Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  Terian answered. “No offense, Alaric, but they’ve been pushing us back just as hard since you got here as they were before. Cyrus killed the King Daddy and they’re still coming like they didn’t feel it. Their numbers make me think the bridge is filled clear back to Luukessia and likely beyond that.” The dark knight parried an attack and cast a spell that left a scourge choking on bile, green sludge pouring out of its mouth. “If you have a solution to stop them, I think we’d all be keen to hear it. If it’s to continue what we’re doing …” Terian looked around at the others on the line with him and met Cyrus’s eyes; the warrior saw defeat in the dark knight’s look, an utterly dispirited expression that he’d never seen from Terian before. “I believe we’re about to be done. We failed.”

  Alaric’s next blow sent a corpse ten feet into the air, and the paladin gritted his teeth as he leveled a swipe that killed four scourge and sent their bodies falling back into the charging ranks of the next run of them. “Do you truly believe that? All of you?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Longwell answered.

  “I don’t see a victory here.” Odellan dodged a scourge coming at him and buried his sword up to the hilt in the beast then kicked another one free long enough to bring around his sword and stop it.

  “And Scuddar In’shara?” Alaric asked the desert man, whose scimitar was still a blur of motion, hacking the enemy to pieces.

  “I believe,” Scuddar said in his deep intonation, “that we are not on the shore yet, and there is still fight left within us.”

  “Spoken like a man whose village is first in the path of destruction for these things,” Terian said, driving his sword into one of them. “It ain’t gonna happen, Alaric. They’re going to eat Arkaria whole. There’s no stopping them now.”

  “Do you truly believe that?” Alaric said, not looking up from dispatching two more of the scourge in a row.

  “Yes,” Terian said quietly, casting a spell on the next beast to attack him. “There’s no path to victory from here.”

  Alaric was strangely quiet then, but his sword never stopped moving. “Back up, all of you.” He moved forward, his weapon dancing so fast he carved his way through the scourge that came forward in waves to attack him, making a pocket of death as he took another step forward, pushing into the enemy ranks, the bodies piling up around him.

  Cyrus felt the weariness in his arms and pushed it aside, trying to command Praelior the way he saw Alaric wield Aterum; it almost worked, he was nearly as fast, fast enough to keep the enemy at bay, but barely. He looked back, just a glance, and saw the others behind him, the scourge surging between them all, creating a solid packed line between Cyrus and the others, and Alaric still ten feet in front of him.

  “What are you doing, brother?” Alaric said, looking back at Cyrus as a thick burst of black blood spattered across his helm.

  “I’m coming with you,” Cyrus said. “I believe in you; we can do this.”

  There was silence between the screams, just for a beat. “Thank you,” Alaric said. “But you need not believe in me for my sake; it was I who believed in you when no one else did. I and others, some of whom you do not even know, who saw the seeds of that greatness in you. Your faith returned means more to me than you know, and I … apologize for speaking to you so brusquely when last we talked at Sanctuary.” The paladin’s face fell, and he held out a hand. The concussive force blast jumped forward from his palm, scattering the scourge for twenty feet in front of him, sending countless number of them flying off the bridge, clawing as they went, others struggling to stay on. “One tends to become attached to life the longer one lives it, you understand.”

  “Sure,” Cyrus said, batting away the scourge that lingered behind them, pinned between them and the others. “No one wants to die.”

  “True enough,” Alaric said, now still, the scourge before him regarding him carefully. “But most fear to tread on its ground, fear to go into it.” He swept a hand to the horde of scourge around them. “And why should they not, when this appears to be their future? The worst of it, the worst fear, to become something you don’t wish to be, to live in torment and agony for the rest of your days, to be reduced to less than yourself, a mindless thing with no purpose, no desire but to destroy.” He took a step toward Cyrus. “Thank you for your faith in me, my friend, my brother. I have something for you.”

  Cyrus blinked. “I’m sorry … what?”

