A Reign of Steel (7 page)

As
they all stood there, watching the elements, waiting for that perfect moment, Stara
waited for Reece to do something, anything, to take her hand, to show her, even
in the smallest way, that he still cared for her.

But
he did not. He kept his hand to himself and Stara felt herself hardening,
crushed inside. She prepared to embark, no longer caring what fate had in store
for her. As they all stepped out into the darkness together, she realized that,
without Reece’s love, she had nothing left to lose.

Alistair
stood on the ship, terrified, arms bound behind her, her heart pounding as
dozens of sailors closed in on her from all sides, a look of lust and death in
their eyes. She realized that these men all aimed to rape and torture and kill
her, and that they would take delight in doing so. She marveled that such evil
existed in the world, and for a moment she struggled to understand humankind.

Her
entire life, she’d always been known, everywhere she went, as the most
beautiful girl—and more than once it had gotten her into trouble. She just
wanted to be left alone. She had always just wanted to look normal, like
everybody else. She never wanted to attract attention—and she certainly did not
want to attract trouble.

Erec,
swinging high overhead in the net, shouted down, helpless, infuriated.

“ALISTAIR!”
he yelled again and again, trying frantically to squirm out.

The
sailors below laughed, taking great delight in his capture, and his
helplessness.

Alistair
looked at them and felt a great anger; she forced herself to be bold, fearless.

“Why
would you want to hurt me?” she asked, her voice filled with compassion. “Don’t
you see that your behavior only harms you? We are all part of the same planet.”

The
men laughed in her face.

“Fancy
words from a stupid girl!” one of them yelled, as he reached up a big beefy
palm, swung it high, and prepared to smack her across the face.

As
he lowered his hands toward her, something strange happened to Alistair. A
sensation came over her, one she’d never experienced: it was as if the entire
world slowed down, the man’s hand moving at a snail’s pace in midair. As she focused
on it, it seemed to freeze. The entire world seemed to freeze. She saw every
particle in fine detail, saw the very fiber of nature in the spirit and souls
of these men.

Alistair
suddenly felt a surge of energy. She felt herself on a different realm, able to
transcend everything before her, able to have power over it all through
sympathy and love and compassion. She felt a tremendous strength rise within
her, a strength which she herself could not even understand. It felt like the
power of a thousand suns coursing through her veins.

Alistair
blinked, and the world came back to life again in a great flash of light. She
looked up at the man’s hand, still frozen in midair, and he suddenly became
panicked with fear as he looked at his own hand, unable to move it. He looked
back and forth from Alistair to his hand, shocked.

“A
sorcerer!” he exclaimed.

Alistair
stood there, unafraid, sensing the power of a greater spirit within her, and
sensing that these men, of a different spiritual plane, could not touch her.
She felt swept up in a power and force in the world greater than she.

Alistair
leaned back and raised her hands up to the heavens, and as she did, beams of
white light streamed from her palms, shooting straight up, lighting up the
night, piercing through the heavens, to the black night itself.

Suddenly,
the ship rocked wildly from side to side. The howling of the wind picked up,
and great waves rose up all around the ship, a huge current, rocking the ship
violently, up and down.

All
the men facing her were thrown to the deck, and as the ship listed, they went
sliding, all the way, until they slammed into the wooden side. The ship rocked
the other way, and the men slid all the way to the other end, smashing into that
side, groaning in pain. Alistair stood with two feet rooted to the deck, and
she felt like a mountain, keeping perfect balance, feeling centered in the very
core of the world.

The
ship rocked again, and the men slid the other way, shouting out as they smashed
into the sides of the ship, again and again and again, until their ribs were
cracked.

