Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  There were a dozen bodies lying splattered atop the wall, all dark elves she could see by the complexion of the ruined flesh, every one of them in armor of some sort. One of them was obviously a dark knight, fully covered from head to toe in plate mail, a stream of blood oozing out of the cracks and clefts. “What the hell is this?” Vara asked again, and this time Alaric turned to face her, registering no surprise.

  “Hello, lass,” the Ghost said. “It would appear that our enemies intended to launch a surprise attack to open our gates.”

  “I presume it failed,” she said, kicking one of the bodies with her toe and finding it mushier than she expected.

  “Indeed,” Thad said, his amusement unhidden. “They tried to use Falcon’s Essence to sneak over the wall a few hundred feet over our head. It worked, we didn’t even see them coming until they hit the magical barrier at the perimeter and it stripped the enchantment right off of them, sending them plummeting to their deaths.” He nodded over the wall toward the army in the distance. “My guess is that they’re watching the gate, wondering why it hasn’t opened yet. Could be a long night for the poor bastard behind those spyglasses.”

  “It could be a long night for those of us who were rousted for an alarm when there is plainly nothing to be alarmed about yet,” she said, grinding her teeth together. “And also those of us who have an early morning sortie planned at daybreak.”

  “Sorry,” Thad said with a shrug, “but it’s the standard response to a surprise attack. We should be on our guard for the next few hours in case they try and storm the gates anyway.”

  Vara steamed for a moment, staring at the castellan in sheerest irritation. “You were at the Society of Arms in Reikonos, were you not?”

  He blinked at her in surprise. “I was.”

  “Then I presume you were no Swift Sword.”

  Thad seemed to wobble as if not sure how to answer. “No, I was. I was most assuredly not one of the cursed Able Axes.”

  “I certainly believe that you might be swift but not able, based on what I’ve seen of your performance this night,” Vara said bitingly. “I will be returning to my bed, and I trust if there is another alarm raised, it will be done only when an actual dark elf threat, complete with a still-beating hearts, is imminent.”

  Thad started to protest but was overcome by Alaric. “Do have a good night, Lady Vara.”

  “Lady Vara?” she spun at the Ghost of Sanctuary. “And shall I begin addressing you as Lord Garaunt?”

  Alaric’s gaze was steady and even, though there was a wearier bent to the man, she thought. “You may address me however you see fit, within the bounds of our mutual respect for each other.” He favored her with a smile that was shot through with fatigue but made no move to return to Sanctuary or his own bed, and after a moment of watching him, she turned and made her way back inside, threading through the steady flow of people that were coming to join in the defense of their home.

  Chapter 62

  Cyrus

  They were formed up in a line along the plain, north of the village he had heard the others refer to as Filsharron. It was at least two miles north of the place they had been staying in for the past few nights, the humble inn with the squeaking bed and the rapidly diminishing supply of pickled eggs. Cyrus could still taste one of them on his beard, a messy thing, and filled with the foulness of vinegar, nothing like the fresh ones he was accustomed to at Sanctuary. The line was surprisingly quiet, the anticipation running across the men in it. Cyrus was at the fore, and the Sanctuary forces were stacked four deep in rows behind him. The spellcasters were behind that in a loose formation, and to his right, at the end of the Sanctuary line, was the ragged, motley assortment of the men and armies of Syloreas. To the left was the more neatly ordered rows of Actaluere’s forces, Milos Tiernan at the head with a few of his aides.

  “Tiernan doesn’t seem the sort that would lead his army into battle,” Cyrus heard a rumbling voice say from behind him. He turned and saw Partus at the front of the line, his head well below the next person in the row.

  “Appearances can be deceiving, I’m told,” Cyrus said with a slight barb to his voice. He watched Partus fail to react and tried to decide whether the dwarf had missed the point or was merely uninterested in it.

