A Rule of Queens (Book #13 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (14 page)

“VOLUSIA!” they cried out.

“VOLUSIA! VOLUSIA!”

Gwendolyn stood at the entrance to the cave,
watching the sun begin to set, preparing. All around her, men were packing up
the few provisions they had and bracing themselves to leave this place, to
begin the long trek across the Great Waste, on a quest for the Second Ring.

It was time, Gwen realized, to seek out a new
home, a permanent home. Her people needed it, and they deserved it. They might
all die trying, but at least they would die on their feet, striving for
something greater—not holed up here in a cave, cowering, waiting to die. It had
taken her an entire moon cycle to realize it, to shake off the depression of
missing Guwayne and Thor. That depression still clung to her, yet now, Gwen was
able to work through it, to not let it stop her from functioning in the world.
After all, giving into her depression would not change her circumstance—it
would only make her life worse.

Of course, Gwen felt a deep sense of sorrow and
loss in accepting the fact that Thorgrin and Guwayne might not ever return to
her. She felt little left to live for. Yet she thought of her father, and his
father before him—a long line of kings who had seen great calamity, and who had
put their faith in her—and she drew strength from their example. She forced
herself to be strong, to focus on the task at hand. She had a people to lead.
She had to get them to safety.

“My lady?” came an urgent voice.

Gwendolyn turned and was surprised to see one
of the villagers standing there at the entrance of the cave, out of breath, looking
at her gravely.

“Why have you come during daylight?” Gwendolyn
asked, alarmed.

“We have an urgent matter,” he said, in a rush.
“You are needed at our village meeting, immediately. All of you.”

Kendrick and Godfrey came up beside her, all
looking as confused as she.

“Why would you want our people at your meeting?”
she asked. “Especially during daylight?”

The messenger, still catching his breath, shook
his head.

“It is a matter that concerns us all, my lady. Before
you leave, please come.”

He turned and ran off, and Gwen watched him go in
utter confusion.

“What could they want?” she asked. “They
implored us never to show ourselves before dark.”

“Perhaps they don’t want us to leave,” Godfrey
said.

Gwen looked off in the distance, watching the
messenger sprint back to his village, and she slowly shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I fear something far worse.”

*

Godfrey hiked with Gwendolyn and Kendrick and
the large contingent of Ring members as they all emerged from the cave and
hiked carefully down the mountain, clinging to the mountain side so as not to slip
and not be detected. As they approached the village, he spotted hundreds of
villagers crowded around the village center, and he could sense the chaos from
here. All wore disturbed looks, and he sensed something awful had happened.

As they entered the village, Godfrey saw the
boy in the center of the crowd, Sandara’s brother, the one they called Darius;
beside him stood a girl who appeared to be his girlfriend—he had heard her
called Loti. They faced the village elders, and the girl looked distraught.
Godfrey wondered what had happened.

Godfrey joined Gwen and the others as they
silently stood near the center.

“But why did you kill him?” came a voice,
panic-stricken, condemning. Godfrey turned to see a woman who must’ve been Loti’s
mother, standing beside the elders, yelling at her. “Have you learned nothing?
How could you have been so stupid?”

“I didn’t think about it,” Loti said. “I just reacted.
My brother was being whipped.”

“So what!?” Bokbu, the village elder, yelled at
her. “We are
all
whipped, every day. But none are so foolish as to fight
back—much less to kill them. You bring death upon us all. Every one of us.”

“And what of the Empire?” Darius yelled out,
beside her, defending her. “Have they not broken rules as well?”

The villager, falling silent, looked to him.

“They have the power,” one of the elders said. “They
make the rules.”

“And why should they have the power?” Darius
said. “Just because they have more men?”

Bokbu shook his head.

“What you have done today, Loti, was stupid. Very,
very foolish. You gave in to your passions, and it was short-sighted. It will
change the course of our village forever. Soon they will come here. And with
not just one man—with one hundred men, maybe one thousand. They will come with
armor and weapons, and they will kill us all.”

“I am sorry,” Loti said, loudly, boldly, for
everyone to hear, “yet I am not sorry. I would do it all again for the sake of
my brother.”

The crowd gasped in outrage, and Loti’s father
stepped forward and smacked her across the face.

“I’m sorry I ever had you,” he said, scowling
at her.

Her father wound up to smack her again. But
this time, Darius rushed forward, caught his wrist in midair, and held it.

Loti’s father looked to Darius, a look of bewilderment
and anger across his face, as Darius locked eyes with his.

“Do not lay a hand on her,” Darius threatened.

“You little bastard,” her father replied. “You
can hang for this. You do not disrespect your elder.”

“Then hang me,” Darius replied.

Loti’s father stared back in rage, then finally
he backed away as Darius released his grip.

Loti reached down and quietly took Darius’s hand,
and Godfrey saw him hold hers back, squeezing it, reassuring her, letting her
know he was there for her.

“All of this is inconsequential now,” Bokbu said,
as the people fell silent. “What matters now is what can be done.”

The entire village looked to each other in the
thick silence, and Godfrey looked at them all, shocked at what had happened.
Clearly, this changed everything; it would certainly make it awkward timing for
Gwen and her people to just walk out. Yet staying here would be suicide.

“Give the girl up!” a villager cried out.

There came a muted cheer of approval from some
villagers.

“March her to Volusia and hand her over!” the
man added. “Maybe they will accept her as offering and leave us be!”

There came a few more grunts of approval from
some of the villagers—but not from others. Clearly, they were divided.

“You will not touch her!” Loc, Loti’s brother,
cried out. “Not without going through me!”

