A Sky of Spells (Book #9 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (6 page)

Gwendolyn stood there,
looking up at Thorgrin, atop Mycoples, and her heart soared with relief and
pride. She had made her way through the thick crowd of soldiers, back to the
front lines, throwing off the protection of Steffen and the others. She had
pushed her way all the way into the clearing, and she stood before Thor. She
burst into tears of joy, as she looked out and saw the Empire defeated, all
threats finally gone, as she saw Thor, her love, alive, safe. She felt
triumphant. She felt as if all the darkness and grief of the last several
months had finally lifted, felt that the Ring was finally safe once again. She
felt overwhelmed with joy and gratitude as Thor spotted her and looked down at
her with such love, his eyes shining.

Gwen prepared to go forth
and greet him, when suddenly a noise cut through the air that made her turn.

“BRONSON!” came the shriek.

Gwen and the others turned,
and her heart sank with dread to see a man emerge from the ashes of the Empire
side. The man had been lying face-down on the ground, covered with the bodies
of Empire soldiers, and he stood and knocked them off as he rose to his full
height.

McCloud.

Gwen felt a shudder. McCloud
had somehow survived, having been a coward, taking refuge under the bodies of
others, somehow surviving the wall of flames. He stood there with his
disfigured body, his face branded, missing an eye, and now, half-burnt from
flames, his clothes still smoldering. Yet he was alive, sword in hand, glaring
right at his son, Bronson.

Gwen felt a supreme distaste
rise up within her. There was a man she loathed with every fiber of her being,
the man of her nightmares, the ones she relived every night, the man who had
attacked her. There was nothing more she had wished for all these days than to
see him dead.

There he stood, at his full
height and breadth, which was considerable, a nightmare come to life, the sole
survivor of the entire conflagration.

“BRONSON!” McCloud shrieked
again, stepping forward into the clearing.

Bronson answered the call:
he stepped forward from the MacGil side, his own sword in hand, prepared to
greet his father in one last battle.

Mycoples snarled, arched her
neck, and prepared to breathe fire on McCloud.

But Thor placed a hand on
her, stopping her, as he dismounted and clutched his sword, stepping forward,
towards McCloud, to finish him off.

Bronson stepped forward, to
Thor’s side, and laid a hand on Thor’s shoulder.

“It is my battle,” Bronson
said.

“He attacked my wife,” Thor
said. “I crave vengeance.”

“But he is my father,”
Bronson replied. “Surely you understand. I crave it more.”

Thor stared back at Bronson,
long and hard, then finally, understanding, he stepped aside.

“Both of you attack!”
McCloud shouted, his voice raspy, “I shall kill you both easily!”

Bronson turned and faced
him, and he rushed forward with a great cry, raising his sword high, as McCloud
charged back.

Father and son met in the
middle of the open field, and Bronson brought his sword down with all his
might. McCloud raised his and blocked it with a clang. Sparks flew, and the
fight had begun.

Bronson, in a rage, swung
his sword around, slashing again and again and again, driving his father back,
who nonetheless blocked every blow, and parried back with several of his own.
The two of them drove each other back and forth, sparks flying in every
direction as the epic fight went on and on, neither gaining an inch, both out
for blood. Clearly, the enmity between them ran deep.

Finally, in one quick move, Bronson
got the better of his father, knocking the sword from his grasp and stepping
forward and butting him in the nose with the hilt of his sword, breaking it.

McCloud reached up and
grabbed his nose, gushing blood, screaming, and Bronson kicked him back,
knocking him down to the ground.

Bronson stepped forward and
McCloud suddenly swept around with the back of his heel, kicking Bronson hard
in the back of the knee, making him drop to the ground. McCloud then sat up,
swung around, and smashed Bronson in the back of the head with his gauntlet, sending
his son face-first in the dirt.

McCloud snatched the sword
from Bronson’s hand, raised it and prepared to bring it down on Bronson’s
exposed neck and sever his head.

Gwendolyn, horrified, stepped
forward and screamed: “NO!” She could not stand to see Bronson lying there,
prone, about to die, this man she had come to love and respect, who had fought
so intensely for her cause.

McCloud lowered his sword
and a horrific shriek cut through the air, and Gwendolyn flinched, sure it was
Bronson’s death cry.

But as she opened her eyes,
she was shocked to see it was not Bronson who shrieked, but McCloud. He stood
there, missing an arm. Thor stood over him, sword out, having just chopped off
his arm, right before he could bring down his sword on Bronson.

“That’s for Gwendolyn,” Thor
said to McCloud.

