A Rule of Queens (Book #13 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (15 page)

“Battle?” Godfrey said, overcome with anxiety
as the reality began to sink in.

“Very good, young lad,” Akorth said, “but there
won’t be any battle here. Men die in battle. And we don’t plan on dying. This
won’t be battle. This will be an expedition into the city. A chance to buy ale,
some women, and to pay off the right people at the right price and return home
unlikely heroes. Right, Godfrey?”

Godfrey stared back blankly, then nodded. Was
that what this was? He didn’t even know anymore. All he knew was that he opened
his big mouth, and now he was committed. Why was it that in times of trouble
this streak overcame him, this streak of his father? Was it chivalry? Or impetuosity?

Godfrey looked up to see his sister Gwendolyn
and brother Kendrick approach. They stepped up beside him and looked at him meaningfully.

“Father would be proud,” Kendrick said. “We are
proud. It was a bold offer.”

“You’ve made a friend of this people,” Gwendolyn
said. “They look to you now. They are relying on you now. Trust is a sacred
thing. Do not let them down.”

Godfrey looked back and nodded, not trusting
himself to speak and not knowing what else to say.

“Yours is both a wise and a foolish plan. Only
you might be able to pull it off. Pay off the right people, and choose your
people well.”

Gwen stepped forward and hugged him, then
pulled back and looked at him, her eyes filled with concern.

“Be safe, my brother,” she said softly.

With that, she and Kendrick turned and walked
off. As they did, Illepra approached, a smile on her face.

“You are no longer a boy,” she said. “On this
day, you are a man. That was a manly act. When people rely on you, that is when
you become a man. You are a hero now. Whatever becomes of you, you are a hero.”

“I’m no hero,” Godfrey said. “A hero is
fearless. Scared of nothing. A hero can make calculated decisions. Yet mine was
hasty. I did not think it through. And I am more scared than I have ever been.”

Illepra nodded, held a hand to his cheek.

“That is how all heroes feel,” she said. “A
hero is not born. A hero is made—through one painful decision at a time. It is
an evolution. And you, my love, have evolved. You are becoming one.”

She leaned in and kissed him.

“I take back all the things I said,” she added.
“Come back to me. I love you.”

They kissed again, and for a brief moment,
Godfrey felt lost in that kiss, felt all of his fears melting away. He looked
into her smiling eyes as she pulled back and walked away, and he stood there,
all alone, wondering: what have I done?

Thor, bruised and aching, sat beside the strange
natural bonfire smoldering out of the bedrock. Reece, Matus, Conven, O’Connor,
Elden and Indra sat beside him. The seven of them were exhausted, leaning back
against the bedrock, barely able to keep their eyes open.

Thor had never felt so exhausted his life, and
he knew it was unnatural. There was something in the air here, having to do with
the strange red vapor that rose up and disappeared, making him feel transported.
He felt like each step weighed a million pounds.

Thor thought back to the fall they had taken,
down that endless tunnel; luckily the tunnel had sloped, the speed of his slide
had eased, and at the base, there had been a floor of soft black moss, cushioning
the fall. It had saved him from death, but still, the tumbling down had left
bruises on nearly every inch of his body. He had been thrilled to discover the
others had survived, too. He could not tell how far they had descended, but it
felt like miles. He could still hear, echoing faintly, the distant screeching
of that monster up above, and he realized how lucky they were to at least be
alive.

But now they were faced with new problems. They
were much deeper in the earth, and Thor had no idea if they were even heading
in the right direction—if there even was a direction in this place. After the
fall, they had all picked up the pieces and had managed to march on, deeper and
deeper, in this new series of tunnels. Like the tunnels above, they were made
of black bedrock, except these were covered in black moss, too. Strange small
insects with glowing orange eyes crawled in the moss and followed them as they
went.

Finally, they all had been able to walk no
further, too weary, too beset with exhaustion. When they’d spotted this natural
bonfire emerging from the rock, they all essentially had collapsed around it,
knowing they had to take camp for the night, and had to sleep.

As he sat there, silent as the others, his back
against the bedrock wall, against the soft moss, Thor felt his eyes closing on
him. He felt as if he needed to sleep a million years. He felt as if he had
already been down here for lifetimes.

