The Sanctuary Series: Volume 03 - Champion

by Robert J. Crane

  The demon knights were among them now; most were fighting off two or three Sanctuary combatants. Lucky me. I get you all to myself, he thought as he watched Menlos and Scuddar taking turns distracting and then attacking theirs. Vara and Alaric outmatched another, driving it to its knees and pounding it with successive spells that battered it from two directions. Longwell had speared one with his lance and was spinning it in circles while Aisling attacked it from behind. She would sting it, burying her daggers and then darting away while Longwell pushed his lance into the wound and withdrew it, causing a spatter of blood.

  Team tactics. Glad I taught them not to fight fair. But I got left without a partner. He gripped Praelior and glared at the cudgel-wielding demon knight. “You snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking.” The beast swung the cudgel overhand and Cyrus dodged, avoiding the blow. The cudgel hit the ground with a teeth-rattling impact, and Cyrus swung his sword at the beast’s arm as the knight began to retract its weapon for another attack. Cy misjudged his aim and only grazed the forearm of the knight, opening a gash a few inches deep. Black blood pooled in the wound and began to drip onto the ground.

  “Bet that hurt,” Cyrus taunted as the cudgel came at him again and he whirled out of the way, this time striking at the fingers of the demon knight when its arm was fully extended. Cyrus felt the blade hit and watched three of the demon knights digit’s spin off to the ground. The next swing of the cudgel was wild to one side and Cyrus managed an attack that severed the demon knight’s unwounded appendage, sending it spinning to the ground as the creature let out a howl and began to attack with his stump, battering Cyrus to the side.

  Didn’t see that coming, Cyrus thought, shaking off the motes of light from the hit. The demon knight’s forearm had whacked him across the skull, and without his helm, he felt it. The demon stormed up to him and raised a fist with two fingers, bringing it down with alarming speed. Cyrus held up his sword and heard the impact as well as felt it. The screech of pain from the demon knight was near-unbearable, and the black blood splattered all over his armor, covering his face.

  The demon knight struggled, clutching at its stumps. While it was distracted, Cyrus darted in, blade flashing, and struck it in the gut, dragging the weapon across. A spurt of blood and the beast fell to its knees, gurgling. The wicked teeth were still visible, frightening and a threat when Cyrus stepped in behind the creature. “I guess you weren’t here last time I visited. I cut off the head of one of your brethren, stabbed another through the heart and rolled a dragon skeleton downhill into a whole passel of your kind.”

  He raised Praelior and brought it down, severing the head of the demon knight before it could utter a response. “I find the old ways are best, wouldn’t you agree?” He spat, removing a thick coating of blood that filled his mouth. “Of course you would. You’re dead. The dead don’t argue.”

  “Malpravus might disagree with you.” Vaste’s voice came from behind him, and Cyrus turned, having forgotten the battle. A few skeletons still moved on the ground and one demon knight was being toyed with by Fortin, but otherwise the fight was over. Members of the Sanctuary army loitered around the field, corpses of wendigos and demon knights scattered on the trampled ground along with an assortment of unattached bones.

  “Thanks for the heal,” Cyrus said, surveying the scene before him. “Looks like we won.”

  “Was there ever any doubt?” The troll’s smile carried a hint of mischief. “Still, I won’t be comfortable until we’ve left this forsaken place behind, hopefully with a cure in hand. Or something that can lead to a cure. Or possibly just some pie.”

  Fortin picked up the last demon knight and brought him down over his knee, filling the air with a cracking noise. The rock giant roared and pulled the head from the creature’s body, holding it aloft amidst ragged cheers from some of the Sanctuary combatants. “I suppose that’s a sign that the battle is over,” Cyrus said.

  “And a sign that the party has begun,” Vaste said.

  “We can move when you’re ready.” Curatio wandered up to them, making his way over the debris that littered the battlefield. “Few deaths, few injuries, and a large and motivated army make for an easy conquest of this realm.”

  “The God of Death should put more effort into his personal guard.” Cyrus shook his head. “We’ll head for the Eusian Tower in five.”

