“We’re the ones who are riding toward the scourge, not away from it,” Cyrus said. “I’d be more worried about us, frankly.”
“I’m always worried about us,” Martaina said as the horses broke into a gallop, the line of refugees in front of them a thick column of filthy clothes and dirty faces. “I just figured I’d add a little variety.”
“You’re always worried about us?” Cyrus asked, cocking an eyebrow and looking over at her. “That feels like a commentary on my leadership in some way.”
“Your leadership is just fine, sir,” Martaina said. “But it does seem to point us in the direction of trouble more often than not. You’re like a bloodhound for trouble; you can’t stay away from it. I believe you might even thrive on it in some small way.”
He looked back to the horizon, at the downtrodden, the people without a home or hearth to call their own, fleeing their land and trying to escape death itself. “I think I’ve had quite enough of trouble for the sake of trouble after this excursion,” Cyrus said. “But I can’t deny that it seems to follow me about.” He looked back and could just barely see the shapes of Aisling in the distance, along with Cattrine and J’anda, still in the midst of the crowd. “In every possible way.”
Chapter 99
It was less than a day later when they reached the dragoons. Flat plains of sparse grass broken by lowlands and patches of swamp grass with hummocks of trees gave way to a large stretch of open ground. It was there that they found the horses and men, tens of thousands of them, enough that the camp was a sight in and of itself. The smell of food was in the air, real food, bread, even some meat. The wagons were just being reloaded when they arrived, tents being broken down. Refugees were being turned away, but there was only a trickle of them now, and Cyrus felt a grim discomfort at the thought of what that meant. That is the last of them, then. The rest have been taken by these things, by the last gasp of the God of Death. He watched the stragglers go, lingering as though they hoped to draw protection from the army of horsemen that remained in the fields and saw the supplymen shoo them away after tossing them odds and ends to eat, directing them toward the bridge. The last of the Luukessians.
When he asked a soldier, he was directed toward a cluster of men in the distance. The surcoats were familiar, of course, the majority of them being Galbadien soldiers. A few were men of Actaluere and Syloreas but very few. Galbadien was the Kingdom of the horsed cavalry. Now it’s an empty land, I suppose, desolate and filled with those … things, grazing on the remains of the dead, like crows. Cyrus pictured the scene of the loping fields of Galbadien in his head, tilled ground, green grass, the smell of death in the air, bodies choking the rivers and streams, and the scourge feeding on all of it. The sound of their screeches filled his ears as he imagined it, and he nearly choked at the thought.
They rode up to a small circle, and Longwell was there with Ranson, and both rose to meet them. “General,” Samwen Longwell said as Cyrus dismounted and took the proffered hand of the King of Galbadien—the Garden of Death, now. “We’d heard Caenalys was cut off,” Longwell said, “Actaluere’s army barely met up with our main force in time to save them from being shredded. We thought you dead,” he said with barely disguised relief.
“You know it takes more than a few of these scourge to kill me,” Cyrus said. “They came wide around Enrant Monge, didn’t they? Ended up flanking our holding action?”
Longwell nodded. “Two days after you left. They sent another army even wider around, through Galbadien, and it tore through the Kingdom. We had no warning to speak of.” Longwell shook his head, disgust etched on his face. “We saw the fall of Enrant Monge as we rode out of the unity gate. Those things … they climb walls as though they were—”
“I know,” Cyrus said. “We saw it at Caenalys. We had just gotten into the city when they hit, barely made it out via boat.”
There was a flicker of concern from Longwell. “The Baroness?”
“She’s safe. She, J’anda and Aisling stayed along the route to give bread to the refugees.” Cyrus let his hand fall on Praelior’s hilt. “We, on the other hand, figured we’d give whatever aid we could here. How far away are they?”
