Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  39.

  Cyrus

  Cyrus was drowning, the water flooding around him. His sense of up and down felt terribly lost as the ship turned upside down, the world following with it. He could not see in the dark, in the water, and even Zarnn had disappeared in the cataclysm of flood and night. The wheel slammed into him, wood smashing against his armor as the wave carried him and the ship over, catching him in its frigid embrace.

  It washed into his helm, through his armor and chainmail, salty and revolting, adding a new layer of freezing chill as it re-saturated his already drenched underclothes. It tingled up and down his flesh until the pain turned to numbness. Something struck him, harder this time than when the wheel hit, knocking his knees, his helm and his chestplate. He could hear the dull ting of something striking metal even over the wash of water that filled his ears.

  Suddenly the world turned upright again, and he emerged from the water as though thrust out by an unseen force. He lay flat on a surface he could not see, that he was dimly aware did not even exist. The night sky flashed above him, puffy, dark clouds lit by flashes of lightning.

  Cyrus sputtered and water came rushing out of his mouth, salty and warm, sliding down his cheeks and running through his hair and down his neck. He gagged and spit again, unsure how long he’d been under but finding it impossible that he’d taken in this much water in that time and still found himself alive.

  “Did we just …” came J’anda’s weak voice. Cyrus turned his head to find the enchanter some ten feet away, on his back, robes soaked, the rain pouring down on him, hovering in midair as though levitating on nothing. Cyrus looked down and saw the thrashing seas beneath, angry and twisting. And then he saw …

  “I think we … might have solved … part of our problem,” Cyrus said.

  The ship was beneath them, broken in two, the bottom of the keel washing on much smaller waves than the one that had burst the hull. Cyrus put a hand down on empty air and found spell magic that gave him something solid to push against. He spit salty water out and rolled to his knees, working his way back to his feet. Beneath him, the sea churned, dragging the back half of the ship into its cold embrace, the last of it slipping into the depths as he watched. The front half was also sinking, but more slowly, the large mast laid out sideways like a stick on the surface of the sea.

  “Is everyone all right?” Terian asked weakly. “Do we … do we have everyone?”

  “Zarnn here,” the troll said, and then he retched. The smell of awful troll bile mixed with salt water reached Cyrus, forcing him to turn away.

  “I made it,” Calene’s soft voice called over the crash of the waves. “I think. Cold as hell, though.”

  “Same,” Quinneria said a little hoarsely, and Cyrus saw her, looking more weathered than ever, some twenty feet away, her cheek pressed to ground that wasn’t there, making no move to stand.

  “Bowe, Dahveed, and I are here,” Grinnd said, striding around as though nothing out of sorts had just happened.

  “I am also here,” Mendicant said, an octave above a squeak.

  “Cora and Longwell are both recovering over there,” Aisling said. Her leather clothing made a squishing noise as she walked. “Oh, and there’s Isabelle.”

  Cyrus ran through his memory. “Martaina? Scuddar? Is that—”

  “Here,” Martaina said, extending a hand to him. He took it and she helped him to his feet. Her sodden green cloak looked heavy enough to drag her back down to the sea below. “And there’s Scuddar.”

  Cyrus turned his head in the direction she’d pointed to find the desert man sitting with his legs crossed, his crimson robes a darker red from the wetness of the seas. He appeared to be waiting for something, his scimitar across his lap. What the hell is he—

  Cyrus did not even get the thought out before the front section of the ship burst below, the belly breaking open like an egg. He steadied himself and saw the others who had been dragging suddenly rush to their feet.

  A dark blue arm emerged from the belly of the breaking ship, coruscating light running down the forearm like lightning surging across the sky. A head came next, youthful and angry, staring up at Cyrus and his company as the God of Storms clawed his way out of his home, rising out of the sea and the ship’s wreckage to walk upon the very air itself.

  “Cyrus Davidon,” he said, his eyes alighting immediately on Cyrus. The lightning flashes seemed to be running down Tempestus’s veins, as though he had them pulsing through him constantly.

  Cyrus met the god’s gaze and gave him a nod, Praelior still clutched tight in his hand. “So … you made it out. I was beginning to wonder if you would.”

