A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (13 page)

Thor felt determined.

“I will
not
let you die,” he insisted.
He reached over and grabbed her hand. “Do you understand me? Whatever I have to
do, whatever it takes, I will not let you die.”

She wiped away a tear.

“I believe that if you could, you
would,” she said. “But you are not God. And Selese, even with all her powers,
has tried to heal me, and even she cannot. Neither could Alistair.” She shook
her head sadly. “Not everyone is meant to be on this world forever.”

Thor felt his heart tearing up inside.

“There must be a cure,” he said. “Is
there not
some
cure!?” he demanded.

Angel looked off into the distance, her
eyes glassy.

“On the island, they all talked, all the
time, of a cure,” she said. “Some swear one exists. Others think it’s just a
fantasy of the desperate few. Whether it really exists…I don’t know.”

“What is it?” Thor pressed, determined.
“Where is it?”

She shook her head.

“I know not what it is,” she replied.
“As far as where….well, some claim it lies between the Western Horns of the
Empire. In the Land of the Giants.”

Thor and all the others exchanged a
curious look.

“The Land of the Giants?” Selese asked.

Angel nodded, her eyes heavy.

Thor turned to Indra, the expert on all
things Empire.

“Do you know it?” he asked her.

Indra nodded grimly.

“I’ve heard of it,” she said. “A place
of terror. They are a fierce nation, answering to no one—not even the Empire.
All who venture there do not return.”

Thor felt filled with resolve, felt it
burning in his stomach. He turned to Angel.

“Then that is where we shall go,” he
said. “We will rescue Guwayne, then we will find you your cure.”

Angel slowly shook her head, smiling.

“You are very sweet to care about me,”
she replied. “But it would be in vain. It might not even exist—and you would all
die trying.”

Thor looked at the others, and they all
looked back at him, equally resolved.

“Then all of us shall die,” Reece chimed
in, all of the others nodding.

Angel looked around the circle, and Thor
detected new hope in her eyes.

Thor clutched Angel’s hand, white with
leprosy, and held on tight. He was determined to follow through on his word: he
would find a way to cure her, whatever it took.

They continued to sail deeper into the
ocean of blood, a comfortable silence settling over them, punctuated by the howl
of the wind and the splashing of exotic fish alongside the boat. The gloom
settled over all of them, matching Thorgrin’s mood. There was something about
this place that he sensed, something he did not like or trust, which he felt sinking
deeper and deeper into him. It was like there was a depression that swirled in
the air, and that sunk into his being the longer he was here. As much as he
tried to block them out, Ragon’s final words rang through his head: Even with
all your powers…you would surely die if you go there.
All
of you would. Had
he been right? Was broaching that waterfall, entering the Land of Blood, a feat too great for even him? Was he setting himself up for failure and death—and all
his friends along with him?

He had no choice but to find out.
Guwayne was out there on that horizon, somewhere, and as long as he was,
turning around was not an option.

With full sails and land still far off,
there was little for them to do. In the long silence, Reece sat there, holding Selese,
who leaned back in his arms; Elden sat beside Indra, trying to drape an arm
over her shoulder, which she reluctantly allowed; O’Connor polished his bow and
Matus his flail—while Thor held the Sword of the Dead in his hands, examining
all the fine detail on its ancient and mysterious hilt, brow furrowed as he
thought of Guwayne. Was he safe now? Thor wondered.

Reece, sitting beside Thorgrin, cleared
his throat.

“Old friend,” he said to Thor, who
looked up at him. “You and I have been on many quests together—more than I can
count—and I’ve rarely seen you so concerned as you are now. But you must let it
go, so your mind is clear for the battle ahead. I know you worry for Angel. We
all do. But if this cure exists, we shall find it. And as far as your Guwayne…whatever
it takes, we shall find him too. We are with you.”

Thor was overwhelmed with gratitude for
his friend’s support.

“You are right, my friend,” Thor
replied. “A warrior’s mind must always be clear.”

Reece sighed.

“When I was young,” Reece continued,
after a long while, “all I wanted was to be a member of the Legion. I wanted it
so badly, I could taste it. I would stay up all night, night after night,
pining for it. I imagined myself in the armor, imagined myself wielding its
weapons…. But my father, the King, told me I could not join—unless I earned it.”

Thor looked back at his friend in
wonder; he had never heard this story before.

“But I always assumed you were just
given a position in the Legion,” Thor replied. “After all, you are the son of a
King.”

Reece shook his head.