“Hours,” Ranson said, speaking up now. “We’re looking to use our horsed cavalry for the first time against them. With the snows around Enrant Monge and the rapid fallback over mostly wooded land, the flanking actions—we haven’t really had a chance to have a go at them. It’s our hope that the increased mobility of our horsemen will start to turn the tide of this war.” He caught the skepticism from Cyrus. “All right, well, we don’t think the tide will turn, but we’re hoping to do as much damage as possible before we reach the bridge.” His expression hardened. “I’d certainly like to pay these things back for the loss of my homeland.”
“You and countless others, I’m sure,” Cyrus said. “We’ll wait here with you, then, try and relieve the foot army when they arrive. I expect the melee will turn interesting fast, depending on how these things react to horsemen. The best we can hope for is to give the last of the refugees time to start across the bridge. If the scourge don’t decide to turn back, at least we’ve got an easily defended corridor.”
Longwell looked at him carefully. “You mean to orchestrate another bridge defense. Like Termina.”
“I mean to,” Cyrus said. “I mean to make it the last stand. I want to take so many of those things with us, cause so much havoc and destruction that by the time we reach the other side they’ve got a wall of their own corpses so high to crawl over that they’ll never make it without sliding into the sea.”
There was a pause and silence for a moment. “Lofty goal,” Ranson said.
“The alternative,” Cyrus said, “is letting them start to visit the same destruction on Arkaria as they’ve wrought here in Luukessia.” He felt a tired weight land upon him. “I cannot let that happen. There is nothing but broken ground between the Endless Bridge and the settlements of southeastern Arkaria. They can surely cross the Inculta Desert without great difficulty, and we’d be at a disadvantage fighting on the beaches, the forests, the sands and the mountains. Everything but flat plains, the scourge has mobility to beat anything we have for them.” He waved a hand at a densely clustered group of horsemen nearby. “Our only hope right now is that your dragoons can run over them like cavalry over infantry. Otherwise, we’re going to get driven back to a bridge that’s likely crammed so full of people it’ll be a slaughter, a shoving match where people get tossed over the edge without regard as panic sets in and they begin to stampede to get away.”
Quiet greeted this statement. Martaina spoke a moment later. “How many people would you estimate have gotten to the bridge?”
Ranson and Longwell exchanged a brief and telling glance. “Few enough,” Ranson said. “We have no real idea how many people lived in Luukessia before all this, of course, but the guesses were in the millions. I would estimate that only a hundred thousand, perhaps many less, as few as fifty, have made it out of the area that the scourge now dominate.”
Cyrus swallowed heavily and tasted the bile in the back of his throat threatening to come back up. Fifty thousand? Even a hundred thousand is a pitiful amount—one in ten or twenty or thirty survivors of this land? Imagine if only one in ten members of Sanctuary survived some attack upon them. “That … is a pittance.”
Longwell nodded grimly. “I would estimate more started and were trapped along the roads or caught behind the lines as the scourge moved to sweep down along the eastern road through Galbadien. Those people are trapped behind the scourge now, and nothing can save them. They’re exposed, and the scourge will have at them at will. There is no effective fighting force outside of this peninsula left on Luukessia. We can only hope that perhaps a few of them made it to boats and can make the slow way around the land unfettered by those things.”
“They can’t swim,” Cyrus said. “We found that out in Caenalys. Unless they can walk along the bottom of the sea, I think we’re safe f
rom them across bodies of water.”
“They breathe,” Longwell said. “I’ve found that out from the stink of their breath and the realization that they cease breathing when they die. I doubt they’ll be able to do much on the bottom of the sea save for drown, like the rest of us.”
“Quite an assumption,” Cyrus said, “but I’m hoping you’re right.” He looked east, to the horizon, where the midday sun was just starting to come down from its apogee. “Only hours til they get here? I suppose we should rest for a piece, and make ready.” He felt the set of his jaw as it got heavy, and the slightest bit of determination from somewhere inside crept up, like a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time. “Because it’s going to be a long fight after this.”
