A Land of Fire

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Romulus opened his eyes slowly, awakened finally by the sound of crashing waves, and the feel of something crawling across his face. He looked up to see a large, purple crab, with four eyes, crawling slowly on his face. He recognized it immediately: it was a crab native to the mainland of the Ring. It narrowed its four eyes and opened its jaw to bite him.

Romulus reacted instantly, reaching up, grabbing it in his palm, and crushing it slowly. Its claws pierced his flesh, but he didn’t care. He listened to it scream, and he delighted in the sound of its pain, continuing to squeeze it deliberately and slowly. It bit and pinched him, but he didn’t mind. He wanted to crush the life out of it, to prolong its suffering as much as he could.

Finally, its juices dripping down his palm, the creature died, and Romulus chucked it to the sand, disappointed its fight was done so quickly.

Another wave crashed, this one rolling over the back of his head, over his face, and Romulus jumped up, covered in sand, shook off the freezing water, and looked around.

Romulus saw he’d been passed out, washed up on a beach, and recognized it as the shore of the Ring. He turned and saw thousands of corpses, all washed up onto shore, as far as the eye could see. They were all his men, thousands of them, all dead, all washed up, unmoving on the beach.

He turned and saw thousands more floating in the waves, lifeless, slowly being washed up with the others. Sharks nipped at their bodies, and all up and down the shore was a blanket of purple crabs, feasting, devouring the corpse’s flesh.

Romulus looked out at the sea, so calm now, at the sunrise of a perfect, clear day, and he tried to remember. There was a storm, that wave, greater than anything he imagined could exist. His entire fleet had been destroyed, like playthings of the ocean. Indeed, as he scanned the waters, he saw it littered with debris, wood from his former ships floating up and down the shoreline, what remained of his fleet butting against the corpses of his men, like a cruel joke. Romulus felt something on his ankles, and looked down to see the remnants of a mast smashing against his shin.

Romulus was grateful and amazed to be alive. He realized how lucky he was, the sole survivor of all his men. He looked up, and even though it was morning, he could see the waxing moon, and he knew his moon cycle had not ended—and that was the only reason he had survived. Yet he was also filled with dread as he examined the shape of the moon: his cycle was almost up. That sorcerer’s spell would end any day, and his invincible time would come to an end.

Romulus reflected on his dragons, dead, on his fleet, destroyed, and he realized he had made a mistake to pursue Gwendolyn. He had pushed too hard, for too much; he had never expected the power of Thorgrin. He realized now, too late, that he should have been content with what he’d had. He should have stayed on the mainland of the Ring.

Romulus turned and looked out at the Ring, the Wilds framing the shore, and beyond that, the Canyon. At least he still had his soldiers here, the ones he’d left behind; at least he still had one million men occupying it, and at least he had razed it to the ground. At least Gwendolyn and her people could never return here—and at least the Ring was finally his. It was a bittersweet victory.

Romulus turned his gaze back to the sea, and he realized that now, without his dragons, without a fleet, he would have to give up chasing Gwendolyn—especially with his moon cycle coming to an end. He would have no choice now but to return to the Empire—with a partial victory, but with the shame of defeat, the shame of a vanquished fleet. Humiliated yet again. When asked where his fleet was, he would have nothing left to show his people—just the one measly ship he had left on the Ring to transport him back to the Empire. He would return as conqueror of the Ring—and yet deeply humiliated. Once again, Gwendolyn had escaped him.

Romulus leaned back, held his fists out to the heavens, and shook them, the veins bulging in his neck as he shrieked in rage:

“THORGRIN!”

His cry was met by a lone eagle, circling high, that screeched back, as if mocking him.