Crusader

Chapter 80

The snow had come heavily, all through the night. Cyrus did not sleep, but he lay down next to Aisling in the tower room, the fire crackling and shedding warmth now. The sweet smell of wood smoke harkened him back to thoughts of Sanctuary, but he found less comfort in them than he would have imagined. A dull, gnawing feeling ate at him from the thought of it, of going home, he realized. The smell of meat pies came back to him, whether from thoughts of Sanctuary or memories of the days before, when he was a child in a home of his own, with a mother and father, he knew not which. Alone. It’s how I lived, from the day Belkan dropped me at the Society to the day I … what? Made my first prayer to Bellarum? Met Narstron? Perhaps. Married Imina? He grimaced. Doubtful. She knew I felt the call to war more than to stay with her. From the day I …

There was the flash again, in his mind, of blond hair, of a sword in motion, laying open foes on a battlefied. Of a sharp voice and sharper wit, of her fluid motion in a fight, and of her face … oh gods, her face …

From the day I joined Sanctuary. Even the echo of the words only in his mind was as loud as any battle; it resonated in the quiet night of his chamber, and even the presence of Aisling against his side, almost purring, was no consolation.

Dawn found him unrested, and he wondered if he had shut his eyes at all after returning to bed. Terian’s words rattled in his head, thoughts of the man he was plagued him, of who he had been.

He rose, ate breakfast with the others in a somber feast in a room at the bottom of the stairs, the brothers quietly bringing them porridge. No one spoke, not even Martaina, though she looked to be of a mind to say something at one point. When finished, they filed outside. The courtyard had filled with snow during the early morning hours, and still it came down heavily, lying already in drifts up to mid-calf on the women, Cyrus noted upon seeing Aisling slip into it. She cringed and he knew that wet slush had fallen into her leather shoes, low as they ran to the ground.

The horses were saddled and waiting, and the same stable boy brought Cyrus his reins. He took them wordlessly, the lad’s shining face not adding any brightness to an already dim mood. The snowfall was lighter now than it had been last night, but the crunch of it underfoot, the way it drowned out all the distant noises and made the land still and quiet was deeply unnerving, especially before battle. The remnants of his cinnamon porridge, sweetened with cream, still hung on his moustache and beard, and he could taste the sugar still lingering on his tongue. He pulled tight his cloak again once he was on Windrider’s back, and the horse started off right away, without even a prompting from him, heading toward the north courtyard, following Longwell’s lead in this case.

Briyce Unger and Milos Tiernan were already waiting, having a quiet conversation with aides behind them, ahorse. As Longwell approached they each gave a nod of courtesy and were off, toward the gate north, out through it and then the second gate beyond, where the world opened up before them. The snowflakes forced Cyrus’s eyes to squint every few minutes. He blinked them away when needed, but a few minutes later they would return, and he would brush them off his face. It was a steady path to madness, he was certain, but his coat began to become wet, and his armor chill, the inside padding saving him from the worst of the cold.

They rode out, and the army of Galbadien joined them past the forest road, falling into line behind them. Others rode out from the east as well, the other armies of Actaluere that had filtered up. Cyrus rode at the front-the tip of the spear, he liked to think of it-with the Kings and his own command. He looked back and wondered, trying to see through the snow, stealing a look at the army of Actaluere.

Tiernan caught his eye when he looked back around, and there was a slight smile on the King of Actaluere’s face. “He’s not here, of course.”

Cyrus blinked at Milos Tiernan. “Who?”

“Hoygraf,” Tiernan said with a smug look. “Can’t be of much good since you gutted him; he remains in his lands, along with a considerable contingent of Actaluere’s troops.” The smile was gone now, and it became somewhat shrewd as a look, giving Cyrus the slightest hint that the King was holding something back.

“Wouldn’t we be better off with his men coming along with us?” Cyrus asked, keeping his eye on Tiernan.

“We have about a third of them with us,” Tiernan replied, now turned to look in the direction he was riding, giving Cyrus a sideways profile. He had not noticed before, but the King’s chin was weak, withdrawn. “The rest remain as a sort of reserve-insurance, if you will, against any sort of strike by Galbadien or Syloreas against our holdings.”

“Speaking for Galbadien,” Longwell said from his place not far away, on the other side of Cyrus, “we have no intention to strike at you, nor do we have any forces left in our country with which to do so if we wanted.” He shrugged, his pointed helm with a hawklike visor giving him a predatory edge. “Though I suppose if you wanted to, Baron-I’m sorry, Grand Duke Hoygraf-could just about march to Vernadam without any sort of serious opposition.”

“Good to know,” Tiernan said without any sort of pleasure. “But my greater concern is the refugees of Syloreas that pour through my borders unfettered even now. We give them all the charity we can, but it is a risk, however slight, that they may decide to turn on my people. The troops who remain are there to keep the peace. Refugees are hungry, after all, and sometimes desperate, and I don’t wish to see my people bear the brunt of an angry, starving mass cutting a rugged path across our landscape.”

“What exactly do you think they’ll be doing,” Briyce Unger asked, “this hungry, starving mass of desperation?” The umbrage was obvious from the way he said it. “Capturing Caenalys? Sacking your treasure room?”

