Song Of The Nightingale (DeWinter's Song 1) Read Online Free Page B

would throw all their forces at them tomorrow—they had to—this was their last hope.
    He was weary of war, and ready to return to England. When the fighting was over, he would go home and face his past.
    He had not thought of England in months—at least not consciously. Why had painful memories now come unbidden to him? He supposed it was because it finally mattered to him that he might die before he could vindicate himself with his uncle.
    His lips twisted with rancor. There was much he had to settle when he got back to England. His honor had been questioned, and he swore to clear his name before he died.
    He thought of how insignificant his life had been before he fought under Wellington and faced death at each battle. In London his nights had been spent in the arms of beautiful women, and his days had been spent gaming and drinking with the Prince of Wales and his favorites.
    How unimportant that life seemed to him now—and how far away. With rain heavily pounding against the leather tent, Raile finally nodded off from exhaustion, his anguished mind soothed by a dreamless sleep.
     
    Sunday, June 18
     
    It was almost the noon hour when the first shots echoed through the valley.
    Raile raised his spyglass to observe the enemy position across the open field. The plowed ground was muddy from the previous night’s storm, and the allies were having trouble moving the heavy equipment. Cannons were bogged down in mud up to their axles, making it difficult for the soldiers to turn them toward the oncoming enemy. After a long struggle, the heavy guns were aimed, spiked, and ready to fire.
    Each time a cannon spoke, fire bellowed across the valley. The biting, acrid smell of gunpowder permeated the air. Spiraling smoke seemed suspended above the landscape and was slow to dissipate. As the battle heated up, clouds of sulfur mingled with the ever-present mist like a ghostly omen predicting hellish devastation. The countryside was quickly becoming littered with the dead and dying.
    Raile’s eyes darkened with irony as he looked at the battlefield where crops of barley and potatoes flourished—a bit of reality in an otherwise illusory world that was being trampled beneath the boots of advancing armies.
    He watched the French forces mass to charge across the open spaces. Did they actually believe they could win today? He had been in enough battles to know that death honored no allegiance, favored no nation, respecter! no cause. Surely the valiant fools realized that in the end it would be the strongest who would prevail. And only God knew who was the strongest. Had it all come down to Napoleon’s strategy against Wellington’s cunning?
    For long hours fierce battles raged, with neither side giving ground. Napoleon was sending out massive columns that struck hammer blows at the British front positions.
    It was late afternoon when Raile’s attention was drawn to the advancing French infantrymen who marched in double-time toward Wellington’s right.
    A fierce battle ensued, and Wellington was being driven back.
    Raile and his men met the French Lancers with sabers ready. The clash of swords rang out even as the cannons echoed across the valley. Raile heard someone shout that the Prussians had arrived. God let it be true, he prayed as an enemy lance hit him in the shoulder and propelled him from his horse.
    Searing pain stunned him for the moment. Shaking his head to clear it, he jumped to his feet, noticing that several hundred Prussians had dug in on his right. But something was wrong. Apparently their commander had been killed and chaos had broken out among the ranks. The Prussians were abandoning their positions and scurrying toward the safety of the woods.
    Raile quickly assessed the situation and realized that if the panic-stricken Prussians didn’t hold their ground, the enemy would penetrate the lines and come up on Wellington’s right, his weakest point. Pushing his booted foot into the stirrups, he bounded back into