Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  They rode out two days later, down the great man-made hill that Vernadam rested on. It was pleasant enough, Cyrus thought, a fall day back home by the weather, and yet near winter for the calendar. Reikonos must have had their first snow by now. The autumn will have brought storms along the plains near Sanctuary. Yet here I am, in this cool place. He rode quietly down the first switchback, relaxed upon the back of Windrider.

  Part of the way down the next curve, Samwen Longwell came alongside him, his crown shining. “Here we go,” he said, no mirth in him, and nearly enough to no life as to be indistinguishable.

  “Here we go,” Cyrus agreed. “You’re about to look on your lands as a King for the first time; I would try to put some sort of happy face on for your subjects, considering that with what we are up against, yours will likely be the one that they look to. Whether they take hope or sorrow from your countenance is entirely up to you, my friend, but a King seems more … disposed … to one rather than the other.”

  Longwell did not answer him for a moment, as if pondering. “You are right, of course. But how do I … how do I shed this misery that falls on me?” His face contorted as Cyrus watched. “I think of what I did, and I weep for my soul; I am unworthy to stand before my ancestors after death, now. What I have done is the horror of all horrors.”

  “Listen to me,” Cyrus said, and pulled Windrider’s reins so he stopped. “What you did is save your Kingdom. What you did was make the hardest choice of anyone I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t step aside, and you knew it. You made a sacrifice that few would have made-”

  “You would have made it,” Longwell said, turning to look straight ahead. “In my place, I believe you would have done the same.” He flicked his gaze back to Cyrus, as though he were looking for approval. “You have had the courage to do things I would not have thought possible before.”

  “There’s a far distance,” Cyrus said, “between standing on a bridge and knowing you’ll die and having to sacrifice the person you care for most in the world.” A flash ran through Cyrus’s mind-of the Fields of Paxis in the Realm of Death, of the rotting grass, and steps in the distance, of a god as tall as a building, of his threat and the movement of his hand, stirring toward Vara, her head bowed. “I couldn’t do what you did. I didn’t … do what you did. Thank the gods that you were the man in the place now, Samwen, because you made the choice I couldn’t, and hopefully your choice will redeem mine.”

  They were quiet, then, on the way down the rest of the hill, Longwell seeming to try and reconcile the thoughts he’d been given. When they reached the bottom, the townsfolk were already turned out, and they saw a monarch who waved at them with pride, with confidence, and not a single hint-to Cyrus’s practiced eye, anyhow-of any threads of doubt.

  Chapter 77

  Vara

  Day 141 of the Siege of Sanctuary

  “The good news is that our plan is working,” Ryin said, his hushed voice still seeming to echo in the quiet Council Chambers. “The bad news is that our plan is working but not as well as we might have hoped.”

  Alaric was a still statue-it might as well have been one in his chair for as little as he moved, Vara thought. His expression was dark, as though carved from stone, and he appeared not only weary but less expressive than usual. “Explain it to us.”

  Ryin sighed. “I’ve run sorties from the nearby portals to scout convoys passing through the Plains of Perdamun. Their sentries have finally reached the point in the last week where it is no longer safe to hit them with a raiding party. I’m observing escorts of five hundred to a thousand soldiers marching along with each convoy, larger convoys now than there used to be, and spellcasters intermixed with them. I suspect they’re also using wizards and druids to teleport some of the richer convoys directly, even though that’s likely to tie up considerable amounts of their resources. Our raiding days have come to an end is what I’m telling you.” He looked around the table. “In addition, there appears to be no appreciable change in the numbers of the horde that surrounds us. All we’ve managed to do is pull more dark elves into the Plains of Perdamun.”

  Alaric’s eyes flashed back and forth, assimilating this. “Vara?” he asked. “Have you heard anything from your sister?”

  “Only to echo that the battle lines around Reikonos remain quiet,” Vara said, finding the words most disagreeable. “The only good news is that the humans are preparing for a major offensive in the coming weeks, after the New Year passes and the Winter Solstice has gone by. Perhaps that will relieve some of the pressure around us?”

