Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  “Enough,” Curatio said, and turned the blade aside then watched Terian, whose hand went limp in front of him as the dark knight’s face fell. He looked to Aisling, who was standing off to the side, a thick coil of rope in her hands. “Bind him.”

  “No-” Terian said, but Longwell and Scuddar came forward and restrained him, turning him over and grinding his face into the dirt as Aisling wrapped the ropes around his hands and feet then gagged him with a rock, a cloth, and a rope for good measure. The dark knight writhed on the ground when they were done, his hands and feet bound separately, securing each wrist to the other, each leg to its match at the ankle and a coil tied the two together, inadvertently putting Terian into an seated position. Silence pervaded the circle around him, as though everyone was afraid that speaking might make them complicit in whatever crime the dark knight had committed.

  “Terian Lepos,” Curatio began, “you have been accused of attempting to murder your general. You will be returned to Sanctuary at our earliest convenience to be judged by a tribunal of your fellow officers, and we’ll decide from there what’s meant to be done with you.” He stared at the dark knight, who refused to meet the healer’s gaze. “And I, for one, am greatly disappointed in you.”

  Cyrus could see the glare of contempt that Terian leveled at the ground, not turning it anywhere near Curatio. The healer crossed the space between them and placed a gentle hand on Cyrus’s shoulder, leading him away from where Terian sat, silent, not bothering to struggle against his bonds. “You didn’t have to kill him, you know. I thought you’d learned your lesson about revenge.”

  “That wasn’t revenge,” Cyrus said. “That was warning. I knew you’d bring him back, that he’d be dragged along with us. I need him to be afraid, to think I’d kill him if he got out of line.”

  Curatio stopped, his hand still on Cyrus’s shoulder. “It is good to have you back.” The healer’s eyes flicked from Cyrus to away, in the distance. “I confess, I had thought we had seen your certain end when we saw you ride off to the west.”

  “Nothing is certain as regards my end,” Cyrus said, “save for that it is not yet here.” Something flared in his mind, the memory of where the journey had taken Aisling and him. “Curatio, those things-they come from-”

  “The Realm of Death,” Curatio said quietly. “Yes, we know. J’anda saw into one of their minds, remember? He saw that they were the spirits unleashed when Mortus died, that they have come through a portal and been made substantial. How did you know?”

  “We found the portal,” Cyrus said. “It was in the back of a cave we took refuge in on the first night, during the snow. We went inside, thinking it might be an avenue of escape.” He looked down in anguish. “There are more of them, Curatio. Countless more. Think about when those things broke loose from the Eusian Tower, there were enough of them to blot out the red sky of the entire realm.”

  “I know,” Curatio said. “More than I’d care to count, that’s for certain. All Mortus’s prisoners, his damned souls, and all they need do to receive physical form-albeit a horrific one-is to step through a portal, and a faded shadow of life becomes theirs once more.”

  “But how is it possible?” Cyrus asked. “Those … things … are they alive?”

  “Close enough,” J’anda said, slipping up to join them. “They were dead, all of them, in torment from Mortus’s efforts to keep them imprisoned, enslaved … now they are loosed, and after arriving through the portal they have form and substance. Not life, as you or I would define it, with need and want and reason. But they have desire. They have hunger. They crave flesh and pain, and would visit it upon whomever they encounter.” He shook his head. “They are not mindless beasts; they will coordinate, attack, and they aim to harvest and kill every piece of idle flesh on this continent, to have every soul they can rest between their teeth to join them-in death.”

  “So you’re saying that thousands of years of torment have left them slightly bitter and resentful of us living folk?” Cyrus asked. “Oh, joy.” He took a breath. “How many have made it over thus far?”

  J’anda shrugged. “Numbers are meaningless to them. They’re smarter than beasts, but all the torment has left them lacking in will. They move in packs, in herds, and finding fresh prey seems to be their only concern. More will come, as they continue to seek new flesh. I sense that others have tried to explore the other portal-the one that leads to the Island of Mortus in the Bay of Lost Souls-but that their efforts there are fruitless, and they have turned all their focus to this one, with the promise of flesh both tantalizing and near. The one that came down to us, to the swamps? I suspect it was a newer soul, one less paralyzed into group action.” J’anda shrugged. “That is but a theory, though. Who knows what they will do, how many will come?”

