Master (Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  “I found someone who can best you in single combat,” Cyrus said, still maintaining his hold on Praelior. “But I am no master to your slave; I am merely the strength that offers to be your guide.”

  The red eyes considered him, and the answer came simply, just before the first movement. “Prove it.”

  Fortin sprang through the chamber without warning, his only hint of what was to come the simple invocation he had offered Cyrus. Cyrus, for his part, was ready, and his blade was drawn before the rock giant was even halfway to him. His feet planted, Cyrus prepared, and when he judged the range right, he swung a mighty slash of his blade that caught the rock giant’s arm hard at the elbow. Cyrus ducked and moved, swinging low and reversing, and he caught Fortin with a slash of the blade to the hip that drew a grunt from the rock giant. Unable to change his direction, committed to a charge that would have wiped Cyrus across the floor of his cave in a bloody smear had he succeeded, Fortin stumbled on and landed face-first in the corner of the wall just behind Cyrus.

  Cyrus followed his attack without waiting, driving the point of Praelior into the rock giant’s hindquarters. A rocky buttock caught the tip and Fortin roared in pain, lashing backward. Cyrus ducked low, removed his blade and drove it into the rock giant’s knee. Cyrus rolled quickly to his right as Fortin toppled, wiping out a small wooden table in the process.

  Cyrus did not waste his time with a boast or an idle taunt. Fortin was face down upon the ground, and Cyrus struck. He drove his blade swiftly into the back of the rock giant’s head, sparing neither mercy nor thought for what he attacked. The blow delivered, he withdrew his sword and stepped back, maintaining a defensive posture.

  Fortin did not move, did not stir, remaining still as stone. Cyrus waited there for a moment, then another, circling toward the mouth of the cave. He did not come within arm’s reach of the rock giant, keeping a safe distance. Still, Fortin did not move, and Cyrus edged his way out of the cave until he heard steps behind him.

  Cyrus turned and saw a human in white garb hurrying along, the thin, silken vestment draped over his shoulder in a line. “Your name?” Cyrus asked.

  “Ah, uhm, Jacub Smythe,” the man said, young and nervous as Cyrus might expect from a healer sent into the den of a rock giant.

  “Cast your resurrection spell, Jacub Smythe,” Cyrus said, with a nod toward the fallen body of Fortin. “This is close enough.”

  The twitchy young man stopped, blinked, eyes moving from Cyrus to the body and then back again. “This is close enough,” he finally decided, as though he had heard something truly wise. He closed his eyes, hands moving quickly, words coming out under his breath. A white gleam appeared from his hands, draping the corpse of Fortin, and the healer sighed, words spoken.

  Fortin roared into the earth, surging to his feet so quickly he slammed his head against the ceiling of the cave. Dust and pebbles rained down and the rock giant screamed in pain at the fresh harm to his wound. He hit his knees as Cyrus watched, placing himself between the healer and the rock giant, who staggered, finally catching sight of Cyrus in the entry to the cave.

  “I have bested you,” Cyrus said, still in a defensive posture, blade at the ready. “Do you yield?”

  “You … killed me?” Fortin asked.

  “I killed you,” Cyrus said. “Healer Smythe resurrected you.”

  Fortin stood silently, swaying just a bit against the dark background of the cave. “I have only fallen in battle once before. This is … disconcerting.” The rock giant made a rumbling noise within his chest, something guttural that did not encourage Cyrus to step forth.

  “Do you yield?” Cyrus asked again, an edge to his voice.

  “I yield,” Fortin rumbled. “You have bested me, Warlord Davidon.”

  “I’m not a Warlord,” Cyrus said, never taking his eyes off Fortin. “You will aid Sanctuary once more?”

  “I am at your disposal in battle,” Fortin said, red eyes curiously not finding him in the dark. They seemed to be swaying with the rock giant, and Cyrus suddenly remembered the resurrection effects. “I will follow you into war.” There came another strange rumble from the rock giant. “Though I am not certain that was a fair fight.”

  “Fighting fair is for paladins,” Cyrus said.

