A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (6 page)

“I will do whatever I can to help you,”
she said, meaning it.

A look of relief crossed his face.

“Is that all you wish from me?” she
asked. “It seems a simple task.”

He shook his head.

“If the prophecies speak truly,” he
said, his voice grave, “then we will fail. The Ridge will fail. All that you
see here before you will be destroyed.”

She felt a chill at his words, and felt
them to be true as he uttered them.

“The destruction is coming sooner than
we may think. And then, I will need you most. When I die, my people will be a
shepherd without a flock. Of course, my sons will inherit and they will rule
well. But the prophecies speak of even them dying. And if they do not survive,
if we are ruler-less, I will need you to lead my people away from here. To safety.”

Gwen shook her head slowly, sadly.

“You speak of tragic prophecies,” she
said. “Prophecies which I pray shall never come to pass.”

“Vow to me,” he said, grasping her
wrist, his eyes aglow with intensity. “Vow to me that you will save my people.”

She stared back for a long time,
listening to the howling of the desert winds, then finally, she knew she could
not refuse the pleadings of a desperate, dying father.

She nodded back, and as she did, she
felt with certainty that her life was about to change dramatically.

Kendrick galloped out in front of his
half-dozen Silver, Brandt and Atme beside him, while beside them charged the
knights of the Ridge, led by Koldo, all riding together, as they had been all
day, deeper and deeper into the limitless waste. Kendrick looked down as they
went, watching the trail that he and Gwendolyn and the others had left, amazed
it stretched as far as it did. He had never imagined that they had actually
trekked that far; he did not see how it was physically possible beneath these
suns. The thought of it was staggering. Even on horseback, charging at full
speed, it was taking nearly the entire day. It made him realize what the human
body and mind could do when pressed to their limits.

Each time Kendrick glanced down and
expected the trail to finally end, it kept going. He was beginning to feel a
deepening sense of foreboding in his stomach; being back out here was bringing
back bad memories, still fresh, ones he did not wish to relive. He just wanted
this trail to end already, to turn back with the sweepers and begin heading
back to the Ridge.

Kendrick did not like the way things
were going: he trusted some of these Ridge men, and respected the King’s sons, but
others he was uncertain of—and some he outright loathed, such as Naten. He
wondered if they would have his back if it came down to it. There was nothing
worse than heading into battle unsure of the loyalty of the men at your side.

“Up ahead!” shouted a voice.

Kendrick peered down, wiping sweat from
his brow, and still saw the trail, and was unsure what the others were speaking
of. But then he saw the other men looking not down but up, and as he did, he
saw it: there, on the horizon, stood a twisted black tree, its branches so
thick with thorns that one could not see through them. As he saw it he had a
flashback: he recalled him and Gwendolyn and the others all collapsing beneath
that tree, beneath its flimsy shade, resting there for he did not know how
long, until somehow they finally managed the strength to go on again. He
recalled a brutal sandstorm had swept through while they were lying there, and
their spending the night riding it out.  He remembered waking the next morning,
looking behind him, and being amazed to see that the sandstorm had erased their
entire trail behind them, as if they had never existed.

They had all woken too tired to go on,
and yet somehow, they did. He knew that if they had not gotten up from beneath
it, all of them would have died there.

The horses now slowed, coming to a stop beneath
the tree, and they all dismounted, breathing hard, covered in dust, giving
their horses drink. It felt good to stand and stretch his legs, and he leaned
back and drank long and hard from his sack, the water now warm, but refreshing
nonetheless.

Kendrick stood there beside Brandt and
Atme and looked up the tree, its branches made of long thorns, all twisted from
too many desert storms. Kendrick looked out, past the tree, at the smooth sands
of the desert beyond and saw that they were pristine. Untraceable.

Their trail ended here.

Koldo came up beside Kendrick and motioned
to him at the sands beyond, examining them.

“It appears your trail ends here,” he
said to Kendrick, puzzled.

Kendrick nodded.

“A storm swept through here,” he
replied.

“You are lucky to have lived,” Ludvig
chimed in.

Koldo nodded, satisfied.

“Very good,” he said. “Then this is
where we shall begin our sweep—from here back to the Ridge.”

“And what if he is wrong?” came a voice.

