Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four (49 page)

Aisling jumped off the embankment just then, as Cyrus drew his sword, ready to join her. She hit both the creatures moments after reaching the ground, daggers sliding into the base of their necks, and both went limp without so much as a sound, falling from all fours to flat on the ground, overlarge tongues spread out on the dirt. Aisling looked back and beckoned him forward, and he grasped Windrider’s reins and began to gingerly make his way ahead. “Ais,” he whispered, “if there’s two, there’s more—maybe we should turn around.”

She either didn’t hear him or ignored him, going forward more quickly than he could stealthily catch her. He followed, cursing her silently the entire time, watching every step, the low light from ahead the only illumination since Aisling had put out their torch after they emerged from the narrow passage. The light grew brighter as they went around another corner, and Cyrus found himself on the edge of a large chamber, an enormous, roughly circular room that had a sequence of stones that leveled down to the floor, a few feet below the cave opening that Cyrus stood upon. Aisling had already descended, her feet moving so quietly that Cyrus couldn’t have heard them even if he hadn’t been awestruck by the sight before him.

In the center of the chamber was something very familiar; a portal, of exactly the same kind that dotted the landscape of Arkaria. Ovoid, standing lengthwise above the ground, like a door turned sideways, it was massive enough for ten people to walk through shoulder to shoulder, even if they were Cyrus’s size. His jaw fell open, and he stared at it; it glowed, the source of the light he had wondered at. Beyond it was another exit, a wider one, much larger than the tunnels they had just come from.

“Ais,” Cyrus said, keeping his voice low even though he saw no sign of the scourge, “we need to get out of here. What if there are more?”

She halted, but only after she had crossed the thirty or so steps to reach the portal. She ran a hand along the edge of it, as though she were feeling the runes carved along the side to make certain it was real. “Where do you think this leads?”

A dark glow came from within the portal, something like mist with light shining through it; like clouds with the sun behind them. “I don’t know,” Cyrus said, “every time I’ve gone through one of these things when it’s active like this, I’ve ended up in the realm of one of the gods.”

“Might be worth a look, don’t you think?” She looked at him, vaguely mischievous, and he suddenly found her deeply annoying.

“No,” he said, “it isn’t. We have somewhere else to be getting to, in case you forgot. There are enemies all around us—”

“Yes, they have this valley pretty well sewn shut at this point,” she said, letting her fingers trace the lines of one of the runes. What do you suppose our odds are of managing to slip through and get away from the hordes of these scourge that fill this place?”

“They’re good if we face them on open ground—” Cyrus began.

“They’re bad, because we’re outnumbered by a ridiculous amount and if we lose Windrider, we’re done.” She smiled again. “Now we have another option. Virtually certain death out there, or the
possibility
of death in here.” She gestured to the portal with a hand extending out to it, as though it were something she were revealing to him for the first time. “I know which one I pick.”

“We only go to the realms of gods when we know they’re not home,” Cyrus said, his voice rising. “If this leads into one of those places, it’s virtual suicide.”

“So is going out there,” Aisling said, and the smile faded from her face. “They’re hunting us and they will find us sooner or later if we stay out there. I know a hunter when I see one and those things are tracking us down. They’ll come, and they’ll overwhelm us and we’ll die a horrible death out here where no one will ever find our bodies.” She looked back to the portal. “If it’s down to that or being smashed by a god, I know which one I choose.” Before he could react, she turned, took one step away and looked back at him. “I guess you’ll just have to decide whether you’re willing to jump in front of a god’s hand for me.” Her smile twisted into something else, something sad, and she stepped into the portal and disappeared behind the misty light.

Cyrus followed her only a moment later, after a pause and a curse, and he yanked Windrider’s reins to lead the horse through the portal. He felt the air distort as he stepped through, the world seeming to upend and twist around him, light blinding him, until his feet settled on solid ground and he bumped into something ahead of him, and realized it was Aisling.

“Why does this look so familiar?” she asked, and Cyrus looked around the room they stood in.

