Crusader

Chapter 106

Vara

Day 221 of the Siege of Sanctuary

The battlements were in motion, a steady flow of people. The smell of them was strong, unwashed after a few days of long watches; Vara could even smell herself from under the armor. There had been only time for a few hours of sleep per night as the dark elves had begun a near-constant assault on the front gates. She looked down on the battering ram they were currently employing, hundreds of arrows sticking out of it in all directions, as the twenty or so dark elves carrying it were surrounded by an additional phalanx with shields to protect them. This situation needs Alaric’s touch. I dearly hope he’s on his way.

The sound was riotous, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them, ladders flung upward to the top of the wall every few minutes with a clack of wood against stone and thrown back down only moments later with screams. Of course, some of the screams came from atop the wall as well, Vara knew, as there were volleys of arrows coming at them thickly, like a diagonal rainstorm of shafts, fletchings, and arrowheads. She kept her head down and heard them whistling all around her, the occasional scream close by attesting to another poor soul who’d caught one. One came from beside her, presently, and she heard a scuffle. A ranger had an arrow sticking out of his eye and was shouting, his bow cast aside from where he had been using it to aim at the shielded enemy.

“Healer!” Vara called without looking back. She plucked the bow and arrow off the ground and fired blindly over the ramparts.

“You called, Shelas’akur?” Vaste’s droll voice came up behind her. “Ow, this one looks like it hurts. Eyeball, eh? Wouldn’t want him to end up as Alaric the Second.” A scream came from behind her but she didn’t bother to look, just plucked another arrow and fired. “Well, hold still, damn you,” Vaste said. “This arrow isn’t going to pull itself out, and I can’t exactly heal you with it still in your eye, can I? Oh, dammit!” There was a sound of a hard hit behind her and she jumped, looking back, forcing her back against the crenellation of stone. Vaste smiled weakly over the fallen ranger, who was unconscious with a blatantly broken jaw. “Sorry. I had to knock him out. I’ll fix it now.”

“Try not to enjoy yourself too much harming our allies,” Vara said, snagging the ranger’s quiver from his back and pulling it free, then blind-firing another arrow over the battlements.

“I can’t imagine you’re doing much good shooting like that,” Vaste said, his hands beginning to glow.

“I can’t imagine I’m not hitting something,” she replied, releasing another arrow, “seeing as the dark elves are filling the ground before us all the way to the horizon.”

“More of a random act of hoping to hit something?” Vaste asked, his healing spell complete, the ranger’s eye now open, unfocused, and returned to normal. “Sounds like a metaphor for my love life.”

“I would have to miss considerably more to make that an accurate metaphor.”

“So cruel,” Vaste said. He glanced to the left and right. “Need any more healing done here? Other than your bitterness-encrusted heart?”

“I would laugh,” Vara said tightly, firing again, “but I seem to be in the midst of a crisis that has my attention. Be assured, though, I am remembering this moment for later, and I will certainly give it due amusement at that time. By which I mean I’ll be sitting around later whilst reading and will perhaps spare a moment to frown at your ridiculousness.”

“So long as we all live to see that moment, I’m fine with that,” Vaste said, still on his knees. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to crawl down the ramparts a ways,” he pointed toward the gates to the left, “and assist that poor bastard who has an arrow sticking out of his buttock.” The troll sighed. “One would think that armor would protect against that sort of thing. And who do you think will have to pull it out? Why couldn’t it have happened to a short, swarthy human woman? I like those.”

Vara rolled her eyes. “I have things to be getting on with, troll. Be about your business.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Vaste said, beginning to crawl left, “I didn’t realize it was my presence keeping you from looking at where you were firing, I thought it was the ten thousand arrows that were filling the air like the worst cloud of mosquitos ever visited upon a swamp.”

She shook her head as he left. This is ridiculous, this press of the attack. She stuck her head out of the rampart for one second only, and saw that the battering ram was down again, wreathed in flames, and she spared only a little smile. Not today, Sovereign. Not today.

