Crusader

Chapter 92

They caught up with the Army of Actaluere on the following day, and outrode them three days later, packs on their backs and laden with provisions. The sky remained a dreary color for the most part; only the occasional daybreak found beauteous pink in the sky with the dawn. Most mornings it was grey all the way through, and the snowy ground persisted for the first week, the brisk air chilling Cyrus’s nose until they could set the fire every evening.

The flavor of hard cheese was long familiar to them by the second week, coupled with the conjured bread that J’anda could provide, and the smaller servings of salted pork and pickled eggs that helped break the monotony. The snow began to disappear in the second week, becoming patchier and more occasional until one day it yielded to brown earth and bare trees, with leaves still on the ground, uncovered. They rode through deep brown woods that smelled of fresh air, found empty houses and inns along the way that had been stripped of everything edible by the masses of refugees passing down the highway. They began to run across stragglers and slow-moving bands a day later. By the end of the week they traveled on full roads, and every soul they encountered was a beggar, starving for the most part.

The smell was overwhelming, a stink of a people who had not bathed in a month, coupled with horses, manure, and all manner of other things-poor food, muddy roads. The sound of them was incredible, babies and children crying from hunger. J’anda conjured bread from morning until long after the sun had gone down and yet still had not enough to provision the people they encountered. Cyrus watched the faces that came to them, tired, beleaguered, desperate in some cases.

Martaina killed a cutthroat who crept into their camp in the dead of night with a sword. A few nights later a haggard man had tried to corner Aisling when she had gone off into the woods on her own, and when she returned she casually mentioned that someone had tried to “force his way with her.” After an alarmed query from Cyrus, she led them to the place where the body lay, already stripped of its belongings. Though he cast a sidelong glance at her, Cyrus did not bother to ask her whether the man had any possessions of note before he had died.

Aisling had not forgiven Cyrus in the truest sense of the word, he could tell. She had not, however, withheld her favors from him, not even for a night after rejoining him. She did, however, become less charitable and-he noted one morning while feeling the shape of a bruise on his neck-more vengeful. He did not complain, continuing to lie with her at night.

By the third week of their journey, the ground had returned to a somewhat green state, albeit a darkened one. Some of the trees retained their leaves, and the roads became choked with refugees. Cyrus watched one day as J’anda’s spells to conjure bread turned from their usual white aura to a reddish one and he shook the enchanter by the shoulder. “Stop,” Cyrus said.

“I can’t,” the dark elf said, his lower lip quivering, “these people are starving.”

“You won’t do them any good if you kill yourself trying to feed them.” Cyrus watched the enchanter carefully for the rest of the trip and warned Martaina to do the same. He rode in silence, for the most part, the perpetual glimmer gone from his eyes, staring ahead in silence. He conjured bread at every occasion, and water too when necessary, for anyone he could as they passed.

On the fourth week, the sun came out and the land turned flatter, the road less winding. “We’ll have entered the lands around Caenalys by now,” Martaina said, studying a hand-drawn map that had guided them thus far. “There is a signpost ahead just a bit farther, and it will put us upon the last leg of the way.” She let her jaw tighten. “After that, we’ll be at the gates soon enough.”

“Are you certain about this?” Aisling asked, flicking her eyes to him in the barest hint of impatience.

Cyrus paused. “Certain as I can be. The people of this city deserve a chance to flee, to survive, and the Baroness …” he felt his throat constrict. “I owe her a debt.”

“Is that all?” Aisling asked.

Cyrus looked down. “It’s all I’ve got for now. If that army has to besiege the city, she dies. She suffered a lot to make sure I lived. I owe her.”

“She wasn’t the only one who helped bring you back to life,” Aisling said quietly. “Don’t forget that.”

He looked at her evenly. “I haven’t.”

That night she was particularly vicious, more frenzied than before, and he felt the pain of it in the following morning’s ride, with scabbed-over nail marks along his back. He felt them pulse and sear with each step of the horse, each bump in the road.

The land was green now, green with spring, grasses gone dormant for the winter returning to life. “This is canal country,” Martaina said to him as they rode along, “we are likely no more than two days’ ride from the city.”

“And an army,” Cyrus said.

“I haven’t forgotten them, I assure you,” Martaina said with a roll of the eyes.

The flat lands and coastal swamps gave them a day of blessed warmth at the next dawn. The sun shone down and Cyrus felt the heat upon his armor at midday, and realized that he felt warm for the first time outside the presence of a fire in months.

“I could become used to this,” J’anda said, turning his face to the sun, closing his eyes and letting his horse meander down the path.”

“What can we expect when we get there?” Aisling asked.

“We should be outside the city gates in a few hours,” Cyrus said, though he saw no sign of any city on the flat horizon. There were few enough travelers and refugees here, most having turned southeast at the previous crossroads. There were scarcely any travelers at all, and their number grew sparser as the day went on.

“It’s a fishing town, a seaport,” Martaina said, repeating the same information that Milos Tiernan had given them before they departed the army. “But the port is closed, I suppose, and the gates under watch.”

“If King Hoygraf can’t hold the city voluntarily,” Cyrus said, “he’ll squeeze it to death by force.”

