Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  “Marvelous,” Cyrus said, running his hands over his eyes and then through his hair, brushing it over his shoulders. “We have an enemy that appears countless in number, unknowable in intent-other than that they want blood and death-we have no way of judging their movements, their desire, how far they will take this, and even though we now know their origin, we don’t know if they have a leader of any sort or if there is any motivation for them to be doing what they’re doing. We’re completely blind, facing a numberless enemy.” He sighed. “At least we have a plan.”

  “And our plan involves slipping behind the lines of this enemy and trying to cut off their entry point to this realm,” J’anda said. “This doesn’t sound like our best plan ever, if I may say so.”

  “When have you ever hesitated to say so?” Cyrus asked, holding his head. “But you’re right. This … will not be pretty.”

  Unger smiled, an unsettling one. Ranson and the envoy from Actaluere had left moments earlier. “The fight ahead or the moot?”

  “Either one,” Cyrus said. “I wonder if King Aron has at the least soothed Milos Tiernan over the Baroness Cattrine?”

  “I doubt it,” Unger said. “It’s not Tiernan who’s truly upset by that anyhow; my spies say he’s most displeased with what Grand Duke Hoygraf has done to his sister. It’s Hoygraf himself who is driving that issue. Milos Tiernan would just as soon have his sister away from Hoygraf forever, but Hoygraf holds too many favors in his Kingdom, too many strings of powerful people.”

  “How?” Cyrus asked. “The man’s a sadist.”

  “Aye,” Unger said, “but sadism can have its uses when you run a Kingdom. And the man was a dog of war, until you perforated his belly. Now he’s unlikely to walk straight upright ever again, but he has allies in Actaluere. He controls easily a third of their armies, and King Tiernan’s a clever bastard. He knows it, he knows Hoygraf knows it, and he’s playing it entirely cool in order to keep Hoygraf from acting on it.”

  “I crushed Hoygraf’s army,” Cyrus said, waving off Unger. “I broke his keep, killed his men. What the hell else has he got?”

  “You did not break his army,” Unger said. “His army was two days march behind you when you hit Green Hill. You killed his attendants, you killed many of his close advisors, but not his army. He intended to delay you until they could crush you, and it would have been a rather clever stratagem if he’d been facing traditional forces. Unfortunately for him, you were more magical and somewhat cleverer than he might have given you credit for.” Unger chuckled and shook his head. “Still, bedding his wife before the man was dead? I admit, I have no respect for Hoygraf and his woman-beating ways, but cuckolding the man after you opened his belly and left him to die? The Grand Duke will be upset with you for the rest of his life, shortened though it might be by the grievous wounding you gave him.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Grand Duke Hoygraf,” Cyrus said. “I can handle him if the time comes.”

  “Oh, the time will come,” Unger said. “I mean, did you not think that word would get out about your escapades in the Garden of Serenity before we left?”

  Cyrus froze, and caught the look of confusion from both Curatio and J’anda. “You heard about that?” Cyrus asked Unger.

  “Oh, yes,” Unger said with a laugh. “That was all the talk of the moot the night before we left. You have a set of brass ones, Cyrus Davidon. Everyone knew about that.”

  “I didn’t hear about that,” J’anda said, slightly miffed.

  “Everyone who was of the three Kingdoms,” Unger amended. “The Garden of Serenity is not exactly a holy place, but it’s as near as we get in Luukessia. My goodness, lad … taking the wife of a man whose grievance was that you had taken his wife, and doing it there? Sort of defeats the idea of suing for peace, doesn’t it? I mean, you’re adding fresh grievances by the bucketload. You’re quite fortunate you didn’t speak with King Longwell before you left, I’m certain he would have given you an earful for that last insult.”

  Cyrus looked to Samwen Longwell, whose face was drawn. “Yes, that’s something of an insult,” Longwell said. “And yes, it likely made my father’s negotiations after we left somewhat more protracted, if you did in fact do …” he coughed, “what he said you did.”

  “I did,” Cyrus said, unrepentant. “Twice.”

