Crusader

Chapter 44

Reikonos was a town astir, the streets quiet and yet frenzied, the long stretches of thatched-roof homes canceled out by the bigger buildings with wooden beams making up their construction. It was a hodgepodge of old and new, of stone buildings and wood shacks, and the streets were both calm and chaotic in alternating segments. Vara walked along with Ryin trailing a few steps behind her as they headed toward the southern central gate through the city’s walls. The sun seemed to be higher in the sky here than it had been at Sanctuary, and there were few enough clouds that the late afternoon warmth was still present and cooked her in her armor as she moved through the quiet then the chaos.

“Lines,” Ryin said, “for the communal ovens.” The druid was right, though she didn’t want to acknowledge it. There were clusters of people, women mostly, around the places where there were ovens for public use. Not everyone has their own, after all, as this is not Termina. A rueful thought occurred. Even Termina is unlikely to have those things, now. “In time of war, meat must surely be limited, so daily bread is likely the cornerstone of their diet at this point.”

“If they’re just getting to the ovens at this time of day, it’s going to be a late supper,” she said.

“True enough.” He came alongside her, trying to match her pace. “But I suspect that the grain shipments put them at the mercy of whichever merchant has some that day-there’s likely a line for that as well. Rationing, shortages, all that.”

“What fun,” was all she said and tightly at that.

The street vendors who were normally set up on this, the busiest thoroughfare in the city, were noticeably absent this day, giving the streets an even more abandoned feel, quieter than she had seen even in the years she had lived in the city. Cyrus would not like this, not at all, came the thought, as unbidden as it was frustrating. She increased her speed, pumping her legs to a faster walk, as though she could somehow leave that line of thinking behind if she were to just walk fast enough to outpace it.

Ryin kept up, his superior height his only saving grace. The walk was long, and the walls of the city came into sight after a while, tall, grey stone that rose up in a curtain wall around the buildings nestled within. It was nowhere near as high as the one built around the elven capital of Pharesia, but it still stuck a hundred and fifty feet in the air and circled for miles in either direction, a monumental effort of stonework that gave the city a washed, sandstone look that was out of place in the more northern environs where one expected darker stone-for some reason she couldn’t define.

The southern gate was open, enormous, wide enough for fifty men to walk astride through it and even for a few elephants to be carted out simultaneously on each other’s shoulders, as Vara had seen once in a magic circus when she was younger. There was little enough traffic on the road by this point; the ovens were all well back in the city, and the houses closest to the gate became more of the ramshackle variety and less of the carefully orchestrated stone, the roofs declining in average height precipitously and the woodwork growing older and older as they went. Who lives here? she wondered. The guards that man the walls, likely, if they’re not housed in barracks. Farmers who work just outside the gates, perhaps? Working people, not merchants, who would be near the markets and shops. Not quite the poor, but not the wealthy or aristocratic.

They passed beneath the gates and under the wall, which stretched almost a hundred feet from entry to exit. She stared up into the faces of guards who looked down on them, bows at the ready in case some trick was attempted, some effort at siege tried. Guards milled about in the passage under the gate as well, picking at the wagons and people trying to pass through. She and Ayend, on their way out, garnered nothing but a few suspicious looks from the men in armor and pointed helms, their spears and swords aimed at those trying to gain entry into the city and unconcerned with those attempting exit.

The horizon was darkening in blue as they emerged from under the portcullis and the whole world opened up around them. There had been shanty houses creeping toward the outer walls for some time, but some enterprising soul-probably that bastard Pretnam Urides and his laughable Council of Twelve-had had them burned, and all that remained was twisted wreckage, scorched wood and little else, a graveyard of destroyed hovels for hundreds of yards around the walls of the city. They followed the dirt path onward, the vegetation sparse in this well-trodden area, with all the trees and grass that had grown nearby charred by the flames.

