Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  As they entered the room, Cyrus stopped in mild surprise. It was indeed palatial; white marble floors filled the cavernous entry. Stuffed chairs and a long sofa made of cowhide and stuffed with down made up a sitting area in front of a fireplace. A luscious bearskin rug was in front of the hearth, where a fire blazed quietly. The walls were the same sort of plaster that had been present in the dining room, but the ceiling was far, far above them and three different chandeliers cast their light down upon the room.

  Cyrus walked, the Baroness on his arm, to the center of the room. “Your bedroom is in there, sir,” the steward said. “There is a garderobe-a toileting room-in a separate closet on the other side of it. Is there anything I can get for you?”

  Cyrus looked at the Baroness, who shook her head. “You may leave,” she said. “Thank you.” The steward nodded his head, bowed, and made his exit, leaving Cyrus alone with her, a growing unease in his belly, a nervous sort of tension that caused him to taste bitterness in his mouth. “What’s wrong?” she asked, hovering closer to him, close enough that he could feel her, feel his body ache for her to come closer.

  Cyrus swallowed heavily. “Why are you doing this?”

  She stepped closer, pressed against his armor, her cloth riding blouse giving him the strangest urge to run his hand across the fabric. She took hold of his gauntlet and pulled it slowly off; Cyrus felt his palms sweaty, sticky, and wished he could wipe them somewhere. He felt a tinge of embarrassment as she took his hand in hers and placed it on her back. “Because I want to,” she breathed, whispered in his ear. She pulled back and looked at him, locked eyes, stared him down, and the animal urge within consumed him and he kissed her, deeply and heavily, breathing hard as he broke from her. “Because although it may have been a long time for you since your last lover, for me …” her hand stroked his cheek, “I have never been with a man I have freely chosen.”

  She pressed her lips against him, again, and he felt the rising tide of his desire. His fingers went to the straps on his pauldrons and loosened them, then he lifted them over his head and dropped them to the floor where they landed with a fearsome clatter. His breastplate and backplate went next, along with the gorget that protected his neck, his lips firm against hers the whole time. He heard his remaining gauntlet hit the floor then the vambraces from his arms and bracers from his forearms, each making a clank of its own.

  “I didn’t know that it would be so easy to get you to agree to take off your armor,” she said, breaking away from him, “but so hard to actually get it all off” She dived back in at him again, pressing her lips against his neck, kissing, suckling, causing a little thrill of sensation to run through him.

  Her lips met his again and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swirling it against hers as he kicked off each of his boots, one at a time. His greaves fell off next, and she helped him slide the chainmail that undergirded it all over his head, leaving him in only his cloth underclothes. She stepped back from him for a moment, her eyes on his, and he could feel all the heat between them as he pulled off his undershirt.

  He reached for her, his fingers caressing the collar of her shirt, and he unlaced the front of it, starting to slip it over her head. Her hand came up quickly and found his, stopping him. “Please,” she said, and he could hear a hint of pleading in her voice, “not out here.” She turned her head toward the bedroom. “In there. In the dark.”

  “All right.” He reached for her and lifted her up, and she squealed in pleasure as he cradled her in his arms and kissed her again. He carried her into the bedroom and laid her upon the bed, extinguishing the lamps, plunging the room into semi-darkness. He could see her face in the narrow shaft of light coming from the main room, saw her eyes as they flicked toward the door. He got up and drew it nearly closed, so that only a crack remained, shedding a narrow band of the luminescence as he returned to the bed-and to her embrace.

  Chapter 15

  When Cyrus awoke in the morning, it was just before sunrise. He felt a lazy smile on his face. The Baroness lay curled against his side; he had awoken in the night and they had made love again, madly, feverishly, and afterwards held each other until Cyrus faded into another deep, dreamless sleep. His fingers traced lines along the maddening number of scars that crisscrossed the skin of her back and belly, and he wondered at the sort of man who would do such a thing.

