Hero, Traitor, Daughter (Of Crowns and Glory-Book 6)

CHAPTER ONE

Akila hung in the rigging of his ship and saw death approaching.

It terrified him. He'd never been one to believe in signs and omens, but there were some he couldn't ignore. Akila had been a fighting man most of his life in one form or another, yet still, he'd never seen a fleet like the one that approached now. It made the fleet the Empire had sent to Haylon look like a series of paper boats being floated across a pond by children.

It made what Akila had look like less than that.

"There's too many," one of the sailors near him in the rigging said.

Akila didn't reply, because right then he didn't have an answer. He'd have to think of one, though. One that didn't involve the leaden certainty that was crushing his chest. He was already running the things that needed to be done through his mind as he started to climb down. They would need to raise the harbor chain. They would need to get crews to catapults on the docks.

They needed to spread, because charging headlong into a fleet that size would be suicide. They needed to be the wolves hunting the great snow oxen, darting in, taking a bite here and there, wearing them down.

Akila smiled at that thought. He was almost planning as if they could win this. Who'd have taken him for an optimist?

"There's so many," one of the sailors said as he passed.

Akila heard the same words from others as he clambered back to the deck. By the time he reached the command deck again, there were a dozen rebels at least, all waiting for him with worried expressions.

"We can't fight them," one said.

"It would be like we weren't even there," another agreed.

"They'll kill us all. We have to run."

Akila could hear them. He could even understand what they wanted to do. Running made sense. Run while they still could. Form up their ships into a convoy line and go, running along the coast until they could break free and make it to Haylon.

A part of him even wanted to do it. Perhaps they would even be safe if they could get to Haylon. Felldust would see the forces they had, the defenses of their harbor, and would be wary of coming after them.

At least for a time.

"Friends," he called, loud enough that everyone on the ship would be able to hear it. "You can see the threat that waits for us, and yes, I can hear the men who want to run."

He spread his hands to quiet down the murmur that followed.

"I know. I hear you. I've sailed with you and you're not cowards. No man could say that you are."

But if they ran now, men would call them cowards. Akila knew that. They would blame the warriors of Haylon, in spite of all they'd done. He didn't want to say that, though. He didn't want to force his men to do this.

"I want to run as well. We've done our part. We've beaten the Empire. We've earned the right to go home, rather than stay here dying for other people's causes."

That much was obvious. They'd only come here after Thanos had begged, after all.

He shook his head. "But I won't. I won't run when that means abandoning the people depending on me. I won't run when we've been told what will happen to the people of Delos. I won't run, because who are they to tell me to run?"

He jabbed a finger at the advancing fleet, then turned it into the rudest gesture he could think of on the spur of the moment. That, at least, got his men laughing. Good, they needed all the laughs they could get right then.