As
the men slid one more time, the ship nearly on its side, they shrieked in
terror as they looked out over the edge: there arose an immense splashing
noise, as though the very bowels of the ocean were shooting to the surface, and
an enormous sea monster emerged from the depths. It was twice as large as a
great whale, with a wide, flat head, shiny red scales, and thousands of razor-sharp
teeth. Its body was thicker than the ship, and it rose straight up out of the
waters with a great fury, and let out a shriek so violent, it nearly split the
mast in two. The men clutched their ears, trying to drown out the sound, but
even so, many of their ears ran with blood.

The
whale rose entirely out of the water, larger than a dragon, larger than
anything Alistair had ever seen, and then it dove, face first, straight down
onto the ship, its jaws wide open.

The
men raised their arms and screamed. But it was too late; the whale’s teeth came
straight down, through half of the ship, and tore it to pieces. He scooped up
the men, their blood streaming from its teeth as it closed its jaw, and then
disappeared just as quickly, sucking them back down beneath the ocean.

The
ship, now empty, destroyed, was sinking fast, and Alistair looked up to see Erec,
swinging back and forth in his net. She watched as the rope snapped and he came
crashing down onto the deck. Erec used his dagger to slice open the net and
free himself. He scrambled to his feet and ran to her.

They
embraced.

“Alistair,”
he said. “Thank god you’re safe.”

The
ship was taking on water fast. Over the sound of the wind and the waves came the
shouts of men, and Alistair turned and saw the captain; he came running down
from the upper decks, along with dozens more sailors from the back of the ship.

“There!”
Erec shouted.

Alistair
turned and followed his finger to see a small vessel, a twenty-foot rowboat
with a small sail, attached by ropes to the side of the ship, clearly the
lifeboat to this huge vessel. The sailors were racing for it, and Erec grabbed
her hand and they ran across the deck, getting a good head start on the others.

They
reached the lifeboat first, and Erec lifted Alistair and put her in the little
boat as the ship rocked; she grabbed hold of the rope, trying to steady
herself.

“Don’t
you touch our boat!” the captain screamed.

Erec
wheeled, and as the captain approached, Erec stabbed him in the heart with his
sword. The captain gasped and dropped to his knees, eyes bulging in shock, as
Erec stood over him, grimacing.

“I
should have done that long ago,” Erec said.

Several
more sailors approached, and Erec, unleashed, fought with a vengeance, slashing
and killing a dozen of them as they lamely raised their swords and tried to
fight back. They were no match for him.

“Erec,
we must go!” Alistair called out, as the ship lurched.

The
ship rocked violently, taking on even more water, as dozens more sailors began
to run toward him. Erec turned and jumped into the rowboat, and as soon as he
did, he cut the ropes.

Alistair
felt her heart in her throat as they plummeted through the air, down into the
ocean, hitting the waves with a great splash, rocking and rolling as the ocean
tossed and turned.

They
escaped just in time; a moment later, the huge ship reeled sideways, turning
over. The sailors who remained on board shrieked with their last breaths as the
ocean sucked them under, along with the ship, in a great cracking of wood.

Erec
rowed with all his might, distancing them from the ship, and soon, the screams
quieted. Soon, it was just the two of them, sailing into the black of night,
under a million red stars, heading God knew where in the universe.

Thor
walked through the Land of the Druids, in awe at his surroundings, at once so
exotic and yet so eerily familiar. As he traversed a field of flowers, he
reached out and touched them in wonder, trying to understand where he had seen
them before, where he had seen this entire vista before. The more he examined it,
the more he began to remember: it was a field of flowers he had been to before.
The field outside King’s Court. The place where he had his first date with
Gwendolyn. It had been a magical place for him, a place burned into his memory,
where he had first fallen in love. A place he could never forget.

But
what could it possibly be doing here, halfway across the world, in the Land of
the Druids? Had he crossed the world only to return home? It made no sense.

As
Thor walked, deeper into the field, he struggled to understand what was
happening. He felt his entire body tingling, and he sensed from the feeling
that he was indeed in a different land, a different place. A different energy hung
in the air, a different weight and scent to the breeze. For the first time in
his life, Thor felt as if the energy aligned with his own perfectly. As if he
were home, among his people. People who were like him. People who understood
him. He felt more alive, stronger here, than anywhere else in the world.

