A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring)
Read A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring) Online
Authors: Morgan Rice
A
j
o u s t
O
F
k n I g h
t s
(Book #16 in the Sorcerer’s Ring)
Morgan Rice
About Morgan Rice
Morgan
Rice is the #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author of the epic fantasy
series THE SORCERER’S RING, comprising sixteen books (and counting); of the #1
bestselling series THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, comprising eleven books (and
counting); and of the #1 bestselling series THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY, a
post-apocalyptic thriller comprising two books (and counting. Morgan’s books
are available in audio and print editions, and translations are available in over
20 languages.
TURNED
(Book #1 in the
Vampire Journals),
ARENA ONE
(Book #1 of the Survival
Trilogy), and
A QUEST OF HEROES
(Book #1 in the
Sorcerer’s Ring) are each available as a free download on Amazon!
Morgan
loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit
www.morganricebooks.com
to join the
email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, download the free app,
get the latest exclusive news, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in
touch!
Select Acclaim
for Morgan Rice
“A
spirited fantasy that weaves elements of mystery and intrigue into its story
line.
A Quest of Heroes
is all about the making of courage and about
realizing a life purpose that leads to growth, maturity, and excellence….For
those seeking meaty fantasy adventures, the protagonists, devices, and action
provide a vigorous set of encounters that focus well on Thor's evolution from a
dreamy child to a young adult facing impossible odds for survival….Only the
beginning of what promises to be an epic young adult series.”
--Midwest
Book Review
(D.
Donovan, eBook Reviewer)
“THE
SORCERER’S RING has all the ingredients for an instant success: plots,
counterplots, mystery, valiant knights, and blossoming relationships replete
with broken hearts, deception and betrayal. It will keep you entertained for
hours, and will satisfy all ages. Recommended for the permanent library of all
fantasy readers.”
--
Books
and Movie Reviews
, Roberto Mattos
“Rice’s
entertaining epic fantasy [THE SORCERER’S RING] includes classic traits of the
genre—a strong setting, highly inspired by ancient Scotland and its history,
and a good sense of court intrigue.”
—
Kirkus
Reviews
“I loved how Morgan Rice built Thor’s character
and the world in which he lived. The landscape and the creatures that roamed it
were very well described…I enjoyed [the plot]. It was short and sweet….There
were just the right amount of minor characters, so I didn’t get confused. There
were adventures and harrowing moments, but the action depicted wasn’t overly
grotesque. The book would be perfect for a teen reader… The beginnings of
something remarkable are there…”
--San Francisco Book Review
“In this action-packed first book in the epic fantasy Sorcerer's Ring
series (which is currently 14 books strong), Rice introduces readers to
14-year-old Thorgrin "Thor" McLeod, whose dream is to join the Silver
Legion, the elite knights who serve the king…. Rice's writing is solid and the
premise intriguing.”
--Publishers Weekly
“[A
QUEST OF HEROES] is a quick and easy read. The ends of chapters make it so that
you have to read what happens next and you don’t want to put it down. There are
some typos in the book and some names are messed up, but this does not distract
from the overall story. The end of the book made me want to get the next book
immediately and that is what I did. All nine of the Sorcerer’s Ring series can
currently be purchased on the Kindle store and A Quest of Heroes is currently
free to get you started! If you are looking for a something quick and fun to
read while on vacation this book will do nicely.”
--FantasyOnline.net
Books by Morgan Rice
THE SORCERER’S RING
A
QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1)
A MARCH OF KINGS (Book #2)
A FATE OF DRAGONS (Book #3)
A CRY OF HONOR (Book #4)
A VOW OF GLORY (Book #5)
A CHARGE OF VALOR (Book #6)
A RITE OF SWORDS (Book #7)
A GRANT OF ARMS (Book #8)
A SKY OF SPELLS (Book #9)
A SEA OF SHIELDS (Book #10)
A REIGN OF STEEL (Book #11)
A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)
A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)
AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)
A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)
A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)
THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY
ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)
ARENA TWO (Book #2)
THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS
TURNED (Book #1)
LOVED (Book #2)
BETRAYED (Book #3)
DESTINED (Book #4)
DESIRED (Book #5)
BETROTHED (Book #6)
VOWED (Book #7)
FOUND (Book #8)
RESURRECTED (Book #9)
CRAVED (Book #10)
FATED (Book #11)
Copyright
© 2014 by Morgan Rice
All
rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior permission of the author.
