Morgan Rice - A Reign of Steel

Alistair suddenly felt a surge of energy. She felt herself on a different realm, able to transcend everything before her, able to have power over it all through sympathy and love and compassion. She felt a tremendous strength rise within her, a strength which she herself could not even understand. It felt like the power of a thousand suns coursing through her veins.

Alistair blinked, and the world came back to life again in a great flash of light. She looked up at the man’s hand, still frozen in midair, and he suddenly became panicked with fear as he looked at his own hand, unable to move it. He looked back and forth from Alistair to his hand, shocked.

“A sorcerer!” he exclaimed.

Alistair stood there, unafraid, sensing the power of a greater spirit within her, and sensing that these men, of a different spiritual plane, could not touch her. She felt swept up in a power and force in the world greater than she.

Alistair leaned back and raised her hands up to the heavens, and as she did, beams of white light streamed from her palms, shooting straight up, lighting up the night, piercing through the heavens, to the black night itself.

Suddenly, the ship rocked wildly from side to side. The howling of the wind picked up, and great waves rose up all around the ship, a huge current, rocking the ship violently, up and down.

All the men facing her were thrown to the deck, and as the ship listed, they went sliding, all the way, until they slammed into the wooden side. The ship rocked the other way, and the men slid all the way to the other end, smashing into that side, groaning in pain. Alistair stood with two feet rooted to the deck, and she felt like a mountain, keeping perfect balance, feeling centered in the very core of the world.

The ship rocked again, and the men slid the other way, shouting out as they smashed into the sides of the ship, again and again and again, until their ribs were cracked.

As the men slid one more time, the ship nearly on its side, they shrieked in terror as they looked out over the edge: there arose an immense splashing noise, as though the very bowels of the ocean were shooting to the surface, and an enormous sea monster emerged from the depths. It was twice as large as a great whale, with a wide, flat head, shiny red scales, and thousands of razor-sharp teeth. Its body was thicker than the ship, and it rose straight up out of the waters with a great fury, and let out a shriek so violent, it nearly split the mast in two. The men clutched their ears, trying to drown out the sound, but even so, many of their ears ran with blood.

The whale rose entirely out of the water, larger than a dragon, larger than anything Alistair had ever seen, and then it dove, face first, straight down onto the ship, its jaws wide open.

The men raised their arms and screamed. But it was too late; the whale’s teeth came straight down, through half of the ship, and tore it to pieces. He scooped up the men, their blood streaming from its teeth as it closed its jaw, and then disappeared just as quickly, sucking them back down beneath the ocean.

The ship, now empty, destroyed, was sinking fast, and Alistair looked up to see Erec, swinging back and forth in his net. She watched as the rope snapped and he came crashing down onto the deck. Erec used his dagger to slice open the net and free himself. He scrambled to his feet and ran to her.

They embraced.

“Alistair,” he said. “Thank god you’re safe.”

The ship was taking on water fast. Over the sound of the wind and the waves came the shouts of men, and Alistair turned and saw the captain; he came running down from the upper decks, along with dozens more sailors from the back of the ship.

“There!” Erec shouted.

Alistair turned and followed his finger to see a small vessel, a twenty-foot rowboat with a small sail, attached by ropes to the side of the ship, clearly the lifeboat to this huge vessel. The sailors were racing for it, and Erec grabbed her hand and they ran across the deck, getting a good head start on the others.

They reached the lifeboat first, and Erec lifted Alistair and put her in the little boat as the ship rocked; she grabbed hold of the rope, trying to steady herself.

“Don’t you touch our boat!” the captain screamed.

Erec wheeled, and as the captain approached, Erec stabbed him in the heart with his sword. The captain gasped and dropped to his knees, eyes bulging in shock, as Erec stood over him, grimacing.

“I should have done that long ago,” Erec said.

Several more sailors approached, and Erec, unleashed, fought with a vengeance, slashing and killing a dozen of them as they lamely raised their swords and tried to fight back. They were no match for him.

“Erec, we must go!” Alistair called out, as the ship lurched.

The ship rocked violently, taking on even more water, as dozens more sailors began to run toward him. Erec turned and jumped into the rowboat, and as soon as he did, he cut the ropes.

Alistair felt her heart in her throat as they plummeted through the air, down into the ocean, hitting the waves with a great splash, rocking and rolling as the ocean tossed and turned.

They escaped just in time; a moment later, the huge ship reeled sideways, turning over. The sailors who remained on board shrieked with their last breaths as the ocean sucked them under, along with the ship, in a great cracking of wood.

Erec rowed with all his might, distancing them from the ship, and soon, the screams quieted. Soon, it was just the two of them, sailing into the black of night, under a million red stars, heading God knew where in the universe.

Thor walked through the Land of the Druids, in awe at his surroundings, at once so exotic and yet so eerily familiar. As he traversed a field of flowers, he reached out and touched them in wonder, trying to understand where he had seen them before, where he had seen this entire vista before. The more he examined it, the more he began to remember: it was a field of flowers he had been to before. The field outside King’s Court. The place where he had his first date with Gwendolyn. It had been a magical place for him, a place burned into his memory, where he had first fallen in love. A place he could never forget.

But what could it possibly be doing here, halfway across the world, in the Land of the Druids? Had he crossed the world only to return home? It made no sense.

As Thor walked, deeper into the field, he struggled to understand what was happening. He felt his entire body tingling, and he sensed from the feeling that he was indeed in a different land, a different place. A different energy hung in the air, a different weight and scent to the breeze. For the first time in his life, Thor felt as if the energy aligned with his own perfectly. As if he were home, among his people. People who were like him. People who understood him. He felt more alive, stronger here, than anywhere else in the world.

Yet the same time, his surroundings also felt different, foreign to him. He sensed a foreboding, a danger, and he did not know what.

Thor searched the horizon, hoping to see something familiar—the towering castle of his dreams, his mother’s palace, the skywalk leading to it—or at the very least, some path leading to it.

But he saw none of that. Instead, as he traversed the field of flowers, following a meandering dirt path, the landscape suddenly gave way to a small village, the dirt path cutting through it, filled with white stone cottages.

Thor held his breath, shocked, as the hairs rose on his arms: it was his town. His home village.

How as it possible? he wondered. Had he traveled half the world only to end up back home?

Thor continued to walk, warily, through the empty streets, until up ahead, he saw a figure in the distance. The figure was hunched over on the side of the dirt path, and as Thor approached he was surprised to see it was an old woman, hunched over a cauldron above a fire. She seemed familiar too.