Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  “Step down,” she said to the man atop the wagon she had stopped. “I won’t harm you or your people, so long as you make no threatening moves. There was the crack of a lightning spell heard several wagons back, and she rolled her eyes. “As I said.” She pointed toward the field to her left. “Go stand over there. Run in fear for your life if you must, but don’t come near the wagons.”

  The older dark elf nodded as he climbed down and then turned and sprinted across the field with more speed than she would have given him credit for, given his skin and the salt-and-pepper coloration of his hair. She shrugged and walked around the back of the wagon, where Vaste had already hoisted himself up and had opened a barrel. “Wheat,” the troll said, “grains, oats, all manner of excellent suchness.”

  “Oh, good,” she said, and found herself leaning against the side, “and I was somewhat worried we’re ambushing a train filled with women’s clothing or something of the sort.”

  “Why, are you looking for another dress?” Vaste asked, not looking up from the crates that he was inspecting. “All in all, not a terrible harvest if we managed to get eight wagons of this stuff. Not enough to bring the Sovereign’s army to his knees, but if we did this regularly it’d be enough to keep us in the fresh foodstuffs for a while.” He gave a long look around, surveying the damage they had wrought. “Well, it worked.”

  “Of course it worked,” she said, looking over the ill-gotten gains. “And this is but the first of many. We need to hit them with such force and so often that they are compelled to send hundreds of troops with every wagon for fear it will disappear from the road as though swallowed up by the very earth itself.” Something in the way she said it made Vara’s own scalp tingle, and an idea worked its way in, just a passing one at first, framed from a memory. We could … She shook her head, as if to rid herself of it. No, ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous …

  But it stayed with her just the same.

  Chapter 60

  Cyrus

  The days passed slowly after Cyrus’s meeting with Tiernan. Cyrus remained in an agitated state; the river nearby was now clogged with bodies, so many of them falling downstream that he wondered how there could have been that many people in the north for so many to have washed downward.

  “There are several major villages on this stream,” Unger said to him as they stood nearby, watching the water source turn more and more tainted as the days passed. “It bodes ill for Syloreas that so many of our sons and daughters are feeling the teeth of these beasts.”

  It bodes ill for our army as well, if every source of fresh water is given over to being filled with rotting corpses, Cyrus thought, but he did not say it. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought of bathing as well, though that scarcely seemed to matter to Aisling. She had come to his tent in silence every night since their first rendezvous by the river, and she said not a word, no conversation, nothing. He did not want to break the quiet that she imposed to bring about any of the questions she might have that he cared not to answer. So he said nothing, but instead buried his lips in hers, pressing his face against her cheek, her neck, in her bosom. The silence was like water to him, just as vital to his survival, and he needed what she gave him so desperately now that he wondered how he had survived without it for so many years.

  The camp had been quiet until the second army from Actaluere arrived. Cyrus watched them stream into the camp, at least thrice the size of the host that Milos Tiernan had brought with him to Enrant Monge. Other armies streamed in, too, from the east and west of Syloreas. “They’ve been turned out by riders,” Unger had said to him as they watched a steady line of men in furs and skins come into camp day after day, few enough of them possessing any armor at all. A few genuine armies of Syloreas came as well, more of them bearing at least some protection for battle but not nearly as many as came in cloth and with rusty swords and spears.

  They moved north the day after the Actaluereans joined them, striking out across the plain, following a road that seemed familiar to Cyrus. When the wind blew out of the north it smelled of rot and decay and carried a chill that ill-fitted late summer. When it came out of the south it was enough to remind Cyrus of the harvest and brought warmth aplenty. The memory of the Plains of Perdamun was still strong with him, and though the grains looked marginally different, he was reminded of home nonetheless as the days grew shorter a few minutes at a time. The ride north was slower than when last he had done it, the mountains in the distance still capped with snow.

  Cyrus kept his own counsel as the days went on, meeting with his officers only when needed. They were well enough instructed that he didn’t worry, and Odellan had a firm handle on the warriors and rangers who made up the front ranks of battle. He watched them drill at the elf’s commands and tried to feel fortunate at having come across the Endrenshan from Termina. I doubt he would feel quite the same. All things being equal, I rather suspect he’d prefer to still be there, in his city, were it still standing. Hell, perhaps even now that it’s not.

  The last day of their ride carried them to a small town on the edge of the river, where the folk they found turned out en masse when Briyce Unger led the march through their village. Cyrus looked over the village, which was no more than a collection of hovels with thatched roofs and stone walls, perhaps two dozen at most, all grouped together around a mill with a waterwheel that turned. There was a sound within that Cyrus presumed was the sound of rocks grinding grist.

  Cyrus listened as the townsfolk pelted Unger with questions, their worry bleeding into their voices. What about the dead bodies? Should we go south and find safety? What comes for us? What killed those people? Will it kill us as well? Has Scylax truly fallen?

