Thundering hoof beats crashed into Erin's hearing, so close she could feel the very ground vibrate under the weight, like a deep bass in the earth. A horse whinnied and Erin's eyes flew open to the sight of the animal rearing mere feet away. She and the Huron warrior fell back in surprise. The horse landed with a heavy thump, revealing Cora sat in the saddle, a gun pointed squarely at the man's chest. Without a moments hesitation she squeezed the trigger and a blast of gunpowder and a flash of fire sent the bullet hurtling into the man's body. He gave a strange strangled gasp and collapsed to the ground, dead. Erin shifted herself away from him, eyes wide and terrified, disbelieving what she had just seen, a man's life taken within a split second, a man that had been so willing to end her own life.
"Quickly!" Cora cried, and Erin was up and on her feet, heart in her throat.
Cora whirled the animal about, seeing that the battle was now fully upon them, there was no escape for them on horseback now. With no other choice Cora dismounted and Erin ran to her side.
"Why aren't you with your father?" Erin cried, confused.
"There is no time!" Cora was grabbing her arm and roughly tugging her to follow.
"Why didn't you stay with your father?" Erin resisted, panic and anger flaring in her mind. Cora shouldn't be here! They were meant to be safe, far away, not in the middle of all the conflict, this was all wrong!
Cora didn't reply which just made Erin feel even more alarmed. "Cora! Is your father at least safe?"
Cora glanced back, her grip loosening, a look Erin couldn't quite read clouding her features... was it fear or shame? "Yes, I believe so."
"Why did you come back?!" The question was nearly screamed. Erin violently pulled away, her nerves frayed beyond reckoning, breaths heaving from her in great gasps as fear, exhaustion and distress battled to win out as her main emotion.
Cora shook her head, her eyes looking suddenly watery. "Alice..."
The name was a sudden rude awakening. "What?! Where is she? Isn't she with your father?!" Erin had grabbed hold of Cora and was shaking her as if answers could only be gained with the action.
"No, she was frantic when we rode after the guard." Erin stilled, eyes widening. "she kept saying we needed Duncan, that we needed to go back!" Cora cried out the words, then bit her lip, tears welling. "She caught the reins and forced us to slow and then she was off the horse and into the crowd of people. I couldn't stop her!" Cora was wiping at her nose briskly, trying to fight back the desire to abandon all hope and collapse in despair.
The horror of the situation trickled through Erin like ice water over her skin. She wanted to scream at Cora for the plan going awry, but it wasn't Cora's fault. Unfortunately this fact did not help the growing panic forming within Erin's mind, her chest tightened, she couldn't breath and-
'All you can do is your best.' Her innermost self pushed out the words, her voice, but not her voice, Erin's father was there too, and suddenly her nerves calmed, the anxiety ebbing away as if he were stood with her right in this moment, kind smile and warm eyes.
Erin's father had always given such soothing advice in times of great unrest in her life, and she clung to the principle, taking a deep breath in, knowing she had to at least feign control in this moment. Cora needed her, she couldn't allow herself to fall apart, she had to do her best.
"It's okay, we'll find her," Erin reassured, having no idea how they would accomplish this task, but the fear was only a dull wave somewhere at the back of her mind now.
"I couldn't stop her, Erin," Cora repeated, clearly bewildered and caught off guard by her younger sibling's actions. "She was terrified and angry and she wouldn't listen to anything I said!"
"It's okay," Erin said again and reached out, a warm plan given as comfort, the action seeming to act as a sedative as Cora found herself again, blinking away tears.
Erin scanned the area around them. Alice surely couldn't have gotten too far.
"Then I saw that man dragging you away, so... I came to help you."
Erin turned back to look at Cora, tears still threatened and emotion swelled. Erin felt like shouting and sobbing in the emotion of the moment, knowing full well if Cora had not come back, she would be lying dead in a pool of her own blood right now, but also knowing they had all been so very close to surviving this, to things changing!
She threw herself into Cora's arms, hugging her tightly, quelling all the emotions back with huge effort. "Thank you." They parted, knowing there was no time for this. "Alice, she may try to find Duncan."
Cora nodded.
They ran.
The battle swarmed around them, seeming to engulf more and more space as factions divided, lines fell and men fought men in desperate survival. It felt like a spreading sea encompassing all, unrelenting and merciless, ready to swallow any that ventured too close to its bloody depths.
They kept vigilant, calling out Alice's name into the fray of noise and chaos. Stopping only a moment to look and then moving again before unfriendly eyes could find them.
The way was hard and fraught with danger, they ran, dodging men and avoiding any that looked like they may do them harm. They stepped over lifeless bodies more times than Erin wanted to begin counting. The flash of familiar red coats could be glimpsed, the soldiers were fighting back as hard as they could, along with their Mohawk allies and the militia. Erin saw a good few women armed with muskets who were grimly taking their self protection into their own two hands. Although it was not changing the tide of the battle completely, it seemed less like something that could be termed a full on massacre.
