Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (16 page)

“Something I noticed in the conversation with Iraid,” Vara said, “is that he … almost seemed to offer us counsel on another matter at one point.”

“You noticed that, too?” Cattrine asked with a nod. “I think he is subtly trying to prod you in the direction of a solution to your problem with the Confederation but, if you’ll recall, it was before he, uhm …”

“Broke cleanly in the direction of giving us aid, yes,” J’anda said, nodding. “He was still being careful not to tip his hand at that point.” He inclined his head toward Cattrine. “You did a masterful job of drawing him out, I might add.”

“Am I the only one that missed whatever you’re all talking about?” Cyrus asked, staring at each of them blankly.

“Well, of course,” Terian said haughtily. “Even I understood what he was saying, and I wasn’t even in the room.” He snorted and then shrugged. “Joking, of course. What did he say?”

“He hinted at some of the resentments and divisions in the Human Confederation,” Vara said. “He suggested that Reikonos is perhaps taking the lion’s share of the resources in rebuilding itself, leaving the outlying districts—the Riverlands, the Northlands, and the Southern Reaches rather dry.”

“There are more districts than that,” Cyrus said. “There’s also the Western, the Mountain, and the Southeastern Districts.”

“Ouch,” Terian said. “I can confirm he’s right, at least in the Southern Reaches, which borders us. The governor there, Reynard Coulton—well, his state took a walloping from our armies. Prehorta, Idiarna, Santir—Yartraak’s armies sacked them all, stripped their crops, murdered their garrisons and their people … the Confederation army sits encamped around Reikonos, a vestigial response to a siege now more than a year over, but Coulton’s meager force at arms are all sitting on our border, glaring resentfully with their skeleton defense.” He made a sour face. “Coulton has nothing nice to say about me personally, I hear. Seems he thinks that I’m the same as the old boss, and he’s just waiting for me to come marching through his desiccated corpse of a territory.” He puckered his lips mischievously. “Apparently he doesn’t realize I’ve got better things to do than try to squeeze gold out of a pauper.”

“What about the other districts?” Cyrus asked, peering at the dark elf.

“The Riverlands are probably experiencing something similar,” Terian said, wincing slightly. “If you recall, after Leaugarden they did receive a nasty shellacking from that undead army, plus Goliath. Malpravus marched them to the coast, plundering and pillaging all the way. That tends to leave a mark. As to the Northlands …” He shrugged. “Our spies don’t really consider it a high priority, being so far away. The governor up there is Allyn Frost, and all I know about him is that he’s a very vain man. For the other three, the war didn’t much touch them, and they’re all lacking governors at the moment.” He made a face. “Some kind of brouhaha at the end of the war, but the details are a little muddy. Our spies pegged it as internal warring in the Confederation.”

“I can verify that Allyn Frost of the Northlands is as Terian says,” Cattrine said, nodding. “I’ve had dealings with him on trade negotiations. He’s not unreasonable, but he does have an immense ego, perhaps one of the largest I’ve seen outside of my former husband or …” She glanced at Cyrus.

Cyrus frowned and clanked his gauntlet against the hanging chains across his chest as he pointed at himself. “Me?”

“He’s an older man,” Cattrine said, glazing quickly over that. “He’s losing his hair and, as near as I can tell, does everything he can to hide it, though it’s rather obvious.”

“I’m not vain,” Cyrus said, frowning. “I mean, I don’t have an ego—”

“But of course not,” J’anda said soothingly. “What was it you said to the trolls when you invaded their town? Something dramatic and not very humble, I recall. And then there was something about a boasting given to the dark knights at Livlosdald who rode ahead of their armies? And—”

“I do not—” Cyrus looked at Vara, who was rolling her eyes. “I don’t, do I?”

“Of course you do, dear,” Vara said. “There’s a thin line between immense self-confidence and ego, and you stand astride it like a titan and cross handily over every time you forcefully remind those who you are about to kill of all those whom you have struck down before them. I can’t say your confidence isn’t somewhat deserved, though it is also curiously thin at times, vanishing like a dark elf’s self-respect at the opportunity to whore around—”

Terian frowned. “Not all of us are whores. Some of us merely do the partaking.” His eyes flashed around the circle. “I mean, I don’t anymore … but, you know. Before.”

