A Rule of Queens (Book #13 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (8 page)

Alistair stood guard before the vast doors to
the royal house of the sick, standing before the building as war raged all
around her, determined not to let anyone in to kill Erec. Shouts pierced the
air alongside the clang of metal, as the Southern Islanders fought furiously
against each other. It had become a civil war. Half the island, led by Erec’s
brother, Strom, fought the other half, led by Bowyer’s men.

As dawn began to break over the hillside, Alistair
recalled what an intense night of fighting it had been. The battle had broken
out as soon as she had killed Bowyer, and it had not stopped since. All over
the Southern Isles, men raged against each other, fighting on foot, on
horseback, up and down the steep mountain slopes, killing each other
face-to-face, hand to hand, throwing each other off of horses and cliffs, all
fighting to see who would hold the crown.

As soon as the fighting broke out, Alistair
rounded up two dozen of Erec’s most loyal watchmen, and headed with them for
the House of the Sick. She knew that no matter where the battle raged,
eventually Bowyer’s men would attempt to come here to kill Erec, so that they
could end the fighting and claim the throne for themselves. She was determined
that, in all the chaos that ensued, no matter who won, Erec would not be harmed.

Alistair had watched the fighting from her
vantage point here all throughout the night, and had seen thousands of dead
bodies piling up, up and down the hillsides, littering the city grounds. It was
an island made up of great warriors, and great warriors fought against great warriors,
needlessly killing each other. As hour blended into hour during the horrible
night, Alistair didn’t even know who or what they fought for anymore. The tide
of battle was impossible to gauge, as it had been all throughout the night, the
tug-of-war going back and forth as one group battled the next.

As dawn broke, Alistair looked up and saw that
the cliffs were filled with Bowyer’s men and that the battle was now much
closer to the city walls, raging just outside of it. Momentum was giving way,
and she sensed that soon they would be through the gates, overriding the city. After
all, this city was the center of power on the island, and whoever was
victorious would want to claim it first, to raise the banner high and proclaim himself
the next King.

Alistair looked up and down the mountainside
and watched Strom’s men, holding their ground, using long pikes, waiting
patiently, disciplined, behind rocks. As Bowyer’s men charged down on
horseback, Strom’s men, on foot, jumped up and thrust them up. One at a time,
the horses reared and neighed, impaled with pikes. Bowyer’s men swung back, but
the pikes were too long, the distance too far for the swords to reach.

Horses reared and fell, and men tumbled off them,
rolling down the cliffs and rocks.

Alistair watched Strom, out in front of his
men, rush forward, grab a man, and throw him off his horse headfirst, sending
him falling, shrieking, down the steep mountainside. Yet at the same moment,
Strom was kicked in the back of the head by a horse, and he fell onto his side.

A soldier, seeing an opportunity, rushed
forward with his sword and swung for Strom’s head; Strom whirled out of the way
and chopped off the man’s legs at the last moment.

The battle raged, the fighting went on and on,
brutal, vicious, and Alistair, filled with a sense of foreboding, determined to
keep Erec safe, stood her ground, waiting, wanting to join Strom’s men, but
knowing her place was here, by Erec’s side. So far, it was quiet within the
city walls. Eerily quiet. Too quiet.

As soon as she thought it, suddenly, that all
changed. Alistair heard a great battle shout, and charging around the corner of
the house of the sick there poured out hundreds of Bowyer’s men, charging right
for the doors.

They stopped but feet away, as they saw
Alistair there, proudly, unyielding, her dozen watchmen behind her. Alistair
knew instantly that they were all well outnumbered by Bowyer’s men, and from
the smug look on his face, she saw that Bowyer’s lead knight, Aknuf, knew it,
too.

A thick silence fell over them as Aknuf stepped
forward and faced off against Alistair.

“Out of the way, witch,” he said. “And I will
kill you quickly. Stand there, and it will be slow and painful.”

Alistair stood her ground, unwavering.

