The Gift of Battle

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Darius opened his eyes slowly, his head splitting, and he looked all around in the blackness, trying to get his bearings. He lay face down, his face planted on a floor made of hard wood. It smelled like ocean water. His world bobbed up and down, and he saw streaks of sunlight pouring in through slats, and he realized, with a start, that he must be below deck on a ship.

Darius tried to sit up, alarmed, yet as he moved his arms and legs, he felt them restrained by thick iron shackles, their chains scarping against the wood. His head pounding, his eyes hurting even in the dim light, he tried to sit up and put his head in his hands, tried to understand where he was. What had last happened. It was so hard to remember.

The creaking of wood filled the air, and as his world slowly bobbed up and down, Darius realized he was out at sea, riding the massive ocean waves, being taken God knows where. He was someone’s captive. But whose?

Darius heard groaning all around him, and as he looked around, slowly adjusting to the dim light, he was surprised to see hundreds of others, like he, shackled to the deck, their noise filling the air in a soft rattling of chains. As he tried to move, to get a better look, his body wracked in pain, he realized that he was a slave now—that they were all slaves. That could only mean one thing: they were prisoners to the Empire.

Darius rubbed his head and tried to think. Somehow, he had ended up here, in the holds of this ship. Somehow, he had been captured.

Darius closed his eyes, trying to numb the pain, and forced himself to remember. He saw his father’s face, and he remembered being in the arena…in the Empire capital…his father dying in his arms…. He remembered, with a jolt, his rush of power, the exhilarating feeling that Darius would never forget. He remembered seeing those elephants hurling through the air, destroying the arena…. He remembered escaping, opening the city gates and allowing the Knights of the Seven to pour in, to destroy the capital.

Then he, himself, being clubbed.

Darius rubbed his face, realizing he had been knocked unconscious, chained, during the invasion of the capital. Given the size of that army, though, he was lucky to be alive.

He was a slave again, ironically. An Empire slave. But this time, a slave to the Knights of the Seven.

But where were they taking him?

“SLAVES! ON YOUR FEET!” suddenly boomed a voice.

The hold flooded with harsh ocean sunlight as two huge wooden doors were suddenly opened high above, and in marched dozens of Empire soldiers.

Darius heard the crack of a whip and he suddenly jumped in pain as he felt the lash of a whip across his back, his skin feeling as if it were being torn off him. He turned to see rows of Empire soldiers storming the hold. Several stepped forward, raised swords, and brought them down.

Darius braced himself, expecting to be killed; but instead, he heard a clang and felt his shackles being severed.

Rough hands grabbed him and dragged him to his feet. He immediately felt weak, nauseous, dizzy, and he wondered when was the last time he ate.

Kicked in the back, Darius stumbled forward, falling in with hundreds of other prisoners, as dozens of soldiers escorted them roughly, leading them out of the dark hold and up toward the light of the upper deck.

As Darius stumbled with the others, he remembered his power, and he tried to summon it again.

But for some reason he could not understand, he was unable to. Whatever it was he had, he had lost it once again. Perhaps, he realized, he needed time for it to recharge.

Darius squinted and held his hands to his face as he stumbled up the stairs into the harsh sunlight, and he collapsed on the deck as a soldier shoved him and he tripped over others.

Another soldier grabbed him and dragged him roughly to his feet, and he looked around, trying to get his bearings. He scanned the ship and saw hundreds of Empire soldiers patrolling the decks of a massive warship, commanding hundreds of galley slaves chained to benches and forced to row. Dozens more slaves were chained to cannons alongside the ship, while dozens more were forced to do hard labor, scrubbing the decks, hoisting sails, or doing whatever the soldiers, whips in hand, commanded.

Darius looked out, beyond the rail, and saw that this warship was but a speck in a vast fleet of Empire warships, thousands of them filling the horizon, all sailing somewhere together. He wondered where.

“Move it, slave!” commanded an Empire soldier, then elbowed him in the ribs.

Darius stumbled forward with a group of slaves and found himself grabbed roughly and ushered over to a bench filled with slaves, all slumped over their oars—none of them moving. Darius looked closely and saw the lashes on their exposed backs, burnt from the sun, and wondered why none of them were moving. Had they fallen asleep at the oars?

His question was answered as a soldier stepped forward, severed the chains one by one, grabbed each one, and pushed back each slave.

Darius was shocked to see each fall backwards, limp, landing flat on their backs on the deck.

Dead.

More soldiers stepped forward and hoisted the corpses in the air, one by one, then walked them to the rail and hurled them over the edge. Darius saw the bodies splash in the water below, and watched as the currents carried them away quickly. Before they submerged, he saw several sharks surface and snatch them, dragging them beneath the surface.

Darius looked down at the empty bench, covered in blood where the dead slaves had just sat, with a sense of dread. He wondered how long they had been here, how long it had taken them to be worked to death

Before he could think it through, he was shoved down to a vacant seat and re-shackled, his chains locked to the bench where the dead slaves had just been. His wrists were chained to the oars, as were the other fresh slaves seated beside him, and he was suddenly lashed across the back, feeling an awful pain rip through his body.

“ROW!” a commander shouted.

All the other slaves began to row, and Darius joined them, lashed sporadically and wanting to make it all go away. One hell, he knew, had been replaced with another. Soon enough, he would die here.

Darius looked out to sea and studied the horizon, studied the angle of the suns, and he realized they were heading east. And then suddenly it struck him: that could only mean one thing. They, this vast fleet, all of the Empire, could only be heading to one place:

The Ring.

A war was coming. The greatest war of all time. And he, Darius, fighting for the wrong side, would be stuck right in the middle of it.