The Gift of Battle (23 page)

Thorgrin finally
stopped fighting, breathing hard, and he surveyed the chamber in the stillness.
Straight ahead, in the distance, on the far side of the chamber, he noticed a
series of black granite steps leading upward, carved into a mountain. And as he
looked up, at its top he saw an immense throne, twenty feet wide, covered in
black diamonds, and he knew it was the throne of the Blood Lord.

Yet it sat
vacant.

Thor was
baffled, wondering why the Blood Lord was not here. Perhaps he had not been
expecting Thor, had never thought he could arrive here, to his inner chamber.

And as Thorgrin
heard a sudden cry, he looked back up again, his body on high alert, and
studied the chamber closely—and he was even more shocked by what he saw: there,
sitting beside the throne, hiding in the shadows, was a shining golden
bassinet.

Guwayne.

There came
another cry, and Thorgrin’s heart lifted at the sound. Guwayne. He was really
here, alive, unharmed, at the side of the throne.

Thor did not
hesitate. He broke into a dash, sprinting up the steps, taking them three,
four, five, six at a time, until he reached the top. And as Thor raced by the
throne, he suddenly stopped, feeling the strangest thing happen. It was as if
the throne were magnetic. It was as if it wanted Thor to sit in it. To rule. To
become King of the Dead.

Thor stopped before
it, shaking, barely able to fend off its power. He looked back and forth
between it and Guwayne, knowing he should snatch Guwayne and leave.

But as he stood
there, his knees grew weak. He felt the Ring vibrating on his finger, trying to
help him, and he knew he was caught in a supreme test of will. It was an ever
harder test than confronting the Blood Lord: he was confronting himself. His
own deepest, darkest impulses.

You, Thorgrin,
are meant to be here
,
a voice rang out.
You are meant to be King. The Dark King. Sit, and feel the
seat of power. Embrace us, rule here, and you can have powers beyond your
wildest dreams. Sit, and finally be King.

The Ring burned
hotter and hotter on Thor’s finger as he leaned forward, barely able to contain
his desires, about to sit on the throne.

But then, at the
last moment, Thor felt a searing flash of power course through the Ring and
through his body, pushing him away, as if stung. He turned away from it.

“NO!” he
shouted.

Thor instead
turned to Guwayne, just feet away. His heart pounded as he lunged forward to
embrace him, bracing himself, fearing that he might, like last time, find it
empty. He could not take another disappointment.

But as Thor
reached down he was elated to see Guwayne in the bassinet—and he reached down
and scooped him up and held him, feeling overwhelmed with emotion.

Guwayne cried as
Thorgrin held him, and Thor felt the tears running down his own cheeks, elated
to hold him again, to see him alive, healthy, unharmed. Thorgrin held him
tight, feeling Guwayne’s power course through him as he stood there. He felt
that he was a very powerful child, more powerful even than Thor would ever be.
He felt within Guwayne a power for good or for evil, and he shuddered,
recalling the prophecy that his son would turn to darkness. He prayed it was
not true. As long as he was alive, Thorgrin would do everything he could to
shelter him, to prevent that.

As Thorgrin
lifted Guwayne from the bassinet, as he turned his back on the throne,
suddenly, the entire castle, as if furious, began to shake. The walls began to
crumble, to shake and collapse, as if Thorgrin had stolen from them their most
precious possession. The gargoyles began to drop down from the ceiling, to fly
away, to flee the room, as boulders began to drop and the ground began quaked.

Thor realized
they had little time. He clutched Guwayne tight, turned, and fled from the
chamber, rushing down the steps four at a time, racing back through the
cavernous room, dodging falling boulders as he went, all of them crashing
beside him in a cacophony of dust.

Thor twisted and
turned his way in the darkness, back down the tunnels, racing for his life as
the castle began to collapse all around him, Guwayne screaming in his arms. But
as long as he held on tight to Guwayne, nothing mattered to him anymore.

Thor saw the
exit to the castle up ahead, and he saw the walls collapsing all around it,
leaving but a sliver through which to escape. He gave it one last sprint to the
finish.

A moment later,
Thor burst out of the castle, bumped roughly by a boulder that smashed his
shoulder, sending him stumbling. But he kept running, never stopping, and as
soon as he burst through, the entire castle crumbled in one huge avalanche of
rock.

Thorgrin ran and
ran, escaping the spreading avalanche, the mound of rubble, sprinting for his
life. He leapt back over the bridge of spikes, ran back down the pathway, the
long trail leading back to Lycoples. The ground shook, as if the whole Land of Blood were collapsing, and a fissure in the ground began to open right behind Thor.
It spread wider and wider, chasing after him as he went, a great chasm opening
to the bowels of the earth, and Thor ran for his life, knowing he was but a
step away from death.

