A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring) Read Free Page B

had lived his life for no longer even
lived. His very homeland had disappeared. And yet still, he went on, even when
he didn’t know what for. He was searching for it, he knew. And it was that
ability to go on, perhaps most of all, that made a warrior, that made a man
stand the test of time when so many others fell away. It was what separated
true warriors from fleeting ones.
    “SAND WALL AHEAD!” shouted a voice.
    It was a foreign voice, one that
Kendrick was still getting used to, and he looked over to see Koldo, the King’s
eldest son, his black skin standing out amongst the group, leading the pack of soldiers
from the Ridge. In the brief time Kendrick had known him, he had already come
to respect Koldo, watching the way he led his men, and the way they looked up
to him. He was a knight whom Kendrick was proud to ride beside.
    Koldo pointed to the horizon and
Kendrick looked out and saw what he was pointing to—in fact, he heard it before
he saw it. It was a shrill whistling, like a windstorm, and Kendrick recalled
his time in the Waste, being dragged through it semi-conscious. He recalled the
raging sands, churning like a tornado that never went away, forming a solid
wall and rising to the sky. It had looked impermeable, like a real wall, and it
helped obscure the Ridge from the rest of the Empire.
    As the whistling grew louder, Kendrick dreaded
re-entering.
    “SCARVES!” commanded a voice.
    Kendrick saw Ludvig, the elder of the King’s
twins, stretching out a long, mesh white cloth and wrapping it over his face.
One by one the other soldiers followed his lead and did the same.
    There came riding up beside Kendrick the
soldier who had introduced himself as Naten, a man Kendrick recalled taking an
instant dislike to. He was rebellious of Kendrick’s assigned command, and
disrespectful.
    Naten smirked over at Kendrick and his
men as he rode closer.
    “You think you lead this mission,” he
said, “just because the King assigned you. Yet you don’t even know enough to
cover your men from the Sand Wall.”
    Kendrick glared back at the man, seeing
in his eyes that he held an unprovoked hatred for him. At first Kendrick had
thought that perhaps he had just been threatened by him, an outsider—but now he
could see that this was just a man who loved to hate.
    “Give him the scarves!” Koldo yelled out
to Naten, impatient.
    After some more time passed and the wall
came even closer, the sands raging, Naten finally reached down and threw the
sack of scarves at Kendrick, hitting him roughly in the chest as he rode.
    “Distribute these to your men,” he said,
“or end up cut up by the wall. It’s your choice—I don’t really care.”
    Naten rode off, veering back to his men,
and Kendrick quickly distributed the scarves to his men, riding up beside each
one and handing them off. Kendrick then wrapped his own scarf about his head
and face, as the others from the Ridge did, wrapping it around again and again,
until he felt secure yet could still breathe. He could barely see through it,
the world obscured, blurry in the light.
    Kendrick braced himself as they charged
closer and the sounds of the swirling sands became deafening. Already fifty
yard away, the air was filled with the sound of sand bouncing off armor. A
moment later, he felt it.
    Kendrick plunged into the Sand Wall, and
it was like immersing himself in a churning ocean of sand. The noise was so
loud he could barely hear the pounding of his own heart in his ears, as the
sand embraced every inch of his body, fighting to get in, to tear him apart.
The swirling sands were so intense, he could not even see Brandt or Atme, just
a few feet beside him.
    “KEEP RIDING!” Kendrick called out to
his men, wondering if any of them could even hear him, reassuring himself as
much as them. The horses were neighing like crazy, slowing down, acting oddly,
and Kendrick looked down and saw the sand getting in their eyes. He kicked
harder, praying his horse didn’t stop