Cageaga groaned and gave a twisted smile. “You are a poor liar, little brother. You always were.”

“And you talk too much, old man. Save your breath.”

A shout went up behind them. Hawkwood looked towards the source in time to see a dark-clad figure, long gun in hand.

Quade.

And then the smoke closed around the bastard and he was gone. But there would be others in attendance. Awkwardly, Hawkwood looped his own gun over his back and, taking Cageaga’s carbine, he placed an arm around the wounded man’s shoulder. “On your feet.”

Cageaga groaned and then coughed. Pain contorted his features. A line of pink froth oozed from between his lips and trickled down the corner of his mouth.

“Get up!” Hawkwood said sharply.

Cageaga grimaced and then spat. “I can taste blood. I think my insides are bleeding.”

“Hold on to me,” Hawkwood said. “We can make it together.”

“To where, little brother?”

Hawkwood’s stomach contracted. It had been a simple question, yet Cageaga was right. The blood he was coughing up indicated that the ball could well have penetrated a lung, in which case the wound was fatal.

In the Peninsula, there had been times when Hawkwood had left injured men behind, knowing they’d have a better chance of survival if they were taken prisoner and cared for by French surgeons the same way that, by unwritten agreement, French wounded were treated by British field surgeons. In the current theatre, however, no such etiquette would apply. A rabid dog stood a better chance of survival than a captured Mohawk, especially one who’d led a scalping party against American troops. Confirmation of that had been the isolated, single musket shots that had sounded behind them. They meant Quade’s men had found wounded warriors and were administering their own version of the last rites.

He looked for the other Mohawk but they were no longer in view. Only the tracks of their moccasins were visible. A ball thudded into an adjacent stump. Another quick glance over his shoulder revealed a glimpse of a blue uniform jinking through a break in the trees, then another, and another, accompanied by a flash of scarlet collar.

Quade?

When he’d glanced back the first time, the major’s stance had made it safe to assume that he, Hawkwood, had been in Quade’s sights when he’d pulled the trigger and not Cageaga. Which begged the question: how long had he known that Hawkwood was alive and a participant in – if not the instigator of – the ambush at the bridge?