Thor looked up,
saw Lycoples waiting, and as reached her, leaping onto her back, never slowing,
she screeched and lifted off, as anxious to go as he was.

The second she
did the fissure spread on the ground right beneath where they had just been,
and Thor knew that if they had waited just one more second, they would have all
been finished.

Thor held onto
Lycoples, clutching Guwayne, who finally fell silent in his arms. Flying in the
air, holding his son, lifting off, away from this place, he felt restored
again. He could hardly believe it. He had made it. This time, he had won.

They sped
through the air, and Thorgrin and Lycoples both knew where they were going.
There was one place left for them to go in the world. A place that would be the
scene of an epic war. A place where, Thor knew, the Blood Lord and all his
hosts would follow. The place where Gwendolyn, his Legion brothers, and all his
people awaited him.

It was time to
return home.

It was time,
finally, to fight for the Ring.

The Blood Lord
arose from his ancient slumber, disoriented, in complete shock. He had felt his
castle shaking all around him, rousing him from his sleep, had felt a great
disruption in the force, had felt instantly that someone had intruded in his
sacred space.

It was
impossible. No one had ever before approached his castle—much less broken
inside it. Not in a thousand millennia.

At first, the Blood
Lord assumed it had been a nightmare. But as the walls continued to shake and
crumble all around him, deep underground, he soon realize that it was not. It
was a disruption unlike anything he had ever felt. And as he sat up, at
attention, he sensed immediately that the boy was gone.

Guwayne.

The Blood Lord
let out a horrific shriek as he jumped to his feet then jumped straight up,
raising a fist and shattering the stone. He flew up, through the floor,
bursting out of the rock into the chambers above.

As he stood
there, in a room now filled with rubble, he was distraught. Around him, nearly
all of his precious gargoyles lay dead, crushed, writhing. The few who remained
were screeching and circling high above.

He turned
immediately and looked up, for his throne, for the bassinet—and with a sense of
horror and dread, he saw that his throne was crushed, and that the bassinet lay
empty. Someone had snatched the child.

The Blood Lord
seethed, as he realized immediately who it was: Thorgrin. He had snatched away
his child. He had taken away his most precious jewel, this power child whom
he’d hoped to raise as his own, whom he’d groom to become greatest darkest Lord
of them all. Whom he would use to rule the world—just as the prophecies had
proclaimed.

Yet he did not
understand how it was possible. He was more powerful than Thorgrin; he had
already defeated him once. Thorgrin did not have that kind of power—unless, he
suddenly realized, he had retrieved the sacred Sorcerer’s Ring. Had he?

The Blood Lord
shrieked in agony, seeing his whole life’s mission destroyed, feeling his veins
burning with fury, with a desire for vengeance. He knew instantly what he had
to do: find Thorgrin. Crush him. Retrieve the child.

And he knew
instantly that there was only one place that Thorgrin could have taken him: the
Ring.

He leapt up, as
the walls continued to collapse, and this time he burst right through, out the
other side of his castle, into daylight, smashing through rock with his fist.
He emerged on the ground, outside his castle, and immediately he looked up and
searched the skies. There, in the distance, on the far horizon, he spotted
Thorgrin. He was flying away on the back of a dragon, and holding something.

Guwayne. His
child.

The Blood Lord
howled in fury, his face contorted in agony, and he knew there was only one
thing he could do: muster his army.

He put his palms
out to his side, turned them, and slowly raised them, higher and higher. As he
did, all around him the landscape of ash and mud began to crawl, to squirm, to
come alive. There slowly emerged from the black soil an army. An army of
undead, emerging as if from a field of eggs, reaching up out of the soil with
their long, hideous red claws and pulling themselves up. They looked like
gargoyles, but were five times the size, with blackened scales, hairy bodies,
and long, slimy fangs. They had wings as long as their bodies, and tails just
as long, which flopped against the soil. They stared back at the Blood Lord
with their glowing orange eyes, thousands of them, awaiting his command,
drooling, shrieking. Wanting to kill something. Anything.

Thorgrin had
made a grave mistake. The Blood Lord was no primitive sorcerer. No local king.
He was the Lord of all Lords, the one who could raise an army from dust, the
one that no one had ever defeated. The one who had punished anyone who had
dared defy him.

Thorgrin had
provoked a nest the likes of which the world had never known. He would follow
him to the ends of the earth, until the earth was scorched with his creatures,
and tear him—and his son—to pieces.

The time had
come to destroy the world.

And the first
stop on his mission could be but one place:

The Ring.