“Taking us back to the subject at hand …” J’anda said. “So the potential weaknesses in the Human Confederation boil down to divisions of state and, much like the ones in the Elven Kingdom, fracture along territorial lines. How curiously predictable.”

“Look at it from their perspective—which is really analogous to my small state’s perspective,” Cattrine said. “We are nominally part of the Elven Kingdom and ruled by Danay, but have almost no elves among our populace and are subject to a monarch who likely would have flooded us with troops last year after his daughter’s death merely to assert his control. Now, you could argue that he runs roughshod over us because we are mostly humans, settled in his lands, but we are also one of the most-taxed provinces because of the enormous amount of production that comes out of our territory, and we have no voice in his court, he does not build roads or protect us with his troops … essentially we pay him for existing.” She looked around the small group. “And so it is with the other provinces—though they receive some protection from the military, especially in the north from the trolls and in Termina from the dark elves. But they also commit their own local troops to these causes, and so they are left to question: what does the monarch do for me? Because they certainly send wagons of gold in tribute to the palace in Pharesia. And in places like the Emerald Coast, they have not seen a soldier within their borders since the days of the troll war.”

“Well, we also get that most excellent caste system that acts as a virtual prison for every person in the Kingdom outside of Termina and now, Emerald Fields,” Vara said acidly. “Because surely no elf should ever desire to be more than they are.”

Cyrus’s head was whirling. “What we’re talking about here …” He let out a low breath. “Exploiting divisions in these powers? What’s the endgame if we go this route? Prying apart the Kingdom and the Confederation? Fragmenting them into smaller states that will fight each other in nasty border wars?”

“Provided they’re not crushing in your walls, why do you care?” Terian asked with a careful glint in his eyes.

Cyrus gave him a leaden look. “You know damned well why I care. Because our function in Sanctuary is not to leave Arkaria torn down to its foundations.” He took a slow breath, feeling as if all the hope were slowly draining out of him. “We were supposed to help people. To save this land from dire threats, not become one ourselves.”

Terian gazed at him sadly. “You’re really struggling with this decision, aren’t you?”

Cyrus shrugged languidly. “Well, I’m not exactly like an arrow shot from the bow on it. More like—”

“A drunken donkey staggering down a mountain path with a heavy burden on your back?” Terian asked.

“So flattering,” Cyrus said, “but yes. Near enough.”

“Cyrus,” Cattrine said softly. “You look to protect Arkaria from threats, but who started a war that killed countless of its people?”

“Pretnam Urides,” Cyrus said, sighing. “The Council of Twelve. Danay, at least, had a hand in it. Yartraak.”

“Well, Yartraak’s dead,” Terian said. “He won’t be starting any more wars, and neither will the Sovereignty, so long as I’m in charge.” He grinned. “Congratulations. You’ve saved Arkaria from the dreaded dark elven menace.”

“And the goblin one,” Vara said quietly.

“And the titan one,” J’anda said.

“And probably the troll threat as well,” Cattrine said. “And while the Confederation and the Kingdom are certainly reeling from the last war and in no mood to start another large-scale conflict, even your cautious mind must admit that they are not hesitating to throw their weight at smaller ‘threats’—such as you.”

“Cyrus,” Vara said, taking hold of his hand, “you were there when Pretnam Urides courted the war with the dark elves. Alaric told me of his gleeful mood when it was declared. He and his fellows thought it a chance for their glory, to expand their holdings in the Plains of Perdamun. What did they do, by their hands, by playing into Yartraak’s?” She stiffened. “Countless villages and homesteads in the plains, pillaged and destroyed. Reikonos and Termina, plundered. The Riverlands, sacked. Yartraak even had Aloakna, a city of his own expatriates, purged from the map with fire and slaughter. All that was begun with Pretnam Urides’s happy consent. And Danay was hardly blameless; he sent troops to the plains as well, and it was mere luck that we resolved the issue before he had cause to run his forces against the dark elves as well. It bought him months before he was dragged into the conflict, one he would have happily embraced were his armies not drawing down by my peoples’ aging population.”

