The Queen's Assassin

by James Barclay

Genres: Dragons & Mythical Creatures; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Dystopian

Synopsis

Naida is living a lie.

A peerless battlefield surgeon. A talisman for the army. A symbol of hope in an impossible, grinding war.

A fraud.

Society, led by the queen, has long held that the Esselrode people and their abilities are inherently, irredeemably evil, a truth which Naida has been brought up to believe. But as one of them, feeling compelled to use her powers again and again to heal those on the brink of death, it's hard to accept. It's even harder to live a lie, conflicted about her hidden identity, when the truth could save lives.

Taken from the battlefield where she thrives to a court where her life hangs ever more precariously in the balance, Naida is about to learn that there are even greater secrets, and conspiracies, afoot . . . and that her dangerous truth could change the course of a nation . . .

James Barclay is back with a brand-new standalone adventure which will tug on your heartstrings and keep you glued to your seat. James is truly a fantasy great, and this new novel will satisfy all fans of the genre.

Release date: July 8, 2021

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

She lost her grip when the soldier convulsed. Blood surged from the torn artery, running down to mix with the churned mud in which she knelt.

‘Hold her, dammit, hold her!’

Hands moved to put pressure on the soldier’s legs and shoulders. Naida pressed down again, above the tear, fingers deep in the shredded flesh of the soldier’s thigh. She had to stem this in the next minute. Had to. The soldier jerked and spasmed in pain from the breaks in her arms and the lacerations to her chest and stomach.

Naida moved one bloody hand from the wound and placed it on the soldier’s forehead.

‘What’s her name?’ she hissed at the pale-faced, shivering swordsman nearest her.

‘Caryne.’

‘Caryne, it’s Naida. Relax now. I’m going to save you.’

An ephemeral smile passed across Caryne’s mud-and-blood face and her every muscle relaxed. That was always the reaction when Naida used their name and told them they weren’t going to die. She returned to her work, letting her fingertips, out of sight of her team, smooth the rupture in Caryne’s femoral artery. The bleeding ceased, saving her life.

‘Ready with pressure pads and bandages,’ said Naida. ‘Pinch the wound closed as best you can when I withdraw. Pressure pads to keep the rupture closed, not cut off supply to the leg.’

Horns sounded across the battle line.

‘Flay-shot! Flay-shot!’

The eerie whispering and whistling from a hundred catapult baskets cut across the rolling clamour from the front lines. Soldiers dropped to a crouch, snapped shields over their heads and pressed together to lock their defences. Cavalry drove on, hoping to get under the arc, and the front line continued to push. After all, the catapults were what today was all about. And tomorrow.

Naida kept working as the soldiers around her tiled shields over and about her. Others placed their bodies between her and the flying shot of chain-linked, spiked iron fists and bladed carriage-bearings.

‘Brace! Brace!’

The horns fell silent, even the conflict line appeared to pause, while the whispering grew in volume and the whistling became a rattling terror from the sky. Naida focused on Caryne’s artery, drawing the rupture closed, sealing it with her body’s energy. It was a temporary measure, solely designed to get Caryne from the field and onto an operating table, but it would hold.

The flay-shot struck, striking earth, shield and flesh. A severed limb thumped into a shield above Naida and dropped to the ground by her head. She stood.

‘Get Caryne stretchered, secured and back to the medical tents.’ Naida wiped her bloody hands on her filthy trousers and said, quietly, ‘Where next?’

She cocked her head. A human screaming in pain can cut through even the din of full-throated battle. Evolution had designed it that way; its frequency reaching the ears and the heart simultaneously, demanding aid, demanding relief.

Naida ran. She yelled instructions to those running with her. Barely audible over the roar of infantry; the ground-shaking thrum of myriad hooves; the shrieking of metal on metal; and the eerie sounds of flay-shot flung from catapults, followed by the rattle of their fall on metal; their dull thuds against sodden earth; and the sick ripping of flesh.

The battlefield was crowded. Across two hundred yards of mud, blood, and bodies, the opposing front lines ebbed and flowed across a shallow, rock-strewn stream. Cavalry circled the flanks, hemming in the lines and acting as a deterrent to the enemy Haronic horsemen. Archer and reserve infantry cluttered the space behind the lines where stretcher and medic teams darted in and out, dragging the wounded to triage points and the dead from beneath the feet of the living.

