The Gift of Battle Read Online Free PDF Page B

drop, all the way down to the base of the Ridge. And before her,
she saw a lone platform, empty, waiting for her.
    Stara turned and
looked up at Fithe, staring back at her meaningfully.
    “Are you sure?”
he asked softly. She could see the fear for her in his eyes.
    Stara felt a
streak of apprehension rush through her, but she then thought of Reece, and she
nodded without hesitation.
    He nodded back
at her kindly.
    “Thank you,” she
said. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
    He smiled back.
    “Find the man
you love,” he replied. “If it cannot be me, at least it can be someone else.”
    He took her
hand, kissed it, bowed, and turned and walked away. Stara watched him go, her
heart filled with appreciation for him. If she hadn’t loved Reece the way she
had, perhaps he would be a man she would love.
    Stara turned,
steeling herself, held the horse’s mane, and took the first fateful step onto
the platform. She tried not to look out at the Great Waste, at the journey
before her that would almost certainly mean her death. But she did.
    The ropes
creaked, the platform swayed, and as the soldiers lowered the ropes, one foot
at a time, she began her descent, all alone, into nothingness.
    Reece, she thought ,
I might die. But I will cross the world for you.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Erec stood at
the bow of the ship, Alistair and Strom beside him, and peered down at the
teeming waters of the Empire river below. He watched as the raging current
forked the ship left, away from the channel that would have led them to
Volusia, to Gwendolyn and the others—and he felt torn. He wanted to rescue
Gwendolyn, of course; and yet also had to fulfill his sacred vow to those freed
villagers, to free their neighboring village and wipe out the Empire garrison
nearby. After all, if he did not, then the Empire soldiers would soon kill the
freed men, and all of Erec’s efforts to free them would have been for naught,
leaving their village back in the hands of the Empire once again.
    Erec looked up
and studied the horizon, very conscious of the fact that every passing moment,
every gale of wind, each stroke of the oar, was taking them farther away from
Gwendolyn, from his original mission; and yet sometimes, he knew, one had to
divert from the mission in order to do what was most honorable and right.
Sometimes the mission, he realized, was not always what you thought it was.
Sometimes it was ever-changing; sometimes it was a side journey along the way
that ended up becoming the real mission.
    Still, Erec
resolved inwardly to vanquish the Empire garrison as quickly as possible and
fork back upriver toward Volusia, to save Gwendolyn before it was too late.
    “Sir!” yelled a
voice.
    Erec looked up
to see one of his soldiers, high on the mast, pointing to the horizon. He
turned to see, and as their ship passed a bend in the river and the currents
picked up, Erec’s blood quickened to see an Empire fort, teeming with soldiers,
perched at the edge of the river. It was a drab, square building, built of
stone, low to the ground, Empire taskmasters lined up all around it—yet none
watching the river. Instead, they were all watching the slave village below,
packed with villagers, all under the whip and rod of Empire taskmasters. The
soldiers mercilessly lashed the villagers, torturing them on the streets under
hard labor, while the soldiers above looked down and laughed at the scene.
    Erec reddened
with indignation, seething at the injustice of it all. He felt justified in
forking his men this way up the river, and determined to set wrongs right and
make them pay. It might just be a drop in the bucket of the travesty of the
Empire, and yet one could never underestimate, Erec knew, what freedom meant to
even a few people.
    Erec saw the
shores lined with Empire ships, guarded casually, none of them suspecting an
attack. Of course, they would not: there were no hostile forces in the Empire,
none that the vast Empire army could fear.
    None,