A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (4 page)

Volusia, wearing her golden robes, stood
high up on the dais, looking down at the hundred golden steps she had erected as
an ode to herself, stretched out her arms, and reveled in the moment. As far as
she could see, the capital’s streets were lined with people, Empire citizens,
her soldiers, all of her new worshipers, all bowing down to her, touching their
heads to the ground in the breaking dawn light. They all chanted as one, a
soft, persistent sound, participating in the morning service which she had
created, as her ministers and commanders had instructed them to do: worship
her, or face death. She knew that now they worshipped her because they had
to—but soon enough, they would do so because it was all they knew.

“Volusia, Volusia, Volusia,” they
chanted. “Goddess of the sun and goddess of the stars. Mother of oceans and
harbinger of the sun.”

Volusia looked out and admired her new city. Erected everywhere were the golden statues of her, just as she’d instructed her men
to build. Every corner of the capital had a statue of her, shining gold; everywhere
one looked, there was no choice but to see her, to worship her.

Finally, she was satisfied. Finally, she
was the Goddess she knew she was meant to be.

The chanting filled the air, as did the
incense, burned at every altar to her. Men and women and children filled the
streets, shoulder to shoulder, all bowing down, and she felt she deserved it. It
had been a long, hard march to get here, but she had marched all the way to the
capital, had managed to take it, to destroy the Empire armies that had opposed
her. Now, finally, the capital was hers.

The Empire was hers.

Of course, her advisors thought
otherwise, but Volusia did not care much what they thought. She was, she knew,
invincible, somewhere between heaven and earth, and no power of this world
could destroy her. Not only did she cower in fear—but rather, she knew this was
just the beginning. She wanted more power, still. She planned to visit every
horn and spike of the Empire and crush all those who opposed her, who would not
accept her unilateral power. She would amass a greater and greater army, until every
corner of the Empire subjugated itself to her.

Ready to start the day, Volusia slowly
descended her dais, taking one golden step after the next. She reached out with
her hands, and as they all rushed forward, her palms touched their palms, a
throng of worshipers embracing her as their own, a living goddess amongst them.
Some worshippers, weeping, fell to their faces as she went, and scores more
formed a human bridge at the bottom, eager for her to walk over them. She did,
stepping on the soft flesh of their backs.

Finally, she had her flock. And now it
was time to go to war.

*

Volusia stood high on the ramparts
surrounding the Empire capital, peering out into the desert sky with a heightened
sense of destiny. She saw nothing but headless corpses, all of the men she had
killed—and a sky of vultures, screeching, swooping, picking away at their
flesh. Outside these walls there was a light breeze, and she could already
smell the stench of rotting flesh, heavy in the wind. She smiled wide at the
carnage. These men had dared oppose her—and they had paid the price.

“Should we not bury the dead, Goddess?” came
a voice.

Volusia looked over to see the commander
of her armed forces, Rory, a human, tall, broad-chested, with a chiseled chin
and stunning good looks. She had chosen him, had elevated him above the other
generals, because he was pleasing to the eyes—and even more so, because he was
a brilliant commander and would win at any cost—just like her.

“No,” she replied, not looking at him. “I
want them to rot beneath the sun, and the animals to gorge on their flesh. I
want all to know what happens to those who oppose the Goddess Volusia.”

He looked out at the sight, recoiling.

“As you wish, Goddess,” he replied.

Volusia scanned the horizon, and as she
did, her sorcerer, Koolian,
wearing
a black hood and cloak, with glowing green eyes and a wart-lined face, the
creature who had helped guide her own mother’s assassination—and one of the few
members of her inner circle whom she still trusted—stepped up beside her,
scanning it too.

“You know that they are out there,” he
reminded. “That they come for you. I feel them coming even now.”

She ignored him, looking straight ahead.

“As do I,” she finally said.

“The Knights of the Seven are very
powerful, Goddess,” Koolian said. “They travel with an army of sorcerers—an
army even you cannot fight.”

“And do not forget Romulus’s men,” Rory added.
“Reports have him close to our shores even now, returned from the Ring with his
million men.”

Volusia stared, and a long silence hung
in the air, broken by nothing but the howling of the wind.

Finally, Rory said:

“You know we cannot hold this place.
Remaining here will mean death for us all. What do you command, Goddess? Shall
we flee the capital? Surrender?”

Volusia finally turned to him and
smiled.

“We shall celebrate,” she said.

“Celebrate?” he asked, shocked.

“Yes, we shall celebrate,” she said. “Right
until the very end. Reinforce our city gates, and open the grand arena. I
declare a hundred days of feasts and games. We may die,” she concluded with a
smile, “but we shall do so with a smile.”

