Narstron felt the cold calculation run over him. “You killed Cyrus. You killed Andren.” This is going to hurt. But who cares?
“In point of fact, I didn’t kill anyone.” Malpravus’s cold eyes still held a gleam of satisfaction.
Narstron felt the slow sliding as he worked his arms forward, felt the fiery edge of the blades carve through his hands as he put every last bit of his strength into working them forward. “You brought this on us. On all of us.”
Malpravus brought his hands up, as though he were about to cast a spell. “Oh, that. Well, yes, I suppose I did.” He grinned, gleeful. “I have always known which direction to fan the flames of power, after all.” He paused and closed his eyes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, dear boy, I have your end to attend to.
“Oh, of course,” Narstron said. “Don’t mind me.” Cyrus. Andren. He felt the tug of resistance on his hands and kept his eyes anchored on Malpravus, only feet away from him. He leaned forward slowly, feeling the blades rip at him, but kept from crying out. The pain was duller than it had been when the knives first went in—duller, but by no means gone. Sweet Rotan, the agony! He gritted his teeth together but kept his expression flat, trying not to give a hint. If I can get the hammer —if that’s really Rotan’s hammer—I can break through them, carve the Emperor’s head in like he’s a carnival bell needing to be rung, drag Cyrus and Andren to the exit, find a healer and a resurrection spell—
Malpravus’s eyes were still closed, but his hands glowed now, a black sort of luminescence. It was like lightning behind the darkest thundercloud, a hint of brightness escaping a shroud, and the dark elf’s lips moved in time with some magic that he wove. The red ruby was still clenched in his fingers.
Knock him asunder, Narstron thought. Pull free, grab the hammer ... make ... them ... PAY—
His hands ripped free of the blades pinning him to the upturned table and he roared, a full-throated cry of battle like nothing he’d ever given off before. Like Cyrus. The goblins were there again, out of the background. They stood out in stark clarity, green figures against the dark cave walls, shuffling back from the sheer ferocity of his warcry. Narstron’s legs held and he forced all his strength into them, willing them to hold his weight even though he felt so heavy. The sorcerer in front of him was only a step away, and he reached for the hammer, clumsily—
All the breath seeped out of him in the next instant as the darkness swept forward from Malpravus’s hands and wrapped around him. A succession of lights flashed before his eyes like a blanket being dragged quickly on and off of him on a bright summer’s day. Narstron saw the moments of his life—the day he left Fertiss, the face of the maid in Reikonos who’d given him his first time, the dark, homey guildhall of the Kings—
The day he’d met Cyrus in the Pelar Hills, sword in hand. There is no finer warrior. There is no fear in him. Narstron’s teeth ground together and he clenched his hand around the hammer’s handle. There was no fear in him. I should be afraid now, shouldn’t I? A grim smile formed on his lips. Maybe I did learn something in all our conversations about the God of War, after all. I’m committed to it now. My purpose is decided. One last gasp of defiance at this bastard who killed my friends—
His fingers gripped the heft of the hammer, and he felt warmth surge through him, one that faded quickly with the last flash. Cyrus would defy. Cyrus would defy to the last. He lifted it, felt it come up with ease, even as his legs failed him and his knees hit the hard rock floor of the cave. His shoulder landed and there was a clink of metal against the stone. Unyielding. His weight fell on it as his body unbalanced and all the strength began to leave him, a slow, seeping feeling as the last warmth began to drain from him.
A face appeared as he slumped, his body oozing beneath him like water poured out of the tankard that gave it shape and purpose. The dark blue skin was stretched just enough to cover the skull beneath, but not enough to hide the grin. “A valiant effort, my friend,” Malpravus said with a ghastly smile. “But as I said, your fight is done. You have only moments remaining. Seconds left, enough for last words and little else before your life, your soul, departs you forever.” He held up the ruby again, in front of Narstron’s eyes, and there was a glimmer in it now, at the center. “So...what say you?”
