A Dream of Mortals (Book #15 in the Sorcerer's Ring) by Morgan Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

around. They all waited, sweating, praying the guard
did not look their way. They waited for what felt like an eternity, until
finally the guard began nodding off again.
    Ario pulled the sash closer and closer, sliding
it across the prison floor, until finally it came through the bars and into the
cell.
    Godfrey reached out and put the sash on, and they
all backed away from him, fearful.
    “What on earth are you doing?” Merek asked. “The
sash is covered with plague. You can infect us all.”
    The other prisoners in the cell backed up, too.
    Godfrey turned to Merek.
    “I’m going to start coughing, and I’m not going
to stop,” he said, wearing the sash, an idea hardening in his mind. “When the
guard comes, he’ll see my blood and this sash, and you’ll tell him I have the plague,
that they made a mistake in not separating me.”
    Godfrey wasted no time. He began coughing
violently, taking the blood on his face and rubbing it all up and down himself
to make it look worse. He coughed louder than he’d ever had, until finally, he
heard the cell door open and heard the guard walking in.
    “Get your friend to shut up,” the guard said. “Do
you understand?”
    “He is not a friend,” Merek replied. “Just a man
we met. A man who has the plague.”
    The guard, baffled, looked down and noticed the
red sash and his eyes widened.
    “How did he get in here?” the guard asked. “He
should’ve been separated.”
    Godfrey coughed more and more, his entire body
racked in a coughing fit.
    He soon felt rough hands grab him and drag him
out, shoving him. He stumbled across the hall, and with one last shove, he was
thrown into the pit with the plague victims.
    Godfrey lay on top of the infected body, trying
not to breathe too loudly, trying to turn his head away, and not breathe in the
man’s disease. He prayed to God he didn’t get it. It would be a long night,
lying here.
    But he was unguarded now. And when it was
light, he would rise.
    And he would strike.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    Thorgrin felt himself plunging to the bottom of
the ocean, the pressure building in his ears as he sank in the icy water,
feeling as if he were being stabbed by a million daggers. Yet as he plunged
deeper, the strangest thing happened: the light did not get darker, but
brighter. As he flailed, sinking, dragged down by the weight of the sea, he
looked down and was shocked to see, in a cloud of light, the last person he’d
expected to see here: his mother. She smiled up at him, the light so intense he
could barely see her face, and she reached out to him with loving arms as he
sank, heading right for her.
    “My son,” she said, her voice crystal clear
despite the waters. “I am here with you. I love you. It is not your time yet.
Be strong. You have passed the test, yet there are many more to come. Face the
world and never forget who you are. Never forget: your power comes not from
your weaponry, but from inside you.”
    Thorgrin opened his mouth to answer back, but as
he did, he found himself engulfed by water, swallowing, drowning.
    Thor woke with a start, looking all around,
wondering where he was. He felt a rough material on his wrists and realized he
was bound, his hands behind his back, against a wooden pole. He looked around
the dim hold, felt the rocking motion, and he knew at once he was on a ship. He
could tell by the way his body moved, by the slats of light coming in, by the
moldy smell of men trapped below deck.
    Thorgrin looked about, immediately on guard,
feeling weak, and trying to remember. The last thing he remembered was that awful
storm, the shipwreck, he and his men tumbling from the boat. He remembered
Angel, remembered clutching onto her for dear life, and he remembered the sword
in his belt, the Sword of the Dead. How had he survived?
    Thor looked all around, wondering how he was sailing
at sea, confused, looking desperately for his brothers, and for Angel. He felt
relieved as he made out shapes in the darkness, and