Crusader

Chapter 40

The ride back to Enrant Monge took a month, a month during which the expedition was quiet. Cyrus spoke at length with Count Ranson on the day after his return, and with the envoy from Actaluere; all were agreed that the scourge was serious, and a threat to every Kingdom in Luukessia.

“Those creatures are beasts,” the envoy from Actaluere, a pompous snot named Reygner, sniffed, “and their numbers are vast, but there is a very clear danger in what they can do to us, to our land. I intend to press my King to send immediate aid north. There will be plenty of time to make war amongst ourselves after these foreign creatures are expelled from Luukessia.” Cyrus did not bother to dispel the man’s perception of the scourge’s intellect.

Ranson had been less forthcoming. “I intend to tell the King what I have seen,” the count told Cyrus later, away from the rest of expedition, “but I do not expect he will listen. I mean-ancestors, man! We saw an army of Syloreas torn to pieces, a host of these beasts, but not so many that a firm defense wouldn’t sway them or cause them to go down in defeat.” He shook his head in frustration. “I will urge him to action, especially as you say there are numerous more of these things, but I expect he’ll take my counsel and pick out only the parts that appeal to him.”

“Oh?” Cyrus asked. “What parts are those?”

Ranson hesitated before answering. “Sylorean Army, torn to pieces.”

“What will you do, Count?”

“I will do nothing I am not ordered to,” Ranson snapped. “To do otherwise is treason of the highest order, and I have no desire to oppose my Sovereign and sign my own death order when I could avoid it.”

“And if your treason could save your people?” Cyrus watched Ranson, whose face fell.

“I doubt it could,” Ranson said. “We have not seen the full force of these things, in any case. You say there are more, but I ask you how you know this? Yes, yes,” he waved off Cyrus, “I have heard your explanation, of gods and tormented souls released, but such thoughts seem ridiculous to me, just as they will to any other in Luukessia that you tell. Ancestor worship is our philosophy, not mythical gods or all-powerful beings.”

“Fine,” Cyrus said, “then call them your tormented ancestors, returning to visit their pain and anguish upon you for all their sins past.”

“Ancestors!” Ranson cursed. “It makes it sound all the more ridiculous when you say it that way.”

After Ranson had ridden away, off to the other side of the procession, Curatio brought his horse alongside Cyrus. “It does sound ridiculous, you know.”

“That an army of tormented dead that we unleashed is visiting all manner of hell upon the northern reaches of a land most of us had never even heard of until a few months ago?” Cyrus looked at Curatio, and found a certain irony that allowed him to smile rather than weep. “I can’t imagine why any part of that statement would strain the credibility of the person who spoke it and professed to believe it.”

“Nor can I,” Curatio said, with only a little irony of his own. “Yet all levity aside, this is the truth that we are faced with. We are culpable for whatever happens here, because we were the ones who killed Mortus.”

“I don’t want to think about it that way,” Cyrus said, and looked away from the healer abruptly.

“You may not want to,” Curatio said, “but I suspect that your wants are unlikely to stop your mind from wandering in that direction.”

“Aye,” Cyrus said in a whisper, “there has indeed been some wandering. But it’s not all that is on my mind.”

“Hmmm,” Curatio said, “betrayal, backstabbing, deception, abandonment, duels to the death, arguments with women, deeply conflicted feelings, and an army unlike any we’ve ever seen on the march toward the civilizations of this land. I can’t imagine what else you might be thinking about.” After a moment’s pause, the healer said something else, more conciliatory. “Try not to let it all weigh you down.” Without another word, he urged his horse forward and left Cyrus riding alone.

But he was not alone that night, later, when he found a spring in the woods near the site of their camp. When his clothes and armor came off, the sound in the brush made him reach for his sword. His fingers dangled on the hilt when a single twig snapping turned him in the direction of the presence.

Aisling stepped out of the shadows, and wordlessly removed her clothing, slipping into the spring with him. There was more passion in her kisses than usual, and Cyrus returned them, every one, with just as much, craving her, wanting to feel the sweet bliss of forgetfulness. He found he wanted the tender moments of peace that only she could give him, where everything else was by the wayside.

When they were done, they did not exchange a word, but she aided him in washing himself and he did the same for her. She quietly stole off toward the camp by herself. He followed moments later. She had not come to his bedroll at night, not since they had returned to the expedition, but along the trail she would find him sometimes in an unguarded moment, against a tree, or in a soft patch of grass, and he would be able to ease his mind, to forget about all else for just a few precious minutes.