Forays to attack the catapults were frequent, heroic, and doomed. Supporting cavalry were easy prey for archers and heavy bows. Even so, the day was with them: once there had been a hundred and twenty catapults in four ranks. Now there were less than a hundred. But the attrition rate was awful, and Naida’s medics were overstretched and increasingly vulnerable.

Naida was aware of her impact, her influence … her aura. Where she ran, hope came in her shadow. Where she was seen, courage surged within those who faced the enemy across a barrier of sharpened steel. They had the knowledge, the unquenchable certainty, that should they fall, Naida would save them.

Of course, she couldn’t save them all and, of course, they knew that. Everyone who hurled themselves at an enemy knew a fatal blow remained a fatal blow. But the chance, where there had not been one before, that a severe injury might not mean the end, was seized like the most precious of jewels.

Naida was the reason many of them fought at all. They’d long ago forgotten the cause that had taken them from their families, the reason the Queen demanded they fight an enemy whose crimes against Suurken had never been adequately explained. People they had been told to hate for reasons that were forever opaque.

It painted a target on Naida’s back. Wherever she ran, the fighting intensified, the arrows fell with greater density, and the catapults were loaded and discharged more quickly. When she appeared on the flanks, enemy cavalry charged. It all left her conflicted, wondering if she should run the battlefield at all when her presence might cause more death, more injury.

But run the lines she did, because to see her heedless of personal risk was a tonic to her people, who often said her mere presence was a mortal threat to the enemy.

Her people.

It was how she thought of them and how they saw themselves. The pressure of it should have crushed her. Military command should have hated her for wielding so much more influence than they ever could. But even the blind could see her value as a talisman. Not just here, but on every front. Knowing she ran the lines every day, rarely suffering so much as a scratch as she saved the lives of their friends and comrades, energised the army.

Naida thrived on it. Belief is a virtuous circle and there is no level it cannot attain. And their enemy’s attempts to kill her – from battlefield surges to assassins sent to her tent with poison, knives, even venomous reptiles and arachnids – all failed. And every failure was trumpeted as a victory, as proof of her invulnerability.

Naida slid to the ground right behind the reserve lines, no more than twenty yards from enemy blades. The expected surge was met and repulsed. The wounded spearman was being moved backwards across the mud and through the legs of his comrades. She stared through the thicket of mud-encrusted limbs and hissed through her teeth. The soldier was screaming but no longer in pain.

‘Stop! Keep him still! Make me a path.’ She crawled through the ebb and flow. Down here in the mud the roar of battle was that bit more muted but the stench of sweat-soaked leather, metal, sodden earth and blood was intense. ‘Don’t move him.’

Naida reached the soldier’s head. His helmet was gone and matted greying hair sprouted in desultory tufts from a balding head. He’d stopped screaming, and she knew why.

‘Shattered throne, Hazza, my friend, you don’t get any breaks, do you?’

‘That is spectacularly bad phrasing.’

‘I do my best,’ said Naida. ‘Any feeling?’

Around her, the infantry heaved themselves forwards, trying to give her space. The howl of voices strengthened, metal clashed, and shields cast a shadow over the ground where they lay. The Haronic catapults would be winding back with a new area to target, and her people would be ready.

‘It’s all a bit light below the waist.’

‘Thought so. Well, I can confirm you have a below-the-waist still. Feet and everything.’

Hazza smiled. Distracted by her words and her face right above his, he couldn’t sense her hands on his lower abdomen and back, where the flechette had entered his body and sliced into his spine. Allowing herself to move her consciousness into her hands for a flicker, she could feel the cleanness of the break, see the microbes of infection that would threaten a recovery, and the tendrils of his spinal nerve seeking reconnection. She could help with that. But not here; and he must not suffer further trauma.

‘How messed up are they?’

‘No more than normal. The wound is clean, Hazza. I can save you.’

Hazza relaxed, the desperation behind his bravery replaced by hope. Naida took a breath.

‘Right,’ she said, glancing around to assess his escape route. ‘Stretcher! I need this man immobilised and moved with tremendous care.’

The enemy pushed back, her soldiers giving a yard. Medics formed a shield around Naida, keeping careless feet from knocking Hazza’s paralysed body. Naida kept her hands on Hazza’s shoulders, providing comfort as his nervousness grew. The soldier was mired in mud. He’d be difficult to lift onto the stretcher.

‘I need a long shield,’ she said. ‘And sure hands. And some precious time.’

