A Sea of Shields (Book #10 in the Sorcerer's Ring) by Morgan Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t want us here. They don’t want any part of the mainland—unless they are invading it, of course. To live in harmony, I have concluded, is just not their way.”
    Srog sighed.
    “We waste our time here. Your sister should withdraw. Leave them to their own fate.”
    Reece nodded, listening, rubbing his hands before the fire, when suddenly, the sun broke free from the clouds, and the dark, wet weather morphed to a clear, shining summer day. A distant horn sounded.
    “Your ship!” Srog cried out. “We must go. You must set sail before the weather returns. I will see you off.”
    Srog led Reece out a side door in the fort, and Reece was amazed as he squinted in the bright sunlight. It was as if the perfect summer day had returned again.
    Reece and Srog walked quickly, side by side, followed by several of Srog’s men, rocks crunching beneath their boots as they navigated the hills and made their way down winding trails toward the distant shore below. They passed gray boulders and rock-lined hills and cliffs peppered with goats that clung to the hillsides and chewed at weeds. As they neared the shore, all around them bells tolled from the water, warning ships of lifting fog.
    “I can see firsthand the conditions you are dealing with,” Reece finally said as they walked. “They are not easy. You have held things together here for far longer than others would have, I’m sure. You have done well here. I will be sure to tell the Queen.”
    Srog nodded back in appreciation.
    “I appreciate your saying that,” he said.
    “What is the source of this people’s discontent?” Reece asked. “They are free, after all. We mean them no harm—in fact, we bring them supplies and protection.”
    Srog shook his head.
    “They will not rest until Tirus is free. They consider it a personal shame on them that their leader is imprisoned.”
    “Yet they are lucky he only sits in prison, and has not been executed for his betrayals.”
    Srog nodded.
    “True. But these people do not understand that.”
    “And if we freed him?” Reece asked. “Would that set them at peace?”
    Srog shook his head.
    “I doubt it. I believe that would only embolden them for some other discontent.”
    “Then what is to be done?” Reece asked.
    Srog sighed.
    “Abandon this place,” he said. “And as quickly as possible. I don’t like what I see. I sense a revolt stirring.”
    “Yet we vastly outnumber them in men and ships.”
    Srog shook his head.
    “That is all but an illusion,” he said. “They are well organized. We are on their ground. They have a million subtle ways of sabotage we cannot anticipate. We are sitting here in a den of snakes.”
    “Not Matus, though,” Reece said.
    “True,” Srog replied. “But he is the only one.”
    There is one other, Reece thought. Stara. But he kept his thoughts close to himself. Hearing all of this made him want to rescue Stara, to take her out of this place as quickly as possible. He vowed that he would. But first he needed to sail back and settle his affairs. Then he could return for her.
    As they stepped onto the sand, Reece looked up and saw the ship before him, his men waiting.
    He stopped before it, and Srog turned to him and clasped his shoulder warmly.
    “I will share all of this with Gwendolyn,” Reece said. “I will tell her your concerns. Yet I know she is determined with these isles. She views them as part of a greater strategy for the Ring. For now, at least, you must keep harmony here. Whatever it takes. What do you need? More ships? More men?”
    Srog shook his head.
    “All the men and ships in the world will not change these Upper Islanders. The only thing that will is the edge of the sword.”
    Reece looked back, horrified.
    “Gwendolyn would never slaughter innocents,” Reece said.
    “I know that,” Srog replied. “Which is why, I suspect, many of our men will die.”

CHAPTER NINE
     
     
    Stara stood on the parapets of her mother’s fort, a square stone fortress