The Gift of Battle by Morgan Rice Read Free Book Online

you. You saved our lives.”
    Godfrey sighed.
    “And for what?”
he asked, upset. “What good did it do? So that we can all die down here?”
    Silis looked
glum.
    “If we remain
here,” Merek asked, “will we all die?”
    Silis turned to
him and nodded sadly.
    “Yes,” she
answered flatly. “Not today or tomorrow, but within a few days, yes. They
cannot get down here—but we cannot go up there. Soon enough our provisions will
run out.”
    “So what then?”
Ario asked, facing her. “Do you plan to die down here? Because I, for one, do
not.”
    Silis paced, her
brow furrowed, and Godfrey could see her thinking long and hard.
    Then, finally,
she stopped.
    “There is a
chance,” she said. “It is risky. But it just might work.”
    She turned and
faced them, and Godfrey held his breath in hope and anticipation.
    “In my father’s
time, there was an underground passage beneath the castle,” she said. “It leads
through the castle walls. We could find it, if it still exists, and leave at
night, under the cover of darkness. We can try to make our way through the
city, to the harbor. We can take one of my ships, if there are any left, and
sail from this place.”
    A long,
uncertain silence fell over the room.
    “Risky,” Merek
finally said, his voice grave. “The city will be teeming with Empire. How are
we to cross it without getting killed?”
    Silis shrugged.
    “True,” she
replied. “If they catch us, we will be killed. But if we emerge when it is dark
enough, and we kill anyone who stands in our way, perhaps we will reach the
harbor.”
    “And what if we
find this passageway and reach the harbor, and your ships aren’t there?” Ario
asked.
    She faced him.
    “No plan is
certain,” she said. “We may very well die out there—and we may very well die
down here.”
    “Death comes for
us all,” Godfrey chimed in, feeling a new sense of purpose as he stood and
faced the others, feeling a sense of resolve as he overcame his fears. “It is a
question of how we wish to die: down here, cowering as rats? Or up there, aiming
for our freedom?”
    Slowly, one at a
time, the others all stood. They faced him and all nodded solemnly back.
    He knew, at that
moment, a plan had been formed. Tonight, they would escape.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    Loti and Loc
walked side by side beneath the burning desert sun, the two of them shackled to
each other, as they were whipped by the Empire taskmasters behind them. They
trekked through the wasteland and as they did, Loti wondered once again why her
brother had volunteered them for this dangerous, backbreaking job. Had he gone
mad?
    “What were you
thinking?” she whispered to him. They were prodded from behind and as Loc lost
his balance and stumbled forward, Loti caught him by his good arm before he
fell.
    “Why would you
volunteer us?” she added.
    “Look ahead,” he
said, regaining his balance. “What do you see?”
    Loti looked
ahead and saw nothing but the monotonous desert stretched out before them,
filled with slaves, the ground hard with rocks; beyond that, she saw a slope to
a ridge, atop which labored a dozen more slaves. Everywhere were taskmasters,
the sound of whips heavy in the air.
    “I see nothing,”
she replied, impatient, “but more of the same: slaves being worked to their
deaths by taskmasters.”
    Loti suddenly
felt a searing pain across her back, as if her skin were being torn off, and
she cried out as she was lashed across her back, the whip slicing her skin.
    She turned to
see the scowling face of a taskmaster behind her.
    “Keep silent!”
he commanded.
    Loti felt like
crying from the intense pain, but she held her tongue and continued to walk
beside Loc, her shackles rattling under the sun. She vowed to kill all of these
Empire as soon as she could.
    They continued
marching in silence, the only sound that of their boots crunching beneath the
rock. Finally, Loc inched closer beside her.
    “It’s not what
you see,” he whispered, “but