As McCloud sank to his
knees, grasping his arm stump, shrieking, Bronson rose and faced him, beside
Thor, the two of them staring him down.

“Justice is served, father,”
Bronson said. “You took my hand. Now yours is taken.”

“I would’ve taken both of
your hands if I could,” McCloud snarled.

Bronson shook his head,
leaned back, and kicked his father in the face, and he went flying back, his
head slamming on the ground.

“You won’t be taking anyone’s
hand anymore,” Bronson replied.

His father lay there, groaning,
and Bronson reached down and retrieved his sword from the dirt.

“He’s mine to kill,” Bronson
said to Thor.

Thor nodded in respect and
stepped aside, as Bronson stood over his father, preparing to kill him.

Gwen stepped forward, past
all the men, past the stares of all the soldiers, and came up beside Bronson and
laid a hand on his wrist.

Bronson turned to her.

“Ask not for compassion for him,
my lady,” Bronson said.

“I do not,” Gwendolyn said. “I’ve
come for vengeance.”

Bronson looked back at her,
surprised.

“It was my honor that he
took,” Gwendolyn continued,  “and I must set wrongs right. Justice must be done
by my hand. Not by yours.”

Bronson looked at her long
and hard, then finally understood. He nodded and stepped aside.

“Kill the man who haunts your
dreams,” Bronson said. “Just as he haunted mine my entire life. Once he is
dead, may both our dreams vanish.”

Gwendolyn took the sword
with both hands, gripping the hilt, squeezing tight. Slowly, she raised it high
overhead. Never before had she killed a man, up close, who had lay there,
prone. Her hands trembled, even though she knew justice demanded it.

She felt the blood coursing
through her veins. The blood of the MacGils; of seven generations of kings; the
blood of a ruler of a great people; the blood of someone charged to set wrongs
right. She felt an overriding need to rid the world of an evil that never should
have existed in the first place.

“You won’t do it,” McCloud
snarled up at her. “You’re just like my boy. You don’t have the nerve.”

Gwendolyn breathed deep and
thrust the sword down, straight down, into McCloud’s heart, piercing it. The
sword continued, through his body, into the frozen ground.

McCloud’s eyes bulged open with
a look of shock, as he stared up at her in agony and surprise. He remained that
way for several seconds, frozen.

Then finally he fell
backwards, limp. Dead.

Gwendolyn extracted the
bloody sword and held it out before her, as she turned and faced her people.
She raised it high.

As one, her entire army, all
of her people, knelt before her, and shouted:

“GWENDOLYN!”

Thor rode on the back of Mycoples,
Gwen behind him, clutching his waist. The two of them soared high above the Ring,
circling through all the territories, taking it all in from above. They cut through
the cool winter air, through parting clouds, but Thor did not feel the cold.
All he felt was Gwen, her hands clutching him from behind, holding him tight, and
moment by moment, he felt himself restored. For the first time in as long as he
could remember, he felt at peace again. He felt that all was right in the world,
and he never wanted this moment to end. Gwendolyn behind him, riding Mycoples, Andronicus
dead, Thor felt a sense of completeness that he had always hoped for.

They dove down low, nearly skimming
the tops of the trees, taking in all the devastation of the Ring, entire lands
covered with the charred corpses of Empire. Thor could see how hard at work Mycoples
and Ralibar had been, unleashing a wave of destruction unlike any the Ring had
ever known.

They flew over ravaged towns
and cities, torn apart from the Empire’s invasion, fields of MacGil corpses, those
brave souls who had lost their lives trying to fend off the invasion. Thor felt
overwhelmed with guilt that he had fought on the wrong side for a time. He wished
he could make it better, could go back, could make things play out differently.
He thought back to the day when he had flown to accept Andronicus’ surrender; he
had felt in his stomach that something was wrong. He remembered Mycoples’
foreboding, her reluctance to land, all the signs that pointed to danger. He
realized now that he should have listened. He wished that he never would have
been caught, never would have been brainwashed, that none of his men would have
had to suffer and die.

But it was meant to be. He
realized that now. No matter how much he may want things to be different, the
world had its own destiny. That was the cruelty of the world. Yet it could
also, sometimes, be the kindness of the world, too.

Thor flashed back to the
moment before they had flown off, when he and Gwendolyn had embraced all of their
people. Many tears of joy had been shed, as Thor, wracked with guilt, had
begged their forgiveness. They had been all too happy to grant it: after all,
he had not killed any of them, and he had, in fact, done more to kill the
Empire than any of them. But he still felt he needed Gwen’s forgiveness most of
all: he still could not believe he had raised a sword to her. Just the thought
of it made him want to kill himself.