“They come again,” the voice was shot through with fatigue, but the figure appeared in a cloud of smoke, wafting off him in waves. “I see they’ve already fallen,” Alaric said, peering over the rampart as arrows flew through his exposed face and upper body. “Let us make this moderately more difficult on them.” Vara leaned her eyes over and felt an arrow clink! off her helm, causing her to blanch. She looked down upon the battering ram as Alaric’s force blast hit it and sent it rolling as though it had been kicked by a titan; it hit the ground and bounced five feet into the air and off the trodden road, bowling over a knot of dark elven soldiers, landing on them while still on fire. Their agonized screams blended into the chorus already filling the air. He fired another burst and the ram bounced again into the air from the force of his spell, this time even higher, almost ten feet, before it came down into another thicket of men.

Vara eyed the chaos that the paladin’s spell had caused; that injured over a hundred men and killed quite a few of them. “Satisfied yet?” she asked.

“No,” Alaric’s voice was gruff, uncaring. “Wizards! Druids!” he called, as though his words were amplified beyond a shout. “SEND THEM RUNNING!”

She watched as the flames rose around the walls, a burning, roiling firestorm ten feet high of interconnected fire spells that ate into the dark elven army surrounding them like little she had seen. It was not terribly thick-not like Mother’s-but it burned with a fury, lancing into the thickest concentrations of soldiers and raising the volume of screaming that filled the air by a considerable amount. Some began to flee, throwing the knot of soldiers around them into disarray and chaos, and Vara watched as a soldier fell and was trampled while attempting to escape. She ducked back behind the teeth of the wall and put her back against it. “Not bad, Alaric.”

“I told you,” the Ghost said, “they will not breach our walls.”

“Thanks to you,” she said.

“Courtesy of our wizards and druids,” he replied. “I have little to do with it save for sending their battering ram off course in a fit of pique. It will take them a few attempts to get it back to the road and in position again. That will cost them a few men.”

Vara gave him a nod. “A few men indee-” she tore her eyes from him at a blur of motion that came out of the tower to her right, a leather-clad figure who ran surefootedly, bent double, keeping her white hair low as she crossed the top of the rampart to reach them. Vara blinked in surprise as she registered recognition. “YOU!”

“Me,” the woman said, coming to a rest and kneeling next to where Alaric stood. “And you wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get here.” Her white hair was caked with dirt as was the rest of her outfit, leather armor and all.

“Aisling,” Alaric said mildly, peering down at the ranger. “You have returned to us. I would ask how, but I suspect ‘Why?’ is the more important question.”

“There’s a waste tunnel that leads to the river over there,” she waved in the distance toward the river Perda’s split, which rolled by outside the walls almost a mile away. “It’s a tight squeeze over a long distance, but I managed. Nyad, too-she teleported us in behind the army through the portal over there — ” she waved out the direction of the gate, “but she’s a little slower than I am after that trek.” She looked up at Alaric in seriousness. “Cyrus sent me to plead for your help. They’ve evacuated the whole of Luukessia.”

Alaric blinked at her, but said nothing. “Excuse me,” Vara said. “Did you say-”

“The whole land of Luukessia has fallen, yes,” Aisling said. “They’ve taken it, from one side to the other, killing …” There was a moment’s pause as the dark elf seemed to waver then compose herself. “We’ve managed to get the last of the survivors onto the bridge, and Cyrus and the others are staging a slow withdrawal and bridge defense, but …” she shook her head, “they need help. They need an army before the scourge breaks loose of the Endless Bridge … or we’ll be facing the same fight here that cost us Luukessia.”

Alaric stood silent, and Vara looked to him for guidance. He did not react openly, but she could see even in the slight twitch of his mouth that something roiled beneath the surface. “Alaric?” she asked. “The dark elves-”

“The lesser threat, now, I think,” Alaric said quietly. “How long until this scourge make landfall?”

“A day,” Aisling said. “Perhaps two. They’re strong, Alaric, too strong for us to hold back the tide of them forever.”

Alaric nodded. “Very well.” He looked out across the panorama of the army surrounding the curtain wall. The volume of arrows still flying through the air was considerably decreased. “I need you to find Ryin Ayend and bring him to me. He will be just down the wall in that direction, I think,” and the Ghost pointed to his right. “Tell him to hurry.”

Aisling nodded and was off at a run, bent over and moving at incredible speed and with enough grace that Vara felt a surge of jealousy as she had a flash where she saw Cyrus pressed against the dark elf in her mind, naked- “Alaric,” she said, throwing cold water upon that thought, “what do you intend?”