Chapter 100
Vara
Day 214 of the Siege of Sanctuary
She sat in the lounge, staring at the front window as the spring rain drizzled down outside, little speckling turning the glass into refractions, tilting the little bit of light that came down in different directions. The smell of home cooking was in the air, Larana’s finest efforts at turning pickled eggs, conjured bread and old mead into something palatable seemed to be working; in fact, Vara could not much tell the difference between the smell of what the druid was creating now from what she created with the freshest meats and vegetables. In the case of most, that would be a damning criticism indeed. In her case, it’s praise. Her mouth watered as she took a deep sniff of the air around.
The sound of a dozen practice swordfights being conducted in the foyer were like a steady clank of metal in her ears, deafening in their way, causing her to clutch the stuffed arms of the chair with all their padding. It was a soft touch against her hands; her gauntlets lay at the table to her side, along with her book, The Crusader and the Champion. Can’t seem to get into it at all. I haven’t been able to since … since he left.
There was a shout of triumph, and she turned her head to see Belkan with his blade at Thad’s neck. “You may be one of our best,” the old armorer said to the red-clad warrior, whose face was as scarlet as his armor, “but age and experience still beats youth and speed from time to time.”
She let her mind drift back. Her eyes drifted to the window, still spotted with the rain. Will he ever come back? It’s been a year and more, now. She chided herself for a fool. Even if he wanted to return, the portal is closed. He would have to go to Reikonos and wait there until the embargo was lifted. A glumness lay upon her, deep sadness draped over her shoulders like a shawl on a chill day. We are truly cut off from the outside world. That is the lasting legacy of what the Sovereign has wrought here, to place us under his thumb once and for all, without any way to come back and forth, to get supplies—she thought of Isabelle, and the briefest hint of sadness grew—to see family, friends. He means to drive us out, to kill us, or worse. How Alaric sees all this and still manages to believe so strongly in the mission, in the ideal of disrupting and holding against the Sovereign …
Then again, should we fall, we lose our home.
There was a stir behind her, a quiet that settled over the foyer, and she turned her head to see Alaric come out of the Great Hall, walking. He rarely walks these days, flitting from place to place in his ethereal mists—or whatever they are. She stood, grabbing her gauntlets and book, and marched toward the entry doors as Alaric headed toward them, nodding at those he passed and speaking to a few.
“Well done, Belkan,” Alaric said as he passed the space where the armorer was sparring with Thad. “You continue to prove that skill and ability are ageless things and that a heart and willingness are enough for a fight.”
“Let us hope we don’t have to prove your theory correct in an all-out battle,” Belkan said to Alaric. “I’d just as soon stay in the armory with a dead quiet than continue to have to sharpen these young ones for a battle I’d rather not fight.”
“Agreed,” Alaric said, passing between the two of them smoothly, clapping each on the shoulder with great assurance and with none of the darkness of the soul he’d exhibited when last he’d spoken with Vara privately. She had not seen much of the Ghost since then. There had been no Council meetings and no change, the wall continuing to be assailed in earnest every few days. “The purpose of this guild was never to sit here and defend our own keep, and that it has come to this is a measure of the depths that Arkaria finds itself in rather than a commentary on us, I think.” He gave a slight nod. “I think.”
He graced Thad and Belkan with a smile and then kept on, giving a ranger he passed a slap on the shoulder for good measure, causing the man, a dwarf, to smile and blush at the acknowledgment of his guild leader. He’s so good at this when he wants to be. They respect him, they love him, even though he maintains his air of mysteriousness and aloofness. They would follow him into the Realm of Death on a whim, just like—
She felt the stab of pain inside and ignored it, placing herself before the door and directly in Alaric’s path. He noted her but did not adjust his course and did not look up until he was nearly upon her. “Lass,” he said as he came to the doors.
“Alaric,” she said.
“I’m going to inspect the inner walls,” he said, gesturing toward the door she was blocking. “If there’s something on your mind, perhaps you’d care to accompany me as I go.”
She gave a very subtle half turn to look at the door before realizing how pointless it was to look at a closed door in indecision. “It’s raining.”