“That is why I was not,” Reece replied. “He
wanted me to earn it, like everybody else—but more than that, he demanded I excel,
beyond a normal Legion member. The trials I was given were twice as hard as the
others. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him.”

Reece sighed.

“I resented it at the time, and I hated
my father. I could understand equality—but what he put me through was unjust. At
the time, I viewed him as a tyrant, intent on keeping me from when I wanted
most.”

Reece looked out at the horizon long
time, clearly thinking.

“And now?” Thor finally asked, curious.

“And now,” Reece finally continued, “looking
back, I understand why he did what he did. Now I finally realize that he was
not training me for the Legion: he was training me for life. He
wanted
me
to experience something unfair, because
life
can be unfair. He wanted me
to excel and rise above what was merely necessary, because in life, often we
need to excel beyond what is needed from us. He wanted me to experience
adversity and perseverance because it is often through them that we reach our
goals. And he wanted to withhold for me what I wanted most in life because he
wanted me, above all, to fight for it.

“Above all,” Reece continued, “he wanted
me to achieve it on my own because, if he had just given it to me, it would’ve
been valueless to me. I would have resented him for it my whole life. As much
as I hated him then, I love him for it now. It was something he didn’t give me—and
that, ironically, was the greatest gift of all.”

Reece looked at Thor meaningfully.

“That, after all,” Reece continued, “is what
it means to be a warrior. Nothing is given to him, nothing is handed to him. What
is his, he takes, earns by his own hands, his own merit. Not by our fathers’
hands, and not by our family name. But by our own name, by the name we are
forced to forge for ourselves.”

Thorgrin thought about what Reece said,
and the words resonated with him more, than he knew.

“The world is filled with people telling
us what we cannot achieve,” Reece said. “It is up to us to prove them wrong.”

Thorgrin, inspired, reached out and
clasped Reece’s forearm.

“We are brothers,” he said. “And we
shall be until the day we die.”

“Brothers,” Reece replied solemnly.

These men here, on this ship, Thor
realized, were all brothers to him now, more so any family he’d ever had.

“Up ahead!” called a voice.

Thor jumped to his feet and ran to the
bow as Indra stood there, pointing at something on the horizon. Thor looked out
and saw the land mass on the horizon narrowing, the blackened shores and cliffs
visible, and he saw that they were being funneled into a long channel, steep
black cliffs on either side.

Indra gasped quietly.

Thor looked at her, concerned.

“What is it?” he asked.

Indra shook her head

“The Straits of Madness,” she said, fear
in her voice.

She turned and looked at the others, and
for the first time, Thor saw hesitation in her face.

“It is a place no human must go. We must
turn the ship around.”

Thor looked straight ahead at the
churning red waters, becoming more violent in the straits, the sharp cliffs framing
it, and while at first he felt hesitation, he then remembered Reece’s story. He
knew he must forge on.

Thor grabbed the rail and held on, as
others did the same.

“Shall we turn back?” Indra called out,
panic in her voice.

Thor shook his head.

“We never turn back,” he replied. “Never
again!”

Everyone braced themselves as the ship
caught the wind, and it took them right into the Straits of Madness, and into
the jaws of a likely death.

Darius stood at the entrance to the Capital
arena, the roar deafening as he looked up at the thousands of Empire citizens
in the coliseum, shaking the ground as they all screamed out for blood. Darius
was chained to dozens of other gladiators, faces he did not even look at this
time, faces he did not even want to recognize: he knew that soon they, like he,
would all be dead.

Darius tried to drown out the noise,
this arena so vast, so overwhelming, dwarfing the other arena in size. He had
never seen anything like it—it was a spectacle beyond the imagination. So many
people, he thought, so devoted to bloodshed and cruelty.

Standing beside him, in his brown robes,
was Deklan, holding his staff and looking out serenely, as if he had seen it a
thousand times before.

There came a roar of approval from the
crowd, and Darius looked out. He tried not to look, but he couldn’t help it:
there, in the center of the arena, were dozens more gladiators, chained to each
other, looking in every direction nervously. A horn sounded, and Empire
soldiers, donning armor and wielding fine weaponry, attacked the defenseless
gladiators.

It was a slaughter. Some tried to fight
back bravely with the crude weapons they had been given, their swords blunted
steel and practically useless. Those that survived were pushed backwards until
they stumbled into giant pits which opened up in the floor. They cried out as
they landed in sharpened spears, before the pits closed up again.

A horn sounded and the Empire soldiers fell
to the ground—as they did, blades flew and spun through the air, decapitating any
gladiators left alive.

