Finally, mercifully, the sergeant shuddered and lay still. The enemy took another couple of shots at her, until the amusement palled. Winter tried to pick out the faces of the men who’d been laughing, but it was too far. She forced herself to swallow, feeling the muscles of her jaw ache where they’d been locked tight.

“Cyte!” she barked.

“Sir?”

“Tell Abby to send a company into those buildings and find me a spot where I can see over that thing.”

Cyte saluted and hurried off.

Let’s see what kind of trap they’re so eager we rush into.

*   *   *

A few minutes later, on the roof of what had been an animal feed shop, Winter stood with Cyte, Lieutenant Marsh, and a few women of his company. They’d found the building abandoned, and Winter had been escorted up the back stairs, through kicked-open doors and the messy hallways of a residence quickly abandoned. The proprietor and his family had lived above the shop, but had presumably sought safer quarters when the barricade went up.

From this vantage point, three stories up, Winter could see the whole curving arc of barricade. It was lightly held, with only a few hundred men in total spread along its length. Enough that they’d take casualties storming it, but not enough to stop a determined charge.

But, a few hundred yards back, a much larger body of men waited. There were a thousand or more of them, bunched in small groups at the north end of the square. Unlike the men at the barricade, they didn’t wear the sashes of the Patriot Guard; all Winter could see that resembled a uniform were blue armbands.

“Some kind of militia?” Cyte guessed, looking down at the milling mass.

“Seems like a safe assumption,” Winter said. “They’re certainly not holding any kind of formation.”

“Not many muskets,” Marsh said, peering intently. “A few pikes.”

“Nasty,” Cyte said. “Put just enough real troops on the barricade, taunt us into charging, then counterattack with that lot when we’re halfway over. If they time it right they could do a lot of damage.”

Winter frowned. It was a devious way to use poor-quality troops, especially if you didn’t particularly care how many of them came back. I wonder if they realize that?

“Bobby’s back,” Marsh said, looking over at the Girls’ Own. “And I think Archer is with her.”

“Good,” Winter said. “Hold this position, and I’ll have Archer send one of his officers up as a spotter.”

Marsh saluted, and Winter turned about and pounded down the stairs. Her heart felt as if it were full of ice, and the rage that Graff and all the others expressed so openly burned at the back of her mind like a banked flame. She wondered if Janus ever felt like this—he was always so outwardly calm, but he had to feel something.