Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  Chapter 5

  The end of the bridge came into sight by midday next. The storm had passed, giving way to blue skies and intermittent clouds, white, puffy and without a trace of the dark greys that had blackened their crossing on the day before. The sight of green shores sent a murmur through the army at Cyrus’s back, enlivening them with energy that had been absent in the last few days. When he reached the end of the grey stone bridge, Cyrus dismounted and walked onto soft ground once more, the cheers of his fellows bringing the ghost of a smile to his face. With a wave of his hand he beckoned them forward as he moved out of the way and the army surged onto the shore as the sun began to set behind them.

  The shores were white and sandy, with a beach laid out in either direction to the north and south, curving inland before it reached the horizon. Cyrus could see the red disk of the sun, settling in a half-circle over the water, turning the sapphire surface red. Behind him, he heard his army moving in jubilation, the noise of boots on stone fading as they streamed off the bridge and began to make camp. He had sent Longwell and a few others ahead on horseback to scout above the berm that ended at the inland edge of the beach. He had no desire to be caught under the attack of a hostile force while the Sanctuary army recuperated from their march.

  “It’s been a long week,” Curatio said, appearing at his shoulder.

  “Aye.” Cyrus stared at the sun, now only a slight edge showing above the waves.

  “Perhaps a day of rest might be in order for tomorrow?” Curatio’s tone held the air of suggestion only. Cyrus turned and raised an eyebrow; the healer outranked him on the Sanctuary Council, being the lone occupant of the station of Elder, an honorific one step below Guildmaster. Still, Curatio had presented his idea as mere recommendation. “To give our new recruits a chance to enjoy themselves, to give their feet a rest before we head into hostile territory for the next month or so?”

  Cyrus watched the waves crash over the shore. He felt a tug inwardly, the strange and insatiable desire to march onward, to keep going until they reached the castle of Longwell’s father, to smite anything in his path. Yet somewhere beyond that was an overwhelming urge to linger, to remain away from Sanctuary and all the inherent problems that would greet him upon their return.

  Cyrus rolled his helm between the metal joints of his fingers, listening to the steel scratch against its equal. “We’ve found fresh water nearby?”

  “Aye,” Curatio said. “And tracks just inside the woods ahead suggest that there are wild boars in the area. A day of rest could allow for a hunting party to track them-”

  “Then we feast upon roast pig and fresh fish?” Cyrus drew a deep breath, and it was almost as though he could feel sundown approach the way an old friend would come to visit. “It’ll be good for our morale, I suppose. And as you point out, we are likely to be under stress of worry from potential attack over the coming weeks. Very well. A day of rest is ordered.”

  Curatio’s hair was speckled with silver, but never had his age been more evident than when he smiled, very slightly, back at Cyrus, and the warrior knew he had been maneuvered most expertly. “Duly noted. I’ll take care of it.” With a slight bow, Curatio turned and began to walk away.

  “What would you have said if I’d ordered us to march on?” Cyrus didn’t watch the healer, but he heard Curatio’s leather shoes stop, the sound of the sand they kicked up on each step coming to a halt.

  “I would have tried to convince you, of course.” The healer’s answer was crisp, serious, and muffled because Curatio had not turned to face him as he gave his answer. The footsteps in the sand resumed, and Cyrus heard the elf move away, back to the sound of camps being set up and fire being started. He pondered Curatio’s answer again, and listened once more in his mind to the inflection. It had been very cleverly given, Cyrus thought.

  It was also, Cyrus knew, a blatant lie.

  Chapter 6

  Thanks to the efforts of Martaina and a few of the more experienced rangers, there was indeed wild boar meat waiting for them the next day at breakfast. The smell of the roasting flesh awoke Cyrus, and he sat up to look at the fires along the beach. Many of them bore spits, and recruits talked while circled around them, their voices loud, with much merriment being made. Cyrus could see even at a distance that there were bottles being passed around, spirits of varying kinds that had made the trip from Sanctuary.

