Crusader

Chapter 70

“Well, Alaric,” Partus said from where he sat in the Council Chambers (in Cyrus’s seat, which he had selected entirely at random, and oh, how it chafed at her) “it would appear you’re in a bit of a bind here.” Vara kept her eyes fixed on the dwarf as he spoke. It’s as though I fear to take them off him, as though I suspect he would begin stealing things were I to stop watching him for a moment. She ran her tongue over her teeth nervously. For all know, he might do just that.

“So it would seem,” Alaric said, looking over his steepled fingers at the dwarf. “I presume you had no idea that we were under siege when you jumped onto Mendicant’s back as he cast his return spell?”

“Had I known,” Partus said with a slightly sour frown, “I might still have done it, because being surrounded by the dark elven army here is still likely safer than what your blighting guildmates are planning over in Luukessia. They’re going to fight a slow retreat across the northern steppes trying to buy time for Syloreas to empty-as in for all the people to leave the lands.” The dwarf snorted in derision. “How well do you think that one’s likely to turn out?”

“Mendicant,” Alaric said, looking to the goblin, “you are here to make Cyrus’s report, yes?”

The goblin had been still throughout the meeting thus far, as though he were awed by the surroundings; the Council Chambers and their stone walls, slow, quiet hearths that radiated warmth through the room. It was dark outside the windows out on the balcony, but within the chambers it was light, with torches aplenty burning on sconces on the walls in such close proximity that one could comfortably read in the room despite the hour.

“Mendicant?” Alaric asked again.

The goblin seemed to shake himself out of a stupor of sorts. “Oh, yes. Partus speaks correctly, the bulk of the Sanctuary army is presently engaged in a long holding action on the Filsharron Steppes, north of Enrant Monge.” Alaric stirred, but the rest of the table was quiet and still, save for Partus, who shot a wicked grin at Vara. She held the urge to let fly a force blast but only just. “Cyrus, Longwell and a few others are making their way to Vernadam to try and sway them to enter the war with their army, and Actaluere is presently calling up the remainder of its forces to meet them at Enrant Monge in an effort to effect a counterthrust north and destroy the portal in the cave that is allowing them to flood Luukessia with these dead souls.” Mendicant’s eyes glistened as he spoke matter-of-factly. “Lord Davidon-”

“Lord of damned near nothing, if you ask me,” Partus said with a chortle below his breath.

“He’s Lord of Perdamun and Warden of the Southern Plains,” Vara snapped without thinking then tempered the widening of her eyes out of sheer reflex. Why in the blazes did I say that? Partus made no reply but feigned being impressed by flattening his lips, then pursing them, holding a hand over his mouth as though amazed.

“Lord Davidon requests aid,” Mendicant said after a momentary stumble, “for you to send another army to reinforce him and allow him to better fight back in the impending battle, assuming you have not already sent such an army.”

Alaric sighed, while Ryin laid his head on the high back of his chair. Vara expected Erith to shift her gaze around the table, but her sight was firmly fixed on Partus at her right, the dark elf’s icy glare beyond any sort of loathing Vara had come to expect even from the mercurial healer. “Can we teleport him into Saekaj?” Erith asked, indicating Partus with a nod of her head. “I think he’d do well there, in the vek’tag pens, eating their dung with the rest of the mushrooms-”

“How I’ve missed you as well, Erith,” Partus said with a crooked grin. “I don’t suppose we’ve spoken since the day I left the Daring-”

“You mean the day when you stripped our guild of most our members and left for Goliath?” Her arms were folded in front of her, and her teeth were bared in a snarl. “Gee, Partus, I can’t really think of any reason why I might not have spoken to you since then. Oh, wait, because you’re a traitorous, lecherous ass.”

Partus feigned innocence and looked around the table as if for support. “Lecherous? Just because we had a singular night of passion-”

“It wasn’t a night,” Erith said. “It wasn’t even a minute. Though I can see why you might have thought so; judgment is the first thing to go when drunk-”

“Aye,” Partus agreed sadly, “which is why I was in your bed to begin with-”

“ENOUGH!” Alaric said, loud enough to draw the attention of all in the chamber.