  “He doesn’t look like he’s led a battle from the front in his entire life,” Partus said after Cyrus turned around. “Looks like he’s enjoyed life at the back of the fray-not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’d gladly take ruling a Kingdom over tangling with an army any day.”

  Cyrus tilted his head to look at the dwarf, which was easier since they remained on foot, all the horses well to the rear of the battle lines save for cavalry reserves on either flank. Longwell, Cyrus knew, was with the Syloreans, and had taught them a few basic maneuvers in the last few days to increase their effectiveness in battle ahorse. “Why are you still here, Partus? Did we turn you loose or something?”

  “Aye, Curatio cut me a deal,” Partus said, turning to loose a great wad of spit upon the dusty ground. “I’m to take part in this fight, and I can come back to Arkaria with the rest of you lot when it’s all over and done.”

  “Couldn’t you just have gone back to Arkaria on your own, over the bridge?” Cyrus asked.

  “And walk months to get there, then have to travel five days over the bridge on foot and gods knows how many months after that just to make my way to the nearest settlement? I think I’d rather take my chances with you lot and these beasties. After all, I’ve seen what they can do and we’re coming at them with a shite ton of men and swords.” Partus hefted his hammer. “I like our odds better than I like the idea of the walk.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “Of course, you care about what happens to this land and it’s people too, right?” He said it with all due sarcasm.

  “I could give a pickled fig what happens to this land and its people,” Partus said with another great slop of brown spit; Cyrus realized now that it was filled with tobacco juice. “I’ve seen enough of Luukessia to choke me out for seven lifetimes. I’ll be heading back to the Dwarven Alliance after this, perhaps hire on as a mercenary to take up some nice, quiet picket duty watching the humans go about their business in the Northlands from atop a hill, or guarding the caverns and streets of Fertiss against drunken mischief-makers. All I want to do is get drunk every night on wine and ale, find myself in a bed with a woman every morning and work as little as possible at making a living.”

  “You’re really quite the inspiration,” Cyrus said, and turned back to the northern horizon.

  “I don’t see you sticking your neck out here under the axeman’s blade any longer than you have to,” the dwarf replied. “Or am I wrong and you’ll just hang around here being jolly in the hinterlands with these tribes of squabbling men and children who sit around the campfires at night trying to engineer up new ways to fornicate with their animals.”

  “I don’t see them fornicating with animals,” Cyrus said, “but perhaps I spend my time in different places than you do.”

  “This whole land reeks of backwardness,” Partus went on, undeterred by Cyrus’s jibe. “Their women are like property, they’ve got no magical ability at all, not enough to cast a light in early evening, and their finest hovels don’t even possess running water.” Another gob of spit made the same squirting noise, though this time Cyrus didn’t watch it. “This was a good lesson, thinking that things couldn’t get any worse than they had for me in Arkaria before I left; they can. They did. And I can’t bloody wait to get back.”

  “You’re a charming fellow, Partus, don’t let anyone tell you differently,” Cyrus said and strode off down the front line, away from the dwarf. He didn’t say anything until he reached Odellan, who stood at ease but still more at attention than most of the men around him. “What do you say, Odellan? Are we ready?”

  “Having not seen what you’ve seen about these enemies,” Odellan said, a little stiffly at first, “I don’t quite know what to expect. That
said, I’m confident that we’re more up to the challenge than our companions from Syloreas and Actaluere.”

  “You mean battle discipline?” Cyrus asked.

  “Compared to the men who compose more than half of Syloreas’s fighting force, yes, I speak of discipline,” Odellan said. “But when comparing us to Actaluere, I mean belief. I think the men of Syloreas who came here of their own volition will fight harder than the professional army of Actaluere,” he said with a nod to the left. “I’ve looked in the eyes of some of those men dressed in skins and furs, with their swords and wooden shields handed down through generations. They’re here to fight for their homeland, for revenge in some cases if they made it out of the towns that fell. They won’t break for lack of courage and will fight so long as someone keeps leading them. Actaluere’s army, on the other hand, seems to know which way the wind is blowing. They’ve done this before-not this, specifically, but they’ve been in battles. Their men will keep an awareness, and if things turn unfavorable, I suspect their officers will be the first to order a careful retreat.”

