Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  When it was sounded again, this time inside the halls of Sanctuary with the guards taking up the call of alarm, it was enough to stir her from her reverie.

  Her bare feet hit the cold floor as she disentangled herself from the blankets that covered her bed. Damn, she thought, the urgency rising in her with the cacophony of horns and voices outside, I would not have believed they would move against us again so soon. I assumed they would at least wait for the reinforcements to get here ….

  Her footcovers and underclothes went on first, followed by the armor, which took a while to strap on. The last thing she placed was her helm, which she detested and usually preferred not to wear. It was a shiny thing, like the rest of her ensemble, and covered the top of her head, leaving only part of her face exposed. It strapped tightly under her chin, and carried a movable crossbar that folded down over her nose for use during battle. She folded it down now after tucking her ponytail out the back, and made certain that the metal girding the strap was properly placed to defend against glancing blows under her chin. It met up with the gorget that protected her throat, and left only the space from her chin to her eyes unprotected.

  She swung open the door and almost collided with the bulk of Vaste as she did so. The troll stopped himself in mid-stride, and Vara threw out an arm to his ribs, smacking him with her mailed palm as she tried to come to a stop before running into him. She looked up to his face and found him looking down at her. “Watch where you’re going, troll.”

  “I was,” Vaste said, “which was why I stopped when you threw yourself into my path. You, on the other hand, I wonder about. Can you even see with that monstrosity fastened to your head?” He waved a hand in front of her face, as though she were blind.

  Vara felt a surge of irritation. “I have always possessed a helm to go with my armor, you rancid goat bladder.”

  “Perhaps,” Vaste said without umbrage, “but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you wear it before. You typically go hatless, the better to allow your flowing golden locks to distract your enemies, I presumed. Much the same reason your breastplate is molded to be aptly named-another way to keep them focused on-”

  “Ye gods! Will you ever cease your damnable vexing of me?” She didn’t wait for a response, instead turning to head for the stairs, back in full flight as her feet tramped along the stones, issuing a loud clang with every step.

  “I don’t foresee a time when I’ll stop making wry observations about the situation around me, no.” Vaste’s words were dry though loud enough to be heard behind her over the sound of her steps. The staircase further down was swarming with people, the members of Sanctuary turning out, the alarms still ringing in the air over the raised voices below. “Perhaps when I’m dead, which, hmm, maybe you’ll get your wish-”

  “Don’t jest about that,” she snapped, turning to face him. “I may be thoroughly irritated at you a majority of the time, but don’t confuse that with genuinely wanting you dead. If I genuinely wanted you dead, I would have smote you down myself, long ago. We are in dire times, and if this alarm means what I think it does-”

  “I believe there might have been a word of caring in that fusillade,” Vaste said, halting only for a moment before sliding past her on the staircase with surprising agility. “Buried deep, perhaps, but I caught a grain of it hidden in the depths of the vitriol. Could it be you are fond of me, Shelas’akur? That my wit amuses you-”

  “You annoy me on a near-constant basis,” Vara said, now trailing behind Vaste’s wide strides as they came down the staircase. “But-”

  “Oh, fear not,” Vaste said, “I’ve always known that you’re not quite the demon you pretend to be. However, if I’m not much mistaken, this sudden softening of your armored persona has less to do with this siege and perhaps more to do with a certain General’s absence-”

  “Shut your slack-jawed mouth,” Vara hissed, and Vaste did not turn nor stop on the stairs to answer her. He did, indeed, shut his mouth, and they began to slow as the crowds clogged the stairwell, members rushing down to the foyer below. She resisted the temptation to hit the person in front of her with a hard shoulder check in order to send them all collapsing like dominos down the stairs. Dominos she could run over in a dash to get there faster. Resist.

  “Apparently we need wider staircases,” came a voice from behind her, almost as acerbic as her own. She did not need to turn to know that the speaker was Erith Frostmoor. “Or smaller trolls.”