There was a squeak at the door and it opened; Andren slid in as Vara stared at the healer, perplexed. Vaste followed a moment later and shut the door behind him, his staff in hand, and the troll stared at the table and those around it.

There was the sound of a chair sliding back and Partus was on his feet, his hammer unslung. “My gods, it’s a troll.”

Vaste blinked at the dwarven interloper who had been sitting with his back to the door and was now standing, weapon in hand. “Well spotted. What gave it away-that I’m seven feet tall or the green skin and big teeth?”

Partus hesitated, keeping his eyes on Vaste. He turned his head to speak to Alaric out of the corner of his mouth. “Did you always have a troll, Alaric? They’re savages, you know.”

Vaste’s heavy frame swelled with a deep breath and then a long sigh followed. “Yes, I know, uncivilized I may be, standing here without a weapon drawn while you’re clearly about to challenge me to a duel, but what can I say? I abhor civilized society. I’d rather just sneak up behind you when you’re unable to defend yourself and mash you into a fine paste with my bare hands.”

Partus pointed his hammer at Vaste. “You’ll find me a greater challenge than you think if you mean to attack me when I’m not expecting it.”

“I doubt I’ll find you much at all, unless I’m crawling around on my hands and knees,” Vaste said, and promptly walked past Partus to his seat, turning his hammer aside and toward the hearth with a gentle push of his staff. “Thanks to the rest of you for speaking up for me when he called me a savage, by the way.”

“It was unworthy of answer,” Alaric said, at the head of the table, his helm still on. His eye was piercing through the slight gloom that inhabited the room; not because of the darkness, Vara realized, but because of her mood. He should have come back as well, not this miniaturized jackass. “Andren,” Alaric said, turning to the healer, who was in Nyad’s usual seat next to Vara, “thank you for joining us.”

“Aye,” Andren said, then twitched as though he were reaching for something near his belt, hesitated, and thought the better of it. “Can’t pretend I know what this is all about, though.”

“I am taking things into consideration,” Alaric said. “Mendicant, finish your report, if you please? Cyrus requests aid, I believe you said?”

“In most strenuous terms, sir,” the goblin said. “We need assistance, desperately, to be able to finish this fight and destroy the portal. These things, this scourge, they are beyond number.”

“As you may be able to tell,” Alaric said quietly, “we have some minor problems of our own; the dark elves have left an army in place around Sanctuary to cut us off from the outside world while they attempt to starve us out and break us.”

“How’s it all going so far?” Partus asked snidely.

“Poorly on the starving us out,” Vaste answered him with a grin, “even more poorly on the breaking us. Spirits are high. We’re planning a dance recital for next week.”

“How exciting,” Partus said without enthusiasm.

“While I do not believe we could spare the army Cyrus has called for,” Alaric said, “I believe sending a messenger-or two, as the case may be-would be both wise and prudent. Thus I am considering sending you,” he nodded to Andren, “and Mendicant, to deliver the message to Cyrus that help will not be arriving.”

“Well, won’t that be a fun message to deliver,” Andren muttered.

Mendicant straightened in his chair, and spoke, slowly. “I do not believe sending only two people to deliver that message would be wise.”

Alaric frowned. “Why not?”

“Because to get to Cyrus and the rest of the army,” Ryin said, “the messengers would have to travel through the Kingdom of Actaluere by themselves.”

“I thought you said that Actaluere was now allied with our army’s cause?” Erith asked, frowning. “Why would they deny our messengers free passage?”

“They wouldn’t,” Ryin said, speaking over Mendicant, “but you said Milos Tiernan was at the front with the army?” Mendicant nodded. “Did he leave Hoygraf in place along the route?” The goblin nodded again. “There’s your trouble; we ran afoul of this Baron Hoygraf on the journey in.”