  “Winning is for warriors, however it must happen,” Fortin agreed, sounding … woozy? “I will remain here, awaiting your command, ready to render assistance when you call for me.” He took a knee, dipping his head toward Cyrus. “If that is acceptable, Warlord?”

  “I’m not a Warlord,” Cyrus said again. “But you may call me General.”

  “I call you what you are,” Fortin said.

  “As you wish,” Cyrus said, bowing his own head in acknowledgment. “I am afraid I must leave you for now, Fortin. I am sure we will see one another again ’ere too long.”

  “I look forward to joining you in battle once more,” Fortin said.

  “All right, then,” Cyrus said and began to back down the tunnel. He almost bumped into Healer Smythe before remembering that the man was there. “Come on, Smythe, let’s leave the Lord of Rockridge in peace.”

  “I suspect you should leave me before I lose control of my …” Fortin rumbled, then shook, a mighty bellow following after.

  Cyrus froze, waiting to see what happened, and regretted that he did.

  An explosion emanated forth from the rock giant’s mouth, a whole carcass of lamb that Cyrus only recognized by the configuration of the ribcage, strung together by pieces of cartilage. The smell—gods, the smell, it hit like a punch to the face. Liquid bile followed, flooding out of the rock giant’s mouth in a foul waterfall down his chest and to the cave floor below. It soaked the gritty ground, a wave of stench issuing forth that sent Healer Smythe to his knees, vomiting forth his own breakfast immediately.

  Cyrus assessed the situation, hand rushing to his nose, clanking against the blocking of his helm as he struggled to keep from making his own contribution. “I wish you well, Fortin, Healer Smythe,” he nodded to each of them in turn, not daring to sheathe Praelior, not yet. “And I bid you farewell, for now.”

  Without another word, afraid to remove his hand from his mouth for fear of losing control of his own stomach, General Cyrus Davidon beat a hasty retreat from the rock giant’s cave, the stench of his own victory chasing him away from the scene of his great triumph.

  Chapter 50

  “You look none the worse for a battle with a rock giant,” Cattrine commented as Cyrus made his way back into town. The main street was flush with activity, and Cyrus had watched the considerable goings-on with interest as he had threaded his way down the hill. He had avoided the overlook with the dwarves, preferring instead to take a long path to give his stomach time to settle. He thought the stench of Fortin’s upheaval hung with him, but part of him wondered if perhaps it was all his imagination. When he reached the base of the hill, he had chanced to look up, and saw Healer Smythe beginning to work his way down, green face stark against his white robes, with a dark liquid stain oozing down the front.

  “I won,” Cyrus said, “and quickly.”

  Cattrine made a most peculiar face. “What is that smell?”

  Cyrus thought about it for a moment before answering. “The stink of victory.”

  “Ancestors,” Cattrine said, her delicate nose wrinkling, “what would losing smell like?”

  “Less potent,” Cyrus said.

  “I congratulate you on your victory, then,” Cattrine said, pinching her own nose and waving a hand, as if to ward off the smell. “Perhaps you should bathe, though?”

  He took her advice, letting her lead him to a creek nearby. She made herself scarce while he removed his armor, letting the water run over it only briefly, hoping to wash the scent clear of it. He made a reminder to himself to oil it later, give it a good going-over to insulate it from the elements. He waded in to the chill creek himself, felt the goosepimples rise on his flesh as it ran to the waist, and then he ducked his head under.
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  The water rushed by his ears, the sound of it blotting out the outside world. It was replaced with a quiet thrum, the noise of his own heart. He looked up into the blue sky above the surface, the world distorted by the water, and felt a strange, quiet peace settle over him. It was not born of contentment, for the stings and nettles of all that had passed were still there, at a distance but on his mind. The creek ran over them like a balm, though, quieting them, and as he stood, breaking the surface of the water and drawing breath, he found even the death of Cass was no longer quite as vexing as it had been just that morning when he’d awoken. The cold breath he drew in next was sweet invigoration, life flooding back into his lungs, and he felt tall as he stood in the stream. He waited there for a few minutes before wading to the shore and dressing again.

