Legend

by Robert J. Crane

“You agree with her on this,” I said, my sandaled feet plopping against the ground with every step. I suddenly felt quite exposed, not wearing any armor as Mathurin did.

  “I am sympathetic to her cause,” Mathurin said simply. “But her means I could not possibly find agreement with.”

  We advanced toward a barrier of guardsmen ahead, who were watching us warily. I could see the suspicion in their eyes even in the dark; they were clearly thinking that sending in one band of slaves to quell another was a bit like trying to stop a fire by starting another one.

  Mathurin walked right up to the guardsman in charge, speaking to him as though they were old friends. I waited, raising a hand in the air to stop the advance of my men behind us, and tried to listen to the hushed words they spoke. I heard none of them, however, as my men began to talk among themselves, and I had trouble concentrating in on a conversation in an entirely different language when there were so many in my own being had just behind me.

  “Have you heard any news from Luukessia?” a voice asked from just behind me. I turned to find Stepan standing there, his arena sword in his belt, a resolute look upon his face as he awaited my answer.

  “I haven’t left Sennshann until this day,” I said. “They don’t mean to let me travel back, I don’t think. At least, not now.”

  Stepan’s face moved imperceptibly. “But you’re free now, aren’t you?”

  “More or less,” I said. “But I have obligations here—”

  “You have obligations in your own kingdom,” he said stiffly. “You are to take the throne when your father dies.”

  I tried not to let them, but my true feelings bled out at that moment. “Come now, Stepan. You know as well as I do that my father sent me north in order to delay my introduction to the kingdom as a leader.”

  “Because you chose your words poorly,” Stepan said, “and steadfastly refused to change them. Your father hoped that seeing the world would change your perspective.” He folded his arms in front of him. “Has it?”

  I don’t know what I would have said if I’d had a chance to reply. Mathurin came back at exactly that moment, and I turned away from Stepan. “We are cleared to enter this cordoned-off zone,” he said. “The building we’re looking for is just ahead, the largest,” Mathurin pointed to a mammoth block structure perched in the middle of the street. Probably half the height of the tower at Enrant Monge, only a couple floors in height, but immense, spread out over the space of a city block.

  “How many are we dealing with?” Olivier asked, his bruised face appearing at my elbow and ignoring me to point his question at Mathurin.

  Mathurin eyed him, probably trying to decide if he was worth dignifying with a response. Expediency seemed to win out. “Less than fifty. But they will be heavily armed.”

  “But they’re not arena fighters, are they?” Stepan asked, apparently switching tacks.

  “Their backgrounds are not specified,” Mathurin said tightly. “It’s not the sort of thing the soldiers around here would care about, unfortunately, for that would be useful to know, indeed. Assume they are well-trained, for they have pushed back our guardsman, though that is likely through intimidation, not outright violence.”

  “How many entries does that building have?” Varren asked, trying to get a good look over the heads of those of us in front of him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mathurin said. “We need to rush the main entry. Splitting our forces against an equivalent foe is a poor option.” He pointed toward the front of the building, where I saw a large arch leading into the building, no door in sight. “The public buildings here have no doors. They have nothing to secure against us, so we can simply charge in. The advantage is on our side—”

  “With our numbers equivalent, how is that?” Stepan asked.

  “Because we only need them to die the once, and they’ll likely be finished,” Mathurin said. “Whereas they’ll have to kill us considerably more heartily in order to finish us, since we have troops that will follow behind with the resurrection spell to bring us—and them, for the most part—back to life.”

  “Wait,” Olivier said, his bruised face squinting, “we’re going to kill them only for them to be brought back to life again? What sense does that make?”

  “We don’t kill here, at least not permanently,” Mathurin said. “Not our own at all, and not your kind permanently, if we can avoid it. These slaves that are able to be resurrected will be brought back to life and divided up among the different cities in our land so that they cannot stir trouble together again.”

  “No, they’ll stir it individually instead,” Varren murmured.

