44. Captain Morgana Silversword
Chapter 44
Captain Morgana Silversword
“G et up!” Calamity shouted, her hands on Morgana’s shoulders. “We have to go, now !”
“Thrormir?” Morgana asked quietly.
“He’s dead,” Calamity spat. “Gone. You can’t bring him back. Now let’s go !”
As she shouted, a hunk of stone fell from the ceiling just a few feet in front of Morgana, blocking her view of Thrormir. She looked around and realised that the whole chamber was rumbling, and debris was falling all over the place. Her shackles were also loose on the floor. She was free.
“Where are the others? What’s happening?”
“They’re already gone,” Calamity said, reaching for Morgana’s hand. She let her take it this time, allowing herself to be dragged up and across the room. It was pure chaos, with fallen cloaked figures everywhere. Arnault was nowhere to be seen.
Morgana gave Thrormir’s body one last glance – one last apology – before she was dragged out of the room.
Calamity shoved the door closed behind them, and then they took off running down the passageway. When they reached the end, they had two choices: left or right. Morgana looked from side to side, searching for any clue of which way they went. But then a familiar figure stepped out into the hallway and waved.
“Morgana!” Gorlag called. Yorick stepped out, too, and Morgana and Calamity ran to meet them. They all embraced, and Morgana noticed that all four of them were shaking. They would have a lot to grieve together if they got out of this alive.
“There you all are,” said a voice from further down the hall, and they all jumped; Morgana worried at first that Arnault had caught up with them. But it wasn’t him; it was another cloaked figure.
A cloaked figure who had all of their armour and weapons with him, weirdly enough.
“Who are you?” Morgana called, standing in front of her friends.
“A friend,” the man said as he dropped his hood. “From the Adventurers Guild. My name’s Ser Liam Prize.”
“Sorry,” Yorick said, tittering, “your name is ‘Ser Prize’? As in, surprise?”
“So you’ve heard of me?” Ser Prize asked, beaming.
“How did you know to find us?” Calamity asked from behind Morgana’s shoulder.
Ser Prize set the gear down on the ground and took a couple steps back, his own hands in the air, but Morgana didn’t miss the shape of a shield hidden beneath his cloak, or what looked like a javelin poking out.
“We’ve been tracking the Order of the Twelve for a long time. It wasn’t until you were sent on your mission that we suspected they were after the Supremacy Sphere.”
The Order of the Twelve. That must have been why the symbol was the twelve-pointed star. But twelve who? Or what?
“Where is the Sphere?” Ser Prize asked.
“Destroyed.”
Ser Prize’s face fell; he must have known what that meant.
“Then it’s best to get you out of here and regroup. Arnault is likely to retaliate.”
The others moved forward and began donning their armour and equipping their gear, but Morgana stayed put.
“We need to go back for his body,” she said.
“We can’t,” Yorick said. “You saw what was happening in there. And if we get killed, he died for nothing.”
Morgana scoffed. “He died to destroy the Sphere. He was protecting everyone.”
“He was protecting us ,” Yorick said, staring up at her. “Don’t negate that choice.”
Morgana looked down at her little friend, who was clearly hurting, too. Then she looked back up at Ser Prize, who was beckoning them back the way he had come. She had a choice to make.
Yorick was right. If Thormir had died protecting these people, the people he loved, the best thing she could do to honour him would be to make sure that sacrifice wasn’t in vain. So she bent down and picked up her armour and great sword, then nodded at Ser Prize.
“Lead the way.”