An Oath of Brothers (25 page)

Thor looked back at them all, each one, face to face, and his eyes welled up as he realized that these were his true brothers, blood thicker than family.

“We couldn’t leave you,” Matus said. “Not even for a place like this.”

The girl stepped forward, looking up at them curiously, and all eyes turned to her, then questioningly to Thor.

“We have a new companion,” Thorgrin said to them. “I would like you to meet…”

Thor, puzzled, realized he didn’t know her name. He turned to her.

“What
is
your name?” he asked her.

“Here, we never knew our parents,” she said. “We were all given up at birth. None of us know our names. Our real names. So we name each other. Here, they all call me Angel.”

Thor nodded.

“Angel,” he repeated. “That is a beautiful name. And you are indeed as pure as snow.”

Thor turned to all of his brothers and sisters.

“Guwayne is not here,” he announced. “But Angel will be joining us. I am taking her from this place.”

They all looked at him, and he could see the uncertainty flashing through their eyes, could see what they were all thinking: to bring her would infect them all.

Yet, to their credit, not one of them objected. All of them, Thor could see, were willing to risk their lives for her.

“Angel,” Selese said sweetly, smiling, stepping forward, addressing her. “That is a very fine name, for a very sweet girl.”

She stroked her hair, and Angel smiled back broadly.

“No one’s ever touched my hair before,” Angel said back.

Selese smiled wide.

“Then you shall have to get used to it.”

Thor stood there, wondering what this all meant. He had been certain Guwayne was here. He recalled his dream:
Your child awaits on the island
. He looked at Angel, smiling back at Selese so sweetly, so filled with life, with joy, and he wondered: is she my child? Maybe she was. Not in the literal sense of the word—but maybe he was meant to raise her, as his own. An adopted child?

Thor did not understand, yet he did know it was time to move on. Guwayne was still out there, and he had no time to lose.

As one, they all began to walk—Thor, Reece, Selese, Elden, Indra, Matus, O’Connor, and now Angel, holding Selese’s hand—an unlikely group, yet somehow all fitting perfectly together. Thor did not where this could lead, and yet he knew that somehow, this all felt right.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Erec stood at the bow of the ship, hands on his hips, studying the sight before him in awe. There, rising up from the seas, were two ancient rock formations—the Dragon’s Spine—serrated rocks that rose in a jagged formation, a hundred feet high, with rocky shores sprawled alongside them, forcing all ships to travel between them. Erec looked up at it looming before them as they sailed closer and closer, mouth agape at their immensity. He’d never seen anything quite like it. Two sets of red cliffs, rocks sharp, shaped to points, in rows, like the curved spine of a dragon. The currents raged, getting stronger with each moment, and they sucked the ship toward the center, like an angry beast sucking prey for its open mouth.

Making matters worse, the waves and tides were vicious here, growing ever more intense the closer they got, the winds stronger, the clouds darker. In the middle of the Spine, Erec could see, the waves rolled a good thirty feet high, then crashed down against the jagged rocks on either side, the entire channel between the spines like a violent whirlpool in a bathtub. It seemed like a sure death.

The Dragon’s Spine lived up to its reputation; indeed, as they neared it, their ship bobbing wildly, Erec could begin to see the remains of dozens of other ships, washed up on its rocks, pieces of them still clinging to boulders as if clinging to life, a vestige of what once was. Those pieces, Erec knew, represented countless sailors’ deaths. Even now, in death, waves crashed mercilessly against them, pounding the fragments to ever smaller pieces. It was a fierce testament to all the ships that had tried foolishly to broach the Spine.

Erec gripped the rail, his stomach dropping as their ship suddenly dropped twenty feet in a wave, and clung to Alistair’s waist on his other side, to make sure she was okay. On his other side stood Strom, his face wet from the spray, slipping on the deck but hanging onto the rail.

“Did I not tell you to go below?” Erec pleaded with Alistair again, yelling over the wind to be heard.

Alistair shook her head, gripping the rail.

“I go where you go,” she replied.