  “Without the Eruditia giving them free rein,” Mathurin said briskly, “they’ll find it hard to do that. Now … are we clear on the plan?”

  “Charge into the waiting jaws of death,” Olivier said, “and inflict more harm than they can inflict on us.” He had his arena sword in hand, but awkwardly. “It seems simple, if stupidly direct.”

  “We have reinforcements, they have none,” Mathurin said. “There is no need to complicate this. We cause them enough damage that they can be suppressed, and we win. The only way they win is if they’re able to utterly destroy us before we can reduce their numbers sufficiently to eliminate their threat to our guardsman, the ones who follow us. We are the vanguard, and we will lead the way.” He drew his own weapon, and not the baton. This was a sword, with the broadest blade I had ever seen, absolutely fearsome its appearance, and he held it before him.

  I looked at his weapon, once again envious, and asked, “Did you make that yourself?”

  “I did,” Mathurin said with a hint of pride. “I am not as proficient in spellcraft as any of the council, but I have added a few … enhancements by my own hand that should give me aid in this.” He swung the blade so swiftly past it seemed to vanish in a blur.

  I drew my arena sword, plain yet stronger than anything in Luukessia. “And these, I suppose, had not nearly enough flair for you?”

  Mathurin smiled. “I want to free the pardwans, not arm myself like one.” He slapped me on the back and started across the cordon, toward the building where the slaves—and the Eruditia—were waiting. I followed after, my men in step behind me.

  I knew our foes must surely be aware of our arrival. I also knew that they were expecting and hoping for Protanian guards, whom they could pour their whole energies into killing. Chavoron and Mathurin had talked it through, wondering how they would react to humans, each seeming to suggest that they would be more favorable, more hesitant, to kill their own. I doubted that; in my experience, a man would happily bash in the face of another man given the lightest excuse, and when provoked into a fight for their lives, I doubted these slaves would hold back.

  “You should wait here until we’ve gone in,” I said to Mathurin, who seemed quite eager to lead the charge himself.

  He hesitated, sword in his hand, glimmering under the moonlight with a look of something dark beyond steel. “I … perhaps I should stay up front, with you—”

  “And play into their hand?” I asked. “Don’t be a fool. We have a plan, and your dying would void it. Follow behind, yes?”

  “All right,” Mathurin said. I could see that he didn’t not care for this at all, but he sagged back to the middle of the legion and stayed there, coming forward with the rest of them, plainly not content to hide away at the back of the pack.

  I, on the other hand, felt strangely pinned in place at the front, wishing I could be at least in the middle with Mathurin and preferably, at the rear of it all, coming in once it was finished. My mouth felt dry, my fear made my hand shake, and only experience driven in through time and effort gave me anything to cling to as I marched toward that dark, open arch leading into the building.

  I resisted the urge to run, just as I had all those times in the arena. I readied my mind as Jena had taught me, focusing on the simple words and actions. If the slaves had been taught magic, this was going to be much more difficult. If, on the ot
her hand, they were only armed, with the Eruditia carrying all the magic … well, this would still be difficult, but at least in the latter scenario, I could make a significant difference in the outcome.

  I heard whispers in the darkness as I strode forward, hiding my lack of confidence, my desire to run, not daring to let the slightest emotion show. I knew trouble lurked in the shadows, and I also knew that these same shadows were not my allies—they were on the side of my enemies.

  I muttered a spell under my breath as I heard the scuffle of footfalls ahead, and light blazed from my hand in blinding white, the spell to invoke light in darkness from your own hand lashing at the unseen foes ahead, causing them to jerk away as I rushed forward. I pointed my sword at them, now visible, ten or more slaves who had been hiding in the darkness, and I cast another spell. Plumes of fire jetted from my fingers, darting toward them like arrows across the field of battle, hitting their dirty tunics and shredded clothing, and I could see that the men wore the dirty, mixed attire of my father’s army.

