Where are they? She passed along groups of soldiers and medics huddled on the camp perimeter, but did not hear the voices for which she was listening.

Finally, ahead of her, a voice made her pause.

"So I was down, reloading, and we were holding the enemy back still- you were there, you know what happened, right?"

"That's when everyone started yelling, wasn't it?"

"I hear the yells too, and I look up and then the enemy's calvary was charging!"

Some nearby gasped.

"And while they were charging, I give up on the cartridge- they're coming too fast. Some went down or lost their horses in the gunfire, but a good number got through. So I just snap my bayonet into place instead..." Kyle broke off as Shira approached close enough for them each to see the vague outline of each other's pale face.

"Glad to see you made it!" Kyle laughed, but laughed as if at the end of a mean joke. "Now just about everyone's here."

Shira crouched down in the small, huddled group. She couldn't read anyone's face.

"I told you I'd sing victory songs for you, Shira. Want to hear? I don't have my guitar, but..."

"...Not really, not now."

"Okay, I was just telling everyone about-"

"I heard a little. Keep going."

"So I fixed my bayonet..."

Shira became aware of another voice. "You know, Anne, how sometimes soldiers get disoriented after a battle and take a while to find the rest of the army and catch up."

"I know." Anne's voice was very low and soft.

"Someone knocked the rider off with... well, I don't know what..." Kyle continued animatedly.

Shira leaned over to the soldier who had been sitting quietly next to her and whispered as softly as she could into his ear.

"Hey, who're they talking to Anne about?"

"Then the horse reared..."

"Ah... I forget his name... Janni, that's right. He was a soldier in sixteenth squad, he was tall and pretty much kept to himself... Anne knew him a long time, apparently. Missing in action, you know how it is."

"The hooves were less than this far from my head!"

A second woman's voice spoke to Anne. "Or sometimes soldiers are taken prisoner but then escape, or are freed by our armies even."

"Wow, Kyle!" A woman laughed. "Guess you're lucky to be telling us this now, eh?"

"I know," Anne answered, in the same voice as before.

"You know that Anne's been here longer than just about any of us?" the soldier told Shira. "Practically since the beginning of the war. When she first started working as a medic, she was younger than you."

"But I jumped out of the way of the horse and then I was on top of the calvary man. He was all trimmed out, must've been an officer."

Shira stood without a sound and walked away from the camp.

The perimeter of the camp was not so thickly guarded that Shira could not go into the woods without someone questioning her. She walked until a tree blocked her path, and then she put her arms around it and leaned her forehead against it, so that the bark pressed grooves into her skin.

I don't want to be here. At the School of Mages, Shira had gone out to a certain stone balcony over a little-used courtyard to think sometimes, before she had made herself stop. She closed her eyes and she felt the cool stone railing of the balcony beneath her hands. She saw Anne's cot in front of her, as if she lay in bed late at night in the training compound, whispering to Anne. She even heard the hubbub of Barrack Four. I don't want to be here.

Shira was too far from the camp to hear anyone's voice. Among the trees, its seemed to Shira that her sobs were very loud.