  The voices were overwhelming, and Cyrus watched as Unger held up his hands for quiet. The last of the cacophony died away, leaving an eerie calm settled over the village as the people waited to hear Unger’s pronouncement. “Good people,” Unger began, still atop his horse, looking like nothing so much as a mountain astride his destrier, “I bring with me sad tidings of news you’ve already heard. A vile enemy comes out of the mountains, and yes, it has taken Scylax and slaughtered the people there. This is done, and no amount of wishing will make it undone. But I bring with me allies-magicians from beyond the western shores of our land, the full army of Actaluere and all the men Syloreas can spare. You’ve heard the rumors and heralds and the messengers. Now hear me-we will fight our enemies back. We will drive them from here, whip them before us with sword and shield and send them scurrying back to their mountain den where we will crush them and ensure they never return to haunt our mountain home again.”

  Cyrus listened as the King of Syloreas said his piece. There was a certain magic in the way he did it, weaving his words together, causing the crowd to stay silent. Unger was not much of a wordsmith, but his ability to speak in front of the villagers came out and there was a calm in the midst of what was coming, a reassurance from their own King that they would be safe. Cyrus took it all in, unsurprised, and when they met at the inn that night, Cyrus said as much to Curatio, J’anda and Longwell.

  “Unger’s long been a thorn in my father’s side,” Longwell said, chewing on the moist bones of a chicken. “Unger’s father was a dreadful King, to hear it told. The people were in an uproar all the time, there was a famine that he dealt with poorly or somesuch, I can’t recall. Briyce, though, has been skillful, especially for a man so focused on battle. What he managed to do-striking into the heart of Galbadien-was shocking, considering that a generation ago Syloreas had lost a quarter of its territory just to our predations. Briyce can persuade and he can fight. He took back all that lost ground and then some.” Longwell shook his head. “I wasn’t looking forward to ever staring across our northern border at him.”

  “You were to be a King here,” J’anda said, his delicate hands cradling a battered brass goblet of wine that looked so out of place in the refined enchanter’s grasp as to nearly be alien. “What happened to make you leave?”
<
br />   “Long story,” Longwell said, and gnawed on a leg bone without enthusiasm.

  “It would seem we have time,” Cyrus said, glancing around the candle-lit room. It was dim, and reminded him of a bar he’d been to in Reikonos with Terian at his side. He tried to push that thought away; he’d last seen Terian being walked along behind Mendicant’s pony.

  “I suppose,” Samwen grudgingly admitted. “You’ve met my father. You got a sense for what he’s like.”

  “More than a sense,” J’anda said, looking sidelong at another table, where Briyce Unger sat with several of his men, drinking mead and speaking in boisterous tones; Cyrus could hear some braggadocio, something about a battle on a western shore.

  “He wasn’t always that way,” Longwell said, carefully licking the grease from each of his fingers. His gauntlets lay on the table beside him, and his steel blue armor looked dark, almost black, in the candlelight. “He used to be a warrior himself, a dragoon, like me. He had courage, little fear-they said he won a battle against the old King of Syloreas by riding him down in a charge. Which would be unremarkable except that my father had only himself and the King of Syloreas had a hundred guards following him into the fight.”

  Cyrus raised an eyebrow. “I presume the Syloreans backed off after your father struck down their King?”

  “You presume correctly,” Longwell said, his head down, voice still clear. “They’re fierce warriors, and they would have been glad to take revenge, but he fought him singly and won. When my father’s army-smaller than the Sylorean one by half-rejoined him after the charge, they formed a line and held against the rage of the Syloreans for a full day without breaking. That was forty years ago or more, I suppose. That was the battle that made Briyce Unger King of Syloreas. My father had only been on the throne of Galbadien five years or so by that point.”

  “Briyce had no thanks for the gift of his crown?” J’anda sipped delicately from the cup again, then set it upon the table.

  “No,” Longwell said with a shake of the head. “As soon as his coronation was over he rode out at the head of their army and started to take back territory. They gained a half dozen towns and a major seaport by the end of his first week of fighting. Sent my father into a rage. Of course, I wasn’t born yet when this happened, but my mother told me. By the time I came along, she said he was a different man than the one she’d known when he began. He only got worse after that, raging at the wrong people, fearful of losing so much as an inch of his Kingdom. He didn’t lead battles anymore, no reckless charges. He was afraid to take a risk for fear of what it might cost him.” Longwell brought his own goblet up. “And we lost territory after territory, and he got more calculating as time went on. Since the day I was born, Galbadien is a hundred miles shorter across the top than it was. Not much lost to the west, but still.” He shrugged. “Father hasn’t taken it very well, but he’s yet to make an aggressive move to stop it, other than when he tried to invade Syloreas while Unger’s back was turned.”

  “Fear of loss does funny things to a man,” Curatio said, speaking for the first time since they’d sat down. The healer’s eyes were firmly rooted in his own wine, though he hadn’t had more than a few sips since they’d arrived, Cyrus knew. “It quickens the blood, slows action, paralyzes you. A man could have everything he wanted and be truly happy, but if you take away only the smallest thing, he becomes angry, resentful, and his happiness rots like a deshfruit left in the midday sun.” Curatio took a finger and dipped it into his glass, then brought it out and let it drip on the table. “It only gets worse as you age, you know. The older you are, the more you see what you have to lose, and the more you fear what that loss might mean.”

