Morgan Rice - A Grant of Arms

There came a great whooshing noise, then the sound of ice cracking, and Gwen looked over to see the boulder released from its perch and rolling down the ice mound with a fury. Just as the monster pulled Alistair towards its open jaws to eat her, the boulder suddenly smashed into the monster’s back.

The monster was completely crushed. It let out an awful death shriek as it was completely flattened beneath the boulder. Alistair went flying through the air as the monster let go, and she landed far away, luckily, in a snow bank.

Soon, all was still. A heavy silence hung in the air.

Gwendolyn, in shock, hurried over to Alistair, rushing to her side, checking to see if she was okay. Alistair lay there, dazed, but she opened her eyes and took Gwendolyn’s hand and allowed her to pull her to her feet.

“Are you all right?” Gwen asked. She felt as if her own sister has been injured, and realized how much she cared for Alistair.

Alistair nodded back, looking shaken but unhurt.

Gwen broke into a smile, relieved.

They turned and hurried over to Steffen and Aberthol, helping each to their feet; they were bruised and beaten, but they would mend quickly. Gwen then hurried over to Krohn, who whined on his side. She helped him up, and he licked her face. He was a bit unsteady but all right, too.

The five of them stood there, dazed and confused, looking out at their surroundings, at these ice mounds, with a whole new respect and wonder. As Gwendolyn scanned the horizon, she was beginning to realize the true danger of this place. For the first time, she wondered if they would ever find Argon.

Had it been madness to come here after all?

Gwen hiked and hiked, her knees weak, her body weary, pains radiating in her stomach. They hiked towards the large, scarlet ball of the setting second sun, and they had been hiking all day. It felt like months. There was no end in sight: just the endless monotony of this landscape. She wondered how much longer they could keep this up, before they all just collapsed onto the ice.

They marched and marched through the fantastical valley of the mounds, all of them frozen to the bone. Luckily, since their last encounter, they had not encountered any other monsters. They had passed various small animals, creatures that Gwen had never seen before, most some shade of white, with small, glowing blue eyes—but these all scurried out of their way as they went. Everywhere they went, Gwendolyn searched for any possible sign of Argon, but he was nowhere in sight.

As the last glimmer of sun began to disappear, Gwendolyn began to notice a slight change in the appearance of the landscape. This valley of ice mounds culminated in one huge mound, stretching as far as the eye could see, blocking their path. There was no way forward without climbing it.

They all stopped, hands on their hips, breathing hard, and looked up at the mound, maybe fifty feet high. They were exhausted. They all were hopeless, as if no longer believing they would ever find Argon—much less survive.

“What do you think?” Gwen asked, turning to the others.

“We have no choice,” Alistair said. “Either we climb it, or we turn back.”

Gwen knew she was right. But her legs, shaking, were so exhausted. They all stood there and stared up at the mound.

Finally, Alistair took the first step, and Gwen and the others, weary beyond exhaustion, followed.

Gwen, breathing hard, took one step after the other. It was a steep incline, and they all slipped as they went, Gwendolyn leaning forward with her palms on the ice, sliding, trying to steady herself.

Slowly, foot by foot, they fought their way to the top. As they made it, they all collapsed on their hands and knees.

“I can’t go on,” Aberthol gasped.

As Gwen lay there, gasping, she mustered just enough energy to lift her head, to look out on the other side of the mound. Her eyes opened wide in shock.

Gwen reached over and prodded the others, shoving them, forcing them to look, too.

“Look!” she insisted.

The others slowly raised their heads and saw what she did. The sight took her breath away. There, before them, was another sweeping valley. But this one was different than the others; this one was filled with what looked like ice capsules. As far as the eye could see, there were thousands and thousands of them, each about eight feet tall, a few feet wide, and each containing something.

As Gwen narrowed her eyes, she realized that each contained a body. Inside each was one person, frozen solid. Thousands of people, spread out every ten feet or so, like a huge graveyard, protruding vertically from the ice.

“The Valley of Trapped Souls,” Aberthol said, in awe.

The others all stared, and no one needed to utter a word to know what was on everyone’s mind. There, below, were people. Trapped. Gwen knew that somewhere there, down below, trapped amidst these people, was the person she had come to seek.

She breathed deep, and said what was on everyone’s minds:

“Argon.”

Andronicus stood beside Thornicus, just the two of them alone on the hillside against the setting suns, surveying the damage from their battle against Romulus. Andronicus stood beside his son, and could not be more proud. For the first time in his life, he felt an emotion other than anger, other than a desire for vengeance. For the first time, he was not burning with a desire to destroy and kill and torture everything in his path. Instead, he was experiencing an emotion he did not quite understand. As he thought of all that Thor had done, as he thought of how Thor had saved his life, twice, he felt more than pride. He felt concern for the boy. He felt something that might even be love.

The emotion terrified him, and Andronicus immediately quashed it, pushed it down deep in his consciousness, unable to deal with it. It was an emotion he was unused to, and it was too powerful, too overwhelming.

Instead, he merely looked down at Thor with a much safer emotion, one he could understand: pride in victory. Thor had turned out to be a far greater asset than he could have ever imagined.

He draped his long fingernails over Thor’s shoulder.

“You have saved my life on the battlefield today,” Andronicus said.

Thornicus stood beside him, eyes glazed, gazing out at the carnage. Andronicus wondered if Thor would continue to serve him if Rafi took away the spell. Deep down, he hoped that he would, hoped that Thor had come to love him, too, in his own right, as any son would a father. He secretly hoped that as Rafi lifted the spell, after enough time went by, Thor might become loyal to Andronicus in his own right, might come to see him as the true father that he was.

Andronicus surveyed the damage, saw all of his men dead, saw all of the rebellious Empire men dead, and knew he owed Thornicus his life. That was something he had never anticipated.

All around them there came screams, as Andronicus’ men tortured any surviving Empire soldiers who had betrayed him. Andronicus breathed deeply, satisfied at the sound. It was time to make all the traitors pay, to send a message to anyone else who dared defy him. Romulus was on the run, and Andronicus would stop at nothing to find him and put an end to him for good.

First, though, Andronicus had more pressing matters. He turned and looked up and surveyed, in the distance, Highlandia, destroyed by the rebels. He stood there, hands on his hips, surveying it with chagrin. Highlandia had been his; if it hadn’t been for Romulus attacking him from the rear, if he hadn’t had to turn around to pursue him, they would not have had to abandon the city. Andronicus grimaced as he realized the damage Kendrick, Erec, and the others had done, taking out several thousand of his men while the main army was distracted. They had since fled, who knew where, probably back into the safety of the mountains. Andronicus surveyed the mountains, but it was getting dark and it would be too hard to find them now. In the morning, though, they would flush them out, like weasels, and kill them all. With Thornicus at his side, now anything was possible.