They passed Scylax without stopping for more than a few hours, allowing the horses to rest and for fresh provisions. They entered through the gates, were entertained on the main avenue, and rode out through the gate down the mountain only a few hours later. Some of the Syloreans changed horses; Cyrus did not have the luxury, and Windrider seemed to bear it better than the other animals anyhow. Occasional days of rest were required, or more often, half-days. They moved as quickly as the animals allowed, not giving much thought to the pains of the men, which were healed by Curatio whenever they asked.

Only a week south of Scylax they found themselves loping over open plains again, the mountains receding far behind them, distant, cloudy, with a darkness hanging over them, a wintery gloom that was nothing like the summer suns still kissing the plains around them. It was late summer, in fact, Cyrus realized, and some of the wild flowers had begun to turn brown where they had been purple, blue and yellow only weeks before when they passed through. A cool day manifested unexpectedly; the sky was dull grey like in the mountains, and the wind had the slightest kiss of bitterness to it.

The last night they camped on a grassy, windblown plain, and Briyce Unger called together Cyrus and his officers with Count Ranson and the envoy from Actaluere. They’d had plenty of discussions along the road, but this was to be their last. Cyrus listened, somewhat dully, as Unger confirmed for the hundredth time what the others would tell their respective leaders. Cyrus stayed silent; he had nothing to contribute, and Ranson was still skeptical of how his King would react while the Actaluere envoy was unrelenting in his belief that Milos Tiernan would immediately see reason. Cyrus, for his part, was not so sure.

“What do you think their next move will be?” Briyce Unger had asked Cyrus, after he had confirmed what he wanted to hear from the envoys. Cyrus blinked at him, in a daze. “The Scourge,” he said, as they had taken to calling the damned souls given flesh, “what will their next move be?”

“I don’t know,” Cyrus said. “J’anda says they’ll come south, looking for flesh and blood, eager to destroy life. When that will happen, I don’t know. Maybe it already has.”

“They’ll butt up hard against Scylax,” Unger said. “I’ve already ordered an army to reinforce the town, and they’ll evacuate the townsfolk into the keep if it gets especially ugly. Fighting in the pass will be a nasty business, though, if we get Longwell and Tiernan to send armies. We may have to draw them out in order to crush them.”

“The best thing we could do is march back into the valley where Pinrade is and destroy the portal,” Cyrus said. “But that’s going to be a hell of an undertaking.”

“Could you destroy it?” Unger asked. “Could your people with their spells and whatnot knock it down?”

“Maybe,” Cyrus said. “The only wizard I have with me is somewhat unexperienced in such matters.”

“It can be done,” Curatio said, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started. “But it will be neither easy nor a short process. More spellcasters would be better, and I’ll need to uh …” He looked around, but J’anda and Longwell were the only other Sanctuary officers present. “Let’s just say that we’ll have to do more than a little heresy in order to get it done. Which I don’t have a problem with, but I’ve been around since before such things were considered heretical.”

J’anda blinked. “Wait … what?”

“It can be done,” Curatio said, “and that’s the important part. But I’ll have to be there for some time, preferably not interrupted, in order to strip the enchantments off the portal. After that, you should be able to use enchanted weapons to break it to pieces and guarantee it never re-opens.”

“There’s something else we need to be concerned about,” Cyrus said. “If these things come from the Realm of Death, then there’s another portal that opens onto the Island of Mortus. J’anda, you said their efforts there have been fruitless but we don’t know what that means. They could be massing there right now, ready to swim the miles to shore in order to stage an invasion of Arkaria like they’re doing to Luukessia.”

J’anda cursed and ran a hand over his smooth face. “We’ll need to send a messenger to Sanctuary.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said. “We’ll wait until we’re at Enrant Monge tomorrow and we’ve met with the other Sanctuary officers, then we’ll figure out who we can send. We need help if we’re going to make a push for that portal. I doubt the thousand we have is going to get the job done.” Cyrus looked to Briyce Unger. “No offense to your people, but we’re talking about using a coordinated army to thrust through the enemy rather than fighting toe to toe with them while they try and bleed us to death and vice versa.”

“I got the gist of your strategy,” Unger said. “You’re talking about using mobility and speed against them, the two things they lack against a horsed army. The problem is, your thousand don’t all have horses, and your speed advantage is less in the mountain passes between Scylax and that valley. So first of all, you need Longwell’s dragoons, and second, you need flatter ground, or you’ll be driving them back over those same damned roads that collapse in landslides and send people to a long fall and a quick stop at the bottom.”