The crowd roared in delight as another
horn sounded and the Empire soldiers stood. Dozens of bloody corpses littered
the stadium floor, and Empire servants rushed out and began to drag them away,
cleaning the floor, preparing it for the next wave.

Darius felt a fresh wave of anxiety as
he stood there. He knew he was up next.

Deklan turned to him.

“Forget everything you know,” Deklan
said urgently. “This arena is like nothing you’re used to. The Empire fights neither
clean nor fair. There is no common enemy: the enemy is on all sides of you. The
dangers are everywhere. This is not an honorable match between two knights. This
is a spectacle of death.”

“And this is what you’ve trained me for?”
Darius asked. “Then what was the point of it all?”

Deklan’s face fell, and Darius sensed a
break in his calm façade in a new look of sorrow.

“I wanted you to have a chance,” he
replied.

“A chance?” Darius repeated. “What
chance could I possibly have?”

Deklan remained silent.

“You think you are better,” Darius
continued. “Better than them. Not of the Empire. But you
are
one of
them. You think that if you train us, it puts you above them. You are still on
their side, not ours. And when I die today, my blood will be on your hands, as
much as any of theirs.”

Deklan frowned.

“I have no choice,” he replied. “I am held
captive by them, just as you. I do not enjoy what I do. But at least I use
whatever life I have to help keep you alive.”

Darius shook his head.

“You are wrong,” he replied. “You do
have a choice. There is always a choice. It just depends on how much you want
to sacrifice for it.”

Darius looked meaningfully into this man’s
eyes and he sensed some great war going on inside him, some failed lifetime; he
sensed a once-great and honorable warrior deep down inside. He wanted to appeal
to the man’s chivalry, his code of honor, and he felt that it was there—but
just out of reach, suppressed just a bit too deep after all these years.

Deklan stared back, unable to respond, and
Darius could see the haunted look in his eyes.

A horn sounded, the crowd erupted, and
Darius felt himself shoved into the arena, shackled to all the other
gladiators, squinting into the blazing sun as the crowd went wild. The earth
shook beneath them as they went, prodded deeper and deeper into the arena.

Darius coughed at the great clouds of
dust, and as he felt the heat of the two suns beating down on him, he clutched
at the dinky little sword he had been given, its blade not sharp enough to even
cut his own shackles. Finally, his group stopped in the middle, the crowd on
its feet, and Darius looked all about with the others nervously, wondering from
which direction danger would strike.

A low horn sounded, and Darius felt the
hairs rise on his spine as he suddenly heard a horrific roar, one he did not
recognize. The crowd cheered, as if familiar with it, and Darius knew this
could not be good.

Darius was shocked as he saw concealed doors
open on all sides of the arena, and animals that looked like pumas—except twice
the size, with glowing yellow eyes—come running out toward them. The gladiators
wheeled and looked in every direction, petrified.

They ran faster than anything Darius had
ever seen, and one of them set its sights on Darius. It locked on him and ran
right for him, snarling, preparing to pounce.

Darius braced himself as the animal
leapt into the air, fangs extended for his throat. Darius raised his sword, but
the creature merely swatted it from his grip.

It landed atop Darius, the first of the
gladiators to be attacked, and the crowd roared as they wrestled down to the
ground. The animal slashed his arm, drawing blood with its three sharp claws,
and Darius shouted out in pain.

It then spun atop him and the beast
opened its huge jaws to clamp down on his face.

Darius grabbed its throat, all muscle,
barely holding it at bay as the beast dripped saliva onto his face. Hands
shaking, Darius knew he had to move fast.

Darius finally managed to dodge to the
side, and the beast’s fangs went into the dirt. He then rolled around, grabbing
it from behind, wrapped his arm around its neck, and twisted with all his might.

There came a crack—then the beast went
limp in his arms. Dead.

The crowd roared, and all around Darius
he heard the shouts of other gladiators, shouting as they fought off the
animals, most of them dying and a few, like Darius, wrestling.

Darius sensed motion, saw another leap
for him, and he rolled, grabbed his sword, held it high, and let the weight of
the beast impale itself on it, falling right atop him, dead.

Darius pushed it off of him and rolled over,
breathing hard, the pain from the scratches killing his arm, and he braced
himself as more came bounding his way. Darius scrambled to his knees, his heart
pounding, wondering what he was going to do as several more beasts ran for him
at once. He looked side to side as he heard the moans, and noticed that already
many gladiators were dead, the beasts standing on their chests, biting them.

