’s guard to support him. “Where is she shot?” he demanded curtly. “Show me.”

His heart had left his body in despair. He knew next to nothing of how to doctor a gunshot wound, but for now he could not show it. He followed the man to Dasie’s side. A simmering kettle of porridge sent up a wave of steam and aroma. He turned his face toward it, his eyes half closing of their own accord. He longed for it, his body gone mindless with hunger. The guard could see it. “Great One, see to her, please. While you do, I will prepare food for you.”