Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  Erith’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “He’s staying?”

  Vaste clapped his hands together in faux joy. “He’s staying? Oh goody, we can finally have that dwarven sleepover I’ve always dreamed of, the naughty one where the beard gets-”

  “You stay away from me, you filthy beast,” Partus said, brow furrowed at Vaste. “I’ll have no part of what ever unnatural plans you’re making with me at the center of them.”

  “Can we please come back to why he’s staying?” Erith asked in a hoarse voice. “Sending a wizard or druid to deliver him to Fertiss or wherever he wants to go seems a small price to pay for not having to deal with him anymore.”

  “I don’t care to spare anyone at the moment,” Alaric said quietly, and drew up to his full height. “He is our guest until the next time we send out a druid or wizard to somewhere suitably civilized. Until then, he can stay with us.”

  “Well,” Partus said, as though trying to reconcile what he was hearing, “surely being under embargo as you are, you’ll be needing to send someone to gather a daily ration of food from a major city-Pharesia, Reikonos-any of them will do.”

  “Actually, we’re stealing our food from convoys that the dark elves have purloined from local farmers,” Vaste said. “It’s all very efficient, and saves us from having to-you know, being a former member of Goliath and thus well versed in all manner of banditry-pay for any of it.”

  “So,” Partus said, “you could drop me off on one of your raiding expeditions. I could cross the Plains of Perdamun on horse.”

  “Do you have a horse?” Alaric asked-with some small trace of satisfaction, Vara thought.

  “Well, no-”

  “You could always walk your way across the Plains of Perdamun,” Vaste suggested in an oh-so-helpful tone. “After all, they’re only swarming with dark elves at the moment. I’m sure they’d love to have a conversation with such a charming fellow as yourself.”

  Partus’s face fell. “I … uh … don’t really think I’m on very good terms with the dark elves. I wouldn’t care to run across them. Are you certain you couldn’t lend me a horse?”

  “I’m afraid we’re rather in need of all the horses we have at the moment,” Alaric said smugly. “But worry not, I’m certain we’ll have a wizard heading toward a safe city in the next six months or so.”

  Vara watched him carefully and tried to guess at his game; as usual, the man they dubbed the Ghost was beyond explanation. Keeping the dwarf here is pointless. He’s no more use to us than a weight around our necks; best be rid of him.

  “That seems to be enough for now,” Alaric said, and his armor began to fade. He turned insubstantial, into the faint fog, and rolled under the door to the stairs, disappearing faster than he usually did.

  “A houseguest,” Vaste said, now sarcastic. “I couldn’t be more thrilled! I’ll bring you the good linens, the ones with small pebbles crushed into them for your comfort and our amusement.”

  “If you’ll come with me,” Ryin said, gesturing to Partus, “we’ll find you some accomodations.”

  “The dungeons have some particularly lovely quarters,” Erith suggested. “Put him in the one next to the rock giant.”

  “You have a rock giant, too?” Partus asked. “Gods, do you have anyone normal?”

  Vara didn’t wait for the repartee nor any sort of reply; she was out the door and going, her feet heavy on the stairs up to her quarters. It was evening, after all-time to sleep, she told herself. Or at least try and pretend to.

  “Hey,” came the quiet voice behind her, the low baritone of Vaste.

  “What do you want?” she snapped at him, unaware of how much raw emotion she was putting into her voice until she heard it.

  Vaste came up behind her, a slow walk, his feet making soft footfalls on every stone. “He’s not dead, you know.”

  “I bloody well know that,” she said, lashing out again with her voice. “Not that I care. I don’t, actually. I don’t bloody well care.”

  Vaste gave her a subtle nod. “You’re a liar and a thief.”

  “What?” She stared at him, perplexed and irritable. “I am not a thief!”

  “So you admit to being a liar?”

  “I admit to nothing,” she said, “save for that you are a baffling, exasperating sort of fool whose flabby green arse is ripe for a good thumping.”