  “But you have a suspicion, right?” Cyrus asked. “You were inside one of their minds, you looked around. What do you think they’ll do?”

  J’anda was slow to respond. “I have already told the others this. I suspect they will go in the direction of flesh. If there is no prey north or east or west, then they will come south. They can sense life at a great distance and desire to extinguish it. It is a predatory need for them, a relentless hunger, a jealousy that crosses to obsession. They will keep coming as long as there is life in front of them.” J’anda became withdrawn, his voice quiet, hollow, and he stared past Cyrus as he spoke. “Until there is no more life left.”

  Chapter 40

  The ride back to Enrant Monge took a month, a month during which the expedition was quiet. Cyrus spoke at length with Count Ranson on the day after his return, and with the envoy from Actaluere; all were agreed that the scourge was serious, and a threat to every Kingdom in Luukessia.

  “Those creatures are beasts,” the envoy from Actaluere, a pompous snot named Reygner, sniffed, “and their numbers are vast, but there is a very clear danger in what they can do to us, to our land. I intend to press my King to send immediate aid north. There will be plenty of time to make war amongst ourselves after these foreign creatures are expelled from Luukessia.” Cyrus did not bother to dispel the man’s perception of the scourge’s intellect.

  Ranson had been less forthcoming. “I intend to tell the King what I have seen,” the count told Cyrus later, away from the rest of expedition, “but I do not expect he will listen. I mean-ancestors, man! We saw an army of Syloreas torn to pieces, a host of these beasts, but not so many that a firm defense wouldn’t sway them or cause them to go down in defeat.” He shook his head in frustration. “I will urge him to action, especially as you say there are numerous more of these things, but I expect he’ll take my counsel and pick out only the parts that appeal to him.”

  “Oh?” Cyrus asked. “What parts are those?”

  Ranson hesitated before answering. “Sylorean Army, torn to pieces.”

  “What will you do, Count?”

  “I will do nothing I am not ordered to,” Ranson snapped. “To do otherwise is treason of the highest order, and I have no desire to oppose my Sovereign and sign my own death order when I could avoid it.”

  “And if your treason could save your people?” Cyrus watched Ranson, whose face fell.

  “I doubt it could,” Ranson said. “We have not seen the full force of these things, in any case. You say there are more, but I ask you how you know this? Yes, yes,” he waved off Cyrus, “I have heard your explanation, of gods and tormented souls released, but such thoughts seem ridiculous to me, just as they will to any other in Luukessia that you tell. Ancestor worship is our philosophy, not mythical gods or all-powerful beings.”

  “Fine,” Cyrus said, “then call them your tormented ancestors, returning to visit their pain and anguish upon you for all their sins past.”

  “Ancestors!” Ranson cursed. “It makes it sound all the more ridiculous when you say it that way.”

  After Ranson had ridden away, off to the other side of the procession, Curatio brought his horse alongside Cyrus. “It does sound ridiculous, you kno
w.”

  “That an army of tormented dead that we unleashed is visiting all manner of hell upon the northern reaches of a land most of us had never even heard of until a few months ago?” Cyrus looked at Curatio, and found a certain irony that allowed him to smile rather than weep. “I can’t imagine why any part of that statement would strain the credibility of the person who spoke it and professed to believe it.”

  “Nor can I,” Curatio said, with only a little irony of his own. “Yet all levity aside, this is the truth that we are faced with. We are culpable for whatever happens here, because we were the ones who killed Mortus.”

  “I don’t want to think about it that way,” Cyrus said, and looked away from the healer abruptly.

  “You may not want to,” Curatio said, “but I suspect that your wants are unlikely to stop your mind from wandering in that direction.”

  “Aye,” Cyrus said in a whisper, “there has indeed been some wandering. But it’s not all that is on my mind.”

