Crusader

Chapter 39

“That was unnecessary, Cyrus,” Curatio said, stepping out of the circle that had grown to surround them and pausing by Terian’s side. “He was humbled, defeated.” Curatio thought about it for a moment. “Well, he was defeated anyway.” A glow encompassed his hand, and he brought it down to Terian’s face. Cyrus watched the dark knight stir back to life. Blood proceeded to geyser out of his open throat until Curatio’s healing spell took hold and the wounds were mended, new skin stretching to fill the gaps rent by Cyrus’s blade as his hand was joined back to his arm. “Terian,” Curatio said, “you know what’s to happen now.”

“I won’t go,” Terian said, his eyes dull as he retched, his hand reaching up to his neck and wiping the blood from the newly knit flesh found there. “Let me loose here, in the wilderness, and I’ll make my own way.”

“And a month or a year from now, I find a blade in my back?” Cyrus turned Praelior back to rest above Terian’s face. “I think not.”

“You’ll be bound,” Curatio said to Terian. “Tied, gagged, and put ahorse, allowed to eat only under the watch of the cessation spell-”

“I am seriously enjoying the irony of this,” Partus called from somewhere in the circle. “It’s quite delightful, Terian-you’ll come to enjoy the taste of having a rock on your tongue at all times, and having to have someone unbind you to make water.”

“I won’t,” Terian said, eyes blazing. His hand came up at Cyrus and the warrior brought Praelior up to slash it off again-

“Enough,” Curatio said, and turned the blade aside then watched Terian, whose hand went limp in front of him as the dark knight’s face fell. He looked to Aisling, who was standing off to the side, a thick coil of rope in her hands. “Bind him.”

“No-” Terian said, but Longwell and Scuddar came forward and restrained him, turning him over and grinding his face into the dirt as Aisling wrapped the ropes around his hands and feet then gagged him with a rock, a cloth, and a rope for good measure. The dark knight writhed on the ground when they were done, his hands and feet bound separately, securing each wrist to the other, each leg to its match at the ankle and a coil tied the two together, inadvertently putting Terian into an seated position. Silence pervaded the circle around him, as though everyone was afraid that speaking might make them complicit in whatever crime the dark knight had committed.

“Terian Lepos,” Curatio began, “you have been accused of attempting to murder your general. You will be returned to Sanctuary at our earliest convenience to be judged by a tribunal of your fellow officers, and we’ll decide from there what’s meant to be done with you.” He stared at the dark knight, who refused to meet the healer’s gaze. “And I, for one, am greatly disappointed in you.”

Cyrus could see the glare of contempt that Terian leveled at the ground, not turning it anywhere near Curatio. The healer crossed the space between them and placed a gentle hand on Cyrus’s shoulder, leading him away from where Terian sat, silent, not bothering to struggle against his bonds. “You didn’t have to kill him, you know. I thought you’d learned your lesson about revenge.”

“That wasn’t revenge,” Cyrus said. “That was warning. I knew you’d bring him back, that he’d be dragged along with us. I need him to be afraid, to think I’d kill him if he got out of line.”

Curatio stopped, his hand still on Cyrus’s shoulder. “It is good to have you back.” The healer’s eyes flicked from Cyrus to away, in the distance. “I confess, I had thought we had seen your certain end when we saw you ride off to the west.”

“Nothing is certain as regards my end,” Cyrus said, “save for that it is not yet here.” Something flared in his mind, the memory of where the journey had taken Aisling and him. “Curatio, those things-they come from-”

“The Realm of Death,” Curatio said quietly. “Yes, we know. J’anda saw into one of their minds, remember? He saw that they were the spirits unleashed when Mortus died, that they have come through a portal and been made substantial. How did you know?”

“We found the portal,” Cyrus said. “It was in the back of a cave we took refuge in on the first night, during the snow. We went inside, thinking it might be an avenue of escape.” He looked down in anguish. “There are more of them, Curatio. Countless more. Think about when those things broke loose from the Eusian Tower, there were enough of them to blot out the red sky of the entire realm.”

“I know,” Curatio said. “More than I’d care to count, that’s for certain. All Mortus’s prisoners, his damned souls, and all they need do to receive physical form-albeit a horrific one-is to step through a portal, and a faded shadow of life becomes theirs once more.”

“But how is it possible?” Cyrus asked. “Those … things … are they alive?”

“Close enough,” J’anda said, slipping up to join them. “They were dead, all of them, in torment from Mortus’s efforts to keep them imprisoned, enslaved … now they are loosed, and after arriving through the portal they have form and substance. Not life, as you or I would define it, with need and want and reason. But they have desire. They have hunger. They crave flesh and pain, and would visit it upon whomever they encounter.” He shook his head. “They are not mindless beasts; they will coordinate, attack, and they aim to harvest and kill every piece of idle flesh on this continent, to have every soul they can rest between their teeth to join them-in death.”

“So you’re saying that thousands of years of torment have left them slightly bitter and resentful of us living folk?” Cyrus asked. “Oh, joy.” He took a breath. “How many have made it over thus far?”

J’anda shrugged. “Numbers are meaningless to them. They’re smarter than beasts, but all the torment has left them lacking in will. They move in packs, in herds, and finding fresh prey seems to be their only concern. More will come, as they continue to seek new flesh. I sense that others have tried to explore the other portal-the one that leads to the Island of Mortus in the Bay of Lost Souls-but that their efforts there are fruitless, and they have turned all their focus to this one, with the promise of flesh both tantalizing and near. The one that came down to us, to the swamps? I suspect it was a newer soul, one less paralyzed into group action.” J’anda shrugged. “That is but a theory, though. Who knows what they will do, how many will come?”

“But you have a suspicion, right?” Cyrus asked. “You were inside one of their minds, you looked around. What do you think they’ll do?”

J’anda was slow to respond. “I have already told the others this. I suspect they will go in the direction of flesh. If there is no prey north or east or west, then they will come south. They can sense life at a great distance and desire to extinguish it. It is a predatory need for them, a relentless hunger, a jealousy that crosses to obsession. They will keep coming as long as there is life in front of them.” J’anda became withdrawn, his voice quiet, hollow, and he stared past Cyrus as he spoke. “Until there is no more life left.”