“It would appear Cyrus Davidon requires assistance,” Alaric said calmly, and he crouched down next to her. “I will go to him myself to render it.”

She frowned at him as though he were insane. “Alaric, one man will not be able to turn back the tide of these things that are coming, not if Cyrus’s reports or that diseased harpy,” she waved at Aisling’s retreating-and firm, she noted irritably-backside, “are to be believed. These things swept our army and the armies of three nations before them. What makes you think that they’ll do any different to you?”

Alaric stared at her through his helm, calmly impassive, but only for a moment before he smiled. “Have faith, Vara. I will take care of this. It is upon you to hold our home safe until my return.” His smile flickered. “Take care of yourself-and the others.”

She lay her head back against the wall behind her and caught a sudden waft of death far below. “How long will you be gone?”

He hesitated, an unusual thing for him to do. “As long as need be and not a moment more,” he answered finally. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and Ryin appeared, led by Aisling. She gave the dark elven woman a sneer, but it was halfhearted and she received only a coldly satisfied gaze in return. Alaric gave Ryin a nod. “Ladies,” Alaric said, “take care while I am away.” With that, the winds carried up around them, sweeping like a tornado around the ramparts, stirring Vara’s hair and rushing through the cracks in her armor to touch her skin while roaring in her ears. There was the taste of bitterness in her mouth as the wind settled, and Alaric was gone.

Chapter 107

Cyrus

The slog was hard, the salt air on his tongue along with the sweat that fell in drops with his exertion. The breeze kept him cool under the sun, but with every swing of Praelior he let another exhalation out, another muted curse at the things that came at him, black eyes, foul breath, no souls, and he took his fury out upon them. I’ve faced them for months, relentlessly, with all I had. This is the first time I can recall feeling so angry at them. He chanced a look back behind him; there was the faintest outline of land, far, far in the distance, barely visible even in the morning light. Hard to believe, that.

“You know,” Terian said conversationally, to his right, “I honestly thought that at some point, after as many of these things as we’ve killed, that they would eventually run out of them. But no, I guess thousands of years of dead kind of pile up, huh?”

“Less talking,” Longwell said, swinging his spear wide and sweeping five of the scourge over the edge of the bridge; he was to Cyrus’s far right, past Terian. Odellan and Scuddar were to his immediate left. I anchor the line in the middle. Another three came at him, all teeth. Where they aim their onslaught hardest. “More killing.”

There were black stains running along the stone they stood upon, the fresh evidence of the chaos they’d unleashed. It ran along the slight grade toward Arkaria, filling the carved lines in the bridge, the infinitesimally small gaps that didn’t seem like gaps at all to Cyrus, more like lines in the stone. Perfectly joined. No sign of mortar. The ancients must have been impressive indeed to have built this.

“Augh!” There was a cry to Cyrus’s left, and he saw Odellan fall, his arm in the mouth of one of the creatures. Cyrus slashed forward, tightening his distance to the elf. He felt Terian move a little closer to the center of the bridge to compensate.

“It’s all right,” Curatio called from behind them. “I’ve got him.” There was a moment that passed, as Cyrus cut the head from the scourge that had Odellan’s wrist, and he watched it fall away. “As much as they keep pushing you back,” the healer called, “be thankful that they don’t do much damage.”

“At this point I’m just thankful that we have ground left to give,” Odellan said, looking back behind them before unleashing a savage flurry on the next scourge to come forward at him in a lunge. “Thank you,” he said to Cyrus.

“Not a problem,” Cyrus replied, moving back to the center. He could sense Terian ease back to his lane of the bridge, as though they were moving in perfect synch. “Just like old times, huh?”

“I’m afraid that this is playing out much more like my defense of the Northbridge than your defense of the Grand Span,” Odellan said tensely as he brought his sword around and parried one of the scourge, letting it carry past him and into the waiting blades of the second line. Martaina and two warriors killed it quickly, before it had a chance to halt its forward momentum from the jump or turn on any of them.

“Aye,” Cyrus said. “And that’s not the best of signs for any of us, considering how it all turned out on the balance.”

“At least they can’t flank us,” Terian said. “Unless somehow they can crawl under the surface of the bridge.” His voice turned pensive. “Please tell me they can’t do that.”

