Sir Rowan and the Camerian Conquest by Chuck Black Read Free Book Online

only hope now was that Balenteen had escaped and would negotiate to pay his ransom.
    Time crept by as Rowan lay there in utter darkness, with no way of knowing how long he was held prisoner. Occasionally he heard creaturesscurrying across the floor, and he shuddered when one brushed up against his leg. Every so often he would hear voices in the distance or the flutter of bat wings. It was the occasional squealing of rats that shook Rowan the most, however, for he imagined that they often fell prey to the glowing moths and caterpillars. A captured rat would squeal frantically for a short time, then slowly the screams would fade away to silence.
    The marauders came each day and loosened him from the short chain that bound him to the stake and allowed him to walk about the cave in fetters. They gave Rowan only enough food and water to keep him alive. His howling hunger faded gradually to a dull ache, but thirst was ever with him. His tongue and mouth were so dry that they stuck to each other. He dreaded the visits from the bearded man, who never failed to insult and beat him. Each beating was worse than the previous one, for the man seemed to grow more and more frustrated.
    Rowan grew weaker and weaker, withering away in the darkness until his arms and legs weren’t much thicker than bone. By the growth of his beard, he guessed that many weeks had passed, and he began to lose hope. Where was Balenteen?
    To keep himself from going insane, Rowan relived the glory days of his tournaments over and over in his mind. But as the weeks turned to months, his tournament memories seemed so far in the past that he began to wonder if he’d even lived them at all.
    Then, finally, the bearded leader of the marauders came to kill him.

JOURNEY OF DREAMS
     
    For nearly a year I have waited for the promise of your ransom, and for all of my trouble with you I have gained nothing!” The bearded man was in a fury. Rowan just lay in a fetal position, hoping the end would be swift.
    “Your own people don’t think enough of you to even pay for the food I’ve fed you—you pathetic, worthless Camerian!” The enraged man drew his sword to plunge it into Rowan’s heart. Rowan opened his arms to welcome the blade.
    The man hesitated. “Why don’t you cower?”
    “Kill me,” Rowan begged with a weak voice.
    The man slowly lowered his sword and began to smile. He stepped backward away from Rowan.
    “Kill me!” Rowan begged again.
    “I am.” The man gave a short laugh, then turned and left, the light of his torch flickering and fading away.
    Rowan realized the marauders would never be back. His cruel execution from thirst and starvation would be their last horrific act. In his condition, it would not take long—perhaps a day or two.
    As he lay there in the dark, Rowan wondered about the purpose of his life and realized that all his glorious trophies and medals, the applauseof thousands, and the admiration of squires and maidens alike meant nothing to him. Only then did he realize that he truly had taken only one significant action in his life, and that was to become a Follower of the Prince. It was that day that he joined something larger than himself.
Why did it take so long and so much pain for me to finally understand this?
he wondered.
    “What a fool I’ve been,” he whispered in the darkness. “Forgive me, my Prince. If I could live another life, I would live it wholly committed to You. Forgive me.”
    Rowan wept softly at first and then uncontrollably—dry, tearless sobs that hurt his chest. His wails echoed off the walls of his small chamber and into the cavern beyond. Eventually, his cries softened into sighs of relinquishment. Curling up quietly on the hard dirt floor, Rowan finally released himself to the death that awaited him. His mind wallowed in the fringes between life and death, hallucinating in freedom from the chains and the darkness of the cave that would be his grave.
    The cave began to glow, and the rocky walls