Thor lost all sense of time and distance in
this place, did not know if they had been down here for a day or a moon or a year.
All he remembered as he stared into the crackling flames, hissing and sparking in
this cavernous subterranean level, was Andronicus’s face, and their fall, their
long slide down. He was beginning to feel that they would never get out of this
world. He looked around and realized this might be his final resting place. He
could not help but brace himself, unable to relax, wondering what other monster
they might meet around the corner. The next time, they might not be so lucky.

Thor looked into the flames and realized they
would all spend the night here, however long a night lasted in this place. Would
they ever wake up? Would they ever find Guwayne?

Thor felt a wave of guilt as he started to
wonder if he had led his brothers down to his own personal hell. He had not
meant for them to follow, although he was grateful they had all joined him. Thor
felt more determined than ever to reach Guwayne and to find a way to get all of
his brothers out of here, one way or the other. For their sake, if not for his.

They all sat in the gloomy silence, each lost
in their own world, the only sound that of the crackling fire. He wondered if
he would ever see Gwendolyn again, if he would ever see daylight again. His
thoughts grew increasingly fatalistic, and he knew he needed to distract
himself from this place.

“I need a story,” Thorgrin said, surprised by
the sound of his own voice breaking the silence.

They all turned and looked at him, surprised.

“Anyone,” Thor said. “Any story. Anything.”

Thor needed to be taken away, taken some
place—any place—else.

A howling draft passed through, and as they sat
there, Thor wondered if anyone would speak. If anyone had any energy left to
speak.

After an interminable silence, after Thor was
certain he would be doomed to his own thoughts, a voice finally cut through the
air. It was low, and grave, and exhausted. Thor looked over and was surprised
to see that that it was Matus, leaning forward, staring into the flames and
speaking.

“My father was a hard man,” Matus said slowly. “A
competitive man. A jealous man. Not the type of father who took joy in his son’s
success. Rather, he was the type of father that felt threatened by it. He had
to outdo me—in everything. Which was ironic, because I wanted nothing more than
to love him my whole life, to be close to him. Yet anytime I tried, he pushed
me away. He found a way to create a conflict, to keep me at a distance. It was
a long time until I learned that it wasn’t me he hated, but himself.”

Matus took a deep breath, staring into the
flames, focusing, lost in another world. Thor could relate to his words; he had
felt the same way about the man who had raised him.

 “I felt as if I was born into the wrong
family,” Matus continued. “Like I didn’t quite fit in, at least not to the
image of who we wanted me to be. The thing is, I was never quite sure who that
person who he wanted was.

“I knew I didn’t fit in with the rest of the
Upper Isle MacGils. I felt a kinship with the MacGils of the Ring,” he said,
glancing at Reece. “I envied you all, and I wanted to escape the Isles, to come
to the mainland and join the Legion.

“But I could not. I was doomed to be there. My
brothers hated me. My father hated me. The only one that loved me was my
sister, Stara…. And my mother.”

On that final word, Thor detected anguish in Matus’s
voice. A long silence followed, and Matus finally got the courage to speak
again, his voice heavy with exhaustion, as if he were traveling through
emotional realms.

“One day,” Matus finally said, clearing his
throat, “when I was perhaps thirteen, my father called for a hunt. It was a
hunt meant for my older brothers, but he challenged me to come along. Not
because he thought I would kill anything, but because he wanted to outdo me, to
see my brothers outdo me, and to make me look stupid. He wanted to keep me in
my place.”

Matus sighed.

“Late into the hunt, when the day was nearly
through, we encountered the largest boar I have ever seen. My father charged,
all bravado and aggression, and lacking the fine technique he claimed to have.
He threw his spear and missed, enraging it. My two brothers, helpless, missed,
too.

“The enraged bore charged my father and was
about to kill him. I should have let it.

“Instead, I reacted. My father did not know,
but I had spent many nights, long after the others were asleep, practicing with
my bow. I fired two perfect shots and landed them in the boar’s head. It
dropped down right before it had a chance to reach my father.”

Matus sighed and fell silent for a long time.

“Was he grateful?” Reece asked.

Matus shook his head.

“He gave me a look I can remember to this day.
A look of rage, humiliation, jealousy. Here he was, alive because his youngest
managed to fell a bore he himself could not. He hated me even more since that
day.”

A long silence fell over them, punctuated only
by the crackling fire. Thor pondered it, and realized he had similarities with
his own father.

Thor was transported by the story, and he thought
it was over, when Matus suddenly continued.

