A Feast of Dragons - By Morgan Rice Page 0,55

kindest, most reassuring voice he had ever heard. He longed to hear it again.

Suddenly, the wave came crashing down, and took the boat plunging down with it, and he braced himself as he headed for the rocks.

Thor woke with a start, sitting upright, breathing hard.

The dawn was breaking over the horizon, and all around him, the Legion members were strewn about, fast asleep. His mind spun with the dream: it had seemed so real.

As he got his bearings, he realized that today was the day. The final day of the Hundred. The day they had all been dreading.

He felt a hundred years older than when he’d arrived here a hundred days ago. He could not believe that he had made it, and that this was his final day. His time here had far exceeded his imagination. Each day been harder than the next, each training more grueling, pushing him and his brothers harder and harder. Days became longer and longer, as he had learned to train with every weapon known to man—and some not even known to man. They had been forced to train in every possible terrain, from swamps to glaciers, and had been screamed at from early morning to late at night. More than one of his brothers had dropped out, had been sent home alone on a small ship. Many had been injured. Two had died accidentally, slipping off a cliff on a particularly stormy day. They had all encountered trials and tribulations together, fought against monsters, survived every type of weather. This island was unforgiving, and had gone from hot to cold with no warning, seeming to have only two seasons.

As Thor sat there, Krohn beside him, a part of him dreaded this final day, wanted to lie back down, to go back to sleep—but he knew he could not. These last hundred days had forged him into a different person, and he was ready to face whatever they would throw at him.

Thor sat there in the early morning light, waiting. Soon, they would all arise, gear up, embark on their final mission. But until they did, he could revel in being the first to rise, and sit there and enjoy the silence, watch the sun break one final time over this place he had come to love.

*

Thor stood with the others on the rocky, narrow beach, hands on his hips, looking out at the storm tossed sea, feeling the chill in the air of the new season. He had learned to become so used to adverse weather that he no longer shivered as a freezing gale brushed across his body. He stared out at the sea, his grey eyes glistening, and felt hardened, impervious. He felt like a man.

His brothers in arms stood close by, Krohn beside him, near the fleet of small wooden boats preparing to set sail for the final test of the Hundred. They waited, all anxious, as Kolk paced among them, looking as dissatisfied and intense as ever.

“Those of you who have made it to this day might want to congratulate yourselves. Don’t. You have one final day left, and this day is what sets others apart. If you survive it, you will come back a Legion member. All the trials you have been through, they have all just been preparation for what you’re about to do.”

Kolk stopped and turned, pointing at the horizon.

“That island on the horizon,” he said, “on it lives a lone dragon, an outcast from the land of the dragons. We have lived in his shadow these past hundred days, and have been fortunate he has not attacked. Warriors do their best to avoid the place. Today, we will pay it a visit.

“This dragon jealously guards a treasure. An ancient, golden scepter. He is rumored to hide it deep in his lair. You must find the canyon, descend into it, find the scepter and return with it.”

There came a nervous murmur from the group as the boys turned and looked at each other, fear filling their eyes. Thor’s heart pounded as he looked out at the crashing sea, at the island in the distance, covered in a surreal mist, even on this clear day. He could feel its energy, even from here. Over the last hundred days his power had developed, and he was now able to be more sensitive to sensing energies, even from a distance. He could sense that a formidable creature lived on it, an ancient, primordial creature, and that they were heading into