Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four (44 page)

“There were plenty of places to make money in Arkaria,” Cyrus said. “A dwarf with your skills could have had a place in any army—the Elven Kingdom, the Human Confederation, the Dark Elven Sovereignty, even your people in the Dwarven Alliance would have fallen over themselves to add your power to their cause, and they would have paid, too.” Cyrus waved vaguely toward Briyce Unger. “More than you’d know you were getting out of Unger, wandering blindly over here.”

“Who said anything about blindly or wandering?” Partus asked with a scowl. “One of my associates, one of the ones your lot killed, he was from here originally, came to Arkaria on a trading expedition a few years ago. He knew that Unger would pay good gold for help from Western mercenaries, so I came.”

“Mercenaries,” Cyrus said. “You used to be the leader of the Daring. They had ideals, beliefs, at least the ones of them I knew—Erith, Cass, Elisabeth—you’re telling me you wanted to give that up for mercenary work in another land?” Cyrus shook his head. “Smells like bullshit to me, Partus. What happened with you and Goliath that sent you scrambling? Did you get caught up in the exile?”

“I was gone long before that,” he said with a shake of his craggy head. “I heard about it, though. I was in the Gnomish Dominions, gathering moss on a garrison detail that had gotten quite a bit easier once your crew,” he waved at the Sanctuary force around them, “wiped out the Goblin Imperium. My busy guard duty, escorting convoys and whatnot, got pretty simple after that.” The dwarf seemed almost upset about it. “Only got to kill a few highwaymen, and that got old quickly.”

“So why leave Goliath?” Cyrus watched the dwarf for his reaction.

Partus played it cool, returning Cyrus a grin. “I had something of a … personality conflict with Malpravus and another of his officers. Caused us to go our separate ways not long after that clash in the Mountains of Nartanis with the Dragonlord.”

“You were there for that?” Cyrus asked.

“Hah! I was, but I’m not surprised you didn’t see me, covered as you were in the glory of the kill. I was there the day you killed Kalam, too, and the day you went into the Realm of Death with the allies and we all got caught up by the skeleton.” Partus smirked. “Course you wouldn’t notice, would you? I’m not exactly of a height that’d catch your eye. Besides,” he said, slightly surly, “I’m told all my people look alike to you tallfolk. Same gripe the gnomes got.”

“My best friend was a dwarf,” Cyrus said. “I’ve got no problem telling one dwarf from another. Besides, you’re bald, kind of fat, and you’ve got a braided beard.” He shrugged. “Hard to miss.”

“You had a friend who was a dwarf?” Partus watched him. “All right, I’ll bite. Who was it?”

“What, do all you dwarves know each other?”

“Yeah, we’re all members of the same club,” Partus snapped. “What was his name?”

Cyrus looked back to the road, watching the townsfolk watch him as they rode past. “His name was Narstron.”

“Oh, him,” Partus said with a nod. “Yeah, I knew him.”

“What?” Cyrus cast a look at him, and the way he said it was almost mocking. “You did not. There are millions of dwarves, and you’re telling me you know Narstron? Don’t lie.”

“No, it’s true,” Partus said. “I didn’t know him well, but I knew him in passing. He was my mother’s youngest sister’s fourth son. Went to the Society of Arms in Fertiss, and he died down in the depths of Enterra.”

“I didn’t see you at his funeral,” Cyrus said coldly.

“I’ve got a lot of cousins,” Partus said with a shrug. “One hundred and twelve, I think? A hundred and twenty by now, for all I know. I said I knew him in passing. It’s not like we were best of friends. I could pick him out of a crowd and he could likely do the same for me. I remember when he died, and you’re right, I didn’t go to the funeral. I thought, ‘what a shame for his mother,’ and then I went on living my life.” He shrugged again. “No reason to get all fussed about a near-stranger shuffling off; if I did, I’d spend all my days in mourning, because I know a lot of strangers that got kicked loose just a month ago as your army rode right through them—”

“Yeah, all right,” Cyrus said, “so you don’t have to get broken up by every person you’ve ever met that’s died. Still, he’s your blood, you might have shown a little compassion.”

“Perhaps you missed that number,” Partus said. “One hundred and twelve first cousins. Ten brothers and sisters. ’Course they’re all still living back home, but me, I’m out. If I was to worry about attending funerals for people just one generation back from me and those related to me like your friend, I’d be forever going to funerals.” The dwarf straightened in his saddle. “And get damn near nothing else done, like folk back home do.”

