A Dream of Mortals

“Or worse,” said one of Erec’s commanders, bound to a post beside Strom, “we will be taken as slaves and never live as free men again. Is this what we followed you for?”

“You don’t know any of that,” Erec said. “No one knows what the Empire will do. At least we are alive. At least we have a chance. The other way would have guaranteed death.”

Strom looked at Erec with disappointment.

“It is not a decision our father would have made.”

Erec reddened.

“You don’t know what our father would have done.”

“Don’t I?” Strom countered. “I lived with him, grew up with him on the Isles all my life, while you cavorted about the Ring. You barely knew him. And I say our father would have fought.”

Erec shook his head.

“These are easy words for a soldier,” he countered. “If you were a commander, your words might be quite different. I knew enough about our father to know that he would have saved his men, at any cost. He was not rash, and not impetuous. He was proud, but not overflowing with pride. Our father the foot soldier, in his youth, as you, might have fought; but our father the King would have been prudent and lived to fight another day. There are things you will understand, Strom, as you grow up to become a man.”

Strom reddened.

“I am more man than you.”

Erec sighed.

“You don’t really understand what battle means,” he said. “Not until you lose. Not until you watch your men die before you. You have never lost. You have been sheltered on that Isle all your life. And that has formed your hubris. I love you as a brother – but not as a commander.”

They fell into a tense silence, a truce of sorts, as Erec looked up into the night, looking at the endless stars, and took stock of the situation. He truly loved his brother, but so often in life they argued about everything; they just didn’t see two things the same way. Erec gave himself time to cool off, took a deep breath, then finally turned back to Strom.

“I don’t mean for us to surrender,” he added, more calmly. “Not as prisoners, and not as slaves. You must take a broader view: surrendering is sometimes just the first step in battle. You don’t always encounter an enemy with your sword drawn: sometimes the best way to fight him is with open arms. You can always swing the sword later.”

Strom looked at him, puzzled.

“And then how do you plan to get us out of this?” he asked. “We have forfeited our arms. We are captives, bound, unable to move. We are surrounded by a fleet of a thousand ships. We stand no chance.”

Erec shook his head.

“You don’t see the whole picture,” he said. “None of our men are dead. We still have our ships. We may be prisoners, but I see few Empire guards on each of our ships – which means we outnumber them greatly. All that’s needed is a spark to light the fire. We can take them by surprise – and we can escape.”

Strom shook his head.

“We cannot overcome them,” he said. “We are bound, helpless, so the numbers mean nothing. And even if we did, we’d be crushed by the fleet which surrounds us.”

Erec turned, ignoring his brother, not interested in his pessimism. He instead looked over at Alistair, sitting several feet away, bound to a post on his other side. His heart broke as he examined her; she sat there, captive, all thanks to him. For himself, he did not mind being prisoner – that was the price of war. But for her, it broke his heart. He would give anything not to see her like this.

Erec felt so indebted to her; after all, she had saved their lives yet again, back in the Dragon’s Spine, against that sea monster. He knew she was still spent from the effort, knew she was unable to muster any energy. Yet Erec knew that she was their only hope.

“Alistair,” he called out again, as he had all night long, every few minutes. He leaned over and with his foot, he brushed her foot, gently nudging her. He would give anything to undo his binds, to be able to go over to her, to hug her, to free her. It was the most helpless feeling to lay beside her, and to be unable to do anything about it.

“Alistair,” he called out. “Please. It’s Erec. Wake up. I beg you. I need you – we need you.”

Erec waited, as he had all night long, losing hope. He did not know if she would ever return to him after her last exertion.

“Alistair,” he pleaded, again and again. “Please. Wake up for me.”

Erec waited, watching her, but she did not move. She lay so still, unconscious, as beautiful as ever in the moonlight. Erec willed for her to come to life.

Erec looked away, lowered his head, and closed his eyes. Perhaps all was lost, after all. There was simply nothing else he could do at this point.

“I’m here,” came a soft voice, ringing through the night.