  “My domain is the sea and the sky and the land rent asunder by the power of nature,” Tempestus said, rising up slowly. “A storm cannot kill me.”

  “Oh, I think this one is about to,” Cyrus said, ignoring the sound of water tapping at his helm.

  “Then you are even more foolish than I thought,” said Tempestus. The lightning began to coalesce at his right hand, flowing and flashing along his skin until it extended forth in four points, gleaming like long claws, blades like small swords extending from the point of his knuckles. He watched Cyrus with a smile as it flashed and flowed, and then ran his opposite fingers along it. “Do you like it? This is called Fulmenar—the Claws of Lightning.”

  “Very pretty,” Cyrus pronounced. “You know, my little band is accumulating quite the mass of godly weapons.” He held up Praelior, and turned to shout over his shoulder. “Who wants the claws after we kill this bastard?”

  “Do they flash like that even after he takes them off?” Calene asked. “Oh, what am I thinking? They’re way too big for me. Lovely, though—”

  “I will kill you first, girl,” Tempestus said. Anger reflecting in his eyes with the flashes of light, he pointed his weapon at her, the power building within it, starting to shoot forth—

  Cyrus leapt forward with Praelior, jumping in front of the lightning. It arced toward the blade and struck as Cyrus dove toward Tempestus, running on air. The ocean raged beneath them, another enormous wave rolling across the stormy seas. The lightning flashed and played across his blade, unable to pass the crossguard. Though the God of Storms raged his lightning at him, Cyrus ran through it, his sword taking it all up. Tempestus’s eyes widened as Cyrus burst past the raised weapon.

  Cyrus feinted shallow and Tempestus moved to block him. The God of Storms made to raise his other hand, spell-light already crackling as the lightning began once again to coalesce, but Cyrus kicked his wrist down, and the lightning discharged harmlessly into the ocean below, electrifying the surface. Something moved down there, but Cyrus had not the time to pay attention to it. At that moment the others descended through the howl of the storm and the hammering of the rains, coming down to where he was waging his lonely battle against the God of Storms.

  Zarnn came in howling, slashing Rodanthar against Tempestus’s cheek. The God of Storms was still larger than troll-sized, though he was shrinking by the second. His youthful face was wracked with pain, his claws hopelessly tangled up against Praelior. Cyrus was holding him at bay, to his surprise. I expected he’d be stronger, Cyrus thought.

  “I have servants, you know,” Tempestus said through gritted teeth, barely a whisper.

  “Yes, we killed many of them,” Cyrus said, and punched the God of the Storms in the face, knocking his head back.

  Tempestus snapped his attention back to Cyrus, the lightning flashing in his eyes. The anger was obvious now, the fury, the fear. He is feeling fear right now, too … Cyrus thought as he threw himself back. Tempestus’s strength was building, and he slashed the claws after Cyrus’s retreating form.

  “To me, denizens of the Storm!” Tempestus shouted over the wind. Something broke the surface below, a spray of water blasting out of the wave-tossed ocean. Cyrus saw it only out of the corner of his eye, something long and sleek and black as his armor.

  “Shark!” Aisling shouted, and she shot past, d
iving into a roll as the sea creature flew through the space where she’d been running only a moment earlier, jaws wide and ready to devour anything in its path.

  “That’s not all!” Quinneria shouted. Out of the corer of his eye, Cyrus saw an eight-tentacled creature launch itself out of the water and slam into Grinnd, knocking him over before it splashed back into the deep.

  “You cannot come to our places and destroy them without consequence, Cyrus Davidon,” Tempestus hissed, coming after him now, menacing, claws swiping hard where Cyrus had been only a moment before. “You have roused the storm, and now its fury is upon you.”

  “You’re an overly dramatic sonofabitch,” Cyrus said, knocking the claws away with a defensive parry, “so let me say this in a way you’ll understand—you and your lot came to destroy our places first, to exterminate our people. And if you mean to do that to us, we’re not the sorts that will just lay back and let it happen. We will come to your homes and knock your places down with twice the fury.” He threw Praelior up and turned aside another thrust of the claws. “If you mean to bring us down, we will bring you down with us, Sparkle-face.”

