Crusader

Chapter 4

The days ran together, one upon another, until all Cyrus could remember was the bridge, the endless grey stone that went on infinitely into the distance. On either side the waters were blue, and a cool breeze ran through the cracks in his armor, keeping the heat of the sun at bay. By the end of the third day, Cyrus imagined throwing himself over the side into the water below, letting his armor drag him down, down to the bottom of the sea, letting his boots sink into the sand, the water rush into his lungs, drowning all his despair along with him …

The conjured bread grew old by the fourth day, and Cyrus was sick of chewing it, the light airy flavor turning to nothing but mush in his mouth. The conjured water was even worse, less satisfying somehow. Without wood to burn, they slept without fires at night. The only flame available to them was that conjured by wizard and druid, and there were only five of those. Three times a day, long lines were cast over the edge of the bridge and fish were caught, but it was a paltry amount, enough to feed but a few and as flavorless as the bread.

The others steered clear of Cyrus, as though they could sense his foul mood, save for Aisling and Curatio, each of whom made at least one attempt per day to speak with him. Curatio’s efforts were squarely in the realm of morale, of worry about the army’s waning enthusiasm as the journey across the bridge dragged on. Cyrus spoke in a perfunctory manner, and at the beginning and end of each day attempted to deliver a somewhat motivational speech urging them onward, mentioning that green lands and fresh meat were somewhere over the horizon.

His conversations with Aisling, on the other hand, were another matter entirely. The dark elf had taken to speaking with him in a cheery manner. Cyrus kept the acidity of his responses low, usually not deigning to answer rather than say something that might drive Aisling away. In something of an odd move for her, Aisling had steered well clear of any innuendo in speaking with him-a fact that by the fourth day was not lost on Cyrus.

“So you were born and raised in the Society of Arms in Reikonos?” she asked him.

Cyrus gripped Windrider’s reins tighter. He could feel the horse tense under him, and he ran his gauntlet along the side of the horse’s neck gently. “No. I was dropped off there at age six, after my mother died.”

“Oh,” she said. “Did you know your father at all?”

He thought back, thought about memories from so long ago that they swirled together. “Not well. He died when I was very young, and he was away in the war off and on for a year or two before that.” Cyrus tried to remember his mother’s face and failed, only a blurry haze where it once had been, the only distinguishing feature being bright eyes, as green as the summer grasses in the plains outside Sanctuary. “I don’t really remember my mother either, come to that.”

“That’s a shame,” Aisling said. “What do you remember? About your childhood, I mean?”

Cyrus thought about it, trying to stir some memory in his brain. He felt his nostrils flare and the salt air of the sea loomed large in his mind again. “Meat pies,” he said softly, almost too low to be heard. “My mother used to make them. Big, hearty ones, with beef and pork and chicken all crammed into a doughy crust.” He could almost smell them, taste them, even though it had been more than two decades since last he had tasted the ones his mother made. “Every time Larana makes them, it brings me back to sitting at the wooden table in our house, eating dinner.” He squinted his eyes and the horizon grew fuzzy, blurring. “I can almost picture her when I think of eating meat pies.” He remembered brown hair framing the green eyes, and the soft touch of a hand along his face to wipe off dirt or grime. “What about you?” He looked to her and caught a faint blush of darker blue on her cheeks.

“Another time, perhaps,” she said, a coy smile covering her embarrassment. Drops of rain splashed upon her head, the first signs that the dark skies above them were preparing to loose their fury. She steered her horse away from him as he watched her go, suddenly regretful at her departure.

He called a halt to their travel as the downpour became so heavy that they could scarcely see the bridge in front of them. Cyrus sat against a pillar as the rain washed down, gathering in puddles that became nothing but rippling rivers running over the sides of the stone bridge in great waterfalls. He looked back at the outline of shapes behind him. He felt a pang and knew that when the rain let up, he’d need to check with the other officers to make certain someone hadn’t wandered to the edge of the bridge to relieve themselves during the storm and been swept off by the deluge.

As the rain poured down, rattling his helm, he sat in the shadow of the pillar, Windrider next to him. He looked up at the horse, which whinnied. “Soon,” Cyrus said. “You’ll have fresh dirt under your hooves soon. Another day at most.”

The snort of reply caused Cyrus to crack a smile. “Well, if this rain lets up, anyway. What’s wrong, you don’t like conjured oats?”

Cyrus could swear he heard a slight growl in the horse’s whinny as Windrider answered him, and he looked into the shapes to his side, shrouded in the rain. “I don’t like it either. But we’ll be there in a few weeks … and after that, we’ll be home … sometime. A couple months, maybe.”

Cyrus could almost hear the thoughts of the horse as he whinnied. He shook his head, wondering how pitiful he must be to think he was talking to a horse. He looked up at the beast, white coat and mane looking grey in the rain. “Then what? I don’t know.” Cyrus’s eyes settled again on the horizon, the darkness ahead where the bridge disappeared into the pouring rain only a hundred feet in front of him. “I don’t know what happens when we get home.”