This
ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for
your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places,
events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.
Jacket
image Copyright Razumovskaya Marina Nikolaevna, used under license from
Shutterstock.com.
CONTENTS
Thorgrin stood at the bow of the sleek ship,
gripping the rail, his hair pushed back by the wind, and he stared into the
horizon with a deepening sense of foreboding. Their ship, taken from the
pirates, was sailing as fast as the winds could carry it, Elden, O’Connor, Matus,
Reece, Indra, and Selese working the sails, Angel standing by his side, and Thor,
as eager as he was, knew they could not go any faster. Yet still, he willed it
to be so. After all this time, he finally felt with certainty that Guwayne lay
just ahead, just past the horizon, on the Isle of Light. And with equal certainty,
he sensed that Guwayne was in danger.
Thor did not understand how it could be
so. After all, the last time he had left them, Guwayne had been safely on the
Isle of Light, under Ragon’s protection, a sorcerer as powerful as his brother.
Argon was the most powerful sorcerer Thorgrin had ever known—had even protected
the entire Ring—and Thor did not know how any harm could ever come to Guwayne while
under Ragon’s protection.
Unless there was some power out there
that Thorgrin had never heard of, a power of a dark sorcerer’s which could match
even Ragon’s. Could it be that some realm existed, some dark force, some evil sorcerer,
of which he knew nothing?
But why would they target his son?
Thor thought back to the day he had fled
the Isle of Light in such a hurry, under the spell of his dream, so driven to
leave the place at the crack of dawn. Looking back, Thor realized he had been
deceived by some dark force trying to lure him away from his son. It was only thanks
to Lycoples, who still circled his ship, screeching, disappearing on the
horizon and coming back again, that he had turned back for the Isle, was finally
heading in the right direction. The signs, Thor realized, had been in front of
his face the whole time. How had he ignored them? What dark force was leading
him astray to begin with?
Thor recalled the price he’d had to pay:
the demons released from hell, the dark lord’s curse that each would mean a curse
on his head. He knew that more curses, more trials lay before him, and he felt certain
this had been one of them. What other tests, he wondered, lay before him? Would
he ever get his son back?
“Don’t worry,” came a sweet voice.
Thor turned and looked down to see Angel
tugging on his shirt.
“Everything will be okay,” she added
with a smile.
Thor smiled down at her and laid a hand
on her head, reassured by her presence as always. He had come to love Angel as
he would a daughter, the daughter he never had. He took reassurance in her
presence.
“And if it’s not,” she added with a
smile, “I’ll take care of them!”
She proudly raised the small bow that O’Connor
had carved for her, and showed Thor how she could pull back the arrow. Thor smiled,
amused, as she raised the bow to her chest, shakily placed a small wooden arrow
on it, and began to pull back the string. She released the bow, and her small
wooden arrow went flying, shakily, overboard and out into the ocean.
“Did I kill a fish!?” she asked
excitedly as she ran to the rail and looked over with glee.
Thor stood there, looking down into the
foaming waters of the sea, and was not so sure. But he smiled all the same.
“I am sure you did,” he said,
reassuringly. “Perhaps even a shark.”
Thor heard a distant screech, and he was
suddenly on alert again. His entire body froze as he grabbed the hilt of his
sword and looked out over the water, studying the horizon.
The thick gray clouds slowly cleared,
and as they did, they revealed a horizon which made Thor’s heart drop: in the
distance, black plumes of smoke rose into the sky. As more clouds cleared, Thor
could see that they arose from a distant isle—not just any isle, but an island
with steep cliffs, rising right up to the sky, a broad plateau at its top. An
isle he could mistake for no other.
The Isle of Light.
Thor felt a pain in his chest as he saw a
sky black with evil creatures, resembling gargoyles, circling what remained of
the isle, like vultures, their screeches filling the air. There was an army of
them, and below them, the entire isle was up in flames. Not a corner of it was left
unscathed.
“FASTER!” Thor shouted, yelling at the
wind, knowing it was futile. It was the most helpless feeling of his life.
But there was nothing more he could do. He
watched the flames, the smoke, the monsters departing, heard Lycoples
screeching above, and he knew it was too late. Nothing could have survived.
Anything left on the isle—Ragon, Guwayne, anything at all—would surely, without
a doubt, be dead.
“NO!” Thorgrin screamed, cursing the
heavens, the ocean spray hitting his face as it carried him, too late, to the
isle of death.