“What would you suggest?” Cyrus asked. “Draw them onto the plains and have a bloody free-for-all there?”

“It may come to that,” Unger said, “if they decide Scylax is too tightly buttoned up to bother with, and they’re truly hungry for blood, they ought to head south. If we can come at them with the three armies-Galbadien, Actaluere and Syloreas, we can probably match them, put them down, and all the while you take your army another couple weeks north through the passes and into that valley, and put the crushing blow on their reinforcements.” Unger nodded. “That’d sort them out on our end, leave us to mop up whatever they had left over here, but they wouldn’t be getting that constant stream of endless numbers like they apparently can now.” Unger had a strange light in his eyes. “I’d fight like all hell, too, way past the close if I had an army of raging souls behind me who had no fear of death and no care for numbers.”

“There’s something we’re missing here,” Cyrus said. “If they’re more than beasts, then there has to be more to them than just a simple hunger. There’s something driving them besides rage if they’re coordinating their attacks. J’anda, did you sense any sort of leadership structure to these things?”

“Just because I didn’t sense it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” J’anda cautioned. “I got the picture of the creature’s mind, but it was not like reading a map or even like absorbing the thought of a normal person-not that there necessarily is such a thing as normal. But this is how it is-humans think a certain way, as do dark elves, elves, gnomes, dwarves and so on. Within every species is a certain way of thought, and I understand all of them-except trolls. Well, with the exception of Vaste. Within each species there are also variations of their manner of thinking, some radical, some bizarre, but none as different as the jump between species. The point is, I understand all of them, can read all of them, can know all of them. This creature … I could not know given a year or two or ten in its mind. It is angrier by far than a troll, more guarded than a dark elf and more bizarre than any mind I have ever seen into. I get flashes, enough to understand the origin, but only pieces of the whole. I could read a man’s mind and feel confident in telling you everything of the man,” he blushed and looked away from Cyrus as he said it. “This thing, I would not feel confident telling you I know anything of it but the facts I outlined. They are … bizarrre. Truly bizarre. They could well have a leadership and a hierarchy driving them and I would not know it.”

“Marvelous,” Cyrus said, running his hands over his eyes and then through his hair, brushing it over his shoulders. “We have an enemy that appears countless in number, unknowable in intent-other than that they want blood and death-we have no way of judging their movements, their desire, how far they will take this, and even though we now know their origin, we don’t know if they have a leader of any sort or if there is any motivation for them to be doing what they’re doing. We’re completely blind, facing a numberless enemy.” He sighed. “At least we have a plan.”

“And our plan involves slipping behind the lines of this enemy and trying to cut off their entry point to this realm,” J’anda said. “This doesn’t sound like our best plan ever, if I may say so.”

“When have you ever hesitated to say so?” Cyrus asked, holding his head. “But you’re right. This … will not be pretty.”

Unger smiled, an unsettling one. Ranson and the envoy from Actaluere had left moments earlier. “The fight ahead or the moot?”

“Either one,” Cyrus said. “I wonder if King Aron has at the least soothed Milos Tiernan over the Baroness Cattrine?”

“I doubt it,” Unger said. “It’s not Tiernan who’s truly upset by that anyhow; my spies say he’s most displeased with what Grand Duke Hoygraf has done to his sister. It’s Hoygraf himself who is driving that issue. Milos Tiernan would just as soon have his sister away from Hoygraf forever, but Hoygraf holds too many favors in his Kingdom, too many strings of powerful people.”

“How?” Cyrus asked. “The man’s a sadist.”

“Aye,” Unger said, “but sadism can have its uses when you run a Kingdom. And the man was a dog of war, until you perforated his belly. Now he’s unlikely to walk straight upright ever again, but he has allies in Actaluere. He controls easily a third of their armies, and King Tiernan’s a clever bastard. He knows it, he knows Hoygraf knows it, and he’s playing it entirely cool in order to keep Hoygraf from acting on it.”

“I crushed Hoygraf’s army,” Cyrus said, waving off Unger. “I broke his keep, killed his men. What the hell else has he got?”

“You did not break his army,” Unger said. “His army was two days march behind you when you hit Green Hill. You killed his attendants, you killed many of his close advisors, but not his army. He intended to delay you until they could crush you, and it would have been a rather clever stratagem if he’d been facing traditional forces. Unfortunately for him, you were more magical and somewhat cleverer than he might have given you credit for.” Unger chuckled and shook his head. “Still, bedding his wife before the man was dead? I admit, I have no respect for Hoygraf and his woman-beating ways, but cuckolding the man after you opened his belly and left him to die? The Grand Duke will be upset with you for the rest of his life, shortened though it might be by the grievous wounding you gave him.”