  They assembled in formation, with the weakest and those newly resurrected pushed to the back of the army. In the far distance stood the Eusian tower, a structure larger than any Cyrus had seen, a staggering black spike that stretched into the sky. “I’ve only been in the first level,” he said, staring up at the heights. “What do you suppose is at the top?”

  “Damned, more damned, and still more damned,” Vaste replied. “It’s their stock-in-trade here in the Realm of Death. Remember the boiling oil? Remember the cavern of ice?”

  Cyrus shuddered. “Couldn’t forget those. Glad we don’t have to jump through those hoops this time.”

  “Yes, hopefully someone’s left the master’s chambers open for us to plunder.”

  They trudged on and every once in a while Cyrus would step to the side of the column, looking for the back of his army as it snaked off into the distance. The Eusian tower grew closer and closer, stretching beyond where the clouds would have been—if the Realm of Death had any.

  “The Fields of Paxis go on forever,” Cyrus said under his breath.

  “Not forever,” Curatio said, “but near enough that you can see forever from them.”

  Cyrus smiled. “I suppose the few more minutes it will take us to get there must seem like such small and inconsequential things to someone who’s lived as long as you.”

  Curatio waited before answering, seeming to take in the red skies and peaceful grasses that blew around them. “Aye, small things perhaps, but the stuff life is made of. If you seek to have the minutes pass faster, then what you seek is death, unintending as you may be. Minutes are all we have.”

  They were at the tower moments later, climbing the great steps to file through the enormous doors. They crossed a bridge onto the grand, circular platform at the heart of the tower that branched off in four directions. On the wall opposite where they entered, two gargantuan doors stood open, large enough for five dragons to climb on each others’ shoulders and enter.

  “Based on the scale of the chambers of the gods I’ve seen,” Vaste said, “I can’t imagine fighting something of the size they must be.”

  “I’ve always told you size matters,” Erith said from behind, drawing a dirty look from the troll.

  Cyrus looked back; his army stretched across the bridge and out the doors. “There’s no way a wizard will be able to cast an area teleport with us strung out like this.”

  “Kinda reminds me of Enterra,” Erith muttered.

  “That’s the problem with having an army so large, it’s like a snake, how it stretches,” Terian said, looking up into the darkness above them. “Where are we going?”

  “This way.” Cyrus led them through the doors. The tower was silent save for the noises of the Sanctuary force marching through. The smells of cold air and hot oil had mixed to form something unsavory that settled in Cyrus’s nostrils when he was on the platform and failed to leave as he entered Mortus’s chambers.

  The doors gave way to a balcony that overlooked a treasure room. Staircases curved down either side and there were pedestals lining the walls as well as shelves crammed with items that stretched to the far end of the room. Underneath a banner that held a picture of a hand reaching down to pluck a human being was a portal that crackled with light energy, as though it were the opposite of the one that had brought them into the Realm.

  “Where d’you reckon that goes?” Erith asked the question Cyrus had already been wondering.

  “Nowhere we’ll be exploring today,” Alaric said, surprising Cyrus by appearing at the front of the army. He hadn’t seen the Ghost since the column had begun its march. “Shall we officers begin our
exploration?”

  “Company halt,” Cyrus called out. “Officers, let’s take a look around. Everyone else, hold position here.”

  Cyrus descended to the floor, Alaric, Curatio and Vara immediately behind him with the other officers trailing.

  “What went there?” Longwell pointed, indicating a large pedestal in the middle of the room, empty of whatever it once held.

  “I’m going to guess Letum, the Staff of Death,” Cyrus said, moving past it without looking back.

  “You sure?” Longwell peered at the empty space.

  “Pretty sure.”

  Cyrus passed minerals, vases and other assorted treasures, pointing them out. Vaste followed behind, scooping up the less fragile items and stowing them in a burlap sack. When the troll picked up a glowing orb, he squinted at it. “Is this...?”

  Alaric gazed at it. “It keeps anyone from teleporting out of the realm while Mortus is not here—preventing anyone from leaving save through one of the portals.”

