It wasn't until maybe the tenth or twentieth snarling Drayman fell at Renir's feets that he remembered he alone was wearing a crown atop his head. He alone was the King of all this...
The strength and the passion and the confidence all fell from him in the merest instant. Suddenly, he found his knees weak and he staggered.
Bear was right there alongside him. The old man held Renir close.
'You hurt?'
'They're trying to kill me.'
'Don't take it personal,' said the warrior with a grin. Wen's great sword swatted an attacker away, flying, nearly in two halves, away from Bear and Renir. 'They're trying to kill all of us.'
'Me, more, though. I'm...I'm King.'
Renir whispered the last, lost in the crushing din of war, but Bear got the gist and laughed, there, in the middle of a circle of death. The old mercenary laughed until tears came down his face.
'Damn, Renir, you're a good man in a pinch. Funny as hell. I needed that.'
'What?'
A man burst through the knot of fighting around Renir and fell to a slash from Bourninund's short blade, blood spraying across Renir's face, hot and sticky.
'Funny as hell,' said Bear, shaking his head, and turned to find someone else to fight. He didn't have to look far.
Renir's legs weren't shaking anymore.
In the heat of battle, maybe confusion helps just as well as a stout ale when a man's heart's sore, he thought.
Whatever the reason he found he could swing his axe again, and found, too, that the more he swung, the harder the enemy strove to reach him, the harder his men fought beside him.
I'm like the Sard, to them...I'm what they look to...emulate? To please?
I'm just a man with a golden hat, he thought.
But then, somewhere deep down, he remembered his own words, long ago. Why he never wore a helm. Because people saw a weakness, they strove to hit that spot. And if they did, they were thinking, stuck, on that one thing.
Now, crown on his head, roaring and standing in the middle of battle? The Draymen were solely focused on Renir. Terrifying, yes, but every single man in the courtyard was fighting to keep him alive, too.
And that was humbling. It made him realise it wasn't just a crown on his head. He was Sturma, now. In a man, yes, in a pretty band of gold, yes...but the men needed something they could see, something to rally to. A man can't rally for a field, or a copse of trees.
He laughed, too. Maybe they'd call him the Laughing King. Maybe one day he'd be remembered, like Gek Fathand.
He laughed, and swung his double-headed axe, and strode into the heart of the battle with no fear in his heart.
*
Chapter Forty-Eight
Caeus stood before the Elethyn, like a man before his peers, awaiting his trail. But he smiled, at peace with his crimes and his treachery. There was no dishonour in the deeds he'd done, and he was ready. Life or death for him, neither mattered anymore. Nothing mattered. In the greatness of space, in the smallness of time, nothing had more weight than love, and he had known it as fully as any mortal. He'd felt the life and loves of the entire world burning within his soul.
The Elethyn and their darkness were nothing to fear.
'You die here, in the old place. Caeus the Betrayer...your deeds will never be forgotten.'
Caeus thought, for a moment, to ask who spoke. But did the names of these creatures matter to him, anymore than the name of a worm might to a bird? They were no longer the same blood, the same kin. Caeus had changed and grown and these Elethyn, too, were not the creatures he remembered.
More powerful than ever, colder of heart than ever. He sensed no deviation in their cause among them. Individuals, yes, but of one mind and of sole purpose: the pursuit of ultimate power.
'The first beasts stand with me, as so long ago,' said Caeus. 'We sent you away before. This world, the lives upon it, and the light that warms its earth...these things are not yours to take.'
'And you own these things? Lay claim to them?'
'No one owns the light,' said Caeus. 'My brothers - your forebearers...they thought to tame and take the light for their own, to strips these twin suns of their power. They failed. You will, too. I may die, but know you will not win, whether I fall or...'
'You will fall, Caeus. You know you cannot stand against us this time. You, nor the beast races. You cannot win this day.'
'I have no more tricks...let this, the old place, be the judge and those who remain with life and stand at the end as the winners...'