  “As though I’m the problem here rather than the dark elves that won’t leave us be,” Vaste said, turning his head to give Erith a blank look. “You know, those hideous creatures that seem to have it in for the whole world, starting wars and unleashing aggression on everything and everybody-”

  “Fine, fine,” Erith said, squeezing up against Vara in a way that made the paladin yearn to thrust an elbow into Erith’s nose to get her to back up and leave some space between them. “It’s not just you, then-it’s the disorganized way in which we’re all scrambling to get into defensive positions.”

  “And the fact that we’re having to go to defensive positions to protect ourselves against the dark elven hordes,” Vaste said lightly. After a moment, he sighed jauntily. “Is this how everyone feels about the trolls all the time? Because I think I finally get it, you know, after having been the brunt of it for so long. Kill them!” He raised his voice. “Kill the aggressors!” He lowered his voice again. “You know, it feels good not to be one of ‘them,’ for once. You should have had your people make war against the entire civilized world years ago.”

  “I hardly had anything to do with it,” Erith said with as much frost as her name indicated.

  “Oh, now, do give yourself some credit. You probably at least inspired one or two soldiers to pleasure themselves at the latrines.”

  Erith let out a hissing sound and Vara ignored it. The foyer was visible now, the stream of people that filled the stairwell breaking loose and running across the foyer floor. “At least it doesn’t look like they’ve teleported in an attack force this time,” Erith said, all trace of her irritation gone.

  “Yet,” Vara and Vaste said in a chorus. The troll raised an eyebrow at her, and she gave him a scorching glare that affected him little to none.

  “Such happy thoughts you two share,” Erith said. “Remind me not to come to either of you when next I experience a down day and need some optimism.”

  “Were you really ever going to visit Vara for such a thing?” Vaste asked, vaulting over the edge of the steps about fifteen from the bottom as the spiral opened up. He didn’t wait for either of them to reply nor to reach the bottom; the healer ran for the door and was out onto the Sanctuary grounds before Vara even cleared the stairs. Taking the step Vaste had was not possible for someone of her height, certainly not without breaking a leg.

  She was out the door moments later, having passed through the foyer, which was still guarded by a force headed by Belkan. The day was grey, the skies hanging, clouds overhead that muted the sun, wherever it might have been hiding. The green, well-trod grasses of the Sanctuary lawn were particularly dark today, the late summer having come to them. Only a month or so from harvest and the Sovereign begins his move. Of course.

  She climbed the wall, the same place she had on the day when they broke the siege, and wondered how many towers there would be this time. Last time it had been a host of fifty thousand, a fairly thin line that came at them from one direction, head on. This time would surely be different; there would be at least another twenty-five thousand, perhaps even another fifty. They might attempt a direct assault again or attempt to encircle and direct their main attack at the walls rather than the gate.

  When she took the last step off the ladder and stepped out of the stale air inside of the wall, she found herself overlooking the fields in front of the wall, all empty. The place where the battle had been done last time was open ground, though the smell of death still lingered as there had been only a small detail to deal with the fallen from the la
st battle, and they had been instructed to leave some of the bodies. Many corpses were still where they had fallen, left as a reminder for the next army that came along. The remains of the siege towers had been burned, though, and only blackened husks remained there.

  Vara’s eyes came up to the horizon, and she peered toward the place where she knew the portal was, north of the wall several minutes walk. It was there, but beyond it there were shapes, assorted figures that looked no larger than ants on the hill. The grey clouds did them no favors, and only through her elven eyesight could she even see that they were there.

  “I don’t see them,” Thad said, drawing her attention. The warrior was at the edge of the wall, staring over. “But I know they’re there, because the elves in my detail tell me so. How many would you estimate?”

