Morgan Rice - A Land of Fire

Darius reached out and laid his palms on the hilt of the finest sword he had ever seen. Its hilt was emerald green, and its blade had an emerald green tint to it as he turned it. He held it up high against the glowing light.

“Take it,” the man said. “It is meant for you.”

Darius examined it, and he saw in it his reflection. He no longer saw the face of a boy looking back, a boy playing with practice weapons, but the face of a hardened man. A man already morphed by suffering; a man seeking revenge. A man who was ready to become a true warrior. A man who was no longer a slave.

A man about to become free.

Gwen lay nearly lifeless on the deck of the ship, her body feeling so heavy, barely stirring as a rat crawled over her wrist. She opened her eyes, so heavy, not having the energy to brush it off. She felt herself burning with fever, every muscle in her body aching, on fire. She saw that she was lying face-first on the wooden plank, her ear to the wood, the hollow sound below echoing in her head of the ocean lapping against the ship.

The early morning sun spread out over them like a blanket, and as she lay there, she opened her eyes just enough to see all the bodies sprawled out on the ship. She saw hundreds of her people, none of the moving, either too weak to move—or, she hated to think it, already dead. She thought of the baby, somewhere with Illepra, and prayed she was still alive.

Gwen slipped in and out of consciousness, the gentle rocking motion of the ocean keeping her awake. A flapping noise pervaded her dreams, and Gwen looked up, squinting, to see the mast, high up, a lone sail, flapping in the wind. The ship was drifting aimlessly at sea, no one manning it, at the mercy of a random breeze and wherever the ocean tides should take them.

Gwen had never felt more exhausted, not even when she’d been pregnant with Guwayne. She felt as if she had lived too many lifetimes, and a part of her felt that it did not have the strength to go on. A part of her felt as if she had already lived far longer than she was supposed to, and she did not know how she could muster the strength to keep going, to start all over again, even if they ever found the Empire. Especially without Thor, without her baby, and with all her people in such a state. If they were even alive.

Gwen let her head drop back down to the deck, it feeling too heavy, ready to give in. She tried to keep her eyes open, but she could not.

Thor , she thought . I love you. If you find our son, raise him well. Raise him to remember me. To dream of me. Tell him how much I loved him.

Gwen slipped out of consciousness for she did not know how long, until she was awakened by a distant noise, from high above. It was a lone screech, high up in the clouds, sounding so distant Gwen did not even know if she had really heard it.

The screech came again, insistent, and she dimly recognized it as that of an animal she knew from somewhere in her life. It sounded as if it were trying to rouse her.

It invaded her consciousness, refusing to let her sleep, to slip away—until finally, Gwen opened her eyes, recognizing it.

Estopheles.

Thor’s falcon screeched incessantly, then swooped down, until Gwen felt it grazing her hair. Gwen lifted her head, brushed the rat off her hand, and with all her strength, she pushed hard, and got herself up to one knee.

Gwen rose, struggling, on shaky legs, and grabbed the rail on the side of the ship; with all her might, she pulled herself up, just enough to see over the rail.

There, laid out before her, was a sight she would never forget. Lying before her, filling the horizon, was land. It was a land unlike any she had ever seen, a city perched on the ocean, and in its center, shrouded in mist, two enormous stone pillars rising hundreds of feet into the sky, heralding a great city, a city of shining gold, sparkling in the sun like the entrance to heaven.

The ocean here was a foaming, fluorescent red, and it crashed against the shore, its glowing foam shooting up into the air, a shoreline of infinite variety, with endless contours and terrains, making the Ring seem minuscule. The two suns were huge in this sky, and beneath them, the red glow hung over everything, making it look like a land of fire.

Gwen took one final look at it, enthralled, and then she reeled, dizzy from hunger, burning from fever, and crashed onto the deck. She lay there, feeling the tides pulling them in.

If they lived, soon, they would be there.

The Empire.

Dead or alive, they had made it.

Thor sprinted, charging up the mountaintop, keeping his eyes fixed on those tribesmen in the distance, winding their way up the volcano and carrying his son. Thor gasped as he ran, his brothers right behind him, his son in his sights, so close, hardly a few hundred yards away, determined to reach him or to die trying.

The entourage of tribesmen bore his son over their heads, on poles, in a small bassinet, bobbing up and down as they hiked. Thor saw the smoldering volcano, and he knew they were taking Guwayne to it, to sacrifice him.

Thor’s heart was breaking inside as he urged his legs to go faster. He felt every muscle, every fiber of his being, about to explode; what he would give now for Mycoples.

Thor knew he had to do something.

“GUWAYNE!” he shrieked.

The group of tribesmen turned and saw Thor, and their eyes opened wide in panic. Thor did not wait, but hurled the spear in his hand with all his might, sending it flying fifty yards up the steep mountain slope, and watching with satisfaction as it pierced one of the tribesmen carrying his son in the back. The man screamed and collapsed.

The rest of the tribesmen, though, picked up the slack, and they took off at a jog, running Guwayne higher up the mountaintop. Thor chased after them, but he had no other spears to throw.

“GUWAYNE!” Thor shouted again, his voice echoing off the mountains.

Thor ran and ran, and he realized that he was gaining on them, able to move faster than the tribesmen. He was but seventy yards away…sixty…fifty. Thor ran faster, encourage, feeling confident that he could reach them in time. He would kill each and every one of them, rescue his boy, and bring him back to Gwendolyn.

Barely thirty yards away, Thor was getting close enough to see the panicked men’s expressions. They were no match for Thor’s speed, the speed of a man with his entire life on the line. He ran like a man possessed, more determined than he’d been for anything in his life.

Thor ran up the narrow mountain pass, narrowing, right on the edge of the cliff, running with everything that he had. They were hardly ten yards away now, just close enough for him to begin to draw his sword, to leap into the air, to butcher them. Thor reached down for the hilt of his sword—

And that was when it happened.

Suddenly, Thor felt an odd sensation beneath his feet, and he felt himself unsteady. Thor looked down and watched, in horror, as the path started to collapse.

Before Thor could react, the road gave way, caught up in a landslide, a giant avalanche. Thor found himself slipping, then falling, straight down the steep downslide, the mountain turning to mud, softened by the rains. He slid uncontrollably, down the mud, faster and faster, down hundreds of feet, shrieking, all his brothers sliding with him.

Thor spun around as he fell, looked up, and he saw his boy, so far away from him now, getting farther with each passing second.

“GUWAYNE!” Thor shrieked.

His shriek echoed off the mountains, again and again, the scream of a father losing a son, of a man losing everything he’d had.

Guwayne felt himself bouncing as the tribesmen carried him to the top of the volcano. He squinted his eyes at the thick smoke, finding it hard to breathe. His bassinet was hot, and he cried and cried, wanting to go down.