Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  46.

  Alaric

  My worries hounded me throughout that afternoon and evening, long after Chavoron ended his productive lunch with Curatio. While he and the Butcher spoke, dining on a course of succulent beef, sauced greens, and something like a sweet goat’s milk, I sat digesting the earlier news that the Protanian Empire was poised to invade my own kingdom. It was fortunate that my participation was not required in their talks, for I doubt I could have uttered much beyond my own name at that point.

  I stood on the balcony that night, waiting for the inevitable call by Chavoron to bed down for the eve. I slept in the corner of the room, ready to attend him if needed, not unlike the personal servants I had kept in Luukessia, the ones who slept outside the curtains of my four-poster bed ready to attend to my lightest need in the middle of the night. Chavoron never asked for anything, fortunately, for I was a poor servant and a heavy sleeper. Hell, for all I knew he’d asked for water every evening and I’d never heard him across the quarters, though I doubted it. He could conjure all the water he desired from his own hand, after all.

  I imagined the legions of the Protanian Empire sweeping down out of Syloreas, eddying around Enrant Monge as it collapsed under a withering assault, the curtain walls falling under armies of blue men surging up over the ramparts on the wings of their flight spells. Even without that damned bridge, they could roll through my kingdom and swiftly to the coasts of Galbadien and Actaluere with no difficulty at all. I already knew they had some avenue in through the north, after all, and our armies stood no chance against them.

  Unless someone with powers like theirs returned to spearhead an attack against them.

  All of this washed through my head in a circular manner, like wine swishing around in a goblet. I stood beneath the stars, the few visible here in Sennshann, and took a breath of the cool night air as it worked its way beneath my tunic.

  “You worry that we will invade your country and enslave the rest of your people,” Chavoron said, appearing behind me. He had been reading when I’d stepped outside, once again utterly focused on his book to the exclusion of all else. He’d been locked in conversation with Caraleen before she’d left, but they’d spoken in their own language for the most part. I had paid little attention to that, too, after realizing it was just small talk.

  “You know that because I’ve said scarcely a word since Curatio threw that out in the meeting,” I said, not turning to look at him, though I could see his silhouette framed by the light of the glowing walls. “He did it for the sake of raising discord between us, didn’t he?”

  “Most probably,” Chavoron said, working his way over to stand beside me, letting his hands drop on the rails and then leaning over to survey his city. “It’s not as though it costs him anything to put worry in your mind.”

  “He would derive great joy from it, I’m sure.” I squeezed my hands against the smooth stone rail. Even with a sense that Chavoron was willing to talk about this, that he’d provided reasonable excuses for why the bridge was proceeding and they were still slaving in the north of Syloreas … I still felt doubt.

  “I cannot blame you for fearing for your home,” Chavoron said. “I would fear for mine if an invader of great strength were perched like a falcon over it as well.”

  “But no invader stands close to Sennshann,” I said, looking at a twinkling light in the distance.

  “Sennshann is not my home,” Chavoron said quietly.

  “It isn’t?”

  “No, this is only the place that I live because I am First Citizen,” Chavoron said with a far-off look in his eyes. “Perhaps someday soon I will take you there, to my true home.”

  “Is it far away?” I asked, thinking of Luukessia, beyond the borders of a sea.

  “It is near and yet still far,” Chavoron said in that mysterious way of his. “I could live there and teleport here if I were of a mind to, but …” He sighed. “I am a man with a purpose, and to be home … to be in that place … would distract from my purpose. So I stay here.” He let that thought linger for a time. “Do you have a purpose, Alaric?”

  “I …” I labored under the weight of his question. “I suppose my purpose was clearer to me when I was set to be the king of Luukessia.”

  “And we pulled you away from all that,” Chavoron said, nodding quietly into the night air. “Still … at least you didn’t give your speech with your abysmally chosen words.”

  My head snapped around, and I find him smiling slyly. “How—how did you know about those?”