'Then call your allies, Caeus. Call the world, if you must. Call on the humans and the rahken of old, the Naum, the Feewar, or the white ones. Call on the dead, should you will it, or the legends, or the lightning-dwellers. Call the old powers from the void and the ghosts of heroes. It is your right.'
Caeus inclined his head, to the simplest and slightest degree. 'None would stand this day but the ancient allies and the first people. Those that claim this world as home have little magic and are mere mortals. But magic lives in the rahken. They stand with me. And you, voice of your kind, Elethyn-speaker...would you call forth the wrath of the darkness? The forbidden beasts and the chained?'
The Elethyn who spoke for all shook his head, nodded just as slightly as Caeus had. 'We stand alone. We always stand alone. You know this.'
'And one day, it will be your undoing.'
'Perhaps, Betrayer. But not this day. Where are your rahken?'
All around the old place, a place of rare heritage that even the Elethyn did not understand, the air shimmered and cleared. Ten thousand or more rahken appeared, glittering in golem armour. The low, otherworldly light of the old heart of the world refracted in the crystal. Rainbows of light were thrown out wide and strong. The black, clear stone around them was painted with so many colours and half-colours that for the merest moment, Caeus understood that power was not a sole facet of the light of magic...but all.
Perhaps the rahken, with their simple ways, their honest culture and lack of ambition, perhaps they understood what Caeus had not, what the Elethyn never could. Power was not mastery of death, or fire, or water. It was those things, yes, but the rain and dirt and wind, the joyous cry of spring and the echoes of pride from trees fallen long ago in deep forests. Wailing children and barking hounds and the buzz of insects in the sun. These things, more, perhaps...these things were power. Not the sentinel armour, nor the golem-crystals. Not steel or flame or gaudy shows of strength.
But such things were too late to bring now. The old place was a giant black circle at the furthest pole of the world, long denied the suns' embrace. All around pure black heart of Rythe snows fells and ice cracked and grew into mountains or shattered into crevasses. Far colder, here, on the south continent than even the blasted white wastes of Teryithyr. Cold without succour, without cease, endless, blistering, killing cold. None could reach this place without magic. Surely the old ones, those who left these rare relics, had intended as much. It was here by design. The cold kept life away.
Despite the killing-cold around the broad, black circle of smooth stone, the temperature upon it was moderate. The air above was untouched by the blizzards and the howling winds that scoured this barren white land.
Here on the black circle, there was no weather, no sun, no light or dark. Pure neutrality.
A place to test and war and destroy, or to love and grow and learn...the stone did not judge. But only one could emerge when enemies took to this place with intent.
And such intent it was.
No judge, no moment when a battle would begin. The first strike, the rules, the method...these things were left to the combatant.
Caeus in the centre. The rahken outside. Between Caeus and his crystal-warriors...the Elethyn. Sentinel armour that could not be breached. Tricks that would not work, here, in this place. Rahken with no way to manipulate the air or earth, and their crushing, sharp armour of no use against the sentinel armour worn by the returning enemy.
The Elethyn made
no move. They were timeless. Should they wish, they could stand for another hundred years, until the rahken died and fell, old and ancient within their armour, no more than husks encased in crystal. Even Caeus could die of age...the Elethyn could not.
Silently, it began.
No words were necessary for true magic.
Caeus allowed his light to grow, as though he would attack, but at the last moment, his light skirted the Elethyn without touching them and, blinding, hit the rahken in their crystal armour.
Brightness like the heart of a sun suddenly filled the space above and around the old place. So bright, even the Elethyn, with all their power, could see nothing.
With rage that was their birthright and power that they stole to live, they lashed at Caeus with wicked and barbed tendrils of black hate.
Even the Elethyn seemed surprised when the light faded to normal to find Caeus before them, hooked through skin and bone with their awful power, upon his knees. He bled and agony was clear on his ancient face, but he smiled, too.