Gwendolyn had been gracious.
She had not been hurt by him, nor had anyone else, and she was willing to
forgive him. She even understood, and recognized that he had been under a
spell, one not of his control. Thor had apologized to Krohn, too, who had been all
too quick to accept his apology, licking him and jumping into his arms as Thor
hugged him back. Thor apologized to Erec, too, for facing off with him, and to
Kendrick, and to all the men he’d known and fought with, asking for
forgiveness. They had all been quick to oblige, knowing he had been under a
spell. Their kindness made Thor feel even more guilty.

Thor had mounted Mycoples,
eager to fly her again; the men had agreed they would all rendezvous at King’s Court.
It had been their original capitol, and now, with the Empire gone, they all
concurred there was no more fitting place for them to return to.

Thor had mounted Mycoples, Gwen
behind him, and had flown off. Ralibar had taken a liking to Gwen, and for a
moment, it seemed that he might even let her ride him; but then he’d suddenly,
unpredictably, leapt into the air and taken off, heading in his own direction. Gwen
was happy he had: she wanted to ride with Thor, to be close again.

The two of them had been
flying now for what felt like hours, taking stock of all the landscapes of the
Ring, realizing the immensity of the work that lay ahead of them, of all the
rebuilding that needed to be done. Finally, down below, through the clouds, there
appeared the vestige of King’s Court, and Thor directed Mycoples to dive down
low.

Mycoples obliged, breaking
through the clouds, flying so low to King’s Court that Thor and Gwen could nearly
touch its remaining parapets. Thor saw the outlines of the vast complex, of King’s
Castle, of the Legion training grounds, the halls of the Silver, the Hall of
Arms, dozens of buildings, the moats and ramparts and endless dwellings of the
extended city—and it broke his heart. Here was a place that had once been so dear
to him, so resplendent, the very backbone of the kingdom, the bastion of
strength, of everything that Thor knew to be power. Here was the place he had always
aspired to, the place he had first met and trained with the Legion. It was the
place that had once loomed so indomitable in his mind.

And now here it lay: in ruin,
a fragment of what it once was. Thor could hardly conceive that anything so
powerful could be reduced to this. The foundations remained, the remnants of
stone walls, the outline of the greater city; there was certainly a foundation
left to build on. But most of its great, ancient stones and statues were
toppled in heaps of rubble. Only half of King’s Castle stood.

“Seven generations of MacGils,”
Gwendolyn said, shaking her head, “all wiped out because the Shield had been
lowered, because the Sword had been stolen. It all started with her brother,
Gareth. And now there lies my father’s kingdom. Gareth always wanted to destroy
our father: and now, somehow, he has.”

Thor could feel her tears
down the back of his neck.

“We will rebuild it,” Thor
said.

“Yes, we will,” she replied
confidently.

As they dove down lower,
circling again and again, this place brought back so many memories for Thor. Here
was a place he had been afraid and intimidated to enter as a boy, its gates and
powerful sentries looming larger than life. And yet now here he was, no longer
a boy, but a man, riding on the back of a dragon, the head of the Legion and
already one of the Kingdom’s famed warriors. It was hard for Thor to process
all that had happened in his life, and so quickly: it was surreal. Was anything
in life, he wondered, stable? Was everything always changing, shifting? Was there
ever anything that one could really hold onto?

The sight below brought Thor
great sadness—yet it also brought him great hope. Here was a place they could
build again, a place they could make even more resplendent. With the Empire
finally gone, the Ring finally secure, Thor felt every cause for hope. They were
all alive and safe, and that was all that mattered. The stones, they could all
go back to the way they were. And with Gwendolyn at his side, Thor felt that
anything was possible.

Thor felt his mother’s ring,
bulging inside his pocket, and he knew the time had come to propose. The time
had come for them to be together, forever. He did not want to wait another
moment. He opened his mouth to speak.

“Set down there,” Gwendolyn suddenly
called aloud to Mycoples. “I see the knights approaching.”

Thor looked down and saw the
men traveling down the road, beginning to filter in through the gates of King’s
Court. Mycoples dove down, as Gwen had requested.

They landed right before the
incoming army, Mycoples setting down in the center of the courtyard, the men
rushing out to greet them. Thor knew that his moment to propose was gone. But it
would come again. He’d be sure of it. Before the day had passed, he would find
a way to make Gwendolyn his wife.