“Let’s hope not,” Cyrus said, running Praelior across the face of a scourge and then taking the left shoulder off another before stomping it in the face, caving in its skull and killing it. He shot a look at the dark knight. “I know you’re not doing this for me, but I appreciate you being here nonetheless.”

“You’re welcome,” Terian said simply. “And you’re right.” He brought the red sword down in a long arc that caught a leaping scourge across the nose as it jumped, its momentum arrested and thrown off to the side with the power of Terian’s stroke. “I’m not doing this for you.”

“Then what are you doing it for?” Cyrus asked as he was forced to take another step back to parry a particularly aggressive and coordinated swiping attack from three scourge.

“I have my reasons,” Terian muttered, almost too low to be heard.

The sun rose higher in the sky as the day wore on. They gave ground steadily, and with every step and every furtive look back, Cyrus’s unease grew. The tension in his belly became intense, roiling, meshing with the acid in his stomach that allowed him to ignore the fact that he hadn’t eaten since the battle had begun earlier in the day. The horsemen were well out of sight now, the only remaining forces were the Sanctuary army-the last line of defense before these things hit Arkaria. And we’re failing. Slowly, but just as sure as if it were quick.

The sun began to set as Cyrus’s muscles grew weary. He watched as his comrades grew slower, their arms wearying, but carrying on. Others came up, here and there, to spell them for a bit. Cyrus waved them off each time, the relief strong but not strong enough. Not as strong as me. Not as determined. They lose ground quicker. He tried to push forward and a scourge leapt forward and smashed into him. He held, swinging his blade at the beast, putting it through its heart, and he took another step forward but was driven back by a scampering rush of two of them, coming at him like dogs, their claws clicking on the stone as they tried to bowl him over. He ended them both with quick sword thrusts, dodging the teeth as they came at him but losing two feet in the process.

Two feet might as well be a mile, because it adds up to one when you lose it enough times. The sun had set, and he could no longer see the outline of Arkaria’s shore, but he saw lights upon it in the distance, campfires from the Luukessian refugees. Driven from their homes into ours, and they may still die here. “Flame!” Cyrus called, and spells swept forward across the bridge, creating a scouring line as he took a deep breath, in and out. He watched Odellan slump, taking the moment’s respite. Scuddar seemed to stand stiffly straight, while Longwell leaned on his lance. Terian stood next to Cyrus, though, hands on his sword, blade planted down, as though he were drawing strength directly from the stone of the bridge.

Night came, swirling with a thousand stars in the sky. Cyrus called for flame as often as he could, sucking down a skin full of water each time, making water when needed, taking a loaf of bread and eating as much as he could during the small breaks they were afforded, never more than five minutes or so at a time so as to give the small number of druids and wizards that remained a chance to refresh themselves.

It went on, the smell of death and fire, of roasted, rotted flesh all combined into one. The screams of the scourge dying rolled on, too, along with the lapping of the water against the pillars of the bridge in quieter moments and the crackle when the flame spells came down, roaring and raging against the enemy that came, unstoppably, before them.

“This may be the longest night of my life,” Cyrus muttered to himself as the fire roared to life again. He saw black eyes watching him through the inferno, waiting, pacing on the other side.

“Worse than Termina?” Terian asked, winded, to his right. “You know, I wasn’t there for that, and I have to say … I am not sorry I missed it.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Cyrus said. “The worst parts were when an Unter’adon nearly ripped my head off with a ball and chain-”

“He brought his wife to the fight?” Odellan asked quietly. Heads swiveled, and the elf shrugged. “I can joke, too. It just happens infrequently.”

“Let me guess,” Terian said. “The other bad part was when a dark knight nearly ripped you in half with a sword.”

“Aye,” Cyrus said as the wall of flame began to fade. “I had leapt into the midst of the army of dark elves because they had healers. They kept saving our enemies-I’d chop one down and he’d spring back up behind me a moment later. I took one out, but there was another. I ripped into the middle of their line, threw myself forward, killed him, but I got stabbed a few times in the process.” He raised Praelior and took the blade to the first scourge to charge off the line, severing the head and ripping the jaw off the next, causing it to make a guttural scream. “It was then that I was attacked by the dark knight.”

“Bad timing,” Terian muttered. “If he’d caught you fresh it would have been a hell of a fight. Maybe even one for the ages.”

