Page 150 of Ironling
A hand covered hers, and Aislinn squeezed it. She shared a look with Sorcha, glad of her friend’s support but also wishing she wasn’t here, in danger. Aislinn wished none of them were, that none of this was necessary, but the time for wishing was far past.
Her heart raced as she watched the mercenaries draw closer, more and more of them coming over the hill. She thought perhaps they were comparable in number to her forces, but more of them were mounted than her own. Their journey from the Strait had to be swift, before Gleanná could summon a force great enough to stop them.
The rumble of troops grew louder, the ground quaking, and birds leapt from the trees into the skies, cawing in fright. Her horse’s ears swiveled back and forth, and the creature nuzzled Sorcha’s horse for comfort.
Her army stood stalwart behind her, watching the enemy draw near in silence.
When the last mercenaries had made it over the rise, Aislinn was fairly confident that their forces were evenly matched in number. She had to trust that her fighters were of better caliberand put her faith in the tactical mind of Captain Aodhan.
First, though…
A rider broke off from the main mercenary force, trotting out into the middle of the open meadow. Aislinn didn’t need to hear the voice that called out to know it was her brother.
“Sister, I would have a word!”
Hakon snorted in disgust beside her, and she had to agree. Her brother hadn’t changed and never would, always demanding without ever giving.
But if Aislinn could end this without bloodshed, she would.
She gathered her reins, prepared to meet her brother.
Hakon snatched her saddle pommel, his face a rictus of terror. “No,” he growled.
“I will hear terms, as is customary. Both parties are safe during a parley.”
“I don’t fucking trust him.”
“I don’t either.” She squeezed his hand before pulling it off her pommel. “But I’ll see what he has to say for himself. Please, you must stay here.” She couldn’t bear it if he was hurt in another of her brother’s treacheries.
Aislinn nodded to Allarion and Orek standing beside Hakon. Each man took hold of one of Hakon’s arms, keeping him in place when Aislinn gently nudged her horse forward.
His outrage shook the meadow. “Aislinn,” he roared, “Aislinn!”
“I have to do this,” she murmured to herself.
She rode forth at a steady pace, blinking back tears to hear how Hakon fought the other men to be free and go with her. She vowed this would be the last time she ever denied him a place beside her. For the rest of their lives, wherever she went, he would go—never to be apart.
This, though—Jerrod was her brother, her responsibility. Her mistake.
Jerrod sat waiting, and if she hadn’t already known it was him, she might have mistaken him for someone else. Drawing closer didn’t offer more recognition, only underscored how very much her brother had transformed.
His hair and beard were unkempt, almost scraggly. His gray eyes, their mother’s eyes, his most striking feature, were sunken and hollow but somehow overbright. He’d always had a finely carved face, with high cheekbones and a cut jaw, but his contours were too sharp, too concave. He bore the look of a starving wolf in the ravages of winter, hungry and desperate.
The sight of him struck her with a fear she’d never known.
For all that she and her people had planned, she hadn’t counted on the very sight of him upsetting her so greatly. That he could look at her like she was a bug to be trampled beneath his boot.
He won’t talk terms.
She could see it even now.
Still, she decided to listen when he began to talk. Jerrod always was fond of talking—or perhaps, more accurately, of hearing his own voice.
“You’re brave to meet me, sister. I thought you’d be behind the highest walls of Dundúran.”
“And you’re foolish to bring mercenaries here, brother. It seems we actually know very little of each other.”
Jerrod’s lips thinned. “I take it that since you’re here to greet me and not father that he isn’t here. On another campaign south, I suppose?”