Narstron looked up at the hollow, sunken sockets and the barely-there eyes behind them, devoid of anything but some sallow glee at the spectacle they were witnessing. Only one thing to say to that, really. He moved a hand, beckoning Malpravus closer. He opened his lips just slightly, so he could speak, and the dark elf leaned in.
Narstron felt the tangy blood still in his mouth from earlier, from the pummeling he’d taken at the hands of the goblins. What little saliva he had left he gathered with the blood and the breath that he felt crying to come out of him.
He spit it out in one last gasp, one final, furious burst of defiance, and saw it hit the dark elf’s navy face and run down, the amusement and glee that had been there only a moment earlier vanishing into hard lines and anger.
“My fight’s not over,” Narstron said with the last, unhurried breath, and his eyes alighted on the ruby once more. It glistened, glowed brighter, and he felt the last of himself flee his body, leaving the pain behind, as the bright red gem glowed with a light of its own while his faded for the last time.
“So do I,” Cyrus said with a calm realization. He could see Narstron’s face in his mind’s eye, the last image of him being dragged off by the hands of a hundred goblins. “He lived like a warrior. He died like a warrior. And everything else you have to say is lies.”
—Cyrus Davidon to The Gatekeeper
Avenger: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Two
THE GREENEST FIELDS
Note: Takes place immediately following the final chapters of Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four.
One
It was a simple trail of blood like a thousand she’d seen, little spots of red amongst the fallen green leaves. It led off across the plains toward the edge of the Waking Woods. There were shadows around them, a darkness creeping in as twilight came. She sniffed and caught the smell of the one who’d passed this way only an hour or so earlier, his strong, wretched scent still clinging to the weeds like death clings to a corpse. And he smells like death, Martaina Proelius thought to herself, like a wielder of it, like a carrier of it, like a man who brings it with him everywhere he goes.
She was tall, even for an elf, and her legs were longer than most. There were others with her, at her back, the smell of their horses strong in the air. There were two men immediately behind her and a host just a little further back, almost a hundred men ahorse. She had them back a short distance so they didn’t interfere with her sense of smell, her sense of taste. She picked up a leaf fallen into the mud and placed it in her mouth, just for a moment, savoring it. She felt the tang of the greenery, but more than that was the dirt, the blood, and the scent of both was heavy upon it. “Not far,” she announced, speaking around the leaf but nearly in a whisper, and heard her words relayed in a shout to the men behind her, the host, the ones following. It reminded her curiously of a time she’d seen humans turn loose dogs to do the very same work she was doing now, a whole pack of them.
But in her case, the pack was following, keeping the sound of their chatter and the stamping of the horses’ feet on the muddy ground far, far back from her. From her work.
She spat out the leaf, and her long legs carried her onward again, her cloak trailing like a dog in her wake. She was running, and she heard the men spurred to action behind her, the horses coming to a gallop to try and close the distance. It was a hunting party, a war party of Sanctuary.
Except it wasn’t. The men were new, not truly of Sanctuary, not most of them, anyway. They were men of Luukessia, tired and bloodthirsty, with anger boiling over from the loss of their land and ready for a savage kill. She ran along, cold. There was enough hot blood behind her; no need to add her own to the mix.
She carried her bow, the arrow nocked on th
e string, running the way her father had taught her—with care, always with care. Her sharp eyes took in the crags, rocks and uneven ground in the low light of the woefully small moon. It was enough for her to be going by, though she dared not look back, not at the men behind her, not at their torches. For more than one reason.
“How far would you say?” One of them spoke behind her, and she didn’t look back at him, just kept going. She could have answered; she planned to but waited. She could hear the clack of his armor, the puff of his breaths coming as he wheezed, just a little, catching up to her. The horses were at a canter now, keeping their pace far behind her, the distance between them now more than a hundred feet, closer to a hundred and fifty. That worked well for her, she liked it. The two men immediately behind her, on the other hand, they were close. Too close. For comfort, anyway. The one started to speak again. “I said—”
“I heard you,” she said quietly, finally slowing to a walk. When she moved on the hunt, it was always in a darting, fast motion. Motion was one of the quickest ways for prey to give themselves away; motion, shadow, the outline, the sound, the discrepancy with the background color. If you were going to move, best to do it quickly; you were already making noise and motion anyway. She took a quick sniff. “Less than a mile ahead.”
