Crusader

Chapter 53

There was a rough bump, and the darkness swirled around Cyrus, lit now by daylight somewhere in the distance. It was above him at an angle, but it washed through the air and shone in beams that rested all over the space around him. His eyes were bleary, and no matter how many times he blinked, they did not clear quickly. He began to wonder if they would clear at all.

The smell of horses permeated his consciousness, filled his nose, and he heard the sounds of them, of people talking somewhere outside his field of vision. There was a pain around his neck as he turned his head, but the pain was only a dull ache, a long-ago reminder of some agony, he supposed.

“Would you care for some water?” The voice was soft, feminine, and cut over the clack-clack he heard every few seconds.

Cyrus coughed then cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, but his voice was hoarse, and his throat scratchy. A skin of water was thrust to his lips and tilted, just so a little ran out on his tongue and down his mouth, as though he had forgotten how to capture the liquid that was coming to him. It felt cool as it fell over his cheeks, and he realized the air was hot, and he had a blanket weighing him down.

He swiveled his head and saw the face that went with the voice that had spoken to him. “You,” he said. “I … I don’t remember …”

“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘your name,’ then you’d best prepare yourself for a thrashing.” She sounded serious.

“Calm yourself, Aisling,” he said with a wicked grin, and saw the flash of irritation crest her tanned, elven features. “Kidding, Martaina,” he said, laboring to get her name out. “Your name is Martaina Proelius.”

“Good to know you still recall the important things,” she said, and pulled back the skin, capping it. “You gave us quite a stir, you know.”

“Didn’t intend to,” he said with a cough. “As I recall, I was just going along, minding my business, when someone shot me with an arrow and proceeded to lop my head off.” His hand came to his throat, felt the slight ridge along the middle of it, a scar that seemed unlikely to ever heal. “Hoygraf said he’d take it in order to keep me dead. His revenge.”

“Yes, well,” Martaina said and shifted, sitting against the canvas backing of the wagon, looking over him, “it didn’t happen, obviously.”

“Obviously. What did happen?”

“We managed to retrieve that empty gourd you used to think-you know, before you switched to using your groin-and reunited it with your body,” Martaina said.

He ignored her jibe. “We’re at war with Actaluere?” He felt the tautness in his muscles, surprising given how out of sorts he felt.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “In fact, Milos Tiernan has brought his army north with us.”

Cyrus felt himself stop, as though everything ceased moving all at once around him. “Tiernan did? He’s not attacking Galbadien?”

“No,” Martaina said, and Cyrus could see her face go masklike. The ranger was good, no doubt experienced at hiding herself; but he had known her long enough to see through it.

“What happened?” Cyrus asked and put enough of a commanding voice into the question that it cut through the rasp. Martaina’s eyes turned rearward over Cyrus’s head. “How long was I out?”

“Over a week,” she said at last, and her hand disturbed the flap of canvas enough to let some light in, which caused Cyrus to blanch and close his eyes. “Curatio kept you well-medicated with opiates from the local poppy fields during your … ailment. He had some difficulty reattaching your head because of the time that elapsed between when it was severed and when we received it. It was a very near thing, and your arrow wound and other injuries had to heal naturally because they missed the window to be cured through magical means.”

“What happened while I was recovering?” Cyrus asked and tried to sit up. Martaina’s boot landed upon his chest, keeping him down. His armor was absent, and he felt no desire to fight her attempt to keep him flat, letting his head sink back to the padded, moving floor of the wagon.

“Actaluere joined with Syloreas and sent the forces they had on hand at Enrant Monge north with us.” She kept a canny eye on him, but her reaction was still closely guarded, he knew. “They mean to help fight against the scourge and have sent for more forces to come north while the first army moves up with us.”

“Are we close to battle?” Cyrus asked. “If we’re only a week out of Enrant Monge? Have the scourge reached this far south already?”

“It would be best if you didn’t concern yourself overmuch,” she said calmly. “We’re holding at a line south of the mountains, here in Syloreas’s southern flatlands, waiting for one of Actaluere’s northern armies to meet up with us. After that, we’ve a week’s march north to the rallying place where we’ll be fighting them.”

“Flat plains,” Cyrus said, pondering. “Let them come at us?”

“That seems to be the consensus,” Martaina said, looking down at him once more. “With Actaluere joining the remainder of Syloreas’s armies, we have as many troops as we’ll be able to muster and can fight them on as near to even footing as possible. Besides, remember these creatures thrive on broken ground. They took Scylax without much effort, after all.”

“I haven’t forgotten that, either,” Cyrus said, “and apparently they scaled a mountain to do it. No, flat ground does work best for us, for our mounted cavalry. I find it a bit mystifying that Actaluere would choose to join with us, seeing as the Baroness was such a sticking point for them-” He stopped, having caught the waver in Martaina’s expression, the subtle move of the muscles around her right eye. “She was returned to them, wasn’t she? Back to the Grand Duke?”

“She went back to Actaluere, yes,” Martaina said carefully.

“They took her?” Cyrus asked, and started to sit up again, only to feel the strength of Martaina’s foot hold him down once more. “Took her back to him?”

“She went back to him voluntarily,” Martaina said.

There was a silence that filled Cyrus’s ears, as though the sounds of the horses and men outside had ceased. All talk and chatter and the smell of infirmity that filled the wagon was gone. “To save her people, then. To free the army of Actaluere to action against the scourge.” He felt himself relax, his body limp against the padding that separated him from the wood floor of the wagon, and the deep dissatisfaction grew within even as he tried to shut it up. “And they let her.” He said it with such casual disdain that it lit a fire in Martaina’s eyes.

“Let her? No,” the ranger said. “She argued forcefully to be allowed to. Forcefully enough that Curatio did not oppose it nor did any of the other officers.”

Cyrus was quiet for minutes, the wheels bumping him along every few seconds as the wagon hit ruts in the road it traveled. “I can’t decide whether I deem her incredibly brave or deeply stupid. Perhaps some combination of both.”

“She went into it knowing what she was doing to herself,” Martaina said, and he saw the restraint again, the mask, keeping her emotions in check. It was a mask made of thousands of years of experience at keeping others from her thoughts. “I don’t believe you could ascribe stupidity to any part of her judgment process save one, perhaps.” Her eyes narrowed at the last.

“And that part would be?”

“I decline to say.” Martaina’s head swiveled again to the back of the wagon, to the flap, and remained fixed there as they bumped along in silence.