Gwen and her
people sailed at a good speed downriver, the wind picking up, the currents
getting stronger, sailing further and further east, the suns low in the sky,
the shores of the Waste not even visible anymore on the horizon. Gwen looked
down at Krohn at her feet, looked over at Steffen at her side, Koldo, Ludvig,
Kaden, Ruth and Kendrick manning the ships beside her, and she felt fortunate.
The reality of their situation was starting to sink in: they had escaped.
Despite all odds, they had fled the Ridge, had saved hundreds, and had made it
out to open water.

They made good
speed, the sails full, the river tides pulling them out toward the sea, which
she knew lay somewhere on the horizon. She knew that once they reached the open
sea, they would be far from the mainland of the Empire, farther from their
clutches, and closer and closer to the Ring.

Yet for now, as
they still navigated these narrow rivers, Empire land on either side of them,
other rivers still feeding into this one from all directions, Gwen was still
very much on guard. They twisted and turned through the landscape of the
Empire, and Gwendolyn knew they could not relax yet; they were still deep in
hostile territory. They were still vulnerable to attack from all sides. And if
the Empire blocked their way, or caught up with them before they made it out to
open sea, they would die here, in this land.

Gwen heard a
gushing of water up ahead, and she looked out in the dim light and saw the
river currents changing. They were approaching an intersection, several major
rivers of the Empire merging in this spot, widening the river and strengthening
the current. She was relieved to see the tides grow stronger, knowing they
would gain momentum—yet she was anxious to see this river being fed into by dozens
of rivers. Empire ships could arrive from any direction in the Empire.

As they merged
into this new river, the ship bobbing wildly as the currents picked up, Gwen
suddenly heard a distant horn sound, and her heart dropped. It was a sound she
recognized well: the war horn of the Empire.

Gwendolyn looked
back over her shoulder, and she saw another sight that made her blood run cold:
a thousand arrows blackened the sky, like a flock of bats, soaring in a high
arc, then dropping down right for them.

“GET DOWN!” she
yelled.

They all took
cover as the arrows all dropped in the waters behind them, splashing like a
school of fish. Gwen looked up and sighed with relief to see the arrows land
just short of their fleet.

But then her
heart stopped to see dozens of Empire ships sailing after them, catching up
from all the different rivers, now pursuing them and nearly in range. Their
ships were sleeker, faster, and she could see in an instant that they would
soon overtake them.

Gwen realized
their chances had just dwindled to almost none. They could not fight off this
fleet—not with their meager numbers, weapons, and ships. And yet the thought of
being captured again by the Empire was something she could not tolerate.

She looked over
at the other ships, at Koldo, Kaden, Ludvig, and Kendrick, and saw the same
disconsolate look on their faces. They were all prepared to fight—and yet they
all knew this meant defeat.

Before they
could call out commands, Gwen flinched as there came another sudden sound of
arrows soaring through the air—yet this time, when she looked up, she was
confused: the arrows came from in front of them, sailing over their ship in the
other direction. Had they been surrounded, flanked in both directions?

Gwen turned,
expecting to see more Empire ships—and was shocked and elated to see it was
something else entirely. She could hardly believe to see these were people she
knew, recognized, loved. People from the Ring.

Erec smiled
back, beside him, Alistair—and Godfrey on his other side, Dray at his heels.
They all stood at the bow, as Erec commanded a fleet of soldiers from the
Southern Isles, along with a fleet of freed slaves of the Empire. She watched
with admiration and hope as Erec sailed forward, right for her, and commanded
his fleet to fire arrows back at the Empire. The arrows sailed through the air,
over her fleet, and toward the distant Empire ships. They pierced dozens of
Empire soldiers, who cried out and began to fall—and Gwendolyn’s heart leapt
with joy.

Now they had a
battle.

*

Erec stood at
the bow of the ship, his heart racing with joy to see Gwendolyn and the other
exiles from the Ring again, along with Kendrick and his other fellow Silver
members, each at the heads of their own ship, along with several hundred people
he could only imagine were exiles from the Ridge. He had never thought he’d lay
eyes upon members of the Ring again, especially here, so far from home, and he
was beyond elated to see that Gwendolyn was still alive. He had been battling
to find her for longer than he could remember, and after missing her in
Volusia, he was beginning to wonder if he would ever see her again.

But Erec was
already focused, in battle mode, as his eyes locked on the Empire fleet bearing
down on his brothers in arms.

He wasted no
time instructing his men:

“FIRE!” he
yelled again.