The walk was over an hour, and the road grew more congested toward the end. There were tents about, plenty of them, old, billowing, lined neatly along the rolling hills of the city outskirts. There were farmhouses, too, older ones that had been commandeered by the army, and troops marched in formations up and down the road. Vara stopped and asked the captain of one of them about the guild Endeavor and was pointed down the road. “Another mile, perhaps two. They’re toward the front, but there’s several miles between us and the enemy positions,” the captain said, weeks of beard growth on his tanned face. “Been like that for a few months, staring across at them, but they’re not moving right now.”

“Thank you,” Vara said simply and went on, Ryin in tow. When they passed the last ranks of horsemen and began to see the armor take on a fancier sheen and the weapons carry the glow of mystical power, she knew they were close. The tents were less weathered and between the combatants being better attired and the presence of attendants whose sole purpose appeared to be serving the fighters rather than engaging in any sort of battle themselves, she veered from the road and asked only one skeptical warrior for direction before she was pointed to the largest tent in view, one with a flag out front on a pike.

Vara approached with a slow, steady walk, eyeing the troll guards as they stared back at her, assessing. “My name is Vara,” she said, holding her position a good twenty feet from the front flap entry of the tent. The tent was enormous, at least fifteen feet high at the center, circular, and large enough to house thirty men under it. “I am here to speak with Isabelle of Endeavor.”

The troll on her left grunted, his armor a poor fit for his oversized bulk. He was close to twice her height, and his grunt brought with it a foul odor, even at the distance she had maintained. She curled her nose and held a hand in front of it. Trolls. I forget sometimes how civilized Vaste is compared to some of their number.

“No see,” said the troll on her right, marginally shorter than the other, but with eyes that burned with slightly more intelligence. “Miss Isabelle not to be disturbed.”

“I can see from your grasp of the human language that we’re about to reach a tragic impasse in this discussion,” Vara said, narrowly avoiding folding her arms in front of her, instead keeping her hand at a little distance from the hilt of her sword where it rested on her belt. “Let me state this again, for those of us in this conversation whose brains are not quite the equal of their bulk-I am here to see Isabelle. Is she inside?”

The troll on the left reached for his sword and had it drawn quicker than she thought would be possible, though his feet had yet to move into any sort of offensive posture. The one on the right made no such move, did not change expression, but held his ground. “She no see you-”

“I’ll see her,” came a voice as the tent flap was raised. A blond elf emerged into the daylight with a blinking countenance marking her otherwise smooth and timeless features. Her robes were flawless white, she was perfectly groomed and would not have been at all out of place in a ballroom. Even here, on the battlefield, Isabelle has an unflappable air about her, as though she weren’t presently standing on ground trodden by soldiers and surrounded by armies but instead was far away, at a society party. She even wears a tiara, Vara thought, looking at the simple golden circlet atop her sister’s blond locks, rubies and sapphires crowning it. “Come in, dear sister,” Isabelle said, holding the flap, “and your guest too, if he’d like.”

“Wait here,” Vara said to Ryin without looking back at him. She made her way between the towering trolls, who both moved aside, their dull, steel-plated armor catching the glint of the sun’s light as she passed. She grasped the tent flap herself and indicated to Isabelle to step back inside with a simple hand gesture. Isabelle smiled in amusement and did so without any comment, as Vara followed her in and let the flap fall behind her.

“You pick an interesting time to visit,” Isabelle said, making her way into the open area at the center of the tent. “But then, you always did have a sense for timing.”

“Good or ill?” Vara asked, letting the smell of the tent overwhelm her. It carried a whiff of incense; not too heavy, but present, enough to overwhelm the smells of the encampment around them and all the waste that came with it. A simple bed lay in the corner, a mattress with heavy pillows on it, all in good order. A table was deployed in the middle of the tent with folding chairs around it. A few stands littered the perimeter of the tent, and a blanket lined the floor, clean and neat, and padded enough to take the hardness out of each step. Vara felt the impact softened within her armored boots and tried to brush off the irritation at her sister’s accomodations. I can’t recall ever traveling in quite this high a style, not even when I was an officer in Amarath’s Raiders.

“Good timing,” Isabelle said, reaching toward a bowl of apples set upon the center table. “Hungry?”

“No.”

“You don’t approve of my accouterments,” Isabelle said, and that damnable amusement was still there, the faint tug at the corners of her mouth and the sparkle in her eye. “The little luxuries I’m afforded as an officer of Endeavor.”

