Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  The mist rose up around her, encircling her for a moment, and then disappeared, just as he said, into nothingness.

  Chapter 96

  Cyrus

  “Drettanden,” Cyrus whispered, and his fingers wrapped around the hilt of Praelior, the sword in his hand before he finished speaking.

  The enormous scourge-beast stood before him. He handed Windrider’s reins to Cattrine as Drettanden snorted, filling the air with the reek of death again, bad enough that Cattrine gagged as it hit them. “Take this,” he said, pressing the leather into her fingers. “Be ready to lead them down to this dock.”

  “And the people of Caenalys?” Cattrine muttered, coughing from the stench.

  “If this thing is here,” Cyrus said darkly, watching as Drettanden stared at him, unmoving, “the streets are already flooded with his brethren. This battle is over.”

  “Cyrus,” Martaina said quietly, still watching Drettanden as it stared at them.

  “Go with her,” Cyrus said to Martaina then let his gaze flick to Aisling. “You too. We have no healer and the two of you carry short blades that won’t even make a dent in this thing’s hide. Get out of here. I’ll cover your retreat.”

  “And an escape plan for yourself?” J’anda said, sotto voce.

  “I expect I’ll be diving off the balcony in the throne room in five minutes or less,” Cyrus said. “It would be lovely if someone were there to fish me out of the water.”

  “Five minutes?” Martaina let out a low whistle, and Drettanden growled menacingly to match it. “You’re feeling optimistic about your chances against that thing?”

  “I like my odds,” Cyrus said, never breaking eye contact with the thing that stared at him. “Go. Now.” He clutched Praelior as Cattrine brushed a hand against his shoulder, so softly he couldn’t feel it. With a subtle look she went to his right, and he saw Martaina cast a regretful look as well, then slip away quietly along with her, horse in tow. Aisling went next, then J’anda. Cyrus listened for their quiet footsteps as they angled through a small, open door to where he could see a flat ramp spiral downward, and watched as the last of them faded into the darkness of it.

  “So …” Cyrus said, looking at the scourge creature which stared back at him. It took a step forward, taking a deep breath, then exhaling so strongly Cyrus found himself wanting to retch. “Please stop that, will you?” The red eyes widened at him. “Do you have any idea what your breath smells like? Corpses. Yeesh. Do you eat everything you come across? Because you could stand to digest a field of mint, my friend-”

  The grey lips came apart and Drettanden filled the air with a screeching roar, leering at Cyrus with a hard-edged gaze, mouth hanging open and enormous teeth exposed.

  “Yeah, I know,” Cyrus said, overcoming the desire to gag, and waved Praelior in front of him. “It’s this, isn’t it?” He watched red eyes follow it. “This was yours when you were alive? Well, I didn’t take it from you, and I didn’t kill you. I put this together myself, after following a quest given to me by Bellarum-”

  The beast roared and sprung at Cyrus at the last, jaws snapping as Cyrus dodged out of the way. Drettanden took two steps and sprung, crashing through the pillar and supporting wall as Cy fell back, rolling into the throne room. Dust and plaster came down, rock and stone as well, and Cyrus felt a rough shift in the palace above as he came back to his feet, sword in hand. “Hey, if you’re gonna charge at everything like a bull, could you at least look out for the load-bearing walls? Or do you want to kill me so bad you’re willing to risk killing yourself in the process?” Cyrus circled, putting his back to the balcony. “Because, if so, we could just keep going in this direction. It’d be great. Soft landing too, in the water.”

  There was a flick of the red eyes, and Cyrus caught it. “Water. You don’t like the water, do you?” He waved Praelior and watched the eyes follow it. “But you want your sword back, don’t you? It’s a little small for you now, don’t you think?” There came another snap of the jaws at him. “That, surprisingly, was not a taunt or a goad, but just a simple statement of fact.” With dizzying speed, Drettanden came at him in a quick motion, leaping off its back feet and Cyrus dodged aside again, this time leaving his arm extended with the blade. It caught the scourge across the side of the neck and raked the grey flesh. Black blood oozed out, peppering the white marble floor as Cyrus put a foot on the first step below the throne.

