Crusader

Chapter 114

Cyrus

It was nearing night now, and the end of the bridge was close, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. The sweat poured off him in gallons, he was certain, as though his whole skin were drenched with it and the blood of the scourge, that foul-black stuff that had smelled of death only this morning. The gasping of those fighting on the line beside him was strong but not overwhelming, and Cyrus could scarcely feel his arms but to know that they were there, and that Praelior was in a death-grip in his right hand, ready to deal out whatever destruction he saw fit to mete.

“Running out of time,” Terian’s call was calm, calmer than Cyrus thought it should be given the circumstances.

“And to think,” Longwell said, driving a lance through three of the scourge to the far right of Cyrus, “I could have been mouldering and dead on the shores of my homeland right now. Instead I get to watch us fail here and see these things delivered upon the shores of Arkaria.” He almost sounded mocking, but there was no joy in it. “I can’t thank you enough for saving me so I could witness this day. Truly, it will haunt me for all the rest of my life, all six months of it, should the pattern of Luukessia hold.”

“I don’t wish to see these days, either,” Odellan said darkly. “To think of what we’ve wrought on the people already dead is almost too much to bear. To add Arkaria to it is a frightful thing, not worthy of contemplation. I would rather die here than watch my land go slowly into the devouring mouths of these things the way we watched Luukessia go. Better to finish out swiftly than the slow slide, like ailing to death.”

There was silence for only a moment before Alaric spoke from Cyrus’s left, his blade always in motion and faster than even Cyrus’s had been. “I find it dispiriting, your lack of faith that we can stop these beasts before they reach the shore.”

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, floating 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.