Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four (106 page)

“Foolish,” Unger said, shaking his enormous head.

“A waste,” Tiernan agreed. There was a somber spirit of dejection upon them, but Tiernan seemed to brush it aside. “The time has come to plan the next phase. To see our people safely across to the west. We have the foot troops to hold the last of the peninsula for a time.” The King of Actaluere set his jaw. “I’ve discussed it with my men, and many of them have no desire to leave these shores. I mean to stay, to water these last miles with my blood and tears, and to give our people as great a head start as we can.”

The silence filled the air. “I never thought an Actaluerean would leave aside merchant sensibility for something so …” Unger smiled, “… deeply felt. I’ve lost my homeland. Few enough of my people have made it over that bridge.” He shook his head. “I have no desire to keep fighting this battle into a new land when I’ve already lost my own.” His eyes flicked toward Longwell.

“Aye,” Samwen Longwell said, and Cyrus saw the full weight of a crown that wasn’t there, weighing down his head. “I have seen things …
done
things … to try and save this land … things I don’t wish to carry with me to the west. I was born in Luukessia, and I wish to die here.” He looked up at Cyrus. “Will you lead my men—my dragoons—into the west and help them to protect our people as best you can? We will buy you as much time as our bodies allow,” he said with a grim smile.

Cyrus looked from Tiernan to Unger then to Longwell. “I obviously can’t stay with you gentlemen, much as I might like. My land has yet to be hit by these things, but we all know it’s coming. Yes, I will protect your citizenry in their retreat with everything I have left,” he said, without much feeling. “I’ll take whatever men you have who don’t wish to die in the last defense of Luukessia and into battle in Arkaria.” He settled in, a glum feeling hanging over him. “And perhaps we’ll … find a way, over there, to stem the tide of these things. If they follow.”

“There’s no guarantee they will, after all,” Longwell said, but with enough of a kernel of disbelief that Cyrus knew that the dragoon didn’t believe it either. “If we give you enough time, perhaps the smell of life will be lost among their fear of the waters.”

“A faint hope,” Cyrus said with a slight smile, “but one I’m clinging to right now.”

There hung a moment of silence as the four of them all looked to one another. Tiernan broke it when he stood first, and gestured toward Cyrus, who stood and stepped closer to take the King of Actaluere’s outstretched hand.

“I trust you’ll continue to see to my sister,” Tiernan said, “and make certain she’s kept well out of the danger that comes?”

“I will,” Cyrus said.

“Your word,” Tiernan said firmly. “I’d like it, please.”

Cyrus felt a pinch inside. “I give you my word I’ll protect her for as long as I’m able.”

He smiled tightly. “Thank you.” He shook Cyrus’s hand hard and stepped aside.

Unger stood and stepped over to Cyrus. “Thank you for believing me when no one else would. Without your help, we’d not have gotten much of anyone out of Syloreas before the fall.”

Cyrus felt a clutch of pain inside.
If not for me, you’d still have a Kingdom.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”

Unger gave a slow shake of his head. “You’ve done quite enough. More than I likely would have done were our situations reversed. I’d have fled and not looked back.”

Longwell stood last and his crossing was slow, the King of Galbadien looking down at his feet, his helm clutched under his arm. When his head came up, Cyrus saw him biting his lower lip. “I owe you great thanks for all you’ve done. You’ve shown me a world I never would have believed. That you came here in the name of our friendship, out of loyalty to me, when you didn’t need to—it means everything.”

“I wish I’d had purer motives in doing so,” Cyrus said.

“Whatever your motives when you started,” Longwell said, “you stayed when you didn’t have to. You went north to Syloreas when you had no reason to think you were responsible in any way. And you’ve fought—ancestors! How you’ve fought.” He seized Cyrus’s hand, hard. “I believe in you—that if anyone will find a way to stop them, it’s you. If anyone could hold that bridge …” Longwell’s face tightened. “Well. I’m sorry I won’t be there to help you this time—”

There came a crack from behind Samwen, and the dragoon slumped, falling abruptly to Cyrus’s feet. Ranson stood behind him and unclenched his gauntlet. “Enough of that,” the Count said. “Take him with you, would you please? This is not a place for a young man to die, especially one whom you know could help you hold that bridge.”

Cyrus looked at the fallen figure of Longwell, out cold on the ground. “You could have … made your case to him about that.”