“I don’t give a damn about Grand Duke Hoygraf,” Cyrus said. “I can handle him if the time comes.”

“Oh, the time will come,” Unger said. “I mean, did you not think that word would get out about your escapades in the Garden of Serenity before we left?”

Cyrus froze, and caught the look of confusion from both Curatio and J’anda. “You heard about that?” Cyrus asked Unger.

“Oh, yes,” Unger said with a laugh. “That was all the talk of the moot the night before we left. You have a set of brass ones, Cyrus Davidon. Everyone knew about that.”

“I didn’t hear about that,” J’anda said, slightly miffed.

“Everyone who was of the three Kingdoms,” Unger amended. “The Garden of Serenity is not exactly a holy place, but it’s as near as we get in Luukessia. My goodness, lad … taking the wife of a man whose grievance was that you had taken his wife, and doing it there? Sort of defeats the idea of suing for peace, doesn’t it? I mean, you’re adding fresh grievances by the bucketload. You’re quite fortunate you didn’t speak with King Longwell before you left, I’m certain he would have given you an earful for that last insult.”

Cyrus looked to Samwen Longwell, whose face was drawn. “Yes, that’s something of an insult,” Longwell said. “And yes, it likely made my father’s negotiations after we left somewhat more protracted, if you did in fact do …” he coughed, “what he said you did.”

“I did,” Cyrus said, unrepentant. “Twice.”

Longwell was overcome by a fit of coughing. “Ahem … uh … the Baroness would have known how great an insult this would be. I’m surprised she still … ah … acceded to your … charms.” The dragoon looked uncomfortable at every word, and when done, settled into a silence in which he would not meet Cyrus’s eyes.

“She was the one who started it,” Cyrus said, drawing another coughing fit from Longwell, a wide grin from Unger, tired disinterest from J’anda and practiced neutrality from Curatio. “I didn’t start it, she did. So if she knew what she was doing was insulting, she did it on purpose.”

“Aye,” Unger said, “I can’t imagine why she would choose that moment to insult the man who beat her. If the man were one of my barons, I’d have him flogged in the streets of Scylax for pulling even a tenth of what that bloke has. What a load of goat dung he is.”

“We seem to have wandered afield from our original topic of discussion,” Curatio said with a weak smile. “We have a meeting-or moot, I should say-tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes,” Unger said. “It may already be in progress when we arrive. If so, they’ll move directly to our topic, and Ranson and what’s-his-name from Actaluere will have their moment to speak, but nothing will be decided until after the Kings have a chance to talk with their men in private. We’ll go to any other business then adjourn. Should be a short session.”

“Thus was said about every long meeting I have ever attended,” Curatio said dryly, “and I’ve attended one or two very long meetings in my life.”

“So, we have a war to begin,” Cyrus said, “a land to unite,” he nodded at Briyce Unger, who nodded back, “a guild to inform, troops to rally, reinforcements to summon …” Cyrus folded his arms, and settled his eyes on Longwell, Curatio, J’anda, and finally on the darkness beyond the campfires where he knew, in the distance, Enrant Monge lay just ahead on the horizon, beyond the black skies, “… and I don’t know which of those things will be hardest to do. I really don’t.”

He left them, then, without word, deep in his own thoughts, and paced through the campfires, looking for Aisling. She’s never around when I have need of her, not immediately, anyway. He went beyond the last fire, and edged into the woods. Yet when I go far enough away … he heard a rustling in the bushes.

He felt her hand around his shoulders, felt her tongue in his ear, gentle, caressing, smelled the cinnamon on her breath. “Productive meeting?” she whispered.

“Not really,” he said, and turned to her, backing her against a tree. “What about you?”

“Been waiting for you,” she said as she let her fingers brush through his hair, then kissed him again, and he felt his head swirl as he lifted her gently off the ground and pinned her against the tree as their passion consumed them.

“Put me down,” she said after they were done, and he did, leaning against the tree for support, his weight resting heavily on his left arm. “I’ll see you back at the camp.” He heard her words, sensed her pull her breeches back up, then heard her footsteps disappear, as they always did, quiet to the point where he couldn’t hear them, and he was left alone, again, in the woods, in the dark, and he stayed there for quite some time.