Master (Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  “In the name of the Army of Sanctuary, I accept your greetings and suggest you make way,” Cyrus said. He made no attempt not to be terse. There was no easy way to bring an army of nearly ten thousand into a foreign land, and trying to be excessively polite was simply not something he had the inclination for at the moment. “My aide Odellan will inform you as to the specifics, but suffice it to say we’ll be teleporting our forces in for some time yet to come.” He made a rough motion with his hand, all that was necessary to compel his soldiers into motion. This first wave was only a few hundred, to be followed every thirty seconds by more until the entire army was here.

  “Of course,” the soldier said. Cyrus suspected he bowed again but he did not bother to look back to check. He was too busy moving at the rough head of the formation toward the road he remembered vaguely being just ahead of them. It was a rough path, similar to numerous trails between cities he’d seen in his time. This one was perhaps rougher than most because it was on the very edge of the Kingdom, far from the most-traversed trade routes.

  They walked, not a horse among them. Cyrus stayed at the fore, and a few of the officers lingered behind him. Vara, for one, remained close by, as did Nyad. He had asked them to stay close to ease their passage through the Kingdom, figuring that between the shelas’akur and the heiress to the throne, they shouldn’t have much resistance.

  They walked mostly in silence, the military discipline of the Sanctuary army keeping them in time and formation. Cyrus glanced back every now and again and watched the formations leave the clearing and enter the road, forming as they went. The strong tang of the late-blooming melett trees was sweet in the air, and a gentle, slightly chill breeze blew out of the north.

  Cyrus heard a rustle just behind him and turned to see Aisling with her cowl up. He raised an eyebrow at her, but that was all the attention he spared her before he turned back to keep his eyes on the path ahead.

  “So, Guildmaster,” she said, “when is the formal election to tell us what we already know?”

  “I find it surprising that an election could tell you anything you already know,” Vara’s voice crackled from behind Cyrus. He glanced back to see her cheeks slightly red. “As it does not seem to relate to anything involving sexual positions or maneuvers.”

  “Is this the only line of attack you can find for me?” Aisling’s voice came from beneath the cowl and was all smiles, even though her face was largely hidden. “Call me a harlot over and over again until it washes away the pain of knowing that I took something that you wanted?”

  “I am not a thing,” Cyrus said with a hint of annoyance.

  “I’m not surprised you have your cowl up to hide your face,” Vara said. “I doubt a thief like you would be welcome here.”

  Aisling’s reply was cool and assured. “In case you forgot, I’m a Lady of the Elven Kingdom.”

  “And a whore in the bedroom, by all accounts,” Vara said with a snap.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Cyrus said, lowering his voice and letting it cut over the responses both of them were starting. “Aisling, would you be so kind as to keep an eye on the back of the formation?”

  “So that you can get me away from this jealous elven bitch before she tries to call me a slut again?” Aisling asked, her words as thin and sharp as any blade’s edge.

  “Jealous?” Vara said mockingly. “Of you?”

  “Yes, of me,” Aisling said. “You flaxen-haired ice bitch. It’s fortunate he didn’t choose you, because any child of yours would die from frostbite while nursing.”

  There was a sound of a shocked silence, and then Andren’s voice came from a row back. “All this talk of nipples is getting me thirsty.”

  “Exactly how many bottles of Pharesian brandy did your mother go through while she was nursing you?” Vara tossed back.

  “Enough!” Cyrus said. “Aisling, go!” He sent a searing look at Vara, but she turned away. “Just … enough of this. We have a mission.” A rattling breeze ran through them, and Cyrus felt the cold find the cracks in his armor. Where’s Curatio when I need him?

  A silence settled over them for a few minutes, and then Cyrus heard heavier footfalls behind him, falling into roughly the same place Aisling had occupied only moments earlier. He turned to see Vaste pushing his way through as the lines reformed behind him. Cyrus felt himself annoyed at the troll but somewhat proud at his army’s adaptation as they maintained their formation.