  Alaric reached up. With his hand, he unfastened his gorget and removed it from his neck and grasped at a chain that lay across the back of it. He pulled it up, still keeping a wary eye on the scourge, cowed for the first time and staying at a distance, growling, waiting as their numbers reformed, their line gaining strength. Cyrus could see them preparing to charge, but he could not tear his eyes off Alaric, even as the Guildmaster removed the chain from his neck and brought with it a pendant, a small, circular object that was shadowed in the dark. He held it out to Cyrus, who looked at it for only a moment before glancing back to Alaric’s eyes under the helm.

  “Take it,” the Ghost said and used the hilt of his sword to push his helm up, then off the back of his head. It fell to the ground with a thunk and his face was exposed, long hair flapping behind him in the salt breeze. “Please.” Cyrus reached out and grasped the pendant by the chain, holding it up to look at it in the light. “Now hold tight to it,” Alaric said.

  Cyrus squinted past it, at Alaric. “What are you doing?”

  The Ghost looked at the enemy arrayed before them then back to the army of Sanctuary, which had moved back even a bit more, braced for the next attack of the scourge-relentless, unceasing. “My duty. You will see them to safety and protect Sanctuary.”

  Cyrus blinked. “What? Alaric-”

  The Ghost’s hand closed across Cyrus’s gauntleted arm. “Do as I ask. And one other thing.” Cyrus saw the warmth in Alaric’s eyes now, the regard, and it stirred something within him, goosepimples across his flesh, across his scalp. “Don’t be afraid.”

  With that, he pushed Cyrus back, causing the warrior to stumble and fall onto the hard stone of the bridge. Without looking back, Alaric took a step toward the scourge, letting his sword rest at his side behind him. The wind picked up, blowing across now from the west, from land, a hot breeze that whipped Alaric’s long hair all around him. He held up his hand at the scourge, and now they were charging again, twenty across, four-legged beasts galloping across the bridge toward Alaric, their tongues out and hanging low, salivating at the unguarded man there for the taking.

  The Ghost’s hand dipped, and Cyrus tensed; it would not hit the scourge, would not throw them back, and Alaric was undefended. He pushed hard against the ground, started to get up, but before he could, Alaric’s hand pulsed with a glow and the spell broke forth from it, slamming into the stone bridge.

  The effect was immediate; Alaric disappeared as the bridge broke and crumbled all around. Cyrus felt the ground shift underneath him and he was falling, falling down. He felt the cold splash of the water only a moment later, heard chunks of rock and stone from the bridge falling around him and swam madly to the side, as fast as he could, the waters roiling around him. He felt something threaten to suck him down as it passed to his right, and then he swam toward the light above, the brightness of the sun.

  His head broke the water and he gasped for breath, looking back to where he had come from. It was a spectacle of horror and amazement; the bridge had broken, and he could see the Sanctuary army still standing on the last segment of it remaining; the rest, stretching east toward Luukessia was gone, fallen into the sea, a white, churning foam and a few supports sticking out of the water the only sign that it had been there.

  “You all right down there?” Longwell’s voice reached him, and he looked up at the dragoon standing a hundred feet above him. “Can you swim?”

  “I’m fine,” Cyrus said and slid Praelior into its scabbard to use both hands to tread water. He felt oddly weightless, as though his head were swimming as well, f
loating in the water all on its own. “Do you see Alaric?” he called back to Longwell.

  The dragoon hesitated, and Terian’s head came over the side to look at him as well, followed by Odellan. “No,” Longwell said. “He’s …” The dragoon didn’t finish his thought, and he didn’t need to. “You need to start swimming, Cyrus. It’ll be a miracle if you make it to shore already without drowning …”

  But Cyrus couldn’t, wouldn’t. He swam toward the bridge, toward the nearest support pillar, and when he reached it he threw his hand up to grasp hold, and something clinked in his palm. He held up his hand, and something dangled from it, on a length of chain that was twisted around his wrist. It was a round medallion, no bigger than a large coin, with a pattern carved into it that he could not see in the shaded light under the bridge. He hesitated for only a moment before placing it over his head and around his neck, then grabbed hold of the support pillar and waited. I could swim down, perhaps. He cursed. In full armor? Foolish.