It was a massive chamber that drew off into the distance, a room longer than it was wide, with torches burning in sconces on all the walls. Cyrus could smell something, a faint dustiness, and display cases lined every wall, while others sat in the middle of the floor. A tingle ran through Cyrus as he stepped forward, pushing Aisling behind him. “Because we’ve been here before.” He looked around again, saw the balcony in the distance with the stairs leading up to either side of it, and felt a shudder. “This is Mortus’s treasure room.” He took a step forward and laid his hand on one of the pedestals. “We’re in the Realm of Death.”

“Nice to see they left the lamps on for us,” Aisling said as she stepped up to join him. “But wasn’t this place filled with howling death when last we were here? Spirits of the damned, loosed upon the demise of their master?”

“Yes, that’s true—” Cyrus said, and stopped. There was a faint rattle, something clicking slowly against something else, as the torchlight flickered around them as though stirred by a wind he couldn’t feel.

“What?” Aisling asked, then froze at attention, listening. “Oh, gods.”

The rattle got louder, and a howling torrent of fury burst through the door at the top of the balcony. Souls, the damned, the trapped remnants of the God of Death’s collection filled the air around them, a tornado of spirits, circling lower and lower.

“Time to move,” Cyrus said, scooping up Aisling in one arm and pulling her back to the portal. Windrider was already turned and galloping through. Cyrus followed, letting the world distort around him as he stepped inside, and a moment later found himself back in the cave, in the circular chamber, and it was still empty. “That was lovely. If you ever leave me to jump into idiocy like that again, I’ll let you die.”

“You should really save that kind of sweet nothing for pillow talk, darling.” Aisling’s ears perked up and she turned, backing away from the portal as flickers of light flashed from within it. “Can those things follow us here?”

“I daresay we’re about to find out.”

“Oh,” she said sarcastically, “is that what you
think
?”

They backed away from the portal as shapes started to coalesce in the light, black shadows, and something began to emerge. A horrific screeching preceded it, as though something had taken to tormenting an animal and refused to let it go. The first shape came through the portal and a shock of horror ran through Cyrus from top to bottom; claws and a four-legged appearance became obvious first, then the rounded head and vicious teeth, followed by the black, glassy eyes that had no feeling behind them. It skittered out, one of the scourge, followed immediately by more.

“That’s—” Aisling said, her voice jerking to get the words out, “—the souls of the damned, from the Realm of Death, they turned into—is that—how is that possible?”

“They’re taking physical form.” Cyrus’s voice was a low growl, and it came from a part of his throat that wanted to scream, something he never did. “They can’t come through as spirits, so they’re taking form, and …” He turned, and saw others coming through the big entrance. “We’ll never make it out through the narrow passage.” He tightened his grip on Praelior. “Charge the big tunnel—NOW!” His last word came as a shout and he ran, sword swinging as he did so, his blade striking out as his legs pumped, chewing up the ground between him and the opening that seemed to lead out of the cavern.

The first of the scourge looked as though it was slithering toward him. He struck with his sword before it had time to react. More followed, countless, and he struck at them, too, using the speed Praelior granted him to stay a step ahead, clearing the tunnel, which although larger than the narrow passage, was only a few feet wide. They came at him a few at a time, but he moved on, driven, emotion bubbling over as he swung his sword. Daylight was ahead, and he kept on toward it—

They broke out into the sunlight and Cyrus’s eyes fought to adjust to the brightness. The sky was clouded over, but still somewhere above the sun shone, behind a cloud, and he tried not to blink from it as he sliced through three more scourge. He could smell rotting flesh, it filled his nose and the still air around him, even as the cold and the snow were obvious, the ground covered with white for miles all around. He looked down from the abutment he was on, a craggy trail of rocks, and below was a path leading to a village, teeming with the scourge, thousands of them, making the thirty or so he had cut through in the flight from the cavern look like a miniscule number by comparison.