  “I’ve heard he’s not even the same since I left,” Longwell said. “He dwells in his chambers, doesn’t see anyone for days at a time, that not even the maidens they send him can lift his spirits for more than an hour or so at a go. He’s fearful, all right, though I didn’t see it when we quarreled before I left. He argued me right out of Vernadam, without so much as a notice that it might be anything other than petty anger driving him.”

  “A father and a son arguing?” J’anda said with a quiet chuckle. “Hard to believe.”

  “Oh, yes,” Longwell said. “There was stubborn pride on display enough to choke the both of us. He rooted in his conviction, and I in mine.”

  “What did you argue about?” Curatio asked, ever the sage, implacable, all-knowing.

  Longwell thought about it, and Cyrus watched the dragoon’s face as it squinted in consideration. “I don’t rightly know,” Longwell said. “It seemed of vital importance at the time, some minor trifle about how the army ran that felt like the most important thing in the world, but upon reflection …” Longwell let out a quiet, mirthless laugh, “I’ll be damned if I can remember.”

  “Pettiness is hardly an exclusively human trait,” Curatio said. “I recall-just barely, you understand-arguing with my own father. Though obviously this was some time ago.”

  “How did your father die, Curatio?” Cyrus asked.

  The healer stared into space, his face blank. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Does that mean you don’t recall?” Longwell asked, his attention turned to the elf. “Or that you don’t want to?”

  Curatio didn’t change expression, and continued to stare straight ahead. “It was a long time ago.”

  “It would appear we’ve brought some of Alaric’s ‘vague and mysterious’ along with us to this new land,” J’anda said, prompting a chuckle from Longwell, and even a smile from Curatio, one that lasted far past all the other smiles at the table.

  That night, when Cyrus lay down in his bed, the sounds of the inn alive around him, he tried not to think about what was to come. There was a fire in the hearth beside him, and the Syloreans were still drinking downstairs and telling stories, though Milos Tiernan and his few aides had left even before Cyrus and his party had called it a night. There was a quiet creaking as Cyrus shifted in the bed, which was old and made a corresponding amount of noise every time he moved in it. It gave a squeak of protest, the wood in the old frame taking umbrage to his motion on top of the thin mattress. There was still the smell of chicken in the air, and the aroma of the pickled eggs that had been kept in a barrel in the corner which the innkeep left open all night, as though the smell were of no consideration. The smoke of the fire did all it could to overcome it, yet still failed. The nub of a feather was sticking out of the mattress and poking into Cyrus’s back, and when he shifted, another took its place.

  There was a very quiet sound of a door opening, and a thin shaft of light flooded into the room, running across his bed for only a second before a shadow blocked it, then one more second before the door closed quietly again. He saw the figure, unmistakable in her curves and careful, quiet walk. “Aisling?” he whispered, and he felt a finger cross his lips as she silently slipped into the bed.

  Her lips pressed onto to his, and the swarm of thoughts in his mind faded blissfully. The bed frame continued to squeak, building to a fever pitch of motion, and then subsided. She left as quietly as she came in, and once she was gone, his thoughts plagued him no more.

  Chapter 61

  Vara

  Day 18 of the Siege of Sanctuary

  The alarms sounded in the middle of the night, along with the customary calls of “Alarum! Alarum!” that set her teeth to rattling. Why call out the elongated version of the damned word? Why not just say “alarm” and be done with it?

  She had slept once more in her armor and was down the stairs quickly enough to avoid the pileup that had seemed to occur with every alarm of late. Her only consolation was knowing that the members were taking every attack seriously. Except perhaps now, in the dead of the night, the slowness of things coming to awakeness. Of course they would attack us now, draw us out weary and exhausted after I’ve just spent another day preying on their convoys and shipments. She let slip a feral smile. I’d strike them that way, just the same. No mer
cy.

  There were only two heralds in the foyer, two warriors shouting the alarm. Rather than correct them (or slap them, she thought uncharitably) she instead followed their outstretched hands, pointing to the front doors. She ran past the ranks of guards stationed around the portal in the foyer, swords, spears and axes pointed at the center of the room and she fled down the steps at a run, only a few others with her. She had heard the sounds up the stairwell and on the other floors as she passed them; They’ll all be awake and turned out soon enough.

  The night air was cool as she crossed the distance of the yard to the wall. The slap of her boots on the steps was lost to her breathing this time, steady, determined. She burst out onto the parapet and found a surprisingly quiet scene-a crowd of people circled down the wall a space, no one watching the fields below. She stole a glance over the edge, and by the light of the crescent moon she could see no army close by, no immediate threat, the grounds below still wafting the stench of the dead from the last battle, their bones now picked clean by the carrion birds, rats, worms, and maggots.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” she asked as she shoulder checked her way through the crowd standing on the wall. Most moved aside when her voice was heard. It is nice to know that some move aside not only because I am the shelas’akur but because I’m bound to knock them aside if they don’t. She burst through into the open space on the other side of the wall and there found Alaric, standing with his arms folded next to Thad, surveying the scene.