  “You don’t get to be First Citizen by keeping your head buried in the sands,” Chavoron said. “Truly, though … Order, Faithful, Strength, Unyielding and Merciless?” He shook his head. “You hereditary rulers who don’t have to earn your power …” I felt myself flush, and he made a soft sound in his throat. “I don’t mean to embarrass you,” he said. “You are young, and you had a view of the world and how it all fit together. Tell me, though—would you still choose the same words now, given the chance?”

  “I …” I sputtered, trying to get my thoughts in a line. “I … I don’t know.” I hadn’t given my words much thought, other than when I had spoken them the one time since I’d arrived here. “I see the value of order because … you have it here. It’s what you’re fighting for, to preserve it against the tide of chaos that would be unleashed if you freed all the slaves today. There’s a faithfulness, a loyalty that I’ve seen from you, and you can’t deny your empire’s strength.” He tilted his head in accession to the point. “As for unyielding and mercilessness …” I paused, parting my lips. “I suppose … no, I wouldn’t choose those any longer. If you’d been unyielding or merciless with me, I would be dead.”

  “That doesn’t stop others from wanting you dead without mercy or yielding,” Chavoron said. “But I’d hardly call it a virtue.” He quieted for a few minutes more. “But you don’t see a purpose to your life? Some goal you are setting out to achieve, a thing you strive for?” He put an elbow on the railing and turned all his attention to me. “What are the dreams you dream for yourself, Alaric?”

  “I still dream of taking up my crown,” I said, staring off into the night sky, as dark as a Protanian’s skin. “Of going home with the power, the strength I set out hoping to obtain.” I looked at him and found him watching intently. “But I suppose there are things to do here first. Lessons to learn.”

  “There are always lessons to learn,” Chavoron said, nodding, fading into the background of night when he held still. “But there are better things to pursue in life than just power. Power by itself—it is a hollow thing, when it is exercised just for the sake of unprincipled order. Strength, force, might … by the time you leave these shores, you could be the most powerful man in Luukessia.” He leaned closer to me, the shadows parted, and I could see the worry in his eyes. “I would fear turning loose the boy who came to our shores in the back of that slave wagon with the sort of power you will have when this is done.” He pushed off the railing, drew himself up, and started back inside.

  “But you don’t fear turning loose … the man I am now with that power?” I asked, watching him make his way slowly back inside.

  “It would still give me pause.” Chavoron turned back, and I could see the thinly veiled concern in the way he looked down when he answered. “But …” the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, “… I have high hopes for the man you have yet to become.”

  And with that, he sauntered back inside, leaving me alone in the night air, with nothing but my thoughts, and only a vague idea of my purpose.

  47.

  Cyrus

  Martaina’s death felt like a strike to the heart, a blow to a place where Cyrus had been pummeled so repeatedly he had thought himself numb. It settled on him that she was gone just as Ashea’s corpse pitched forward, sliding like a serpent as her muscles lost their strength.

  “Martaina,” Ryin said, easing in now that the threat was removed. Cyrus stared at her shredded cloak, gone save for
the tail, ripped free with a serrated edge of cloth, fluttering as it fell into a dark puddle. “No …”

  “Fortin as well,” Cyrus said, and he caught the blanch of surprise from the druid, “earlier, at Pharesia, when Levembre, Nessalima, and Lexirea came calling.”

  Ryin closed his eyes to grimace, his head lolling back briefly. “Damn.” He sighed. “And … the others?”

  Cyrus looked to the west where the fires raged. Terian, he thought in alarm. “They’re fighting the other elementals—we need to go.” And he took to the skies without another look back, trusting Ryin would follow behind.

  It felt cold to him, leaving Martaina like that—but then, she wasn’t there any longer, was she? She had died to save those people, died in a last act of spite from Ashea, and her legacy was done. Now she was just another dead body—or part of one—on the streets of Reikonos.

  Cyrus streaked over the city markets, above collapsed structures and shattered stalls. Even in the dark of night, people were streaming through them; sellers and buyers running as flames lit the sky overhead, trying to escape. As Cyrus watched, Enflaga let loose a blossoming tongue of flame at someone running past her.