  “You think we’ll have a concern with our left flank?” Cyrus asked.

  “I think I’d have a care with both flanks, if I were you, General,” Odellan said lightly. “But I wouldn’t concern myself overly much with the left. Theirs will be an orderly retreat if it comes, and they’ll warn us first so we can compensate. If the right breaks it will be quite a different story. They’ve got the volunteers sandwiched between us and the army regulars, so we may need to work harder to relieve the press on them if things get rough, may need to alter our line to cover their ground as the Syloreans fold toward us.”

  Cyrus let a smile show, one he did not remotely feel but knew was necessary. “You’ve given this a great deal of thought.”

  “As I should, General,” Odellan said. “As well I should.”

  “Enemy on the horizon!” The shout came over them from the left, and Cyrus instinctively looked ahead, toward the mountains in the distance, trying to find the place where the fields met the lines of the mountains. There was movement there, to be sure, something too small to quite make out. If I had elven eyes, I might be able to see. His mind wandered. If I had elven … She flashed through his mind so quickly and subtly that he didn’t even know from whence she came. Dammit. Not now.

  They waited in a tense formation as the movement went on, miles away, but edging closer. Cyrus had no spyglass like the kind he had seen in use on the top of the wall at Sanctuary from time to time. There was tension in the air, and the scent of the makeshift latrines blew from behind him, not so heavily it was overwhelming but enough to distract. I would hope that it shifts directions, but coming from the north might not be any better than the present option, given the smell of death that these things carry with them …

  The wait was long, an hour or more before they were fully in sight, a few hundred feet away now. They became clearer as they got closer, and by the time that clarity was obvious, it was also clear that there were more of them than he had seen at any time previous. The ground crawled, a solid mass of grey flesh as far as his human eye could see, all the way back to the horizon and coming along the plains in a wedge that pointed directly at him, at his army.

  There was no fear to be had for Cyrus. It was a cool sort of uncaring that filled him. Those around him made little enough noise, a few prayers offered up from some of the men as the enemy closed on them. There were shouts down the line in the ragged army of Sylorean volunteers, and little else but battle orders and invocations for calm coming from the officers at the front of Actaluere’s forces. In the distance, Briyce Unger was giving a speech to the Sylorean army, but Cyrus was too far away to catch any of it. Milos Tiernan quietly disappeared into the ranks of his force just moments before the first of the scourge closed the distance with them. Cyrus watched them draw nearer, shuffling across the plains in a loping run, their four-legged gait unlike that of any animal he had seen before.

  Their flesh was still pallid, the nearest thing to the rotting dead he could imagine without taking a trip to a graveyard with a shovel. In a flash, he recalled the wendigos of Mortus’s realm and realized that these were just a touch like those horrors but different somehow. Wendigos could speak, he knew, possessed some measure of conscious thought, though it was buried below the battle frenzy almost every time he had encountered them. These things were as dead inside as the worst criminal offenders he had ever encountered.

  Their bleak eyes stared at him, black holes in their grey-skinned visages, their teeth pointed fangs. And how they ran: faster than a man, but slower than a horse, their gait akin to a three-legged animal but faster than one would expect of such a creature. They kept coming, Cyrus knew, and they would bunch up at the front line as the first of them started to fall. They were close now, only fifty feet away … thirty … ten …

  He swung Praelior with brutal force in a short stab as the first of them leapt at him. All along the line he saw similar movement, heard the cries of battle joined, and he killed the first of them with a solid impalement that it ran headlong into. He kicked the body from his sword and brought it up just in time to catch the next one, his speed enhanced by the weapon’s enchantments enough that he could counter them faster than they could attack. He dodged out of the way of the next to come at him, letting the man behind him strike his first blow; he heard the sound of an axe driving home but was too busy dealing a killing blow of his own to shout congratulations. It was irrelevant, anyway; the front line was already beginning to muddle as the fight turned into a melee within seconds of contact with the enemy.