His men fired
another volley of arrows, using their long-range crossbows designed for
situations like this, and he watched in satisfaction as they sailed through the
air, over Gwen’s fleet, higher and higher in a great arc, all the way to the
Empire fleet. He watched in satisfaction as he saw them bombard a deck and
distract the soldiers from attacking Gwendolyn.

Yet Erec knew
this was not enough—there were hundreds of Empire ships, and he knew he needed
to make a bold move if he were to rescue Gwendolyn and the others in time.

Erec immediately
scanned the landscape with a professional soldier’s eye, and as he did, he
noticed how the Great Waste rose in elevation alongside the river, rising up in
steep cliffs along the river’s edge. As he scanned the slopes, he spotted
massive boulders perched precariously amidst them, and he was struck with an
idea: if he could shoot out those boulders, he might be able to get them to
tumble down into the river and smash the Empire fleet. They would take out
dozens of ships, and, if he loosened enough of them, clog the river and dam it
up behind Gwendolyn.

Erec turned to
his men.

“Aim for the
rocks!” he commanded, pointing.

To demonstrate
his point, Erec rushed across the deck, snatched a crossbow from one of his
men’s hands, aimed high, and fired—as his men watched, confused.

The arrow lodged
beneath a small boulder. Erec watched with satisfaction as the rock loosened
and tumbled down the cliff, gaining momentum as it went, bouncing and finally
smashing against the hull of an Empire ship. The ship rocked, a hole in its
side, and moments later, it began to list and sink.

Erec’s men,
realizing, all took aim and fired at the cliffs. Many arrows bounced harmlessly
off of them—but enough of them made an impact. Soon, many small boulders went
rolling down the hillside, taking out others, creating small avalanches. Bit by
bit, they were damming up the river.

But while the
small boulders were clearly a nuisance for the Empire, the big boulders were
untouched. Erec realized that without dislodging them, they would never dam up
the river and take out the ships.

While he
watched, Erec saw the Empire ships close in on Gwen and the others; they put up
a glorious fight, not flinching from the attack, and firing back volley after
volley of arrows for each round that came at them. Despite their smaller
numbers, they were fending them off—for now.

But Erec saw
hundreds more ships closing in, saw the sky blacken with more Empire arrows,
saw more of their people fall, and he knew that soon Gwen and her men would all
be vanquished. He felt an urgency.

Standing there,
desperate, Alistair stepped up beside him. He saw that serene, confident look
in her eyes, and he knew she was summoning her powers. Her eyes closed, her palms
turned upward, and Erec saw her getting strength, a slight halo appearing all
around her. He could feel her power emanating from here.

Suddenly,
Alistair opened her eyes, raised her palms, and threw them forward, one palm in
each direction. Erec watched as a ball of light shot forth from each palm, each
to a different side of the river, heading for the huge boulders on the cliffs.

There came a
great rumbling sound, the cliffs shook, and Erec watched in awe as the boulders
were dislodged. They began to roll, faster and faster, speeding down the
cliffs, taking tons of rock with them as they created an avalanche.

All Empire eyes
turned and looked up, seeing the devastation coming for them, rolling down the
cliffs. They tried to flee, to turn back, but their ships were too big, too
unwieldy. They had nowhere to go as boulder after boulder rolled right for
them, a massive avalanche thundering toward the river.

Shrieks filled
the air as the boulders smashed into the ships, their wood cracking,
splintering, as one at a time, their ships were shattered. Hundreds of soldiers
flailed as they fell overboard into the currents.

The Empire ships
that were spared still could not escape the dam. Hundreds more boulders poured
down before them, stopping up the river in a huge mound, preventing any more
ships from passing as they settled in a great cloud of dust. Within moments,
the river closed up behind Gwendolyn, and the Empire was unable to pursue them.

Erec sailed up
to Gwendolyn’s fleet, the two fleets meeting, each beaming with smiles, and as
their ships met he ran and jumped up onto her ship. They embraced, followed by
all their men, leaping onto each other’s ships, the two fleets blending, all of
them now one unified power. He watched Gwendolyn embraced her brother Godfrey,
and he stepped forward and embraced Kendrick, Brandt, and Atme, his Silver
brothers in arms. He met Koldo and the others, and he watched as Alistair
embraced Gwendolyn.

He could hardly
believe it. After all this time searching, it felt surreal. They were together
again. Together, he knew, as one force, they could do it—they could snake their
way out of this Empire, into the open sea, and make their way back home. As
they all embraced, tears of joy in their eyes, these fractured elements of the
Ring back together, Erec slowly felt their past returning to them. He felt
optimistic for the first time in as long as he could remember, and he knew that
nothing would stop them now. Now they would all make for the Ring, for
Thorgrin, for their homeland—or die trying.