  “Hmmm,” Curatio said, “betrayal, backstabbing, deception, abandonment, duels to the death, arguments with women, deeply conflicted feelings, and an army unlike any we’ve ever seen on the march toward the civilizations of this land. I can’t imagine what else you might be thinking about.” After a moment’s pause, the healer said something else, more conciliatory. “Try not to let it all weigh you down.” Without another word, he urged his horse forward and left Cyrus riding alone.

  But he was not alone that night, later, when he found a spring in the woods near the site of their camp. When his clothes and armor came off, the sound in the brush made him reach for his sword. His fingers dangled on the hilt when a single twig snapping turned him in the direction of the presence.

  Aisling stepped out of the shadows, and wordlessly removed her clothing, slipping into the spring with him. There was more passion in her kisses than usual, and Cyrus returned them, every one, with just as much, craving her, wanting to feel the sweet bliss of forgetfulness. He found he wanted the tender moments of peace that only she could give him, where everything else was by the wayside.

  When they were done, they did not exchange a word, but she aided him in washing himself and he did the same for her. She quietly stole off toward the camp by herself. He followed moments later. She had not come to his bedroll at night, not since they had returned to the expedition, but along the trail she would find him sometimes in an unguarded moment, against a tree, or in a soft patch of grass, and he would be able to ease his mind, to forget about all else for just a few precious minutes.

  They passed Scylax without stopping for more than a few hours, allowing the horses to rest and for fresh provisions. They entered through the gates, were entertained on the main avenue, and rode out through the gate down the mountain only a few hours later. Some of the Syloreans changed horses; Cyrus did not have the luxury, and Windrider seemed to bear it better than the other animals anyhow. Occasional days of rest were required, or more often, half-days. They moved as quickly as the animals allowed, not giving much thought to the pains of the men, which were healed by Curatio whenever they asked.

  Only a week south of Scylax they found themselves loping over open plains again, the mountains receding far behind them, distant, cloudy, with a darkness hanging over them, a wintery gloom that was nothing like the summer suns still kissing the plains around them. It was late summer, in fact, Cyrus realized, and some of the wild flowers had begun to turn brown where they had been purple, blue and yellow only weeks before when they passed through. A cool day manifested unexpectedly; the sky was dull grey like in the mountains, and the wind had the slightest kiss of bitterness to it.

  The last night they camped on a grassy, windblown plain, and Briyce Unger called together Cyrus and his officers with Count Ranson and the envoy from Actaluere. They’d had plenty of discussions along the road, but this was to be their last. Cyrus listened, somewhat dully, as Unger confirmed for the hundredth time what the others would tell their respective leaders. Cyrus stayed silent; he had nothing to contribute, and Ranson was still skeptical of how his King would react while the Actaluere envoy was unrelenting in his belief that Milos Tiernan would immediately see reason. Cyrus, for his part, was not so sure.

  “What do you think their next move will be?” Briyce Unger had asked Cyrus, after he had confirmed what he wanted to hear from the envoys. Cyrus blinked at him, in a daze. “The Scourge,” he said, as they had taken to calling the damned souls given flesh, “what will their next move be?”

  “I don’t know,” Cyrus said. “J’anda says they’ll come south, looking for flesh and blood, eager to destroy life. When that will happen, I don’t know. Maybe it already has.”

  “They’ll butt up hard against Scylax,” Unger said. “I’ve already ordered an army to reinforce the town, and they’ll evacuate the townsfolk into the keep if it gets especially ugly. Fighting in the pass will be a nasty business, though, if we get Longwell and Tiernan to send armies. We may have to draw them out in order to crush them.”

  “The best thing we could do is march back into the valley where Pinrade is and destroy the portal,” Cyrus said. “But that’s going to be a hell of an undertaking.”

  “Could you destroy it?” Unger asked. “Could your people with their spells and whatnot knock it down?”

  “Maybe,” Cyrus said. “The only wizard I have with me is somewhat unexperienced in such matters.”