  “I have doubts about that,” Alaric breathed, as though he meant for them not to hear it. “The line remains unchanged for the elves as well, bottled up behind the River Perda, staring at their foes across the water. The bridges between Termina and Santir remain a ‘No Man’s Land,’ and I have my suspicions that King Danay will not find the courage to change that anytime soon, given his …” Alaric sighed, “… personnel challenges.”

  “You mean the fact that any elven soldier killed can’t possibly be replaced?” Vaste asked-with his usual flair for the annoying, Vara thought.

  “Yes,” Alaric said without a trace of amusement, “that was what I was referring to. Unless Danay finds himself in possession of a rather extreme amount of pluck, I wonder that they will prosecute this war further, putting themselves on the line to dubious purpose for the humans. Vengeance for Termina would seem to be his only motivation for going forward.”

  “But if the Confederation and the Kingdom don’t work together,” Erith said, shaking her head, “it seems that the Sovereignty will eventually break them both.”

  “Probably not the elves,” Vara said quietly. “Oh, they’ll glare at the dark elves across the river, certainly, but now that their army is massed, the Sovereign will have a devil of a time putting his troops across the Perda, and Danay knows that. The rest of Arkaria could well burn, and the Elven Kingdom would be able to sit apart from them, quite safe, all things considered, and simply wait out the war.”

  “Until they all grew old and infirm and the Sovereign could simply march over the bridge and take the entire Kingdom without any sort of fight that didn’t involve a cane being smacked over someone’s head,” Vaste said.

  “Yes,” Vara replied acidly. “Until then. But as that is several thousand years off, I very much doubt that is something we shall have to ponder too deeply in the immediate future.”

  Alaric was unmoved, again, quiet for a piece. “The humans wait too long, then. By the time the Sovereign strengthens his grip here, in the Plains of Perdamun, he’ll have all the supplies he needs to deal a final, crushing blow to Reikonos. Without Reikonos, it seems likely that the Riverlands and Northlands will fragment and argue amongst themselves. At best, they could rally, but they would have a hard time defending against the dark elven onslaught. There are simply too few good spots to mount a defense of the Northlands or Riverlands. If Reikonos falls, so too does the best chance to face the dark elves in a decisive battle that could turn them back.”

  “Except here,” Vara said, turning their heads. She shrugged when they looked at her. “A hundred thousand at least surrounding us, another fifty thousand or more spread out around the plains; that is no small host, and its loss or breaking would likely hamper the Sovereign’s war efforts.”

  “Oh yes,” Vaste said, “his mysterious and seemingly unlimited army. How many soldiers does he have, anyway? Anyone?”

  “At least one more,” Erith said with a smile. “He has more than anyone has been able to predict thus far. Who knows how many he has in reserve? One thing I can tell you …” She hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t, but since we’re all dead anyway if the dark elven army breaks down the gates-Saekaj Sovar was an overcrowded mess when I left twenty years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Ryin blinked at her. “You’re talking about the diaspora? When dark elves began to migrate out of the homeland again, twenty years ago?”

  “Yes,” Erith said. “
It was at capacity, the streets were choked with waste, and the tribunal that ruled in the Sovereign’s absence finally approved the opening of the city. People weren’t exactly starving, but there was heavy rationing. That’s why you saw so many dark elves start cropping up at once-those of us who were more opportunity-minded wanted to get the hell out, take a chance elsewhere, somewhere that you weren’t living twelve people in a room a quarter this size.” She shook her head. “The average citizens were stacked on top of each other, four and five to a straw bed half the size of this table. Ticks were rampant, fleas. The meat we ate was that of the vek’tag and their milk was the drink of choice, and it was old mushrooms baked into bread three times a day most of the time. The noble houses lived fat and had more space, the lower classes scrapped for every damned thing we could lay our hands on.” She shrugged. “It was nice to get out of there, even nicer when I finally got my own room in the Daring’s guildhall. Living here was like a dream.”

