“Only to win the battle for him.” Winter blew out a breath and tried to picture things unfolding as Janus had explained in his note. The battalions marching with fluttering flags, the guns coughing smoke and flames. “We’re on the left end of the Hamveltai line, and they don’t know we’re here. He’s going to bait them into attacking his center, and while the battle’s going on we’re supposed to descend on their flank and send Give-Em-Hell into their rear.”

They looked out at the field in silence for a while.

“Sounds like a fine plan,” Sevran said cautiously. “Except that it requires di Pfalen to be so idiotic as to not take any precautions.”

“Like sending someone up here to occupy these woods,” Abby said. “I certainly would.”

“Janus thinks he’ll send at least a regiment of yellowjackets,” Winter said. “However, he’s ‘confident that a sudden attack, launched from under cover, will put them to flight.’”

This time it was Jane who broke the silence. “I don’t know if we’ll be up to delivering an attack, sudden or otherwise. The soldiers we’ve got left are going to be exhausted. I don’t want to run my girls down, but nobody is ready for a fucking bayonet charge after walking a hundred miles in four days in the rain.”

Sevran nodded agreement. “We won’t have the strength.”

“We have to try,” Abby said. “What else did we come all this way for?”

“We have to try something,” Winter said. “Janus wants us on their flank, but I don’t think he cares how we get there. I have an idea, but I want you all to tell me what you think . . .”

*   *   *

It was nearly midnight before Winter returned to the camp, to find that the slow trickle of haggard infantrymen and their cavalry escorts had nearly come to a stop. A patrol of four horsemen trotted up to the camp, with three women riding behind them. Winter recognized Anne-Marie’s blond curls first, and then identified the other two as Joanna and Barley.

“Are those three all right?” she shouted to the lead cuirassier.

“Just tired, I think,” he called back. “When we found them the big one and the little one were carrying the blonde between them.”

At least some of the recruits made it, then. Winter found herself smiling.

“You’ve got some tough ladies in this regiment, sir,” one of the other cavalrymen said. “Hell if I’d have been able to walk through the shit we’ve seen on the road.”

“Wait until you see them in action tomorrow,” Winter said. “You’d better get some sleep if you want to keep up.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” the leader said. “We’ll give ’em hell.”