  “Let’s smash it,” Terian said. “I don’t like feeling trapped.”

  “Here,” Curatio held his hand out, and Vaste gave it to him. Without words, Curatio cast a spell and the light left the orb. “Now it’s intact, and we can sell or keep it as we choose.”

  “Breaking it would be more fun,” the dark knight said.

  The treasures were minor in many cases; most not worth taking, pieces of old weapons or other junk. They passed several bookshelves filled with old volumes. “You think a cure is in here?” Cyrus pulled one of the tomes, its pages cracked with age and wear, the writing all in runes that although familiar were unreadable to him. “I don’t even know what this says.”

  “It’s called literacy,” Erith said with a snicker. “It involves reading books, not eating them.”

  “Fine.” He walked over to her and held the page in front of her face. “Use your amazing gift of literacy and read this to me.”

  She squinted at the page. “It says...uh...um...” She looked at him and blinked. “It says you’re stupid.”

  “Really? I thought it said you’re incredibly mature. By which I mean old.”

  “It’s written in the language of the ancients,” Curatio said, looking over Cyrus’s shoulder. “There are few who can read it.”

  “Can you?” Cyrus looked back at Curatio, questioning.

  The elf smiled. “Of course. I am rather ancient, after all.”

  “Why haven’t I ever heard of these ancients?” Erith pulled a book off the shelf then discarded it after one look.

  “Because you’re uneducated,” Cyrus replied. “Listen to lessons, don’t run your mouth through them.”

  “You’re about to learn a lesson—”

  “The ancients were wiped out during the War of the Gods,” Curatio said, taking the book from Cyrus. “They left behind quite a few remnants of their civilization—for those who bother to look.”

  “The portals,” Cyrus said with a sudden realization.

  “Very good.” Curatio’s finger ran up and down the page of the book and he smiled. “And the Citadel and Colosseum in Reikonos. Some other scattered artifacts, great and small, exist.”

  “How were they wiped out?” Vaste asked the question, the troll standing at a distance, leaning against a shelf.

  “It all comes back to the War of the Gods,” Curatio said, still splitting his attention between the book and the words he spoke. “When the gods were challenged over meddling in mortal affairs, they lashed out, striking down those who offended them greatest. After the upheaval in the pantheon that came from some of their own—Bellarum, in particular—instigating attacks against them, they needed an example of what happens when you challenge their might.

  “So, they chose the largest, most prominent civilization, the greatest threat to their power, and destroyed them.” He turned a page. “Very little was left standing when they were done.”

  “That’s not how I’ve heard the story told,” Nyad sniffed. “I always heard Bellarum, the God of War, in his wickedness, showed mortals how to breach the realms of the gods. He sent his armies to wreak havoc with them and when Eruditia, Goddess of Knowledge, was slain with Bellarum’s Warblade, the other gods and goddesses banded together in outrage over the atrocity and destroyed his army, punishing him for a hundred years before allowing him to return to the Pantheon.”

  “Yes, well, I would certainly trust the word of your nannies over the testimony of someone who was actually present at the time,” Vara said, voice laden with sarcasm.

  “As always, there was more to the story than is widely known,” Alaric spoke up. “History records considerable fighting on Arkaria at the time, between an alliance of dwarves, elves and gnomes standing against the titans, the trolls and goblins on the other side. The dragons had risen up from their isolation. The gods were picking sides and at the heart of it all was the ancients.”

  “Also,” Curatio said, looking up from his book, “a guild called Requiem, composed of some of the first humans to arrive on these shores from across the Sea of Carmas, was in the middle of the fight.”

  Cyrus looked around, and his eyes rested on Longwell, who blushed. “That’s the land I’m from, yeah.”

  “Oh?” Cyrus raised an eyebrow at the dragoon. “I...actually didn’t look at you on purpose, but...interesting.”

  “So how did it all happen?” Erith looked at Curatio. “I mean, I’d always heard Nyad’s version, more or less, and about the alliances fighting each other.”