Ranson scoffed. “I’ve served his family for all my life. Served Galbadien for my entire life. I’ll die here, willingly, but I’ll not have the last vestige of our old ways destroyed because he’s got a foolish desire to spend himself before his time. If he truly wants to die, he can do it across the sea—after he’s ensured the safety of our people. It’s his last duty as King of Galbadien.” Ranson cocked an eyebrow. “You tell him I said that, when he wakes up.”

Cyrus looked between the Kings of Luukessia. “All right. We’ll pull back to the bridge with the dragoons and any men you want to send our way, and we’ll hold there until the last are on it. After that, we’ll go and cover the retreat—and hope that we make it far enough, fast enough to leave those bastards behind.”

“We’ll give you all the time we can spare,” Milos Tiernan said. “We’re placing the last of our Kingdoms in your hands—the last of the Luukessians. I dearly hope you’ll save them.” He looked from Ranson to Unger, then back to Cyrus. “After all,” the King of Actaluere said with a smile, “you are our last hope.”

With the dawn they were headed west, Cyrus and the Sanctuary army, on a slow march along the road. The sound of combat faded behind them as the morning wore on, and they set out pickets that night after sunset. The territory was familiar in appearance, the coastal ground they’d trod in their first days in Luukessia. The crickets sang in the grasses, the winds blew sea air fresh across them from the south, a salt breeze that reminded Cyrus of the boat, or of a day on the beach long ago—the first day he had been in Luukessia. The swaying grass and short sight lines reminded him of plains, just briefly.
Of home. Or whatever Sanctuary is to me now.

There was a sound, a low moan. Cyrus turned to look and saw Longwell clutching his head nearby, stirring from the place where he was bound with rope. He had been thrown unceremoniously on the back of a horse and left there for a good portion of the day after a healing spell from Curatio. Cyrus had looked at the damage done by Ranson before the healing spell had been cast; privately he did not envy the dragoon.

“What happened?” Longwell said, trying to sit up and struggling against the rope.

Cyrus looked him over. “Ranson knocked you out and asked me to take you with us.”

Longwell blinked and looked at the ropes that bound him. “You must surely be joking.”

Cyrus shrugged. “I think you’ll agree I haven’t been in much of a joking mood of late. More brooding, I think.”

“Are you going to let me loose?” Longwell said, struggling against the bonds that bound him under his armor.

“In another day or so,” Cyrus said, taking a drink from a skin of water and then holding it up to Longwell to let him sip from it. “Wouldn’t want you trying to escape and go back to throw yourself into a massacre, after all.”

Longwell finished his drink, giving Cyrus a measured glare. “So this is how you would treat me, after all this time? Bind me like a criminal?” He eyed Terian, who sat nearby and cocked his head at the comment. “Sorry.” He switched his gaze back to Cyrus. “You would strike my ability to choose for myself?”

“Yep,” Cyrus said. “I hope you understand. I’m going to need your help on that bridge.” He favored Longwell with a look, a cool, understated one.

“I … what?”

“The bridge,” Cyrus said. “I need someone at my side who can handle this situation. Someone who’s been in a fight like this before because if these things end up crossing, we’re the last line of defense. Your horsemen are going to be useless in a fight of this sort. The Sanctuary army can do some good if we fail, but we need to be the stone wall upon which the scourge breaks—for as long as it takes to get your people off that bridge and headed north to the portal, where we can evacuate them quickly.” He took another sip. “Hopefully some of them have already reached the other side and started to head that way.”

“You want me by your side for this again,” Longwell said, letting his bound hands hang in front of him.

“I need your help,” Cyrus said. “You, Scuddar, Odellan,” he darted a look backwards, “Terian, probably. This could be days of fighting. I have a lot of veterans thanks to our army being in a near-constant battle these last few months, but I need an elite, a front rank that won’t buckle, no matter what.”

Longwell settled, his struggle with the bonds done. “It almost sounds as though you mean to try and drive them back; to stand and fight and make them feel the pain and blink.”

Cyrus looked at Longwell out of the corner of his eye, just for a moment, then back to the dark, swampy night. “Maybe I do. Maybe I do.”

Longwell gave a short nod after a moment of thought. “Very well, then. I cede the wisdom of your proposal. I will fight alongside you on the bridge.” He held out his hand. “You may release me now; I won’t go anywhere.”