  “And the point of that wildly veering narrative?” Vaste asked, feigning a yawn.

  Erith favored the troll with a sour look. “That Saekaj Sovar is huge. Massive. When I left, the population was easily over two million.” She looked around the table in patient expectation.

  Ryin was the first to show his reaction. “Well, then that means … oh. Oh, damn.” His head pivoted to Vaste. “It means-”

  “Yes,” Vaste said, “I got it right off. Millions of people means hundreds of thousands of soldiers if need be.”

  “Yes,” Erith said, “and keeping in mind that the Sovereignty is a society where you can live a thousand years and not really feel the strain of age until you are over eight hundred-”

  “They have a larger population of war-ready men to draw from than any other nation.” Ryin looked at Vaste again.

  “I said I understood the first time,” Vaste looked back at the druid intently. “Why do you keep staring at me? I know how dark elves age, probably better than you do.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to look at you!” Ryin said. “I’m just …” his gaze swept the table and found Vara. “Did you know about this?”

  “No,” she said, finding herself somewhat hoarse. “No, but it is hardly a great surprise now, is it? The dark elves have a big army. The sky is blue, water is wet. They’ve paraded countless number of soldiers through the world, are fighting a war on three fronts and they don’t seem to be suffering greatly for it.” She tried to shrug from indifference, and found that it wasn’t hard to find. “They have us outmatched. Their enemies are not fighting them at present, largely out of fear. They have us surrounded, and they have thrown a hundred and fifty thousand troops at the bothersome fly we have become to keep us from continuing to bind them down here in the plains.” There was a certain hopelessness that came with her pronouncement, but she wasn’t sure she could entirely feel it.

  “None of it is good news,” Alaric said finally. “But neither is it the worst. We may be outmatched, but they have yet to find a way to reasonably break through our fortifications.” He smiled. “Take heart, friends. We will protect our foyer as we have, we will keep them held off at the wall, keep them at a distance, and we will remain here until the situation changes.” There was only a hint of hope in Alaric’s tone, but it was there, Vara could hear it. “In a battle against the entire world, I still believe that the Sovereign has bitten off more than he can possibly hope to digest.” Alaric steepled his fingers in front of him. Now, let us hope that the rest of the world discovers that exact same truth … before it becomes too late to take advantage of his misstep.”

  Chapter 78

  Cyrus

  The road to Enrant Monge was longer than he remembered, though they traveled at a brisker pace. They went to the west first, crossing under the leaves of trees that still showed their green, meeting up with the armies of Galbadien’s barons in the town called Callis, which Cyrus could not remember at all from when last he had been there, and they rode on.

  “There are not so many of them as I hoped for,” Cyrus said, riding next to Count Ranson under a blue, clear sky, on their way out of Callis.

  “We just came out of a war,” Ranson said, “one that was particularly costly to us in terms of lives.” He gestured his head back behind them, where followed some twenty thousand men, half on horseback. “We have a great many dragoons, though, and we lost few enough in the last battle. Some of the men are long-time veterans-”

  “Meaning they’ve seen too much combat,” Cyrus added.

  “-and some new blood,” Ranson finished with a raised eyebrow.

  “Meaning they’ve seen too little.”

  Ranson sighed. “Aye. It would have been more convenient if this scourge had come before we had our little war with Syloreas. Instead, they picked the first time in a decade when both of us were well and truly ground down. Our eastern armies will meet us a bit farther on, the ones we moved to the Actaluere border. That will swell our numbers somewhat.”

  They rode on. The sun rose and set what felt like a hundred times, but was more probably only thirty. The air turned colder as they hooked north on the road that led past the shores of an enormous lake. Cyrus went to his bedroll with Aisling every night and awoke with her next to him in the morning, putting out of his head all the troubles and worries of the battle ahead. The numbness inside was still there, but he managed it, thinking about it sometimes late at night when she lay against his side, and he listened to her slow, soft breathing.

