Gwendolyn stood at the entrance to the cave, watching the sun begin to set, preparing. All around her, men were packing up the few provisions they had and bracing themselves to leave this place, to begin the long trek across the Great Waste, on a quest for the Second Ring.

It was time, Gwen realized, to seek out a new home, a permanent home. Her people needed it, and they deserved it. They might all die trying, but at least they would die on their feet, striving for something greater-not holed up here in a cave, cowering, waiting to die. It had taken her an entire moon cycle to realize it, to shake off the depression of missing Guwayne and Thor. That depression still clung to her, yet now, Gwen was able to work through it, to not let it stop her from functioning in the world. After all, giving into her depression would not change her circ.u.mstance-it would only make her life worse.

Of course, Gwen felt a deep sense of sorrow and loss in accepting the fact that Thorgrin and Guwayne might not ever return to her. She felt little left to live for. Yet she thought of her father, and his father before him-a long line of kings who had seen great calamity, and who had put their faith in her-and she drew strength from their example. She forced herself to be strong, to focus on the task at hand. She had a people to lead. She had to get them to safety.

"My lady?" came an urgent voice.

Gwendolyn turned and was surprised to see one of the villagers standing there at the entrance of the cave, out of breath, looking at her gravely.

"Why have you come during daylight?" Gwendolyn asked, alarmed.

"We have an urgent matter," he said, in a rush. "You are needed at our village meeting, immediately. All of you."

Kendrick and G.o.dfrey came up beside her, all looking as confused as she.

"Why would you want our people at your meeting?" she asked. "Especially during daylight?"

The messenger, still catching his breath, shook his head.

"It is a matter that concerns us all, my lady. Before you leave, please come."

He turned and ran off, and Gwen watched him go in utter confusion.

"What could they want?" she asked. "They implored us never to show ourselves before dark."

"Perhaps they don't want us to leave," G.o.dfrey said.

Gwen looked off in the distance, watching the messenger sprint back to his village, and she slowly shook her head.

"No," she said, "I fear something far worse."

G.o.dfrey hiked with Gwendolyn and Kendrick and the large contingent of Ring members as they all emerged from the cave and hiked carefully down the mountain, clinging to the mountain side so as not to slip and not be detected. As they approached the village, he spotted hundreds of villagers crowded around the village center, and he could sense the chaos from here. All wore disturbed looks, and he sensed something awful had happened.

As they entered the village, G.o.dfrey saw the boy in the center of the crowd, Sandara's brother, the one they called Darius; beside him stood a girl who appeared to be his girlfriend-he had heard her called Loti. They faced the village elders, and the girl looked distraught. G.o.dfrey wondered what had happened.

G.o.dfrey joined Gwen and the others as they silently stood near the center.

"But why did you kill him?" came a voice, panic-stricken, condemning. G.o.dfrey turned to see a woman who must've been Loti's mother, standing beside the elders, yelling at her. "Have you learned nothing? How could you have been so stupid?"

"I didn't think about it," Loti said. "I just reacted. My brother was being whipped."

"So what!?" Bokbu, the village elder, yelled at her. "We are all whipped, every day. But none are so foolish as to fight back-much less to kill them. You bring death upon us all. Every one of us."

"And what of the Empire?" Darius yelled out, beside her, defending her. "Have they not broken rules as well?"

The villager, falling silent, looked to him.

"They have the power," one of the elders said. "They make the rules."

"And why should they have the power?" Darius said. "Just because they have more men?"

Bokbu shook his head.

"What you have done today, Loti, was stupid. Very, very foolish. You gave in to your pa.s.sions, and it was short-sighted. It will change the course of our village forever. Soon they will come here. And with not just one man-with one hundred men, maybe one thousand. They will come with armor and weapons, and they will kill us all."

"I am sorry," Loti said, loudly, boldly, for everyone to hear, "yet I am not sorry. I would do it all again for the sake of my brother."

The crowd gasped in outrage, and Loti's father stepped forward and smacked her across the face.

"I'm sorry I ever had you," he said, scowling at her.

Her father wound up to smack her again. But this time, Darius rushed forward, caught his wrist in midair, and held it.