  Longwell was overcome by a fit of coughing. “Ahem … uh … the Baroness would have known how great an insult this would be. I’m surprised she still … ah … acceded to your … charms.” The dragoon looked uncomfortable at every word, and when done, settled into a silence in which he would not meet Cyrus’s eyes.

  “She was the one who started it,” Cyrus said, drawing another coughing fit from Longwell, a wide grin from Unger, tired disinterest from J’anda and practiced neutrality from Curatio. “I didn’t start it, she did. So if she knew what she was doing was insulting, she did it on purpose.”

  “Aye,” Unger said, “I can’t imagine why she would choose that moment to insult the man who beat her. If the man were one of my barons, I’d have him flogged in the streets of Scylax for pulling even a tenth of what that bloke has. What a load of goat dung he is.”

  “We seem to have wandered afield from our original topic of discussion,” Curatio said with a weak smile. “We have a meeting-or moot, I should say-tomorrow, yes?”

  “Yes,” Unger said. “It may already be in progress when we arrive. If so, they’ll move directly to our topic, and Ranson and what’s-his-name from Actaluere will have their moment to speak, but nothing will be decided until after the Kings have a chance to talk with their men in private. We’ll go to any other business then adjourn. Should be a short session.”

  “Thus was said about every long meeting I have ever attended,” Curatio said dryly, “and I’ve attended one or two very long meetings in my life.”

  “So, we have a war to begin,” Cyrus said, “a land to unite,” he nodded at Briyce Unger, who nodded back, “a guild to inform, troops to rally, reinforcements to summon …” Cyrus folded his arms, and settled his eyes on Longwell, Curatio, J’anda, and finally on the darkness beyond the campfires where he knew, in the distance, Enrant Monge lay just ahead on the horizon, beyond the black skies, “… and I don’t know which of those things will be hardest to do. I really don’t.”

  He left them, then, without word, deep in his own thoughts, and paced through the campfires, looking for Aisling. She’s never around when I have need of her, not immediately, anyway. He went beyond the last fire, and edged into the woods. Yet when I go far enough away … he heard a rustling in the bushes.

  He felt her hand around his shoulders, felt her tongue in his ear, gentle, caressing, smelled the cinnamon on her breath. “Productive meeting?” she whispered.

  “Not really,” he said, and turned to her, backing her against a tree. “What about you?”

  “Been waiting for you,” she said as she let her fingers brush through his hair, then kissed him again, and he felt his head swirl as he lifted her gently off the ground and pinned her against the tree as their passion consumed them.

  “Put me down,” she said after they were done, and he did, leaning against the tree for support, his weight resting heavily on his left arm. “I’ll see you back at the camp.” He heard her words, sensed her pull her breeches back up, then heard her footsteps disappear, as they always did, quiet to the point where he couldn’t hear them, and he was left alone, again, in the woods, in the dark, and he stayed there for quite some time.

  Chapter 41

  It was midafternoon when they rode into Enrant Monge through the northern gate of the Syloreans. After the second gate, the stewards of the Brotherhood of the Broken Blade greeted them and quietly informed them that there was a session underway at present in the Garden of Serenity. They would be expected within the half-hour, then the debate would shift to hear their reports. Briyce Unger nodded and was on about his business, heading toward the tower nearby, while the Actaluere envoy headed west through a ke
eping gate and Cyrus and the others followed Ranson to the eastern bailey.

  The sun was still high in the sky as Cyrus made his way out of the tower set aside for the Galbadien delegation a half-hour later. The stewards had shown him to the communal bath, and he’d washed the dirt of travel from him, felt the cool water rinsing the dust and grime of long days of travel from his skin, along with something else which was becoming familiar, the smell of Aisling, her sweat and the tangy aroma of cinnamon. He caught a peculiar look from one of the stewards, who thereafter tried to avoid making eye contact with him. When he looked in the mirror, he realized his neck was covered with bruises from bites; not small ones, either, but ones that were obvious and exposed above his armor. Fiddling with his collar was of no assistance; they stood out against the green of his robe. With a sigh, he left, joining Curatio, J’anda, Longwell and Ranson in the courtyard before the Garden of Serenity. Aisling and the others had gone to rejoin the Sanctuary army, still encamped in the eastern woods outside the castle.