  As the mornings became bitterly cold, the scenery began to change; there came a morning where there was frost on the ground, glittering in the early morning sunrise like diamonds sprinkled in the grasses, and Cyrus could have sworn that he had been there recently. He had, he realized, been this way only months before, with a smaller army at his back.

  After so many days of numbing, wearying travel, one arrived where he found himself staring into the distance and staring back at him at the top of a crest was the familiar shape of Enrant Monge. He heard a few whoops from behind him as the men of the Galbadien army let out their pent-up emotion at seeing their destination after a long journey.

  “I will not be sorry to be done riding,” J’anda said, his hand rubbing the outside of his robes just below his back. “This is quite enough for a while.”

  “I never get tired of riding,” Aisling said with a lascivious smile toward Cyrus.

  He glanced back at her. “You haven’t done that in a long time.”

  She shrugged, and he thought he caught a hint of disappointment. “Before I was trying to work to entice you. Now, I scarcely have to entice you at all.”

  They left the army behind on the flat grounds before the woods, left them to set camp in an open space as Cyrus rode with Longwell and the others into the big, wide gate on the western facing of Enrant Monge. There were Sylorean refugees along every bit of the ride, as there had been for the last few hundred miles of the journey, sunken-eyed beggar folk with weary looks.

  “Do you suppose we’ll finally ride through the Unity gate now?” Longwell asked, and Cyrus watched the new King, who maintained an air of guarded skepticism.

  “This would be the closest we’ve ever gotten, my King,” Count Ranson answered after a second’s reflection. “Perhaps not as anticipated, in a new Kingdom of Union for all Luukessia, but united in common purpose.”

  “Seems more genuine than with a monarch at your head,” Cyrus said, “ruling through fear.”

  “The last Kings of all Luukessia were hardly tyrants,” Ranson said, as though delivering a history lesson to an interested student. “The Kings of Old Enrant Monge were good men, fair men, who ruled with strength and honor, and who delegated most of their power to the three Grand Dukes. When the last King died and his only son, Lord Garrick, went missing after an expedition, the three Grand Dukes broke with formality, argued among themselves, and each declared himself the new King in turn. They made their protestations, but none would see the other for the true ruler of Luukessia, and so eac
h left Enrant Monge in turn, so furious with the others that they went out through their own gate, to consolidate and hold their own seats of power, and then each raged at the others in turn, in wars, for the next ten thousand years, returning to Enrant Monge and the old guardians of the King of Luukessia-the Brothers of the Broken Blade, who remained there to mediate disputes, and to hold the castle against the predations of the the three Kingdoms.”

  “So it was your forerunners who were the tyrants,” Cyrus said with a half-smile.

  Ranson seemed to take the jest in the spirit it was intended. “Not my forerunners, no.”

  They galloped through the inner gate. The refugees watched the column and the King of Galbadien with awe as he passed into the courtyard, which had masses of the careworn gathered around its walls, their hungry eyes quieted by the food that members of the Brotherhood of the Broken Blade were dispensing to them from a station in the corner. There were dark clouds overhead, putting the whole of the world in a dim glow. The stones of the castle that had been a shining orange when Cyrus saw them in sunlight were greyed now, the overcast light tingeing them. The smell of sodden hay was even sharper in the crisp air, the smell of the horses potent as they approached the small stables. There were a few boys milling about, caring for the animals, and Cyrus could hear one of the horses whicker as they approached. He gave a reassuring pat as he dismounted, to which Windrider responded with a whinny.

  “It’s you, m’lord,” said the boy who rushed out to take the reins of the horse from Cyrus. He was familiar, and it took only a second for Cyrus to realize that it was the same lad who had spoken to him when last he’d left Enrant Monge. “You’ve come back to us again.”

  “I have,” Cyrus said, feeling the stress in him as he recalled the lad’s words when last they’d spoke.