“You’re sure it’s him?” The voice was quiet, not disappointed, exactly, but not thrilled, either. Mostly winded, that much was obvious. She knew the voice, knew it better than she knew any other. In the last year and a half, oddly, she hadn’t really missed it.
“Yes, Thad,” she said, listening to her husband’s metal boots drown out the sounds of the forest ahead, the Waking Woods, as he crunched leaves underfoot. “His stride is distinct from the others, his plate boots are unique, he’s leaving a blood trail, exactly the same as the one we found in the wreckage of the tent—”
“Okay,” Thad puffed again. “I just figured, with a battlefield like the one we just came from, there might be room for error—”
“There is not,” she said. “Not for this. Not for blood. It’s distinct. If it was a footprint alone, maybe.” She drew up to her full height and finally turned, the light of the torches spoiling her night vision as she made a calculated decision to look him in the eye. “It’s him. This man escaped from the dark elven command tent.”
“That likely makes him a general,” Samwen Longwell said, lingering just past Thad. Martaina gave him a cool look, trying not to give anything away. Longwell, for his part, blushed briefly. “Or an adjutant, an aide—something of that sort. Someone we’d rather not allow to get back to Saekaj.”
Martaina felt a searing heat in her cheeks, felt the cool night air blow over them, highlighting the warmth even further. “I won’t allow him to get away, though time spent in discussion does not aid my tracking.”
“Right,” Thad said, looking slightly chastened. He almost seemed to draw back slightly, as though he’d done some wrong. But then, he’s always been like that. “Carry on, then.”
She exchanged a brief look with Longwell, which seemed to say much the same, with perhaps a little additional meaning that she didn’t dare untangle right then and there. Martaina turned away from the men, back to the track. She let out a long, slow breath as she picked up her pace, running across crunching leaves, trying to focus entirely on the task at hand—indeed, as she always did in times of great strife.
Two
One Thousand Years Earlier
Martaina rolled off of him, satiated, her breaths coming in long gasps while his came quicker, more winded. She pulled her naked body free of his, rolling off the fine bed that she’d slept in the night before, something of a rarity for her—though it was becoming more common nowadays—and began to dress herself, starting with the worn, dirty animal skin breeches that came first in her ensemble.
“You always have this boundless energy,” Nethan said, still trying to regain his breath. She could feel his eyes watching her bare backside as she slid the grungy pants on, shimmying into them. “I’m a planter and I’m not half as athletic as you are.”
“You own a plantation,” Martaina said somewhat dryly, not letting her smile show as she tied the rope belt that kept her breeches on. Finishing that, she sat on the edge of the bed to pull on the worn leather boots that she’d skinned herself, “I don’t think that’s the same as being in a field, pushing a plow all day long the way your servants do.”
“Quite right,” Nethan said, chortling. She could sense his gaze shift away now that all she had to offer was a view of her unclothed back. She pondered for a moment why she didn’t face him while dressing then pushed the thought aside when the first answer that came her way was shame. “It’s not such a bad life, sitting upon the porch overseeing things.”
“Indeed,” Martaina agreed, sliding her loose, deer-hide shirt over her torso and turning to face him before lacing it up with the string she’d spent hours making one day. All her clothes were self-made. She cast a glance over at Nethan’s attire, lying on the floor where they’d fallen the night before. Silk shirts, cloth jackets, other assorted finery along with jewelry rested on the dresser. Looking it over, she felt a brief entwining of envy and hope. To have such things—perhaps someday. Someday soon. “It’s really lovely work if you can get it, being a noble son of a landed plantation owner.” She let her smile crook. “If only I could find a way to do such a thing myself.”
“Eh?” Nethan said, and looked sidelong at her. “So, where are you off to today?”