“Maybe not,” Cyrus said. “His spells were doubtless strong; he might have just been the end of me with that one that rips the breath of life out of you.”

“Oh, yes,” Terian said and extended his hand to a scourge, let it glow slightly purple and a scream tore out of the scourge’s lips as it fell to the ground, dead. “That’s a good one. But you had a healer, didn’t you?”

“I was out of their range when the fight started,” Cyrus said. “Being behind the enemy lines and all.”

“Still,” Terian said, “as a dark knight, I expect to beat a warrior with a healer, not independently.” He stiffened as he cut another scourge to pieces mid-leap with his blade, which he brandished in front of him. It glowed in the dark, reflecting against him, revealing a solemnity Cyrus had rarely seen on the dark elf’s face. “It’s how I was trained.” He swung the blade back into motion.

“Did he teach you everything?” Cyrus asked, forced to parry an incoming scourge that went too low for him to effectively hit. “About how to fight?”

Terian did not respond for a long moment, and the sounds of his heavy exertions hung in the air between them instead. “No. Not nearly everything.”

The night dragged on as did the war for ground. When the first rays of the sun crept over the horizon, there was a gasp when Cyrus looked back; the green and verdant shores of Arkaria were well in sight, the jungle past the beach was visible, the trees swaying in the wind.

“Hours,” Odellan said next to him. “Few enough of them, too.”

Cyrus felt his teeth grit unintentionally. Damn it. He felt the strength in his arms return, the weariness fade, replaced by an anger that brewed deep inside. He looked back to the enemy. Breathing deep, furious breaths, he clutched Praelior tighter and ripped into the flesh of the first of them that came at him, shredding it and sending it mewling to the side of the bridge and over the edge with the fury of his attack; it took two others with it from sheer force. Cyrus let out a warcry, a soul-deep shout of rage that did not even slow the scourge as it advanced at him. There was a rumble after that, and he both heard and felt it, a shake in his legs from the motion, and it gave him pause.

The breeze cut over from the sea, just for a moment, shifting off the scourge’s stink of death. It felt warm, as though the chill of the night had dissipated. Cyrus’s eyes sharpened, his ears listened closer for the sound of thunder in the distance. No. Not thunder. He looked, and beyond the farthest reach of the enemy he could see it, a massive head and body, lengths above the height of a normal scourge. A cold chill came over him, the clutch of something unpredictable-unfelt-unexpected.

Fear.

Chapter 108

Vara

Day 223 of the Siege of Sanctuary

“Is this all you have?” she shouted over the crenellation of the wall, through the gap between it and the next, the teeth of the rampart. She threw an arm out and sent a blast of force at the nearest tower to her and watched it hit, blasting the supports out of the second level of it. She cast again, a quick incantation, and scored another hit as the siege machine crashed down upon the dark elves below it. Bodies fell in a wave all around it, like a stone dropping into the water sends out ripples.

She took a breath; the smell had worsened atop the wall, both from the unwashed bodies above and the dead in rot below. They keep pressing toward the mark, though, don’t they? And they surely did; the advance had not relented since Alaric had left two days earlier.

The sound was still an uproar, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them yet, minus however many were dead around the walls. She let her hand clink against her armor, bracing herself against the battlements. “Come on, then,” she whispered, more to herself than them. “Is this all you have?”

“You just have to go and tempt the gods with that, don’t you?” She turned to see Andren slumped, much as she had seen him before, his flask in hand, taking a swig while shaking his head at her. “They’re vengeful, you know. Lightning and fire and all that. They’ll get you back for that.”

“I welcome them to try,” she said, looking back over the rampart. “Hmm. They’ve brought more of their armored trolls, it would appear.” Lightning streaked past her head from a spell. “And wizards, too.”

She chanced a look at Andren, who shook his head. “Lightning. I warned you.”

She breathed again deeply, twice, and dipped her head and hand over the wall. Another siege tower rolled forward and she aimed for it but pulled back as it burst into flame. Down the wall she saw Larana throw fire at another one then dodge behind a crenellation as a volley of arrows targeted her segment for bombardment.

“Don’t they know by now we can kill their siege towers?” Andren asked, looking slightly sideways, just for a second, around the battlement, before dodging back as an arrow shot past his head. For that, he took another drink.