  I put that thought out of my mind as the first of them started to burn. I threw the light spell ahead of me, and it arced across the room like a ball tossed from my hand. It lit another arch further along, and I could see faces hiding behind it as I surged forward at the head of my legion. The lust for battle, the thrill of early success had taken me over, pushing aside the worries and fears I had tried to shut out of my mind before we had begun our charge. I hurried faster forward now, confident that I could see the enemies ahead past the arch, and that I could illuminate more of them. My men were at my back, and we would see this thing done.

  For Chavoron.

  And for me, that I might continue my study, my ascent …. Where that might lead me, I wasn’t sure, I only knew that I needed to continue, to keep going further, and that this was the right path in my quest for power.

  A man came charging at me from out of the shadows, a cry splitting his lips, echoed by other mouths throughout the stone pavilion. He came at me with a sword held high, like mine, and I raised my guard just in time to block it with a hard clang of metal on metal. Our blades held, hard against one another, and I grimaced with the exertion. This man was strong; his muscles stood out in a way mine simply didn’t. Clearly a laborer of some stripe, whatever he lacked in training, he made up for in brute strength.

  He grimaced at me, teeth showing as we glared at each other over crossed blades. “Ye serving them?” he asked in an accent that sounded like Sylorean bastardized by long years spent here among the Protanians.

  “I serve myself,” I said in a guttural whisper as he shoved me back, breaking our deadlock. He swung low and his blade skipped along my belly. I grimaced as it lightly broke the flesh. I could hear the clash of blades behind me, cries of battle breaking out as other slaves came from out the shadows. I saw one of them collide with Varren and another with Stepan, each leading the clash with their swords as Olivier ducked sideways from an attacker who emerged from behind a table.

  “No human serves themselves in this land,” my foe scoffed. He was missing a tooth in his lower left jaw, like he’d lost it before he’d come here. It gave his mouth a funny shape. “You’re either with us or with them.”

  “Well, I’m not with you,” I said, executing a spin and going high. I caught him beneath the chin and split his jaw. My opponent dropped his sword with a clatter nearly lost under the sounds of battle, trying to squelch the line of blood running out of his newly struck wound. I plunged the blade into his gullet as a follow-up, and the line of blood on his chin became a gushing falls of red as his eyes went dull. I kicked the bastard over and pulled my blade free at the same time, ready to move on to the next foe.

  My spell orb of light glowed ahead, like a lantern in the night, guiding me into the darker reaches of the building. I could see a shadowed figure waiting in the distance, cloaked, her back to me. She turned and I saw her in profile, the hawkish face of the Eruditia.

  “I should have known he would send you,” the Eruditia said, voice laced with disgust, “rather than imperil any of his own precious lives.” She turned all the way around, lips pursed like she’d eaten something foul.

  “You can’t expect Chavoron to simply play into your plans,” I said, approaching her slowly. She gripped a staff in her hand; It hung horizontally at her side like an afterthought, a plain sort of walking stick. “Sending Protanian soldiers to put down a slave revolt wherein they might die—?”

  “So instead he sends you,” she spoke over the clangor of battle behind us. Her thin lips became a solid line, then turned down, the disgust twisting into something akin to sorrow. She looked up at me, pained. “How much the fool are you, to agree to this? To come to this place and fight your own kindred in his name? To his purpose?” The disgust began to filter back, and her normally hawkish look became even more appalled. “You are nothing more than another pardwan to him, your men exactly the same—servants to be used and used up, cannon fodder to step where he fears to send his own true men. And now I must kill you and yours,” she said, sounding utterly revolted, “before he will finally be forced into engaging with this conflict at his doorstep, with this injustice that he continues to perpetrate—”

  Eruditia raised her staff so swiftly I didn’t even see it move, then slammed the tip against the stone floor. A circular ripple of blue light raced out from the point of impact like a wave rushing toward shore. I stared at it, spellbound, too slow to react to this unknown attack.

