A Charge of Valor by Morgan Rice Page A

Thor?” she asked. “After what has happened to me, Thor won’t love me anymore. I will be lowered in his eyes.”
    “ Do you think so little of Thorgrin?” Argon asked. “He may love you even more.”
    Gwen hadn’t considered that.
    “ He may,” she said, “but deep inside he might feel differently. I don’t want to put that burden on him. I don’t want him to feel that he has to be with me. I want him to want to be with me.”
    Argon slowly shook his head.
    “ You vastly underestimate our friend Thor,” he said. “His love for you is as for himself.”
    Gwendolyn lowered her face and felt a tear roll down her cheek. As he spoke the words, she felt them to be true.
    “ So what now?” she asked. “I can’t stay here. I will be captured. Do I just surrender?”
    Argon sighed.
    “ You are well-read,” he said. “Do you remember what women would do in times of old if they were attacked? Where they would go?”
    “ Go?” she asked, puzzled. As he said it, she was dimly aware, and it began to come back to her.
    “ The Tower of Refuge,” Argon said.
    As he said it, she began to recall.
    “ At the southern end of the Ring,” she said, remembering. “A place where women go to heal. A monastery. They take a vow of silence. Some return to society, some don’t.”
    “ It is a sacred place,” Argon added, “a place where you cannot be touched by anyone. Not even Andronicus. Take time to heal, to reflect. And then make a decision. Better to go there, and retreat from the world, than to die.”
    As Gwendolyn pondered it, she looked out of the window and watched Andronicus’ troops closing in. It slowly came back to her, stories she had read of the Tower of Refuge, the place where women fled in ancient times, to regroup and heal themselves. The more she thought about it, the more it felt like the right thing to do. Her people did not need her now. What they needed was for her to survive.
    “ But what if—” Gwen turned to talk to Argon, but he was already gone.
    She searched the room, baffled. But he was nowhere to be seen.
    Gwen knew it was only a matter of minutes now. She took out the vial and examined it once again, struggling with herself.
    Suddenly, she came to a decision. Argon was right: she was stronger than that. She would never give in to cowardice. Never .
    Gwen reached back and hurled the vial, smashing it into the wall. The liquid stuck to the wall with a hissing noise, then dripped slowly down it like tar.
    “ Steffen!” Gwen called, hurrying towards the door.
    In moments Steffen arrived, rushing into the room, looking at her with panic in his eyes.
    “ The secret tunnels you told me of. Do you know them?”
    “ Yes, my lady,” he said in a rush. “Srog instructed me. He commanded me to stay by your side, and if you ever needed them, to show you the way.”
    “ Show me now,” she said.
    His eyes lit in excitement.
    “ But my lady, where will you go?”
    “ I will cross the Ring, to the South, to the Tower of Refuge.”
    “ My lady, I must accompany you. It is not a journey you should make alone.”
    She shook her head, anxious, hearing the footsteps of the soldiers outside the gates.
    “ You are a true friend,” she said, “but it will be a perilous journey and I will not endanger you.”
    He shook his head, adamant.
    “ I will not show you the way unless you allow me to accompany. My honor forbids it.”
    Gwendolyn heard the distant footsteps of the approaching men, and she knew she had no choice. And she was, as ever, grateful for Steffen’s loyalty.
    “ Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”
    Steffen turned and fled the room and she followed him down corridor after corridor, twisting and turning, until they came to a hidden door at the end of a hall, camouflaged in the stone. Steffen opened it, and she knelt down beside him and peered in.
    It was a tunnel of blackness, cold and dank, insects crawling inside, a chill running through her at the feel of the draft. They