  They were called into the garden, the walls bathed in orange by the light of noon. Clouds were on the horizon, but as yet the breeze was soft, the sun was unobscured, and the weather pleasant enough, if a little hot. They were not announced, not this time, save for Briyce Unger, who went first and with little fanfare. Cyrus watched from the tunnel as Unger strode out to take his place in the amphitheater, and Cyrus and his delegation were ushered out moments later, as a quiet settled upon the proceedings, and he took a place on an empty bench, conspicuously far to the back of the Galbadien delegation. Count Ranson went forward, invited to a place of honor nearer to Aron Longwell, though not as near as it had been before the expedition; Ranson took a seat in the third row rather than the first.

  Cyrus scanned the audience until he found Ryin Ayend and Nyad, sitting a few rows closer and upon the aisle opposite the one Cyrus had entered by. The soft breeze stirred Nyad’s hair as he looked upon her, and Ayend next to her looked especially drab in the dull green robes provided by the Brotherhood of the Broken Blade. Seated to the left of the two of them was Cattrine, her dark hair shining, her face less so, reserved, and focused on him but for a few seconds before she broke eye contact, impassive, hesitant, almost fearful.

  The greenery around them almost faded into the backdrop as the meeting began. The assemblage was quiet, and there was a sense of restlessness in the audience made all the worse by the breeze, stirring as it was every few moments. Cyrus could feel it in the air, a desire to move, to run, and as he looked down at Cattrine he felt it grow stronger. He longed for touch, for hers or Aisling’s, and wished desperately he were elsewhere, though he could not define why.

  “I offer a welcome to our brothers who have returned from the north,” Grenwald Ivess looked somewhat haggard, a little pallid, and the lighting helped not a whit. “Would that you had come at a more auspicious time, when we had more … pleasing news to report.” Cyrus looked to Unger, who sat isolated in the front row of the Sylorean bench by himself, and watched the King look to the men behind him, his brow furrowed. Why is the King sitting alone? What is going on here?

  “I take it there was little progress whilst we were away?” Unger asked, drawing his attention back to the assembly. “No forward momentum on making amends between our august Kingdoms?” The King of Syloreas was loud, restless, and his hair moved as he turned to look back once more at the row of men behind him, none of whom would look him in the eye. Cyrus watched as he slapped one of them on the knee, enough to jar the man to attention but not to compel him to look at his King for more than a few seconds before lapsing back to staring at his feet.

  “I take it by your rather enthusiastic demeanor,” King Aron Longwell stood, commanding the attention at the center of the room, “that no one from your delegation has told you the news yet?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone from my delegation since I got here,” Unger said, wary. Cyrus could not see King Longwell’s face, but the relish was evident in the man’s voice, and it gave Cyrus no comfort, none at all. “Since they all appear to be too craven to tell me whatever ill news you all have, and since you seem all too eager to do it, Aron, why don’t you just go ahead and be on with it?”

  “You do me insult, sir,” Aron Longwell said, his hand springing to his chest as though Briyce Unger had just plunged a dagger into it. “I do not take any pleasure in your pain, and to suggest otherwise-”

  “Tiernan?” Unger interrupted King Longwell, and Cyrus looked to the King of Actaluere, who was actually somewhat pale himself, not nearly as well composed as he had been two months earlier, the last time Cyrus had laid eyes on him. He reminded him much of his sister now, as she looked when Cyrus had seen her at her worst, when she realized her husband was still alive. “Would you do me the courtesy,” Unger strained at the last word, “of breaking the news to me before I’m dead of old age, as it appears King Longwell is going to be too busy feigning umbrage for the next fortnight.”

  “Scylax has fallen,” Tiernan said without preamble, and the silence was overwhelming enough that Cyrus had to relive the words in his mind to be sure he’d heard what he thought he did. “We received the carrier pigeons only hours ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Unger said, as though Tiernan had not said a thing. “You mean to tell me that the village has been taken and they’ve fallen back to the castle for a siege?”