“The next day,” Matus continued, “my mother
died. The storms of the Upper Isles had never agreed with her. She was a frail,
delicate woman, transported to those barren isles by my father and his appetite
for ambition. She caught a cold and never recovered—though I think what really
killed her was the heartbreak of leaving the mainland.

“I loved my mother enough to justify my
existence, and when she died, I felt that there was nothing left for me in that
place. I attended her funeral with the others at the top of Mount Eleusis. Do you know it?” he asked, looking to Reece.

Reece nodded.

“The first capital,” he replied.

Matus nodded back.

“You know your history, cousin.”

“I was schooled in it since I was a boy,” Reece
said. “Long before King’s Court, the Upper Isles held the seat of power. Five
hundred years before, that was where kings ruled. Before the Great Divide.”

Matus nodded, and Thor looked at the two and wondered
at the extent of their royal education, wondered how much he didn’t know about
the history of the Ring. He had a desire to learn more, to learn about the
ancient kings, the ancient warriors. He wanted to learn the stories of how the Ring
had been centuries before, of old wars and battles and heroes and warriors, of
old capitals and old seats of power….But now was not the time. Someday he would
sit down and learn it all.
Someday
, he promised himself.

“Anyway,” Matus said, “on that day, I sat there
by my mother’s grave and wept; it was too much for me. Long after the others
left, I sat there all night long, atop that mount, in the presence of death, and
that’s when I learned what death felt like. I blamed my father for her death,
my father, who would not even attend the funeral. I would never forgive him for
that night. He was a selfish man to the last.”

Matus sighed.

“Here, in this place, I feel that feeling again,
for the first time. A feeling I thought I would never feel again: the feeling
of death. My mother is here somewhere. I both dread seeing her, and look
forward to it.”

His story concluded, they all sat there in the
silence, and as they did, Thor looked at Matus with a new respect. The story
had transported him indeed, had transported all of them, out of this dungeon
and into another place. Would Matus find his mother here? Thor wondered.

And most of all, would Thor find Guwayne?

Darius was awakened from fast, troubled dreams
at the first light of dawn by the sound of the village horn—a low, wailing
sound that hurt his ears—and he knew immediately that there was trouble. That
horn was never sounded except in dire emergencies, and he had only heard it
sounded once in his lifetime, when he was a young boy. It was when one of the
villagers had tried to escape, and was caught by the Empire, tortured and
executed in front of them all.

With a deepening sense of foreboding, Darius
jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, and burst out the door of his cottage, Dray
beside him, at his heels the entire time. Immediately, he thought of Loti, and of
the town meeting the day before. The villagers had all argued endlessly with
one another, none agreeing on a clear course of action. They were all bracing themselves
for the worst, for an impending doom, the inevitable vengeance the Empire must
exact, and as usual, none was willing to attack, to take any decisive action.
Darius was hardly surprised.

Yet still, Darius did not expect the Empire to
arrive so quickly, the very next morning. He should have known better: the
Empire never waited for vengeance.

Darius raced along the dirt path toward the
village center, joining a growing crowd emerging from their cottages, men and
women, children, brothers, cousins, friends, all swarming the main road for the
village center. It grew thicker by the moment.

At his feet, Darius heard Dray following him, nipping
playfully at his heels, always game for whatever excitement the town would
bring. Darius wanted to explain to him that this was not a game, but Dray, he
knew, would not understand.

As Darius went he scanned the faces desperately
for Loti, having a sinking feeling this all had something to do with her, with
the Empire, and knowing that she needed him now more than ever. They had made
an agreement the day before that if something should happen—anything—the two of
them would meet by the large tree before town. As all the villagers ran for the
village center, Darius turned off and ran toward the tree, hoping she would be
there.

Darius was relieved to see that she was. There
she stood, scanning the crowd, clearly looking for him, too, panic written on
her face.

He reached her and she rushed into his arms,
her eyes red from crying. He could only imagine what a long night she’d had,
especially in her disapproving household.

“Darius,” she whispered in his ear, with an intake
of breath, and he could hear the relief and the fear in her voice.

“Don’t worry,” he said back. “It’s okay.
Whatever is going to happen, it’s okay.”

Trembling, she leaned back and shook her head as
she looked into his eyes.

“It is not okay,” she said. “Nothing will ever
be okay again. The Empire wants to kill me. They want vengeance. Our own people
want to kill me. A price must be paid.”