J’anda looked at Cyrus accusingly. “When you pick an enemy, you don’t do it in half measures, do you?”

“My only regret is only half-killing him,” Cyrus said.

Martaina cast him a cocked eyebrow. “That’s your only regret? Not-” She stopped and looked to Aisling, who glanced at her sideways without turning her head. “Never mind.”

Night fell, the skies darkened, and soon enough the swaying of the trees was only visible by moonlight. They rode on, quietly. The gates of the city grew larger in the distance, braziers lit all around the perimeter of the wall to give the city an imposing feel. It was wide, huge.

“Any bets on them seeing this coming?” J’anda said.

“I’m not much of a gambler these days,” Martaina replied, tense.

The walls were wide and flat, and reached a hundred feet up. There was nothing visible behind them save for a few lanterns hung in high towers. We should have come in the daylight. It would have been more glorious to see this city the way Cattrine described it to me.

The thundering hooves of the horses around Cyrus lulled him into the quiet as they went. “Are you sure you’ve got this, J’anda?”

“Fear not,” the enchanter said. “You have never looked more unthreatening than you do right now.”

“Glorious,” Cyrus said, “my life’s ambition, fulfilled.”

“Look at me,” Martaina said, “I’m no different than I was.”

“I am,” Aisling said, holding out a tanned, browned hand. “Human is not a good look for me.” She swiveled to look at Cyrus. “Is it?”

He favored her with a once-over. “I don’t mind it. You look good.”

She gave him a slow nod. “Maybe I’ll keep it on. For later. Variety, you know.”

There was a silence around them, broken only by the sound of the horses’ hooves hitting the road. “What a fabulously misplaced use for my beautiful magics,” J’anda said mournfully.

“Try and pretend you haven’t used them for the same purposes or worse,” Aisling snapped at him. The enchanter shrugged with a slight smile of mystery.

The flat, dark colors of the stone wall were rising at them. The gates were open-thank the gods-as they came along the last few hundred feet. Guards were in the shadows, Cyrus could sense them, and they stepped out upon the approach of the party on horseback. Cyrus stared at them.

“What have we got here?” the head guard asked, utterly disinterested.

“I’m escorting a party of holy women into the Temple of Our Forebearers,” J’anda said. “You know, helpers to prepare the dead for their departure.”

One of the guards shot his partner a look. “You know the city is closed to exit? Once you go in, you don’t come out until it reopens.”

“I’m quite fine with that,” J’anda’s human face smiled. “Once I’ve dropped the ladies off, there are a few locations I’m keen to visit. Traveling with holy women … you understand. It provides little enough comfort.”

The guard guffawed. “All right, then. In you go. It’s after dark, and martial law is in force, so be quick to your destination. No loitering about in the streets, or you’ll be arrested.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward J’anda. “If it’s female companionship you’re looking for, try the Scalded Dog out near the seaport. Very fine wenches there and reasonable as well.”

“Oh, I’ve heard good things,” J’anda said. “But as I believe your sailors say, ‘any old port in a storm,’ yes?”

The guards shared a laugh at that one. “Too right. Be on your way, then. Don’t dawdle.”

“Oh, I shan’t,” J’anda said, spurring his horse forward to lead the way. “I’m in too much of a hurry to get where I’m going to linger for long.”

Another laugh filled the night as they went on, crossing through the torchlit dark under the portcullis. There were murder holes above, Cyrus saw, archers with arrows pointed down at them as they passed. Cyrus kept his mouth shut, waiting for the tension to subside.

There was a definite quiet as they went, and when the tunnel underpass for the wall opened up, they found themselves on a wide avenue. Small buildings lined either side of it, most of them three stories, set back off a dirt path in the center that was deeply rutted with wagon tracks. It had turned to mud, Cyrus realized, from spring rains.

Ahead was clearly the palace, and palatial it was, with columns and a dome that reached into the sky. There was a bridge ahead, one that dipped over a canal running through the city. There are dozens of them, allowing the citizens to navigate on water as easily as they do on the streets.

There was a commotion behind them, something atop the wall, and Cyrus turned to listen. He saw Martaina freeze, her face hidden behind a conjured mask that covered her features save for her eyes. That was plenty enough to give Cyrus the impression that something was desperately wrong. Just behind them, the clanking of the portcullis as it began to descend and the shouts of “ALARUM!” rang over the wall.

“What is it?” Cyrus asked, grasping at Martaina’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? Is the Army of Actaluere here already?”

“No,” she said with a shake of the head. “Worse.”

There was scurrying atop the walls, and screams, shouts that were undistinguishable to Cyrus’s ears. Bells began to ring in the streets, and suddenly an aroma hit him, overpowering, with the wind that rushed through the rapidly closing portcullis-death, rot … fear. In the blackness beyond the lowering gate he could see nothing but the tingle ran over his flesh nonetheless and his mouth filled with a bitter, acrid flavor as the blood pumped through his veins. He watched as the gates began to close behind that latticed portcullis, as it clanged to the ground and reverberated through the tunnel. A single word bubbled to his lips, and he knew by all that happened around him that he was right, even before Martaina confirmed it.

“Scourge.”