Cyrus pulled the water skin from between his lips. “I know you won’t. Because you’re going to stay roped until we get to the bridge.”

Even in the dark, Cyrus could see the disbelief as Longwell’s face fell. “What? But I gave you my word.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus agreed. “But a man desperate to die in the defense of his homeland might be possessed to say some untruths. After all, who’s gonna care if he lied after he’s dead?”

“But,” Longwell said, sputtering, looking around for some sort of support. “I’m the King of Galbadien!”

“Right you are, Your Majesty,” Cyrus said, and bowed his head. “Would you like some more water?”

Longwell’s expression turned from disbelief to fury, then slowed to irritation, then finally to a long, sustained eyeroll. “Very well.”

Two days later, they crossed the berm to see the bridge spanning the sea before them. The last of the straggling refugees were already upon it, barely visible on the horizon. At the base of the span, though, waited a familiar party—two blue-skinned figures at the side of the bridge along with another, her brown hair above her shoulders. Cyrus rode up to them, felt the salt spray of the tide hitting his face, and gazed upon J’anda’s face in shock. His own gasp filled his ears, and a feeling like someone had jammed a rod into his spine set him upright in the saddle. After a moment it subsided, as he got closer, and looked at the lined, worn skin on the enchanter’s face. “You burned through your magical energy,” Cyrus said, “and started trading your life for bread.”

There was a nod from the enchanter, whose hair was now streaked with a faded grey. “Worth it, I think,” he said, voice raspy. “A few hundred years of my life to spare thousands of lives.” He shrugged. “In mere days, it may not matter anyway.”

“Very laudable,” Curatio pronounced as he arrived.

Cyrus shook his head at J’anda. “It’s your life, I suppose.”

“I did what I thought was right,” J’anda said with another shrug. “I regret nothing.”

Cyrus waved toward Longwell, who sat at the front of a line of horsemen. “Start them across. They’ll be able to catch the back line of those refugees fairly easily. Tell them not to hurry, not to push. We don’t want to start a stampede, and we’ve got some time.” He paused. “I think.”

Longwell tossed him a mock salute with only a little acrimony and motioned for the horsemen to start across.

“How many horsemen do you have?” Cattrine asked, with a look of slightly shocked awe as she looked at the perfectly formed lines, moving up the bridge at faster than a walk.

Cyrus dismounted and landed his hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “More than ten thousand. Enough to give the scourge a fight if we can get to open ground on the other side of the sea. Transport will be a problem because you can’t teleport nearly that many in one bunch with one wizard, but if we can get to the portal two days north of the other side of the bridge, we can transport everyone fast—in half an hour or so—back to Sanctuary.”

“Your magic still amazes me,” Cattrine said with a shake of the head.

“I don’t have any magic,” Cyrus said. He gave Aisling a nod of greeting, which was returned with some reserve. He looked Cattrine in the eyes. “I’m sending you with the second regiment of dragoons.”

She looked to him, and her head went from leaning forward, eager to see him, to relaxed and falling back as her face did the same; it fell. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother, I suppose.”

“Not a bother,” Cyrus said. “But I promised your brother I would see to your safety, and I need to keep my word.”

“Very well,” she said. “Did he send any other message?”

He let his jaw relax. “Just to see you to safety. His last worries, aside from wanting to die fighting the good fight for Luukessia, were about you.”

She gave a slow nod and started to turn away toward the horsemen marching up the bridge. “I don’t suppose he gave a thought to what would happen to our people in this new land? Of how he should have stayed to lead them?”

“I don’t think he much wanted to contemplate a new land,” Cyrus said. “I believe the pain of the loss of the old was the sort of wound he would not ever have been able to put aside.” There was a sting in his words, as though he were rubbing salt on a wound of his own. “That’s my suspicion, at least.”

“I’m certain you have no idea what that feels like,” Cattrine said, her eyes warm, but her tone slightly sardonic.
She knows.
“I’ll take my leave of you now, Lord Davidon, so you might fight whatever battle comes without concern for my safety.” She stepped to him, gave him a peck on the cheek, then a longer, fuller kiss on the lips. “I do hope to see you on the other side.” She lifted her skirts and trod across the beach, her feet leaving impressions in the sand.