  Cyrus waded through them, trying to keep his back to the men in the line behind him and letting through only what he could not stop personally, which was little. His sword moved in a flash of light, a dance of elegance. There was a bellow to his right and Partus unleashed a blast of force that tunneled through their foes and sent several hundred skyward as it flung them in its wake. The line of power cut through them for several hundred feet before it reached its end, but all along that line it appeared as though the earth had been shredded, all the grass cleared, the dirt upturned and every one of the scourge within that space had been tossed clear. That empty ground refilled only moments later, however, as the grey-skinned enemy flooded back into it, still surging forward toward the waiting armies.

  The ground was full all the way to the horizon, the scourge lining the grasslands. Battle. It was the be-all, end-all for me once upon a time. He swung his sword, cutting the head from one of the scourge, and black blood sprayed out as another of the beasts used its decapitated fellow as a springboard to launch at him. Cyrus stepped aside and drove his blade deep into the flank of the creature as it passed; if it screamed, he did not hear it over the sounds of battle that filled his ears. I used to thrive in the heart of the battle, used to glory in the destruction of my foes. Titans. Dragons. Goblins, he thought darkly, and saw three of his own goblin soldiers down the line tear apart a cluster of the grey scourge-beasts with nothing more than their claws. What happened? When did I go from believing in the glory of battle as an end of itself to thinking of it as a means to an end-to protecting people from it rather than bringing it to the foes most worthy of it?

  He racked one of the attacking demons with a sharp downswing that split it to the shoulder then plunged his next attack into the face of another enemy. His blows killed with each strike; he gave no mercy, severing heads and stabbing through hearts. There can be no room for mercy with these creatures; they will fight on after losing a limb, keep dragging themselves toward you with any life left in their bodies, hoping to sink their teeth into you. His next swipe killed three. It would appear that being merciless is not something that I’ve lost with time and age. I lived for battle once. Now it’s become merely a profession. His blade cut into four more enemies in rapid succession, tearing throats, severing heads, and bisecting one of them. A profession I’m good at, to be sure, but not the obsession, the glory that it was when I worshipped
Bellarum with a faith that burned brighter than the flames of a brazier.

  Did I get soft? His sword moved of its own accord, cutting and slashing. Did I buy into Alaric’s ideals of honor and nobility and put aside the glory of combat? Did I do it because of him? Or for her? The blond ponytail flashed into his sight again, as though he could see her dancing out there in the mass of the scourge, her own blade in hand, though he knew she was as far removed from this place and this battle as one could be.

  No answer was forthcoming. Still, he worked his profession, Praelior in his hand, as the midday sun moved deeper into the sky above him, and night began to fall. Still the enemy came, on and on, wave after wave-and he slaughtered all of them that he could.

  Chapter 63

  Vara

  Day 29 of the Siege of Sanctuary

  The convoys had armed escorts now, almost a hundred soldiers of the dark elven army led by officers on horseback, their troops following behind them in their leather armor that was as easy to punch through with a mystical sword as unguarded flesh. Vara stared down at them, Vaste next to her squinting through a gnomish spyglass.

  “This will likely only work once in this place, you realize that?” The troll asked, not breaking away from the spyglass.

  “Not being an idiot, I do recognize that.” She considered some form of physical reaction, like hitting him on the shoulder to let him know what she thought of him, but decided against it. Too much like Cyrus. “Although if we covered our tracks exceptionally well, we might be able to pull it off twice before the Sovereignty becomes wise.”

  “Perhaps,” Vaste said. Below them lay a caravan, making its way into a short canyon where the road dipped into the plains to follow an old riverbed. “You seem to have no shortage of ideas to help us wage this little war of ours, but it’s disturbing to me how many of them have been borrowed from Goliath.”