A Reign of Steel Read Online Free PDF

his sword slash, but it was too late. The sword cut right through
his father, and as Andronicus split in two, Thor felt wracked with grief.
    Thor
blinked and found himself walking down an endlessly long altar, holding Gwen’s
hand. He realized it was their wedding procession. They walked toward a blood-red
sun, and as Thor looked to both sides, he saw all the seats were empty. He
turned to look at Gwen, and as she looked at him, he was terrified as her skin
dried out and she became a skeleton, collapsing to dust in his hand. She fell in
a pile of ashes at his feet.
    Thor
found himself standing before his mother’s castle. He had somehow crossed the
skywalk, and he stood before immense double doors, gold, shining, three times
as tall as he. There was no handle, and he reached up and slammed his palms on
them until they started to bleed. The sound echoed throughout the world. But no
one came to answer.
    Thor
threw back his head.
    “Mother!”
he yelled.
    Thor
sank to his knees, and as he did, the ground turned into mud, and Thor slid
down a cliff, falling and falling, flailing through the air, down, hundreds of
feet, to a raging ocean below. He held his hands out to the sky, watched his
mother’s castle disappear from view, and shrieked.
    Thor
opened his eyes, breathless, the wind brushing his face, and he looked all
around, trying to figure out where he was. He looked down and saw an ocean
passing by beneath him, at dizzying speed. He looked up and saw he that clutched
something rough, and as he heard the great flapping of wings, he realized he was
holding on to Mycoples’s scales, his hands cold from the nighttime air, his
face numb from the gusts of sea wind. Mycoples flew with great speed, her wings
ever flapping, and as Thor looked straight ahead, he realized he had fallen
asleep on her. They were still flying, as they had been for days now, racing beneath
the night sky, underneath a million twinkling red stars.
    Thor
sighed and wiped the back of his head, which was covered in sweat. He had vowed
to stay alert, but it had been so many days, their trek together, flying, searching
for the Land of the Druids. Luckily Mycoples, knowing him as well as she did, knew
he was asleep and flew steadily, making sure he did not fall off. The two of
them had been traveling so long together, they had become like one. As much as Thor
missed the Ring, he was thrilled, at least, to be back with his old friend
again, just the two of them, traveling the world; he could tell that she, too, was
happy to be with him, purring contentedly. He knew that Mycoples would never
let anything bad happen to him—and he felt the same way about her.
    Thor
looked below and examined the foaming, luminescent green waters of the sea;
this was a strange and exotic sea, one he had never seen before, one of the
many they had passed on their search. They continued to fly north, ever north, following
the pointing arrow on the relic he had found in his hometown. Thor felt they
were getting closer to his mother, to her land, to the Land of the Druids. He
could feel it.
    Thor
hoped that the arrow was accurate. Deep down, he felt it was. He could sense in
every fiber of his being that it was taking them closer to his mother, to his
destiny.
    Thor
rubbed his eyes, determined to stay awake. He had thought they would have
already found the Land of the Druids by now; it felt as if they had already
covered half the world. For moment he worried: what if it was all a fantasy? What
if his mother didn’t exist? What if the Land of the Druids didn’t exist? What
if he was doomed to never find her?
    He
tried to shake these thoughts from his mind as he urged Mycoples on.
    Faster , Thor thought.
    Mycoples
purred and flapped her wings harder, and as she put her head down, the two of
them dove into the mist, heading for some point on the horizon that, Thor knew,
might not even exist.
    *
    The
day broke as Thor had never seen it, the sky awash with not two suns, but
three, all