The roar of battle surrounded her and her team. Flay-shot whined. New screams split the air, overlaying the clashing, thudding, growling tumult of battle. But her message got through like it always did. From somewhere, she cared not where, a long wooden shield appeared. It was cracked, nicked and blood-stained, painted with the open maw of a beast from nightmares.

Naida signalled for calm in the chaos. Arrows landed around them, whispering into earth and flesh, knocking into wood and bouncing from steel. She bound Hazza’s legs together with a belt and motioned one of her team to support his head. She stayed at his waist, where the risk lay.

‘Kella, position the shield. On my word, we rock him up, slide the shield under, lay him back down. One movement, gentle, fluid.’

The quiet that descended for Naida when she deployed her Talent was surreal. A bubble in which she had complete concentration and could see everything moving as if slowed in time. She knew why but couldn’t tell anyone. The consequences for her would be dire.

She could sense the movement of a careless infantry boot that was sliding backwards towards Hazza’s legs and diverted it from its dangerous course. She heard the flay-shot and flattened herself over the stricken soldier’s body to protect him. She directed the delicate manoeuvre with such precision no one could recall afterwards quite how she did it. And yet there Hazza was, atop the shield then loaded on to the stretcher, awaiting the word to head to the medical tent.

Job done, Naida let reality flood back. Fresh blood, fresh screams, fresh calls of her name. Ignoring them all, she spoke to the stretcher-bearers.

‘You cannot run, you cannot slip. One sharp jolt and Hazza will never walk again. Gird yourselves. Dawdling to the camp while the flay-shot whines around you will scare you witless. But you’ll make it. I have faith in you and your courage.’ She smiled. ‘And, Kella, in your outrageous good fortune. Go.’

Naida turned back to the battle. Cavalry from their left flank had made a significant break and infantry was pouring into the gap, rushing towards the enemy catapults. Many of them would not be coming back. Arrows thickened the air, catapult arms cranked. She blew out her cheeks.

‘One more,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure our tables can take more than that.’

Grim work.

Blood slicked the loose-laid wood floor. The surgery stank of urine and excrement and mud. And wood and alcohol and sweat. Sweat. It dripped from every one of Naida’s pores, soaked into her headband and ran down her arms. Every canvas window and door was open to the sultry summer’s afternoon. Still it was stifling. So much suffering humanity, so many medics, so much boiling water.

Fighting echoed from the battlefield, reminding everyone in the surgery of six tables and a dozen prep-beds that they were patching up soldiers just for them to come straight back with another hole or gash or shattered limb. On five tables, surgeons cleaned and sewed the simpler cases, calling on Naida only if they had to. Her table, in the centre of the circle, was surrounded by observers, off-duty surgeons trying to glean some teaching from her deft movements, to absorb her unique understanding of human physiology.

And Naida was exceptional, she allowed herself that. She had dedicated her life to understanding how the human body worked, with the express purpose of saving lives others thought unsavable. So here she was, hands deep in Hazza’s back, her mind open, using her Talent to examine his wound, knowing that none of those crowded around her could ever hope to see the tendrils of the lumbar nerves that she would soon rejoin to allow him to walk again.

So, whenever she narrated her surgery, her direction was necessarily threaded with lies. Lies to save her life, while she used the Talent within her to save the lives of others. There were rumours, naturally. Naida even encouraged them, played up to them, in the knowledge it was the surest way to puncture them.

Hazza’s breathing was regular, his pulse strong, unconscious under the ministrations of dwale, a draft of mandragora, resentha petals and opium. Naida plucked tiny threads of cloth from the wound with delicate tweezers, signalling for hot sponges to clean the deep slash that ran from his right hip and across his lumbar spine. Sometimes lying to the victim was the best short-term strategy. This was a ragged wound, despite what she’d told him, and had she not been there it would have been mortal.

‘Now the wound is clean, I can redress the area surrounding the discs, clearing a path to allow the severed nerve to reconnect. He must be still for the healing to take place.’

The lie was an easy one. Scalpel in one hand, Naida eased a string of flesh aside and laid her free hand atop the soldier’s spine, tendrils of warmth running from her thumb and forefinger to the trailing ends of the nerve. And while she made a play of easing Hazza’s insides back into some form of order within the wound, she gently brought thumb and forefinger together. His body was deeply enough anaesthetised that his lower body didn’t react, but the energy flow was complete, or complete enough, once again.

‘It’s the best that can be done. And so, we move into the hope phase.’ Naida smiled and signalled for needle and thread. ‘This will be quite a scar.’