Duncan was there in the distance, commanding a force of men that seemed to be holding ground at that moment, the strains of the order 'Prime! Load! Present! Fire!' once more becoming like a chant in the humid thick smoke filled air. Despite their valiant efforts, more warriors continued to pour out of the forest, soon this whole area would be overrun.
Erin knew with a sad certainty there would be no victory for the English. The tide could not be turned enough to make a true difference, no matter how prepared the soldiers had been. This outcome could never have been avoided, not without those damn reinforcements from General Webb. She tried not to feel completely disheartened but it was almost an impossible task, as she suddenly felt everything she'd done here had been for so very little. What if everything she did had no meaning? What if she couldn't save Alice or Uncas at all? Every push she gave, fate seemed to push back twice as hard.
Distracted by her own turbulent thoughts Erin saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flash of gold, wind fluttering dark blond hair in all the throng of bodies. Her senses pricked.
"There!" Erin cried to Cora, who turned and understood immediately.
"Alice!" Cora's expression was full of trepidation as she changed direction, her eyes finding her sister in a heartbeat. "Alice!"
There, only a short distance away, stood young Alice Munro, her hair blazing its soft golden gleam in the high sunlight.
Cora was running to her but Erin saw the look upon the young girl's face and her own certain steps flagged, her breath catching. Alice looked unmoored, her whole slender body a bundle of clenched terror, eyes haunted, her bottom lip trembling as if she was freezing cold. Erin followed her wide gaze to where some poor young English solider was being callously cut down, a tomahawk tearing into his stomach in a spray of crimson. As the man lay gasping his last breaths like a fish upon land the attacker bent, grabbed his defeated opponent's head, and with expert ease scalped him in one fluid bloody line.
Erin looked away, unable to continue watching, acid rising up her throat as her mind tried in vain to comprehend the horrors before her.
Alice took a small step back, terrified, as if she could somehow back away into another reality, and then Cora was with her, arms around her, pushing and guiding her away. Alice stumbled, a dazed expression upon her features, but Cora was insistent, calling out to Erin, and soon they were running again, then halting, avoiding and running.
Erin thought hard as they ran, trying to find some form of shelter, they had so few options. They couldn't return back to the fort, of this she was sure, right now it would be being ransacked, the poor souls left in the hospital slaughtered. The French camp was also dangerous, asking for sanctuary was possible, but the road there would be filled with hostile enemies and the French may turn a blind eye to their plea, it would be so much easier to allow them to fall dead than have to deal with hostages. Relying upon the known name of Munro and their link to a English Colonel may make the way easier but they would first have to be heard. It was too risky.
They could perhaps still try and follow Colonel Munro, but they could no longer ride, the horse abandoned in the waves of bodies. They had no hope of catching up to him on foot, and now Erin could see they would have to pass through a fray of violence to even find the path again.
That left only one possibility. The lake. It would closely follow the story she knew, continuing as it did in the book, there was a chance that if that happened, Alice and Uncas could still die. It was a gamble she loathed to take, even if she had made some some minor changes here, she still hadn't changed things enough! Men and women still died all around them, Magua still hunted them, and death hung its blade every closer to their throats. With a shiver Erin knew Magua would find them. He, or one of his men, could have seen Cora's return, Alice's dash into the battle. He would be looking for them even as they ran. In that moment she also knew Uncas would find them too, fate was playing with her, making her dance to its tune.
She shook herself from the thoughts, there was no time for pondering, questions or advice, death seemed to await them at every turn as they blindly followed each other to some unknown respite. Suddenly a man, war painted and huge, was blocking their path, rising from a fresh kill, his face splattered with blood. Cora didn't think, she bent to the ground, clutching at a pistol that had yet to be discharged, she aimed, fired, and the man fell down, no longer a threat. The distraction had been mere moments, but it had been enough for them to become adrift from each other by a short distance, this had given a nearby warrior chance to see Alice, drawn by her golden hair, the beauty of it becoming his target.
As Cora and Erin scrambled to find each other's eyes again they noticed him, he was upon the willowy young girl within two large footfalls, his hand grasping her face so softly that it looked almost like a tender gesture. Alice didn't react, dazed like a lamb being led to slaughter. He turned her face to him, his weapon already held high, ready to strike.
"No!" Cora was upon him in a second, the pistol now used as a blunt weapon as she brought blows down, determined to stop him.
It worked, he tossed Alice to one side, all his attention focused upon this woman who dared attack him. He grabbed her up like she was no more than a rag doll, pushing her down to the ground, winding her, and then dragging her back upon her knees, his weapon coming to her throat.
Erin had been frozen through these few seconds, as if watching a horrific movie reel, but as Cora's wild and frightened eyes found hers, she moved, her body awake and committed, as the cold realization came that if she did not stop this, Cora would die.
