A Dream of Mortals (Book #15 in the Sorcerer's Ring) Read Online Free PDF Page A

he added. “I am
here to make sure of it. I want you dying slowly. I want you to be great objects
of entertainment. You will learn to fight, and learn it well, to prolong our
pleasure. Because you are not men anymore. You are not slaves. You are lower
than slaves: you are gladiators now. Welcome to your new, and final, role. It won’t
last long.”
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Volusia marched through the desert, her
hundreds of thousands of men behind her, the sound of their marching boots filling
the sky. It was a sweet sound to her ears, a sound of progress, of victory. She
looked out as she went, and she was satisfied to see corpses lining the
horizon, everywhere on the dried hard sands outlying the Empire capital.
Thousands of them, sprawled out, all perfectly still, lying on their backs and
looking up to the sky in agony, as if they had been flattened by a giant tidal
wave.
    Volusia knew it was no tidal wave. It was her
sorcerers, the Voks. They had cast a very powerful spell, and had killed all
those who thought they could ambush and kill her.
    Volusia smirked as she marched, seeing her handiwork,
relishing in this day of victory, in once again outsmarting those who meant to
kill her. These were all Empire leaders, all great men, men who had never been
defeated before, and the only thing standing between her and the capital. Now here
they were, all these Empire leaders, all the men who had dared to defy Volusia,
all the men who had thought they were smarter than her—all of them dead.
    Volusia marched between them, sometimes
avoiding the bodies, sometimes stepping over them, and sometimes, when she felt
like it, stepping right on them. She took great satisfaction in feeling the
enemy’s flesh beneath her boots. It made her feel like a kid again.
    Volusia looked up and saw the capital up ahead,
its huge golden dome shining unmistakably in the distance, saw the massive
walls surrounding it, a hundred feet high, noted its entrance, framed by
soaring, arched golden doors, and felt the thrill of her destiny unfolding before
her. Now, nothing lay between her and her final seat of power. No more
politicians or leaders or commanders could stand in her way with any claim to
rule the Empire but she. The long march, her taking one city after the next all
these moons, her amassing her army one city at a time—finally, it all came to
this. Just beyond those walls, just beyond those shining golden doors, stood
her final conquest. Soon, she would be inside, she would assume the throne of
power, and when she did, there would be no one and nothing left to stop her. She
would take command of all the Empire’s armies, of all its provinces and
regions, the four horns and two spikes, and finally, every last creature of the
Empire would have to declare her—a human—their supreme commander.
    Even more so, they would have to call her Goddess .
    The thought of it made her smile. She would
erect statues of herself in every city, before every hall of power; she would
name holidays after herself, make people salute each other by her name, and the
Empire would soon know no name but hers.
    Volusia marched before her army beneath the
early morning suns, examining those golden doors and realizing this would be
one of the greatest moments of her life. Leading the way before her men, she felt
invincible—especially now that all the traitors within her ranks were dead. How
foolish they had been, she thought, to assume she was naïve, to assume she
would fall into their trap, just because she was young. So much for their old
age—so far that had gotten them. It had gained them only an early death, an
early death for underestimating her wisdom—a wisdom even greater than theirs.
    And yet, as Volusia marched, as she studied the
Empire bodies in the desert, she began to feel a growing sense of concern. There
weren’t as many bodies, she realized, as there should have been. There were perhaps
a few thousand bodies, yet not the hundreds of thousands