  “Hihi,” Vaste said. “I heard I was missing a catfight, so of course I came straightaway.”

  “Gods, Vaste,” Cyrus said, keeping his eyes on the town of Nalikh’akur, which was just ahead on the horizon. “Not now.”

  “I missed it, didn’t I?” Vaste said. “I knew I should have run faster. This would be so much simpler if you didn’t have everyone in these stiff lines. Can’t we just sort of walk in a clump? I could run to points of possible drama much quicker if we did things that way.”

  Cyrus gave a long sigh. “You didn’t miss anything worth talking about.”

  “Apparently I did, because they were talking about it two divisions back,” Vaste said. “I heard Vara and Aisling were near to drawing swords on each other.” He glanced back at Vara, who stared back at him sullenly then turned her irritated look upon Cyrus. “I’d put my gold on Vara, of course,” Vaste said with exaggerated loudness. When Cyrus did not reply after a moment, he leaned in closer. “It would seem you’ve aimed to make your entire life a ribald joke.”

  Cyrus maintained the lid on the boiling pot of aggravation he felt bubbling inside. “I wouldn’t say I aimed for it.”

  “Well, you hit it nonetheless, as unerringly as an arrow launched from Martaina’s bow.” Vaste straightened. “Your relationship problems may be a sticking point come election time.” He glanced again at Vara, who was still glaring at them both. “Not for you,” he said to her, “for him.”

  “This concerns me little,” she replied, “as I have no relationship with him.”

  “You have some relationship with him,” Vaste said as they entered the town. “Peculiar and twisty as it may be.”

  “I agree with Vara,” Cyrus said, more than a little irritation bleeding out of him, “if she and I had a relationship, the high point was probably when she tried to drown me.” He made a vague gesture toward a pond in the distance. “Coincidentally, it happened just over there.”

  “That’s not very cheery,” Vaste said.

  “But it’s accurate,” Cyrus said and sunk into silence.

  “I was trying to keep your feverish brain from melting within that oversized gourd you call a head,” Vara said quietly. “Though you were so addled I doubt you would remember.”

  Cyrus glanced at the pond, a brownish puddle of water scarcely bigger than his quarters. “I remember.”

  “Right, well then,” Vaste said after a few moments of silence, faux-marching and swinging his arms with a little too much enthusiasm to be genuine, “this has become uncomfortable. And not the fun kind of uncomfortable, where I can make witticisms in order to lighten things up. No, this has become the dark kind of uncomfortable, the kind that you find when you make a few too many jests at a funeral.”

  “What do you think happened to Vidara?” Cyrus asked, changing the subject.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Vaste said, his arms losing their exaggerated swing. “Either she left her realm to the God of Winter or she got dragged out by someone, I suppose.”

  “But why?” Cyrus asked.

  “No idea,” Vaste said.

  “Really?” Cyrus asked, and he heard the sound of his boots making every step along the road. “Hm.”

  There was a pause that lasted another moment, and then it was Vara who spoke. “Your mind is moving.”

  “Finally, you concede that it does that,” Cyrus said, managing a weak smile of triumph. “Do you remember when the Hand of Fear was trying to kill y—” He did not even finish the sentence before she sent him a scalding look, even by her standards
. “Of course you do,” he said.

  “I rescind my comment about your mind moving,” she said, her eyes so narrow he doubted he could have fit an elvish coin in the space between her lids.

  “Right, well,” Cyrus said, turning to look at the road ahead where it wended off into the distance. Trees rose high above either side, leaves covering every bough on the nearest. In the distance, the greenery diminished the closer the road grew to the swamp. “Something about this whole Vidara endeavor reminds me of the time we spent trying to chase our tails back then. We stumbled about in the dark trying to figure out who the Hand of Fear was, why they would want to kill Vara, and—”

  “It’s probably just the association with the business of the gods in your mind,” Vaste said with a shrug of his ample frame. “What with the Hand of Fear turning out to work for Mortus and all.”