  He found Cattrine again in the town, in the thick of things. He watched for a while, damp hair dripping occasionally on his armor, a faint tapping that drew him out of his thoughts. She was firmly in command of the goings-on, issuing light orders that were taken with grace, redirecting wagons filled with timber toward their eventual destinations, telling work crews where they needed to be. She even warned children out of the path of a coming convoy, sending them back to a safer locale.

  She saw him watching, met his gaze with a smile, and broke from what she was doing to come greet him. Wordlessly, she led him to a field at the edge of town where trestle tables were being unfolded in a number beyond his counting. Cyrus helped, setting them upon a hillside of green grass. She told him that they ate a meal as a community once per day, at the noontime hour. Everyone came, from every work crew and business and shop. It was a massive undertaking.

  “Soon enough I suspect it will have to end,” she said, “but for now it anchors our day. It gives purpose to those for whom there is not enough work to occupy them, something to put their efforts toward every morning. We eat as individuals and families in the morning and evening, but at noon each day we take our meal as a community.”

  He stood on the hillside and watched once the tables were set up. Spell casters from Sanctuary moved among the tables, filling each with fresh bread. Cooks came along and supplemented the offering of the spell casters with small, carved wooden bowls of some porridge spooned out of cast iron pots. The smell reached Cyrus and he realized it was weak. Perhaps fish bones or marrow from some creature helped to give it more flavor, but there was little but water in its base. “It’s what we have,” Cattrine said with a smile, and he noticed for the first time that more than a few of the settlers of Emerald Fields were thin.

  He ate with them, listening to the subtle and pleasant buzz of conversation. He heard no griping at the thinness of the stew, nor of the flavor of the conjured bread or the water that had been hauled in buckets from the nearby stream and from the well. The sound was all amiable, children playing in the background with yells and yawps of joy, laughter at jests. It reminded him of the days of Sanctuary before he’d left to go to war. The pall over the Great Hall had been thorough of late, but it had not always been so. Once, there had been joy in meals, happiness and shared humor. A lightness at being together in fellowship that made him wonder at its absence.

  “What are you thinking?” Cattrine asked him, sitting across the table after he had finished his meal. The noonday sun was sinking in the sky, and Cyrus reckoned it was growing late, perhaps even toward the dinner hour at Sanctuary.

  “Thinking about the way things were,” Cyrus said. “The way I’d like them to be again.”

  “That sounds like the task of a leader,” Cattrine said. “Boosting morale.”

  “Morale is a difficult thing to control, what with the war,” Cyrus said. “With the famine.”

  “Send the world’s greatest farmer into the desert for a year and all you’re reap is a prodigious crop of sand,” Cattrine said.

  Cyrus pondered the meaning for a moment before acknowledging defeat. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that sometimes you can’t win given the circumstances,” she said. “That sometimes perhaps the morale battle is lost. But I don’t think—judging from those of my people who live and work with you in Sanctuary—that you’re trying to farm in the desert. I think the morale is fine, that the company is good and true. I think you simply see through darker eyes now yourself. Perhaps what is a desert to you is a green field to another.” She glanced toward the emerald hillside, taking it all in with the sweep of her gaze. “Bare and barren are two separate things, after all.”

  “I see it as more work,” Cyrus said, leaning his elbows on the table. “Things I need to take handle of, even if I’m only the General of Sanctuary. Things I need to get my hands around.”

  “I am sure that whatever you turn your eye to will burgeon,” Cattrine said. “Your talents, when applied, will make short work of most problems.”

  He watched her carefully. “Your words are kind.”

  She returned his gaze. “You are suspicious of my motives?”

  “I suspect gratitude is your motive,” Cyrus said. “For what we’ve done to try and help you.” He let out a sigh. “And nothing else.”

  “I will always be fond of you, Cyrus Davidon,” she said, a shadow of disappointment visible in her eye, “but yes, it is mostly gratitude for what you have done for myself and my people. Perhaps just a hint of that which was between us, also expressed in the form of gratitude.”

  Cyrus lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, Cattrine.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” she said simply, and he knew she was sincere.

