Morgan Rice
A JOUST OF KNIGHTS
CHAPTER ONE
Thorgrin stood at the bow of the sleek ship, gripping the rail, his hair pushed back by the wind, and he stared into the horizon with a deepening sense of foreboding. Their ship, taken from the pirates, was sailing as fast as the winds could carry it, Elden, O’Connor, Matus, Reece, Indra, and Selese working the sails, Angel standing by his side, and Thor, as eager as he was, knew they could not go any faster. Yet still, he willed it to be so. After all this time, he finally felt with certainty that Guwayne lay just ahead, just past the horizon, on the Isle of Light. And with equal certainty, he sensed that Guwayne was in danger.
Thor did not understand how it could be so. After all, the last time he had left them, Guwayne had been safely on the Isle of Light, under Ragon’s protection, a sorcerer as powerful as his brother. Argon was the most powerful sorcerer Thorgrin had ever known—had even protected the entire Ring—and Thor did not know how any harm could ever come to Guwayne while under Ragon’s protection.
Unless there was some power out there that Thorgrin had never heard of, a power of a dark sorcerer’s which could match even Ragon’s. Could it be that some realm existed, some dark force, some evil sorcerer, of which he knew nothing?
But why would they target his son?
Thor thought back to the day he had fled the Isle of Light in such a hurry, under the spell of his dream, so driven to leave the place at the crack of dawn. Looking back, Thor realized he had been deceived by some dark force trying to lure him away from his son. It was only thanks to Lycoples, who still circled his ship, screeching, disappearing on the horizon and coming back again, that he had turned back for the Isle, was finally heading in the right direction. The signs, Thor realized, had been in front of his face the whole time. How had he ignored them? What dark force was leading him astray to begin with?
Thor recalled the price he’d had to pay: the demons released from hell, the dark lord’s curse that each would mean a curse on his head. He knew that more curses, more trials lay before him, and he felt certain this had been one of them. What other tests, he wondered, lay before him? Would he ever get his son back?
“Don’t worry,” came a sweet voice.
Thor turned and looked down to see Angel tugging on his shirt.
“Everything will be okay,” she added with a smile.
Thor smiled down at her and laid a hand on her head, reassured by her presence as always. He had come to love Angel as he would a daughter, the daughter he never had. He took reassurance in her presence.
“And if it’s not,” she added with a smile, “I’ll take care of them!”
She proudly raised the small bow that O’Connor had carved for her, and showed Thor how she could pull back the arrow. Thor smiled, amused, as she raised the bow to her chest, shakily placed a small wooden arrow on it, and began to pull back the string. She released the bow, and her small wooden arrow went flying, shakily, overboard and out into the ocean.
“Did I kill a fish!?” she asked excitedly as she ran to the rail and looked over with glee.
Thor stood there, looking down into the foaming waters of the sea, and was not so sure. But he smiled all the same.
“I am sure you did,” he said, reassuringly. “Perhaps even a shark.”
Thor heard a distant screech, and he was suddenly on alert again. His entire body froze as he grabbed the hilt of his sword and looked out over the water, studying the horizon.
The thick gray clouds slowly cleared, and as they did, they revealed a horizon which made Thor’s heart drop: in the distance, black plumes of smoke rose into the sky. As more clouds cleared, Thor could see that they arose from a distant isle—not just any isle, but an island with steep cliffs, rising right up to the sky, a broad plateau at its top. An isle he could mistake for no other.
The Isle of Light.
Thor felt a pain in his chest as he saw a sky black with evil creatures, resembling gargoyles, circling what remained of the isle, like vultures, their screeches filling the air. There was an army of them, and below them, the entire isle was up in flames. Not a corner of it was left unscathed.
“FASTER!” Thor shouted, yelling at the wind, knowing it was futile. It was the most helpless feeling of his life.
But there was nothing more he could do. He watched the flames, the smoke, the monsters departing, heard Lycoples screeching above, and he knew it was too late. Nothing could have survived. Anything left on the isle—Ragon, Guwayne, anything at all—would surely, without a doubt, be dead.
“NO!” Thorgrin screamed, cursing the heavens, the ocean spray hitting his face as it carried him, too late, to the isle of death.
CHAPTER TWO
Gwendolyn stood alone, back in the Ring, in her mother’s castle, and she looked about at her surroundings and realized something was not quite right. The castle was abandoned, unfurnished, all its belongings stripped away; its windows were gone, the beautiful stained glass that had once adorned them lost, leaving nothing but cutouts in the stone, the sunset light streaming in. Dust swirled in the air, and this place felt as if it hadn’t been inhabited in a thousand years.
Gwen looked out and saw the landscape of the Ring, a place she had once known and loved with all her heart, now barren, twisted, grotesque. As if nothing good were left alive in the world.
“My daughter,” came a voice.
Gwendolyn turned and was shocked to find her mother standing there, looking back, her face drawn and sickly, hardly the mother she once knew and remembered. It was the mother she remembered from her deathbed, the mother who looked as if she had been aged too much for one lifetime.
Gwen felt a lump in her throat and she realized, despite all that had gone about between them, how much she missed her. She did not know if it was her she missed, or just seeing her family, something familiar, the Ring. What she would give to be home again, to be back in the familiar.
“Mother,” Gwen replied, hardly believing the sight before her.
Gwen reached out for her, and as she did, she suddenly found herself somewhere else, standing on an island, at the edge of a cliff, the island charred, having just been burned to ashes. The heavy smell of smoke and sulfur hung in the air, burned her nostrils. She faced the isle, and as the waves of ashes dissipated in the wind, she looked out and saw a bassinet made of gold, charred, the only object in this landscape of embers and ash.
Gwen’s heart pounded as she stepped forward, so nervous to see if her son was in there, if he was okay. A part of her was elated to reach in and hold him, to clutch him at her chest and never let him go again. But another part dreaded he might not be there—or worse, that he could be dead.
Gwen rushed forward and leaned down and looked in the bassinet, and her heart dropped to see it was empty.
“GUWAYNE!” she cried out, in anguish.
Gwen heard a screech, high up in the air, matching hers, and she looked up and saw an army of black creatures, resembling gargoyles, flying away. Her heart stopped as she saw, in the talons of the last one, a baby, dangling, crying. He was being carried away into skies of gloom, hoisted by an army of darkness.
“NO!” Gwen shrieked.
Gwen woke screaming. She sat up in bed, looking everywhere for Guwayne, reaching out to save him, to clutch him to her chest.
But he was nowhere to be found.
Gwendolyn sat in bed, breathing hard, trying to figure out where she was. The dim light of dawn spread through the windows, and it took her several moments to realize where she was: the Ridge. The King’s castle.
Gwen felt something on her palm and she looked down to see Krohn licking her hand, then resting his head on her lap. She stroked his head as she sat on the edge of the bed, breathing hard, slowly orienting herself, the weight of her dream upon her.