The Elethyn held Caeus fast while they searched for the rahken with their power. But the rahken were not there. Not vanished, or destroyed. Not hidden by any means they could discern.
'A cunning trick, Caeus. But even hidden, they are nothing.'
'They are not hidden, Elethyn-voice. They are no longer here. Only I remain.'
'What game is this? You send them away with your power to merely be caught and killed...for nothing? No gain, simply to lose?'
Caeus could feel the Elethyn's confusion, and their rage, too, because they failed to understand the simplest of things that Caeus had learned long, long, before his captivity within the revenant. A thing he'd learned from the one creature who he had ever called a friend, and his jailer, both. A creature that itself was eternal, but a teacher of wayward souls, too.
And when Caeus had destroyed the creature's soulsword and freed himself, the creature had seemed...happy.
'The rahken were under a geas,' he said. 'Bound not through magic, but duty. They were obligated to come to my aid, should I ever call again. I laid that curse upon then long ago with nothing more than a kindness. Then, I thought such a deed was compassion. Now, I know compassion runs deeper, still.' As Caeus spoke the Elethyn's spikes and barbs sliced further inside of him. The pain was immense...and yet his heart sang with joy. Even for a god, it is a rare thing to die with all debts paid.
'Compassion? Mortal folly.'
'Yes,' said Caeus, but still he smiled. 'It is. Isn't it wonderful? I sacrificed myself to death so that they could be free, not to die and die again. Free to make their way, with their will...as mortals do, Elethyn. You will never understand this. Never. Because you have no love and your hearts and souls are small, withered things. Like these thorns and barbs with which you hold my body, your souls are lost to brambles grown of hate. You will never know joy or happiness. And you think I lost this day? You have not won a thing, and never will. All the power in the universe will never sate you. One day, the last of the suns will be swallowed by your kin, and there will be nothing left but darkness. And you...basking in the dark, in the heart of a universe bereft of light and life and love? You think you won?'
Caeus shook his head.
The Elethyn listened to Caeus' speech, unmoved. He hadn't expected to win them over, not for a moment, but to speak these things aloud, here, with the spirit of the ancient power that built this testing place as his judge or jury...that felt like victory enough to go out on.
'Pretty words, betrayer. We will see if your compassion survives when you die. We will try to find it within you. Perhaps then we will understand...but I think not.'
The black hooks of their magic bit deeper and he screamed, as he knew he would.
But pain is but a wave. Caeus was no stranger to pain. He no longer thrived on it, but he was no more afraid of pain than the darkness in himself. At each lull, as they tore into him, he granted them a smile, and whenever he could speak, he simply said the same thing, like a mantra against the sadness of dying.
'I win,' he said. And each time he spoke those words, their rage festered anew, and Caeus' joy helped his soul become bolder with every moment his body weakened and drifted toward his final death.
'I win,' he said again, and even managed a sad, tired smile.
*
Chapter Forty-Nine
There are only so many times a man can think he's going to die before the threat of death itself loses some of its impact, dreadful and immediate though it might be.
Renir's body ached and bled. A rib cracked and a finger of his left hand hung useless after taking a blow with a wicked, iron-bound cudgel. Had the weapon been bladed, he would have lost the finger and maybe more. A rare thing that such small agonies would wake a man to joy, to loving life and friends, to a willingness to lay down his own life for these men, as no few had for him.
A man had thrown himself into the path of a spear for Renir.
Poor bastard died hard, thought Renir.
'For the King!' they cried, and they rallied and fought harder than any man Renir had known. The lowliest warrior among them fought as bravely as Shorn or Bourninund ever had. Their simple passion, in a way, outshone the only two remaining paladins of the sun. The Sard trained a lifetime, bore beautiful, strong armour. Some of the men who fought to the death for their new king, though they knew him not, were nought more than simple farmers. Even the Draymen with their makeshift arms and armour had more experience of war than most of the men who fought for Sturma, fought to hold a castle in the north like it was a childhood love.