“Wow,” Cyrus said. “You’re a real wellspring of humanity.”

“I sense your sarcasm,” Partus said with unconcern, “but you should hardly be surprised. After all,” the dwarf said with a glint in his eyes, “I’m not human at all.”

They came to a crossroad. To Cyrus’s right, the cliff’s edge loomed. When Cyrus looked over it he saw the next level down carved into the mountain, only fifty or so feet below, and the next below that.
It looks much steeper from this perspective than it did on the approach.
Cyrus followed Briyce Unger’s lead as the road sloped steeply, and a herd of goats was moved out of their way by a shepherd who drove them down a side street. The road rose at a steep grade, and Cyrus worried he would fall out of the saddle, or worse still, that his horse would buck slightly and they would both tumble end over end off the mountain, but somehow he hung on, as did Windrider.

“Unforgiving avenue,” Mendicant said from somewhere behind him. “What happens if someone slips on this?”

“They fall,” Terian said. “All the way down.”

“All the way?” Mendicant looked over his shoulder, and his green scales seemed to dim in color. “Oh.”

They made their way up the hill to the front gates of the castle Scylax, and Briyce Unger waved them forward. “We’ll stay here for the night, enjoy my hospitality, and tomorrow we’ll be on our way north again.”

“How far are we going?” Cyrus asked.

Unger’s smile faded slightly. “Not as far as I’d like. It seems that this scourge has moved south rather quickly. They’re only a week north now. Seem to have stopped their forward movement for a bit, for whatever reason.”

“Consolidating power?” Longwell asked, looking around from horseback down the hill. “Awaiting reinforcements of some kind?”

“Hard to know if they’re awaiting reinforcements when we don’t have a bloody clue where these things are coming from,” Unger said with a shrug. “Perhaps if we can drive them back, far enough north, we’ll find the source of their numbers.”

“How far north does your territory stretch?” Cyrus asked.

“A good ways,” Unger said. “All the way until the land gets too inhospitable, where the weather is bitter cold, even in the summertime. Our farthest town north used to be a village called Mountaintop, nestled in the last valley before a terribly tall peak with sheer slopes. There were trails where you could go farther from there, but between the wolves and all else, if you struck out to go farther your odds of coming back became exceedingly poor.”

“So the real wonder,” Cyrus said, “is if these creatures came from north of there.”

They followed Unger up to the castle Scylax, which was even more impressive upon Cyrus’s inspection. A steward offered a tour, taking them through the grand entry (which was not so grand as Vernadam’s) and around. The curtain wall extended around the cliff’s edge, providing a fine look off the side of the mountain below. The only direction one could assault the castle from, Cyrus conceded, was the town of Scylax below, and even that would be a disastrous feat to attempt for any army. Any assault up a steep road would come under an approach covered by bowmen as the gates to the castle were surrounded on both sides by two long protrusions of the wall. The last fifty yards in particular were totally exposed to arrow fire from both sides of the approach.

Within the keep Cyrus found the towers to his liking. They were more wood than stone, and furs were used for decoration far more than cloth. Instead of blankets on Cyrus’s bed, he found a bearskin, big, shaggy, and comfortable. Wood floors, wood furnishings and a chest decorated the room. He sat on the bed after being showed to his quarters and reflected that although it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the one at Vernadam, it was good and somehow reminded him of the Society of Arms.

Dinner was a raucous affair, with mead and ale flowing far more generously than they ever had at any of the other, more formal meals that Cyrus had taken. The Syloreans laughed and bellowed, all activity in the room stopping when a fight broke out. Briyce Unger presided over two young men as they proceeded to punch the snot out of each other to the cheers of the crowd. When one of them finally stayed down from a blow that made Cyrus’s jaw hurt to watch it, Unger raised the young man’s hand in victory to the cheers of the crowd.

Terian had left, Cyrus knew, after dinner, disappearing out of the room, heading toward the town, he suspected, and the brothel somewhere below. A raw, aching sensation bothered Cyrus, something unsettled about Terian, about women, about everything, but he ignored it by taking frequent drinks from his flagon of mead, which was constantly refilled by a serving woman, a middle-aged one who began to look better and better as the drinking continued. Which was to say she was passable by the time Cyrus found the motivation to get back to his bedchamber—alone.

