A Quest of Heroes (Book #1 in the Sorcerer's Ring)

CHAPTER ONE
     
     
    The boy stood on the highest
knoll of the low country in the Western Kingdom of the Ring, looking north,
watching the first of the rising suns. As far as he could see stretched rolling
green hills, like camel humps, dipping and rising in a series of valleys and
peaks. The burnt-orange rays of the first sun lingered in the morning mist,
making them sparkle, lending the light a magic that matched the boy’s mood. He
rarely woke this early or ventured this far from home—and never ascended this
high—knowing it would incur his father’s wrath. But on this day, he didn’t
care. On this day, he disregarded the million rules and chores that had
oppressed him for his fourteen years. For this day was different. It was the
day his destiny had arrived.
    The boy—Thorgrin of the Western
Kingdom of the Southern Province of the clan McLeod—known to all he liked
simply as Thor—the youngest of four boys, the least favorite of his father, had
stayed awake all night in anticipation of this day. He had tossed and turned,
bleary-eyed, waiting, willing the first sun to rise. For a day like this
arrived only once every several years, and if he missed it, he would be stuck
in this village, doomed to tend his father’s flock the rest of his days. That
was a thought he could not bear.
    Conscription Day. It was the one
day the King’s Army canvassed the provinces and hand-picked volunteers for the
King’s Legion. As long as he had lived, Thor had dreamt of nothing else. For
him, life meant one thing: joining The Silver, the king’s elite force of
knights, bedecked in the finest armor and the choicest arms anywhere in the two
kingdoms. And one could not enter the Silver without first joining the Legion,
the company of squires ranging from fourteen to nineteen years of age. And if
one was not the son of a noble, or of a famed warrior, there was no other way
to join the Legion.
    Conscription Day was the only
exception, that rare event every few years when the Legion ran low and the
king’s men scoured the land in search of new recruits. Everyone knew that few
commoners were chosen—and that even fewer would actually make the Legion.
    Thor stood there, studying the
horizon intently, looking for any sign of motion. The Silver, he knew, would
have to take this, the only road into his village, and he wanted to be the
first to spot them. His flock of sheep protested all around him, rose up in a
chorus of annoying grunts, urging him to bring them back down the mountain,
where the grazing was choicer. He tried to block out the noise, and the stench.
He had to concentrate.
    What had made all of this
bearable, all these years of tending flocks, of being his father’s lackey, his
older brothers’ lackey, the one cared for least and burdened most, was the idea
that one day he would leave this place. One day, when The Silver came, he would
surprise all those who had underestimated him and be selected. In one swift
motion, he would ascend their carriage and say goodbye to all of this.
    Thor’s father, of course, had
never considered him seriously as a candidate for the Legion—in fact, he had
never considered him as a candidate for anything. Instead, his father devoted
his love and attention to Thor’s three older brothers. The oldest was nineteen
and the others but a year behind each other, leaving Thor a good three years
younger than any of them. Perhaps because they were closer in age, or perhaps
because they looked alike and looked nothing like Thor, the three of them stuck
together, barely acknowledging Thor’s existence.
    Worse, they were taller and
broader and stronger than he, and Thor, who knew he was not short, nonetheless
felt small beside them, felt his muscular legs frail compared to their barrels
of oak. His father made no move to rectify any of this—and in fact seemed to
relish it—leaving Thor to attend the sheep and sharpen weapons while his
brothers were left to train. It was never spoken, but always understood, that
Thor would spend his life in the wings, be forced to watch his brothers achieve
great things. His destiny, if his father and brothers had their way, would be
to stay here, swallowed by this village, and give his family the support they
demanded.
    Worse still was that Thor sensed
his brothers, paradoxically, were threatened by him, maybe even hated him. Thor
could see it in their every glance, every gesture. He didn’t understand how,
but he aroused something like fear or jealousy