  The morning light was shining into the main room of their suite, brightening the interior of the bedroom as well. Cyrus heard a faint knocking in the distance and paused, listening for it. It came again, a moment later, and he gently shifted the Baroness off his arm, laying her head upon a pillow, and rolled out of bed, grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around himself as he walked out into the main room.

  There was another insistent rapping as he drew the bedroom door shut. His bare feet padded on the cool marble and when he reached the door, he opened it to find Martaina waiting outside with a young boy.

  “Sir,” Martaina said with a thin smile. “Count Ranson has sent a page for you-he is ready for you and the officers to meet to discuss the battle strategy.”

  “Oh,” Cyrus said. “Right. I’ll need a few minutes to get dressed and I’ll be right along.” The young boy nodded and ran off down the hall, while Martaina stood still. “I thought I told you to get some rest. Were you out here all night?”

  “Yep,” she said, backing herself against the wall opposite his door. “Aisling was with me at first but …” The elf’s face tightened and her eyebrow raised in amusement. “She left after your first round of … nocturnal calisthenics.”

  Cyrus froze. “You heard … She heard it too? Damn.” He felt a sharp stab of guilt. “I suppose I’m going to have to deal with a scorned dark elf at some point.”

  “I doubt she’s murderous about it,” Martaina said. “But I would say she is disappointed. The Baroness, on the other hand, sounded very pleased-”

  “Oh, stop it,” Cyrus said. “Just because you’ve appointed yourself my bodyguard doesn’t mean-”

  “I’m your bodyguard?” Martaina laughed. “I’d be hard-pressed to protect you from all the threats you face, let alone the wife of an enemy you killed last month whom you just invited into your bed. I’ll do my best to watch out for threats, but if I’m your bodyguard, I demand you make my job easier.”

  Cyrus pasted a fake smile on. “If you’re not my bodyguard, why are you lurking outside my door at all hours? Are you some sort of gratuitous peeper?” He looked down at the door handle. “Should I hang something over the keyhole in order to get some privacy?”

  Martaina let out a noise of faint amusement. “Unless you plan to stuff a sock in both your mouth and the Baroness’s, I’ll still hear you.”

  “Thanks,” Cyrus said. He shut the door and paced back into the bedroom, snugging the blanket around his shoulders. He opened the door and found the Baroness waiting for him, a white sheet lying across her lower body. She jumped in surprise when she saw him, and he noted again the series of scars that ran across her arms and chest, rises in the flesh that looked as though skin had been torn in strips from her arms. Wide cuts crisscrossed the surface of her stomach, angry red lines that looked out of place on her pale belly.

  “Was someone at the door?” she asked.

  He let the blanket slip to the floor and slid into bed next to her. She remained sitting, giving him a full view of her back, which was wretched in its appearance-great patches of skin and meat seemed to be missing, as though parts of her flesh had been torn out, ripping the musculature from underneath as well. He ran a single finger down her spine and she stiffened, and he saw her shoulders shake as she exhaled. “Please,” she said, “don’t touch me there … don’t look. It’s horrible.”

  “Have you looked at mine?” He sat up and leaned forward to sit next to her, shoulder to shoulder. She turned her head to see him and he leaned forward further. “I’ve been in a fight or two in my life that left me with scars.”

  He felt her hand upon his back as it s
lid down below his shoulder blades. “These … what are these from?” she asked.

  “From whippings,” he said, and felt himself tense at the memory, “from when I was at the Society. It’s how they disciplined you when you got out of line or defied orders.” He reached out and took her other hand in his. “Or when you ran away.”

  “Ran away from what?”

  “From battle.” He stroked her hand with his, intertwined his fingers with hers. “From the Society. From anything, really.”

  “You ran away from the Society?” He felt the cool touch of her fingertips go lower, still brushing the thicker scar tissue. There was quite a lot of it.

  “Once.” He rubbed the palm of her hand with his fingers, felt the smoothness of it save for a few callouses that had formed in the last month. “The first year I was there. I got quite a few of these whipping scars that year.”

  “How old were you?” She leaned in and put her head on his shoulder.

