A Charge of Valor by Morgan Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

word for him; unlike some of the others, he had accepted Thor as a friend from the very first day. To see him lying there dead—and especially as a result of Thor’s mistakes—made Thor feel sick to his stomach. If he had never trusted those three brothers, perhaps Conval would be standing alive today.
    Thor could not think of Conval without Conven, the two identical twins, inseparable, always completing each other’s thoughts. He could not imagine the pain Conven was feeling. Conven looked as if he was not in his right mind anymore; the happy, carefree Conven he once knew seemed to have departed in a single stroke.
    They all still stood at the edge of the battlefield where it had taken place, the Empire corpses piled up around them. They stood there, rooted, looking down at Conval, none of them willing to move on until they had given him a proper burial. They had found some choice furs on some Empire officers, had stripped them, and had wrapped Conval’s corpse in them. They had placed him on a small boat, the one they had used to get here, and his body lay in it, long, stiff, facing the sky. A warrior’s burial. Conval already seemed so frozen, his body stiff and blue, as if he had never lived.
    They had been standing there for Thor did not know how long, each of them lost in their own sorrows, none wanting to see his body go. Indra moved her palm over Conval’s head in small circles, chanting something in a language that Thor did not understand, her eyes closed. He could tell how much she cared for him as she conducted the solemn funeral service, and Thor felt a sense of peace at the sound. None of the boys knew what to say, and they all stood there glumly, silent, letting Indra lead the service.
    Finally, Indra finished and took a step back. Conven stepped forward, tears running down his cheeks, and knelt down beside his brother. He reached out and lay a hand on his, bowing his head.
    Conven reached out and gave the boat a shove. It bobbed out into the still waters of the river, and then, as if the tides understood, they suddenly picked up, pulling the boat away, slowly, gently. It drifted farther and farther away from the group, Krohn whining as it went. Out of nowhere there arose a mist, and it consumed the boat. It disappeared.
    Thor felt as if his body, too, had been sucked into the underworld.
    Slowly, the boys turned to each other and looked out, past the battlefield, and to the terrains beyond it. Behind them was the underworld from which they came; to one side was a vast plain of grass; and to the other side was an empty wasteland, a hard-baked desert. They stood at a crossroads.
    Thor turned to Indra.
    “ To reach Neversink, we must cross that desert?” Thor asked.
    She nodded.
    “ Is there no other way?” he asked.
    She shook her head.
    “ There are other ways, but less direct. You would lose weeks. If you hope to beat the thieves, it is your only way.”
    The others stared long and hard at it, the sun baking off it, rippling in waves.
    “ It looks unforgiving,” Reece said, coming up beside Thor.
    “ I know of no one who has ever crossed it and lived,” Indra said. “It is vast, filled with hostile creatures.”
    “ We don’t have enough provisions,” O’Connor said. “We wouldn’t make it.”
    “ Yet it is the way to the Sword,” Thor said.
    “ Assuming the Sword still exists,” Elden said.
    “ If the thieves have reached Neversink,” Indra said, “then your precious Sword is lost forever. You would risk your lives for a dream. The best thing you can do now is turn back to the Ring.”
    “ We will not turn back,” Thor said, determined.
    “ Especially not now,” Conven added, stepping forward, his eyes alight with fire and grief.
    “ We will find that Sword or die trying,” Reece said.
    Indra shook her head and sighed.
    “ I didn’t expect any other answer from you boys,” she said. “Foolhardy to the last.”
    *
    Thor marched side by side with the others through the