Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four (109 page)

The breeze cut over from the sea, just for a moment, shifting off the scourge’s stink of death. It felt warm, as though the chill of the night had dissipated. Cyrus’s eyes sharpened, his ears listened closer for the sound of thunder in the distance.
No. Not thunder.
He looked, and beyond the farthest reach of the enemy he could see it, a massive head and body, lengths above the height of a normal scourge. A cold chill came over him, the clutch of something unpredictable—unfelt—unexpected.

Fear.

Vara

Day 223 of the Siege of Sanctuary

“Is this all you have?” she shouted over the crenellation of the wall, through the gap between it and the next, the teeth of the rampart. She threw an arm out and sent a blast of force at the nearest tower to her and watched it hit, blasting the supports out of the second level of it. She cast again, a quick incantation, and scored another hit as the siege machine crashed down upon the dark elves below it. Bodies fell in a wave all around it, like a stone dropping into the water sends out ripples.

She took a breath; the smell had worsened atop the wall, both from the unwashed bodies above and the dead in rot below.
They keep pressing toward the mark, though, don’t they?
And they surely did; the advance had not relented since Alaric had left two days earlier.

The sound was still an uproar, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them yet, minus however many were dead around the walls. She let her hand clink against her armor, bracing herself against the battlements. “Come on, then,” she whispered, more to herself than them. “Is this all you have?”

“You just have to go and tempt the gods with that, don’t you?” She turned to see Andren slumped, much as she had seen him before, his flask in hand, taking a swig while shaking his head at her. “They’re vengeful, you know. Lightning and fire and all that. They’ll get you back for that.”

“I welcome them to try,” she said, looking back over the rampart. “Hmm. They’ve brought more of their armored trolls, it would appear.” Lightning streaked past her head from a spell. “And wizards, too.”

She chanced a look at Andren, who shook his head. “Lightning. I warned you.”

She breathed again deeply, twice, and dipped her head and hand over the wall. Another siege tower rolled forward and she aimed for it but pulled back as it burst into flame. Down the wall she saw Larana throw fire at another one then dodge behind a crenellation as a volley of arrows targeted her segment for bombardment.

“Don’t they know by now we can kill their siege towers?” Andren asked, looking slightly sideways, just for a second, around the battlement, before dodging back as an arrow shot past his head. For that, he took another drink.

“Certainly,” she replied and dodged out to fire twice at ladder-bearing enemies. The two in front were blasted clear and the ladder dipped, hitting the ground and causing the dark elves at the back to stumble. “But every one they push forward is another distraction for us.” She turned her head to look at the gates. “Soon enough they’ll have their battering ram back in service …” She let her voice trail off as she stared at the battering ram. It was unmoving, with only a few dark elves hiding behind it for cover. “That’s odd.”

“We’re being bombarded by enemy arrows numbering in the millions,” Andren said, “siege towers are rolling across our fields as fast as the dark elves can push them. Tell me, in the midst of all that, what is odd? Flying mounts? Because I’ve seen those before.” He looked skyward for just a moment. “Actually, I’m surprised I don’t see them right now.”

“They’re rare and valuable enough that surely the Sovereign wants to keep them for an assault on the Elven Kingdom if he needs to,” she answered almost by rote instinct. “No, they’re not making any efforts with the battering ram.” She turned to look at the siege towers. “But neither are their siege towers making the sort of progress which would inspire one to halt their efforts there.” She frowned. “Which begs the question of why—”

It was not even before she got the words out that the explosion rocked the battlements and the stone arch above the gate disintegrated in a cloud of flame and debris. Her head ached and she realized she was lying flat, her cheek pressed against the stone of the curtain wall. She lifted herself up, tasted blood in her mouth and felt the sting on her lip where she must surely have bit it. There was a ringing in her ears, as though someone was calling her to worship with a bell just outside her helm, and she had to blink to see clearly. Somewhere, faintly, in the distance, there was a roar, and as she pushed herself to her feet she felt a deep disquiet, a certainty—
fear,
she realized, as she whipped around to look at the gate, where the dust and cloud of smoke had already begun to clear, leaving a twenty-foot-wide gap in the wall where the gate had fallen, and already there rushed an onslaught of dark elves—banding up, filling in, like water rushing forward into a crack.