  “It can be done,” Curatio said, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started. “But it will be neither easy nor a short process. More spellcasters would be better, and I’ll need to uh …” He looked around, but J’anda and Longwell were the only other Sanctuary officers present. “Let’s just say that we’ll have to do more than a little heresy in order to get it done. Which I don’t have a problem with, but I’ve been around since before such things were considered heretical.”

  J’anda blinked. “Wait … what?”

  “It can be done,” Curatio said, “and that’s the important part. But I’ll have to be there for some time, preferably not interrupted, in order to strip the enchantments off the portal. After that, you should be able to use enchanted weapons to break it to pieces and guarantee it never re-opens.”

  “There’s something else we need to be concerned about,” Cyrus said. “If these things come from the Realm of Death, then there’s another portal that opens onto the Island of Mortus. J’anda, you said their efforts there have been fruitless but we don’t know what that means. They could be massing there right now, ready to swim the miles to shore in order to stage an invasion of Arkaria like they’re doing to Luukessia.”

  J’anda cursed and ran a hand over his smooth face. “We’ll need to send a messenger to Sanctuary.”

  “Yeah,” Cyrus said. “We’ll wait until we’re at Enrant Monge tomorrow and we’ve met with the other Sanctuary officers, then we’ll figure out who we can send. We need help if we’re going to make a push for that portal. I doubt the thousand we have is going to get the job done.” Cyrus looked to Briyce Unger. “No offense to your people, but we’re talking about using a coordinated army to thrust through the enemy rather than fighting toe to toe with them while they try and bleed us to death and vice versa.”

  “I got the gist of your strategy,” Unger said. “You’re talking about using mobility and speed against them, the two things they lack against a horsed army. The problem is, your thousand don’t all have horses, and your speed advantage is less in the mountain passes between Scylax and that valley. So first of all, you need Longwell’s dragoons, and second, you need flatter ground, or you’ll be driving them back over those same damned roads that collapse in landslides and send people to a long fall and a quick stop at the bottom.”

  “What would you suggest?” Cyrus asked. “Draw them onto the plains and have a bloody free-for-all there?”

  “It may come to that,” Unger said, “if they decide Scylax is too tightly buttoned up to bother with, and they’re truly hungry for blood
, they ought to head south. If we can come at them with the three armies-Galbadien, Actaluere and Syloreas, we can probably match them, put them down, and all the while you take your army another couple weeks north through the passes and into that valley, and put the crushing blow on their reinforcements.” Unger nodded. “That’d sort them out on our end, leave us to mop up whatever they had left over here, but they wouldn’t be getting that constant stream of endless numbers like they apparently can now.” Unger had a strange light in his eyes. “I’d fight like all hell, too, way past the close if I had an army of raging souls behind me who had no fear of death and no care for numbers.”

  “There’s something we’re missing here,” Cyrus said. “If they’re more than beasts, then there has to be more to them than just a simple hunger. There’s something driving them besides rage if they’re coordinating their attacks. J’anda, did you sense any sort of leadership structure to these things?”

  “Just because I didn’t sense it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” J’anda cautioned. “I got the picture of the creature’s mind, but it was not like reading a map or even like absorbing the thought of a normal person-not that there necessarily is such a thing as normal. But this is how it is-humans think a certain way, as do dark elves, elves, gnomes, dwarves and so on. Within every species is a certain way of thought, and I understand all of them-except trolls. Well, with the exception of Vaste. Within each species there are also variations of their manner of thinking, some radical, some bizarre, but none as different as the jump between species. The point is, I understand all of them, can read all of them, can know all of them. This creature … I could not know given a year or two or ten in its mind. It is angrier by far than a troll, more guarded than a dark elf and more bizarre than any mind I have ever seen into. I get flashes, enough to understand the origin, but only pieces of the whole. I could read a man’s mind and feel confident in telling you everything of the man,” he blushed and looked away from Cyrus as he said it. “This thing, I would not feel confident telling you I know anything of it but the facts I outlined. They are … bizarrre. Truly bizarre. They could well have a leadership and a hierarchy driving them and I would not know it.”