Erec looked up with hope and turned to see Alistair staring back at him, and his heart beat faster, overwhelmed with love and joy. She looked exhausted, her eyes barely open, as she sleepily stared back at him.

“Alistair, my love,” he said urgently. “I need you. Just this one last time. I can’t do this without you.”

She closed her eyes for a long time, and then opened them, just a bit.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“Our bonds,” he said. “We need you to free us. All of us.”

Alistair closed her eyes again, and a long time elapsed, during which Erec could hear nothing save the wind caressing the ship, the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull. A heavy silence filled the air, and as more time passed, Erec felt sure she would not open them again.

Finally, slowly, Erec watched her open her eyes again.

With what appeared to be a monumental effort, Alistair opened her eyes, lifted her chin, and looked all about the ships, taking stock of everything. He could see her eyes changing colors, glowing a light blue, lighting up the night like two torches.

Suddenly, Alistair’s binds broke. Erec heard them snap in the night, then saw her raise her two palms before her. An intense light shone from them.

A moment later, Erec felt a heat behind his back, along his wrists. They felt impossibly hot, then suddenly, his binds began to loosen. One strip at a time, Erec felt each of his ropes breaking free, until finally he was able to snap them himself.

Erec raised his wrists and examined them in disbelief. He was free. He was truly free.

Erec heard the snapping of cords and looked over to see Strom break free of his binds. The snapping continued, all throughout the ship, and throughout his other ships, and he saw his other men’s bonds breaking, saw his men being freed, one at a time.

They all looked to Erec, and he held a finger to his lips, motioning for them to be quiet. Erec saw the guards had not noticed, all with their backs to them, standing at the rail, jesting with each other and looking at the night. Of course, none of them were on guard.

Erec motioned for Strom and the others to follow, and quietly, Erec leading the way, they all crept forward, heading for the guards.

“Now!” Erec commanded.

He burst into a sprint and they all did the same, rushing forward as one, until they reached the guards. As they got close, some of the guards, alerted by the wood creaking on the deck, spun around and began to draw their swords.

But Erec and the others, all hardened warriors, all desperate for their one chance to survive, beat them to it, moving too quickly through the night. Strom pounced on one and grabbed his wrist before he could swing; Erec reached into the man’s belt, drew his dagger, and cut his throat while Strom snatched the sword. Despite all their differences, the two brothers worked seamlessly together, as they always did, fighting as one.

Erec’s men all snatched weapons from the guards, killing them with their own swords and daggers. Other men simply tackled the guards who moved too slowly, shoving them over the rail, screaming, and sending them into the sea.

Erec looked out at his other ships, and saw his men killing guards left and right.

“Cut the anchors!” Erec commanded.

Up and down his ships his men severed the ropes, keeping them in place, and soon Erec felt the familiar feeling of his ship rocking beneath him. Finally, they were free.

Horns sounded, shouts rang out, and torches were lit up and down ships as the greater Empire fleet finally realized what was happening. Erec turned and looked out at the blockade of ships blocking their way to the open sea, and he knew that he had the fight of his life ahead of him.

But he no longer cared. His men were alive. They were free. Now they had a chance.

And now, this time, they would go down fighting.

Chapter Four

Darius felt his face sprayed with blood, and he turned to see a dozen of his men cut down by an Empire soldier riding an immense black horse. The soldier swung a sword larger than any Darius had ever seen, and in one clean sweep he chopped off twelve of their heads.

Darius heard shouts rise up all around him, and he turned in every direction to see his men being cut down everywhere. It was surreal. They swung with great blows, and his men fell by the dozens, then the hundreds – then the thousands.

Darius suddenly found himself standing on a pedestal, and as far as the eye could see lay thousands of corpses. All his people, piled up dead inside the walls of Volusia. There was no one left. Not a single man.

Darius let out a great shout of agony, of helplessness, as he felt himself grabbed from behind by Empire soldiers and dragged off, screaming, into the blackness.