“Hunting,” Martaina said, sliding her cloak on. It was without doubt the nicest thing she had, made from cloth that had fallen out of a caravan wagon and into the mud. She’d watched it jealously, keeping her eyes on the wagon until it was out of sight and sure not to return for a stray bolt of cloth that had gone errantly into a mud puddle. She’d hardly believed that the overseer walking next to the wagon would let such a thing escape as she’d cradled it in her arms and run back to her father with it. Her mind returned to the room she was in, on the Vierest Plantation twenty miles outside Pharesia. The curtains flapped in the slight breeze as she stared down at Nethan, her lover of three months, lingering beneath the sheets as though he had no intention of rousting himself now.
She leaned down,letting her bare flesh rub against the inside of her animal skin tunic as she lay across the sheets, drawing a nearly scandalized look from Nethan as her dirty furs brushed his white satin. He said nothing, though, looking up to her and forcing a smile. “What about you?” she asked, smiling.
“I’ll need to take a gander at the fields by noon,” Nethan said and then yawned. “Until then, I expect I’ll sleep a bit longer.” He patted the bed. “Why don’t you undress and join me; surely your hunting can wait?”
“It’s after sun up,” Martaina said and pulled away, feeling the stir of regret. “Unless I’m very fortunate, I won’t be getting breakfast this morning because I didn’t start early enough—”
“Have something in the kitchen before you go,” Nethan said, waving his hand toward the door. “The house servants prepare plenty for the field hands, they can surely spare some bread for you, maybe some pottage. Tell them I said so.” He yawned again. “Still and all, I think you should stay.” His eyes drifted shut. “Until a civilized hour, at least.”
“Your idea of a civilized hour is far later than mine,” she said, watching him wistfully, stroking her brown hair back behind her ears. It was hanging loose and wild this morning. It was never much tamed, but she kept it in a tight knot most of the time. She’d let it free last night while she’d been seducing him, but now it would take time to re-knot.
“It a kinder hour than this one,” he said, opening one eye, “and it would allow us to rise in leisure, go down to the kitchens to eat the breakfast that the servants normally prepare for me—”
“Which I would guess is not pottage and bread,” she said with a little irony.
“And come back up here for additional … leisure time,” he grinned beneath his clos
ed eyes and pawed at her, grasping at her breast. His hand cupped her, not terribly gently but not painfully, either, so she let it rest there, very nearly rolling her eyes.
“If past experience is any guide, I doubt very much you have another bout of leisure in you today,” Martaina said and slowly stood, letting his hand fall back to the bed. After the first moment, when his grip had loosened, it had actually felt good. “Perhaps tomorrow night I’ll see you again.”
“Indeed,” Nethan said, opening an eye to look at her again, his smile solid and genuine. “I shall look forward to the hour when we meet once more.”
“Yes,” said Martaina, feeling none of his sincerity and all the discomfort of a woman terribly out of place. “I shall look forward to it as well.” She leaned down and kissed him, felt his lips return the pressure just slightly, then walked out the door as she knotted the cloak around her neck.
The walls of the hallway outside were neither painted nor bare wood but covered in a texture that Nethan had called “wallpaper” when she’d asked him. With the embossments on it, it didn’t feel much like paper; it felt like someone had embroidered cloth and covered entire walls with it. She took care but ran her fingers down it, feeling the raised bumps along the thick callouses on the pads of her fingers. To live in such a place, with such fine things, she thought.
She walked down the staircase at the far end of the hall—the one at the back of the house that let out in the kitchens, not the impressively carpeted one that looked out over a balcony into a grand foyer—and took every step lightly, so quietly that she couldn’t even hear herself move over the noise from the kitchens below.
She took one look around at the roaring ovens and the servants who eyed her with knowing smiles and hushed whispers. and brushed out the back door next to the stairs without a word, leaving behind the heavy, doughy smell in the air that masked the scent of herself—the scent of guilt that had settled on her along with the sheen of sweat that still covered her skin.
Sanctuary Tales (Book 1) Page 6