“You will not pass through these doors,” she
said firmly. “Unless I am dead at your feet.”

“Very well, woman,” he replied. “Just remember:
you brought this on yourself.”

Aknuf raised his sword high, and as he did, her
dozen watchmen rushed forward to protect her. They all met in battle but ten
yards before her. There arose a great clash of arms, as the watchmen fought
valiantly, going blow for blow with Bowyer’s men.

But they were vastly outnumbered, and soon
Bowyer’s men closed in on her. Alistair knew that in but moments they would lose
the battle, and she could not stand to see these men die on her watch,
protecting her and Erec.

Alistair closed her eyes and raised her palms
up high overhead, towards the sky. She used all of her might to summon her
power.

Please, God. Let it come to me.

She slowly felt a great power rising up within
her, and as she did, a brilliant white light, like a streak of lightning, burst
through the dawn sky, came shooting down at her from the clouds high above. She
pulled her arms down and aimed her palms at Bowyer’s men, and as she did, a
great noise erupted as chaos ensued.

Hail the size of rocks began falling from the
sky; the sound of ice cracking armor filled the air. Alistair directed the hail
to the other side of the battle line, missing her own men and pounding down on
Bowyer’s men, one man at a time, with such force that it knocked them down,
shrieking. It freed up her watchmen, one at a time, who fought back, killing
them left and right.

Bowyer’s men, terrified, unable to raise their
swords, pounded by the ice, turned and ran for the city gates, her watchmen
chasing after them.

There came another great battle shout from
behind her, and Alistair turned to see Strom pouring into the city with all his
men. She looked up and saw the hillsides filled with dead soldiers, heard the
trumpet sounding out three times for victory, and she realized Strom had won.

Alistair looked out and saw the hundreds of Bowyer’s
men, still fleeing from the house of the sick, running for the open city gates.
They were trying to escape, surely to regroup on another day, on another field
of battle. Alistair was determined that would not be.

Alistair redirected her palm, and as she did, a
white light shot forth and the huge iron portcullis, a foot thick, came
slamming down at the city gates, stopping Bowyer’s men from leaving.

Aknuf turned, trapped with his men, and
watched, terrified, as Strom’s men closed in.

Strom, sitting proudly on his horse, turned to
her, as if to ask for her approval.

Alistair, thinking of Erec, nodded gravely.

With one final battle cry, Strom charged with
his men, closing in on the men at the gates from all directions.

Alistair stood there and watched, satisfied, as
their shouts arose.

Finally, it was over. Finally, the island was
safe. Finally, justice had been done.

*

Alistair stood at Erec’s bedside in the dim
chamber, watching the morning sunrise, feeling an immense sense of relief.
Victory was theirs, the drama was all behind them, and all that remained was
for her and Erec to be as they once were, for Erec to rise, to be well again, to
be by her side.

Alistair held her hand to his forehead and
prayed silently, as she had since the battle had ended.

Please, God. Allow Erec to waken. Allow this
all to be over.

Alistair felt a subtle shift in the air, and
she watched, elated, as Erec opened his eyes, slowly. His eyes were bright, a
bright blue in the early morning, and he smiled as he looked up at her. The
color had returned to his face, and he looked more alert than he’d ever had. She
could see that he was finally healed, back to himself.

Erec sat up and embraced her, and she leaned
forward and rushed into his arms, tears falling from her eyes as she held him
tight. It felt so good to be in his arms again, so good to have him back to
life.

“Where am I?” he asked. “What has happened?”

“Shhh,” she said, smiling, putting a finger to
his lips. “All is well now.”

He blinked, alarmed, as if remembering.

“Our wedding day,” he said. “I was…stabbed. Are
you safe? Is the kingdom safe?”

“I am fine, my lord,” she answered calmly. “And
your kingdom is ready for your ascent.”