Darius woke with a start, gasping for air, flailing. He looked all around, trying to understand what was happening, what was real and what was a dream. He heard the rustling of chains and as his eyes adjusted in the darkness, he began to realize where the noise was coming from. He looked down to see his ankles shackled with heavy chains. He felt the aches and pains all over his body, the sting of fresh wounds, and he saw his body covered in wounds, dried blood caked all over him. Every movement ached, and he felt as if he had been pummeled by a million men. One of his eyes was swollen nearly shut.

Slowly, Darius turned and surveyed his surroundings. On the one hand he was relieved that it had all been a dream – yet as he took it all in he slowly remembered, and the pain came back. It had been a dream, and yet there had also been much truth in it. There returned to him flashbacks of his battle against the Empire within the gates of Volusia. He recalled the ambush, the gates closing, the troops surrounding them – all of his men being slaughtered. The betrayal.

He struggled hard to bring it all back, and the final thing he remembered, after killing several Empire soldiers, was taking a blow the side of his head from the blunt end of an ax.

Darius reached up, chains rattling, and felt a huge welt on the side of his head, coming all the way down to the swelling in his eye. That had been no dream. That was real.

As it all came back, Darius was flooded with anguish, with regret. His men, all the people he had loved, had been killed. All because of him.

He looked around frantically in the dim light, looking for any sign of any of his men, any sign of survivors. Perhaps many had lived, and had, like him, been taken prisoner.

“Move on!” came a harsh command in the blackness.

Darius felt rough hands pick up him up from beneath his arms, drag him to his feet, then felt a boot kick him in the back of his spine.

He groaned in pain as he stumbled forward, chains rattling, feeling himself go flying into the back of a boy before him. The boy reached back and elbowed Darius in the face, sending him stumbling backwards.

“Don’t touch me again,” the boy snarled.

There stared back a desperate-looking boy, in shackles like he, and Darius realized he was shackled to a long line of boys, in both directions, long links of heavy iron connecting their wrists and ankles, all of them being herded down a dim stone tunnel. Empire taskmasters kicked and elbowed them along.

Darius scanned the faces as best he could, but recognized no one.

“Darius!” whispered an urgent voice. “Don’t collapse again! They’ll kill you!”

Darius’s heart leapt at the sound of a familiar voice, and he turned to see a few men behind him on the line, Desmond, Raj, Kaz, and Luzi, his old friends, the four of them all chained, all looking as badly beaten as he must have looked. They all looked at him with relief, clearly happy to see that he was alive.

“Talk again,” a taskmaster seethed to Raj, “and I’ll take your tongue.”

Darius, as relieved as he was to see his friends, wondered about the countless others who had fought and served with him, who had followed him into the streets of Volusia.

The taskmaster moved further down the line, and when he was out of sight, Darius turned and whispered back.

“What of the others? Did anyone else survive?”

He prayed secretly that hundreds of his men had made it, that they were somewhere waiting, prisoners maybe.

“No,” came the decisive answer from behind them. “We’re the only ones. All the others are dead.”

Darius felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He felt he had let everyone down, and despite himself, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.

He felt like sobbing. A part of him wanted to die. He could hardly conceive it: all those warriors from all those slave villages…. It had been the beginning of what was going to be the greatest revolution of all time, one that would change the face of the Empire forever.

And it had ended abruptly in a mass slaughter.

Now any chance of freedom they’d had was destroyed.

As Darius marched, in agony from the wounds and the bruises, from the iron shackles digging into his skin, he looked around and began to wonder where he was. He wondered who these other prisoners were, and where they were all being led. As he looked them over, he realized that they were all about his age, and they all seemed extraordinarily fit. As if they were all fighters.

They rounded a bend in the dark stone tunnel, and sunlight suddenly met them, streaming through iron cell bars up ahead, at the end of the tunnel. Darius was shoved roughly, jabbed in the ribs with a club, and he surged forward with the others until the bars were opened and he was given one final kick, out into daylight.

Darius stumbled with the others and they all fell down as a group onto the dirt. Darius spit dirt from his mouth and raised his hands to protect himself from the harsh sunlight. Others rolled on top of him, all of them tangled up in the shackles.

“On your feet!” shouted a taskmaster.