“I worry more about the farmers in the northern reaches,” Tiernan said bluntly. “Starving people do desperate things-like, say, murder a man for food. Form a mob and destroy a town while trying to get fed. I am doing what I can for charity, but I must also preserve my people’s safety. I would hope, were our roles reversed, you would understand that.”

Cyrus could see that Unger did not, but the King of Syloreas did not voice whatever irritation he held. He guided his horse away from the discussion, though, away from Tiernan and back to a thick knot of his aides who rode at the front of the formation. Cyrus could see them casting glances every now and again, though, and he did not like the look of them at all.

With the snow slowing their pace, and even more the walking speed of the men on foot, the great army of Luukessia took the better part of the day to get to the flat lands that had been marked for the site of their battle. There were no tents set up when they arrived, but fires were set. The whole camp was a buzz of subdued activity; quiet in the gloom, the snow still coming down. There were whispers, rumors, flat-out lies, and all of them reached Cyrus’s ears as he walked through the encampment, alone, his feet crunching through the snow. Men were huddled near fires for warmth; and every once in a good while he saw a woman in armor or with a sword. There was thin stew cooking and not much else. A skin of ice was broken off a nearby creek for drinking water and for boiling, and latrines were set up over a hill to the rear. Coming back from them, Terian said, “I suggest we try and lead the scourge in that direction when they come; it’ll be certain to send them running back to the north.”

“Even on such a cold day as this?” Martaina had her bow out and was fletching, working on arrows, putting tips upon shafts she had carved while gathering wood earlier. The shafts had a wet look to them, and when she caught Cyrus looking she shrugged. “I work with what I have.”

The night came upon them early, and no sign of the aurora was to be had under the cloudy, still-snowing skies. It was quiet in the camp, though Cyrus wondered how many men were actually sleeping. The snows came down on them, and still no tents had been set up; the need for mobility and a quick retreat trumped comfort, and so tens of thousands of men and a few hundred women lay beneath a sky that wafted snow down upon them. Aisling lay next to him, of course, and as much as she had tried to take his mind off of all matters, it had not worked as it did before, and he lay awake again, unease hanging over him as he hoped sleep would claim him, yet knowing that it would not.

Dawn was a grim affair, and the snow went ever on, unhalting, now almost a foot deep. It flurried hard in spurts then reduced to a manageable few flakes before picking up again. The wind howled, sending icy slaps hard against the men who were standing around fires that were whipped with every gust. They kept their heads low, their cowls and collars up to get warmth by any means they could find.

The first messenger for the army came an hour after daybreak, when pickled eggs, hard cheese and bread were being eaten by the armies of Actaluere and Galbadien. The Sanctuary members ate conjured bread and water with their supplies. An uneasy quiet hung in the air until the messenger appeared, a half-elf, half-human warrior whom Cyrus knew only in passing. The man was exhausted, it was obvious, his eyes red with fatigue. He whispered a few words to Curatio and then stumbled into the nearest bedroll, not even bothering to care that it wasn’t his own.

“They’ll be here within hours,” Curatio said. “Perhaps two, perhaps a little more, depending on how well our efforts to hold them back go. The whole line is exhausted; which should not be surprising, as they’ve been performing a strategy of engaging and falling back for months now. When we left them a week ago,” he gave a quick nod to Terian, “I wondered if they’d be able to hold for as long as it would take. I suppose they have.”

“How is our force doing?” Cyrus asked.

“Faring well,” Curatio said, snow turning his hair white. “They’ve never once been the cause of a retreat. It’s become obvious, though, that these things are drawn to life, absolutely drawn to it. They doggedly come at us, ignore the possibility of pulling a wide flanking maneuver; we’ve seen them break off in numbers when we pass a village that still has occupants. They go, they slaughter, they return with bloodied faces. I honestly thought they’d take longer to get here, but it would appear the army is wearier than even I thought.”

Cyrus looked at the messenger, already well asleep. “We’ll give them as much rest as we can afford. Hopefully this fresh army pouring into the fight will allow us to push forward.”

Curatio smiled and nodded. “Let us hope.”

“They’ve changed,” came the muffled words of the man laying on the bedroll, the half-elf. “They’re more dogged now, trying to flank more.” He didn’t roll over, but turned his head slightly. “They come at our weaknesses, too; not that they didn’t before, but Odellan says it’s worse now, as though they can exploit them, sense their flaws and approaches. More strategy, less brutal anger. There’s something else, too.” The half elf rolled over and looked at Cyrus through half-lidded eyes. “There’s a master, we think. One that stays in the distance, but we see him. Tall as two men, a four-legged creature, and it bears a mark of sorts. It stands off, growls at the others, and they move almost like it tells them to. We’ve had archers try and kill it, but it stays out of range of spells and arrows.” He looked directly at Cyrus. “We think it’s their General, the thing that leads them.”

Cyrus felt the cold wind pick up in a gust just then, carrying the sounds around his ears like a howling of the wind. The snow fell on, down around them, and the quiet descended again, except for the wind, as he sat there near the fire-and derived no warmth from it at all.