He hugged her, and she hugged him back, and she
wept, not thinking this day would ever come, overwhelmed with joy to have him
back at her side. She wanted to tell him everything. How she had sacrificed herself
for him. Her imprisonment. How she had almost died. How he had almost died. The
battles that had raged. Everything that happened.

But none of that mattered now. All that
mattered was that he was alive, safe, that they would be back together again.
Words could not explain how she felt. So instead, she held him tight, and let
her embrace speak for her.

Their life was just beginning, she knew. And
nothing—
nothing
—would ever keep her away from him again.

Darius raised his sledgehammer with both hands
and brought it down hard, smashing a boulder to bits under the sun of another
bright, hot Empire morning. Surrounded by all his friends in the dusty working
fields, he felt the sweat on his brow rolling down into his eyes, but he did
not bother to wipe it away. Instead he raised his sledgehammer and grunted as
he smashed another rock. And another.

Darius relived in his mind, again and again,
the events of the day before, images flashing through his head. He was confused
and frustrated as he thought of Loti. Why had she reacted the way she had? Was
there no part of her that was grateful? How had she managed to turn his heroic
acts into something he should be ashamed of? Did she really never want to see
him again?

And after the way she’d reacted, did he ever
really even want to see her?

Darius set down his hammer and caught his
breath, the green dust rising up and settling in his face and hair and nose. He
thought also about what he had done, killing those Empire soldiers, drawing
upon his powers, and he wondered if the dead men would be found on that remote
field. Surely, eventually, they would, even if it took one moon cycle or two.
Perhaps when the rains came and washed away that avalanche. What would happen
then? Would the Empire then come for retribution, as Loti said? Had he just signed
a death sentence for them all?

Or was it possible, buried as deep beneath that
avalanche as they were, that they would never be found? That the wild animals,
notorious for roaming that area, would eat their corpses before they were
discovered?

As Darius picked up his hammer and smashed rock
under the watchful eyes of the Empire taskmasters, his thoughts drifted to the
arrival of his sister, Sandara, and of the new people she had brought with her.
The arrival of those people from the Ring had been a day unlike any other for
his village. He thought of Sandara’s new people hiding out in the caves, and he
wondered if they would all be seen by the Empire. Surely, it was only a matter
of time until they were, when conflict with the Empire would be inevitable. Unless
they fled beforehand.

But to where?

To Darius’s continued frustration, the village
elders—indeed, the entire village—seemed to hold firm in their belief that
confrontation with the Empire was not inevitable, that life could keep marching
on the way it was. Darius saw it differently. He felt that things were
changing. Wasn’t this a sign from the gods, the arrival of all these warriors
from across the sea, who too had cause to fight the Empire? Shouldn’t they be
harnessed, shouldn’t they all fight together, to overthrow Volusia? Wasn’t this
the gift they’d all been waiting for?

The others didn’t see it that way. Instead,
they wanted to turn them away, to send them off. They saw it as another reason
to keep a low profile in the Empire, to do everything they could to keep their
pathetic little lives as steady as they were now.

Darius recalled the last time he had seen
Sandara, as she had departed for the Ring. He had not thought he would ever see
her again. Seeing her again now had both surprised and inspired him. Sandara
had managed to cross the great sea, to survive amongst the Empire army, and to
come back. Partly it was because she was a great healer—and yet, in her heart,
she was also a warrior. After all, they shared the same father. It made Darius feel
that anything was possible. It made him feel that he, too, could one day get
out of this place.

Darius thought back warmly to the night before,
during the festivities, when he had spent half the night catching up with his
sister, talking to her around the fires. He had witnessed firsthand her love
for Kendrick, that fine warrior. They had taken an instant liking to each
other, each recognizing the warrior spirit in one another, and he seemed to
Darius to be a leader of men. Darius had encouraged his big sister to follow
her passion, to be with Kendrick, regardless of whatever the elders had to say.
He did not understand how she, so fearless in every other part of our life,
could be so afraid to declare her love for him, to spur tradition, to spur the
taboo of marrying another race. Was she like everyone else here, so afraid of
the elders, of others’ opinions? Why did it matter so much what they all
thought?

