A Dream of Mortals (Book #15 in the Sorcerer's Ring) Read Online Free Page B

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,”