A Charge of Valor (Book #6 in the Sorcerer's Ring)

by Morgan Rice

  Gwen looked at him blankly, lost in her thoughts.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “The Tower of Refuge,” he said. “To cut yourself off from the world. There are people who love you. Silesia is no longer safe, but there are other places you can hide, other places you can wait until Andronicus’ men leave. But the Tower…that is forever. Those who enter never leave. It is a tower of nuns, doomed to silence.”

  Gwen shrugged. She felt her life was over anyway, that the best part of it had been stolen from her by Andronicus and McCloud.

  “Whether it’s this jail or another,” she responded, “it’s just a matter of choice. We all live in our own private jails.”

  They fell back into silence as the two of them walked, and Gwen could feel Steffen wanted to rebut her; but he held his tongue out of respect.

  Gwen thought she heard a twig snap, and at the same moment Steffen suddenly held out a hand, stopping her and himself.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Shhh,” Steffen said, looking all about, listening.

  Gwen felt her heart pounding, as there came another twig snap.

  She turned slowly, and froze as a large group of miscreants approached, more than a dozen of them. They emerged from all sides of the wood, each looking more desperate than the next. They wore rags, had dirt-covered faces and fingernails, were unshaven and missing teeth, men in their twenties, all equipped with crude weapons on their belts. They looked thin, and they had a frantic look in their eyes. They all had dark, soulless eyes, and Gwen could see that they all meant harm.

  “That looks like Royal garb to me,” one called out to the other. His accent was crude and rough, the accent of the South, and the tone of his voice sent a chill right through Gwendolyn.

  “Sure does,” answered another. “What have we here? Some sort of lady?”

  “I swear I recognize that face,” said another. “Looks like a MacGil.”

  “Can’t be,” said another. “The MacGils are all dead by now. Unless this one here’s a corpse.”

  “Prettiest corpse I ever did see.”

  The crowd of ruffians broke into crude laughter, and Gwen’s anxiety heightened as they got closer.

  “I’m telling you it is,” insisted one of them. “They’re not all dead. The daughter. The girl.”

  They all studied her more seriously.

  “Can’t be,” one said. “She’s in Silesia.”

  “Maybe she escaped,” said another.

  Gwen felt increasingly uncomfortable as they scrutinized her. She wished she was not wearing the royal mantle that Srog had given her, the royal jewels, the rings on her fingers, her bracelets and necklaces. She realized she must be a walking target to these people.

  “Come any further, and you will regret that you had,” Steffen warned beside her, his voice steely cold.

  The group broke into laughter.

  “What have we here? A hunchbacked dwarf keeping guard of the lady, is it?”

  “What happened, they ran out of ordinary guards?”

  More laughter.

  “My my, you must really be hard put if you’re relying on this pygmy to do you any good,” said another, shaking his head.

  “I will not warn you again,” Steffen threatened, his voice dropping in deadly seriousness.

  Several of them pulled daggers from their waists.

  “You can start by stripping all your clothing,” one of them said to Gwendolyn.

  Gwen hesitated, fear in her eyes, looking from Steffen to them, unsure what to do.

  “Do it now or I’ll do it for you,” one of them said.

  “Yeah, do it quick, so we can get past all this and have some fun with you.”

  They all, laughing, stepped closer, and finally, Steffen broke into action.

  With lightning speed, so fast he surprised even Gwendolyn, Steffen reached back, extracted his short bow, and released four arrows, piercing four of them through their throats with perfect aim, killing them on the spot.

  Gwen did not hesitate. She reached into her harness, grabbed the flail that she’d kept there, swung it high overhead, and watched as the chain flew through the air and the spiked metal ball connected with the face of a miscreant as he approached.

  It impacted his eye and he shrieked and collapsed to the ground.

  Before she could swing again, Gwen felt rough hands on her back, then felt herself being yanked backwards off her horse, flying through the air, and slamming to the ground, winded. Two more thieves pounced on her, tearing at her jewels, yanking off her mantle. She fought back, but it was useless.