Darius blinked sweat from his eyes as he
smashed another rock, and another. He could feel the eyes of all of his friends
on him on this day. Since the day before, when he had arrived with Loti, he
felt the entire village looked upon him differently. They had all watched him
run off to bring Loti back, had all witnessed him run off to face the Empire, alone,
without fear of consequence. And they had seen him return, with her. He had
gained great respect in their eyes.

He also seemed to have gained their skepticism:
no one seemed to believe their story, to believe that Loti had gotten lost,
that they had merely found each other and walked back. Perhaps they all knew
Darius too well. They looked on him with different eyes, as if they knew that
something had happened, knew he was holding a great secret. He wanted to tell
them, but he knew that he could not. If he did, he would have to explain how he
did it, how he, the youngest and smallest of the bunch, the one no one thought
would amount to anything, had alone killed three Empire warriors with superior
weapons and armor—and a zerta. It would come out that he used his power. And he
would be an outcast. They would exile him. As they had, Darius suspected, his
father.

“So are you going to tell me?” came a voice.

Darius looked over to see Raj standing beside
him, a mischievous smile on his face. Nearby, also looking his way, were Desmond
and Luzi, each smashing rock, glancing over at Darius.

“Tell you what?” Darius asked.

“How you did it,” Raj said. “Come on. You
didn’t find Loti wandering alone. You did something. Did you kill the soldiers?
Did she?”

Darius looked over and saw the other boys
coming over, looking at him, and he could see they all had this question
burning in their minds. Darius raised his hammer, took aim at a rock, and
smashed it again.

“Come on,” Raj said. “I gave you a zerta ride.
You owe me.”

Darius laughed.

“You didn’t give it to me,” he replied. “I
chose to go with you.”

“Okay,” Raj conceded, “but tell me all the
same. I need a story. I live for stories of valor. And this day is going on way
too long.”

“The day has barely begun,” Luzi said.

“Precisely,” Raj said. “Too long. Like every
other day.”

“Why don’t
you
tell us a story of
valor?” Luzi said to Raj, seeing that Darius would not reply.

“Me?” Raj replied. “I don’t think you shall
find one amongst our people.”

“You are quite wrong about that,” Desmond said.
“There are always stories of valor, even amongst the oppressed.”

“
Especially
amongst the oppressed,” Luzi
added.

They all turned to him, his deep, commanding
voice filled with confidence.

“Do you have one, then?” Raj pressed, leaning
on his hammer, breathing hard.

Desmond raised his hammer and smashed rock, and
was silent for so long, Darius was sure he would not reply. They all settled
back into the rhythm of smashing rock, when finally Desmond surprised them all
by speaking up, looking down and smashing rock all the while.

“My father,” Desmond said. “The elders will
tell you he died in a mine. That is the story they would like you to believe.
To know otherwise would cause too much dissent, foment too much revolution. I
will tell you: he died in no mine.”

Darius studied Desmond with the others as a
heavy silence fell over them, and he could see his furrowed brow, the
seriousness in his face, as if he were struggling with something internally.

“And how should you know?” Desmond asked.

“Because I was there,” Desmond replied, looking
him in the eyes, cold and hard, defiant. With his commanding presence, several
other boys began crowding around, too. They all wanted to hear his tale, which
commanded attention. The air of truth was ringing out, such a rare thing
amongst his villagers.

“One day,” Desmond continued, “the taskmaster
whipped him too hard. My father snatched the whip from the man’s hands and
choked him to death with it. I remember watching, being so young, so proud of
him.

“When it was done, when we were both standing
there looking down at the lifeless body, I asked my father what was next. Was
it time to revolt? But he had no answer. I could see it in his eyes: he did not
know what was next. He had given in to a moment of passion, a moment of
justice, of freedom, and in that moment he had risen above it all. But after
that, he did not know what to do. Where does life go from there?”

