Crusader

Chapter 7

The celebration went on throughout the day. Cyrus could hear it from where he stayed, out of sight down the shore, swinging Praelior at imaginary foes, feeling the sweat from his exertions rolling down his face.

It will not work, Cyrus … He saw himself in the Realm of Death, his blade cutting into the chest of a demon knight, his sword biting into the bulging muscles of the creature, its breath foul and heavy with the stink of fetid rot, of death itself, on the day that he challenged the might of Mortus, the God of Death, and survived …

It can never be, you and I … He brought Praelior around in a slice that he imagined caught the ready neck of a dark elven footsoldier, landing at the seam of his armor. In his mind he was back on the bridge in Termina on a long, cold night that followed a day filled with infinite promise. He could almost feel the chill, even in the tropical air.

For I am elf, and my life is long and my duties are as great as my sorrow … He brought the blade down on the skull of a foe who wasn’t there, a goblin, heard the satisfying crack of sword on skull in his mind’s eye. He remembered the night that he and Sanctuary had invaded Enterra, the night that he had claimed the scabbard that rode on his hip, that made Praelior whole, a weapon unmatched in the world of men, and he could sense the clinging desperation of the moment when Vara had died in the depths, when he’d watched Emperor Y’rakh drop her to the ground, her golden hair spilling onto the floor …

We will not, cannot be … He stopped and reversed his grip, holding Praelior above his head and thrust it toward the ground, burying it into the head of Ashan’agar, heard the howl of he who was once the Dragonlord, and remembered the feel of the wind on his face as he rode the back of the beast into the rocky ground of the Mountains of Nartanis.

Not ever … Cyrus felt himself in another place, before swords, before blades and armor, where the sand was thick with the blood of the fallen. He felt himself breathe heavy, cold air, the aroma of sweat around him. His eyes found his foes, and there were more of them than he could count. He felt the rush of fear, and tried to quiet it, but-

Not ever.

His eyes snapped open and he turned, Praelior pointed at a figure standing at a distance from him, hands open and outstretched. Cyrus’s eyes widened in the realization that he had moved on instinct, had known that someone was there unconsciously and acted before being truly aware of it himself. He saw who it was, and took a deep breath, then another, long, loud gasps, causing his chest to heave with the exertion he’d just undertaken. He looked at the arm that held Praelior and it trembled. He lowered the blade from where it pointed at a figure before him. “Odellan.”

“General,” Odellan said. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, but it was under his arm. The elf’s armor was polished to shine, the same set he wore when he was an Endrenshan-a Captain-in the Termina Guard. The surface of his breastplate was lines and art, carvings in the metal that gave it an artistic touch that Cyrus’s straightforward black armor lacked. Odellan’s helm was similarly adorned, with winged extensions that rose above his head and down on either side of his face as well. It rested now in the crook of his elbow, and the elf’s face was relaxed, his blond hair stirring in the sea breeze. “I didn’t mean to disturb your training.”

Cyrus slid Praelior back into the scabbar, and managed to get his breathing under control. “Walking the beach is hardly disturbing me, Odellan. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

Odellan nodded, inclining his head to the side. “I’m impressed you heard my approach with your back turned and the waves crashing as they are. Your hearing must be near-elvish in its efficacy.”

Cyrus pulled a gauntlet from his hand and used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “I take it you’re out for a walk?”

“No, actually,” Odellan said. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I had a purpose. Longwell was looking for you, wanted to discuss the course for tomorrow.”

“I’ll find him shortly,” Cyrus said, sniffing. “Is there still an abundance of boar? I find myself more hungry than I thought.”

Odellan allowed a smile, an oddity on the face of most elves Cyrus had met in his life. Only in the last few years, in Sanctuary, had he gotten to know them more closely and seen behind the somewhat straitlaced facade typical of their race’s conduct with offlanders-non-elves. “I can’t imagine why-days of insubstantial bread and water supplemented by bony fish not quite to the taste of your palate?”

Cyrus felt a quiet chuckle escape him. “I suppose not.” He felt a rumble in his stomach. “I’m going to get something to eat. Are you going to keep walking down the beach?”

“No,” Odellan said, falling into step beside Cyrus as the warrior began to make his way toward the encampment. “I’ll accompany you, if that’s all right.”

Cyrus shot Odellan a sly look. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Odellan’s returned expression was near-inscrutable. “I’d heard you were feeling decidedly unsociable of late.”

“I see,” Cyrus said. “Doubtless the rumor mill supplied you with reason enough for my desire to remain … isolated.”