  Steffen rode up beside her and leapt through the air, landing on one, tackling him to the ground, rolling with him. The other thief, though, continued to hold Gwendolyn pinned down tight; he grabbed her arm, twisted it around her back, flipped her over and pushed her face down to the ground. He reached down, grabbed at her pants, and began to pull them down.

  “I will have my way with you girl,” he said.

  As he let go momentarily to grab her pants, Gwendolyn used the opportunity: she reached into her waist, grabbed a small silver dagger that Godfrey had given her ages ago, and spun around and plunged it into her attacker’s throat.

  His eyes opened wide as blood dripped down to the ground. She thrust it in deeper, feeling rage course through her, feeling herself take revenge not only against this man but also against McCloud, Andronicus, Gareth—against all the men who had wronged her.

  “No you won’t,” Gwen responded.

  As he collapsed, dead, Gwen retracted her blade, wiped it on his clothing, and put it back into her waist, without even a thought of remorse. She wondered if she was becoming remorseless, or hardened—or both. She hoped not.

  Gwen looked over and saw Steffen wrestling with a thief, rolling again and again, and she prepared to run over to him, to help.

  But as she went to get to her hands and knees, she suddenly felt herself get kicked in the side of the temple with the metal-tipped toe of a boot. She screamed out and landed on her back, her entire world hurting, spinning, seeing stars.

  The last thing she saw, before her world went black, was the ugliest face she ever saw, smiling down as he raised the back of his hand high and brought it down on her cheek.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kendrick hung there, high up on the cross, feeling his life force drain out of him as the second sun grew long in the sky. His wrists and ankles were swollen from being bound with coarse ropes to the wood, the pain unbearable from his limbs stretching, from hanging there hour after hour. He had kept his head hung low and tried not to look up anymore, not wanting to see anymore destruction; but he heard a moaning and he couldn’t help himself. He glanced around him, and saw all his friends hanging on the crosses beside him. Srog was on one side, Atme on the other, beside him Brom and Kolk and many other knights that Kendrick cared dearly for. At least, he told himself, they were still alive, or clinging to life. They were not dead, as the heaps of corpses were below.

  Kendrick had tried to talk to them, but they’d been too weak or dehydrated to respond. They all seemed more dead than alive.

  Kendrick heard the crack of whips, and looked out to see the picture of devastation that his beloved city had become: the survivors that remained were all enslaved, being led by Empire taskmasters, whipped, forced to lug huge rocks, moving one pile after another as they cleared rubble. Silesia had quickly morphed into an occupied slave city, a statute of Andronicus already rising into the sky, the Empire emblem—a lion with a bird in its mouth—already lodged above the city gates, and the Empire banner raised above that. All traces of the independence this city once had were gone. It was now subsumed, completely part of the Empire.

  There came a commotion and Kendrick, licking his chapped lips, turned to see a group of Empire soldiers making way through the crowd; behind them, he was shocked to see, was none other than Andronicus himself, towering over the others. The soldiers before him held in chains a man who Ke
ndrick, after several moments, recognized. It was his half-brother.

  Gareth.

  Kendrick’s eyes opened wide and he did a double take, wondering if he were seeing things. He was not. There, in the flesh, was Gareth, emaciated, growing a beard, looking disheveled. He was led by Empire soldiers, chains rattling as he shuffled along.

  They came to a stop before Kendrick. The crowd fell silent as Andronicus came up beside Gareth and lay a huge hand around his skinny neck, covering it completely, his long fingernails scraping down to the base of Gareth’s throat.

  Andronicus smiled.

  “Identify who is who among these captives,” Andronicus said. “And we will spare your life.”

  They all looked up at Kendrick and the others on the crosses.

  “I will do it with pleasure,” Gareth said. “I will identify everyone and more. I have no love for any of them; your enemy is my enemy, too.”

  Andronicus smiled down at Gareth.