A man without weapon or shield had turned aside a sword thrust meant to kill Renir with his own bare arm. He'd lost his arm.
He'd lost his arm.
Renir was in awe. Another threw himself, leaping through the air, and killed a giant of a man with nothing more than a simple sword and the perfect moment. That man, unknown to Renir, still lay bloodied and gasping, no one remaining to give him succour from his pains or end his agony.
How could you refuse such love, whether deserved or not? Would shame these men, their bravery, to deny his blood.
And so thinking, ready to die for his men, and they him, surrounded in the courtyard, Renir was ready to die.
His men numbered a scant thirty or forty. Even the men from the walls were fighting, now, the battle spilling from the courtyard to the bailey, the battlements, and a few stout men barely managing to hold the entrance to the keep, being pushed, bloody, along the stone stair. Not a single man among them was unbloodied.
And the Draymen were still legion. Bodies were piled high, a mess of death. Time to die.
'You men are my pride,' Renir shouted above the snarls of hatred from the bloodied, ragged Draymen. More poured in through the broken gate.
With a bellow of his own, Renir forced his tired arms once more above his head, Haertjuge ready to slay as many as its master's arms could manage. He put one foot forward to charge to his death, and his knee buckled. He tumbled down and shouted in frustration at his weakness as his men charged without him...but he was not alone. All about, men were tumbling and rolling across the dirt, like sailors in a squall.
Behind him, atop the stairs to the keep, Renir saw two men stood unaffected by the buckling of the earth or by the fires that lashed out, suddenly and with no warning, through the hordes of Draymen. One man wore a green robe, and the other one of orangelike the setting sun.
Their mage-light blazed from their eyes...but for a wonder they were human...and they were...
They are saving our sorry lives, thought Renir, and at the sight of such power, such magic, something in him saddened.
Magic returns.
The rocking ended, the fires burned their victims. Renir stood, looked at the steel in his fist. There is still a place for this.
Ignoring the mages, Renir pushed himself up on shaking legs, his legs still unsure if the ground rocked or was still, and walked across the littered, stinking courtyard, over bodies of
friends and foes, and stood before the unknown warrior who had moments before saved his life by giving his own.
Magic saved them all. But heart had saved Renir. He knelt beside the warrior and spoke for a moment, unheard by any but the dying man.
*
Bourninund was beside Quintal, his chest now heaving. Quintal had somehow lost his helm and both men sported grey hair, long and matted with blood.
'You robbed our glory,' said Quintal. Cenphalph came and stood beside Quintal, removing his helm. Suddenly, to Bear, the last two paladins of the Order of Sard seemed...human. Tired, hurt. Just like him.
'Yes,' said Bourninund.
'Thank you,' said Quintal with a shrug and an outstretched hand. 'Too many died today. Maybe I can die tomorrow.'
'As one old man to another,' said Bear. 'Don't rush it. Patience is, sometimes, a virtue.'
Quintal nodded, smiled, and walked away to tend the wounded where he could, to end it where he couldn't.
Bear sniffed, searched the carnage for Wen.
He found him sitting, his bald head bearing a deep gash that still poured freely down his dark face. Wen saw Bear dragging himself up the steep stone stairs, and waved the bottle of stum with a tired wink.
'How the hell...'
'What?'
'Every damn thing in this entire castle is rubble or dead...and you carried a bottle, glass, through that...?'
Wen took a healthy drink from the bottle and passed it over. 'Just careful, is all.'
Bear took a swig, too, and coughed. The liquor worked wonders, though. For a moment Bourninund felt human again. 'Well...thanks. You know, Wen...I always thought you were mad.'
Wen laughed, a big, deep laugh that came from his belly, fuelled, perhaps, by stum and the survivor's fleeting joy at life.
'Oh, I am. Aren't you?'
Bear thought about it for a moment. 'I suppose so,' he said, took another drink and passed the bottle back, with a gentle pat on the man's thick shoulder. 'I am beginning to think madness might be...normal.'
Rythe Falls Page 20
