Erec got up and whistled, a distinctive whistle, one that only Warkfin would hear and understand.
Moments later, Warkfin came charging around to the back of the castle, and Erec stood and threw Alistair up, then mounted himself. She held on tight to his chest, as he kicked Warkfin to a gallop.
They charged away from that place, the sounds of the warriors crashing into the castle becoming more and more distant, as they rode.
Feeling Alistair’s hands wrapped around his chest brought him more comfort than he had imagined possible.
She was safe. Finally. She was safe.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Andronicus held a flaming torch as he galloped out in front of his army, then leaned over and lit the thatched roofs of the McCloud houses as he rode through the village. In a matter of minutes he had managed to light the entire village on fire, and he galloped through the streets, circling again and again, through the roaring flames, as the screams began to rise up all around him. He smiled with satisfaction. This would teach that McCloud king. This would teach these McCloud villagers to hide inside their homes, to think that they would ever be safe from him or his men. He would destroy every last one of them before he left this town. Not a single soul would survive. That had always been his motto.
In all the countries, in all the territories of the world that he had conquered, Andronicus had always followed one simple rule: crush and kill and destroy everyone and everything in sight. Leave no survivors. Take no prisoners. Burn everything down to the ground, so that there would be no one left to try to resurrect the old way. There would only be the new way.
And it had worked. They had conquered city after city, country after country, and his empire had grown to millions. His soldiers were in the millions, and his slaves were millions more, all of them obedient to a fault. He could dispatch armies simultaneously to any corner of the world to crush anyone who dared to rise up against him. Nothing gave him more joy.
Now it was time to make this McCloud king pay. McCloud had made the grave mistake of crossing Andronicus, of refusing to cooperate with him when he’d had the chance. Of course, Andronicus’s offer had been a duplicitous one, and if McCloud had allowed him to cross the Canyon, he would have taken his first chance to destroy all that was McCloud’s. But at least he would not have done so right away. He would have given McCloud a little bit of time to think he was free, before he ambushed and butchered him and his family.
But McCloud had not gone along with it, and that put Andronicus in a rage. Now, to send a message to the rest of his empire, he would not just destroy McCloud and his loved ones, but torture them first. He smiled as he imagined dismembering them slowly, carrying their body parts to all four corners of the empire. Yes, he would shrink their heads and preserve them, and maybe even replace his current necklace with McCloud’s shrunken head. He reached out and fingered the shrunken heads dangling at the base of his throat, and he enjoyed the thought immensely. He already started to imagine the type of chain he would bore through McCloud’s head.
Andronicus’ men caught up to him, fifty paces behind, charging with a scream into the village of flames and slaughtering the villagers who ran out of their homes. Andronicus looked back and smiled, as he could already see blood filling the streets. It was gearing up to be a fabulous day.
This was the tenth McCloud village they had ravaged today, and the second sun had barely risen in the sky. They had landed earlier in the morning on the McCloud shore, Andronicus leading a fleet of ten thousand ships. As his feet had touched down on the sand, he’d marveled that he was back here in this place, on the outer shores of the Ring, twice under a single moon. This time, though, he had come prepared for war, not for talk. He had brought along the McCloud prisoner who held the key to breaching the Canyon. This time he would not meet with McCloud. This time he would lead his men across the fifty mile wasteland of the McCloud’s outer territory, ride right to the Canyon itself, and use the McCloud prisoner to show him how to breach it. His men would cross the Canyon, onto the other side, and he would surprise McCloud and burn his court down to the ground. He looked forward to the look of surprise on McCloud’s face when he saw Andronicus in his own backyard, across the Canyon. It would be priceless.
And when Andronicus finished destroying the McClouds, he would then turn to his real target: the MacGils. Once inside the Ring, he would cross the Highlands, bring his million man army to MacGil’s front step, and wipe out any memory there ever was of King’s Court. When he was through, it would be a distant memory, a pile of rubble. He could already see the smoke and ashes and fumes in his mind’s eye, could already see the MacGil land, once so choice, nothing but a desolate ruin, a sign for all those who dared to fight him. The thought made him smile.
Andronicus charged, not pausing any longer to terrorize this village, but focusing instead on the looming Canyon. His men caught up, charging beside them, and they raced across this desolate wasteland, populated with random McCloud villages, foolish frontiersman who had been dumb enough to live outside the Canyon. It served them right. They should have lived inside the Canyon. Did they all really think they would be safe here forever from the reach of the great Andronicus?
They rode west for hours, getting closer to the Canyon, ravaging several more villages along the way. As the second sun grew long in the sky, finally, they rounded a hilltop, and Andronicus saw it: the great Canyon. It was as awe-inspiring now as it was when he had seen it as a boy. It perplexed him to no end, this wonder of the world, with its magic energy shield which had kept his people at bay from the Ring for generations. It was the one place left on the planet that his army could not breach, and it vexed him to no end.
Now, finally, he had the information he needed to cross it. He would accomplish what all of his ancestors before him had failed to do. He would enter the one last untouched, pristine part of the planet, and have his men soil every inch of it. He would crush it until it was entirely under his dominion. He could already savor the rush of power he would feel when he was done. There would be no place left on the planet he had not conquered.
Andronicus’s men rode up beside him and they all stopped as they finally reached the edge of the Canyon. They dismounted, and Andronicus took several steps forward, looking down at the vast divide. It was enormous, awe-inspiring, even for him, who had been everywhere in the world, who had seen everything, every natural wonder. This one was unique. An eerie, yellow mist hung in the Canyon, which seemed to stretch forever, and even from here Andronicus could feel the great energy force of the shield. He reached up a hand, into the air, towards the edge, and held it there. He knew that it was protected by an invisible wall and that if he extended his hand any further it would eviscerate him. It was like an invisible bubble blocking them out.
If it weren’t for the shield, he and his men could simply kill the McCloud warriors stationed on the bridge of the Eastern Crossing, or hike to the bottom of it, or build their own bridge. He imagined a thousand ways they could breach it. But he remembered when they had tried in the past, when they had set up camp for a full moon cycle, and had tried every imaginable way. Each time, as soon as they crossed the threshold, the energy shield eviscerated them, killing his men instantly and leaving no way to cross it.
This time would be different.
“Bring him to me,” Andronicus snarled, not looking back as he held out a hand, unraveling his three long claws.
Moments later his men hurried forward, and he saw the McCloud prisoner, bound, squirming, fear in his eyes, as they pushed him to Andronicus’ grip. Andronicus reached out and grabbed him with his three claws by his shirt, and pulled him close.
“Now is your chance, human,” he said to him. “You vowed to show us how to breach the Canyon. We are here. What is it?”
The human stood there, wide-eyed, looking from McCloud down into the abyss of the Canyon, shaking. Andronicus started to sense something wrong, and he did not like what he was sensing.
“I’m sorry,” the human yelled out. “I lied! I have no idea how to cross it. I just wanted to get out of jail. You had me down there so many years. I couldn’t stand it. I was desperate. I would say anything. I’m sorry!” he said, weeping. “I’m sorry!”
Andronicus looked down at this human with disbelief; then his disbelief changed to fury, a fury deeper than any he had ever felt. He had been tricked. By a human. He had rallied his entire army, had crossed the Ambrek sea, had looked forward to and reveled in this moment-all to be lied to by a pathetic little human.