‘Dammit!’ The exclamation from Sennoch, one of her surgeons at another table, held fear. ‘Naida! Quickly, the bleeding …’

Naida pointed at Hazza. ‘Sew him up, Kella. Make him beautiful.’

She moved quickly to the next table where she could see blood surging from the stomach cavity of a soldier who’d come in with an arrow deep in her gut.

‘Pressure on the rupture,’ she said. ‘How?’

‘Removing the head,’ said Sennoch. ‘Must have nicked something on the way out.’

‘Or the head had pierced deeper than you thought.’ She looked into the wound and tried not to react, choosing another gentle lie instead. ‘It’s not as bad as you think, Sennoch. Plenty of blood in all this intestinal nonsense just waiting an opportunity to get out.’

Naida felt the surgeon relax. She picked up a steel-faced wooden clamp, leaned in to fit it while placing her palm over the cut intestine and feeding her essence into the damage, allowing the clamp to snick shut just as her true work was done and the blood-flow lessened almost to nought.

‘Clean the wound, then clean it again. Infection is death, we all know that.’ Naida laid a hand on the surgeon’s forearm. ‘This is no fault on you, Sennoch. Next time let the blood-flow show you where you need to apply the fix. You have more time than you think.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you. This soldier’s life was saved because you called, and it is the saving that matters, not the manner of it.’

‘Ever and so,’ said Sennoch.

Naida looked around the tables. More would come to fill them. The fighting would go on until dusk and maybe beyond if either side felt they could press for victory. She toured the triage beds, assessing the work to come. Nothing here right now demanded her attention. Conventional means would suffice.

‘I’ll be in my tent if you need me,’ she said. ‘Recharging for the next wave.’

A few muted laughs saw her out into the fresh air and Naida’s first lungful felt like a cascade of cleansing cold water through her body, flushing away the sharp taint of blood and the stenches of effluence and pain. She pushed a bloody hand through her hair, reminded herself she had to bathe sometime and walked slowly to her pavilion, which was pitched very close to the surgery. Too close when she craved a long, idle walk.

Oh, for one of those. Naida smiled to herself and gazed across the sprawling camp beneath the clear sky, its flags and banners snapping in the occasional gust of wind. The generals’ pavilions were a little further up the rise, sheltered from the breeze that carried the powerful smells of livestock and horses. She always thought it a shame that so many soldiers chose to burn dung rather than seek wood. It rather tainted the food.

At the entrance to her pavilion – the lordly style of tent made more humble by being pitched among the people she was trying to save – Naida stopped at the sound of a roar rolling down from the battlefield. Every head turned towards the noise.

‘I hope that’s us,’ she said to the sky before pushing the flap aside and walking into her tiny square of calm, knowing she might be called out again before she’d slept a wink.

Inside, it was a sparse affair. A cot and mattress boasting a tangled sheet and rough blanket; a desk covered in papers; a rack for hanging her very few clothes; a battered trunk of possessions and three chairs arranged around an unmade fire pit. Some old rugs covered about half the dirt floor, and a single decorative tapestry hung behind her bed.

Home.

Naida thought to head over to the cook fires for some hot water for tea, but instead sat at the desk, poured a mug of water from the jug, and stared at her papers. Requests for more staff, mostly refused; requests for equipment, mostly refused; standing orders, meetings and agendas. It was all so many random ink squiggles right now.

Naida blew a thin stream of air through her lips. It had been a day and a night since she’d last lain on her tangle of a bed. Not a good state for a surgeon. She drained her water, stood and shook out her bedclothes, pulled off her boots and lay down.

‘You are Naida,’ she whispered. ‘Never forget that.’

Every night, she had to remind herself or fear speaking in her sleep and betraying herself. Because she wasn’t Naida. She was the most hunted woman in Suurken. The only daughter of genocidal monsters. An Esselrode. Too terrified to use her Talent for years because they were looking for a Gifted girl her age, and later, a Gifted woman her age.

And now, after years hiding in the army, she couldn’t admit her gift to anyone. The psychological barrier was unscalable, the risk that a careless word would bring her enemies to her door was too great. Every morning she awoke afraid, only able to quash her fears when she knew she was Naida for another day.

She dredged herself from the chains of sleep, eyes opening to her lantern-lit desk. Fruit and bread sat on a plate next to the light, along with a covered bowl of what she guessed would be soup, almost certainly long-cold. The camp was quiet but for the flap of tent canvas in the breeze, the chatter of guards on patrol and the occasional cry or moan from the infirmary. The distant crackle of a fire.