  “You have my apologies nonetheless,” Cyrus said, and he stood. “I thank you for your kindness, for your counsel.”

  “You are most welcome, any time,” she said, and rose. She smiled at him, deep and true, and he knew she meant every word of it. “Give me warning in advance when next you plan to visit, and I will arrange a tour of the far-flung reaches of our valley, our fields, and show you all the good you have done.”

  He cast an eye over the fields filled with tables, with people and families, with the whole of the town gathered near and chatting, gradually drifting apart as they moved off to their afternoon labors. “I think, for today, I have seen the good I have done.” He took a breath of that fresh, clear air, felt just as awakened by it as he had when he emerged from the stream. “And it has made a world of difference.”

  She looked at him, corners of her mouth tugging outward in a smile. “Are you ready to return to your battlefield, then, Lord Davidon?”

  He thought it over carefully, just for a moment. “I didn’t leave a battlefield behind.” He straightened, feeling unburdened for the first time in a while. “But I am ready to return to what needs to be done. Back to my guild.” He felt the first hint of his own smile. “Ready to get back to my duty.”

  Chapter 51

  Cyrus teleported into the foyer of Sanctuary with his eyes closed, opening them only as the flash began to fade. He took in the columns and the balcony, swept his gaze around to see the fading light coming through the enormous stained glass window that stood above the grand doors outside. It had taken him some time to hike back to the portal where he met Verity, and he knew sundown was approaching even Emerald Fields by the time he left. He could see the faint hints of sunset stirring orange beams across the stone floor of the foyer, cascading ochre that reminded him of everything good in this place.

  It felt like home.

  “Sir,” came a thin voice from over his shoulder. Cyrus swung ’round, taking in the guard stationed around the seal on which he stood. Cyrus’s eyes fell upon a youth of Luukessia, obvious by his sash of Galbadien, the Garden Kingdom. He wore the armor of a dragoon, like Samwen Longwell. A shock of bright, hay-colored hair sprouted atop his head like a fountain of gold in contrast to his sun-tanned skin. He had only one eye, though, a scarred pit replacing his right one, a strange, out-of-place detail on an otherwise youthful visage. It reminded him, in placement and detail, of Alaric.

  “Dragoon
,” Cyrus said, using the cavalryman’s formal title. “What can I do for you …?” He waited for a name.

  “Rainey McIlven, sir,” the young man said with a bow of respect. His lance stood at his side, pointed toward the ceiling. All of the guards had their weapons pointed at the ceiling now, though Cyrus knew they had not been when he first began to appear.

  “What can I do for you, Rainey McIlven of Galbadien?” Cyrus asked with a smile.

  “You have done all I needed already, sir,” McIlven said, bowing that blond head again. “I wanted you to know I have voted for you, sir. I trust you to lead us as steady as you ever have.”

  Cyrus felt a faint twitch as an eyebrow rose of its own accord. “I thank you for your belief in me, Rainey McIlven, and I hope I will do credit to that faith should I win.” With a slight bow of his own, Cyrus broke and turned toward the entry to the Great Hall. He could see the full tables laid out within, could hear the buzz of dinner already in progress.

  “You did get one thing wrong, sir,” McIlven called to him as Cyrus had just reached the doors of the Great Hall. He turned back, looking through the patch of men standing ’round the great seal, curious about the answer. “I may be from Galbadien, but I am Rainey McIlven of Sanctuary, sir.” He snapped off a crisp salute that scraped the butt of his lance against the stone floor as he came to attention. There was a clatter and clink of metal as every one of the soldiers in the formation matched the young calvaryman of Luukessia. Cyrus froze, uncertain of how to respond for a moment, and finally returned the salute a few seconds delayed, his own armor making only a whisper of noise in the process.

  Cyrus entered the Great Hall, easing into the wash of conversation like he was taking slow steps into a stream. It ebbed around him, a hush falling on those nearest him as he passed through the main aisle, keeping his gaze straight ahead so as to avoid any chance that someone might stop him to congratulate him the way young McIlven had. He had accepted the compliment, but uneasily, wearing it the way he might wear unfamiliar armor.