The dark elves had entered the grounds of Sanctuary.

Cyrus

The fear did not pass, not as Cyrus expected it to.
Imagine the arena, imagine the sand beneath my feet, the smell of—
All that came to his mind was left behind as Drettanden, the God of Courage
—or what remains of him—
came forth, knocking aside his own allies, clearing the bridge as he went.

“Not good,” Odellan said. “Any plan to stop this thing?”

“Flame!” Cyrus called out, and a moment later the wall of fire dropped down in front of them, ten feet high. Cyrus could see through the jumping inferno as the smaller scourge stopped. He blinked;
He’s not stopping!

Drettanden kept on, charging along the bridge, and sped up as he came to the flames. With only a second’s warning, he jumped, half clearing the massive wall of fire that crossed the stone bridge, dividing it off.

“DIVE!” Cyrus called and jumped sideways, slamming into Terian, who reacted just a second more slowly than he had. Cyrus’s head hit the inside of his armor, hard, and jarred him as it did so. The two of them spun off, just out of the way of the beast’s massive paw as it came down where Cyrus had been only a moment before. He watched the one on the other side catch Odellan in the chest, and the elf had only the briefest chance to scream before he was caught underfoot in a sickening crunch of bone and blood, as red liquid squirted out from the place where Drettanden had landed.

“You SON OF A BITCH!” Cyrus forced himself upright, sword in hand. He waved Praelior in the sunlight at the creature, “you see this?” Drettanden’s head snapped into line with him. “Was this yours? Well, it’s mine now!” He brought it back, ready to swing. “If you want it, come and take it.”

“Bad idea,” Terian said from behind him. “That thing’s pretty big, it might just do it—”

Without warning, Drettanden swiped out with a paw the size of a dwarf, and Cyrus used all the speed that Praelior gave him to surge forward and attack it. He met the blow head-on, sword extended—
Just like with Mortus
—and when it sent him flying he had the momentary satisfaction of knowing that the howl he heard was his foe in pain.

He lay there, staring up at the clouds, the dawn and the horizon. It was bright, the sun, shining down on him, and the sound of sea gulls not far away was almost peaceful somehow. There was pain, but it was distant, already fading. He felt his fingers curled around the weapon in his hand, and the thought came to him.
Praelior, the Champion’s Sword. Made by the God of Courage. Did he fight to the death to keep it when they came for him?
He felt a smile crack his face, realized there was a tooth out of place in his mouth and pressed his tongue idly against it.
Did he show courage at the last? Did he fight til the end or cower? Because that would be quite the irony, wouldn’t it …? the God of Courage, filled with fear …

“Get up,” Curatio said, shaking him.

Cyrus felt the life flood back to his limbs, and the pain went to a dull ache, replaced in his guts with a blinding rage. He vaulted to his feet and came up to the spectacle of a battle on the bridge. Drettanden was covered with arrows all over his grey flesh. A flame spell hit him in the face as he shrugged it off, roaring and snapping into a Sanctuary ranger who Cyrus didn’t get a good look at before the man was gone, devoured whole, red staining the teeth and lips of the beast. The wall of flame remained behind Drettanden, cutting off the smaller scourge, keeping the flood of them from coming forward and overwhelming the Sanctuary army, which was already hesitating; he could feel it.

He cried out again, a bellow of fury, and leapt through the air after a few running steps, and buried his sword in an upper leg.
Just like a dragon, only it can’t fly. Dangerous mouth.
He could feel his mind breaking it down.
I ran at Kalam, went right at his face. I taunted the Dragonlord into making some stupid mistakes. I came at Mortus head-on, I won—with help. Hacked him to pieces.
“Sanctuary!” Cyrus called out. “To me!” He buried his blade again in the upper thigh and let himself slide down as the leg kicked and kicked again, as though Drettanden were a dog trying to rid himself of a flea.

