The Gift of Battle

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Thorgrin stood at the bow of the ship, gripping the rail, and looked out in anticipation as the tides pulled them deeper into the gloom of the Land of Blood. For the first time since he had begun this journey, he felt a sense of hope, felt closer to finding Guwayne than he’d ever had. On the horizon, before them, loomed the Blood Lord’s castle, all black, appearing to be made of mud and to emerge from the blackened landscape all around it, as if an explosion of mud had hardened and settled into some awful form of a castle. A sinister glow came from its small windows, shaped like slits, and they did not make it feel more friendly, but rather more ominous. Thor could sense the evil of this castle even from here, and he felt without a doubt that Guwayne lay beyond its doors.

“I don’t like this,” came a voice.

Thor looked over to see Reece standing beside him, looking out, concerned. Angel stood on his other side, joined by Selese, O’Connor, Elden, Indra, and Matus, all of them lined up, studying the horizon, riveted by the sight.

“It is too easy,” Reece said.

“The waters are too calm, the land too serene,” Selese chimed in. “Something is wrong.”

“Guwayne was taken by an army of creatures,” Matus said. “There should be a battalion of gargoyles guarding this place, awaiting us. Or the Blood Lord himself. Something. But instead, there is nothing. Are we sailing into a trap?”

Thorgrin wondered the same thing. In spite of the quiet, the gentle breeze, he could not relax; a sense of gloom hung over them like a blanket, and the lapping of the blood-red water against the hull, bringing them ever closer to this place, only served to increase his wariness.

Before them the waters of the ocean forked. Straight ahead lay the black castle, while to the left, a strong current rushed, heading off into a horizon that was filled with breaking light, the waters turning increasingly light as they went.

“It seems like the way out,” O’Connor said, turning, as they all looked to the left, to the breaking light. As Thor followed the waters, he saw the landscape, too, changed, from black to green; in the far distance, it appeared the waters widened back into ocean, demarcated by the waterfalls of blood. They were right: it certainly seemed like freedom lay that way.

Thor turned and looked straight ahead: freedom from the Land of Blood was not what he was seeking. He wanted Guwayne, whatever the cost. And Guwayne, he knew, lay straight ahead, in the very heart of the land of gloom.

They stuck to their course, continuing straight ahead.

Up ahead the waterway funneled to a long, narrow canal leading to the castle, and as the mist lifted, Thor peered ahead and saw, blocking the entrance to the canal, an arched stone drawbridge and a small gatehouse. With the entranceway blocked, they had no choice but to bring their ship to a stop before it, all of them puzzled by this entrance.

Thor spotted a sole figure standing on drawbridge, facing them. The gatekeeper was, oddly, a woman, unarmed, with long red hair the color of the sea spilling down the sides of her face, all the way until they touched the water. She stood there and stared back at Thorgrin with her large glowing blue eyes, perfectly still, barely clothed, and Thor stared back in wonder, mesmerized.

“I don’t like this,” Matus said softly. “One woman left alone to guard the castle? It must be a trick.”

Slowly, their boat came to a stop before her, and as they floated there, she stared back, her eyes locking only on Thor’s, and smiled back.

“I am no woman,” she corrected, having clearly overheard them, “but a gatekeeper. The gatekeeper to the one and only gate there is, to the one and only Lord of all.” She stared right at Thor, her eyes so intense they nearly burned through him. “The Lord who holds your son.”

Thor flushed, filled with a sense of determination, of outrage.

“Stand out of my way, woman,” he demanded, “or so help me God, I will kill anyone or anything that stands in the way of my son.”

But she only smiled back in response, unmoving, and smiled wider.

“Come to me,” she said. “Come to me and remove me from this bridge—and your son shall be yours.”

Thor, determined, wasted no time. Without hesitating, he rushed forward on the deck, jumped up onto the rail, then leapt off of their ship, onto the stone drawbridge.

“Thor!” Angel called out, concern in her voice.

But he already stood on dry land, on the stone bridge, before the woman. He stood there scowling, one hand on the hilt of his sword, prepared to use it if need be.

But the strangest thing happened: as Thor stood there, facing her, slowly, he felt his heart melting inside. A numbing sensation took over his body, his mind, and as he stared back at her, he began to find it hard to concentrate. It was as if she were casting a spell, and he was slowly falling under it.

He blinked, trying to shake it off, but try as he did, he could no longer think of harming her.

“That’s it,” she said, her voice soft. “Kneel. Kneel before me.”

Thor hardly realized what he was doing as his legs acted on their own accord and he knelt before her. She reached up, and he felt her soft hands running through his hair, her palms so smooth, her voice so comforting. He found it impossible to concentrate on anything else.

“Thorgrin!” Reece called out in alarm, as the other chimed in, too.

Thor heard the voices but he, still in a haze, felt unable to look away, unable to look anywhere but at this woman’s eyes.

“You don’t need them, Thorgrin,” she said, her voice so soft, so hypnotizing. “Send them back home. Allow them to go. Back to their freedom. You don’t need them now. You are with me now. You are home now—the only home you’ll ever need. You will stay here with me. On this drawbridge. Forever.”

Thor felt himself melting deeper into this woman’s spell, believing everything she said and not wanting to be anywhere else. Everything she said made perfect sense. Why would he ever want to be anywhere else? He was home now. He felt it.

“Tell them, Thorgrin,” she whispered, stroking his face. “Tell them to leave without you.”

Thor turned to his shipmates, barely recognizing them through his haze.

“Go,” he called out. “Leave me here.”

“NO!” Angel shrieked. “THORGRIN!”

Suddenly a great tide came, and Thor watched as the ship started to be drawn away from him. It forked down to the river, to the path to freedom, out of the Land of Blood, its currents moving faster and faster. Within moments, it was getting smaller, disappearing, drifting off into the horizon, and as its currents picked up, Thorgrin knew it would never, ever return again.

But Thorgrin no longer cared. He wanted the ship to disappear. He wanted to be all alone. He was happy in this woman’s arms, and he wanted to stay like this forever.

And ever.

“THORGRIN!” Angel cried, already so far away, a cry filled with despair, with longing, as they disappeared from view, their ship taken off to another world entirely.