  Vaste raised an eyebrow at her then turned around, sticking out his backside and looking down as though to inspect it. “It does look wonderful, doesn’t it? Ripe for thumping indeed. The way you say it makes it sound so kinky and appealing.”

  She let out a harsh breath, as though it could contain some magic that might strike him dead on the spot. “I am in no mood-”

  “You’ve been in no mood for quite some time,” Vaste said. “I don’t expect the news that he’s sleeping with other women will do much to improve it.”

  She let out a mirthless laugh. “If it is as you say it is, why would you bother to put yourself in my path when you know that I’ll be ready to spray whoever annoys me with nothing but the sharpest acid?”

  Vaste didn’t grin, didn’t smile at all, for once. “Because somebody should be there to take it.”

  “What?” She didn’t quite boggle at him but was only just shy of it.

  “I expect you’d think I would argue for Cyrus, or something of the sort,” Vaste said, straitlaced. “But I’m not. Cyrus did what Cyrus did, I won’t defend or condone it. But neither is he my concern at this moment. My concern is you.”

  “I’m fine,” Vara said, letting her mouth stretch into a thin line, like the bricks in the wall. Just like the bricks, unbreakable, standing strong.

  “With as much lying as you’re doing, I can’t imagine it will be much longer before you cross into the domain of thieving simply from sheer boredom at having mastered the lying.” He raised an eyebrow again. “Would you say you’re also getting better at lying to yourself with all the practice you’re getting?”

  “What do you want from me?” She felt a great wall of overwhelm, of fatigue, and suddenly going to her bed didn’t seem so outrageous.

  “I would like to see,” Vaste said, “my favorite paladin stop taking it on the chin and start being honest with everyone.” He shrugged. “But since Alaric is probably going to continue to be mysterious-”

  “A joke,” she said quietly, and felt the push of the emotions within her. “So excellently timed, too.”

  “I’ll settle for getting you to admit that you’re in love with Cyrus and that with every bit of word from Luukessia you die a little inside, and every month without word from them kills you a little more.” Vaste stared down at her, and the humor was gone. “The truth is probably the hardest part to admit; especially for someone as …”

  “Reserved?” She said, her voice brittle. She stared into his eyes, which were immense and brown, warm, something that she had always found favorable about him. Perhaps the only thing.

  “I was going to say tragically repressed, but why don’t we meet in the middle and say stoic?” He awkwardly put a large hand on her shoulder and rested it there lightly on her armor. “I know that you must be going through some sort of mental obstacle course of epic proportions, and that with the death of your father, and before that your mother, that you must be-”

  “She warned me away,” Vara said at a whisper. “Before she died, the last conversation we had, we were yelling and screaming at a fever pitch. I told her I loved him, and that I didn’t care about my responsibilities as the shelas’akur, and she threw it back in my face. I said some very unkind things, some very crude things meant to shock her. She warned me away, told me that he would die before me and that I would mourn him all the rest of my life.” She clenched her eyes tightly shut, as though doing so would mean all the emotion she was feeling would vanish like the world when they were shut, “and I listened to to her. I knew she was right, and so I told him goodbye, that it would never work …” She heard her voice break a little, “and
I sent him into the arms of her-that harlot.”

  “I would try not to think of it that way if I were you,” Vaste said. “You attempted to make the best decision you could at that moment. Sure, it turned out to be monumentally shortsighted on an emotional level,” he grimaced when she looked at him, disbelief at what he had said. “Sorry. But your mother had the right of it, if we were only looking at the long-term ramifications. Everything she told you is true, on a purely logical level.” The troll looked strangely sage as he spoke. “But the problem is that love and logic are the poorest of bedfellows. Not unlike you and Cyrus.”

  “How am I supposed to comport myself in this circumstance?” She shuffled two steps to the right and put her back to the wall, between two sconces. The clink of her armor against the stone was enough to remind her that she wore it to protect herself from harm. But there was no protection from Cyrus Davidon, he got under my damned armor as surely as though I weren’t wearing any at all. “How am I to handle the thought of him … over there … with her … while I’m here, trying to keep the only home I have left from being ground under the boot of the greatest tyrant in Arkaria?” She brushed a hand along her smooth face, felt it run up to her eyes and cover them, blotting out the light. “How am I supposed to … Vaste … how do I …?”