Cyrus drifted off that night under the influence of too much mead, too much ale, and too many thoughts of Cattrine and Vara. They became some sort of demonic swirl in his head, the two of them, and were joined by a third before he finally fell asleep, the vision of the three women in his mind spinning with the room around him.

The next day dawned with a knock on his door, and when Cyrus stumbled out of bed to answer it, he found a steward waiting, a young boy no more than twelve. “Hot bath, sir?”

“What?” Cyrus asked, squinting his eyes.

“Would you like me to lead you to the hot springs under the castle so you can have a bath, sir?”

Cyrus felt the throbbing under his forehead and wondered if a bath would even be a good idea at the moment. “No, thank you, I’d rather sleep for a while longer.”

“Very good, sir,” the boy said, his mousy brown-haired head bobbing up and down. “I’ll wake you for breakfast, then. The King gave orders that the expedition will leave an hour after that.”

“Good enough,” Cyrus said, and meant it. “Just fetch me some bread or a chicken leg or something, right before we go.” He rubbed his eyes. “Let me sleep as long as possible, I’ll eat on the run.”

And he did so, as the boy returned to him an hour later with a mutton leg, and Cyrus ate it on his way out of the keep. His horse was saddled, cleaned, and waiting for him when he arrived, Briyce Unger himself holding the reins.

“Hello, Windrider,” Cyrus said with a burp, running a hand along the horse’s flank as he approached.

“Windrider?” Unger asked. “What kind of name is that for a horse? A bit girly, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know,” Cyrus said, uncaring. “I didn’t name him.”

“Let’s be off, then, shall we?” Unger said, starting his horse toward the gate. “I trust you rested well.”

“I have a hangover,” Cyrus said, “but the sleep was fine.”

“No complaints with the hospitality?”

“I wish your servants had brought me less mead and ale,” Cyrus said, feeling a vein pulsing in his temple. “But that’s less a hospitality complaint and more one related to your servants helping me to curb my own bad instincts.”

Unger laughed, a deep bellowing one that grew deeper as they went out of the gate and found Terian working his way gingerly up the slope, looking incredibly uncomfortable in the saddle. “You look like you’re going to have a long day of riding ahead of you, lad.”

Terian grimaced, shifting himself awkwardly. “What happened to you?” Cyrus asked, drawing a pained expression from the dark knight.

“Let me tell you something about Sylorean women,” Terian said, bringing his horse into line next to Briyce Unger’s. “You may think this looks like a small town, and that perhaps their whores would be ignorant mountain wenches, unsure of which direction to ride a man. And you’d be wrong.” He shifted again in his saddle. “I have never in my life met a woman who did to me what that woman did to me last night. I hurt in places I didn’t know could hurt, was bent into positions I didn’t know I could be contorted into, like a braid of hair.” He shook his head. “And I’d love to go back, but I’m not sure I’d survive the experience.”

Unger let out another bellow of laughter. “You met Muna, did you?”

“Was that her name?” the dark knight asked mildly. “I didn’t hear it over the sound of my own screaming.”

Unger laughed again, and reached over to slap Terian on the back. “If you think she’s rough,” Unger said, “you should avoid Ashini. Muna takes it gentle on you folk from out of town as a rule.”

“The word gentle is not in her vocabulary,” Terian said with a cringe, “and not because she’s some ignorant mountain wench, but because she actually used a riding crop on me.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Cyrus said, blanching. “Keep your experiences to yourself.”

“Why?” Terian wore a nasty grin. “You starting to regret not coming with me?”

“I regret a lot of things in my life,” Cyrus said, “but not going with you last night doesn’t look to be one of them. I mean, it looks like you’re going to be walking bow-legged for a few days, which … maybe I’m old fashioned, but I thought it was supposed to be the woman who walks like that afterward, not the man.”

They rode down the mountain and out another gate, this one on the opposite end of town from the one that they entered the day before. Cyrus rode next to Briyce Unger, and they traveled in a companionable silence for almost an hour before Unger broke it. “You’ve come a long way to get here.”

Cyrus shook himself out of the daze of thought he had been in. “Aye. This is … five months? I think five months since we left home.”