“Certainly,” she replied and dodged out to fire twice at ladder-bearing enemies. The two in front were blasted clear and the ladder dipped, hitting the ground and causing the dark elves at the back to stumble. “But every one they push forward is another distraction for us.” She turned her head to look at the gates. “Soon enough they’ll have their battering ram back in service …” She let her voice trail off as she stared at the battering ram. It was unmoving, with only a few dark elves hiding behind it for cover. “That’s odd.”

“We’re being bombarded by enemy arrows numbering in the millions,” Andren said, “siege towers are rolling across our fields as fast as the dark elves can push them. Tell me, in the midst of all that, what is odd? Flying mounts? Because I’ve seen those before.” He looked skyward for just a moment. “Actually, I’m surprised I don’t see them right now.”

“They’re rare and valuable enough that surely the Sovereign wants to keep them for an assault on the Elven Kingdom if he needs to,” she answered almost by rote instinct. “No, they’re not making any efforts with the battering ram.” She turned to look at the siege towers. “But neither are their siege towers making the sort of progress which would inspire one to halt their efforts there.” She frowned. “Which begs the question of why-”

It was not even before she got the words out that the explosion rocked the battlements and the stone arch above the gate disintegrated in a cloud of flame and debris. Her head ached and she realized she was lying flat, her cheek pressed against the stone of the curtain wall. She lifted herself up, tasted blood in her mouth and felt the sting on her lip where she must surely have bit it. There was a ringing in her ears, as though someone was calling her to worship with a bell just outside her helm, and she had to blink to see clearly. Somewhere, faintly, in the distance, there was a roar, and as she pushed herself to her feet she felt a deep disquiet, a certainty-fear, she realized, as she whipped around to look at the gate, where the dust and cloud of smoke had already begun to clear, leaving a twenty-foot-wide gap in the wall where the gate had fallen, and already there rushed an onslaught of dark elves-banding up, filling in, like water rushing forward into a crack.

The dark elves had entered the grounds of Sanctuary.

Chapter 109

Cyrus

The fear did not pass, not as Cyrus expected it to. Imagine the arena, imagine the sand beneath my feet, the smell of- All that came to his mind was left behind as Drettanden, the God of Courage-or what remains of him-came forth, knocking aside his own allies, clearing the bridge as he went.

“Not good,” Odellan said. “Any plan to stop this thing?”

“Flame!” Cyrus called out, and a moment later the wall of fire dropped down in front of them, ten feet high. Cyrus could see through the jumping inferno as the smaller scourge stopped. He blinked; He’s not stopping!

Drettanden kept on, charging along the bridge, and sped up as he came to the flames. With only a second’s warning, he jumped, half clearing the massive wall of fire that crossed the stone bridge, dividing it off.

“DIVE!” Cyrus called and jumped sideways, slamming into Terian, who reacted just a second more slowly than he had. Cyrus’s head hit the inside of his armor, hard, and jarred him as it did so. The two of them spun off, just out of the way of the beast’s massive paw as it came down where Cyrus had been only a moment before. He watched the one on the other side catch Odellan in the chest, and the elf had only the briefest chance to scream before he was caught underfoot in a sickening crunch of bone and blood, as red liquid squirted out from the place where Drettanden had landed.

“You SON OF A BITCH!” Cyrus forced himself upright, sword in hand. He waved Praelior in the sunlight at the creature, “you see this?” Drettanden’s head snapped into line with him. “Was this yours? Well, it’s mine now!” He brought it back, ready to swing. “If you want it, come and take it.”

“Bad idea,” Terian said from behind him. “That thing’s pretty big, it might just do it-”

Without warning, Drettanden swiped out with a paw the size of a dwarf, and Cyrus used all the speed that Praelior gave him to surge forward and attack it. He met the blow head-on, sword extended-Just like with Mortus-and when it sent him flying he had the momentary satisfaction of knowing that the howl he heard was his foe in pain.

He lay there, staring up at the clouds, the dawn and the horizon. It was bright, the sun, shining down on him, and the sound of sea gulls not far away was almost peaceful somehow. There was pain, but it was distant, already fading. He felt his fingers curled around the weapon in his hand, and the thought came to him. Praelior, the Champion’s Sword. Made by the God of Courage. Did he fight to the death to keep it when they came for him? He felt a smile crack his face, realized there was a tooth out of place in his mouth and pressed his tongue idly against it. Did he show courage at the last? Did he fight til the end or cower? Because that would be quite the irony, wouldn’t it …? the God of Courage, filled with fear …

“Get up,” Curatio said, shaking him.