Erec looked back and saw his fleet behind him, and looked over and saw Krov’s all-black ships sailing alongside him, flying the black flag of the Bouldermen. He spotted Krov, hands on his hips, standing at the bow, looking over at him, clearly unhappy. Krov, though, somehow managed to stand with steady legs, balancing on his boat even with the waves crashing all around him, looking unfazed, as if it were just another sunny day at sea.

He shook his head at Erec.

“You couldn’t go around, could you?” he yelled out, annoyed.

Erec turned and looked straight ahead at the looming waves and rocks. He turned back and saw many of his men going below the decks.

He turned again to Alistair.

“Get down below,” he said. “I beg you.”

She shook her head.

“I shall not,” she insisted. “Not for anything.”

Erec turned and looked at Strom, who shrugged back as if to say:
I can’t control her.

“She is a wife fit for a King,” Strom said. “What do you expect?”

A towering wave suddenly crashed over the deck, knocking them all back off their feet, sliding across it. Erec, his nose filling with salt water, was momentarily blinded, as the bow went entirely underwater, submerged.

Just as quickly the boat straightened, and they stopped sliding, each of them banging their backs into the rail.

“All the ships single file behind us!” Erec commanded, rushing to his feet. “NOW!”

Several of his soldiers rushed to do his bidding, shouting the orders up and down the ranks. Erec heard a horn sounding, and he looked back to see his fleet gathering single file. Erec knew this was their only chance of all making it, of threading the needle of the Dragon’s Spine comfortably.

“STEER FOR THE MIDDLE!” Erec yelled. “Stay as far from the rocks as possible! The current’s pulling left, so steer compensate right. Lower the sails, and get ready to drop anchors if need be!”

Men rushed about in every direction executing his commands, and Erec had barely finished giving the orders when he turned and looked up. He braced himself as he saw another immense wave crashing down.

Erec grabbed Alistair’s wrist, hanging on to her as their boat was thrown left and right, rocking as well as plummeting. Alistair reached out and grabbed a thick rope, and as Erec slipped, it was she who held onto him, wrapping the rope around his wrist just before he fell overboard and another wave subsumed them. Because of that rope, he remained on board, in her grip.

They straightened and Erec, so grateful to Alistair, looked all about. They were now in the midst of the Spine, right between the two huge rocks, and their boat was being jerked in every direction. It veered suddenly as a strong current took it and almost smashed into a sharp rock on their left. At the last second, the current jerked the other way and somehow, by the grace of God, pulled them back away from disaster. But not unscathed: as they grazed the jagged shoreline, Erec heard a cracking noise that put a pit in his stomach and he looked over to watch half the rail of his ship taken out, swiped by the rocks. He swallowed hard, realizing what a close call it was, how they had been spared from far worse damage.

Halfway through the Dragon’s Spine, Erec knew there was no turning back. The raging currents drove them through it, and up ahead in the distance, he could see the light. He saw where the Dragon’s Spine ended. It was incredible. Perhaps two hundred yards before them, as one emerged from the Dragon’s Spine, the ocean was perfectly calm, still, the sun shining, a perfectly beautiful day. It was surreal, like passing through a door.

All they had to do was make it the next two hundred yards. Yet, Erec realized, that was probably what dozens of other sailors, their ships smashed, lining the rocks, had thought too as they had tried to make it through.

Please, God,
Erec thought.
Just two hundred yards
.

No sooner had he prayed than Erec heard a horrific noise, as if his prayer had been answered by a demon. He heard it rise up, even over the raging wind and crashing waves, and as his ship rose on a high wave, he looked up and was horrified to see the source of the noise.

There, rising up from the waters, guarding the exit to the Dragon’s Spine, was an immense, primordial monster. With a neck longer than his ship, with fins and scales, and arms and legs, claws at the end of each of them, and a jaw larger than a dragon’s, it was a green vision of death.

It turned right for his ship and opened its jaws and roared so loud, it split Erec’s mast. Erec raised his hands to his ears, trying to drown out the noise, as the beast lifted his head high and began to bring it down low. It opened wide its jaw as if to swallow his ship in one bite, his face so wide it blocked out the sun, and Erec knew it was too late.