  He felt her warm breath on his neck and he wrapped his arm around her. “Six.” She jerked her head away and looked up at him, pity in her eyes. “I was six when I went to the Society.”

  She leaned her head back down on him. “How long before your meeting?”

  He ran his fingers down her side, causing her to shiver. “I could leave at any time.”

  She pulled her head off his shoulder, her long brown hair loose and framing her face, flowing down either side of it. He caught a sparkle from her green eyes. “Any time? Meaning in an hour?”

  “I could wait an hour,” he said, and caressed her again. “Easily an hour.”

  Her hand slipped below the sheets and he felt the heat, the pressure. “My, my,” she said with a cluck of the tongue, “you do seem to be a man of infinite vigor.” She kissed him again, briefly.

  “It’s been a while,” he said. “I doubt I could keep going at this pace forever.” She kissed him again, and he broke it off after a moment. “Although, I confess that I’m feeling enthusiastic enough to try. I had forgotten how much fun this could be.”

  “Mmmhmm,” she said, tracing a line of kisses down his shoulder. “But if you never leave this bed, won’t your army eventually leave without you?”

  He felt a slow smile spread across his face. “I am the General, you know. My army doesn’t move without me.”

  She leaned closer and kissed his lips gently. “And if the Count sends for you again?”

  “Martaina will tell them to go away,” Cyrus said, letting her kisses consume him, returning them with all the passion and intensity he’d had for her last night. He turned his shoulders and bore her gently to the mattress, letting his desire for her carry them both away again.

  Chapter 16

  “General Davidon,” Count Ranson said brusquely as Cyrus walked into his war room an hour later. The Count stood behind a table in the center of the room, some of the other Sanctuary officers-Longwell, Curatio, Terian and J’anda-as well a few of the Count’s lieutenants were scattered around him. “I hope you don’t mind, but we did start without you.” Cyrus noted just a hint of contrition in the Count’s pronouncement.

  “I don’t mind at all,” Cyrus said. “I apologize for my tardiness, but it has been a rather long … uh … journey.” He shot a look at Martaina, who snickered behind him. “Anyway, why don’t we get to it?” Cyrus walked to the massive table, a circular one that had a diameter greater than the height of a man and looked down at it. Painted on the surface was a map of the Kingdom of Galbadien, along with parts of Actaluere and Syloreas. The map ended at the beginning of the peninsula that contained the Endless Bridge back to Arkaria and also cut off the land of Syloreas above a mountain range. “Very impressive,” Cyrus said. “I bet it would also be good for setting up a dollhouse in the middle and then playing-”

  “If I may,” the Count said tightly, bringing a long stick out to point to the open plains above Vernadam, which was marked on the map with a small, carved stone castle roughly three inches tall. It was a remarkable approximation for the size, even sitting on a small, green-painted rise on the table. “They are encamped approximately here. They will meet us in battle tomorrow, as it has been arranged,” he swept the stick down an inch, “here. The whole of the plains is relatively flat ground, as such things go-some sloping hills but nothing too disagreeable for fighting.”

  “What kind of tactics have the Syloreans been using?” Longwell asked, his eyes focused on the map table.

  “Less of the usual,” Ranson said. “They haven’t been engaging us on horseback nearly as much as they have in the past, preferring to use their footmen-infantry, I believe I heard your men call them,” he said with a nod to Cyrus, “and leading with their bloody magical mercenaries.”

  “How has that played against our dragoons?” Longwell asked, the fingers of his right hand resting on his chin, deep in thought.

  “Not well,” Ranson went on, “thanks to that bloody half-man. He holds his hand out when the dragoons charge and half our number are blasted from the backs of their horses, and their animals tend to go into a rage, spooked into stomping their own riders when they recover.”

  “Sounds like a paladin, all right,” Curatio said. He leaned both hands on the table. “We’ll be needing to take him out of circulation first-him and their healer.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t get the same idea about you, yes?” J’anda smirked at Curatio, who shrugged in return. “I know,” the dark elf went on, “we have more than one healer, but still-why tempt fate?”