Cyrus felt the life flood back to his limbs, and the pain went to a dull ache, replaced in his guts with a blinding rage. He vaulted to his feet and came up to the spectacle of a battle on the bridge. Drettanden was covered with arrows all over his grey flesh. A flame spell hit him in the face as he shrugged it off, roaring and snapping into a Sanctuary ranger who Cyrus didn’t get a good look at before the man was gone, devoured whole, red staining the teeth and lips of the beast. The wall of flame remained behind Drettanden, cutting off the smaller scourge, keeping the flood of them from coming forward and overwhelming the Sanctuary army, which was already hesitating; he could feel it.

He cried out again, a bellow of fury, and leapt through the air after a few running steps, and buried his sword in an upper leg. Just like a dragon, only it can’t fly. Dangerous mouth. He could feel his mind breaking it down. I ran at Kalam, went right at his face. I taunted the Dragonlord into making some stupid mistakes. I came at Mortus head-on, I won-with help. Hacked him to pieces. “Sanctuary!” Cyrus called out. “To me!” He buried his blade again in the upper thigh and let himself slide down as the leg kicked and kicked again, as though Drettanden were a dog trying to rid himself of a flea.

Cyrus took the chance. He planted both feet then backflipped, withdrawing his sword as he did so. He landed perfectly, the balance granted by Praelior saving him from a catastrophic landing. Agility. Speed. Hostility. He cannot match me in these ways. Drettanden let out a roar that flattened the Sanctuary ranger standing in front of him.

Maybe the hostility.

Cyrus brought back the sword and hacked at the tendon at the back of the leg, drawing a sharp cry from Drettanden. Cyrus dodged the back kick that followed and slunk back as the former god swiveled to face him. Cyrus let him come, dodged into the blind spot behind the neck and raked his sword across the fold at the back of the jaw, sending a slick line of black blood whipping across the ground. He struck twice more, pivoting and rolling against the body of Drettanden as the creature turned, bouncing off and using its own momentum against it. Here’s a trick I bet you haven’t seen before, outrunning you with your own strength. At the last move, he spun again out in front and brought his sword across the creature’s flat nose, drawing a screech of pain that caused it to buck its head.

The nose hit Cyrus perfectly in the arm, numbing it to the elbow and sending him flying. As he was tossed through the air, he saw the battle unfolding. Odellan, pulled off to the side, alive again but a mess, nowhere near ready for combat. Scuddar, lingering in the shadow of a supporting pillar of the bridge, his scimitar raised and attacking Drettanden’s tail. Longwell, backed almost to the firewall, his lance gone-no, buried in the side of the beast-sticking out like a splinter of wood. Cyrus felt all the air leave him as he hit the ground, his head slammed against the hard stone, and then felt the ground give way around him.

Edge-

His good hand reached out, scraping against the stone surface, and he caught himself just as he started to fall over. The jarring ran down his whole arm, all the way up to the shoulder where he felt the scream of pain, agonizing, ligaments tearing and protesting as he held his own weight and all that of his armor with one hand. He hung there, fingers tight against the stone, as he fought to get the other up to grip the edge. A blast of foul, rotting breath hit him in the face like a physical blow and he recoiled. His eyes danced toward the shore, miles and miles off. Not in this armor. Not on a day when I was fully rested, let alone one where I’ve fought without sleep nor a good meal in over a day …

The face of Drettanden appeared over him, at the edge, looking down. The red eyes twitched, and Cyrus could hear pain being inflicted on the creature by the Sanctuary army behind him. It doesn’t care. It stared at him, two red abysses looking deep into his own eyes, and Cyrus watched the dead god raise his foot, five claws hanging off the grey flesh-raised it and brought it down-

Chapter 110

He remembered the arena in a flash, like the rumored last memory that came before certain death. It was more than a feeling, more than words; it was everything about the experience, all summed up in something that lasted a mere second of time but encompassed so much else beyond that.

Six. I was six.