“Oh, yes, you live in grand style for someone at the front line of the greatest war Arkaria has seen in centuries,” Vara said, brusque. “Very fine, indeed.”

“This bothers you … why?” If Isabelle was annoyed by her sister’s attitude, she showed it little or none, and Vara was quite used to the subtlety of her older sister’s emotions. Glacier-cool, she is. Which is why she is so annoying.

“I care not at all how you live while at war,” Vara said, “only that you continue to do so.”

“Concern, sister dear?” Isabelle picked the apple off the top of the pile and took a bite, a long, satisfying crunch. “Has the loss of our parents mellowed you at last?”

Vara bristled. “I have always cared for my family.”

“And always been exceptionally poor at showing it,” Isabelle said around a mouthful of apple. “Not that I haven’t appreciated the years of scorn through my attempts to cultivate a relationship with you.”

Well, I’m here now, you spotted cow, Vara thought, but did not say. Instead, she said, “I appreciate your forbearance during my more difficult periods of interaction.”

“That would be your whole life, dear,” Isabelle said gently, “but nevermind that, I suppose. What brings you to me now? Not a sense of familial loneliness, I suspect.”

“The war,” Vara said.

“Of course.” There was a flicker in Isabelle’s eyes, tired, and the smile faded as she held the apple in her hand then gave it a look as though it had lost its appeal. “This war consumes everything, and the attention of all. So what of it? What do you need?”

“News more than anything,” Vara said and let herself take a step closer to Isabelle. “How goes the front here? Is the Sovereign pushing his troops forward?”

Isabelle surveyed her sister with a demeanor almost more stoic than Vara herself could manage. “No. Not at present. Why do you ask?”

Vara considered for just the briefest space of time lying. To say something other than the truth might be preferable to letting Isabelle know, after all. But for Isabelle, it mattered little because-she always knew anyway. “We’ve been besieged. They surrounded our walls and threw an army at us-”

“The one that sacked Aloakna,” Isabelle said wisely. All two-hundred-plus years of her sister’s sageness were on display now, and Vara felt more than a rush of irritation. “Yes, that makes sense, revenge for Termina.”

“Thank you for your insightful analysis,” Vara said. “We broke them, of course-”

“Of course,” Isabelle said with the trace of a smile.

“Oh, stop going on about it as though it were some sort of foregone conclusion,” Vara said. “There were some fifty thousand of them, and our number is much reduced of late-”

“Why?” Isabelle asked, and took a walk sideways, eyes facing on a perpendicular line, as though she didn’t even care to look at Vara. “Why are your numbers reduced while your star is on the rise? Even here, the talk is of Sanctuary, and your slaughter of Mortus. Killing a god?” She cocked her head at Vara, and smiled slyly. “No one even thought it was possible, let alone that you would be strong enough to attempt it and crazy enough to try.”

“This is irrelevant,” Vara said, stubborn irritation clawing at her. “Yes, our recruiting numbers were up, until the blockade a week ago, and yes, people had been streaming to us in record number for protection and to join us, but-”

“But Cyrus Davidon left,” Isabelle said, stopping at a fold in the tent and pulling aside the fabric to look out, “taking an army with him, and vanishing over the Endless Bridge with both a strong corps of your best veterans and possibly your heart, should such an object exist.”

There was a quiet in the tent, a silence and chill unadmitted by the opening of the side to the air. “You bitch,” Vara said.

Isabelle let the fabric fold back on itself and fall free of her hands, letting the side of the tent close. “You have a quite the grasp of the human language, sister. There was a time when you were content to swear at me in elvish.”

“I’m expanding my horizons,” Vara said.

“You’re in love with a human,” Isabelle replied. “And you are not even willing to admit it to yourself.”

