Rage and Rebellion (Histories of Havenhearth)

1.0 Gwinael

"Snowberry!" It was the angry and critical voice of Fendel Heathtree, a twenty-three year old officer of the Tainish land protectorate. She had ridden up from behind. "How did you ever pass your training without being able to take a signal?" Gwinael whipped around to face her superior. She had not seen the signal, because it had been made behind her. "I can take a signal. And make one too. But only if I am able to see it," she responded, her voice coming out far more defensively than she intended.
"I know to always check behind me so as not to miss something- we've been waiting over thirty minutes for a response, and they finally sent me up here to fetch you. I will tell you what it said. A message from the commandaire. The main protectorate force is resting before they enter the pass in the Herb Hills."
Snowberry had been sent ahead into the pass itself to scout, along with Heathtree and another combattant newly out of training hisself and both on their first protectorate mission. Heathtree had told her own supervisory officer that it would be a good experience for the two newbies. "And, what's worse, you have been spotted by rebel scouts. If you proceed any further you are at risk of being captured. Return immediately."
Heathtree huffed and Gwinael felt foolish. "Snowberry, kindly do not forget to check behind you next time." Gwinael knew she would never be right in Heathtree's eyes, no matter what she did, but this time she was actually in the wrong. How could she forget looking behind her? Amateur. If she was going to succeed in the Protectorate, as she had always dreamed, then she had to do better.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I won't forget. I'll do better next time."
"Next time, ha!" Heathtree went on mumbling to herself about fresh trainees, too inexperienced to even look behind them, sent to combat in Cassion, her face full of wrinkles of disapproval.
The other scout, a boy of around Gwinael's age called Ally Greenmoor gave Snowberry a sympathetic look: but she really should have seen the scouts before they had seen her, and well before the main camp had been able to signal them that they had been spotted: it did not bode well for her that her first real protectorate task had happened this way. Task and command. The latter had been obeyed, but the former was a failure. Her supervisors would no doubt find out shortly, if they did not know already. But she could not worry about that now, since they had to focus on getting back to join the main force.
"Follow me then please," Heathtree turned her horse around, its hooves slipping on the dirt of the mountain path. Just as she did so, all of a sudden they heard shouts from ahead and twangs of bows. Then there were the sounds of arrows whizzing through the air, hitting the mountainsides, not too far before them. Snowberry's heart started pounding. Heathtree turned her horse back, "Natives," she muttered. By luck, they had stopped near an overhang of rock, and that's where they waited.

For Snowberry, this was her first taste of real action, and her stomach flipped back and forth in fear and anxiety. She had always wondered how she was going to respond to action and had hoped that adrenaline would take over. Maybe it still would. They waited under the small overhang, safe from any wayward arrows.
But they would not be, as soon as they tried to make their way back to the main force. "We wait," Fendel said. Something Gwinael had heard said at her training popped into her head, "sometimes there's no war, but you will nonetheless be in battle," Is this what the speaker had meant? There was certainly no war between Cassion and Tainland, but here they were. She had long dreamt of representing Tainland in combat. But it wasn't like she had a choice. She was born to two protectorate parents, and although her mother had success in the protectorate, her father had not and had been killed in action when she was a young girl. Gwinaelle's training had not proceeded as well as her mother had hoped, and instead of leaving as an officer of some kind, she was simply a combattant. Not because she had done anything wrong, but because there was just nothing special about her. Could she have done her training differently? His superiors had seen her more as a burden- and put up with her, most likely because of who her mother was, not that they hated her or that she had been difficult, but just that there was that extra complication. They were afraid of being too hard on her too soft, or something. She had been easy to make fun of, and had received more teasing than most though, but no, she decided. I couldn't have done things differently. I did what I could to get through each day.

At the beginning there was always the hazing of new trainees, off the record of course, and for her that had involved being for forced into a freezing cold lake and having her clothes taken away, left to return to the dormitory in the nude. That hadn't bothered her too much. Another time they had shaved one of her eyebrows off in her sleep, that neither had bothered her. The worst was when she had been forced to sing in public, in front of the entire mess hall. Of course there were a lot of fun parts as well, like the graduation party they had had, when the lake had been covered with lanterns, each one representing one of the graduates, and she had shared her first kiss with another trainee, that she liked, but had not seen since. but the days had been hard and they were always in a rush. Dismissed most nights at nineteen bells to be ready again at seven.

She had likewise dreamed of doing something extraordinarily brave, and being awarded for it afterwards. But it seemed impossible: here she was now, a combattants among hundreds maybe, waiting to join hundreds more in the march through the Herb Hills, under occasional arrowfire from the enemy. She wondered now, if she would even make it out of the hills and to Chevelles. How could anyone do anything brave in these circumstances?

Beyond the noise of attack they heard the faint sounds of a single Tainish horn being played, joined in immediately by a number more. They played 'Journey to Cassion', a recent composition by one of the protectorate's own. Heathtree, who responded with pride to the pure sounds of the Tainish horn, said "Let's make a dash for it. In the name of Tainland, may the spirits guide us well." And she took off amid the fall of the occasional arrow towards the Tainish forces. Gwinael and her fellow scout, Ally Greenmoor had no choice but to do the same, running to the forlorn, melodious sounds of the horn.

They arrived at their base camp without issue, just tired, breathless and sweaty from the dash to safety. Respite was not long, however and they were on the march again before the day's end, advancing onto the next crest of the Herb Hills.