  Tempestus paused, youthful face twisted in confusion, his claws tangled with Praelior. “Sparkle … what?”

  Cyrus seized on his momentary advantage and twisted, ramming his whole arm up through the gap in the claws, feeling their points run down his right vambrace and up to his armpit. “Sparkle-face.” He jabbed the point into Tempestus’s cheek, splitting the skin wide and causing lightning-infused blood to run down his face. “Because of, you know, that.”

  Tempestus fell back a step, clutching at his wound with his free hand, the flashing blood dripping down to the sea below, lighting it with little sparks as it diffused its energy across the surface. “I have magic running through my veins, Cyrus Davidon,” Tempestus said, raising up again, face lit with anger and the flashing of his own blood. “What have you got?”

  Cyrus stared right back at him. “A yearning for vengeance that tells me to cut your head off and show you your own corpse before the light leaves your eyes, so that you can carry the message to any afterlife there is—‘Enrage these mortals at your own peril.’”

  “You are not what we are,” Tempestus said. “You are the least, the puny, the dregs of—”

  “Yet I’m still gonna kill you.” Cyrus flung himself at the God of Storms, who seemed unprepared for the fury of his attack. Cyrus drove him back strike by strike, Tempestus fleeing toward the ocean below step by step, falling before the righteous rage of Cyrus’s blade.

  The storm-swept ocean was only twenty feet below them, then ten. Cyrus could hear the surface of the seas churning as servants of Tempestus leapt out. He could see the others running about, thwarting these constant attempts to interfere in the fight. Zarnn slammed into a shark that leapt out of the water, ramming it down as it came at Cyrus. A fish with a thousand teeth came at him in a flying leap from the surface and Mendicant burned its head off with blue fire, its skinny bones black and smoking as it spiraled back to the deeps and splashed helplessly into nothingness.

  “You cannot beat me!” Tempestus screamed as Cyrus came at him, rage working across the Guildmaster of Sanctuary’s face. He could feel it twist at his insides, tense his brow so that it was as immovable as stone. He struck and struck and struck again, smashing aside Fulmenar, the lightning splashing harmlessly every third stroke or so, running the length of Praelior and giving its blue glow a brighter sheen.

  “Why?” Cyrus asked, voice icy chilled like the sea below. “Are you different than Aurous? Than Lexirea? Levembre? Yartraak? Mortus? Nessalima? Your fellows are dying like flies, and despite what your mother may have told you, you are no more special than any of the others.” He struck at the wrist and caught Tempestus just below the guard of his claws. Tempestus cried out, his blood spilling, this time with only a flash or two, the magic spending quickly. “You are like them!” Cyrus shouted, stabbing the God of Storms in the shoulder. He was now only a little larger than Cyrus, and his face was tight with fear and pain, his mouth open in a cry. “You are nothing!”

  And as Cyrus raised his weapon high to strike the killing blow, he saw another blast of seawater below as something emerged from the depths. He caught a glimpse of teeth and jaws, open and lunging for him, only a few feet away. His sword raised high, there was no stopping it. Not in time.

  “I DIE LIKE VERRET!” came a scream from beside him. Grinnd Urnocht leapt from above him, like he had jumped off the top of a curtain wall. His immense, broad shoulders and dual blades sweeping overhead made him look like some sort of majestic raptor flying toward a rendezvous with fate.

  Cyrus watched it happen; the dark elven warrior plunged into the mouth of the beast, swords ripping into its jaws as its teeth tore into him. It was a messy swirl, like a storm within the mouth of the sea creature. Blood sprayed and splattered as the shark halted its forward momentum toward Cyrus and spiraled back to the water, breaking the surface as pieces of flesh flew in all directions, like pebbles thrown from a hand into the water.

  “No!” a scream broke the silence, and Cyrus saw the druid, Bowe, and Dahveed, the healer rushing toward the place where Grinnd had disappeared. He ignored the scene as best he could and plunged his sword into Tempestus’s chest, the momentary hint of triumph at Grinnd’s death erased from the God of Storms’s face as Cyrus shoved the blade into his heart.