“Or me!” Darius yelled.

The villagers laughed in derision.

“And what are a lame man and a long-haired boy
going to do to stop us!?”

There came some derisive laughter among a
corner of the crowd and Godfrey tightened his grip on his sword, wondering if a
fight was going to break out.

“Enough of this!” Bokbu yelled. “Do you not see
what the Empire has done to us? We fight ourselves when we should be fighting
them! We have truly become like them.”

A silence fell over the crowd, as the villagers
lowered their faces, humbled.

“No!” Bokbu continued. “We will prepare our
defense. We will die either way, so we will die fighting. We will take
positions, and attack them as they come.”

“With what?” another elder yelled out. “Our
wooden swords?”

“We have spears,” Bokbu countered, “and their
points are sharpened.”

“And they will come with steel and armor,” the
elder countered. “What will your wooden spears do then?”

“We must not fight!” another elder yelled. “We
must await their arrival and beg their mercy. Perhaps they will be lenient.
After all, they need us for labor.”

The villagers all broke out into heated arguing,
and chaos ensued as men and women shouted at each other. Godfrey stood there,
in shock, wondering how it all could have fallen apart so quickly.

As Godfrey watched, he felt something stirring
within him, something he could not contain. He was struck by an idea, and his entire
life, whenever he had been overcome with an idea, he’d been unable to contain
himself. He’d had to get it out, and now, he felt it boiling over within him.
He could not keep silent, even if he tried.

Godfrey found himself stepping forward into the
village center, unable to control himself. He stood in the thick of the crowd,
jumped up on a high stone, waved his hands, and yelled:

“Wait a minute!” His voice boomed, a deep, loud
voice, coming from his big belly, sounding, strangely enough, like the voice of
his father, the king.

All the villagers quieted, shocked to see him
standing there, with his big belly, a man of white skin demanding attention. Gwendolyn
and the others looked even more surprised at his appearance. He clearly was not
a warrior, and yet somehow, he demanded attention.

“I have another idea!” Godfrey called out.

They all slowly turned to him, all eyes
riveted.

“In my experience, any man can be bought, for a
high enough price. And armies are composed of men.”

They all looked at him, puzzled.

“Gold speaks in every language, in every land,”
Godfrey said. “And I have a lot of it. Enough gold to buy any army.”

Bokbu stepped forward in the silence, turning
to Godfrey.

“And what are you proposing exactly? That we hand
the Empire soldiers bags of gold? You think that will send them away? Volusia
is one of the riches cities in the Empire.”

Godfrey shook his head.

“I will not wait for their army to come,” he
said. “That is not how men are bought. I will go into the city. I will go
myself and bring enough gold to buy whoever needs to be bought. I have conquered
men without raising a spear, and I can turn this one back before they even
come.”

They all stared up at Godfrey, speechless. He stood
there, trembling, feeling shocked himself that he had spoken up like this. He did
not know what had overcome him; possibly it was the injustice of it all, possibly
seeing that poor brave girl in tears. He had spoken before he had even thought
it through, and he was surprised as he felt a hand clap him on the back.

A villager stepped forward and looked at him
approvingly.

“You are a white man from across the sea,” he
said. “You do things differently than we. And yet you have an idea. A bold idea
and a courageous idea. If you want to enter the city and bring your yellow
coins, we shall not stop you. Just maybe, you shall save us all.”

All the villagers suddenly let out a soft
cooing noise, and spread empty palms toward Godfrey.

“What is that noise?” Godfrey asked. “What are
they doing with their hands?”

“It is the salute of our people,” Bokbu explained.
“It is a sound of admiration. A sound reserved for heroes.”

Godfrey felt another hand clap him on the back,
then another, and soon the village meeting dissipated, each man going in his own
way, their fighting broken up by Godfrey’s interruption. At least the tensions
had cooled, Godfrey thought, and surely the villagers would regroup to talk
strategy in another way.

While he watched them all walk away, Godfrey
stood there, a surreal feeling coming over him, wondering what he had just
done. Had he really just committed to venturing alone to a hostile city in a
hostile Empire to buy off people he did not know? Was it an act of bravery? Or
sheer stupidity?

Godfrey looked up to see Akorth and Fulton
approach, helping him down from the stone.

They shook their heads, smiling.

“And all this without any drink,” Akorth said.
“You
are
changing, my friend.”

“I suppose you’ll want some traveling companions,”
Fulton said, “someone to share some of those yellow coins you speak of. I
suppose we might join you. We have nothing else to do, we’re nearly out of
drink, and I’m sick of being in that cave.”

“Not to mention the brothels we might find,” Fulton said with a wink. “I hear Volusia is quite the sumptuous place.”

Godfrey stared back, open-mouthed, not knowing
what to say, and before he could respond, Merek, the thief from the dungeons
who had joined the Legion, came up beside them.

“Any way you go,” he said, “you’ll want to
enter the back alleys. You’ll need a good thief by your side. A man as
unscrupulous as you. I am that man.”

Godfrey sized him up: nearly his age, Godfrey
could see cunning and ruthlessness in his eyes, could see a boy who had done
whatever it took to scrape his way up in life. It was the type of person he
wanted around.

“You’ll need someone who knows the Empire as well,”
came a voice

Godfrey turned to see Ario, the small boy who
had joined the Legion, who had trekked alone across the sea from the Empire
jungles, after saving Thorgrin and the others, to keep good on his promise.

“I’ve been to Volusia before,” the boy said. “I
am of the Empire after all. Yours is a bold mission, and I admire the bold. I
shall join you. I will follow you into battle.”