A Dream of Mortals. Morgan Rice

extra six inches was what they needed. The hook just barely connected with the end of the red sash, and Ario began to pull it toward him. He stopped as the guard, facing the other direction, nodding off, lifted his head and looked around. They all waited, sweating, praying the guard did not look their way. They waited for what felt like an eternity, until finally the guard began nodding off again.

      Ario pulled the sash closer and closer, sliding it across the prison floor, until finally it came through the bars and into the cell.

      Godfrey reached out and put the sash on, and they all backed away from him, fearful.

      “What on earth are you doing?” Merek asked. “The sash is covered with plague. You can infect us all.”

      The other prisoners in the cell backed up, too.

      Godfrey turned to Merek.

      “I’m going to start coughing, and I’m not going to stop,” he said, wearing the sash, an idea hardening in his mind. “When the guard comes, he’ll see my blood and this sash, and you’ll tell him I have the plague, that they made a mistake in not separating me.”

      Godfrey wasted no time. He began coughing violently, taking the blood on his face and rubbing it all up and down himself to make it look worse. He coughed louder than he’d ever had, until finally, he heard the cell door open and heard the guard walking in.

      “Get your friend to shut up,” the guard said. “Do you understand?”

      “He is not a friend,” Merek replied. “Just a man we met. A man who has the plague.”

      The guard, baffled, looked down and noticed the red sash and his eyes widened.

      “How did he get in here?” the guard asked. “He should’ve been separated.”

      Godfrey coughed more and more, his entire body racked in a coughing fit.

      He soon felt rough hands grab him and drag him out, shoving him. He stumbled across the hall, and with one last shove, he was thrown into the pit with the plague victims.

      Godfrey lay on top of the infected body, trying not to breathe too loudly, trying to turn his head away, and not breathe in the man’s disease. He prayed to God he didn’t get it. It would be a long night, lying here.

      But he was unguarded now. And when it was light, he would rise.

      And he would strike.

      Chapter Eight

      Thorgrin felt himself plunging to the bottom of the ocean, the pressure building in his ears as he sank in the icy water, feeling as if he were being stabbed by a million daggers. Yet as he plunged deeper, the strangest thing happened: the light did not get darker, but brighter. As he flailed, sinking, dragged down by the weight of the sea, he looked down and was shocked to see, in a cloud of light, the last person he’d expected to see here: his mother. She smiled up at him, the light so intense he could barely see her face, and she reached out to him with loving arms as he sank, heading right for her.

      “My son,” she said, her voice crystal clear despite the waters. “I am here with you. I love you. It is not your time yet. Be strong. You have passed the test, yet there are many more to come. Face the world and never forget who you are. Never forget: your power comes not from your weaponry, but from inside you.”

      Thorgrin opened his mouth to answer back, but as he did, he found himself engulfed by water, swallowing, drowning.

      Thor woke with a start, looking all around, wondering where he was. He felt a rough material on his wrists and realized he was bound, his hands behind his back, against a wooden pole. He looked around the dim hold, felt the rocking motion, and he knew at once he was on a ship. He could tell by the way his body moved, by the slats of light coming in, by the moldy smell of men trapped below deck.

      Thorgrin looked about, immediately on guard, feeling weak, and trying to remember. The last thing he remembered was that awful storm, the shipwreck, he and his men tumbling from the boat. He remembered Angel, remembered clutching onto her for dear life, and he remembered the sword in his belt, the Sword of the Dead. How had he survived?

      Thor looked all around, wondering how he was sailing at sea, confused, looking desperately for his brothers, and for Angel. He felt relieved as he made out shapes in the darkness, and saw them all nearby, bound with ropes to the posts: Reece and Selese, Elden and Indra, Matus, O’Connor, and a few feet away from them, Angel. Thor was elated to see they were all alive, though they all looked exhausted, beaten down from the storm and from the pirates.

      Thor heard raucous laughter, arguing, cheering from somewhere up above, and then what sounded like explosions in his ears as men tumbled over each other on the hollow deck, and he remembered: the pirates. Those mercenaries who tried to sink him into the sea.

      He would recognize that sound anywhere, the sound of crude individuals, bored at sea, out for cruelty – he had encountered too many of them before. He realized, shaking off his dream, that he was their prisoner now, and he struggled at his cords, trying to break free.

      But he could not. His arms had been bound well, as were his ankles. He was not going anywhere.

      Thorgrin closed his eyes, trying to summon his power from deep within, the power he knew could move mountains if he chose.

      But nothing came. He was too spent from the ordeal of the shipwreck, his strength still too low. He knew from past experience that he needed time to recover. Time, he knew, that he did not have.

      “Thorgrin!” came a relieved voice, cutting through the darkness. It was a voice he recognized well, and he looked over to see Reece, bound a few feet away, looking back at him with joy. “You live!” Reece added.

      “We did not know if you would come through!”

      Thor turned to see O’Connor bound on his other side, equally joyful.

      “I prayed for you every minute,” came a sweet, soft voice in the darkness.

      Thor looked over to see Angel, tears of joy in her eyes, and he could feel how much she cared for him.

      “You owe her your life, you know,” Indra said. “When they cut you loose, it was she who dove in and brought you back. Without her courage you would not be sitting here right now.”

      Thor looked at Angel with a new respect, and a new feeling of gratitude and devotion.

      “Little one, I shall find a way to repay you,” he said to her.

      “You already have,” she said, and he could see how much she meant it.

      “Repay her by getting us all out of here,” Indra said, struggling against her binds, irritated. “Those bloodsucking pirates are the lowest of the low. They found us floating at sea and bound us all while we were still unconscious from that storm. If they’d faced us man to man, it would be a very different story.”

      “They are cowards,” Matus said. “Like all pirates.”

      “They also stripped us of our weapons,” O’Connor added.

      Thor’s heart skipped a beat as he suddenly recalled his weapons, his armor, the Sword of the Dead.

      “Don’t worry,” Reece said, seeing his face. “Our weaponry made it through the storm – including yours. It is not at the bottom of the sea, at least. But the pirates have it. See there, through the slats?”

      Thor peered through the slats and saw, on the deck, all of their weapons, laid out beneath the sun, the pirates crowding around them. He saw Elden’s battle-ax and O’Connor’s golden bow and Reece’s halberd and Matus’s flail and Indra’s spear and Selese’s sack of sand – and his very own Sword of the Dead. He saw the pirates, hands on their hips, looking down and examining them with glee.

      “I never seen a sword like that,” one of them said to the other.

      Thor reddened with rage as he saw the pirate prodding his sword with his foot.

      “Looks like it was a King’s,” said another, stepping forward.

      “I found it first, it’s mine,” the