Godfrey raced through the streets of
Volusia, joined by Ario, Merek, Akorth, and Fulton, hurrying to make the city gate
before it was too late. He was still elated by his success at sabotaging the
arena, managing to poison that elephant, to find Dray and release him into the
stadium just when Darius needed him most. Thanks to his help, and the Finian
woman, Silis, Darius had won; he had saved his friend’s life, which relieved
his guilt at least a little bit for setting him up for ambush in the streets of
Volusia. Of course, Godfrey’s role was in the shadows, where he was best, and
Darius could not have emerged the victor without his own bravery and masterful
fighting. Still, Godfrey had played some small part.

But now, everything was going awry;
Godfrey had expected, after the match, to be able to meet Darius at the stadium
gate as he was being led out, and to free him. He had not expected that Darius
would be escorted out the rear gate and ushered through the city. After he had
won, the entire Empire crowd had been chanting his name, and the Empire
taskmasters had become threatened by his unexpected popularity. They had
created a hero, and had decided to usher him out of the city and for the
capital arena as soon as possible, before they had a revolution on their hands.

Now Godfrey ran with the others, desperate
to catch up, to reach Darius before he left the city gates and it was too late.
The road to the capital was long, desolate, led through the Waste and was
heavily guarded; once he left the city, there would be no way they could help
him. He had to save him, or else all of his efforts would be for naught.

Godfrey dashed through the streets,
breathing hard, and Merek and Ario helped Akorth and Fulton along, gasping for
air, their large bellies leading the way.

“Don’t stop!” Merek encouraged Fulton as he dragged his arm. Ario merely elbowed Akorth in the back, making him groan,
prodding him on as he slowed.

Godfrey felt the sweat pouring down his
neck as he ran, and he cursed himself, once again, for drinking so many pints
of ale. But he thought of Darius and forced his aching legs to keep moving,
turning down one street after the next, until finally, they all emerged from a
long, stone archway, into the city square. As they did, there in the distance,
perhaps a hundred yards away, lay the city gate, imposing, rising fifty feet
high. As Godfrey looked out, his heart dropped to see its bars being opened
wide.

“NO!” he called out, involuntarily.

Godfrey panicked as he watched Darius’s
carriage, drawn by horses, guarded by Empire soldiers, encased in iron
bars—like a cage on wheels—heading through the open gates.

Godfrey ran faster, faster than he knew
he could go, stumbling over himself.

“We’re not going to make it,” Merek
said, the voice of reason, laying a hand on his arm.

But Godfrey shook it off and ran. He
knew it was a hopeless cause—the carriage was too far away, too heavily guarded,
too fortified—and yet he ran anyway, until he could run no longer.

He stood there, in the midst of the
courtyard, Merek’s firm hand holding him back, and he leaned over and heaved,
hands on his knees.

“We can’t let him go!” Godfrey cried
out.

Ario shook his head, coming up beside
him.

“He is already gone,” he said. “Save
yourself. We must fight another day.”

“We will get him back some other way,”
Merek added.

“How!?” Godfrey pleaded desperately.

None of them had an answer as they all
stood there and watched the iron doors slam behind Darius, like gates closing
on Darius’s soul.

He could see Darius’s carriage through
the gates, already far away, riding into the desert, putting distance between
themselves and Volusia. The cloud of dust in their wake rose higher and higher,
soon obscuring them from view, and Darius felt his heart break as he felt he
had let down the last person he knew, and his one hope for redemption.

The silence was shattered by a wild
dog’s manic barking, and Godfrey looked down to see Dray emerging from a city
alley, barking and snarling like mad, charging across the courtyard after his
master. He, too, was desperate to save Darius, and as he reached the great iron
gates, he leapt up and threw himself on them, tearing at them, fruitlessly,
with his teeth.

Godfrey watched with horror as the Empire
soldiers standing guard caught sight of Dray and signaled to each other. One
drew his sword and approached the dog, clearly preparing to slaughter him.

Godfrey did not know what overcame him, but
something inside him snapped. It was just too much for him, too much injustice
for him to bear. If he could not save Darius, at least he must save his beloved
dog.

Godfrey heard himself shout, felt
himself running, as if he were outside of himself. With a surreal feeling, he
felt himself draw his short sword and rush forward for the unsuspecting guard,
and as the guard turned, he watched himself plunge it into the guard’s heart.

The huge Empire soldier looked down at
Godfrey with disbelief, his eyes open wide, as he stood there, frozen. Then he
dropped down to the ground, dead.

Godfrey heard a cry and saw the two
other Empire guards bear down on him. They raised their menacing weapons, and
he knew he was no match for them. He would die here, at this gate, but at least
he would die with a noble effort.

A snarl ripped through the air, and
Godfrey saw, out of the corner of his eye, Dray turn and bound forward, and
leap onto the guard looming over Godfrey. He sank his fangs into his throat,
and pinned him down to the ground, tearing at him until the man stopped moving.

At the same time, Merek and Ario rushed
forward and each used their short swords to stab the other guard at Godfrey’s
back, killing him together before he could finish Godfrey off.

They all stood there, in the silence,
Godfrey looking at all the carnage, shocked at what he had just done, shocked
that he had that sort of bravery, as Dray rushed over and licked the back of
his hand.