Loti's father looked to Darius, a look of bewilderment and anger across his face, as Darius locked eyes with his.

"Do not lay a hand on her," Darius threatened.

"You little b.a.s.t.a.r.d," her father replied. "You can hang for this. You do not disrespect your elder."

"Then hang me," Darius replied.

Loti's father stared back in rage, then finally he backed away as Darius released his grip.

Loti reached down and quietly took Darius's hand, and G.o.dfrey saw him hold hers back, squeezing it, rea.s.suring her, letting her know he was there for her.

"All of this is inconsequential now," Bokbu said, as the people fell silent. "What matters now is what can be done."

The entire village looked to each other in the thick silence, and G.o.dfrey looked at them all, shocked at what had happened. Clearly, this changed everything; it would certainly make it awkward timing for Gwen and her people to just walk out. Yet staying here would be suicide.

"Give the girl up!" a villager cried out.

There came a muted cheer of approval from some villagers.

"March her to Volusia and hand her over!" the man added. "Maybe they will accept her as offering and leave us be!"

There came a few more grunts of approval from some of the villagers-but not from others. Clearly, they were divided.

"You will not touch her!" Loc, Loti's brother, cried out. "Not without going through me!"

"Or me!" Darius yelled.

The villagers laughed in derision.

"And what are a lame man and a long-haired boy going to do to stop us!?"

There came some derisive laughter among a corner of the crowd and G.o.dfrey tightened his grip on his sword, wondering if a fight was going to break out.

"Enough of this!" Bokbu yelled. "Do you not see what the Empire has done to us? We fight ourselves when we should be fighting them! We have truly become like them."

A silence fell over the crowd, as the villagers lowered their faces, humbled.

"No!" Bokbu continued. "We will prepare our defense. We will die either way, so we will die fighting. We will take positions, and attack them as they come."

"With what?" another elder yelled out. "Our wooden swords?"

"We have spears," Bokbu countered, "and their points are sharpened."

"And they will come with steel and armor," the elder countered. "What will your wooden spears do then?"

"We must not fight!" another elder yelled. "We must await their arrival and beg their mercy. Perhaps they will be lenient. After all, they need us for labor."

The villagers all broke out into heated arguing, and chaos ensued as men and women shouted at each other. G.o.dfrey stood there, in shock, wondering how it all could have fallen apart so quickly.

As G.o.dfrey watched, he felt something stirring within him, something he could not contain. He was struck by an idea, and his entire life, whenever he had been overcome with an idea, he'd been unable to contain himself. He'd had to get it out, and now, he felt it boiling over within him. He could not keep silent, even if he tried.

G.o.dfrey found himself stepping forward into the village center, unable to control himself. He stood in the thick of the crowd, jumped up on a high stone, waved his hands, and yelled: "Wait a minute!" His voice boomed, a deep, loud voice, coming from his big belly, sounding, strangely enough, like the voice of his father, the king.

All the villagers quieted, shocked to see him standing there, with his big belly, a man of white skin demanding attention. Gwendolyn and the others looked even more surprised at his appearance. He clearly was not a warrior, and yet somehow, he demanded attention.

"I have another idea!" G.o.dfrey called out.

They all slowly turned to him, all eyes riveted.

"In my experience, any man can be bought, for a high enough price. And armies are composed of men."

They all looked at him, puzzled.

"Gold speaks in every language, in every land," G.o.dfrey said. "And I have a lot of it. Enough gold to buy any army."

Bokbu stepped forward in the silence, turning to G.o.dfrey.

"And what are you proposing exactly? That we hand the Empire soldiers bags of gold? You think that will send them away? Volusia is one of the riches cities in the Empire."

G.o.dfrey shook his head.

"I will not wait for their army to come," he said. "That is not how men are bought. I will go into the city. I will go myself and bring enough gold to buy whoever needs to be bought. I have conquered men without raising a spear, and I can turn this one back before they even come."

They all stared up at G.o.dfrey, speechless. He stood there, trembling, feeling shocked himself that he had spoken up like this. He did not know what had overcome him; possibly it was the injustice of it all, possibly seeing that poor brave girl in tears. He had spoken before he had even thought it through, and he was surprised as he felt a hand clap him on the back.