  Vara did not speak at first, not for a long, long moment, as she tried to count and failed. Part of the army that waited ahead was obscured, not visible at this great a distance. “Many,” she said at last. “More than last time. More than I can count at this range.” She felt the dryness in her mouth as she said it. “But more. Many more than before. At least double their number, visible from here.” She blinked, and stared at the horizon, her picture of the dark elf force incomplete. “More than we can see. And that means …” she tasted the dryness again, even as she said it, “likely more than we can easily handle.”

  Chapter 55

  Cyrus

  The days had grown long, Cyrus noted, even as the jarring motion of the wagon carried them on. The third day after he had awakened, Curatio gave him lease to leave the wagon. They had stopped, finally, having reached the open plains that were the rendezvous point for their meeting with Actaluere’s northern armies.

  “Don’t nod your head too much,” Curatio said as Cyrus stood, feeling somewhat weak as his head got light. He started to shake it to see if he could clear the feeling, but the healer grasped him by the face, capturing his chin and part of his cheeks between his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t shake it, either.”

  “Why?” Cyrus asked. “Is it going to fall off?”

  “Unlikely,” Curatio said, “I’m just annoyed by how often you do that. Try speaking more.”

  “My throat feels raw, as though someone poured Reikonosian whiskey down it while I was asleep.” Cyrus rubbed his neck.

  “We gave you as much water as we could,” Martaina said, standing with him now, in the wagon. She had not left for more than a few hours since he had awakened. “But it’s surprisingly difficult to make a man who’s hallucinating drink and eat.”

  Cyrus stood between the two of them, ducking his head to avoid hitting it against the canvas top of the wagon. “I would think after the last few days I’d never want to sleep again.” He yawned. “Somehow I’m still tired.”

  “Get some sunlight,” Curatio said. “It’ll do wonders for you, that and walking around for a spell. Not an actual spell,” he clarified, “because that’s impossible and also heresy, but walk for a while.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cyrus said as Martaina pulled back the tent flap for him. The air in the wagon had grown stale to him, the smell of healed wounds and sweated flesh was near-unbearable. He had put his armor on with Martaina’s assistance, after saying flatly that he’d rather be able to walk ten feet with it on than thirty feet without it. She’d snorted her impatience with his attitude but ultimately helped him. He rested his hand on the hilt of Praelior and felt energized. Thank Bellarum that Hoygraf didn’t know the worth of my blade, or it’d surely no longer be with me.

  The air outside came in with a subtle breeze, a coolness, a tinge of winter on the wind even though the sun was shining its warmth down. Cyrus squinted away from it, looking back into the darkness of the wagon to either side, gradually turning his face toward the light. After a minute had passed, then another, he took a step forward unaided, sat down at the end of the wagon and slid himself off the carriage. His feet crunched against the ground where the wagon sat, made soft by a rain he had heard in the night. He sniffed, and realized that in addition to the smell of the campsite, he smelled himself, the odor of the tent and of sweated flesh, healed wounds, and he wondered if there was a river nearby or a pond that would be suitable for bathing.

  His first steps were funny things, as though he were regaining the habit of balance, of walking. Martaina stood to the side of him, well clear, but he knew her reflexes were such that she could catch him should he stumble. Her speed was also such that he did not worry about it. The first steps were hardest, but his legs seemed to regain their use as he walked, the whole of the campsite laid out before him, the massive army more than he might have imagined when first he’d heard that Actaluere had joined with them at Enrant Monge. He could not see it all from where he stood, but he knew by what little he had glimpsed of it from the back of the wagon that it was massive.

  “Where are Actaluere’s northern armies?” Cyrus asked Curatio, who hovered only a bit behind him, just out of arm’s reach, as though he were hiding the fact that like Martaina, he was lingering to save Cyrus from falling.

  “A week’s march, by the accounts we’ve heard,” the elf replied, not stepping any closer to Cyrus. “They’re making haste, and Briyce Unger and Milos Tiernan have been planning the coming battle. Their intent is to throw everything at the enemy, with Sanctuary at the center and our healers in use to help stem the bloodshed and fall of their people. Once we’ve broken the scourge, we’ll march north through the passes to get to the cave where the portal sits.”