Kendrick turned to see Naten staring
back at him angrily.

“What if their trail picks up again, out
there somewhere?” Naten added.

Koldo frowned.

“Of course the trail picks up
somewhere,” Koldo replied, curt. “But what matters is that it does not lead all
the way to this spot. There is a break in it, and that is what matters. From
this spot, as far as I can see, there is nothing. Do you see something I do
not?”

Naten frowned, turned, and walked away,
clearly unable to respond.

“Prepare your sweepers!” Koldo commanded
firmly, then turned and headed back to his horse.

His men broke into action, each
extracting from their saddles long sweepers, poles with a smooth, rake-like attachment
at one end, wide and flat, and attached them to the back of their horses. They
were flexible, sweeping in different directions, so as not to give a uniform
look to any sweeping they did, and completely erasing any possible trail.
Kendrick admired them: they were clearly ingenious devices.

“We still have time to return to the
Ridge before dark falls,” Koldo said, turning and looking back with hope toward
the Ridge.

“There better be,” Naten said, coming up
beside Kendrick. “If we don’t, we’re going to spend a long night out in this
desert—and it’s all going to be your fault.”

Kendrick scowled, fed up.

“What is your problem with me?” he demanded.

Naten scowled back, confronting him.

“Our lives were perfect,” he said.
“Before you showed up.”

“I haven’t ruined your precious Ridge,”
Kendrick snapped.

“It seems like you’ve ruined every place
you’ve come from,” Naten countered.

“You lack respect,” Kendrick replied.
“And hospitality. Two sacred virtues. As much as I dislike you, I would have
welcomed you into my homeland, a stranger. I would have even fought for you.”

Naten scoffed.

“Then we are very different people,” he
replied. “I would not fight for you—and if I had my choice, I would never let
you into our—”

Suddenly, a shriek cut through the air,
interrupting them, raising the hair on the back of Kendrick’s spine.

And then, complete chaos.

Before Kendrick could grasp what was
happening, he heard a man cry out in pain, an awful shriek, and out of the corner
of his eye, he saw something dark and hairy drop down from the sky and land on
his throat.

Kendrick turned as he sensed motion from
up above.

“TREE CLINGERS!” a man shouted.

Kendrick looked up and was horrified to
see that the thick branches of the tree were filled with glowing yellow eyes. A
group of small monsters, with black fur and long claws and fangs, looking like
sloths, began to reveal themselves, jumping out of the branches and leaping
onto the men. Their claws shined in the air, several feet long, as sharp as
swords, and they raised them high and swung them down like machetes, jumping right
for the group of men.

Kendrick reached to draw his sword, but
it was too late. Before he could react, a tree clinger, its long claws
extended, swung right for his face—and there was nothing he could do to stop
it.

Boku hung on the crucifix that the
Empire soldiers had nailed him to days ago, the last of his people alive since
the great slaughter, somehow, despite his wishes, still clinging to life. He
had stopped feeling the pain and agony—that had passed days ago. He no longer
felt the agony searing through his palms, no longer felt the dehydration, the burning
of the suns on his skin. He was beyond all that now, so close to death. All
that he still felt was his intense grief for his people, all of whom had died beside
him in their siege of Volusia, all massacred before his eyes. He craved to see
them all again, and had cursed the gods that he had been left alive.

But Boku was too spent to even have room
to curse now. There was nothing left in him but to die. He prayed to the gods with
all he was to please let him die—and yet for some reason, they kept denying
him. For days, the Empire had inflicted on him every kind of torture before
finally nailing him to the cross, and still, no matter how much he craved it,
he would not die. He drifted now in and out of consciousness, seeing his
forefathers in a cloud of light, expecting any moment to be embraced by them,
and wishing it to be so.

Boku opened his eyes—he did not know how
much time had passed—and found himself to still be alive, caught in his harsh
reality, his body numb, no longer feeling his hands or legs, and having to look
down and see the piles of corpses of all the people he once knew and loved. When,
he wondered, would this hell end? He would give anything for a swift, merciful
death.

“Bring him down,” called out the voice
of an Empire taskmaster, and for a moment, Boku’s heart leapt as he wondered if
his prayers had been answered.