“Come on!” he heard Aisling shout, and he turned after striking a few more down to see her already on Windrider’s back. The horse lunged forward and Cyrus jumped, catching a foot in a stirrup as Windrider passed and jerking himself onto the horse through sheer rote practice. They galloped down the hill and through the center of the town as the streets began to fill with the monsters, streaming out of buildings. As they rode by an open door, Cyrus could see bodies inside, a cloth dress that had been dull grey, stained now with blood and horror.

Windrider did not spare the speed as he ran, carrying them along the path out of town, galloping along a snowy road toward the pass they had come through only the day before. They did not meet any resistance, and the horse kept up the speed for as long as possible, until they were beyond the valley and into the pass, leaving behind everything that they had seen save for the horror which they carried with them in their minds.

They found mountain springs and places for Windrider to graze after they cleared the snowy valley, and they stopped occasionally, long enough for Cyrus to rest and tend to his horse, which he did mechanically, at best. After a day’s ride wherein they had barely exchanged a word, Aisling said to Cyrus, “Let me do it,” and took care of Windrider herself before they retired for the night.

Cyrus lay down on the bedroll, the only one they had. His thoughts had been a swirling fury all day during the ride, racing so fast that he could scarcely even grasp them. He ate only a little, finding he had no appetite, and when Aisling came to join him on the bedroll, curiously, he found something he did have an appetite for, but he did that mechanically as well, though she did not seem to notice. She fell asleep immediately thereafter, and to his surprise, he did as well.

They arose early, before dawn, and were riding again minutes later, following the path south. The horse’s hoofprints left a deep impression in the thin snow that coated the ground, and Cyrus felt every one of them resonate through him. His mind was stirred, unclear, but the same thought kept bubbling to the surface over and over again.
This is my fault. This is all my fault.

After another day and night, another perfunctory evening spent with Aisling, who either did not notice or did not care that Cyrus was vacant and unable to look at her with his eyes open whilst they were together on the bedroll, he still found himself able to go through at least the motions there. It was a curious thing: he couldn’t seem to think straight, couldn’t manage more than a few bites of bread until he was starving, but she moaned in pleasure at his touch and enjoyed his company for as long as it lasted, but it left him even more hollow, empty inside, and lost in thought.

On the third day they arose and dressed in silence once more. She did not seem to feel any need to bring conversation out of him, but let her body speak, and he drank in the sweaty stickiness of her, and he found he didn’t care. Something primal urged him on, gave him solace with her, allowed him to put aside all the thoughts that drew him down and silenced him during the day.

On the fourth day they reached lower ground and at a high point they looked out over the greener fields, where the snow had not fallen this far south, and saw a caravan ahead.

“That’s them,” Aisling said. “They’re moving at a decent speed, about a half day’s ride ahead. We can probably catch them by nightfall tomorrow if we hurry.”

“Let’s hurry, then,” Cyrus said, the void in him now filling with something else, a gut-deep thought of satisfaction at a confrontation that loomed large ahead of him like the mountains that filled the horizon. “I’ve got some talking to do when we get there. We’ll need to keep to cover so they don’t see our approach.” Cyrus’s voice hardened. “I don’t want Terian to know we’re coming.”

They spent another night alone under the stars, Windrider keeping silent vigil for their night’s watch, while beneath the blanket on the bedroll other things occurred that sent the horse shying away into a thicket beyond their camp. They rode the next day again in silence and Cyrus tried to focus his thoughts on keeping to the path, on avoiding being seen by the column ahead. They kept to the trees as often as possible, moving openly only when there was no high ground ahead that they might be seen from. When nightfall came they took a break. Cyrus laid the bedroll on the ground. Aisling came to him, and when they were done they rolled it up again by silent accord and continued the ride, heading onward toward campfires they could see just over the horizon.

The wind was more subtle here but still carried a bite that left Cyrus’s armor icy cold. The night had come down around them like a black shroud pulled over one’s eyes, and the chill left Cyrus with a sense like ice melting on his tongue. Howls of distant wolves in the mountains brought to Cyrus’s mind the image of lonely hunters, separated from their pack, and brought Terian to the forefront of his thoughts again.
Soon
.