  Cyrus pulled himself up next to his fire, a small one down the beach from the others. Someone had added logs to it during the night and done so quietly enough that Cyrus hadn’t awakened. “Aisling,” he said in a low whisper. The next nearest fire was a hundred feet away, and he could see Terian’s shadow next to it in the pre-dawn light, his sword once more across his lap. Curatio and Longwell lay around their fire, still sleeping; he could tell them by their garb.

  He looked down the beach in the opposite direction. The angle of the curves on either side told him that they were on a peninsula. He snuck a look back at the joviality around the fires, at the silent stone bridge that watched over them, and began to walk, his boots kicking up sand. He looked again behind him; no one seemed to take any notice as his footsteps carried him away from his army.

  His hand fell to the scabbard and the hilt of his sword as though he were looking for reassurance. His blade, Praelior, was still there, ever-present and ready to be drawn. He felt the urge to pull it loose and practice with it. Later. When we’re out of sight of the camp, perhaps.

  Tall grasses reached out from the treeline on the berm above the beach, a deep patch of grass that looked as though it would stretch to Cyrus’s waist. The chirp of crickets from within was loud, and the trees hanging over the patch of grass waved in the wind, their branches rustling. Somewhere behind them, Cyrus knew the sun was beginning to rise, even though he couldn’t see it yet.

  “You’re not supposed to wander away from the army.” He turned to find Aisling standing behind him, a few feet from the grass, a thistle in her hair.

  Cyrus let his hand drift away from the hilt of Praelior, where it had come to rest when she had spoken to him. “You don’t think we can make an exception for the general who leads said army?”

  “Mmmm,” she seemed to purr as she considered it, her face pensive. “I think we’re in a foreign land with enemies an uncertain distance away.” He caught a glint of light in her eyes. “It would probably be better to play safe than be sorry.”

  He felt his face set in hard lines, an unamused smile only barely there. “You don’t think I could take on an entire non-magical army by myself?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “I believe that if anyone could, it’d be you-but I also believe that you might need more than luck in order to do it.”

  Cyrus’s hand tensed again around Praelior’s grip. “I have more than luck.”

  “Oh, indeed,” she said as she began to walk toward him, her small feet leaving little indentations in the dry sand, small craters where her worn leather boots trod. “But perhaps you’ll accept that having more help would be ideal, especially if you mean to wander far afield.”

  “And that’d be you, would it?” He looked back at her, wary.

  “Unless you fancy going back to camp and rounding up some others?” She looked at him coolly in reply, impassive.

  “What I fancy is doing what I want, when I want, and not being questioned about it.”

  “Too late for that,” she said, smug. “It was too late for that the day after you took your officership. Maybe even the day after you joined Sanctuary. It’s hard to go unnoticed around here, even when you’re one of the small folk. As an officer and the general of this expedition, it’s well nigh impossible.”

  “I just need to walk-to get away for a bit.” He said it with every element of patience he could summon from within.

  “Until you what? Walk her right out of you?” She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “You’ll be walking a good long time to pull that off, til your feet bleed and your bones rub down to powder. Even th
en, you’ll be lucky to get her out of you before there’s nothing left to get her out of.”

  Why am I talking to her about this? “This isn’t your concern,” he said.

  “It kind of is. You are my general, too. Our expedition counts on you.”

  He felt a great weariness. “I’m not some sort of communal property that belongs to the whole guild or the army. I’ll lead, but this is a day of rest.”

  “And you’re looking so very restful.”

  “Why are you here?” He spoke in near-silence, his words almost drowned out by the breaking of waves off the shore.

  Aisling did not respond at first, and she turned to look back to the forest, staring into the dark spaces between the boughs of the trees, eyes piercing them as though she could see things hidden within. “Because you look like you could use a friend.”

  “I have friends,” Cyrus said, too quickly.

