“EREC!” Alistair cried.
There came another wail, to match hers, and Alistair looked down to see that she was holding a baby—Erec’s child. It was a boy, and his wails rose to the heavens, drowning out the noise of the wind and the rain and the shrieking of men.
Alistair woke screaming. She sat up and looked around, wondering where she was, what had happened. Breathing hard, slowly collecting herself, it took her several moments to realize it was all just a dream.
She stood and looked down at the creaking floorboards of the deck, and realized she was still on the ship. It all came flooding back to her: their departure from the Southern Isles, their quest to free Gwendolyn.
“My lady?” came a gentle voice.
Alistair looked over and saw Erec standing beside her, looking back at her, concerned. She was relieved to see him.
“Another nightmare?” he asked.
She nodded, looking away, self-conscious.
“Dreams are more vivid at sea,” said another voice.
Alistair turned to see Erec’s brother, Strom, standing nearby. She turned further and saw hundreds of Southern Islanders all aboard the ship, and it all came back to her. She remembered their departure, their leaving a grieving Dauphine behind, whom they had left to be in charge of the Southern Isles with her mother. Ever since receiving that message, all of them felt they had no choice but to set sail for the Empire, to search for Gwendolyn and all the others of the Ring, duty-bound to save them. They knew it would be an impossible mission, yet none of them cared. It was their duty.
Alistair rubbed her eyes and tried to shake the nightmares from her mind. She did not know how many days had passed already on this endless sea, and as she looked out now, studying the horizon, she could not see much. It was all obscured by fog.
“The fog has been following us since the Southern Isles,” Erec said, watching her gaze.
“Let’s hope it’s not an omen,” Strom added.
Alistair gently rubbed her belly, reassured that she was OK, that her baby was OK. Her dream had felt too real. She did it quickly and discreetly, not wanting Erec to know. She hadn’t told him yet. A part of her wanted to—but another part of her wanted to wait for the perfect moment, when it felt right.
She took Erec’s hand, relieved to see him alive.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
He smiled back, as he pulled her close and kissed her.
“And why wouldn’t I be?” he asked. “Your dreams are just fancies of the night. For every nightmare, there is also a man who is safe. I’m as safe here, with you and my loyal brother and my men, as I can ever hope to be.”
“Until we reach the Empire at least,” Strom added with a smile. “Then we shall be as safe as we can ever be with a small fleet against ten thousand ships.”
Strom smiled as he spoke, seeming to relish the fight to come.
Erec shrugged, serious.
“With the Gods behind our cause,” he said, “we cannot lose. Whatever the odds.”
Alistair pulled back and frowned, trying to make sense of it all.
“I saw you and your ship being sucked down to the bottom of the sea. I saw you on it,” she said. She wanted to add the bit about their child, but she restrained herself.
“Dreams are not always what they appear to be,” he said. Yet deep in his eyes, she saw a flash of concern. He knew that she saw things, and he respected her visions.
Alistair took a deep breath, looked down to the water, and knew he was right. They were all here, alive after all. Yet it had seemed so true.
As she stood there, Alistair felt the temptation to again raise her hand to her belly, to feel her stomach, to reassure herself and the child she knew was growing within her. Yet, with Erec and Strom standing there, she did not want to give it away.
A low, soft horn cut through the air, sounding intermittently every few minutes, warning the other ships in his fleet of their presence in the fog.
“That horn might give us away,” Strom said to Erec.
“To whom?” Erec asked.
“We know not what lurks behind the fog,” Strom said.
Erec shook his head.
“Perhaps,” he replied. “But the greater danger for now is not the enemy, but ourselves. We collide into our own, and we can bring our entire fleet down. We must sound the horns until the fog lifts. Our entire fleet can talk this way—and just as importantly, not drift too far from each other.”
In the fog, a horn from another of the ships in Erec’s fleet echoed, confirming its location.
Alistair looked out into the fog, and wondered. She knew they had so far to go, that they were on the other side of the world from the Empire, and she wondered how they would ever reach Gwendolyn and her brother in time. She wondered how long the falcons had took with that message, and wondered if they were even still alive. She wondered what had become of her beloved Ring. What an awful way for them all to die, she thought, on a foreign shore, far from their homeland.
