Wattling shook his stick. "Are you saying the Mystrian Rangers didn't break on the third day?"

Owen raised his chin and clasped his hands at the small of his back. "I am saying, sir, that they fought as hard as anyone. I was there."

"Then you fled with them. Just another coward."

"Mr. Wattling, have you any practical experience of war?"

Wattling refused to meet his gaze. "The Crown has not required my service."

And you never saw fit to purchase a command. "It rained incessantly during the campaign, sir. The men, Norillians and Colonials alike, were wet and miserable, cold. Half our brimstone was wet, our muskets rusting. Many men were barefoot. This ship's provisions have been far better than any we had in the field. The rains turned everything into a marsh, washed out roads and bridges."

"Soldiers choose their own lot in life, sir."

"They do, so you have to think on the courage of men who, born in Mystria, would answer the Crown's call and board a ship for a land they've never seen. A hundred and eighty men, three companies. Major Forest's had little training or drill, yet by Lord Rivendell's order they were to anchor the left, tight against woods his lordship deemed impassable."

Owen shivered, memories coming back too fast. Brigadier General Richard Ventnor, later made Duke of Deathridge, had fought Rivendell's troops well, pushing hard toward Villerupt. The Tharyngians had given ground and that third day, on the narrow plain of Artennes, it appeared the conflict would be decided.

"You should understand, Mr.Wattling, that in the first two days, the Mystrians acquitted themselves well, acting alongside my troops as skirmishers. At Artennes, the Platine Guards Regiment came through those woods on logging trails-wide logging trails. You remember the Platine Guards. They forced Lord Rivendell off the Continent two years earlier."

Owen didn't wait for the man's response. "A battalion of skirmishers against Tharyngia's elite guards. The Mystrians gave three volleys before they broke. Even then, they regrouped and continued fighting, harassing the Guards."