  “Welcome to the throne room of Actaluere,” Cyrus said, keeping the sword pointed at Drettanden. He stepped over the unmoving corpse of Hoygraf, which lay with its eyes wide, a small pool of blood gathered around it. “This was the self-proclaimed king, if you by chance wanted to have a bite of royalty while you’re here-” Cyrus dodged as it came for him again, this time leaping back onto the throne, then jumping high over the back of the creature, where he ran with his sword down along the spine, ripping open flesh until he jumped off at the end.

  Cyrus landed with a flourish, spinning perfectly, ready to defend himself against another attack. There was none, however, and Drettanden had yet to turn back to him; the creature’s head was down, on the steps, and there was a sickening sound of bones crunching as blood dribbled down the stairs. “Really?” Cyrus asked, looking at the spectacle, dumbstruck. “The saddest part of this is that it’s not even the most unbelievable thing I’ve seen in this room in the last half hour.”

  Drettanden spun, mouth still full of Hoygraf’s corpse, an arm and a leg hanging out of the grey lips and red staining the teeth. “You really do eat the dead,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “You feed on life. You’ve come a long way from being the God of Courage,” Cyrus watched a slight reaction at the edges of the red eyes, “to being the exterminator of as much of it as you can. Quite the fall, I suppose.”

  There was motion to Cyrus’s left and he turned; five more of the smaller scourge were there at the smashed entry door, easing into the room. “Right,” Cyrus said. “Not as bad as the one I’m about to take, though …”

  They all snapped into motion at roughly the same time; the five creatures at the door jumped for him like a pack of wild dogs, and Drettanden, at his right, came at him at full tilt. The scourges’ claws gave them poor traction, and Cyrus watched as they tried to spring and failed. He ran, every step of his boots pounding as he made for the edge of the balcony. Teeth were snapping behind him as he reached the open doors to the outside, and the smell of death was overwhelming as he thrust his foot upon the railing and vaulted.

  The wind caught his hair, even through his helm, and tugged the strap against his chin. It ran all across his body as he felt the fall take over. With a look back he saw the scourge, looking over the railing and down at him as he fell, the smell receding as the air rushed past his ears, deafening him. Please don’t let there be rocks down there. His eyes forced themselves shut as he hit the water with painful force, pushing the air out of his lungs and shoving him into the depths.

  There was only a faint flicker of orange light above him as he swam, Praelior in hand to give him strength, until he broke the surface, taking a breath of air, tinged with smoke and wetness. He turned his head to see a boat cutting through the water toward him, and looking far up above, he saw the balcony, and the scourge looking down at him. One of them fell and splashed; he waited, clutching the hilt of Praelior to see if it surfaced again. Tension. Anticipation. It never came up.

  “Ahoy!” Cyrus watched the boat as the oars stroked out the sides toward him. It was long, at least fifty feet in length, with a mast and sail and a few crew members. He swam up to it at the approach, seized the side and hauled himself out of the water with a hand from Martaina. He fell upon the deck and looked up to the pillared balcony far above. Drettanden remained, standing, head draped over the railing, eyes following Cyrus on the boat.

  “That thing …” Cattrine said from beside him, “it seems quite fixated on you.”

  “Yeah,” Cyrus said. “This is what happens when you insult a guy’s mother when you’re thre
e. Old grudges die hard.”

  She frowned. “You’re joking. This hardly seems the time.”

  Cyrus shook his head, wiping water from his beard. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  Cattrine stood as they came further out into the sea from the palace. There was light to their left, and Cyrus turned from looking at the crew of a half dozen rowers on the small lower deck to the city, where lights blazed, and his mouth fell open.

  It burned. Half the city was on fire, blazing strips of light where smoke drifted in the corners against the walls. Against the fiery backdrop, figures were visible, running around on four legs, striking people down. The docks were a frenzy of activity, ships casting off, battles being fought. The fires cast light on the walls of the city, and Cyrus realized to some surprise that they crawled, covered over with scourge scaling them as easily as he might climb a ladder.