  “And you die like the rest of them,” Cyrus said, as the thunder cracked for the last time. The black clouds above seemed to stop swirling as Tempestus’s eyes stole their lightning, and it died in the red glow.

  “You … are just … a human,” Tempestus said, his lips slack, fighting against his coming death to say one last thing, take one last jab at his killer. “You are … nothing compared to us, mortal. You are fleeting. Unremembered. We are … forever.”

  “Like Drettanden?” Cyrus asked, and Tempestus’s eyes started to lose their glow, fading from a glowing red to a dull one, his pupils turning black in the center of a crimson iris. “Like the others no one remembers?” He felt an ugly smile of satisfaction blossom on his face as a look of pained horror spread across Tempestus’s, death settling on him. “No one will remember you in a thousand years. You’re nothing now but food for your own sea monsters.”

  And with that, Cyrus brought his blade down again, severing the Claws of Lightning from Tempestus’s hand and then plunging the blade into his throat a final time. In that moment, the last howl of wind dissipated, the storm’s fury broken, and Cyrus kept his grip on the God of Storms’s weapon as he let the corpse plunge into the becalmed waters, disappearing into the depths as the silence reigned over the night ocean.

  40.

  Alaric

  “Where are we going?” I asked as the carriage rattled along. It had been over a week since Jena had come to tutor me after that first meeting with Chavoron’s imperial cabinet. She had taught me much in the course of that week. Although my time with her was supposed to be balanced with lessons from Rin, I had not seen nor heard from the mysterious guardsman since the meeting, while Jena had been ever present.

  In this, I had no cause for complaint.

  “We are taking a ride into the past,” she said mysteriously, looking out the window of the carriage. Horses were hauling us forward, which I thought curious. This was a land where magic ruled the day, after all, and they could build keeps that stretched into the sky. Was there no other way to propel a carriage forward but by the labor of beasts? Could not magic send us on our way as easily as I could now produce fire from my hand?

  These were the questions that had taxed my mind in the last week, since Jena had begun to build upon the fundamentals she’d taught me before by expanding my knowledge and enflaming my imagination.

  I looked out the carriage window as it carried us away from the tower of governance, or whatever it was they called it. It had a very difficult to pronounce Protanian name, and I’d taken to referring to it, in jest, as the “Citade
l of Light and Hope.” Jena had found this amusing, and though I had not mentioned it to Chavoron yet, I had a feeling he would as well.

  The streets passed by and the crowds of blue-skinned Protanians on the sidewalks dwindled the longer we rode. The sun was high overhead, shining down into the unnatural gullies made by the tall buildings on either side of the streets. Glowing light was provided by the buildings on either side, their luminous walls supplementing the sunlight that streamed in sideways, the light not fully penetrating these artificial canyons.

  I tried to imagine these city streets without the artificial light and could only think that unless the sun was directly overhead, it would almost be like perpetual night in the middle of the day.

  The crowds thinned the further we rode. The height of the buildings shrank, falling from towers to smaller towers, a few stories high, until they became two-story domiciles and finally single-story homes. The sprawling city gave way to houses with large tracts of empty land around them. I looked for crops but saw nothing but grassy land, as though that were some sort of valuable thing, land without crops.

  “We’re almost there,” Jena announced. She was keeping carefully quiet, I assumed because she wanted to maintain whatever surprise she had planned. I peered at her, watching for some hint of answer to the mystery in question, but she kept it to herself, a little smile curling her lips.

  “Almost where?” I asked, just fishing, but she remained silent and I went back to looking out the window. The spaces between homes had grown, and now there were no buildings to be seen at all from where I sat. I stuck my head out the window entirely and she made a gasping noise, probably offended at my blatant attempt to spoil the surprise.

  And when I saw it, I was certainly surprised.

  The Coliseum lay on the horizon before us, its circular outer wall spiraling around impressively. It was an immense building, by any scale, and from here I could see the camp at its edge, the fences made to keep in the prisoners.