  “Cyrus!” Ryin called from somewhere far behind him, but Cyrus did not slow. There was no more time. His people—the only ones he had left—were pitted against these gods, against these odds. Some are surely dying, he thought.

  Like Martaina.

  “There’s no time,” he said, though he knew Ryin would not have heard it, perhaps even if he shouted. He left the druid far, far behind, not taking any chances that he should be even a moment later than he had to. He hurt in every way, from the heart on out to his skin, and his black armor was coated with mud, congealed in the crevices between the plates and spackled into the chainmail beneath. He let none of it stop him as he raced toward the battle with the Goddess of Fire.

  She stood in the markets like a titan in the midst of an anthill, her hands moving with the casting of every spell she loosed. She was frenzied in her motions, trying to catch something—someone—with an attack, but Cyrus could only see the outline of armor running in a flat sprint before her, a shadow on her fiery figure.

  Terian.

  He lives.

  Cyrus poured on all the speed he had, darting a look to his right, to the north, where past the towering Citadel, Virixia was in the sky, soaring toward the moon and battling small shapes that darted around her like gnats. Spells flew and Cyrus knew his mother, too, lived, though he wondered if anyone else of her group survived. The white wings of the Goddess of Air were blackened and scarred, and even at this distance he could see the horror on her face as she battled for her life.

  One fight at a time, Cyrus, he told himself, his mind going back to the days of the Society, to his earliest training, and he kept himself from looking behind him, where he knew, somewhere in the distance to the east, Rotan was surely tearing his way through the guildhall quarter.

  Cyrus put those thoughts out of his mind, those and one other—I wonder if the Society of Arms has been destroyed in all this?—and honed in on the Goddess of Fire before him, raining her flames on the markets, cawing like some primal bird as she raged through the night.

  Cyrus watched a lick of flame drape itself across tented stalls and felt a flash of horror as the image dragged him back to a moment in the temple of dragons when he’d seen a trailing flame take the lives of several guildmates in the course of seconds.

  Andren.

  Thad.

  Odellan.

  “Stop!” he shouted, making himself heard over the screams in the night, casting the spell to boost his voice. It thundered over the battle, crackling over his hometown, probably audible all the way to the Coliseum, amplified by the power of the spell and his rage. “These are people!” he shouted at the Goddess of Fire, who took no heed of him or his anger but continued her attacks on the shadow of Terian darting in circles around her, the spellcraft of the goddess leaving nothing but havoc in its wake.

  “I don’t think she cares!” Terian shouted, his voice magically magnified as well, echoing. “The good news is that the markets are just about empty here!”

  Cyrus looked down and realized that he had spoken true; Terian was running in circles, but craftily, for his distraction had allowed the markets to clear. He’d run over the crowds as they flooded away, seeking safety from the battle as Terian had worked to keep the goddess focused on him.

  A blast of lightning sizzled out of a building nearby, and Cyrus watched Bowe fade back into the shadows of an archway as Enflaga ignored the druid to continue her mad attack on the Sovereign of Saekaj.

  He really is a white knight now, Cyrus thought as Terian narrowly avoided another tongue of flame. The Sovereign blasted Enflaga with an outstretched palm but merely caused the goddess to waver for a moment. He could die at any moment, and he’s still here, standing between her and these people.

  If I die in this company, in this cause, I couldn’t ask for a better death.

  And perhaps I’ll see Vara again …

  “You are insects!” Enflaga raged as she cast another spell after Terian. “Ants!”

  “These are people!” Cyrus shouted again, cutting right over her and causing her to look up at him in surprise, his booming voice taking her focus off Terian as he swept closer. “You see us as creatures, animals—but now I see you plainly! You’re not gods,” Cyrus said, his disdain given full form and bleeding out. “You’re barely more than beasts.”