  The weight of the chain around his neck was almost insignificant, and yet it felt heavier than anything he had ever carried. Cyrus waited, watching the water where the bridge had stood, for minutes that turned into hours. He waited until past sundown for the Master of Sanctuary to rise from the depths, waited until his arms had begun to tire and his legs screamed they could hold him against the pillar no more. When there was no light to see by but the fires on the shore in the distance, he finally kicked loose of where he waited for the man they called the Ghost and began the long, slow swim toward home.

  Chapter 115

  Vara

  Day 223 of the Siege of Sanctuary

  She could hear the dark elves as they battered away at the doors outside. It was nearly a miracle that the defenders of Sanctuary had managed to do what they had, fought back to within the halls of Sanctuary and barred them shut. Their enemies clattered at the big, heavy, wooden doors, but she knew when they retreated that it would take time to move the battering ram inside the walls, time to take it forward, to carry it up the stairs and position it to break them down. And it would appear that the time has come-and ours has run out.

  She closed her eyes and could feel the fear around her in the huddled masses. “Nyad,” she said, and the elven princess came forth, startling her with her appearance. “Can you teleport us out of here-all of us? Somewhere safe, like Fertiss.”

  Nyad was always pale; she was paler than usual, now. “No,” she said simply. “The dark elves have positioned wizards outside; this entire area is under the effect of cessation spells.

  Vara looked at her in alarm, and held up her hand, casting the most elementary healing spell. There was no tingle, no power, nothing. “So this is it,” she whispered.

  “Nowhere to run,” came the rumble of Fortin, standing just behind the door, arms folded, his chest a scarring of dark, oozing substance that was thick as magma. “I like it better that way.”

  “I always prefer to have somewhere to run,” Vaste said, clutching his staff. “Of course, I’m not quite the fighter that you are, and perhaps a bit squishier, so that might have something to do with it.”

  There was a scream as the battering ram hit the doors again and a crack appeared in the wood. Vara composed herself, closing her eyes for a moment, taking a breath. When she opened them again, she spoke. “There is no escape,” she said, loudly, to all of them. “They mean to have us dead, or worse, as prisoners.”

  “Prisoners is worse?” Vaste asked, sotto voce. She shot him a blazing look. “Right,” he said. “Worse.”

  “I mean to leave them with nothing,” she said. “I will fight for every inch of this place, and they will kill me before taking me prisoner. If you wish to surrender, go to the basement, lock yourself inside and await your fate there. If you truly believe that letting them score a painless victory here will do the world we leave behind one bit of good, then flee. I, for one, find the thought of letting them leave here without a gaping, bloody scar to be so unpalatable I’m willing to throw myself in the path of this meatgrinder, to put a stick in the eye of the Sovereign’s war machine.” She bit down on her spite, choked on it. “I will make this bastard pay for every life he takes with ten of his own, and I will not yield until the last breath has fled my body. When they have hurt me so badly I can no longer walk, I will crawl, dagger in hand, in the direction of their boots and bury my blade in their ankles, pull them to my level and murder them unexpectedly.”

  There was a shocked silence before the battering ram hit the door again, and the door cracked slightly wider. “That’s the spirit,” Vaste said with false upbeatness. “Go for the ankles. They’ll need those for marching and stomping on our corpses. That’ll put a kink in the Sovereign’s efforts.”

  “If you want to leave,” Vara said, “now’s your chance. None of us will look down on you because you don’t want to die here, like this.”

  “Some of us actually will,” Vaste said, “but you should do it anyway, because embracing your inner coward in these last few moments will probably give you something to regret for the span of time it takes the dark elves to rape you to death. You know, like they do with all their prisoners.”

  There was a shocked silence as the battering ram hit home. “Stop helping me!” Vara hissed at him.