  “It’s not fate I’m worried about,” Cyrus said, staring down at the table, willing it to give him more information, a closer look at the battlefield. “It’s those mercenaries. We don’t know for sure how many there are or if they have more spellcasters in reserve. I don’t care much for surprises, and we certainly seem to be facing our share of them.”

  “If we could catch them while they’re sleeping,” Ranson said, “with our dragoons on a full charge and your army dealing with the mercenaries, I feel confident the battle could be won easily.”

  “You’re telling me that you can defeat the Sylorean army if we just take care of their mercenaries?” Cyrus raised an eyebrow at the count. “All right, but we’re not going to plan on that. I will focus my army one hundred percent on dispatching the mercenaries, and then we’ll rally and break the Syloreans. Are they mostly on horseback or footmen?”

  “Footmen,” Ranson said. “But they have a healthy contingent of mounted cavalry as well.” The count drew himself up, swelling with pride. “They do decently well on horseback, but they’re not as well trained as our dragoons.”

  “Let’s plan to hit them in the night and catch them by surprise,” Cyrus said, “preferably when they’re sleeping. No reason to make things harder on ourselves. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to improvise based on the ground we’re on when the fight unfolds. No matter what, my army will target the mercenaries until we’ve removed that threat. Then we’ll join you in breaking the rest of the Sylorean army.”

  “That seems to be as much as we can plan without knowing the landscape of where we’ll be fighting,” Ranson said. “When will you be ready to march?”

  “Within the hour,” Cyrus said then looked around at his officers. “We’ll ride back to the village in fifteen minutes, so gather your things and meet in the courtyard.” He heard Martaina clear her throat, and when he looked at her questioningly, she widened her eyes and stared him down, as though he were forgetting something. “Oh. Make that … uh … twenty minutes, I think.” He caught a few stares and a raised eyebrow from Terian then nodded at them all and left, Martaina trailing behind him. “What?” he asked her when they had turned a corner.

  “I just wanted to suggest you might allow enough time to say a farewell to the Baroness,” she said, now walking alongside him again. “And I wasn’t sure how much time you wanted to allot for that.”

  “I don’t think I have enough energy for a long goodbye,” he said, almost under his breath,
drawing a chuckle from her. “But better to not rush it, right?”

  “If you care about her?” She looked at him, waited for the slight nod, and went on. “Probably best not to rush it, no, sir.”

  “Right you are,” he said, turning a corner. He thought of something then stopped in the corridor. Martaina’s reflexes allowed her to stop with him, without missing so much as a step. She looked at him questioningly and he gave voice to his thought. “Do you have any more spare ventra’maq? I doubt very much that they have anything like it in this land, given their lack of magic.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, annoyed. “I do need some for myself, you know.”

  “When?” Cyrus asked, amused. “Do you have someone that comes to join you at my door at night? Is it one of the guards, perhaps? The wall in the hallway-is it comfortable when your back is thrust against it?”

  “Ha ha,” Martaina said without humor. She reached into a pouch at her belt and withdrew a small vial of dark liquid, roughly the color of blood. “Warn her about the poor taste or she’ll likely be quite upset with you afterward.”

  Cyrus held up the vial between his thumb and forefinger and stared at the liquid within. “How could I get more?” He caught a glare from her. “You know, if I needed it.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “If you keep up the same pace you’ve been going at, you’ll need it. I can gather the herbs that go into the solution, but only an enchanter can add the mystical component to make it work.”

  Cyrus stared at her. “Can J’anda …?”

  “He’s always done it for me.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Your diligent service does not go unnoticed, I hope you realize that.”

  “And I hope you realize,” she said, somewhat irritably, “that that’s a week’s worth of protection-tell her to drink the whole thing, and she’ll be safe from unintended quickening of your seed,” she leered at him with a raised eyebrow, “or anyone else’s, for that matter-for seven days. After that, she’ll need another dose, even on the days when her month’s blood is with her-I have heard of women becoming with child while thinking they were safely immune during those times.”