  “Do you?” She drew her gaze away from the woods and onto his eyes and he felt himself look away first. “I see a man who leads an army, and who hasn’t had a soul talk to him directly in days but the Elder of Sanctuary and myself. The Elder to relay commands and establish order, and myself-for my own reasons, of course.”

  “I’d find great mystery in your words,” Cyrus said, looking away from her and back to the waves and the shore, “if not for the fact that I have known ‘your reasons’ for as long as I’ve known you. Your intentions have been made plain; you needn’t bother trying to be my friend when we both know that my friendship isn’t the part of me you’re interested in-”

  She stepped in front of him, eyes blazing. “I’ve never been coy about my intentions toward you, but you fault me for it nonetheless. Would you prefer I dance around it, exchanging biting insults with you? That I berate you for little or no reason and never let a kind word break through my imposing facade?” She stepped closer to him and he caught the scent of her breath, cinnamon, as she brought her face only inches from his. “Are you so steeped in the way of pain and combat that you can’t accept honest, sweet words? Does every advance that interests you have to come couched in the agony of bladed phrase and stinging words?”

  Her hand was on his cheek, her fingernails tracing delicate lines down his face. She leaned in closer to him, and he felt the pressure of her nails increase even as she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you want me to hurt you? Is that what it takes?” She held her hand still, the pressure constant, her nails pressing into his cheek.

  His hand came up and seized her wrist, yanking it away. “No,” Cyrus said, throwing her hand away from him. “That’s not what I want.”

  She edged closer and he felt the press of her against him through his armor. “Then what does it take?” Her soft breathing seemed to surround him, filling his senses, drowning out the crashing breakers and the chirps of the crickets. “I’m not her. I’ll never be her. But I could be …” He could feel her push against him, saw her stand on tiptoes to bring her lips to his, “… what you need right now.” He turned his head and her lips found his cheek, and the delicate kiss she left there sent a surge of feeling through his whole body. “I can do … what she hasn’t, what I know you need … it’s been a long time, hasn’t it …?”

  “Long time,” he said, echoing her, the truth stumbling from his mouth. He wished he could force it back in there, along with everything else that had happened in the last month, but it was there, nonetheless.

  Cyrus felt the moment fade, and as Aisling leaned up to kiss him he gently shook himself free of her. There was no anger in him; only wistfulness and a deep sorrow. “I’m sorry. I don’t need what you think I do-and I’m not what you need, either.”

  She looked suddenly very small to his eyes, but she summoned her courage and spoke again. “Do you even know what you need right now?”

  He thought about it and heard his own breath as he inhaled then exhaled, thinking. Inhale, exhale. “I don’t. But I don’t think that me-really me, inside, not my urges, but me-I don’t think that’s what I need.”

  She nodded, but it was subtle and slight, a barely-there movement of her head. “If you don’t know what you need-really need-then how do you know what I need?”

  Without waiting for him to answer she turned and soundlessly she stalked off into the grass, disappearing at the treeline with only a single glance back at him before she faded away behind a tree trunk.

  The last look was nothing but regret, pure and longing-and with life of its own.

  Chapter 7

  The celebration went on throughout the day. Cyrus could hear it from where he stayed, out of sight down the shore, swinging Praelior at imaginary foes, feeling the sweat from his exertions rolling down his face.

  It will not work, Cyrus … He saw himself in the Realm of Death, his blade cutting into the chest of a demon knight, his sword biting into the bulging muscles of the creature, its breath foul and heavy with the stink of fetid rot, of death itself, on the day that he challenged the might of Mortus, the God of Death, and survived …

  It can never be, you and I … He brought Praelior around in a slice that he imagined caught the ready neck of a dark elven footsoldier, landing at the seam of his armor. In his mind he was back on the bridge in Termina on a long, cold night that followed a day filled with infinite promise. He could almost feel the chill, even in the tropical air.

