Eight Hunting Lyons (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Prologue

On the battlefield, United Kingdom of the Netherlands

June 18, 1815

A pain unlike anything Captain Charles Audley had ever experienced shot through his leg, leaving him breathless and unable to move. Flat on his back, his eyes closed against the bright sun, he was sure he was cursing. If he was, he didn’t hear it. Perhaps it merely joined the cacophony of sounds that had assaulted his ears only moments ago.

Gunshots. Shouts. Explosions. High-pitched screeching as something sailed through the air above him. Beneath him, the ground seemed to vibrate. Around him, the scents of cannon shot and sweat and the iron tang of blood filled the air.

One second, he could hear, and the next he was surrounded by an eerie silence. He might have panicked if he wasn’t so confused. Then his hearing slowly returned.

“Dammit, Captain, you have to move !” Colonel Elias Sinclair called out, apparently for the second time.

Move? How was he supposed to move?

Charles managed to lift his head to peer down the front of his body. The reason he couldn’t move became apparent when he realized his horse had him pinned to the ground. He knew the bay still lived. If he concentrated, he could feel its labored breathing.

The horse had run a good distance—he’d had to since Charles was charged with delivering an important missive to the commanding officer, a colonel who had survived battles far worse than this. Deliver the message and then join this particular regiment in the fight against Napoleon’s forces.

As a captain, Charles should have been assigned his own cavalry, but acting as an aide de camp to the general was responsibility enough.

Having made contact with the colonel, Charles had handed over the note and then asked where he should report when all hell broke loose. A cannonball had landed only a few feet away from him, sending soldiers flying and his mount from beneath him. A volley of gunfire followed as a line of French troops approached from the west.

“Come on, boy,” someone else said as he took hold of the horse’s reins and pulled. The beast, apparently past its momentary shock, struggled to gain its feet and whinnied in protest. Relieved of the weight on his leg, Charles attempted to move and nearly passed out from the pain.

This time, he heard his own curse loud in his ears. So did Colonel Sinclair, who yelled something to the regiment’s standard-bearer. A moment later, Charles was half-lifted from the ground as two soldiers saw to moving him into the middle of the circle of soldiers.

“Leg’s broken, Captain,” the colonel said with a grimace.

In the four years he had been a captain in the British Army, Charles had heard many a comment and complaint from those in every one of the ranks. He had never laughed in response, but in this case, he couldn’t help himself. Never had one put voice to such an obvious observation. “Do tell,” he replied just before he passed out from the pain.