  “You are insolent,” he said. “And cold-blooded, even towards your own family. You are a man after my own heart. I like you. Free him,” Andronicus motioned to his guards, and they rushed forward and unshackled Gareth.

  Gareth shook off the shackles, strutted forward, and walked right up to Kendrick, pointing a long, skinny finger in his face.

  “That is Kendrick,” he said. “My former brother. Or half-brother. He is a bastard, really. He is head of the Silver. An important man,” he said, then turned and pointed elsewhere. “And that man beside him, he is Kolk, the head of the Legion; and that there is Brom, head of the army; and there is Atme, another hero of the Silver.”

  Gareth went on and on, rattling off the names; with each name he pronounced, a fire burned in Kendrick’s stomach. He would kill Gareth for this, if he ever got the chance.

  Finally, Gareth finished. He returned to Andronicus’ side, a satisfied smile on his face.

  Andronicus smiled, a deep purring coming from somewhere in his throat, and he placed another hand on Gareth’s shoulder.

  “You have done well,” Andronicus said. “You will be rewarded.”

  Gareth stood there, puffed up.

  “What position will you give me? Keep in mind that I am a King, after all. You could name me King of the Ring. That would be fitting.”

  Andronicus laughed, heartily.

  “I am going to reward you with the position of slave. You will be king of the dung-heap shovelers.”

  Gareth’s face fell in horror.

  “But you said you would reward me!”

  “That is a reward,” Andronicus said. “I am not killing you.”

  Gareth, panic in his eyes, suddenly turned and bolted from the group; his skinny frame aided him, and he was able to weave in and out of the crowd.

  “FIND HIM!” Andronicus screamed to his shocked soldiers.

  His men took off after him, but within moments Gareth found a small hole in the stone wall and dove into it. He was just skinny enough to wedge his way through, into some sort of hidden passage, and as the Empire soldiers reached the wall, they could not fit inside.

  “If you lose him, you will die!” Andronicus called out.

  The soldiers took off, racing the long way around the wall.

  Andronicus, red-faced, turned his attention back towards Kendrick and the others. He stepped forward, and eyed them all closely.

  After an interminable wait, he stepped up to Kolk.

  “We will start with him,” Andronicus commanded. “We will kill just one a day.” He smiled. “I like to prolong my pleasure.”

  Andronicus reached down, took a spear from the hand of one of his attendants, then stepped forward and suddenly pierced Kolk, right through the heart.

  “NO!” Kendrick screamed out, as he watched Kolk’s mouth gushing with blood. Kolk screamed out in pain, then finally slumped his head, dead.

  Andronicus, leaving the spear impaled in him, turned back to his men, as they all began to walk away.

  “Tomorrow, we will choose another,” he said.

  Kendrick struggled for all he had, but he could not loosen his ropes. He reached back and screamed out to the heavens, vowing vengeance for Kolk, for his people, for all of them. One day, somehow, he would kill Andronicus.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Thor woke at dawn, squinting against the searing light of the first morning sun, a huge, blinding ball on the horizon with nothing in the landscape to shield it. He raised his hands to his eyes, and sat up slowly.

  The desert was still cool in the early morning, the heat rising by the second; all around him were his brothers in arms, laid out asleep by the dying embers of the fire. Krohn lay with his head in his lap, fast asleep.

  All were accounted for—except for one. Thor noticed that Conven was missing; he quickly turned and looked all around for him, and finally spotted him, about twenty feet away from the others, sitting cross legged, his back to them, looking out at the sun as it rose on the horizon.

  Alarmed, Thor hurried over to him. As he walked around he saw his eyes staring right into the sun, bloodshot. He still looked grief stricken, as if he were not fully there with them. He stared into the horizon with a blank look, and Thor wondered at the depth of his sorrow.

  “Conven?” he asked.

  After several seconds, he finally, blankly, turned to look at Thor.

  “It’s time to go,” Thor said.

  Conven slowly rose, without a word, and walked to his beast, tied to a pole. Thor turned and followed him, and the others began to rise, too, all watching, wondering.