“I didn’t think you had it in you,”
Merek said, admiringly.

Godfrey stood there, stunned.

“I’m not even sure what I just did,” he
said, meaning it, the events all a blur. He had not meant to act—he just had.
Did that still make him brave? he wondered.

Akorth and Fulton looked every which way,
in terror, for any sign of Empire soldiers.

“We must get out of here!” Akorth
yelled. “Now!”

Godfrey felt hands on him and felt himself
ushered away. He turned and ran with the others, Dray at their side, all of
them leaving the gate, running back to Volusia, and to God knew what the fates
had in store for them.

Darius sat back against the iron bars,
his wrists shackled to his ankles, a long, heavy chain between them, his body
covered in wounds and bruises, and he felt like he weighed a million pounds. As
he went, the carriage bouncing on the rough road, he looked out and watched the
desert sky between the bars, feeling forlorn. His carriage passed through an
endless, barren landscape, nothing but desolation as far as the eye could see. It
looked as if the world had ended.

His carriage was shaded, but streaks of
sunlight streamed through the bars, and he felt the oppressive desert heat
rising up in waves, making him sweat even in the shade, adding to his
discomfort.

But Darius did not care. His entire body
burned and ached from his head to his toes, covered in lumps, his limbs hard to
move, worn out from the endless days of fighting in the arena. Unable to sleep,
he closed his eyes and tried to make the memories go away, but each time he
did, he saw all of his friends dying alongside him, Desmond, Raj, Luzi and Kaz,
each in terrible ways. All of them dead so that he could survive.

He was the victor, had achieved the
impossible—and yet that meant little to him now. He knew death was coming; his
reward, after all, was to be shipped off for the Empire capital, to become a
spectacle in a greater arena, with even worse foes. The reward for it all, for
all his acts of valor, was death.

Darius would rather die right now than
go through it all again. But he could not even control that; he was shackled
here, helpless. How much longer would this torture have to go on? Would he have
to witness every last thing he loved in the world die before he could die
himself?

Darius closed his eyes again,
desperately trying to blot out the memories, and as he did there came to him an
early childhood memory. He was playing before his grandfather’s hut, in the
dirt, wielding a staff. He hit a tree again and again, until finally his
grandfather snatched it from him.

“Do not play with sticks,” his
grandfather scolded. “Do you wish to catch the Empire’s attention? Do you wish
for them to think of you as a warrior?”

His grandfather broke the stick over his
knee, and Darius had bristled with outrage. That was more than a stick: that
was his all-powerful staff, the only weapon he’d had. That staff had meant everything
to him.

Yes, I want them to know me as a
warrior. I want to be known as nothing else in life
, Darius had thought.

But as his grandfather turned his back
and stormed away, he had been too scared to say it aloud.

Darius had picked up the broken stick
and held the pieces in his hands, tears rolling down his cheek. One day, he
vowed, he would take revenge on all of them—his life, his village, their
situation, the Empire, anything and everything he could not control.

He would crush them all. And he would be
known as nothing other than a warrior.

*

Darius did not know how much time had
passed when he awoke, but he noticed immediately that the bright morning sun of
the desert had shifted to the dim orange sun of afternoon, heading to sunset.
The air was much cooler, too, and his wounds had stiffened, making it harder
for him to move, to even shift himself in the uncomfortable carriage. The
horses jostled endlessly on the hard rock of the desert, the endless feeling of
metal banging against his head making him feel as if it were shattering his
skull. He rubbed his eyes, pulling the caked dirt from his lashes, and wondered
how far this capital was. He felt as if he he’d traveled already to the ends of
the earth.

He blinked several times and looked out,
expecting, as always to see an empty horizon, a desert of waste. Yet this time
as he looked out, he was startled to see something else. He sat up straighter
for the first time.

The carriage began to slow, the
thundering of the horses quieted a bit, the roads became smoother, and as he studied
the new landscape, Darius saw a sight he would never forget: there, rising out
of the desert like some lost civilization, was a massive city wall, seeming to
rise to the heavens and stretching as far as the eye could see. It was marked
by huge, shining golden doors, its walls and parapets lined with Empire
soldiers, and Darius knew at once that they had made it: the capital.

The sound of the road changed, a hollow,
wooden sound, and Darius looked down and saw the carriage being driven over an
arched drawbridge. They passed hundreds more soldiers lining the bridge, all of
whom snapped to attention as they went.

A great groaning filled the sky, and
Darius looked ahead and watched the golden doors, impossibly tall, open wide, as
if to embrace him. He saw a glimmer beyond them, of the most magnificent city
he’d ever seen, and he knew, without a doubt, that this was a place from which
there would be no escape. As if to confirm his thoughts, Darius heard a distant
thunder, one he recognized immediately: it was the roar of an arena, a new
arena, of men out for blood, and of what would surely be his final resting
place. He did not fear it; he just prayed to god that he die on his feet, a
sword in his hand, in one final act of valor.