“You didn’t think to mention this?” Vara asked, her irritation rising.

“We’ve been a little busy with our own problems here,” Ryin said calmly. “Far too busy for me to mention the prosaic details of our trip, especially unrelated as they were to the crisis we were experiencing as I left Luukessia.”

“So you presume that this … Hoygraf,” Alaric tested the word, as though he were tasting it and found he disliked it immensely, “would interrupt their passage out of some grudge?”

Mendicant’s gaze shot immediately to Ryin, who kept calm-and yet Vara saw the hint of unease within him. “Yes,” Ayend said, “if he caught a hint that we had messengers passing through-which he would-they would not make through his territory alive, even though the King of Actaluere is now allied with us.”

“What the hell did Cyrus do to him?” Vaste said, low, almost too low to be heard.

“As I heard it,” Partus said with a wide grin, ignoring the look of frozen horror on Ryin Ayend’s face, “he stormed the man’s castle, sacked the place, stabbed the man through the guts and left him to die-which he did not, by the way-then stole the man’s wife and proceeded to cuckold him.” Partus let a hearty guffaw. “I like your General. He’s got style.”

Vara felt the ice pump through her veins, freezing her expression at some bizarre in-between of shock and horror.

“So,” Erith said into the quiet around the table, where every face was split between looking at Vara or looking away to spare her shame, “he took the man’s wife and made her his lover? That does carry something of a sting.” She cast a sidelong glare at Ryin. “I suppose you thought we were too busy for you to mention that Cyrus was taking a taste of the local flavor? And a Baroness, no less.”

“Well,” Mendicant said, his voice coming back to him now in the quiet horror that no one else would speak into, “they had some sort of falling out, you see. The Baroness went back to her husband.” Vara felt the cold ratchet down a few notches. “Cyrus is sleeping with Aisling now.”

There was a dead calm, a quiet so unnatural as to border on the surreal. Vara felt no motion in her face at all, nothing in her head but a screaming void, an interminable desire to cry out but her mouth, strangely enough, stayed well shut, fortunately. She caught Ryin’s face covered out of the corner of her eye and saw Vaste bow his head. Erith tried to give her a smile of support but it was wasted. All that was there was what she saw, the screaming void in her head the loudest silence she’d ever known.

It was into that silence that Andren spoke at last. “Well done, Cyrus,” the healer said, his face a smile of grudging admiration. He looked at Vara and his grin faded. “Uh … I mean … how dare he not spend these last months pining for a woman who rejected him so harshly that he fled the continent afterward.” Andren turned to Alaric, faux outrage on the healer’s bearded face. “I thought you sent him there to fight, not f-”

“Enough.” Alaric was quiet this time, exhaustion seeping through every syllable. “This is no time for levity; our brethren are cut off from us, we remain surrounded. I have no time for petty concerns of who is sleeping with whom, outside of how it affects our lines of communication.” He bowed his head, helm still blocking the view of his eyes. “They will have to remain without assistance and without warning. I see no way to return a messenger to them.”

“If J’anda were still here,” Vaste said, “he would be able to. But none of our remaining enchanters are nearly skilled enough to pull off the illusory treachery it would take to cross that territory, nor would any of our rangers be a particularly good risk.”

“Then we remain on the same course as before,” Alaric said, sweeping his chair back and standing abruptly. “Ryin, organize quarters for our guest, Partus.”

Ryin blinked. “He’s staying?”

Erith’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “He’s staying?”

Vaste clapped his hands together in faux joy. “He’s staying? Oh goody, we can finally have that dwarven sleepover I’ve always dreamed of, the naughty one where the beard gets-”

“You stay away from me, you filthy beast,” Partus said, brow furrowed at Vaste. “I’ll have no part of what ever unnatural plans you’re making with me at the center of them.”

“Can we please come back to why he’s staying?” Erith asked in a hoarse voice. “Sending a wizard or druid to deliver him to Fertiss or wherever he wants to go seems a small price to pay for not having to deal with him anymore.”