“Indeed,” Odellan said with a nod. “Even a newcomer such as myself can’t help but be exposed to discussions among the rank and file of why our revered General-a man they refer to in hushed tones as ‘Cyrus the Unbroken’-has gone from a charismatic brawler with a decidedly outspoken persona to a black hole of despair, the very image our elven artists look to when trying to capture the mood of our society this last millenia.”

Cyrus halted and Odellan walked another pace before stopping. Cyrus’s eyes narrowed at the elf. “Some of that was funny, and I can’t decide how I feel about that.”

Odellan raised an eyebrow. “Only some of it? I was trying to keep a playful tone throughout.”

“The ‘Cyrus the Unbroken’ bit was a tad grim; otherwise you succeeded.”

“Ah, that,” Odellan said, looking back at him. “It seems there’s a story that goes along with it, though I’ve yet to hear it told the same way twice.”

“And the rumors about the reason I’m as black in the mood as an elvish artisan? Are those told the same twice, or do the details vary with the telling?”

Odellan cast his eyes down. “Those seem to be almost the same every time. A dashing young warrior, a rising star in the Sanctuary firmament, casts his eyes upon an elven paladin of legend, spills the secrets of his soul to her, and receives naught but anguish for his reward.” Odellan tilted his head, his expression pained. “It would be hard for even the most accomplished embellisher of stories to mistake a tale so plain as that one.”

“That’s never stopped rumormongers from trying.”

“As you can tell, the broad strokes of that one convey all the important bits,” Odellan said. “Whether anything else happened, we all get the gist.” Cyrus caught a flicker of something behind the elf’s eyes, some pain within. “Heartbreak is no great joy for any of us, but no one will disturb you if you don’t wish to talk about it-”

“I don’t,” Cyrus said, resuming his walk. “It’s nothing personal, but my … adversities are my own.”

“Well, that would make it personal, wouldn’t it? Still, I understand completely.” The elf gave Cyrus a curt nod. “And I shan’t bring it up again.” Odellan hesitated. “Save but to say that if ever a day comes when you wish to discuss it … I am the soul of discretion.”

Cyrus felt the muscles in his body tense and then relax, the full effect of Odellan’s offer running through his mind. “It’s kind of you, Odellan. I doubt that day will come, but I appreciate the offer.”

“A kindness I fear is all too small a repayment for those you’ve done for me.” Odellan’s silver boots had begun to collect small clumps of wet sand, and the shine on the top of his metal-encased feet was not nearly so polished as his breastplate. “After all, you saved my life and the lives of countless of my people in Termina and then brought me from exile to a place where I can do some small good, I hope.”

“More than small, I would think,” Cyrus said as they passed the embers of the fire he had slept beside. The sun had risen in the western sky and was hanging high above the sea, day in full and glorious bloom.

The smell of roasted pig was in the air, and Cyrus could see Martaina Proelius next to a boar that looked to be fairly intact, and the ranger gave him a smile as he approached. “Hungry?” she asked.

“Indeed I am,” he said, his voice suddenly scratchy. “How’s the boar?”

“Oh, he’s dead,” she said, taking a knife from her belt and carving a slice from the haunch. “But tasty. It’s nice to see you seeking the company of others again, sir, even if it is only for a meal.”

“Well … not only for a meal,” he said, eliciting a wider grin from the ranger. He took a bite of the meat she had given him. “That is good.” He shifted the meat around on his tongue, tasted the curious flavor of something beyond meat and fat. “There are spices in this.”

Martaina grinned with obvious pleasure. “I found some familiar plants over the berm; it made seasoning these beasts all the sweeter.”

“Well done,” Cyrus told her, beginning to turn away. “Well done indeed.”

“General,” she said, causing him to turn back. “Remember that you’re among friends here.”

He gave her a wan smile and turned back toward the officer’s fire, Odellan at his side. “Even if I forgot, there seems to be no shortage of reminders.”

“These people love you, General.” Odellan said it with quiet certitude. “The veterans, the ones who came to help you train the newest, they have been through fire and death with you and have followed you off the very map.” He shook his head. “I wish I had commanded such loyalty when I was in charge of the Termina Guard.”

“I daresay you commanded more in your last battle,” Cyrus said. “My people have a very good chance of resurrection if they should fall. Your men knew that the fight for Termina would cost many of them their lives and they stood with you anyway.”