“This is all off the table for discussion,” Vara said. “Yes, Cyrus Davidon went on a mission to aid one of our guildmates across the Sea of Carmas. Yes, he’s been gone for several months. I need to know if the Sovereign is moving because he-Cyrus, I mean-is in need of aid in Luukessia and we can’t strip anything from Sanctuary’s defense unless we’re certain that the Sovereign’s armies are fully engaged elsewhere-”

“They’re not,” Isabelle said quietly. “This front has been quiet for nigh on a month and not from any stinging defeats we’ve dealt to the dark elves, that I can assure you. Our contacts with the Elven Kingdom-on a daily basis, in case you wonder-indicate no serious offensives along the Perda, either, not at Termina or anywhere else. The Sovereign waits and has removed some of his forces from both of these fronts, reshuffling them elsewhere.” She gave a little shrug. “Perhaps he directs them to the east, toward the Riverlands.” Her face darkened in the shadow of the tent. “But I would suspect not.”

Vara waited, just for a beat, before she asked the question that tore at her. “What do you suspect?”

“That the vek’tag herds in Saekaj that have supplied the meat that has filled the bellies of the dark elven army are running thin enough that they may not be viable if the herds continue to be killed at this aggressive pace,” Isabelle said, without a trace of care, “and that the mushrooms and roots and other crops that grow in the gardens of those caves are insufficient to feed the war machine that the Sovereign is grinding out at present. That the supply lines run thin and he has turned an eye toward an easy, almost-undefended prize to remedy that problem-and its name is the Plains of Perdamun.” She didn’t smile, exactly, but gave her sister an almost-cringe, as though the knowledge caused her pain. “It is the opinion of the Confederation’s government-and the Elven Kingdom’s as well-that the Sovereign is moving troops into place to take the southern plains, to destroy anything that stands between him and the rich crop lands that could feed his empire and his armies, as we move now closer to the harvest.”

“And Sanctuary is what stands between him and that resource?” Vara let the air hiss out of her, not really surprised but neither pleased.

“The fact that he can claim revenge for the action in Termina will be no small bonus,” Isabelle said, “and there are countless dark knights in his army who had allegiance to Mortus, which might motivate them in some measure.”

Vara tried to think through the swirl of new information filling her mind. “I have not nearly enough available-Sanctuary has not nearly enough available to counter this threat to the Plains. But you-” She took a step toward her sister. “If you and the Human Confederation attacked now, struck back at the Sovereignty’s army here, it would force them to-”

“A good stratagem,” Isabelle cut her off. “A worthy idea. Were I in charge, I would pursue that strategy, though not just to try and help my sister but to deny the Sovereignty something they need to continue the war.” She drew up short. “However, I am not in charge of the war effort. Indeed, I am not even consulted. My guild remains at the mercy of the Council of Twelve, though,” she drew a short smile, “thanks to other events, that power wanes by the day.”

Vara felt the air go out of her, all her energy in one giant exhalation. “You tell me the Sovereign is marshalling his forces, pulling them away from the fronts he has pressed since the beginning. Well, they do not go north and they do not go west, nor do they appear to be heading east. My guild is south, is all that remains in the south. What am I to do, Isabelle? They hold the majority of the Plains already, uncontested because we lack the power to project our forces north to drive them back, and because no other army exists that could or would do so. I sit in the middle of the territory that he wants, this Sovereign, this gutless bastard who sits on the throne in Saekaj,” she watched Isabelle’s eye lashes bat a little at that, “and you tell me he’s coming, and what am I to do?”

“I have seen your guildhall,” Isabelle said carefully and took a step toward Vara, holding herself just slightly out of arm’s reach. “With some ingenuity, with some effort, I believe you could hold out against any magic and any army that the Sovereign might throw at you. Especially with the numbers you describe, you could hold it indefinitely with supplies of conjured bread and water-”

“And we’ll have nothing to help Cyrus with, and he’ll die across the sea fighting some unholy scourge that will devour his stubborn arse whole and choke on it!” Vara felt the words come rushing out. “Of course it will end up gagging on such a large and ridiculously stupid morsel, but he’ll be dead nonetheless.” She felt it expelled, the hot flush it brought to her cheeks to have said it, and when Isabelle pulled out a chair and slid it invitingly toward her she sat down on it, heavily, and leaned her elbow on the table. Isabelle took the seat next to her, sitting almost knee to knee with her, the incense in the tent reaching an almost overpowering level, even though it had changed not at all since she arrived.