“I don’t care to spare anyone at the moment,” Alaric said quietly, and drew up to his full height. “He is our guest until the next time we send out a druid or wizard to somewhere suitably civilized. Until then, he can stay with us.”

“Well,” Partus said, as though trying to reconcile what he was hearing, “surely being under embargo as you are, you’ll be needing to send someone to gather a daily ration of food from a major city-Pharesia, Reikonos-any of them will do.”

“Actually, we’re stealing our food from convoys that the dark elves have purloined from local farmers,” Vaste said. “It’s all very efficient, and saves us from having to-you know, being a former member of Goliath and thus well versed in all manner of banditry-pay for any of it.”

“So,” Partus said, “you could drop me off on one of your raiding expeditions. I could cross the Plains of Perdamun on horse.”

“Do you have a horse?” Alaric asked-with some small trace of satisfaction, Vara thought.

“Well, no-”

“You could always walk your way across the Plains of Perdamun,” Vaste suggested in an oh-so-helpful tone. “After all, they’re only swarming with dark elves at the moment. I’m sure they’d love to have a conversation with such a charming fellow as yourself.”

Partus’s face fell. “I … uh … don’t really think I’m on very good terms with the dark elves. I wouldn’t care to run across them. Are you certain you couldn’t lend me a horse?”

“I’m afraid we’re rather in need of all the horses we have at the moment,” Alaric said smugly. “But worry not, I’m certain we’ll have a wizard heading toward a safe city in the next six months or so.”

Vara watched him carefully and tried to guess at his game; as usual, the man they dubbed the Ghost was beyond explanation. Keeping the dwarf here is pointless. He’s no more use to us than a weight around our necks; best be rid of him.

“That seems to be enough for now,” Alaric said, and his armor began to fade. He turned insubstantial, into the faint fog, and rolled under the door to the stairs, disappearing faster than he usually did.

“A houseguest,” Vaste said, now sarcastic. “I couldn’t be more thrilled! I’ll bring you the good linens, the ones with small pebbles crushed into them for your comfort and our amusement.”

“If you’ll come with me,” Ryin said, gesturing to Partus, “we’ll find you some accomodations.”

“The dungeons have some particularly lovely quarters,” Erith suggested. “Put him in the one next to the rock giant.”

“You have a rock giant, too?” Partus asked. “Gods, do you have anyone normal?”

Vara didn’t wait for the repartee nor any sort of reply; she was out the door and going, her feet heavy on the stairs up to her quarters. It was evening, after all-time to sleep, she told herself. Or at least try and pretend to.

“Hey,” came the quiet voice behind her, the low baritone of Vaste.

“What do you want?” she snapped at him, unaware of how much raw emotion she was putting into her voice until she heard it.

Vaste came up behind her, a slow walk, his feet making soft footfalls on every stone. “He’s not dead, you know.”

“I bloody well know that,” she said, lashing out again with her voice. “Not that I care. I don’t, actually. I don’t bloody well care.”

Vaste gave her a subtle nod. “You’re a liar and a thief.”

“What?” She stared at him, perplexed and irritable. “I am not a thief!”

“So you admit to being a liar?”

“I admit to nothing,” she said, “save for that you are a baffling, exasperating sort of fool whose flabby green arse is ripe for a good thumping.”

Vaste raised an eyebrow at her then turned around, sticking out his backside and looking down as though to inspect it. “It does look wonderful, doesn’t it? Ripe for thumping indeed. The way you say it makes it sound so kinky and appealing.”

She let out a harsh breath, as though it could contain some magic that might strike him dead on the spot. “I am in no mood-”

“You’ve been in no mood for quite some time,” Vaste said. “I don’t expect the news that he’s sleeping with other women will do much to improve it.”

She let out a mirthless laugh. “If it is as you say it is, why would you bother to put yourself in my path when you know that I’ll be ready to spray whoever annoys me with nothing but the sharpest acid?”