Boku felt his world shift, felt his
cross lowered, felt his body go flat, then borne on the shoulders of several
soldiers. He was set down on the ground with a bang, as they dropped him the
last few feet, and a sharp pain shot up his spine, surprising him. He did not
think he had any room left for pain.

Boku looked up, squinted into the
glaring sun, until suddenly, a shadow passed over his face, and he opened his
eyes wide to see the cruel Empire taskmaster, scowling down at him with his
long fangs and horns. The taskmaster reached over with a pitcher and dumped freezing
water on his face.

Boku felt like he was drowning. He felt
the water go up his nose, felt himself immersed in it, and gasped as all the
Empire soldiers laughed cruelly around him.

Boku felt water on his lips, and he licked
them, trying to drink, desperate to be able to swallow. But there was none left
to drink, adding cruelty to the torture.

Boku blinked and looked up at the
taskmaster’s face, wondering again what he could possibly want, why he would
bother keeping him alive. Why would he give him water? To prolong his torture,
surely.

“Where are your friends?” he demanded,
leaning over, his bad breath filling Boku’s face.

Boku blinked, confused.

“What friends?” he tried to ask, but his
throat was too parched for the words to come out.

“Those from across the sea,” the man
demanded. “Those of the white race. The ones you harbored in your village. The
ones who fled. Where did they go?”

Boku blinked, his head splitting, trying
to understand, his mind working slowly after so many days of silence and agony.
Slowly, it came back to him. Before the massacre, that woman, what was her
name….Gwendolyn. Yes. Her people….

It all slowly came back to him: they had
fled before the battle. They had trekked out to the Great Waste, to try to find
the Second Ring…backup for their army. Most likely, the Waste had taken them,
too.

Boku looked up at the scowling face of
the taskmaster, and realized now what he wanted, why he had kept him alive, had
tortured him. It wasn’t enough for them to have killed him and all his people.
They wanted to kill Gwendolyn and her people, too.

Boku felt a fresh resolve within him. If
he had been unable to save his people, at least he could now save Gwendolyn.

Boku managed to clear his throat enough
to speak:

“She went back across the sea,” he lied
firmly.

The taskmaster grinned down, took a long,
sharp dagger-like weapon with a curved tip, and plunged it into Boku’s ribs.

Boku shrieked screamed as he crammed it
in farther, turning and twisting it; he felt as if his insides were being
destroyed.

“You are not a very good liar,” the
taskmaster said. “We found their ships burned. How could she have crossed the
sea?”

Boku shrieked, blood coming from his
mouth, determined not to speak.

“I will ask you but one more time,” he
demanded. “Where did she go? Where are they hiding? Her people are not among
the dead, and we have already ransacked your village—and all your caves. They are
nowhere to be found. Tell me where they are, and I will kill you quickly.”

Boku’s pain was unimaginable, but he
gritted his teeth and shook his head, tears coming from his eyes, determined
not to give Gwendolyn up. With one great burst of energy, he managed to spit.
He watched in satisfaction as blood from his mouth sprayed into the Empire
taskmaster’s eyes.

The taskmaster, furious, reached down
with both hands, pulled out the corkscrew, and plunged it into Boku’s chest. Boku
felt an even worse agony, as the man pushed down with all his might, turning
and twisting. He felt his bones breaking in every direction, an agony even he
could not bear. He would do anything to make it stop. Anything in the world.

“I beg you!” Boku pleaded.

“Tell me!” the taskmaster replied.

“The…Waste,” Boku found himself screaming,
involuntarily. “The Great Waste. I swear to you! I swear it!”

Boku wept, ashamed he had given them up.
He had wanted more than anything to protect them, but the pain had been too
intense, taking over his brain, making him unable to think straight.

Finally, the Empire soldier stopped,
satisfied, and grinned down at him.

“I actually believe you,” he said.
“Though I am sorry to say—it won’t save you.”

Several Empire soldiers stepped forward,
daggers drawn—and Boku felt himself pierced by a million knives, in pain from
every corner of his body.

Finally, he was able to let go. Finally,
sweet death came for him.

Before leaving it all, embracing his
ancestors, the great light, one final thought came to him:

I am sorry, Gwendolyn. I betrayed you. I
betrayed you.