Desmond paused, smashing several rocks, wiping
sweat from his brow, until he continued again.

“That moment passed. Life went on. Within the
hour, horns of warning sounded, and I was with my father as he was surrounded
by a dozen taskmasters. He had urged me to hide in the woods, but I would not
leave his side. Until he smacked me so hard with the whip across my mouth, that
finally, I did.

“I hid behind a tree, not far, and I watched it
all. The taskmasters…they did not kill him quickly,” Desmond said, his voice
choked with emotion as he stopped hammering and looked away. “He fought back
valiantly. He even managed to whip several of them. He left marks on them which
I am sure are still there to this day.

“But he was one man with a big heart and a
whip. They were dozens of professional soldiers, with steel weapons, in armor.
And they enjoyed to kill.”

Desmond shook his head, quiet for several
minutes, the boys riveted, all silent, all stopping their work.

“I can still hear my father’s screams, to this
day,” Desmond said. “When I go to sleep at night, I hear them. I see him
struggling. In my dreams, I wish I was older, armed, and try to see myself
fighting back, killing them all, saving him. But I was too young. There was
nothing I could do.”

He finally stopped, the work fields completely
silent. Finally, he raised a hammer and brought it down with all his might,
smashing a large boulder into pieces.

“He died in no mine,” he concluded softly. And
then he fell silent, going back to work.

Darius’s heart was heavy as he contemplated the
tale, all the boys quiet now, a somber air over all of them. Raj’s smile had
long faded, and Darius wondered if that was the tale of valor he’d hoped to
hear.

After a long while of smashing rock, Raj came
up beside Darius.

“Now it’s your turn,” Raj said to him quietly,
out of earshot of the others. “What happened out there?”

Darius continued smashing rock, shaking his
head, silent.

“They changed their mind,” Darius insisted.
“They let her go.”

“And the soldiers who changed their mind,” Raj
said, a mischievous smile on his face, “would they be back in Volusia now? Or
shall we never be seeing them again?”

Darius turned to see Raj smiling back at him
knowingly, admiringly.

“It’s a long road back to Volusia,” Darius
said. “Stronger men have been known to get lost themselves.”

*

Darius stood in the small dirt field behind his
cottage, the click-clacks of his wooden sword filling the air as he attacked
the well-worn wooden target. It was a large cross he had made out of layers of
bamboo, tied together and stuck into the ground, one which he had been swinging
at since the time he could walk. In the dirt, his footprints were well-worn,
embedded in the ground before it.

The cross was crooked by now, nearly falling
over, but Darius didn’t care. It served its purpose. He slashed at it again and
again, left and right, ducking an imaginary enemy, spinning around, slashing
its stomach. He lunged forward, jabbed, turned his sword sideways and blocked
an imaginary blow. In his mind, he saw a great many enemies coming at him, an
entire army approaching, and he fought and fought in the sunset, at the end of
his day shift, until he was dripping with sweat.

The persistent sounds of his swordplay filled
the air, and while his neighbors yelled out to complain, he didn’t stop. He
didn’t care. He would slash away the day’s memories, every day’s memories,
until he was spent with exhaustion.

Darius heard the occasional bark at his feet,
and he did not need to look down to know it was Dray, the neighbor’s dog,
sitting loyally by his side, watching him as he always did, barking and getting
excited as Darius struck the target. A medium-size dog with scarlet hair that
grew too long, like his master’s untamed hair, Dray had unofficially become
Darius’s dog long ago. He belonged to one of the neighbors, but whoever owned
it had stopped feeding it long ago. Darius had encountered Dray whining one
day, and had given him one of his scarce meals. Ever since, Darius had had a
friend for life. Since that day, they had developed a ritual: Dray watched
Darius fight, and Darius ate only half of his dinner, giving the other half to
Dray. Dray rewarded him by always seeking out his company, especially when he
was at home, sometimes even sleeping in his cottage.