“The Empire is across the world, my lord,” Alistair said to Erec. “It shall be a long journey. Why do you stay up here on the deck? Why not go down below, to the hold, and sleep? You haven’t slept in days,” she said, observing the dark rings beneath his eyes.
He shook his head.
“A commander never sleeps,” he said. “And besides, we are almost at our destination.”
“Our destination?” she asked, puzzled.
Erec nodded and looked out into the fog.
She followed his gaze but saw nothing.
“Boulder Isle,” he said. “Our first stop.”
“But why?” she asked. “Why stop before we reach the Empire?”
“We need a bigger fleet,” Strom chimed in, answering for him. “We can’t face the Empire with a few dozen ships.”
“And you will find this fleet in Boulder Isle?” Alistair asked.
Erec nodded.
“We might,” Erec said. “Bouldermen have ships, and men. More than we have. They despise the Empire. And they have served my father in the past.”
“But why would they help you now?” she asked, puzzled. “Who are these men?”
“Mercenaries,” Strom chimed in. “Rough men forged by a rough island on rough seas. They fight for the highest bidder.”
“Pirates,” Alistair said disapprovingly, realizing.
“Not quite,” Strom replied. “Pirates strive for loot. Bouldermen live for killing.”
Alistair examined Erec, and could see in his face that it was true.
“It is noble to fight for a true and just cause with pirates?” she asked. “Mercenaries?”
“It is noble to win a war,” Erec replied, “and to fight for a just cause such as ours. The means of waging such a war is not always as noble as we might like.”
“It is not noble to die,” Strom added. “And the judgment on nobility is decided by the victors, not the losers.”
Alistair frowned and Erec turned to her.
“Not everyone is as noble as you, my lady,” he said. “Or as I. That is not the way the world works. That is not the way that wars are won.”
“And can you trust such men?” she finally asked him.
Erec sighed and turned back to the horizon, hands on his hips, staring out as if wondering the same thing.
“Our father trusted them,” he finally said. “And his father before him. They never failed them.”
“And does that mean they shall not fail you now?” she asked.
Erec studied the horizon, and as he did, suddenly the fog lifted and the sun broke through. The vista changed dramatically, their suddenly gaining visibility, and in the distance, Alistair’s heart leapt as she saw land. There, on the horizon, sat a soaring island made of solid cliffs, rising straight up into the sky. There seemed to be no place to land, no beach, no entrance. Until Alistair looked higher and saw an arch, a door cut into the mountain itself, the ocean splashing right up against it. It was a large and imposing entrance, guarded by an iron portcullis, a wall of solid rock with a door cut into the middle of it. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen.
Erec stared at the horizon, studying it, the sunlight striking the door as if illuminating the entrance to another world.
“Trust, my lady,” he answered finally, “is born of need, not of want. And it is a very precarious thing.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Darius stood in the battlefield, holding a sword made of steel, and looked all around him, taking in the landscape. It had a surreal quality. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he could not believe what had just happened. They had defeated the Empire. He, alone, with a few hundred villagers, without any real weapons—and with the help of Gwendolyn’s few hundred men—had defeated this professional army of hundreds of Empire soldiers. They had donned the finest armor, had wielded the finest weapons, had had zertas at their disposal. And he, Darius, barely armed, had led the battle that had defeated them all, the first victory against the Empire in history.
Here, in this place, where he had expected to die defending Loti’s honor, he now stood victorious.
A conqueror.
As Darius surveyed the field, he saw intermingled with the Empire corpses the bodies of scores of his own villagers, dozens dead, and his joy was tampered with sorrow. He flexed his muscles and felt fresh wounds himself, sword slashes in his biceps and thighs, and felt the sting of the lashes still on his back. He thought of the retaliation to come and knew their victory had come at a price.
But then again, he mused, all freedom did.