  “Maybe,” Cyrus said. “Or maybe it’s just the general mystery of the whole thing. Forces at work behind the curtain, making moves in service of plans that we don’t even see until they’re too late.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe this whole thing is beyond us. Maybe Longwell was right and we should keep our noses out of the business of the gods.”

  “It would almost certainly result in all of us living longer,” Vaste agreed. With that, he slowed, falling back into the line behind Cyrus.

  Cyrus glanced to his side and saw Vara still keeping pace with him, near at hand. “And what do you think?”

  She did not speak for a long moment. “I think … that the goddess has gone missing. And that if you don’t continue your search for her …” She blinked her eyes and turned away from him, her golden hair blocking any view of her face, “… it is unlikely she will ever be returned to her realm.”

  He started to say something but stopped himself mid-thought. His pace slowed, though it took a moment for him to realize it had. She kept on, though, leading the column, and after a moment he picked up speed again and returned to the fore, marching into the swamp ahead with a strangely renewed sense of purpose.

  Chapter 39

  The weather was cool, carrying a promise of the first strains of winter, though fall had only just come upon them. They traveled for the rest of the day and stopped in a flat-topped hummock that spanned the swamp road with more than a little exposed ground besides. It was the highest point they had seen since entering the swamp, Cyrus reflected. The road had been pitted and long, with dark water stinking of death in ditches on both sides and even running over the road in some low points.

  There was little in the way of high, flat ground. There was plenty of bog, though, and until they found that first large hummock, Cyrus wondered if they might not be forced to sleep on the road to keep from being submerged. Dinner that night was conjured bread, and there were no fires for warmth, just masses of people huddled together beneath cloaks. The occasional moan of lovers at their evening labors echoed in the night. To Cyrus it sounded lonely, as he laid his head upon the ground by himself, cloak covering him. He had seen naught of Aisling since her spat with Vara that morning, and he suspected he would see little of her for the rest of the journey. Some things were predictable in that regard, and her behavior after being scorned was one of them.

  The day dawned dingy and grey, and Cyrus felt his bones settle, cracking and popping as he stood in the early morning dim. The cool air had seeped into his armor through the myriad gaps and caused the sheen of sweat that he’d worked up over the course of the day before to turn into a stiff, sticky solution that kept his underclothes bound to him. He sighed before moving in an attempt to peel them free of the most uncomfortable places.

  They set out an hour after dawn, a company grumbling and irritable at the provisions available. They’ve grown accustomed to the feasts that Larana can provide; even the ones who were with us in Luukessia don’t care for the taste of conjured bread and water now. Once upon a time, it was life itself to them.

  Most of them carried packs on their backs, Cyrus knew, and within those packs were wheels of cheese and apples and dried meats. Still, there were few enough of those things that Cyrus watched at lunch as the bread was apportioned out once more, and nearly everyone took a helping. He watched Nyad make her way between small groups of soldiers and wondered how much magical energy she was expending. Could be a concern; after all, what better time to attack an army than when their spell casters are unable to help repel an attack?

  He chewed the hard jerky he had brought with him, supplemented with small bites of a wheel of cheese, which helped make the conjured bread more palatable. He took a sip of water from the dried bladder he carried on his belt. The water he’d brought with him from Sanctuary had been gone within hours the day before; this was conjured by Nyad, who filled the skins and cups as she went about feeding the army.

  The afternoon turned warmer. The clouds that had blanketed the sky had disappeared, replaced with a blue and unbroken vista. The sun shone down, and the chill of fall Cyrus had felt in the morning was gone with the clouds. They walked in a rough formation through the day, and the grumbling was now audible in between the gaps of silence.

  The road narrowed during the day until it had become barely wide enough for four men to walk abreast. They walked into the night, failing to find a campsite until just before the last light had disappeared. Once more there were no fires. Over the sounds of camp and the insects, Cyrus heard a deeper call of coyotes or wolves in the distance, and the sound reminded him of the ghouls of the Waking Woods.