  It spread across the floor in a perfect circle, the glowing light, and hit my legs, upending me and slamming me to my back. My shoulders met hard stone, and the wind rushed out of my lungs. I lay there, stunned, staring up at the stone ceiling, as the Eruditia stepped into sight above me.

  “You really were nothing more than a slave,” she said, almost sadly, that same disgust still dripping, “and now you’ll die like one so that the rest of your people might have a chance to be free.” And she brought the staff down toward my face with merciless speed, so quickly I couldn’t do anything to halt it.

  59.

  Cyrus

  “So,” the God of War said, looking out over the Plains of Perdamun, as though he were chatting casually with an old acquaintance, “how have you been?”

  Cyrus stared at the deity, the wind whispering loudly enough through the ear holes of his helm to make him question if he’d heard Bellarum correctly. “How … have I been?”

  “Yes, that’s what I asked,” Bellarum said, moving his head around and watching Cyrus’s eyes, as though looking for signs that he’d taken a recent blow to the head. “It’s a polite question, you see, when one encounters—”

  “I know what you asked,” Cyrus whispered. “I just can’t believe you have the raw nerve to ask it.”

  “Well, it seemed a fair inquiry,” Bellarum said. “I haven’t seen you for a couple of days, and … you’ve obviously been through quite a bit in that intervening time, and so—”

  “Thanks to you,” Cyrus said, a raw, tingling sense of disbelief running through him like a palsy. He felt the sweat break out on his skin, though whether it was from heat or the emotions that ran through him, he could not have said. “You—you—”

  “Oh, I see you trying to gather the indignant words, but there’s no use trying to summon up an accounting of all the wrong I’ve done you,” Bellarum said, waving him away and striding off toward the edge of the crater, keeping his distance from Cyrus as he inspected the newly placed stone. “Very nice,” he said, then turned back to Cyrus. “Because I assure you, I have a complete list of counter-arguments extolling all the things I’ve done for you since childhood to keep you alive, and so we would be here forever listing all the great deeds and terrible crimes I’ve committed both to hurt and protect you, so … why waste the time?”

  “Catharsis,” Cyrus said quietly, still staring in near-mute disbelief at the God of War.

  “True catharsis comes from battle,” Bellarum said, “and perhaps we’ll get to that. But
not yet.”

  “What could you possibly want from me?” Cyrus asked, his voice low, the rage building within him.

  “I want to know why you missed our appointment two days past,” Bellarum said, lifting his hands up.

  Cyrus blinked. “What are you talking ab—you mean when you tried to kill me as you destroyed Sanctuary?”

  “No,” Bellarum said, putting up both hands and waving them. “Not that. I understand why you left then, obviously. Stay and die or be dragged away by the loving embrace of your mother and friend? No, that’s perfectly clear. I’m talking about after that, Cyrus.” The God of War took another step closer to him, but still kept beyond the reach of a weapon. His hand rested on the hilt of his own sword, and Cyrus stared at the pommel of the deity’s blade. It looked familiar.

  “I don’t remember scheduling an appointment with you after that,” Cyrus said hoarsely. His throat felt as though it never known the touch of cool water.

  “It was unspoken, but still,” Bellarum said, “I expected you—you, of all people! Cyrus the determined, Cyrus the unbroken—and you didn’t show up. Appalling.”

  Cyrus felt dazed. “So that you could kill me once and for all? Where was this supposed to be?”

  “No, fool,” Bellarum said, running a hand over his chest. “I did not wish to meet to kill you—quite the opposite, a very different sort of sacrament than shedding of blood. Oh, come on—I know you know about it—the chamber beyond the Trials of Purgatory.” He cocked his head at Cyrus. “The place of Evil, where the dead can be returned to you …”

  The sun suddenly turned cold as the chills ran over Cyrus’s skin. “You mean—”

  “I thought you would want to bring her back,” Bellarum said, clenching a fist and drawing it to his chest, where it rattled against his hard-angled breastplate. “That your great and abiding love would conquer all and draw you in to that place, where we could meet and make this thing right.” He sounded … almost regretful.