“They fought for King and country and for their homes, for the lives of their brethren,” Odellan said with a quiet shake of his head. “That is a powerful motivator, and one that is lacking in guilds such as Sanctuary. At first blush, I should think guild life would be the purest sort of mercenary company, a people banded together for mutual gain, undertaking adventure, exploration and battle in the farthest and most dangerous reaches of the world for the wealth and riches they can reap. Yet it is not so.”

Odellan’s mailed fingers rested on his helm, his eyes seeming to trace the lines of the carving upon it. “I watched Sanctuary stand against the God of Death-a god! Something not seen by living eyes in generations of your people! Yet it was not Sanctuary that broke but Mortus. Of those who stood with you, only one of them shouted in fear, and none of them lost command of themselves or ran. I should imagine that any mercenary company would have trembled when he descended from the air above us. I would think that even the Termina Guard, who held against the certain death that the dark elves levied against us, would have quailed at the sight of a god, of death, of the endless sleep.

“You say that these people stand with you because they know there is a chance of resurrection if they fall. I remind you that many of them stood with you then, in the Realm of Death, when there was no chance at all if they died. It is not because of King or country or riches or gain that the army of Sanctuary stood with you then or that they are with you now, here beyond the edge of the world.” The fire in Odellan’s eyes burned brighter. “They believe-in you, in the cause, in what we are doing here. The veterans believe enough that they would die for it.” Odellan turned his head and looked back to the still-burning fires that littered the beach. “The newest have been sent here to find that conviction for themselves.”

Cyrus stopped and looked with Odellan down the beach, at the thousand souls under his command, waiting for his word to march forward on the morrow, into battle, pain, and possible death. “I don’t know what kind of belief I can give them.” He shook his head, and the little mirth that he had felt when talking to Martaina dissipated like a wisp of smoke after a fire has been put out. “I’m carrying a weight of my own right now. I’ll do my duty, help forge them in battle and keep them from danger as best I can, but … belief?” Cyrus shook his head. “That’s something they’ll have to figure out for themselves.”

“You’re right, they do,” Odellan said. “But you will show them the way.”

“I don’t know how I can do that,” Cyrus said, “when I’m not sure what I believe in anymore.”

“You still hold true to duty-honor-purpose. These are things you wear like your armor.” Odellan stared at Cyrus, and Cyrus looked back at him. “You are here at a time when you’d almost assuredly like to be elsewhere. You’re doing your duty to your guild and holding true to a friend who asked for help.”

Cyrus cleared his throat. “It sounds pretty when you say it like that, and I told myself the same when we were leaving Sanctuary, that I was here to do my duty and fight for the guild and what we stand for.” He looked back at the bridge, the long stone causeway that stretched over the horizon, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “But I had a long time to consider it on the bridge. I don’t think that’s why I’m here anymore.” Cyrus heard a hollowness in his words, in his tone, something brittle and empty, and the slow dawning within him of something he had yet to fully admit to himself.

Odellan stared back, impassive. “Why do you think you’re here?”

Cyrus looked back at the bridge again, the endless bridge. The seas were so blue beneath it, the skies only a slightly lighter shade above the horizon. And in the distance, far in the distance was … nothing. Nothing visible. His horse was nearby. He could climb on Windrider and ride, just ride-

But not back to the bridge. Not over it.

“You certainly said it well when we left,” Odellan said, jarring Cyrus away from his thoughts. “You spoke of duty and nobility of purpose, of helping others in need, and you said it with conviction enough that I believed you.” The elf didn’t look judgmental, and he said it matter-of-factly. “So if that’s not why you’re here, then what is it? What compelled you to lead us over the bridge, if not your honor and desire to help a friend?”

Cyrus saw in his mind’s eye the image of himself on Windrider’s back, of a long gallop down a winding road in a far off land. He saw villages, mountains, forests and cities. Castles passed him by and he rode through jungle and swamp. Nothing he saw was familiar yet all of it was. Behind him, all the while, was the specter of something else, something that drove him onward, that would not let him rest.

Her.

“I meant it when I said it to them,” Cyrus whispered, meeting Odellan’s gaze at last. “I just … I don’t know that I believe it anymore. I feel … empty inside, like all the wine has been poured from my cup and there’s not enough left but to ripple at the bottom when something happens-as though the littlest things can bring me only the slightest of joys now. A month ago, a year ago, I would have come here for duty, for honor, for all those things.” He shook his head ever so slightly and a pained expression crossed his face, anchored in place by the realization that had now fully formed within him. “But that’s not why I’m here now.

“I’m here because I’m running-from her.”