  “Look at them go,” Martaina whispered, and the crew stopped rowing. Other boats were launching out of the docks as quickly as they could steer out of the harbor with crews rowing madly. Cyrus watched as a scourge ran to the end of the docks and leapt into a boat. The screams carried over the water.

  “They came because of him,” Cyrus said, looking up into the air, to the outline of Drettanden, still watching him from the balcony. “He came because of me. We brought death to Caenalys.” He bowed his head and felt Cattrine’s hand on his wet hair, stroking it gently off his brow where it crept out from beneath his helm.

  “It was coming anyway,” Cattrine whispered, and he felt her kneel next to him. “My brother would have laid siege to the city trying to get the walls open, and it would have taken months. The scourge would have come around behind him and taken his army then the city, anyway. She looked in concern. “Where is my brother?”

  Cyrus felt a surge of guilt. “We rode ahead of his army three weeks ago. They would have arrived here in another week.” He swallowed heavily. “I don’t … I have no idea whether they met the scourge or not. We had thought these creatures bottled up, fighting our armies at Enrant Monge while we planned to evacuate the rest of Luukessia.” Blackness climbed into his mind. They followed me. I changed the rules and ruined all our battle plans, all our assumptions. I’ve failed again, and hundreds of thousands have died for that failure.

  “Where do we go now?” Aisling asked quietly as they sat there, drenched in the glow and the noise.

  “West,” Cyrus answered, and he saw the men at the oars put them back in the water after a nod from Cattrine. “If the armies of Luukessia are still out there, they’ll have to flee toward the bridge. Hopefully we’ll meet up with them there.”

  J’anda let the quiet remain in place for an additional moment before he spoke. “While I love the conditional ‘hopefully,’ what’s your plan if they’re not?”

  Cyrus felt his jaw clench. “Then I guess we’ll have to cover the retreat of the last civilians ourselves … and hope the scourge don’t follow us over the bridge.”

  He cast his eyes back toward Caenalys, even as they rowed away, past the palace and toward the west. The city burned, a little at a time. The air was cold, not like winter but the distant fires gave no warmth at all. The smell of death was heavy in the air, along with the smoke that came in drifts off the city. Cyrus sat there, dripping, breathing it all in, and watched as the Kingdom of Actaluere reached its end.

  Chapter 97

  They rowed on through the night, through a swell and a rain that chilled Cyrus through, spattering on his armor. They went west, and when he took his turn at the oars, Cyrus felt the pull of them over and over on his hands, the knotty pine of the wood smoothed and making callouses in places he hadn’t had them before. The rain washed away the smell of death, sapped the salt from the air and went slightly chill but nothing in comparison to what they had braved in the winter up north. There was still the taste of salt permeating in Cyrus’s mouth from the air before the rain, and he rowed on, with the others, until he tired, then he clutched Praelior in his hand and pinned it against the oar, using the strength to keep going long past when he might otherwise have quit.

  The slow tapping of the rain on his helm died in the wee small hours of the next day. They had a lamp at the fore, and stars came out to guide them. Cyrus felt the press of the bench he was seated upon, and he kept an even stroke, matching his motions to the other men rowing with him, all swarthy men of the sea, with olive skin and dark hair.

  There came a sound next to him as someone sat, someone covered in a heavy boat cloak, and when Cattrine’s delicate features peeked out from beneath the cowl he was unsurprised. “Hello,” she said just loud enough to be heard over the rain.

  “Hello,” he repeated back to her. He let a healthy silence fall between them then thought to speak. “I’m sorry about-”

  “I’m so glad you came,” she said, halting as they spoke over one another. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. You were saying?”

  “I’m sorry about Caenalys,” Cyrus said. “It feels as though everywhere we go, destruction follows-”

  “The city was doomed,” Cattrine said. “If they hadn’t come with you, they would have been along within weeks anyhow, and it would have been just as bad.” Her eyes found his. “You saved my life, at least. I thank you for that.”