  She dissolved, then, and he caught her in his massive arms, enfolded her in them, and she sobbed into his white robes, felt the tears trickle down her cheeks in a way that was still foreign to her. She felt safe and warm, wrapped up with him there, and she held onto him for quite some time, just like that, in the middle of the hallway.

  Chapter 71

  Cyrus

  They rode south for more than a month, and the autumn hounded them the whole way as though they were the prey and it was a predator. The steppes near Filsharron were low, and the yellowed grass went green for a time as they rode west to avoid the swamps southeast of Enrant Monge. It was a long, drawn out course, but they saw no sign of scourge as they went, and after a week’s travel, Longwell looked ahead upon the apex of a small hill and pointed; ahead of them was a short wall, and tucked behind it was a stone house.

  “Guard house,” Longwell said. “At least a couple men manning it. They should have seen us already; though they may report to a larger watch, which would be …” he held a hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun, “over there.” He pointed to a nearby hill that was taller, covered with trees. Cyrus could see man-made structures breaking up the symmetry of the woods atop it, but it wasn’t easily defined. “We’re at the crossing for Gundrun; they’ll be wanting to know who we are and for what purpose we’re coming to Galbadien there at that house.”

  “Might I suggest we not tell them we’re here to overthrow the King?” J’anda said it with a wry smile, but it caused a pallor to settle over them all.

  The smell of autumn was in the air; the wind came from the east, the stink of the scourge was gone for at least now, and the leaves were turning all along the road. Reds and golds were full fledged, and the shock of them together was something Cyrus couldn’t quite recall. The air was crisp, like the first bite of an apple, and the briskness spread across his skin, the sweat from riding giving him the chills. The woods had been quiet around them, this intermittent sea of trees and fields that was something much less desolate than the steppes had been.

  “Are you ready for this?” Cyrus asked Longwell, as they trod along the road on horseback. It was only the ten of them; Cyrus, Aisling, Longwell, Martaina, J’anda, Nyad, Scuddar, and Calene Raverle, along with a healer whose name Cyrus had yet to catch, a human who said little to nothing. Raverle had made a fairly quick recovery after Green Hill and had made no mention of what had happened, though Cyrus knew there was a stillness about her that hinted at things, things going on in her depths that he preferred to not inquire about.

  “Ready to either usurp my father’s throne or claim my birthright, depending on how things go?” Longwell did not look at him, merely kept his gauntletted hands on the reins as they went. “I suppose I’m as ready for that as I’ll ever get.”

  “Glad you’re keeping it in perspective,” Cyrus said, and they went on in silence.

  The border crossing was a simple thing. The guards said nothing to them, merely nodded assent as they approached the shack. When they had gone a few hundred feet past it along the path into the woods, Cyrus turned back to Longwell. “That was easy.”

  “They see ten people, one of them wearing a surcoat of the Galbadien dragoons,” Longwell said without emotion, “they probably assume we’re not going to invade the Kingdom as we are.”

  “That makes them all the more foolish, then, doesn’t it?” J’anda asked from behind them.

  “Not in the context of Luukessia,” Longwell said. “A man with a spell may do much damage in Arkaria, but very few spellcasters would care to brave the bridge simply to come to Luukessia for the joy of it.”

  The weather over the next days was pleasing to Cyrus, who had not missed the hot, listless days of summer, even after the few he had spent waiting at the camp near Filsharron for the battle to come to them. The nights he spent under the bedroll with Aisling, separated slightly from the others. She was the only thing that allowed him to sleep soundly at night; her activity, her vigor. He lay down at night spent not only from the ride but from her, letting himself rest in her.