  The crowd grew quiet, no one daring to speak. Swords were drawn and clattered about against armor as people clutched them tight. Vara saw wizards pull daggers, druids grab logs from beside the fire to use as clubs, as her eyes slid over the crowd. Mendicant was nearby, clicking his claws together noiselessly as he shed his robes, joining a few of his fellow goblins nearby. They crouched low to the ground, skittering toward the doors, prepared to ambush the first enemies through. She felt a surge of pride in them. Andren was nearby, too, just behind them, a tankard in one hand and a knife in the other. Belkan and Thad, both bleeding profusely, stood just behind Fortin. There was a growling noise, a subtle one, and Vara noticed the wolves of Menlos Irontooth in the middle of the foyer, ready to spring. Alaric would be proud. We’ll not go down without a fight. Larana stood next to Erith and Nyad; the wizard and the healer held weapons of their own, a small blade in both cases, but the druid’s eyes were closed, a tear dripping down her cheek as she stood in utter silence, the very picture of despair.

  Aisling slipped between them all, sliding into the shadows near the door, and all Vara could see of the dark elf was the glistening of her blades, ready to strike at an exposed back. Let her have at it. I need all the help I can get at this point.

  She felt someone at her side and looked up to see Vaste, staring down at her, his staff in hand. “If it had to end this way,” Vaste said, “I’m glad it was you here to lead us. I can’t imagine a better voice of inspiration and fortitude than yours, here at the end of all our days.”

  She stared at him briefly then blinked as her face dissolved into disbelief. “You utter arse,” she said. “Can you not be serious for even one moment now, at the end?”

  His face stiffened in shock. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually was being serious. Just this once. Don’t tell anyone.”

  The battering ram hit home once more and the brace that held shut the great doors of Sanctuary broke loose along with the doors themselves. There was a cacophony from outside as the dark elves started in, around the fringes of the battering ram, streaming in at the sides, and were attacked by Fortin on one side and low-to-the-ground goblins on the other side. The first wave of the enemy fell quickly as the crew of the battering ram tried to remove the giant obstruction from the battle.

  “Why, Vaste,” she said, holding her sword high above her head, “whoever would I tell?” She let out a cry that was matched by a thousand more around her, and let her feet carry her forward, into what she knew beyond reason would be the last fight of her life.

  Chapter 116

  Cyrus

  He pulled himself ashore, barely there, crawling on all fours onto the sand. He spat the salt water out. It had begun to fill his no
se, his mouth, and all else. He coughed, bringing it up. The bridge was to his right, but there were fires in front of him, spread out all along the shore, but more to the north than south of the bridge, where he had come ashore. He looked toward the camp in front of him, but lay down on his back, studying the dancing flame from the top of his field of vision. He heard voices in that direction, but he cared little for who they might be or that they called out in alarm, met with voices from the bridge.

  Alaric …

  “Cyrus!” The sharp, clear voice was feminine and all too familiar. He looked up and saw figures running toward him across the sand, and he felt the tide come in again and wash over him. There was a strong whinny of a horse above him, and he dimly realized it was Windrider, standing above him with others. He blinked, and recognized Cattrine, who was now by his side, her face close to his. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m still alive,” Cyrus managed to get out. “Which is more than I can say for …” he almost choked on his words, “… some.”

  “What happened?” Cattrine asked. There were others, he could hear them, talking. “We saw the bridge come down, and then Windrider went mad, stamping and snorting. He didn’t stop until just a moment ago, when he went charging off down the shore and led us to you.”

  “Alaric came,” Cyrus said. “My Guildmaster. He …” Cyrus felt a lump in his throat and swallowed. “He destroyed the bridge, drowned the scourge. And he …” Cyrus let his voice trail off.

  Cattrine’s eyes flickered in the light of a torch someone was carrying nearby. “Oh, Cyrus … I’m so sorry.”

  “He saved us,” Cyrus said numbly, pushing himself to sit upright. “He saved us all.”

  There was noise at the base of the bridge, commotion and shouting, and Cyrus grasped Windrider’s reins, which dangled before him, and without warning the horse pulled him to standing then snorted at him. “Okay, then,” Cyrus said.