  “It was the least I could do,” Cyrus said quietly, trying to focus on the steady rhythm of rowing. “I heard that you made a bargain for my life, to return my head to my guild for resurrection.” He lowered his voice. “A terrible bargain, with a terrible price.”

  “It was not all for you,” she said, “though I confess your life was the thing that tipped the scales.” She stared straight ahead, toward the bow, and he saw her delicate features in profile. Her lip was still swollen, scabbed, and he could see by the lantern light hanging on the ship that her eye had a trace of black under it.

  But she was still pretty. Still Cattrine. He resisted the urge to kiss her again and again. “I wish you hadn’t. Not for me.” He bowed his head, even as he kept the steady stroke of the oar going. “Why did you do it?” he asked, shaking his head, feeling the mournful sadness in his soul as he considered what she had likely been through. “For me-”

  “Because I loved you, idiot.” She spoke in an outburst of relief, as though it were all she could do to get it out, and a sob followed it. “I did all I did because I felt it, as I thought you did, but did not wish to say it because of your beloved Vara.” Her hand came up to his face, stroked his bearded cheek. “I saw the struggle in your eyes the whole time we were at Vernadam, and I wanted to let you heal and become whole again before throwing another burden upon you.” She blinked and turned her head away. “It was the same reason I did not tell you who I was. I only wanted you to be able to feel … normal again. To begin to believe you could feel for another again.”

  “I did,” he said quietly. “I did because of you. As hard as I tried to forget you, to stay away, I still found myself like a boomerang in flight, curving right back to where I had come from. He shook his head and felt the droplets of rain that had collected in his beard fall. “I … missed you.” He tugged in the oar, and laid it across his lap. He reached over and kissed her, fully, totally, and felt her return the same to him.

  She broke from him quickly but with hesitation, her hand still held to his face. “Are you not with Aisling now?”

  Cyrus paused, and felt his head bow unexpectedly. “I … I don’t know where I stand with Aisling.”

  “Do you love her?” There was quiet expectation and disappointment in the way she said it.

  Cyrus looked back to the rear of the boat, and Aisling was there, eyes closed, asleep. “I don’t know. I’ve come to a place where things have become beyond complicated. I don’t know how I feel about her. She’s been such balm to me over these last months, but it’s almost as though I’ve become so empty inside that it did me little good.”

  “I wouldn’t tell her that if I were you,” Catrrine said.

  “N
ot high on my list of things to do,” Cyrus said with a grunt. The ship bobbed in the water, and she leaned toward him. “I don’t entirely know where I stand with you, either. This land is about to fall.” He looked back. “I think there are other boats following us as well, which is probably wise on their part. There is little I recognize as safe, stable or normal right now. It feels as though everything is danger and trouble.”

  “I don’t expect you to untangle all these emotions now,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “It’s quite enough that you came for me. To hear you say that you felt the same … it gives me the possibility of hope.”

  Cyrus gave her a slow nod. “I’m sorry I can’t give you any more than that. I’m still … sifting through the wreckage inside.”

  “And when you finish,” she asked, “what do you think you’ll find?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with a shake of the head, slipping the oar back into the water and matching the rowing of the other men. “I’d like to believe in something again, something more than just fighting my way through life. I’d like a certainty to cling to, something that will always be around, no matter how bad things get. It used to be me; when things would get bad, I could look inside, and I knew which direction to go. When you worship the God of War, it’s a simple matter to just turn yourself toward battle. But it’s not that simple anymore. Now battle is a given, especially after these things,” he waved toward the dark shore, to their right, “came unto the land.”

  “I’m not certain I understand,” Cattrine replied. “You believe in war, in conflict, in battle, yet … you look for what? Something else?”

  “Something else, yes,” Cyrus said. “I let myself hope for a future with a woman I didn’t really have a true hope with. It shook my world. I believed in a greater purpose for myself through my guild, in the idea that I would fight to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, but everything I have done in this last year has caused the opposite of that. It’s put more people in danger and makes me question everything about this purpose I embraced.” He shook his head. “Is there really any good I can do when everything I do seems to come out wrong?” He turned his head away from her. “That seems especially true when I consider the women in my life.”