  Conven was not the same person that Thor once knew, and despite himself, Thor was beginning to wonder if Conven would become a liability for them. He did not understand what Conven was going through. He was unpredictable. And he did not know how he would react in time of danger—or if he would endanger them all.

  But he had no choice. As they all mounted their animals, bidding a hasty goodbye to this solitary town, they were off before the sun rose, needing to make time before they all became fried in the heat of the day.

  *

  The six of them rode their beasts at a walk across the salt landscape, all following Indra’s lead. Thor was glad to be rid of that place, and he could understand Indra’s anxiety at returning to her hometown. He would not want to be stuck there either.

  Thor was still a bit lightheaded from that drink of the night before, and he tried to shake off the cobwebs. That qurum milk was powerful, and he had a hard time remembering exactly when he fell asleep.

  “How much farther is the Land of the Dragons?” Reece asked Indra.

  “We haven’t even entered the tunnel yet,” she said.

  “Tunnel?” O’Connor asked.

  “The only way to reach the Land of the Dragons is through the Great Tunnel. It connects the Salt Wastelands to the Mountains of Fire. The locals call it the Tunnel of Death. I’ve never heard of someone enter it and come out the other side.” She sighed. “But this is the journey you chose. You knew it would not be easy.”

  They continued riding in silence and Thor felt the uneasiness among them as they headed across never-ending stretches of salt, as the sun rose ever higher. It felt as if they were trekking to their deaths.

  After hours of absolute nothingness, on the horizon there cropped up before them a single huge mountain. At its base was the mouth of a vast tunnel, a hundred yards in diameter, a gaping hole into the blackness.

  As they neared, their animals began to stomp and resist, and Thor could sense how uneasy they were.

  Indra dismounted at the mouth of the tunnel, and the others did the same.

  “What about the animals?” Elden asked, coming up beside her.

  She shook her head.

  “No beast will enter this tunnel,” she answered. “They know better.”

  She stood there, holding the reigns and looking up at her animal wistfully. It leaned down with its huge head, made a moaning noise, and rubbed its nose against her neck.

  She r
eleased the rope and slapped the beast on the back, and it turned and ran off, as the other beasts turned and ran off with him.

  Thor turned with the others and watched them go, raising up a cloud of white dust as they faded into the horizon. He gulped. Now they were on their own.

  Thor turned and faced the entrance of the tunnel, peering into the blackness. He knew they might not ever come out.

  Indra raised a dagger and stepped forward to the wall of the cave and chipped off large pieces of yellow rock. She held one against the wall and smashed it with the butt of her dagger, and it revealed a glowing white core. She handed a rock to each of the men.

  Thor held it in his hand, surprised at its weight, a rough yellow rock with a glowing core.

  Indra took the first step into the cave, and as she did, Thor was shocked to see the rock cast a glow. It exuded the light of several candles.

  “Hold yours high and the tunnel won’t be as dark,” Indra said.

  “How long do they last?” O’Connor asked, as they all began to enter the cave.

  “I don’t know,” Indra said. “No one’s ever used them long enough to say.”

  *

  The dim tunnel echoed with the strange noises of animals and insects, the fluttering of wings, the shrieks and cooing noises of hidden creatures echoing in every direction. They marched and marched, holding their glowing rocks out before them. Thor heard something crunching beneath his feet and as he lowered the rock it cast a light on millions of insects, crawling beneath his feet, crunching beneath his boots. Every once in a while he shook them off, as they tried to crawl up his leg.

  Krohn, beside him, snarled at them, and he bent over and snapped at one or tried to catch it between his paws.

  Thank god for the glowing rocks, Thor thought; without them it would be like hiking into utter blackness, and Thor was grateful to Indra, as always, as the rocks lit the way. Still, beyond their few foot radius, it was hard to see, and Thor could only wonder what was lurking deep in the corners of this place. He couldn’t help but feel as if he were being watched, as if the creatures, whatever they were, were biding their time. A part of him was glad he couldn’t see it.