A villager stepped forward and looked at him approvingly.

"You are a white man from across the sea," he said. "You do things differently than we. And yet you have an idea. A bold idea and a courageous idea. If you want to enter the city and bring your yellow coins, we shall not stop you. Just maybe, you shall save us all."

All the villagers suddenly let out a soft cooing noise, and spread empty palms toward G.o.dfrey.

"What is that noise?" G.o.dfrey asked. "What are they doing with their hands?"

"It is the salute of our people," Bokbu explained. "It is a sound of admiration. A sound reserved for heroes."

G.o.dfrey felt another hand clap him on the back, then another, and soon the village meeting dissipated, each man going in his own way, their fighting broken up by G.o.dfrey's interruption. At least the tensions had cooled, G.o.dfrey thought, and surely the villagers would regroup to talk strategy in another way.

While he watched them all walk away, G.o.dfrey stood there, a surreal feeling coming over him, wondering what he had just done. Had he really just committed to venturing alone to a hostile city in a hostile Empire to buy off people he did not know? Was it an act of bravery? Or sheer stupidity?

G.o.dfrey looked up to see Akorth and Fulton approach, helping him down from the stone.

They shook their heads, smiling.

"And all this without any drink," Akorth said. "You are changing, my friend."

"I suppose you'll want some traveling companions," Fulton said, "someone to share some of those yellow coins you speak of. I suppose we might join you. We have nothing else to do, we're nearly out of drink, and I'm sick of being in that cave."

"Not to mention the brothels we might find," Fulton said with a wink. "I hear Volusia is quite the sumptuous place."

G.o.dfrey stared back, open-mouthed, not knowing what to say, and before he could respond, Merek, the thief from the dungeons who had joined the Legion, came up beside them.

"Any way you go," he said, "you'll want to enter the back alleys. You'll need a good thief by your side. A man as unscrupulous as you. I am that man."

G.o.dfrey sized him up: nearly his age, G.o.dfrey could see cunning and ruthlessness in his eyes, could see a boy who had done whatever it took to sc.r.a.pe his way up in life. It was the type of person he wanted around.

"You'll need someone who knows the Empire as well," came a voice G.o.dfrey turned to see Ario, the small boy who had joined the Legion, who had trekked alone across the sea from the Empire jungles, after saving Thorgrin and the others, to keep good on his promise.

"I've been to Volusia before," the boy said. "I am of the Empire after all. Yours is a bold mission, and I admire the bold. I shall join you. I will follow you into battle."

"Battle?" G.o.dfrey said, overcome with anxiety as the reality began to sink in.

"Very good, young lad," Akorth said, "but there won't be any battle here. Men die in battle. And we don't plan on dying. This won't be battle. This will be an expedition into the city. A chance to buy ale, some women, and to pay off the right people at the right price and return home unlikely heroes. Right, G.o.dfrey?"

G.o.dfrey stared back blankly, then nodded. Was that what this was? He didn't even know anymore. All he knew was that he opened his big mouth, and now he was committed. Why was it that in times of trouble this streak overcame him, this streak of his father? Was it chivalry? Or impetuosity?

G.o.dfrey looked up to see his sister Gwendolyn and brother Kendrick approach. They stepped up beside him and looked at him meaningfully.

"Father would be proud," Kendrick said. "We are proud. It was a bold offer."

"You've made a friend of this people," Gwendolyn said. "They look to you now. They are relying on you now. Trust is a sacred thing. Do not let them down."

G.o.dfrey looked back and nodded, not trusting himself to speak and not knowing what else to say.

"Yours is both a wise and a foolish plan. Only you might be able to pull it off. Pay off the right people, and choose your people well."

Gwen stepped forward and hugged him, then pulled back and looked at him, her eyes filled with concern.

"Be safe, my brother," she said softly.

With that, she and Kendrick turned and walked off. As they did, Illepra approached, a smile on her face.

"You are no longer a boy," she said. "On this day, you are a man. That was a manly act. When people rely on you, that is when you become a man. You are a hero now. Whatever becomes of you, you are a hero."