  “Forgive me, Curatio,” Cyrus said, “but do I detect a hint of gloom in your voice?” He watched the elf’s normally sunny disposition change not a shade.

  “No gloom,” Curatio said, “but perhaps some tempered expectations. I have been in many battles in my life, and I have yet to see a single one go precisely to plan. Things go wrong in war, and this enemy is even less predictable than most. I hope with all that is in me that we will crush them and drive them back as predicted. However, I would hope that our General might bring his own insight into our foes to the battle plan before we go into the fight, so that any troubles unseen by the esteemed leaders of Actaluere and Syloreas might be anticipated before we march headlong into the teeth of these beasts.”

  “I doubt Briyce Unger would be foolish enough to lock me out of the discussions,” Cyrus said and coughed weakly. “Unless for some reason Milos Tiernan holds a grudge against me for what difficulties I’ve handed him.”

  “None that I’ve seen during the planning sessions,” Curatio answered. “He’s been courteous and careful to listen to all our advice thus far. Unger has asked after you and when you’ll be able to meet with them, so I suspect that won’t be an issue.”

  “Oh, good,” Cyrus said, feeling his loping steps lack some of the bounce that they had before he had been felled outside Enrant Monge. After a moment’s thought, he had to concede that any bounce had been gone long before that, probably before even leaving Vernadam. “The last thing we need is a turf war. Especially as we’re facing the ghosts of our past sins.”

  There was no response from either Martaina or Curatio that he heard, but they carried on, the cool breeze encouraging him, the warm sun alternating with it, giving its heat when the wind would die down. It was a perfect sort of early fall experience, and the air held only the slightest hint of what winter might be like in this new land. At a normal time, Cyrus might have found it invigorating; now, it kept him going in spite of all that was on his mind. “You said that J’anda and Aisling helped retrieve me,” Cyrus said, turning to look at Martaina. “I haven’t seen either of them to thank them properly since I’ve recovered.”

  “J’anda is quite busy,” Curatio said. “Odellan may run the troops, but J’anda keeps careful track of our spellcasters. He’s been helping them in pushing their boundaries-especially the newer ones-to build their capacity for magical energy.”

  Cyrus blinked at that. “What?”

  “Magical energy,” Curatio said. “The fi
nite amount of power we have for casting spells? You are familiar with this concept?”

  “Yes,” Cyrus said, “having seen a woman bleed part of her life energy out last year to go past the limit, I am familiar with it.”

  “It can be grown over time and with mastery of our craft,” Curatio said. “J’anda is working to grow that ability before we go into the battle, especially with our healers.”

  “How does one … go about such a thing?” Cyrus asked.

  Curatio sighed. “It would be difficult to explain to someone who has not cast spells before. Probably the easiest explanation is to say that we go about it very much the same as you go about building muscle with which to swing your sword-repetition, effort, practice. Exercises can be done.”

  Cyrus shrugged. “If you say so. Where is Aisling, then?” He waited for a response from either of them but got none. “Never mind. I forgot she doesn’t do well at being kept track of.”

  Martaina gave him a slight smile as they made their way around some tents that had been brought by the Luukessians. As always, the army of Sanctuary seemed to prefer bedrolls for lighter travel and keeping the need for wagons to a minimum. Cyrus paused for a moment and stretched, taking his hand off Praelior. The lightheadedness came back, and he fought it, let it wash over him, tried to keep his bearings as it caused his head to dip and bob, as though he were floating in water. He let his hand return to Praelior and the feeling subsided. Probably not the best sign, but at least I can still manage without falling over.

  “Perhaps we should begin to walk back to the wagon?” Martaina suggested. Cyrus turned to look at Curatio, but the healer was quiet.

  “Not yet,” Cyrus said. He felt a strange call within him, a hollowness and a need coupled together that were like an itch beneath his skin. “I need to bathe. I can no longer stand the smell of myself or of the wagon.”