Suddenly a horn sounded, and all the beasts,
as suddenly as they had appeared, turned and ran off, disappeared back into the
concealed doors all around the arena. At first, Darius breathed a deep sigh of
relief—but then he realized: the Empire was only setting the stage for
something far worse to come.

Darius suddenly heard a whistling noise cutting
through the air, too loud, and coming way too fast. He couldn’t figure out what
it was, and when he turned, he could not believe the sight before him: metal
chains swung through the air, suspended from the highest point of the arena,
and at the end of them were immense spiked iron balls, nearly as large as
Darius. There were dozens of these balls, suddenly swinging across the stadium,
crisscrossing in every direction—and aimed right for the center of the arena.

“Look out!” Darius shouted to the
gladiator beside him, shoving him out of the way while at the same time dropping
down face-first to the ground.

As Darius hit the ground he looked up
and watched the gladiator on the other side of him turn around to see what was happening—but
too late. The metal ball smashed him, impaled him and continued to rise with
him up on it, as the crowd cheered like crazy.

Darius kept his head low to the ground
as the metal balls swung in every direction, impaling many of the gladiators,
killing them on the spot. This arena, he realized, was vastly different from the
one in Volusia: it was built for sport. It was cruel and unpredictable.
Merciless, lacking honor. At least in Volusia, others were brave enough to
stand before him.

As the swinging chains and balls
receded, finally another horn sounded, and as the chains were withdrawn, Darius
found himself standing there, one of but a half-dozen gladiators left, facing
the great iron doors in the center of the arena wall. Darius felt his heart
pounding in anticipation, as a great groaning of metal filled the air and the
doors slowly opened wide.

The crowd roared, standing to see as
immense creatures were brought forth, shackled to each other, hulking one step
at a time. They looked like humans, but were three times the size, standing
perhaps twenty feet tall, broad, muscles bulging, with three huge eyes in their
head, no nose, and a mouth made of jagged teeth. They walked with a sickening
sound, and with each step they took, the crowd went crazy.

An Empire soldier rushed forward and cut
their chains, and as he did, the creatures were let loose. They leaned back and
roared, a sickening sound, and then set their sights on Darius and the others.
Darius felt a chill run up his spine: he knew these would be the most
formidable foes he’d ever met.

The creatures rushed forward, running
faster than Darius could imagine, with huge strides, reaching them in no time. As
one thundered down upon him wielding an immense battle-ax, Darius raised his
sword and blocked. It was the most intense blow he had ever received, and it
shook his body to its core, sending him to the ground and shattering his sword
in two.

Darius saw stars as he lay there,
looking side to side as heard the screams; he saw fellow gladiators being crushed
by these creatures, battle-axes chopping them in half, and others being
stampeded. These creatures were just too big, too fast, too powerful, to oppose.

As Darius blinked, in but a moment all
the others lay dead. Darius was the only one left alive.

Darius rolled out of the way as an ax swept
down for his head; it lodged in the ground beside him, just missing his head, and
as Darius rolled out of the way, he used his chains to trip the creature.

The creature, caught off guard, landed
on its back, its legs swept out from under it. The crowd roared, shocked by the
development, clearly not expecting one of the creatures to fall.

Darius wasted no time: he rolled, raised
his word high, and plunged it into the creature’s throat as he lay prone, killing
it.

The crowd jumped to its feet and went
wild, its applause thunderous.

Darius, emboldened, breathing hard,
gained his feet, snatching the creature’s dropped sword, and faced the rest. It
felt good to hold real steel.

Immediately another came at him with an
ax. Darius suddenly recalled what Deklan had taught him:
stay calm, stay
centered, be in the moment. Do not let your emotions cloud you.

Darius, focused, waited until the right
moment, then he ducked. The creature’s ax swung sideways just over his head; as
Darius ducked, he raised his new sword and sliced the creature’s stomach,
sending it to its knees. Dead.

The crowd again went wild.

Darius turned as more of these creatures
charged him. Furious, they converged on him, roaring ferociously, their
sharpened fangs showing. Darius did not back down, steeling himself for the
confrontation, knowing he could do this, knowing he was stronger than he
thought, however scary the foe.

As they reached him, Darius held his
ground. He raised his sword and blocked the blows of the great axes, one after
another after another, turning side to side, dodging and weaving, fending off
the creatures. Exhausted, it was all he could do to just stay on his feet. But
he didn’t turn and run.

Finally one of them kicked him, and
Darius went flying back. He landed flat on his stomach on the ground, losing
his sword. He rolled and looked up at the sky, and as he did, he saw a hatchet
coming down for his head.

It was too late. With nothing left to
do, Darius braced himself to finally meet his end.