  “A story for another time,” Alaric interrupted, drawing an acidic look from Curatio as he closed the book the elf was holding. “We are in the Realm of Death, after all, and our armies are waiting for us.”

  Cyrus had stopped at a pedestal that held a single piece of parchment, covered in runes. “What about this?”

  “Because the perfect place to display the curse you’re using to kill off an enemy race is in plain sight,” Vaste said, deadpan.

  “It is when there’s a barrier put around it by the God of Death himself,” Alaric said.

  “So it’s unbreachable?” J’anda walked to the edge of the pedestal. “Because you’d need one of the godly weapons to break down a barrier put in place by the gods, correct? Or be a god yourself, I suppose...” His fingers hovered over the outer edge of the barrier, a faint glow obvious only by close examination.

  “Which means it’s...out of reach,” Cyrus said, numb, staring at the parchment.

  “Not exactly,” Alaric said, voice taut. “If you would all stand back?” Exchanging a curious look with J’anda, Cyrus moved away from the scroll, followed by the other officers. Alaric looked at the pedestal then drew his sword, Aterum, and a blast of force shot from the tip with a power greater than his usual spells.

  The energy hit the barrier and coruscated, crackling against it, filling the air with blinding flashes as the barrier dissolved under the force of the Ghost’s spell. The energy faded, leaving the piece of parchment in the center of the pedestal. Shocked silence prevailed among the Sanctuary officers as Alaric returned his sword to its sheath with precision.

  “Wow,” came Vaste’s voice, laced with irony. “It would appear someone’s got a godly weapon and didn’t bother to tell the rest of us. I’m sure this will be a hotly debated topic in the lounge tonight, but probably not in the Council Chambers, at least not now. Maybe in—”

  “—the fullness of time,” Cyrus chorused along with a few of the other officers. If Alaric was amused, he gave no sign. Curatio appeared to be suppressing a chuckle.

  “No, we can discuss it when we return to Sanctuary, if you wish,” Alaric said, somewhat prim. “But I cannot guarantee I will answer all your questions.”

  Vaste shrugged. “Well, it’s progress.”

  Curatio approached the pedestal and picked up the parchment, holding it in front of his eyes, reading it. He murmured under his breath in intense concentration.

  “So?” Erith looked at him. “Is it...?” Her voice trailed off.


  Curatio did not answer at first, still staring at the page. “It is,” he said. “The curse comes from a branch of dark magic long forgotten.”

  “What kind of spell caster would have used it?” Erith said with mild curiosity.

  Curatio looked to Alaric, then back to Erith. “I...I’m not sure. It...it needs more study.”

  “Anything else worth taking as long as we’re here?” Vaste pointed to the bag he carried. “I have room for more plunder.”

  They scoured the room, taking a few more choice objects before returning to the staircase and the guild members waiting. Cyrus looked over the heads of his army and saw that the formation stretched beyond the bridge and platform and out of the tower. “As spread out as we are, a wizard spell will not get all of us home in one casting,” he said to the officers waiting. “We need to evacuate in phases.”

  “At least we did away with the barrier to teleportation,” Terian said. “Otherwise we’d be heading back to the portal we came in by, right?”

  “We didn’t clear the dungeons underneath us,” Cyrus said. “There could be enemies waiting in ambush.”

  “Still thinking of Termina?” Longwell’s voice was quiet, so low that Cyrus knew it was meant for his ears only. Still, Vara turned her head and caught his eye before flicking her gaze away.

  “I need the strongest fighters to stay until everyone else is out,” Cyrus announced. “If you came with us to the Hand of Fear raid, I want you to remain behind until I give you the order to accept teleport. We’ll start here and begin walking our way up the line, teleporting out as much of the army per time as we can.” He looked to Nyad. “Care to begin?”

  The elf nodded, and her hands lit up with spell energy. A blue orb appeared in front of Cyrus, the surface flaring with the magics contained within. Flashes lit the walls around him as he watched about three hundred people disappear into the teleportation spell, leaving behind forty or so.