“A true deluge,” Alaric admitted. “And exactly why I am going now. The run of the water will apprise us of any breaches, any places where the drainage is poor, any areas of concern. The water shows us the truth of the wall, I think, and the strength of our barrier.”
“Yes, very well,” she said, and looked back to the table just inside the foyer. Laying her book upon it, she pulled her gauntlets on, one by one, and grasped the door handle, opening it for her Guildmaster. “Shall we?”
He eyed her curiously, dismissed the fact that she was holding the door open for him and walked through. She followed and the patter of the rain upon her helm began a moment later. Alaric paused outside the door on the first step as the rain fell upon him. He raised his face skyward, as though he were trying to expose himself to the drowning sky, and Vara watched, huddling closer to the door, trying to shelter herself using the slight indent of the main doors to protect her from the downpour. It was only minimally effective.
“Do you feel the liberation that the rains grant?” He turned to look at her, a solemnity and peace visible on the part of his face she could see. “It is spring, and the rains mean growth and the coming green of summer. All the vestiges of the hard winter will be washed away as though they were our past sins, and we will be left left with nothing but a new field, freshly tilled, ready to be planted with whatever we will.”
“My field appears ill-tilled and filled to the brimming with dark elves,” she said sourly. “But perhaps I’m seeing it wrong. Though I would consider myself very fortunate if the spring rains would wash them all away and leave me with an empty field once more.”
Alaric gave the slightest chuckle. “So would we all, but that is not always the point of the storm. When the real downpours begin, you cannot always control what is washed away. Sometimes you lose a part of your field, of your crop. It would certainly be easier if such things did not happen, but since we see it always in nature, I find it hard to believe it would not carry over into every other facet of life.”
She watched the steady stream of water come down, smelled the freshness of the rain, dissipating the last aromas of the dinner being prepared inside, as though she had taken a drink of water to cleanse her palate between courses of a sumptuous meal. “Yes, I have heard you talk of these philosophies before, of how we grow in storms, in times of trouble. I daresay we will be doing some considerable growing here.” He looked over his shoulder at her briefly, then settled back into his position, arms up, palms tilted skyward as though he could capture the rains for himself.
“Alaric, I must tell you something.”
He did not move, still drawing strength from the waters coming down around him. “All right,” he said. “Go on.”
“What you talked about before,” she said. “About taking our purpose to its natural conclusion—to defending this place to the last. I wanted to tell you … I have believed in you as a leader and a friend since the days when I was so ground up inside that it felt as though there was nothing left within me but shattered glass. My sword has served you in noble cause all the days since the first, when I swore my allegiance to Sanctuary—and it shall not falter now.”
“I never doubted you for a moment,” he said, still not turning. “But I admit I am curious; why this profession to me now?”
“Because,” she said at a whisper, “I saw you. You doubted yourself, and that is not something I am accustomed to from you, Alaric. You have been ever the constant to me, since the day you carried me back here from the Realm of Purgatory. I am used to seeing all manner of breakage around here—from the days of Orion and … what the hells was that gnome’s name, the troublesome one? I have seen everyone go to pieces at one time or another, myself included. But not you, Alaric. Your title is Guildmaster, and you are affectionately known as the Master of Sanctuary, but it is better said that you are the Master of yourself. You do not fall apart, not ever. Not when the Dragonlord threatens to consume the entire north, not when every power in Arkaria rallies to destroy us, not when we stood before the God of Death himself and you bartered for our very lives. Yet now, in this time, you begin to show the signs of strain.” She watched him, saw the rain cascading off his pauldrons of battered steel in sheets as the tempo of the rains began to increase. “You … falter. You crack. I wanted you to realize that you have my support—and my affection—for all that you have done and do. That I have ever considered you a friend and a mentor, and that I will follow you in this crusade of being the stopgap against the fall of Arkaria until its conclusion, whatever that may be.”
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Page 81