“Listen to me,” Darius said firmly, taking hold
of her shoulders. “Whatever happens today, under any circumstance, do not tell
them it was you. Do you understand me? Do not volunteer that you did it.”

She looked at him, unsure.

“But what if—” she began.

He shook his head firmly.

“No,” he said, mustering all the gravity he
could. “
Vow to me
.”

She looked into his eyes, and as she did,
Darius could see them strengthening, slowly gaining resolve. She nodded, and
began to stand a bit straighter.

“I vow,” she said softly.

Darius nodded, satisfied, took her hand, and he
led her quickly along the path and to the main village.

They rounded the bend, and as they did, Darius saw
that his entire village had amassed in the center, as the horn blew once again.
As Darius looked up, past their faces, into the breaking light of dawn, his
heart dropped at the sight. There, on the horizon, blocking the village road,
was a massive Empire force, hundreds of soldiers in full armor. There were rows
of zertas, squadrons of soldiers standing before them, wielding all manner of
steel weaponry, well-disciplined, standing erect, awaiting the order to kill.

Nothing more needed to be said. Darius looked
to his people, and he could see the tension and the fear. His villagers had no real
weapons with which to fight back. And it wouldn’t be a real fight anyway, not
against this professional army.

Darius braced himself for the inevitable attack
that would follow, waiting for the Empire to charge. Instead, there came,
oddly, a long, awkward silence. The Empire just stood there, facing them, their
banners rippling in the morning wind, as if wanting them to sweat it out.

Finally, an Empire commander stepped forward,
out in front of his men, flanked by a dozen soldiers, and faced the villagers.

“Blood has been taken,” he boomed out, “and
blood will be paid. Your people have taken one of ours. You have broken the
cardinal rule. Our two peoples have lived in harmony with one another, because
you, and the generations before you, have lived by the rules. You knew the
price for breaking them.”

He paused.

“Blood for blood,” he called out. “Our great
Empress, Volusia, the greatest of the Volusia Queens, the God of the East and supreme
ruler of the sea and all its ships, has, in her abundant mercy, decided not to
kill you all. Instead, she will just have us torture and kill one of you, the
perpetrator of this unholy act. She’s giving you this great grace only once,
and only because yesterday was the festival of our gods.”

There came a long pause, the only sound that of
the rippling of their banners, as the commander let his words sink in.

“Now,” he boomed, “the one who did it, you will
step forward, admit your crimes, and you will suffer death on behalf of your
people. This generous offer will not be made twice. Step forth now.”

All the villagers stood there, and Darius
looked them over, seeing the panic in all their faces. Some of them turned and
looked at Loti, as if debating whether to give her up. Darius saw Loti begin to
cry, and he could feel her hand trembling in his. He could sense that she was
unsure what to do. He could feel her about to step forward, to confess.

And he knew then and there that, whatever the
price, it was something his honor would never allow.

Darius turned to her.

“Remember your vow,” he said softly.

Darius, resolved, suddenly stepped forward,
taking several paces out before all the others. There came a gasp from his
people as he did.

“It was I, Commander!” Darius yelled out, his
voice booming in the still morning air.

Darius felt himself trembling inside, but he
refused to show it. He was determined to be bigger than his fear, to overcome
it. He stood there, chin up, chest out, staring back proudly, defiantly, at the
Empire.

“It was
I
who killed the taskmaster.”

The Empire commander stared back at Darius
sternly for a long time, a tall man, with the typical glowing yellow skin, two
small horns and red eyes of the Empire race, with the horns, the massive body
structure. Darius could see in his eyes a look of respect.

“You have admitted your crimes,” he called out.
“That is good. As a gift, I will torture you quickly before I kill you.”

The commander nodded to his men, and there came
sound of armor and spurs, as half a dozen soldiers marched forward, surrounding
Darius, each grabbing him roughly by the arm and dragging him toward the
commander.

Dray snarled and leapt up and sunk his teeth
into the calf of one of them, and the soldier cried out as he released his grip
on Darius. Dray let out a vicious sound as he tugged, drawing blood, the
solider unable to shake his grip.

The soldier reached for his sword, and Darius
knew he had to act quick if he wanted to save Dray’s life.

“Dray!” Darius yelled sharply. “Go home! NOW!”

