A Dream of Mortals (Book #15 in the Sorcerer's Ring) by Morgan Rice Page A

no room for pity in the arena. There is room
only for victory.”
    Morg turned back to the group of boys, as if
looking for more to weed out, and this time, his eyes stopped on Luzi. Darius could
see what he was thinking: Luzi was smaller than all the others, and he wanted
to weed him out, too.
    “You two,” he said to two large boys, “fight
that boy.”
    Luzi looked out at Darius, nervous, as he stepped
forward and was forced to face the two large boys, each given clubs. He looked
terrified.
    Darius shook off the soldier’s grip and ran between
Luzi and the boys.
    “If you want to fight him, you have to go
through me,” Darius said to them.
    They both looked at each other nervously after
seeing his last performance, clearly neither wanting to fight him.
    “Fight him,” Morg urged. “Or I will kill you myself.”
    The two boys rushed forward for Darius, who was
unarmed, and as the first boy swung a club for his head, Darius ducked, reached
around, and punched him in the kidney. He keeled over, immobile.
    The other boy swung for Darius’s side, but Darius
rolled out of the way and at the same time, he swept the boy’s legs out from
under him, knocking him to his back, then spun around and elbowed him in the
face, keeping him down.
    The two boys lay on the ground, unmoving, and Darius
regained his feet and stared defiantly back at Morg.
    Morg stared back, enraged.
    “Send anyone else against Luzi,” Darius
seethed, “and they will have to go through me. I will kill them with my own
hands if I have to.”
    Morg stood there, clearly enraged, debating
what to do, looking back and forth between Darius and Luzi.
    Finally, he spit on the floor.
    “Let him die out there then,” he snapped. “It’s
one more death for the spectators. And the killing time has come.”
    With that, Morg turned and strutted across the
courtyard, his men falling in behind him, and Darius and the others soon felt
themselves shackled, back in a chain gang, led across the dusty courtyard. Up
ahead a massive iron cell door opened, leading into a narrow stone tunnel, and
as it did, Darius heard the cheers. It was the sound of a crowd, the largest
crowd he’d ever heard, out for blood, and getting louder and louder.
    The time had come, he knew, to enter the arena.
     

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
     
    Volusia watched in surprise as hundreds of
thousands of Empire soldiers poured out, charging right for her, preparing to
engage her in the biggest battle she had ever experienced. They came at her
from all sides, streaming around the capital walls from both sides. They also
poured through the golden capital doors, opening wider and wider, as the Empire
men let out a great cry. It seemed as if the gates of hell themselves were
opening to attack her. She had never seen so many men.
    Volusia was surprised and disappointed that the
Voks sorcery had been unable to take down the capital walls, surprised to find their
powers useless against these fortifications, and she had no choice now but to
brace herself for conventional warfare—her two hundred thousand men up against
an army two or three times the size.
    Volusia checked back over her shoulder and was
relieved to see that her men held their formations, well disciplined, and that
they all charged forward, as she had commanded, to fearlessly meet the enemy.
    As the men closed in on her, now hardly a
hundred yards away and gaining speed, one of her advisors came up beside her.
    “Goddess, you must retreat,” he said, fear in
his voice as he yanked her arm. “You will die here. You must retreat at once to
the rear lines.”
    Volusia shook off his arm and stood her ground,
facing the Empire army defiantly. After all, she was a goddess. She felt that
she was. She was invincible. And no man, nothing of this earth, could harm her.
    “If they are to fight my men, they will fight me
first,” she replied. “They will have to go through me.”
    Volusia stood there as horns and trumpets
sounded, as Empire soldiers