An Oath of Brothers. Morgan Rice

may have been able to murder your mother,” he said. “But you are foolish to threaten us. We are not a defenseless woman and your men of Volusia are far from here. You were foolish to venture so far from your stronghold. Do you think you can take our city with a dozen soldiers?” he asked, releasing and gripping the hilt of the sword as if thinking about killing her.

      She smiled slowly.

      “I can’t take it with a dozen,” she said. “But I can take it with two hundred thousand.”

      Volusia raised one fist high into the air, clutching the Golden Scepter, raising it ever higher, never taking her eyes off of him, and as she did, she watched the face of the Dansk envoy leader look out behind her, and morph to panic and shock. She did not need to turn around to know what he was looking at: her two hundred thousand Maltolisian soldiers, had rounded the hill upon her signal and stretched across the entire horizon. Now the Dansk leader knew the threat facing his city.

      His entire envoy bristled, looking terrified and anxious to run back to the safety of their city.

      “The Maltolisian army,” their leader said, his voice fearful for the first time. “What are they doing here, with you?”

      Volusia smiled back.

      “I am a goddess,” she said. “Why wouldn’t they be serving me?”

      He looked back at her now with a look of awe and surprise.

      “Yet still, you wouldn’t dare attack Dansk,” he said, his voice quivering. “We are under the direct protection of the capital. The Empire army numbers in the millions. If you took our city, they would be obliged to retaliate. You would all be slaughtered in due course. You could not win. Are you that reckless? Or that stupid?”

      She held her smile, enjoying his discomfort.

      “Maybe a little bit of both,” she said. “Or maybe I’m just itching to test my newfound army and sharpen their skills on you. It is your great misfortune that you lie in the way, between my men and the capital. And nothing, nothing, will lie in my way.”

      He glared her, his face turning into a sneer. Yet now, for the first time, she could see real panic in his eyes.

      “We came to discuss terms, and we do not accept them. We will prepare for war, if that is what you wish. Just remember: you brought this upon yourself.”

      He suddenly kicked his zerta with a shout, and he turned, with the others, and galloped away, their convoy stirring up a cloud of dust.

      Volusia casually dismounted from her zerta, reached over and grabbed a short, golden spear as her commander, Soku, reached over and handed it to her.

      She held up one hand to the wind, felt the breeze, narrowed one eye, and took aim.

      Then she leaned forward and threw it.

      Volusia watched as the spear went flying in a high arc through the air, a good fifty yards, then finally she heard a great cry, and the satisfying thump of spear hitting flesh. She watched in delight as it lodged in the leader’s back. He cried out, falling from his zerta, and landed on the desert floor, tumbling.

      His entourage stopped and looked down, horrified. They sat there on their zertas, as if debating whether to stop and get him. They looked back and saw all of Volusia’s men on the horizon, marching now, and clearly they thought better of it. They turned and galloped away, heading to the city gates, abandoning their leader on the desert floor.

      Volusia rode with her entourage until she reached the dying leader, and dismounted by his side. In the distance she heard iron slam, and she noticed his entourage entering Dansk, a huge iron portcullis slamming down behind them, and the enormous iron double doors of the city sealed shut after them, creating an iron fortress.

      Volusia looked down at the dying leader, who turned on his back and looked up at her in anguish and shock.

      “You cannot wound a man who comes to talk terms,” he said, outraged. “It goes against every law of the Empire! Never has such a thing been done before!”

      “I did not intend to wound you,” she said, kneeling down beside him, reaching out and touching the shaft of the spear. She shoved the spear deep into his heart, not letting go until finally he stopped squirming and breathed his last breath.

      She smiled wide.

      “I intended to kill you.”

      Chapter Ten

      Thor stood at the bow of the small sailing vessel, his brothers standing behind him, his heart pounding with anticipation as the current carried them straight toward the small island before them. Thor looked up, studied its cliffs in wonder; he’d never seen anything like it. The walls were perfectly smooth, a white, solid granite, sparkling beneath the two suns, and they rose straight up, hundreds of feet high. The island itself was shaped in a circle, its base surrounded by boulders, and it was hard to think amidst the incessant crashing of the waves. It looked impregnable, impossible for any army to scale.

      Thor held a hand up to his eyes and squinted into the sun. The cliffs seemed to stop at some point, to cap off in a plateau hundreds of feet high. Whoever lived up there, at the top, would live safely forever, Thor realized. Assuming anyone lived up there at all.

      At the very top, hovering over the island like a halo, was a ring of clouds, soft pink and purple, blanketing it from the harsh rays of the sun, as if this place were crowned by God himself. A gentle breeze stirred here, the air pleasant and mild. Thor could sense even from here that there was something special about this place. It felt magical. He had not felt this way since he had reached the land of his mother’s castle.

      All the others looked up, too, expressions of wonder across their faces.

      “Who do you suppose lives here?” O’Connor asked aloud the question on all of their minds.

      “Who – or what?” Reece asked.

      “Maybe no one,” Indra said.

      “Maybe we should sail on,” O’Connor said.

      “And skip the invitation?” Matus asked. “I see seven ropes, and there are seven of us.”

      Thor examined the cliffs and as he looked closely, he saw seven golden ropes dangling from the top down to the shores, glistening in the sun. He wondered.

      “Maybe someone’s expecting us,” Elden said.

      “Or tempting us,” Indra said.

      “But who?” Reece asked.

      Thor looked up at the very top, all of these same thoughts racing through his mind. He wondered who could know they were coming. Were they being watched somehow?

      They all stood in the boat silently, bobbing in the water, as the current brought them ever closer.

      “The real question,” Thor asked aloud, finally breaking the silence, “is if they are friendly – or if this is a trap?”

      “Does it make any difference?” Matus asked, coming up beside him.

      Thor shook his head.

      “No,” he said, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword. “We will visit it either way. If friend, we will embrace them; if foe, we will kill them.”

      The currents picked up, and long, rolling waves carried their boat all the way to the narrow shore of black sand that surrounded the place. Their boat washed gently up, lodging on it, and as it did, everyone all jumped out at once.

      Thor gripped the hilt of his sword, on edge, and looked about in every direction. There was no movement on the beach, nothing but the crashing of the waves.

      Thor walked up to the base of the cliffs, laid his palm on them, felt how smooth they were, felt the heat and energy radiating off of them. He examined the ropes which rose straight up the cliff, sheathing his sword and grabbing hold of one.

      He tugged on it. It didn’t give.

      One by one the others joined him, each grabbing a rope and tugging on it.

      “Will it hold?”