They walked from boy to boy, jabbing them with clubs, until finally Darius scrambled with the others to his feet. He stumbled as the other boys, chained to him, tried to gain their balance.

They stood and faced the center of a circular dirt courtyard, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, framed by high stone walls, cell bars around its openings. Facing them, standing in the center, scowling back, stood one Empire taskmaster, clearly their commander. He loomed large, taller than the others, with his yellow horns and skin, and his glistening red eyes, wearing no shirt, his muscles bulging. He wore black armor on his legs, boots, and studded leather on his wrists. He wore the rankings of an Empire officer, and he paced up and down, examining them all with disapproval.

“I am Morg,” he said, his voice dark, booming with authority. “You will address me as sir. I am your new warden. I am your whole life now.”

He breathed as he paced, sounding more like a snarl.

“Welcome to your new home,” he continued. “Your temporary home, that is. Because before the moon is up, you will all be dead. I will take great pleasure in watching you all die, in fact.”

He smiled.

“But for as long as you are here,” he added, “you will live. You will live to please me. You will live to please the others. You will live to please the Empire. You are our objects of entertainment now. Our show things. Our entertainment means your death. And you will execute it well.”

He smiled a cruel smile as he continued pacing, surveying them. There came a great shout somewhere off in the distance, and the entire ground trembled beneath Darius’s feet. It sounded like the shout of a hundred thousand citizens filled with bloodlust.

“Do you hear that cry?” he asked. “That is the cry of death. A thirst for death. Out there, behind those walls, lies the great arena. In that arena, you will fight others, you will fight yourselves, until none of you are left.”

He sighed.

“There will be three rounds of battle,” he added. “In the final around, if any of you survive, you will be granted your freedom, granted a chance to fight in the greatest arena of all. But don’t get your hopes up: no one has ever survived that long.

“You will not die quickly,” he added. “I am here to make sure of it. I want you dying slowly. I want you to be great objects of entertainment. You will learn to fight, and learn it well, to prolong our pleasure. Because you are not men anymore. You are not slaves. You are lower than slaves: you are gladiators now. Welcome to your new, and final, role. It won’t last long.”

Chapter Five

Volusia marched through the desert, her hundreds of thousands of men behind her, the sound of their marching boots filling the sky. It was a sweet sound to her ears, a sound of progress, of victory. She looked out as she went, and she was satisfied to see corpses lining the horizon, everywhere on the dried hard sands outlying the Empire capital. Thousands of them, sprawled out, all perfectly still, lying on their backs and looking up to the sky in agony, as if they had been flattened by a giant tidal wave.

Volusia knew it was no tidal wave. It was her sorcerers, the Voks. They had cast a very powerful spell, and had killed all those who thought they could ambush and kill her.

Volusia smirked as she marched, seeing her handiwork, relishing in this day of victory, in once again outsmarting those who meant to kill her. These were all Empire leaders, all great men, men who had never been defeated before, and the only thing standing between her and the capital. Now here they were, all these Empire leaders, all the men who had dared to defy Volusia, all the men who had thought they were smarter than her – all of them dead.

Volusia marched between them, sometimes avoiding the bodies, sometimes stepping over them, and sometimes, when she felt like it, stepping right on them. She took great satisfaction in feeling the enemy’s flesh beneath her boots. It made her feel like a kid again.

Volusia looked up and saw the capital up ahead, its huge golden dome shining unmistakably in the distance, saw the massive walls surrounding it, a hundred feet high, noted its entrance, framed by soaring, arched golden doors, and felt the thrill of her destiny unfolding before her. Now, nothing lay between her and her final seat of power. No more politicians or leaders or commanders could stand in her way with any claim to rule the Empire but she. The long march, her taking one city after the next all these moons, her amassing her army one city at a time – finally, it all came to this. Just beyond those walls, just beyond those shining golden doors, stood her final conquest. Soon, she would be inside, she would assume the throne of power, and when she did, there would be no one and nothing left to stop her. She would take command of all the Empire’s armies, of all its provinces and regions, the four horns and two spikes, and finally, every last creature of the Empire would have to declare her – a human – their supreme commander.

