Redemption by Anne Osterlund

Author:Anne Osterlund
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anne Osterlund
Published: 2015-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

BATTLE

No sign of the desert scouts. Aurelia shifted in her saddle and swept a futile gaze from the dense spruce on the right side of the Northern Road, across the tight-marching ranks of Valerian’s men in front of her, and through the equally compressed forest to her left. Nothing disturbed the advance of southbound travel. No ripple in the ranks. No shouts of concern. No unanticipated return of the three men she had secretly ordered ahead only two days ago. All of which should have comforted her.

She urged Falcon to the road’s edge, waited as the frontiersmen passed, and pulled her mare up alongside Horizon at the rear. Robert rode beside her in silence, as though waiting for her to speak.

She clasped the back of her neck with her hand. Her anxiety, like her discomfort about the battle plans, hovered beyond words, as though trapped behind the fog that still haunted her from the fight on the frontier. She had ridden into that battle naïve and useless, a memory that had stalked her every day since. And through every discussion. She had realized she needed counsel—the expertise of men who knew weapons and tactics and how to lead. She had tried to listen, to learn from others’ advice, to ask questions. To respect her council’s expertise.

But the fog had failed to clear. And the advice from the last meeting continued to chafe.

She slowed her mare; Horizon slowed as well.

“Something felt wrong,” she said, struggling to explain to Robert, “about the idea that you can’t fight a battle in the middle of the forest.”

“It’s good logic, Aurelia.”

That was the problem. In her final confrontation with her sister there had been no rationality. Melony’s eyes had been feral, her voice filled with hysteria. The accusations raw. With grief? Yes. Her sister’s perfect veneer had fragmented at Chris’s death. But beneath that grief had been no hint of remorse. Aurelia’s instincts churned. Of course her stepfather’s prediction was good logic—that the army would select their ground and wait.

But the plan was too rational. It implied that Melony would listen to her generals. And Aurelia didn’t believe her sister would listen. If she had listened to military expertise, she never would have allowed Anthone across the desert.

Nothing about Melony was logical.

She preferred the ulterior.

The underhanded.

The unbalanced.

Aurelia lifted her reins. She had fallen victim to the same error for which she had blamed Robert. The failure to value her own knowledge. She had asked questions at the council meeting but failed to provide her own insight. Into her sister.

“Robert, we need to hold another—”

The forward ranks exploded with musket fire.

Falcon reared, and Aurelia tightened her grip, then shortened her reins as the horse came down.

Another volley of muskets. Followed by cacophony: shouts, drums, whistles, pounding boots, and the war cry of the desert tribes.

An attack. Her epiphany had come too late.

Falcon spun in circles, the world blurring. Men, wagons, other horses: all consumed by the blue-green mass of the forest.

A hand reached for the mare’s halter.

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