“So we come to the truth at last,” Isabelle’s steady blue eyes flashed at Vara; they were cooler than her own, more reflective of Isabelle’s deliberative personality. “You worry about the safety of your guild, but you worry more about the fate of your-”

“Do not say it.” Vara felt her hands come to her face automatically, as though she could hide her shame by covering her cheeks and closing her eyes. “I don’t need to hear it aloud. Again.”

“You fear for him.” The words were calm and yet infuriating, as though they contained a slap to the face buried within. “You’re afraid he’ll-”

“Die, yes,” Vara said, and the effusive heat came back, “that he’ll die in that foreign land, that he’ll be ripped apart by these creatures they sent word about, these things that were unleashed from the Realm of Death. I’m afraid that he’ll stay in the fight long past the time when reason should tell him to bow out, because he feels guilty about letting them loose. Because of-oh, dammit! — because of me. Because he saved me, and because I sent him over there, practically drove him over there.” She felt the burning of the words in her mouth. “Well damn it, damn them, damn him, and damn me, too.” She looked up and caught only the faintest glint of amusement in Isabelle’s face. “I don’t wish to discuss this any further.”

“No, I imagine you wouldn’t.” Isabelle averted her eyes for a moment and looked to the bowl of apples. “It hasn’t been easy, has it? With Father and Mother gone?”

“I rarely went home,” Vara said. “I barely notice, with all the things going on-”

“Oh?”

“Don’t be irritating.” Vara let the words come out seething. “I shouldn’t say I don’t notice. I might phrase it differently. There are many distractions, especially of late. When I think of them, I feel-” Vara rolled her eyes at her own weakness. “Guilty. I feel guilty for not paying homage to their memory. For not weeping in a corner. For feeling more distressed about the departure of some lunkhead warrior who will die in a mere century versus the loss of …” A warm gasp came loose then. “They lived for thousands of years, and to come to such an abrupt-especially for mother-untimely, unexpected-”

“She fought for Termina,” Isabelle said quietly. “She fought for you.”

“She died for me,” Vara said, meeting her sister’s gaze. “It’s becoming a pattern, people dying for me, killing for me, and consequences I don’t care for spinning out of these actions. I should like it to end.”

“There is only one end,” Isabelle said, “and that has some rather definite consequences of its own that I don’t think you’d care for, either. Those dead are passed, and only one of these people remains to be saved, and that is Cyrus Davidon.”

“I can’t save Cyrus Davidon,” Vara said, and then felt her teeth grit themselves, her jaw tensing. “I can’t send anyone to help Cyrus, not with the Sovereign making his move all around Sanctuary. If it is as you say it is,” she shook her head. “My course is clear. I must defend Sanctuary. It is the higher duty to which I owe my allegiance. More than venturing overseas on some fool’s errand to throw myself into another war.” She straightened up in her chair and heard the creak of her armor plating as she did so. “I have enough war to cope with here in Arkaria.”

“And if he dies?” Isabelle asked, and her fingers delicately touched the candle that rested on the table, letting the hot wax fall across her finger.

“Then he dies,” Vara said, and ignored the screaming voice deep within, the one that wanted to throw her body to the ground and rail against it being so. “It will happen sooner or later anyway, there is little I can do to prevent that.”

“You haven’t asked my opinion,” Isabelle said, rubbing a little wax between her thumb and forefinger, “but my prerogative now as head of the family is that I will give it, and it is thus-”

“Oh, good,” Vara said under her breath.

“You should go to Luukessia. You will regret it if something happens to him and you are not there. It will haunt you all the rest of your days. You may not want to admit that your heart goes with the man, but it does, and I know you well enough to say with certainty that this torment will not end, not for you, not truly, if the worst comes to pass. It will only fade in time, perhaps, and become the ghost of a memory, rather than the full-blooded, all-consuming horror that it presently is, asserting itself all over your will.”

“Your opinion is noted,” Vara said, and stood, controlling herself enough not to knock over the chair with her ascent. “But I’m afraid that I cannot do what you suggest.”