The man’s name was Erkhardt, and Cyrus knew him only in passing. A dwarf he was, the one who had waited outside the Society the night that Cyrus had been brought back as a child. The dwarf smelled of old leather and wafts of something else, a strong, fermented scent. He stood before young Cyrus, in the arena, the quiet all around them. Cyrus shuddered, the chill in the air from winter. His eyes caught the glint of the still-burning candles off the axe slung over the dwarf’s shoulder, a battle axe with a blade wider than Cyrus’s entire body. He shivered again, rubbing his hands against his bare arms; since being assigned no blood family, the clothing that was fought over once per month when new skins and cloth came in had been too difficult for him to secure. Blood Families stick together for everything. Cyrus was small, too small to fight them all. Put me against the ones my own age and I’d-but I can’t, the others are too big, they’re just too big, and the Guildmaster will-

“Listen,” the dwarf said.

Cyrus did. He was not allowed to address any of the trainers unless they asked him for a response. None of the others even addressed him individually, let alone found him where he hid in the night and bade him to follow them to the arena.

“Do you hear that?” Erkhardt asked.

“No,” Cyrus said, his voice unusually small even to him.

“That’s silence, lad,” the dwarf said with a slight smile, one finger held in the air. “The silence of rest. You’ve learned to hide yourself; that’s good. It’ll be necessary until you get bigger, big enough to fight them. You’ll be a big lad too, no doubt. Until then … you need to learn something.”

Cyrus waited, patiently. I will not speak until spoken to, I will not speak until spoken to, ran through his head over and over. He felt a weak memory of pain radiating from his lip until that lesson had sunk in. There was a question, though, one that he wanted, needed to ask, couldn’t contain anymore. “Can you take my fear away?”

The dwarf blinked at him. “Sorry, what?”

Cyrus swallowed, hard. “What the Guildmaster said on the first day. He said he could teach us to be without fear. I don’t … I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

Erkhardt surveyed him with a solemn eye. “What are you afraid of?”

Cyrus swallowed, hard. “Everything.”

The dwarf gave him a subtle nod. “You need not fear everything. And I don’t know that there’s any man who is truly fearless.”

“But the Guildmaster said-”

“The Guildmaster,” Erkhardt says, “fears many things. Bellarum, for one. The Leagues and the Council of Twelve, for others. Listen,” he knelt down, just slightly, to put his hand on Cyrus’s shoulder. Cyrus stared at the subtle pressure in surprise; no one had touched him since the night he’d returned to the Society for any purpose other than striking him. “The only way a man can be truly fearless is to care for absolutely nothing, including his own life. That’s a dark road, and few enough men can become soulless enough to pull it off.” He gave Cyrus a reassuring smile. “If you want courage-which is the virtue of being able to look fear in the face in spite of all the daunting it would give you, well, that’s something I can tell you about.”

Cyrus felt his lips crack open and the words desperately wanted to come out in a plea, begging for the how. Instead he remained silent.

“To put aside fear,” Erkhardt said, “you must confront it. Courage is standing up to it, facing it. Pain, suffering,” he put a hand on Cyrus’s jaw and a slight twinge radiated out from it from where he had been hit a week earlier. “These are normal things to fear. If you want to master fear, stare it in the eyes.” Erkhardt stood. “And if you want to be able to face it harder than any other man you know, then find something … something you truly can believe in, put your faith in, your trust in … and you fight for that thing. Or that person.” Erkhardt looked out the sidelong path up the arena steps. “They won’t tell you that here. They’ll tell you about the God of War, they’ll tell you to believe in him. I carry my doubts that that’s the best way to proceed. But I’ll tell you this, a man who’s fighting for something he believes in will fight ten times as hard and look worlds more fearless than a man who cares for nothing, believes in nothing. An empty soul means when times become hardest, it doesn’t matter that you’re fearless, because you’re not going to fight for anything but yourself anyway.”

Cyrus looked into those dark eyes, saw the warmth in them-the last warmth I saw for some time after that, the adult Cyrus remembered-and listened. “Now,” Erkhardt says, “there’s something you need to learn before I leave this place. Something more important than believing …”

Cyrus blinked and the memory, the feeling, was no more than that. His fingers strained at the edge of the bridge, the sun beat down overhead on the face of Drettanden, and those red eyes stared back at him. The smell of salt air from the sea wafted under his nose, his knuckles ached and longed to be set loose, and he wondered in that moment if there was, in fact, anything left to believe in.