Shattered throne, she’d slept through the army’s return.

Naida raised herself on arms heavy with the memory of rest. Her pavilion had been tidied, her spare blanket folded at the end of her cot and her clothes rehung or laid out for her. She smiled knowing who had visited. She swung her legs over the edge of the cot and stood carefully, trying to work out how long she’d slept.

The answer was on a note left on her desk beneath her rearing-horse paperweight. She recognised the delicate handwriting:

The day was neither won nor lost. We thought to wake you but Sennoch organised battlefield teams and triage. All who survived into surgery still live. Today was a good day. Fresh clothes for tomorrow are laid out for you, as is the dress outfit for your evening being bored to death by our esteemed commander and whichever crusty old soldier is coming to pin another medal on you. Do you have space on your chest for one more?

I’ll wake you at dawn. Go back to bed, I know you’re reading this in the middle of the night.

As ever yours, my love,

Drevien.

Naida chuckled. Just for a moment, she considered undressing and going back to bed, but there were rounds to be made. She stepped outside, where Drevien was waiting.

‘It’s almost like I know you,’ said Drevien. Three red stripes on her sand-coloured overalls indicated her rank: an infirmary shift sergeant, known as a ‘wardlord’. The overalls were covered in stains, not limited to the blood and vomit of her patients.

‘It’s almost like you’re making a blatantly obvious point with your filthy rags.’

‘You need rest,’ said Drevien.

‘I need to keep my patients alive.’

‘I’m going to carve that on the plinth of your statue, right after I’ve polished the heroic glint in your eyes to a blinding dazzle.’

Naida kissed her. ‘Thank you for caring.’

‘Someone’s got to.’ Drevien wrinkled her nose at her. ‘Come on, let’s go see all the sleeping people. Then you can return to bed satisfied you’ve discharged your stupid-hour-of-the-night duties that are already covered by the night-shift organisation you signed off three days ago.’

‘You know, I’m in charge here and that is definitely insubordination,’ said Naida. Drevien looked around her while turning full circle. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking for someone who cares.’

Naida burst out laughing, turning the heads of guards and groups of reserves congregated round the nearby dung fires. She waved an apology.

On the hot night, the infirmary tent doors were tied aside and the tent skirt was brailed up. Lighting was low and soft, and the stoves keeping the water hot had been moved outside. Naida toured every bed, noting and reducing fevers with a gentle touch to the brow; checking dressings and requesting changes where she could sense infection gathering. She spoke softly to any who could not sleep, or who had been woken for medication.

Drevien followed her. ‘They believe you’ll make them better while they sleep.’

‘Belief is infectious, we could do with an epidemic of it.’

Naida paused by Hazza and fetched a pin from the dressings kit on her belt. She moved the light sheet from his feet and pushed the pin gently into his left big toe pad. One eye opened and he regarded her, his mouth turned up in a wry smile.

‘I am awake, you know.’

‘What on earth for?’ asked Naida.

‘When you think you’ll never be able to feel your feet or stand on your own two legs again, and some miracle-worker turns your darkness into light, sleep seems such a waste.’

‘All I did was create the conditions. Your body did all the heavy lifting.’

There were tears in Hazza’s eyes. The weathered, scarred face that had seen more campaigns than Naida had seen patients, was flushed in embarrassment.

‘Sorry,’ he said, clearing his throat, voice gruff.

She patted his foot. ‘What for? You thought you were done. Turns out you’re not. If it was me, I’d be drowning in a lake of my own tears.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, swallowing and smiling while the tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘It is a pretty good feeling.’

Naida clasped his proffered hand. ‘Well, don’t get ideas about strapping your leather back on just yet. You’ve a journey ahead before you can fight again.’

‘Aye, but I’ll be able to walk into the arms of my family. It’s all that matters.’

Naida’s heart missed a beat. She knew she was beaming. Her mind clutched the joy she felt, holding it tight to her. But it would slip from her grasp when new blood was spilled, like it always did.

‘Please don’t fight again.’

‘You know I can’t do that,’ said Hazza.

Naida shrugged. ‘Never hurts to ask. Right, I can go back to bed now.’

Drevien was beside her again. ‘I’ll confess this was probably worth your while.’

‘How gracious of you.’

‘Come on, I’ll tuck you in.’