Vaste didn’t grin, didn’t smile at all, for once. “Because somebody should be there to take it.”

“What?” She didn’t quite boggle at him but was only just shy of it.

“I expect you’d think I would argue for Cyrus, or something of the sort,” Vaste said, straitlaced. “But I’m not. Cyrus did what Cyrus did, I won’t defend or condone it. But neither is he my concern at this moment. My concern is you.”

“I’m fine,” Vara said, letting her mouth stretch into a thin line, like the bricks in the wall. Just like the bricks, unbreakable, standing strong.

“With as much lying as you’re doing, I can’t imagine it will be much longer before you cross into the domain of thieving simply from sheer boredom at having mastered the lying.” He raised an eyebrow again. “Would you say you’re also getting better at lying to yourself with all the practice you’re getting?”

“What do you want from me?” She felt a great wall of overwhelm, of fatigue, and suddenly going to her bed didn’t seem so outrageous.

“I would like to see,” Vaste said, “my favorite paladin stop taking it on the chin and start being honest with everyone.” He shrugged. “But since Alaric is probably going to continue to be mysterious-”

“A joke,” she said quietly, and felt the push of the emotions within her. “So excellently timed, too.”

“I’ll settle for getting you to admit that you’re in love with Cyrus and that with every bit of word from Luukessia you die a little inside, and every month without word from them kills you a little more.” Vaste stared down at her, and the humor was gone. “The truth is probably the hardest part to admit; especially for someone as …”

“Reserved?” She said, her voice brittle. She stared into his eyes, which were immense and brown, warm, something that she had always found favorable about him. Perhaps the only thing.

“I was going to say tragically repressed, but why don’t we meet in the middle and say stoic?” He awkwardly put a large hand on her shoulder and rested it there lightly on her armor. “I know that you must be going through some sort of mental obstacle course of epic proportions, and that with the death of your father, and before that your mother, that you must be-”

“She warned me away,” Vara said at a whisper. “Before she died, the last conversation we had, we were yelling and screaming at a fever pitch. I told her I loved him, and that I didn’t care about my responsibilities as the shelas’akur, and she threw it back in my face. I said some very unkind things, some very crude things meant to shock her. She warned me away, told me that he would die before me and that I would mourn him all the rest of my life.” She clenched her eyes tightly shut, as though doing so would mean all the emotion she was feeling would vanish like the world when they were shut, “and I listened to to her. I knew she was right, and so I told him goodbye, that it would never work …” She heard her voice break a little, “and I sent him into the arms of her-that harlot.”

“I would try not to think of it that way if I were you,” Vaste said. “You attempted to make the best decision you could at that moment. Sure, it turned out to be monumentally shortsighted on an emotional level,” he grimaced when she looked at him, disbelief at what he had said. “Sorry. But your mother had the right of it, if we were only looking at the long-term ramifications. Everything she told you is true, on a purely logical level.” The troll looked strangely sage as he spoke. “But the problem is that love and logic are the poorest of bedfellows. Not unlike you and Cyrus.”

“How am I supposed to comport myself in this circumstance?” She shuffled two steps to the right and put her back to the wall, between two sconces. The clink of her armor against the stone was enough to remind her that she wore it to protect herself from harm. But there was no protection from Cyrus Davidon, he got under my damned armor as surely as though I weren’t wearing any at all. “How am I to handle the thought of him … over there … with her … while I’m here, trying to keep the only home I have left from being ground under the boot of the greatest tyrant in Arkaria?” She brushed a hand along her smooth face, felt it run up to her eyes and cover them, blotting out the light. “How am I supposed to … Vaste … how do I …?”

She dissolved, then, and he caught her in his massive arms, enfolded her in them, and she sobbed into his white robes, felt the tears trickle down her cheeks in a way that was still foreign to her. She felt safe and warm, wrapped up with him there, and she held onto him for quite some time, just like that, in the middle of the hallway.