“Which is the greater fear?” Isabelle asked, and rose to stand as well. “That Sanctuary will fall to defeat and destruction by the dark elves? That Arkaria will fall under the heel of the great menace whose tendrils even now stretch out of the blackness of the caves of Saekaj Sovar and are entangling the rest of the world? Or that you, Vara, not only the last but the stubbornest of all the elves ever born, will lose someone that you value most in a place that you may never even laid eyes on?”

Vara did not speak, giving both ideas a moment to weigh in her mind, like heavy stones on scales, tipping the balance one way or another. Cyrus or duty, duty or Cyrus? She thought of her mother, and there was reassurance there, in the last words that she had said before she died, when they had talked. “I am elf, and my life is long, my sorrows great. I will hold to my duty because that will see me through all other pain. When all else falters, fails and fades away, my duty will not. I am paladin, the white knight. My life is a crusade, and my sworn duty is all that matters.” She felt her hilt for reassurance, and watched Isabelle’s eyes follow the motion of her hands. “I’m not going to draw a sword on you, it’s merely an action for emphasis.”

“Oh, good,” Isabelle said dryly, “though with you, it is hard to tell sometimes.” Isabelle ran her hands over the white robes that she wore, still a pure color even here at the front of the battle lines. “Very well, you hold to your duty then, your crusade, as it were. Though I did think most paladins chose a more spiritual crusade, something nobler and more aligned with grandeur and changing the world-like evangelism, or serving the poor, or defending the weak. Something to inspire the soul and fill it with a billowing, all-consuming purpose-”

“All piffle,” Vara said, and took the two steps to the entry of the tent. “Be as grand as you want in your inspirations, but most paladins fall short because they are all grandeur and nobility and little action on the ground. They say they want to free the slaves or evangelize or other rubbish, but then they do things on a daily basis that have little in common with their overarching goal. No, I glory in the small. Duty is a small thing and yet the largest. Every act on a daily basis that I use to serve my guild is a reward in itself, and leads me on to the biggest of goals-to serve my guild by defending it from harm. My crusade is the simplest, lowest, and yet highest and most manageable of all of them. No bombast, no bold proclamation, just simple service, day in, day out. And it is simple. All I need to do is get up and point my sword in the direction of the nearest threat, or pick up a shovel and begin whatever work need be done.” She knew her eyes flashed but didn’t care. It is all that matters, the littlest things. The big ones can only be attended to after the small.

“You’ve developed into a very reasonable person,” Isabelle said, but she didn’t smile.

“I strive for reason in all things,” Vara said, and ducked to exit the tent. “Take care, sister of mine.”

“I didn’t say that was a good attribute,” Isabelle said, and Vara froze at the flap, her back arched. She almost stood up, but the brush of the canvas ceiling against her hair was already ever-present. “You might try being a bit unreasonable in your thinking from time to time.”

Vara turned back. “I might have been accused of being unreasonable from time to time, you needn’t worry about that.”

“Not an unreasonable pain in the backside,” Isabelle said. “Unreasonable in the sense of making a decision with your soft, yet-walled off and vulnerable heart rather than your thickly protected and indestructible head. There is a clear difference between the two.”

“If there is,” Vara said, and pushed open the flap to let the smell of the army camp outside wash over her, the faint foulness of the cooking and the latrines and all the bodies pushed together in this space, along with the warm evening air, “I can’t afford to discover what the former might be saying and still expect to hold to my duty. And that, really, is the essence of the crusade right there, isn’t it? A simple choice, and one that is already made.”

“Take care,” Isabelle said, “you and your choice. Take care that you don’t regret that choice later.”

“I am elf,” Vara said, as she left the tent, and let the flap fall behind her. “My life is long, and my sorrow is great-and what is the weight of one more regret on the top of that pile in the grand scale?” She knew Isabelle heard her, even though there was no answer from within the tent. She ignored the trolls that flanked her on either side as she crossed back over to Ryin, who waited by a fire. She ignored the thought of that weight, too, consciously at first, but by the time the return spell took hold and carried her back to Sanctuary, she had forgotten it entirely.