‘You could stay.’

‘I’m on shift and you would be terrible company.’

They kissed and Naida held Drevien’s embrace allowing the weariness to settle on her, though her mind was ablaze with Hazza’s words, and where they would sit in the pantheon of justifications for everything she did and why … how … she did it.

By the time she reached her cot, sleep all but owned her and she needed Drevien’s help to strip off her boots, shirt and trousers. Her tent was hot despite every opening being pinned back, and the air was still, carrying each sound as sharp as the moment it was made. She summoned up the energy to drag Drevien into a final tender kiss.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘It’s what I’m here for, my love,’ said Drevien. ‘Now, please, will you rest.’

Naida just about had the awareness to consider these were terrible conditions for sleep before her eyes slammed shut.

Naida broke her fast with Drevien, a meal of rye bread, fruit and nettle tea eaten quickly to the sounds of an army on the move and the thundering of hooves. Skirmishes had already started, with clashes from before dawn, but the battle orders left on Naida’s desk in the early hours noted a change of tactics, to break what was in danger of becoming a messy stalemate.

There was to be no pause, the change was immediate. The medics were going to be busy. While Drevien trotted off to check the triage wagons and brief the stretcher teams and battlefield medics on their new plans, Naida sought out her veterinary peer. She found him at the forward quartermaster’s stores, arguing for more gear.

‘… are expected to run around behind the infantry lines, right in front of enemy archers, moving injured – and therefore slow – horses, and you think we don’t need either helm on our head, nor shield strapped to our back?’

‘You bloody fetlock-massagers are all alike. You know full well, Elmridge, that my stocks of armour are near zero and that everyone who joins this army provides their own armour and weapons.’ Master Gorvan, a veteran of every sob-story ever conceived, regarded Elmridge with a painful absence of sympathy. ‘All I do is replace damaged stuff, which I can send to my smithy for repair and return to my stores.’

Elmridge, a tall strong man with the deftest of touch with animals, stared straight back. ‘So I should take the armour from the dead, to trade with you?’

‘Or to wear, if it fits,’ said Gorvan. ‘Either is better than turning up here expecting something for nothing. My advice is to stand in the lee of your crippled nags while you lead them from the field.’

‘When I need advice on battlefield safety from a man who hasn’t set foot on one for twenty years, I’ll come right to your cook fire.’

‘You’re getting nothing from me. I don’t have the stock.’

‘If I die today, do me the decency of feeling you played a part in my demise.’

‘I shall sing a lament over your rotting corpse, Elmridge.’

Naida had listened as long as she could. Horns had sounded. The enemy had begun their full approach. Suurkene soldiers and riders ran or rode to muster points. Orders fought to be heard.

‘Luckily your singing is enough to return the dead to life, Gorvan,’ she said.

‘Lady Naida, is there anything I can give you? I need nothing in return.’ Gorvan’s wink was as theatrical as his grin was wide.

‘I have everything I need,’ said Naida, turning to Elmridge. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Yes, save me from this cruellest of men who would see my body a pincushion merely to hear the groan of his shelves beneath the weight of his stocks.’

‘Ale tonight?’ asked Gorvan.

‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ said Elmridge. He gestured towards the battlefield. ‘Shall we talk as we walk?’

Naida led the way out of the stores and back towards the infirmary where her team were assembled and wagons, with oxen in their traces, vibrated to the trembling of the ground beneath them.

‘Will it work?’ asked Naida, waving the note from her desk in front of him. Elmridge was a keen student of battlefield tactics, particularly the actions of cavalry, and was often invited to tactical debates as an expert contributor.

‘It stands a chance,’ said Elmridge. ‘But casualties will be high in the early thrusts. We’ll know quickly if we can press any advantage, and from there a rout of the enemy is likely. We have to be aware of the risks to ourselves, particularly in the first contacts.’

‘Agreed,’ said Naida. ‘Things I need you to do: don’t try moving horses you know you can’t save. They can shield my people. I’m bringing the wagons into the thick of it, and we’ve armoured the oxen as best we can. They can protect your people too. Walking injured can stay safe by the horses you are taking. Use anything you need, we have plenty.’

‘Good for you.’ He was a little short.

‘Being me has its advantages.’

Elmridge smiled. ‘Good for you.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think when we work together more lives are saved.’

‘Are you at this dinner tonight?’ asked Naida.

‘Survival-permitting.’

‘Such optimism.’

‘There?