  For I am elf, and my life is long and my duties are as great as my sorrow … He brought the blade down on the skull of a foe who wasn’t there, a goblin, heard the satisfying crack of sword on skull in his mind’s eye. He remembered the night that he and Sanctuary had invaded Enterra, the night that he had claimed the scabbard that rode on his hip, that made Praelior whole, a weapon unmatched in the world of men, and he could sense the clinging desperation of the moment when Vara had died in the depths, when he’d watched Emperor Y’rakh drop her to the ground, her golden hair spilling onto the floor …

  We will not, cannot be … He stopped and reversed his grip, holding Praelior above his head and thrust it toward the ground, burying it into the head of Ashan’agar, heard the howl of he who was once the Dragonlord, and remembered the feel of the wind on his face as he rode the back of the beast into the rocky ground of the Mountains of Nartanis.

  Not ever … Cyrus felt himself in another place, before swords, before blades and armor, where the sand was thick with the blood of the fallen. He felt himself breathe heavy, cold air, the aroma of sweat around him. His eyes found his foes, and there were more of them than he could count. He felt the rush of fear, and tried to quiet it, but-

  Not ever.

  His eyes snapped open and he turned, Praelior pointed at a figure standing at a distance from him, hands open and outstretched. Cyrus’s eyes widened in the realization that he had moved on instinct, had known that someone was there unconsciously and acted before being truly aware of it himself. He saw who it was, and took a deep breath, then another, long, loud gasps, causing his chest to heave with the exertion he’d just undertaken. He looked at the arm that held Praelior and it trembled. He lowered the blade from where it pointed at a figure before him. “Odellan.”

  “General,” Odellan said. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, but it was under his arm. The elf’s armor was polished to shine, the same set he wore when he was an Endrenshan-a Captain-in the Termina Guard. The surface of his breastplate was lines and art, carvings in the metal that gave it an artistic touch that Cyrus’s straightforward black armor lacked. Odellan’s helm was similarly adorned, with winged extensions that rose above his head and down on either side of his face as well. It rested now in the crook of his elbow, and the elf’s face was relaxed, his blond hair stirring in the sea breeze. “I didn’t mean to disturb your training.”

  Cyrus slid Praelior back into the scabbar, and managed to get his breathing under control. “Walking the beach is hardly disturbing me, Odellan. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

  Odellan nodded, inclining his head to the side. “I’m impressed you heard my appro
ach with your back turned and the waves crashing as they are. Your hearing must be near-elvish in its efficacy.”

  Cyrus pulled a gauntlet from his hand and used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “I take it you’re out for a walk?”

  “No, actually,” Odellan said. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I had a purpose. Longwell was looking for you, wanted to discuss the course for tomorrow.”

  “I’ll find him shortly,” Cyrus said, sniffing. “Is there still an abundance of boar? I find myself more hungry than I thought.”

  Odellan allowed a smile, an oddity on the face of most elves Cyrus had met in his life. Only in the last few years, in Sanctuary, had he gotten to know them more closely and seen behind the somewhat straitlaced facade typical of their race’s conduct with offlanders-non-elves. “I can’t imagine why-days of insubstantial bread and water supplemented by bony fish not quite to the taste of your palate?”

  Cyrus felt a quiet chuckle escape him. “I suppose not.” He felt a rumble in his stomach. “I’m going to get something to eat. Are you going to keep walking down the beach?”

  “No,” Odellan said, falling into step beside Cyrus as the warrior began to make his way toward the encampment. “I’ll accompany you, if that’s all right.”

  Cyrus shot Odellan a sly look. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Odellan’s returned expression was near-inscrutable. “I’d heard you were feeling decidedly unsociable of late.”

  “I see,” Cyrus said. “Doubtless the rumor mill supplied you with reason enough for my desire to remain … isolated.”

  “Indeed,” Odellan said with a nod. “Even a newcomer such as myself can’t help but be exposed to discussions among the rank and file of why our revered General-a man they refer to in hushed tones as ‘Cyrus the Unbroken’-has gone from a charismatic brawler with a decidedly outspoken persona to a black hole of despair, the very image our elven artists look to when trying to capture the mood of our society this last millenia.”