Cyrus took the chance. He planted both feet then backflipped, withdrawing his sword as he did so. He landed perfectly, the balance granted by Praelior saving him from a catastrophic landing.
Agility. Speed. Hostility. He cannot match me in these ways.
Drettanden let out a roar that flattened the Sanctuary ranger standing in front of him.

Maybe the hostility.

Cyrus brought back the sword and hacked at the tendon at the back of the leg, drawing a sharp cry from Drettanden. Cyrus dodged the back kick that followed and slunk back as the former god swiveled to face him. Cyrus let him come, dodged into the blind spot behind the neck and raked his sword across the fold at the back of the jaw, sending a slick line of black blood whipping across the ground. He struck twice more, pivoting and rolling against the body of Drettanden as the creature turned, bouncing off and using its own momentum against it.
Here’s a trick I bet you haven’t seen before, outrunning you with your own strength.
At the last move, he spun again out in front and brought his sword across the creature’s flat nose, drawing a screech of pain that caused it to buck its head.

The nose hit Cyrus perfectly in the arm, numbing it to the elbow and sending him flying. As he was tossed through the air, he saw the battle unfolding. Odellan, pulled off to the side, alive again but a mess, nowhere near ready for combat. Scuddar, lingering in the shadow of a supporting pillar of the bridge, his scimitar raised and attacking Drettanden’s tail. Longwell, backed almost to the firewall, his lance gone—
no, buried in the side of the beast—sticking out like a splinter of wood.
Cyrus felt all the air leave him as he hit the ground, his head slammed against the hard stone, and then felt the ground give way around him.

Edge—

His good hand reached out, scraping against the stone surface, and he caught himself just as he started to fall over. The jarring ran down his whole arm, all the way up to the shoulder where he felt the scream of pain, agonizing, ligaments tearing and protesting as he held his own weight and all that of his armor with one hand. He hung there, fingers tight against the stone, as he fought to get the other up to grip the edge. A blast of foul, rotting breath hit him in the face like a physical blow and he recoiled. His eyes danced toward the shore, miles and miles off.
Not in this armor. Not on a day when I was fully rested, let alone one where I’ve fought without sleep nor a good meal in over a day …

The face of Drettanden appeared over him, at the edge, looking down. The red eyes twitched, and Cyrus could hear pain being inflicted on the creature by the Sanctuary army behind him.
It doesn’t care.
It stared at him, two red abysses looking deep into his own eyes, and Cyrus watched the dead god raise his foot, five claws hanging off the grey flesh—raised it and brought it down—

He remembered the arena in a flash, like the rumored last memory that came before certain death. It was more than a feeling, more than words; it was everything about the experience, all summed up in something that lasted a mere second of time but encompassed so much else beyond that.

Six. I was six.

The man’s name was Erkhardt, and Cyrus knew him only in passing. A dwarf he was, the one who had waited outside the Society the night that Cyrus had been brought back as a child. The dwarf smelled of old leather and wafts of something else, a strong, fermented scent. He stood before young Cyrus, in the arena, the quiet all around them. Cyrus shuddered, the chill in the air from winter. His eyes caught the glint of the still-burning candles off the axe slung over the dwarf’s shoulder, a battle axe with a blade wider than Cyrus’s entire body. He shivered again, rubbing his hands against his bare arms; since being assigned no blood family, the clothing that was fought over once per month when new skins and cloth came in had been too difficult for him to secure.
Blood Families stick together for everything.
Cyrus was small, too small to fight them all.
Put me against the ones my own age and I’d—but I can’t, the others are too big, they’re just too big, and the Guildmaster will—

“Listen,” the dwarf said.

Cyrus did. He was not allowed to address any of the trainers unless they asked him for a response. None of the others even addressed him individually, let alone found him where he hid in the night and bade him to follow them to the arena.

“Do you hear that?” Erkhardt asked.

“No,” Cyrus said, his voice unusually small even to him.

“That’s silence, lad,” the dwarf said with a slight smile, one finger held in the air. “The silence of rest. You’ve learned to hide yourself; that’s good. It’ll be necessary until you get bigger, big enough to fight them. You’ll be a big lad too, no doubt. Until then … you need to learn something.”