Even more so, they would have to call her Goddess.

The thought of it made her smile. She would erect statues of herself in every city, before every hall of power; she would name holidays after herself, make people salute each other by her name, and the Empire would soon know no name but hers.

Volusia marched before her army beneath the early morning suns, examining those golden doors and realizing this would be one of the greatest moments of her life. Leading the way before her men, she felt invincible – especially now that all the traitors within her ranks were dead. How foolish they had been, she thought, to assume she was naïve, to assume she would fall into their trap, just because she was young. So much for their old age – so far that had gotten them. It had gained them only an early death, an early death for underestimating her wisdom – a wisdom even greater than theirs.

And yet, as Volusia marched, as she studied the Empire bodies in the desert, she began to feel a growing sense of concern. There weren’t as many bodies, she realized, as there should have been. There were perhaps a few thousand bodies, yet not the hundreds of thousands she had expected, not the main body of the Empire army. Had those leaders not brought all their men? And if not, where could they be?

She started to wonder: with its leaders dead, would the Empire capital still defend itself?

As Volusia neared the capital gates, she motioned for Vokin to step forward and for her army to stop.

As one, they all came to a stop behind her and finally there came a stillness in the morning desert, nothing but the sound of the wind passing through, the dust rising in the air, a thorn bush tumbling. Volusia studied the massive sealed doors, the gold carved in ornate patterns and signs and symbols, telling stories of the ancient battles of the Empire lands. These doors were famous throughout the Empire, were said to have taken a hundred years to carve, and to be twelve feet thick. It was a sign of strength representing all the Empire lands.

Volusia, standing hardly fifty feet away, had never been so close to the capital entrance before, and was in awe of them – and of what they represented. Not only was it a symbol of strength and stability, it was also a masterpiece, an ancient work of art. She ached to reach out and touch those golden doors, to run her hands along the carved images.

But she knew now was not the time. She studied them, and a sense of foreboding began to arise within her. Something was wrong. They were unguarded. And it was all too quiet.

Volusia looked straight up, and atop the walls, manning the parapets, she saw thousands of Empire soldiers slowly come into view, lined up, looking down, bows and spears at the ready.

An Empire general stood in their midst, looking down at them.

“You are foolish to come so close,” he boomed out, his voice echoing. “You stand in range of our bows and spears. With the twitch of my finger, I can have you all killed in an instant.

“But I will grant you mercy,” added. “Tell your armies to lay down their arms, and I will allow you to live.”

Volusia looked up at the general, his face obscured against the sun, this lone commander left behind to defend the capital, and she looked across the ramparts at his men, all their eyes trained on her, bows in their hands. She knew he meant what he’d said.

“I will give you one chance to lay down your arms,” she called back, “before I kill all of your men, and burn this capital down to rubble.”

He snickered, and she watched as he and all his men lowered their face plates, preparing for battle.

As quick as lightning, Volusia suddenly heard the sound of a thousand arrows releasing, of a thousand spears being thrown, and as she looked up, she watched the sky blacken, thick with weaponry, all firing down right for her.

Volusia stood there, rooted to her spot, fearless, not even flinching. She knew that none of these weapons could harm her. After all, she was a goddess.

Beside her, the Vok raised a single long, green palm, and as he did, a green orb left his hand and floated up in the air before her, casting a shield of green light a few feet above Volusia’s head. A moment later, the arrows and spears bounced off it harmlessly and landed down on the ground beside her in a huge heap.

Volusia looked over in satisfaction at the growing pile of spears and arrows, and looked back up to see the stunned faces of all the empire soldiers.

“I will give you one more chance to lay down your arms!” she called back.

The empire commander stood there sternly, clearly frustrated and debating his options, but he did not budge. Instead he motioned to his men, and she could see them preparing another volley.

Volusia nodded to Vokin, and he gestured to his men. Dozens of Voks stepped forward and they all lined up and raised their hands high above their heads, aiming their palms. A moment later, dozens of green orbs filled the sky, heading for the capital walls.