Darius used his fiercest voice, praying Dray
would listen, and Dray suddenly released, turned and sprinted off into the
crowd.

He just escaped the slash of the soldier, who
swung at nothing but air. They all turned and continued dragging Darius away.

“No!” cried a voice.

They all stopped and turned as Loti stepping
forth, crying.

“He did not do it! He’s innocent. I did it,” she
cried out.

The commander, confused, looked back and forth
from her to Darius, wondering whom to believe.

“The words of a woman trying to save her
husband,” Darius called out. “Do not believe her!”

The Empire commander looked back and forth, Darius’s
heart pounding, hoping, praying the taskmaster would believe him.

“Do you really believe a frail woman could
strangle an all-powerful taskmaster?” Darius added.

Finally, the commander broke into a tight
smile.

“You insult us,” the commander said to Loti, “if
you think our men could be killed by a weak woman such as yourself. If that
were the case, then I would kill them myself. Silence your tongue, woman, before
I cut it out with my sword.”

“No,” Loti screamed.

Darius saw men step forward and restrain her,
yanking her back as she flailed. He was overwhelmed by her loyalty to him, and
it touched him deeply, gave him solace before what he knew would be his death.

Darius felt himself yanked forward, and soon he
was tied him to a pole, his face against it, his hands and ankles tied to it.
He felt rough hands tear the shirt off his back, heard a ripping noise cut through
the air, and felt his back exposed to the morning sun and the cool wind.

“Because I am in the mood for mercy,” the
commander boomed, “we shall begin with just one hundred lashes!”

Darius swallowed, and refused to allow anyone
to see the fear on his face as his wrists were clamped down to the wood. He
braced himself for the terrible pain that would come.

Before he could finish a thought, Darius heard
the crack of a whip, and suddenly every nerve in his body screamed out as he
felt an awful pain across his back. He felt his skin rip from his flesh, felt
his blood exposed to the air. It was the worst pain of his life. He did not
know how he’d recover from it, much less take ninety-nine more.

The whip cracked through the air again, and Darius
felt another lash, this one worse than the last, and he groaned out again and
clutched the wood, refusing to allow himself to scream.

The lashes came again, and again, and Darius felt
himself getting lost in another place, a place of honor and glory and valor. A
place of sacrifice. A place of sacrificing for someone else whom he loved. He
thought of Loti, of the pain that she would have suffered for this; he thought
of her lame brother, a man Darius loved and respected too, and of how she had
sacrificed for him. He took the next lash, and the next one, knowing he was
taking it for them.

Darius retreated deeper and deeper into
himself, into a place of escape, and as he did, he felt a familiar feeling rising
within him, felt a heat coursing through his palms. He felt his body willing
him to summon his power. It was aching to be summoned. He knew that if he did, he
could break free of this. He could overcome them all.

But Darius would not allow it; he stopped
himself, preventing it from welling up. He feared to use it. As much as he
wanted to, he did not want to be an exile among his people. He would rather die
a martyr than be remembered as a magician they reviled.

Another lash came, then another, and Darius struggled
to hang on. He gasped for air, and would do anything for water. He was starting
to wonder if he would survive this—when suddenly, a voice cut through the air.

“Enough!” came the booming voice. “You have the
wrong man.”

The crack of the whip stopped and Darius turned
weakly, and saw surprised to see Loc, Loti’s lame brother, stepping forward out
in front of the others.

“It was
I
who killed the taskmaster,”
Loc said.

The Empire commander stared back, confused.

“You?” he called out, looking him up and down
in disbelief.

Suddenly, Raj stepped forward, standing beside Loc.

“No,” Raj called out. “It was
I
who killed
him.”

Desmond stepped forward, beside Raj.

“No, it was I!” Luzi called out.

There came a long, tense silence amongst the
crowd, until finally, one at a time, all of Darius’s friends stepped forward.

“No, it was I!” echoed one voice after the
other.

Darius felt so deeply grateful to his brothers,
so moved by their loyalty; it made him feel willing to die a million deaths on
their behalf. They all stood there, proudly facing off against the Empire, dozens
of them stepping forward, all wanting to take the punishment for him.

The Empire commander snarled at all of them and
let out a groan of frustration. He marched over to Darius, and Darius felt
rough hands behind his back, as the Commander grabbed him tight and leaned in
and whispered in his ear, his hot breath on the back of his neck.