He knew, without a doubt, that this was how he was going to die.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Darius stood in the desert night, his face lit up by the torchlight, and looked out proudly at the sea of faces. There, spread out before him, stood thousands of former slaves, now free men, not just from his own village but from all the neighboring villages. In every direction, surrounding him, there were more faces than he could count, all looking back at him with hope. His revolution had spread like wildfire, from one slave village to the next, now out of his hands and spreading on its own. Now he could not even control it if he wanted to. Slaves freed slaves, villages freed villages, and these, in turn, freed others. They slaughtered taskmasters, rose up for their freedom, rallying more and more people to his cause They all sought him out, congregated before him, all forming a single army. They were short on weapons and short on armor—they had only what they managed to salvage from the Empire—yet they had spirit. All of their deep-seated resentment had finally been unleashed, something deep within their hearts and souls let loose, and Darius was elated that others felt as he did.

Darius stood there, Dray at his feet, close to him as always, chewing contentedly on a bone Darius had found for him—and snarling at anyone who came too close to Darius—and he studied the sea of new and unfamiliar faces. All of them had one thing in common: hope brimmed in their eyes. And they all had another thing in common: they all looked to him. They clearly all looked up to him as a leader, and he felt the weight of it on his shoulders, taking it very seriously. He did not want to make the wrong move.

“Zambuti,” said a slave as he passed, bowing his head at Darius. It was a familiar refrain that Darius was hearing everywhere he turned these days, men gathering by the thousands just to see him. Some reached out and touched him, as if not believing he were real. Darius hardly knew what to make of it all. It was like a strange dream.

His people, Darius was thrilled to see, no longer had the fearful, cringing attitude they once did. Now they walked out in the open, proudly, chest out, shoulders back, as free men, as men with dignity. The entire desert night was filled with their torches, Darius turning and seeing torches as far as he could see, and more arriving by the second. Momentum was turning, Darius felt, perhaps even shifting to their side. There was a feeling in the air he’d never felt before, as if great, momentous things were happening, that all of their lives were about to change, and that he was right in the middle of it.

“You’ve started something big, my friend,” Desmond said, coming up beside him, Raj on his other side, the three of them standing and looking out as the cool desert winds blew through the night. “Something that I believe not even you can control.”

“Something that has become even bigger than you,” Raj added proudly, looking out.

Darius nodded.

“That is good,” he replied. “They are free men now. They should not be controlled by anyone. Free man should control themselves and their own destiny.”

“And yet they look to you,” Kaz added, joining them, “and all men must have a leader. What destiny will you lead them to?”

Darius stood there, looking out into the night, wondering the same thing. Leading men, he felt, was a sacred responsibility. He looked about him and saw an inner circle was forming around him, including Raj and Desmond and Kaz and Luzi and a dozen other boys he had trained with back in his village. They all crowded in close, along with many others, who looked intently at Darius, hanging on his every word.

“Name our next conquest!” called out a brave warrior from another village, “and we shall follow you anywhere!”

There came a cheer of approval.

“There is another village waiting to be liberated,” one of them called out. “It is a day’s ride north of here. We can reach it by sunrise, if we rise all night, and free several hundred more men!”

There came another small cheer of approval, and Darius looked off into the desert night, and pondered. There were so many villages out there to liberate; it was a task that could occupy a lifetime.

Darius took his sword and stepped forward into the group of men and began to draw on the sand. They quickly formed a circle around him, giving him space to draw and crowding around to see what he was doing.

“We are here,” he said, marking the spot, scratching a line in the hard desert floor with the tip of his sword. He drew a broad circle around it, and from it he drew several paths, forking off in all different directions.

“We must forget all these directions,” he said, his voice filled with authority. “We have already freed enough villages, rallied enough men. The longer we do, the longer it gives the Empire to summon the entire power of their army and counterattack. We can free a few hundred more men—perhaps even a few thousand—but it still will never give us greater numbers than they.”