Her feet were moving before any plan had formed, her hands reached, grasped, and found his long hair. She violently pulled with all her might, yanking him backwards as they both fell from the force, and in his surprise his grip on Cora was gone, she rolled away.
Erin's mind thrummed with panic as the ground came to meet her back in a jerk of impact, the man already trying to gain control as he flailed, striking out towards her with his weapon, seeking her in revenge. But the off kilter momentum made his body clumsy and he only managed a shallow cut to her cheek, the shock causing her to cry out at the unexpected pain.
He was up on his feet in a blink of an eye, before Erin had regained any of her senses. She could see Cora reaching towards Alice, calling her sister's name, unaware in that moment of the very real and present danger Erin herself was currently in.
The man was on top of her before she could cry out for help, pushing the air from her chest and pinning her down with his weight. Erin fought in those frantic next few seconds, she lashed out with arms and legs, gnashing her teeth, until she caught the arm he wielded his tomahawk with in both her hands, forcing it back before he could plunge it into her chest.
But he was so much stronger than she, and he was going to win this fight, she knew it with a furious conviction yet still she was intent on defying this man. She bared her teeth at him, huffing strained breaths with every fibre she had. He was already forcing his arm down, the sharp heavy weapon getting closer, and then to add insult to injury, his free hand wrapped around her throat, stilling any cries she was about to make for aid, and once more squeezing the breath from her. Black spots began to dance into her vision, her world becoming a strange rippling mass of images, like the air on a hot day that wavers up from asphalt. Her arms felt heavy, so heavy, the effort of holding him back becoming too much to bear. Somewhere in her mind she could hear Cora desperately calling out for her, her name a far off cry that sounded so similar to the one she'd heard in the corridors of Fort William Henry as she'd been dragged to the cells. The urge to close her eyes and give in was so strong...
In a flurry of sound and movement the Huron warrior's form was swatted from her like a fly. Reality flew back into Erin's senses painfully, the cry that had been bubbling in her throat was let out as a hoarse hacking cough, hand going to her neck. She watched as the man who had been about to kill her gave a writhe of his limbs and then was still, a tomahawk buried in his side, Nathaniel stood over him, sweat slick and breathing hard. Without waiting to see if she was alright he pulled the weapon out with a harsh movement and rushed into Cora's arms, they embraced, holding each other in the mayhem.
Erin felt a warm hand grasp under her upper arm and looked up to see Uncas kneeling over her, he gave her a steady look and then pulled her to her feet. Erin wanted to turn to him, bury her head into his chest and cry, but there was no time for anything but to run. Chingachgook was at Alice's side, guiding her, and so they battled their way through the warfare, taking out only those in their path, a destination set. The lake.
Erin's steps faltered, she couldn't help herself and the morose feeling that the sight of Lake George caused her. Her wrist was still clasped in Uncas' grip and her hesitation slowed him too, they lagged behind the others. His eyes sought hers in a silent agitated question.
"The river," Erin puffed out, the flight through the melee making her thoroughly out of breath. She hoped those words were enough for him to understand her meaning, that he remembered all of the story she had told him.
His brows pulled together, dark eyes serious. He nodded once. "Only way." He tugged her sharply, not giving her any more time for foolish protests.
/
A/N
Hello, Friday again.
I know this story has fallen a little back into the linear storyline, but I hope I'm re-telling it from a perspective that makes it feel interesting. It will hopefully still have some surprises awaiting you.
When I originally wrote this story in 2020, I re-read quite a few books on the siege and I wanted so badly to include the stories of the people who experienced this event, the English, the French, the militia, the many different versions that have all become one big mash of fact and fiction. I know a few of these stories made it into the script of LOTM, such as the story of the French soldiers who tried to intervene in the taking/killing of civilians and were killed themselves. Or the Jesuit, Pere Roubaud, who in the script saves a baby in exchange for his silver cross. Little details like that, I feel would have added much to the telling of this conflict in the movie, but in a way I understand why they may not have been included. They are very one sided versions of what happened and as I'm sure we all know there are three sides to each story, theirs, yours and the truth. There are so many frightfully brutal stories coming from this siege, some that have been discredited (such as the total number of people killed being far less than reported), some have not, I'm sure some are true. War is a brutal beast.
It's not my place or want to say what is true. All I can say is we have very little accounts from the Huron, Abnaki, Ottawa, Mohawk, other BIPOC or the women, who were all involved in this, and as most history, the 'truth' probably lies in the murky land of grey. History is a fascinating and thorny subject. So while I'm fascinated with these accounts I didn't feel I had the time or ability to weave as much nuance as I would of wanted into their telling. I wanted to keep those stories in the realms of 'what Erin had read/heard' in her time, as that is the information we all have.
Until next time.
