He rode through the tight-packed men before the tent, shouting for them to give him room, then through the looser mass making ready for another attack on the bridge, all the time with one hand on the reins and the order clutched in the other. He should have put it in his pocket, it was only making it harder for him to ride, but he was terrified of losing it. An order from Lord Marshal Kroy himself. This was exactly the kind of thing he’d been hoping for when he first signed up, bright-eyed, was it really only three months ago?

He’d cleared the main body of Mitterick’s division now, their clamour fading behind him. He upped the pace, bending low over his horse’s back, thumping down a patchy track away from the Old Bridge and towards the marshes. He’d have to leave his horse with the picket at the south bank, unfortunately, and cross the bogs on foot to take the order to Vallimir. If he didn’t put a foot wrong and end up taking the order down to Klige instead.

That thought gave him a shudder. His cousin had warned him not to enlist. Had told him wars were upside-down places where good men did worse than bad. Had told him wars were all about rich men’s ambitions and poor men’s graves, and there hadn’t been two honest fellows to strike a spark of decency in the whole company he served with. That officers were all arrogance, ignorance and incompetence. That soldiers were all cowards, braggarts, bullies or thieves. Lederlingen had supposed his cousin to be exaggerating for effect, but now had to admit that he seemed rather to have understated the case. Corporal Tunny, in particular, gave the strong impression of being coward, braggart, bully and thief all at once, as thorough a villain as Lederlingen had laid eyes upon in his life, but by some magic almost celebrated by the other men as a hero. All hail good old Corporal Tunny, the shabbiest cheat and shirker in the whole division!

The track had become a stony path, threading through a gully alongside a stream, or at any rate a wide ditch full of wet mud, trees heavy with red berries growing out over it. The place smelled of rot. It was impossible to ride at anything faster than a bumpy trot. Truly, the soldier’s life took a man to some beautiful and exotic locations.

Lederlingen heaved out a sigh. War was an upside-down place, all right, and he was rapidly coming around to his cousin’s opinion that it was no place for him at all. He would just have to keep his head low, stay out of trouble and follow Tunny’s advice never to volunteer for anything—

‘Ah!’ A wasp had stung his leg. Or that was what he thought at first, though the pain was considerably worse. When he looked down, there was an arrow in his thigh. He stared at it. A long, straight stick with grey and white flights. An arrow. He wondered if someone was playing a joke on him for a moment. A fake arrow. It hurt so much less than he’d ever thought it might. But there was blood soaking into his trousers. It was a real arrow.