  “No,” Tiernan said, “the message came to us with very clear wording-the village was overrun yesterday, and the pigeons were the last to fly from the castle.” Tiernan pulled himself up and faced the King of Syloreas. “‘They are inside the walls. Castle Scylax is lost. Their numbers … ’” Tiernan swallowed, deep, and his eyes fell away from Unger as the King of Syloreas sat down, heavy, felled like a tree in the forest, “‘… their numbers are overwhelming. None will survive.’”

  Chapter 42

  There was a still quiet in the garden for several moments after Tiernan delivered the news. Unger sat on the bench in his row, stunned into disbelief, staring at the ground in front of him. Even King Longwell had reseated himself. “Scylax was a city of fifty thousand,” Unger said at last. “Fifty thousand people, and none survive?”

  “We do not know, your grace,” Grenwald Ivess said, a peculiar quiet settled over his words. “Perhaps some fled through the mountains before this … this-”

  “Scourge,” Cyrus said, loud enough to be heard. “It’s a damned scourge.”

  “Before this scourge … arrived at their gates,” Ivess finished. “They would not have had pigeons to tell us, in all likelihood, and thus we do not know. All of this happened days ago, that much is certain, for the pigeons to have reached us here at Enrant Monge. Obviously, if Scylax has fallen, this is a matter of gravest concern-”

  “That might be understating it,” Unger said, quiet, shaking, his head bowed. When he raised his face, determination had settled in his eyes. “When these things move from Scylax, they’ll be hard pressed to travel fast until they’re out of the foothills. But that won’t take long, even for them. They’ll be out on level ground and moving south as pretty as you please, and we need to meet them with an army big enough to crush them, now, and with a plan to seal them off from taking Luukessia, immediately.”

  “Such a plan,” Tiernan said, a slight flush coming back to his face, “would be monumental in scale. I have been to your city of Scylax once, and to take it would require more effort than any two armies in Luukessia could muster.”

  “So you see the threat we face,” Unger said. “We need an army, we need forces to stand against these things, we need to meet them with blood and blade, sword and fire, and we need to drive them back. We have a plan,” he said, gesturing to Cyrus, “and people with experience who can carry it out, who know the origin of these creatures-”

  “The origin of these creatures?” Aron Longwell scoffed. “Assuming you have actually been invaded, and this isn’t some elaborate farce cooked up by you to distract from Galbadien’s inevitable conquest of
your armies and your lands,” a few eyes were rolled, including, to Cyrus’s surprise, those of Samwen Longwell, “then these invaders are probably but savage men from beyond the northern reaches of your Kingdom, not some mythical beasts that are unlike anything approaching that which we deal with in everyday life.”

  “Your own man has seen these creatures in action,” Unger said, gesturing to Ranson. “Your own son has seen them, enough to know that this is no charade, no farce scheduled to hew me out of comeuppance for my invasion of your lands, Longwell. If you mean to press your victory, by all means, press your victory-send your army north, to the foothills of Scylax,” Unger’s lips twisted in a sneer, “and take my capital by force of your arms. You won’t get complaint from me-by all means, if you can take it, you can have it, and I’ll be all the more thankful for your help in beating back this threat.”

  “I have no desire to sit on the throne in your mountain hall,” Aron Longwell brushed Unger’s statement aside, but even at a distance of several rows, Cyrus saw the gleam of perfidy in Longwell’s eye, the hint of hesitation as he said it, and heard the lie through every bit of it. “I have a Kingdom to rebuild after you plundered your way through the middle of it.”

  “Sir,” Cyrus heard Count Ranson say from behind King Longwell.

  “Not now,” the King replied, and held up his hand to silence Ranson. “This seems like some crass deception that only you could have come up with, Unger, and I want no part of it.”

  “Will you not at least listen to your own man before becoming an intractable prick?” Unger fired back. “He saw what we’re facing-what you’ll be facing soon enough, if you don’t band together with us.” Unger turned to Tiernan. “What about you, Milos, you seem the reasonable sort, at least enough to save your own skin. What say you?”