Darius sensed motion and he turned to see approaching him his friends, Raj and Desmond, wounded but, he was relieved to see, alive. He could see in their eyes that they looked at him differently—that all of his people now looked at him differently. They looked at him with respect—more than respect, with awe. Like a living legend. They had all seen what he had done, standing up to the Empire alone. And defeating them all.
They no longer looked to him as a boy. They now looked to him as a leader. A warrior. It was a look he had never expected to see in these older boys’ eyes, in the villagers’ eyes. He had always been the one overlooked, the one that no one had expected anything from.
Coming up alongside him, joining Raj and Desmond, were dozens of his brothers in arms, boys whom he had trained and sparred with day after day, perhaps fifty of them, brushing off their wounds, rising to their feet, and congregating around him. They all looked to him, standing there, holding his steel sword, covered in wounds, with awe. And with hope.
Raj stepped forward and embraced him, and one at a time, his other brothers in arms embraced him as well.
“That was reckless,” Raj said with a smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I thought for sure you would surrender,” Desmond said.
“I can hardly believe we are all standing here,” said Luzi.
They looked about in wonder, surveying the landscape, as if they all had been dropped down on a foreign planet. Darius looked at all the dead bodies, at all the fine armor and weaponry glistening in the sun; he heard birds cawing, and looked up to see the vultures already circling.
“Gather their weapons,” Darius heard himself command, taking charge. It was a deep voice, a deeper one than he had ever used, and it carried an air of authority he had never recognized in himself. “And bury our dead.”
His men listened, all of them fanning out, going soldier to soldier, scavenging them, each of them choosing the finest weapons: some took swords, others maces, flails, daggers, axes, and war hammers. Darius held up the sword in his hand, the one he had taken from the commander, and admired it in the sun. He admired its weight, its elaborate shaft and blade. Real steel. Something he thought he would never have a chance to hold in his lifetime. Darius intended to put it to good use, to use it to kill as many Empire men as he could.
“Darius!” came a voice he knew well.
He turned to see Loti burst through the crowd, tears in her eyes, rushing toward him past all the men. She rushed forward and embraced him, holding him tight, her hot tears pouring down his neck.
He embraced her back, as she clung to him.
“I shall never forget,” she said, between tears, leaning in close and whispering in his ear. “I shall never forget what you have done this day.”
She kissed him, and he kissed her back, as she cried and laughed at the same time. He was so relieved to see her alive, too, to hold her, to know this nightmare, at least for now, was behind them. To know that the Empire could not touch her. As he held her, he knew he would do it all again a million times over for her.
“Brother,” came a voice.
Darius turned and was thrilled to see his sister, Sandara, step forward, joined by Gwendolyn and the man Sandara loved, Kendrick. Darius noticed the blood running down Kendrick’s arm, the fresh nicks in his armor and on his sword, and he felt a rush of gratitude. He knew that if it hadn’t been for Gwendolyn, Kendrick, and their people, he and his people surely would have died on the battlefield today.
Loti stood back as Sandara stepped forward and embraced him, and he hugged her back.
“I owe you all a great debt,” Darius said, looking at them all. “I and all of my people. You came back for us when you did not need to. You are true warriors.”
Kendrick stepped forward and placed a hand on Darius’s shoulder.
“It is you who are a true warrior, my friend. You displayed great valor on the battlefield today. God has rewarded your valor with this victory.”
Gwendolyn stepped forward, and Darius bowed his head as she did.
“Justice has triumphed today over evil and brutality,” she said. “I take personal pleasure, for many reasons, in watching your victory and in your allowing us to take part in it. I know that my husband, Thorgrin, would, too.”
“Thank you, my lady,” he said, touched. “I have heard many great things about Thorgrin, and I hope to meet him some day.”
Gwendolyn nodded.
“And what are your plans for your people now?” she asked.
Darius thought, realizing he had no idea; he hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. He hadn’t even thought he would survive.
Before Darius could respond there was a sudden commotion, and there burst forth from the crowd a face he knew well: there approached Zirk, one of Darius’s trainers, bloodied by battle, wearing no shirt with his bulging muscles. He was followed by a half dozen village elders and a large number of villagers, and he did not look pleased.