  His dreams were clear, surprisingly so, considering the scourge and all that it meant for Luukessia. They rode on at a fast pace but at one which allowed for proper care of the horses. He watched Martaina at night when she looked after them, picking out their feet, using Nyad’s ability to conjure grains and oats for them when they stayed in the wilderness instead of an inn. Some nights they did stay in towns and ate hot food made in the taverns instead of the hard cheese they carried with them. Occasionally Martaina would bring down an animal on an evening when they took extra rest and would make a stew or something similar. Occasionally it was long into the night before she was done cleaning and preparing the animal, but when Cyrus had the first taste, he knew the wait was worth it, even tempered as it was with the pickled eggs and conjured bread that they had to cut the hunger pangs.

  They crossed through canyons and foothills, came down through wide forests choked with game. Those nights were bounteous with their harvests, and the nights spent in roadside inns where the fare was little more than warmer bread and the barest stew were ill enjoyed by comparison. Cyrus began to feel the slightest of his life’s blood come back to him one night sitting by a fire, in a circle with the others, his patera-a cooking pot, cup and bowl all in one-filled to the brim in front of him with something Martaina had created from some animals she had snared and the spices she carried with her.

  “This is really quite magnificent,” J’anda said, supping it straight from his patera. “Where did you learn to do all these things-hunting, fishing, cooking, tracking?”

  “My father,” Martaina said, stirring the small cauldron that she carried on the back of her horse. “He was one of the last of the breed of elves who lived their lives in the Iliarad’ouran Woods outside Pharesia. That forest is rich with wildlife, and a small band of our people chose to live outside the city gates, off the land rather than within the walls, herding, domesticating animals. It was a simpler life, a subsistence life, rather than one focused on creating excess and serving the monarchy, with their demand for as much of your grain and livestock as they could lay hands on.”

  She stirred the spoon slowly in the cauldron, a small one, only slightly larger than Cyrus’s helm. “He taught me how to fire an arrow as quickly as you can pluck it, how to follow tracks, and skin a beast fast, get it over the fire and roast it on spit.” She blinked. “It was all we did, all day long, and the sooner we finished those chores the sooner we could get to the idle fun of the things we wanted to do.” She smiled. “So we got very good at it.”

  “I take it he’s passed on now?” Nyad asked quietly. “If he was one of the Iliarad’ouran woodsmen,
I know the last of their number was-”

  “Yes,” Martaina said simply, cutting her off. “About a milennia ago. He was the last. I chose not to follow in his footsteps to carry it on.”

  Nyad nodded without saying much else; it occurred to Cyrus after a space of seconds that the tension was heavy, which was probably due to the fact that Nyad’s father was the monarchy that Martaina’s father resented. “So,” he said, trying to break the silence, “what do you think they’re doing back home right now?” He felt a peculiar twinge at the words, especially the thought of Sanctuary as home. It’s been nearing a year since we’ve been away …

  “It’s fall now,” Calene Raverle spoke up. “Apples would be coming into season in the Northlands.” Her voice was soft but strained, as though it had been poured through a sifter and all that was left was smoothness. It could barely be heard it over the sound of the crickets though everyone listened intently. “Have you ever walked through an orchard on a fall day and picked apples as you went?” Her eyes were far off now, thinking about it. “Felt the cool grass beneath your feet, like a thousand tickling kisses?” She let a small smile crop up on her petite face. “You take the first bite of one, hear the crunch, feel it crackle in your mouth, the tartness of the yellow ones.” She took a breath. “They make cider with some of the excess, you know, and if you can get some cinnamon for it …” She breathed again and a sadness crept over her. “I don’t suppose they have much in the way of apple orchards around Sanctuary though, do they?”

  “I believe there is one across the river Perda, to the south,” J’anda said. “I miss fall nights at Sanctuary, when the barest chill cancels out the warm sun. You know that two-week period after summer ends and we get our first chill, but then the warm weather comes back before it turns a little blustery? I like that. It’s like the last kiss of summer before it leaves. Not that it gets desperately wintery in the Plains of Perdamun, like it does outside Saekaj, anyway, but I like that last … that last goodbye. A fond farewell, if you will.”