  On the third day, Cyrus awoke before dawn to someone shaking his shoulder. He blinked his eyes once, then twice, seeing lines in the face that was nearly down upon his own. It took a moment to shake off the sleep enough to recognize it. “Belkan?” he asked, his gauntleted hand rubbing at his eyes.

  “None other,” the crusty old armorer said. He made a sucking sound with his mouth, and it took Cyrus a moment to realize he was trying to get something from between his teeth. He opened his lips and Cyrus saw a tongue moving around within the armorer’s gaping maw. “Ahh,” he said, presumably knocking loose whatever bit had been vexing him. “Come on.”

  “Come on where?” Cyrus asked, listening to the pop of his back as he sat up.

  “Come with me, lad,” Belkan said, now standing. He made no noise as he stood, which to Cyrus sounded odd in the wake of his own bones making such a racket.

  “Belkan, it’s the middle of the night,” Cyrus said, looking up in the sky to realize it was literally true. There was no sign at all of illumination in the sky in any direction, just the soft glow of the stars overhead in the gaps where there were no clouds. “I have an army to march forward on the morrow, an invasion to oversee—”

  “And you’ll do all those things just fine and admirably with a mite less sleep,” Belkan said, his low, grinding voice taking on a gruffer quality. “I have something I wish to show you. Come with me.”

  I must be mad. This is surely what madness feels like. He stifled a yawn. “Can you give me any indication of why I’d wander into the swamp with you?”

  “Certainly,” Belkan said, his leg armor clinking quietly as he shifted his weight. “I once promised you that I would take you here.”

  “Here?” Cyrus said, looking around. “I don’t seem to recall you ever saying you’d take me to the swamp—” He blinked and felt a chill. “Here. This is it, isn’t it? This is where—”

  “Yes,” Belkan said, nodding. He turned his craggy head just a little to the left. “Or more precisely, about three miles through the swamp in that direction.” He pointed west, off the road. “There’s a trail not far from here. We go now, we can be back just before the army moves.”

  “All right,” Cyrus said, getting up off the ground. He had no bedroll because he had no horse to carry it, and its absence was sorely felt. “Let’s go.”

  He followed the old man to the edge of the encampment where he was challenged by the guards manning the perimeter. A few quick words and they passed, and it was only then that Cyrus
realized that Larana had fallen in quietly behind him.

  They stole out of camp in silence, the sounds of snoring and quiet murmuring disappearing down the trail behind them. After a mile, they turned onto a barely marked side path that Cyrus would never have noticed. Belkan seemed keenly aware of it, giving no hint he’d even been looking.

  The path was scraggly, twisted trees jutting out into the middle of it. It led through mire and mud more than a few times. Their progress slowed, and when Cyrus lost his footing once, he swore loudly. He looked back to see Larana watching him, her face indecipherable. “Sorry,” he said. She gave him the barest hint of a nod, as though she accepted his contrition. With a wave of her hand, he felt his vision lighten, and he could see far more easily. Sometimes, I forget she’s a druid with real spells and everything. She’s just too good at cooking and serving and blending in to the background.

  The sky gave no hint of light, but he had the spell to guide his feet. He followed the steps of Belkan in front of him, making his way through the lowlands and the hummocks, trees scattered amongst the lesser vegetation and high grass. He felt the brush of a thousand leaves and blades against his armor and heard the swish that heralded their passing. Through it all he kept on, following the old armorer. He could hear Larana just behind him, keeping close.

  They walked for some time, past Cyrus’s ability to calculate it. No hint of light pervaded the sky when they came upon another hummock, this one higher than the rest. It rolled out of the water in front of him, the smooth slope of the rounded hill raising it out of the murk. Cyrus felt the slosh of water that had accidentally run over the tops of his boots and sighed at the feel of it chilling his skin.

  He stepped up onto the hummock and felt the aura of the place change around him. There was a darkness here, a palpable sense of something heavy, like a pressure on his mind, against his chest. “You feel that, do you?” Belkan asked, looking back at him then glancing behind him.