Read The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy for Free Online Page B

every day of that month to prepare. Each day will be shorter, colder; before long there’ll be little daylight at all. We’ll need to divide our labors quickly. Some building the shelters, some bringing the ships to shore, some hunting and fishing. Kant says there are seal beaches just to the north. We should send as many ships as we can, fill them full of the blubber. We’ll need it.”
    “You make it sound like the war is with the winter.”
    Perrin looked at his wineglass again, studying it as if the act of doing so would be enough to refill it. “It will be. The other officers can think about slaying Auldek. I almost wish the Auldek would hurry up and get here so we could have this fight. Who knows? Maybe they will, but I’d wager we’re in for a wait.” He paused a moment, drained his glass, then rolled the stem between his fingers. “It’s what’s been ordered, though. The queen’s command. So we’ll do it.”
    “You don’t think we should?”
    “I won’t say a word against the queen’s wishes. I understand completely how the situation would look from Acacia. She’s right, of course. If we could stop the Auldek here … Even if we just weaken them, delay them, the empire could be that much better prepared to meet them if they ever stumble out of the Ice Fields. No, I see the advantage of this move very well. It’s just … we won’t be the ones that reap that benefit.”
    Mena dropped her eyes when his met hers. “Good night, Perrin.”

    T he next morning Mena met with her officers on the northern ridge along the pass and traversed its spine as it snaked inland. It afforded an even better view of the mountains stretching off to the north and the curve of the coastline as it vanished into the distant mist. Perrin and Edell, the Marah captain Bledas, and the Senivalian Perceven represented the military units at her command. Daley, the captain of Hadin’s Resolve and several others attended on the naval side. Gandrel was there for his knowledge of the Scav.
    The princess waited as the men gathered around her, all of them taking in the view, desolate yet strangely beautiful to behold.
    “Look,” Perceven said, “a chase.”
    On a sloping stretch of rock-strewn tundra below them, two figures moved. They were tiny amid the vastness of the valleys and mountains, but their motion was easy to follow. A white hare leaped in a crazy, jolting, zagging line. Behind it a snow cat bounded.
    Mena kept her eyes on the hunt but said loudly enough that all the men could hear, “We will die here.” None disputed it. They looked at her, at one another, then back to the pursuit that held Mena’s gaze. “The Auldek will arrive to find an army of ice sculptures waiting them.”
    Gandrel said, “True. Or they’ll find us cut to pieces by the Scav. There are more of them around here, I tell you. Even if they’re hard to spot. I wouldn’t put anything past them. Not even jolly young Kant here.” Kant watched the hunt and made no sign that he heard or understood.
    “There are too many ways our deaths here might be for naught,” Mena said. “If I knew what was coming—when and how—that would be one thing. But for all we know the Auldek might arrive six months from now. Or they may take a different route. Or they might never arrive. Considering all this, I cannot have us winter here.”
    The snow cat slapped at the hare’s hind leg. For a moment the prey seemed frozen, its body tilted as it floated above the tundra. Then it landed hard. The cat fell upon it and the two rolled into one ball of motion. When they stopped, the cat had its jaws around the hare’s neck, patient now as it suffocated its prey.
    Mena looked away, as unsatisfied with the outcome as she had been watching the pursuit. “That’s my decision,” she said.
    “But the queen …” Perrin began.
    “We leave here immediately,” Mena said. “Sail to Port Grace. From there we march inland to Tahalian. We’ll winter in the fortress