  “Nope, she definitely doesn’t care,” Terian said as he narrowly dodged a thrown hand that was coming at his head, columns of fire shooting from Enflaga’s fingers. He dove toward the ground at a run, dipping behind canvas-topped tents as Cyrus mimicked his motion, following the paladin down a row of stalls as Enflaga lit everything behind them on fire.

  Terian ran through the maze of covered stalls, Cyrus following, the sounds of the furious goddess behind them giving them a perfect idea of where the threat lay. Terian came to a halt and dropped to a knee next to a stall filled with cotton nightdresses. The Sovereign of Saekaj Sovar lowered his head, breath coming in gasps.

  “You all right?” Cyrus asked, watching warily over his shoulder, listening to the sounds of Enflaga shredding a stall in the distance, clearly searching in the wrong direction for them.

  “Singed and exhausted, but alive,” Terian said between breaths. “You?”

  “Ashea’s dead,” Cyrus said, and his heart sank. “And so is Martaina.”

  “Damn it all,” Terian said. “Best ranger I ever met.”

  “Agreed,” Cyrus said. “This isn’t even a slow defeat, and our attrition is not a fair trade despite our numbers being greater than theirs.”

  “Yeah,” Terian said. “We keep drawing this out and it’ll put us all in our graves.” He looked around the stall, seemingly searching for something.

  “What?” Cyrus asked.

  Terian blinked, looking at him in surprise. “Oh. I was just thinking—”

  “Dangerous hobby, that.”

  “—but isn’t this where you got your ass kicked and your sword stolen by Goliath last year?”

  Cyrus stared at Terian’s implacable face, and then, by habit alone, he looked around. “Here in the markets, yes, why?”

  “No reason.” Terian gave a quick shrug. “But, you know, please don’t make a habit of losing battles here.”

  “Dick,” Cyrus retorted. “Did I ever tell you I miss your pointy dark-knight helm?”

  “I miss it occasionally, too,” Terian said, reaching up to the top of his head and feeling the smooth ovoid with a subtle scraping of his gauntlet rubbing against the metal. “Especially when someone’s standing right in front of me, my axe is locked up in their blade and their face is ripe for making a point.” He frowned. “Wait, why do you miss it?”

  “Because when I tell you to go sit on your helm, it used to mean something.”

  “Ouch.” Terian glanced around, the sounds of the raging goddess
drawing farther away. She was plainly not finding any luck, nor any of their allies by the sound of her, desperate and angry. “What now?”

  “Force blasts,” Cyrus said, straightening up from where he’d hunched over to give himself a moment to rest. “I go at her front, you circle around behind, I hit her high, you take her legs out—axe to the neck, sword to the face, and the reign of fire comes to a blazing end so we can move on to the dragon queen,” Cyrus waved toward the north, where Virixia still hung against the sky, twitching from spell attacks that were flashing in the night, “or stonehead over there,” he gestured to the east, “whichever tickles our fancy most.”

  “All right, then,” Terian said, standing back up, “let’s do it.”

  “What about the rest of your team?”

  “I’m sure they’ll keep out of the firefight,” Terian said. “Scuddar is exceptionally good at disappearing in the middle of a battle, and it’s not because she burned him up, either. It’s like he blends with the wares around here.” He made a motion at one of the nightdresses, dyed crimson. “For all I know, he’s hiding in that.”

  Cyrus gave a rueful smile and then jogged off, hurrying around to get in front of Enflaga and give Terian his opening. He could see her moving between the gaps in the canvas tops of the market stalls, eyes burning with her fire. She was whipping her head around, clearly perplexed. Wait too much longer and she’ll be off to cause more havoc with the citizenry …

  Cyrus kicked a stall as he went by, making enough noise that Enflaga’s head snapped around, her billowing hair whipping behind her. A second later the place where he’d been standing was consumed in an inferno, and Cyrus sprinted toward the cover of a nearby stall as she came after him, legs crashing through wood and cloth as easily as he might move through long grass.

  “Where are you, Davidon?” she called. “I hadn’t marked you for the cowardly sort. Are you afraid to come out and face me?”