Yet
the same time, his surroundings also felt different, foreign to him. He sensed a
foreboding, a danger, and he did not know what.

Thor
searched the horizon, hoping to see something familiar—the towering castle of
his dreams, his mother’s palace, the skywalk leading to it—or at the very
least, some path leading to it.

But
he saw none of that. Instead, as he traversed the field of flowers, following a
meandering dirt path, the landscape suddenly gave way to a small village, the
dirt path cutting through it, filled with white stone cottages.

Thor
held his breath, shocked, as the hairs rose on his arms: it was
his
town. His home village.

How
as it possible? he wondered. Had he traveled half the world only to end up back
home?

Thor
continued to walk, warily, through the empty streets, until up ahead, he saw a
figure in the distance. The figure was hunched over on the side of the dirt
path, and as Thor approached he was surprised to see it was an old woman,
hunched over a cauldron above a fire. She seemed familiar too.

She
looked up at him and grimaced.

“Careful
where you step!” she scolded.

Thor
recognized that voice, and suddenly he remembered: it was the old woman from
his village, the one always hunched over her stew, always yelling at him as he
ran by, disturbing her chickens. Was he seeing things?

“What
are you doing here?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“The
question is: what are you doing here?”

Thor
blinked, confused.

“I’ve
come to find my mother.”

“Have
you? And how do you plan to do that?”

Thor
looked down at his relic and saw that the arrow was no longer pointing in any
direction. It had shattered. He had arrived, and yet now that he was here, he
was on his own. He had no idea how to find her now.

Thor
stared back at the woman.

“I
don’t know,” he finally answered. “How big is the Land of the Druids?”

The
old woman threw her head back and cackled, an awful, grating sound that sent
shivers up his spine.

Finally,
she said: “I can tell you where she is.”

Thor
looked at her in surprise.

“You
can? But how would you know?”

She
stirred her cauldron.

“For
a price,” she said, “I will tell you anything.”

“What
price?” Thor asked.

“Your
bracelet.”

Thor
looked down at his bracelet, the golden one that Alistair had given him,
shining in the light. He hesitated. He sensed it had tremendous power, and he
felt it was the only thing protecting him here in this land. He had a
premonition that, if he gave it to her, he would lose all of his strength.

Then
again, Thor needed to know where his mother was.

“It
is a gift,” he said. “I am sorry. I cannot.”

The
woman shrugged.

“Then
I cannot help you.”

Thor
looked at her in wonder, frustrated.

“Please,”
he said. “I need your help.”

She
stirred her cauldron for a long time, then finally she sighed.

“Look
into my cauldron. What do you see?”

Thor
looked at her, confused, then finally glanced down at her cauldron.

He
blinked several times, caught off guard, and leaned in closer, trying to get a
good look.

In
the still waters, slowly, a reflection emerged. At first it looked like his
face; but then, slowly, he realized it was not his face. It was the face of Andronicus.

Thor
looked at the woman, who stared back, evil.

“Who
are you?” he asked.

She
smiled wide at him.

“I
am everyone,” she said. “And no one.”

She
jumped up from her cauldron, reached up and snatched the bracelet off his wrist.
As Thor reached out to grab it back, she suddenly transformed before his eyes,
morphing into a long, thick white snake. Thor watched with horror and realized it
was a deadly Whiteback, the same snake he’d spotted on his first date with
Gwendolyn. The sign of death.

The
snake grew longer and longer, and before Thor could react, its tail wrapped
around his ankles, then around his shins, knees, thighs, waist, and chest. It
constricted his arms, and he stood there, barely able to breathe as it crushed
him.

The
snake then leaned back all the way and opened its fangs wide, and Thor turned
his face, feeling its hot breath on his neck and knowing that, in moments, it
would sink its fangs into his throat.