“And for our part,” Terian said, standing almost silently, seething anger in his expression, “the dark elves lost one half of our young men under the age of five hundred. The poor of Sovar were ground down by the war that Yartraak started but that Urides conspired to make happen. This was not a fight of the God of Darkness’s own invention; it was the imperial ambitions of powers crossed against each one another, man versus god battling for territory and control. Urides fanned those flames, and millions died on our side and the human side, and all were left ragged by its end. We’d be in the midst of a famine that would be killing the entire land if not for the timely arrival of the Luukessians in Emerald Fields.” He nodded at Cattrine.

“Yes, well,” Cattrine said darkly, “it was an unfortunate chain of events that led us here, but those that have survived have made the most of it and are growing more prosperous, freer and happier than ever we were in Luukessia—save for that tyrant in Pharesia who wishes to keep us beneath his boot.”

“This is all about control,” Terian said. “Whether it’s the Leagues, Danay, or Urides and the Council of Twelve, they seek to control the actions of their people, to keep some down and some up, through force of social constraints, magical laws or simple force.” He broke into a grin. “Personally, I like that you’ve driven all our enemies into such a tight cluster—Derregnault and Amarath’s Raiders,” he nodded to Vara, “Urides and his Council brethren, King Danay,” he nodded to Cattrine, “the Leagues, and …” he broke into a bigger smile, “let’s not forget Goliath, where we have Malpravus, Carrack, Orion, Rhane, my old friend Sareea … it’s almost like you’ve corralled them together and lined them up for easier slaughter.”

Cyrus blinked. “I don’t believe there’s going to be anything easy about trying to wipe out that list.”

“But we’re going to do it,” Terian said, “provided you don’t lose your nerve.”

“I’m starting to get a little clearer picture of how,” Cyrus said, “but I still don’t know if I believe it’s possible.”

“Oh, it’s possible,” Vara said. “We just have to do to them what they’ve been doing to us all along.” A hard look fell over the paladin’s face. “Divide and conquer.”

“Let’s just hope they don’t divide us first,” Cyrus said, his mind running to faraway lands, wondering about what was going on all around them, even as they planned their own moves. “Because I suspect Goliath and the rest aren’t just standing around, waiting to see what we do …”

When the meeting was over, Cyrus, Vara, J’anda, Cattrine and Terian returned quietly to the portal and the waiting Bowe and Larana. Cattrine and Terian disappeared in the rushing wind of Bowe’s teleport spell while Cyrus stared at the others, considering his next action. “J’anda, Vara …” he said quietly, “return without us, will you? I need to speak with Larana for a moment.”

Vara raised an eyebrow at that, but held her tongue from unleashing whatever was on her mind. “I will expect you back in our quarters in ten minutes,” she said instead. “We have things to discuss.”

“Yes,” J’anda agreed with a light smile. “Many, many things. Things of various natures, of importance … the state of the Merlots for last year, for instance …”

Vara rolled her eyes. “Brilliant cover.” She glanced at Larana. “She may be quiet, but she’s no idiot.”

Larana’s eyelids fluttered. “Thank you,” she mumbled.

“Ten minutes,” Vara said, twirling her fingers as she cast the return spell and disappeared in a twinkle of light.

“We will discuss the wines in twenty minutes,” J’anda said with amused self-assurance, “for I doubt you will need any more time than that.” And then he disappeared as well.

Cyrus stood on the empty savanna with Larana as a light wind blew through, stirring some of the long grass, lying at a forty-five degree angle from the ground, reminding him of the light slope of the Grand Span in Termina at its start. The grass, however, was a bridge leading nowhere, its thick mat a perfect cover for the south’s enormous animals. Cyrus was reminded of the immense cats that made this place home, bigger than horses and able to stalk quietly through the grasses. He shuddered and looked at the druid who stood with him. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute before we go back,” Cyrus said, staring off into the distance to the south. He could see the beginnings of mountains in the distance.
Somewhere in that direction lies a city in ruins because of my actions.

All my other enemies have died save for Goliath, Danay, Urides and … Archenous. Perhaps it is inevitable that this moment comes, that I’m compelled to destroy them as well.

Perhaps … this is the only thing I’m good at.

“What did you want to talk about?” Larana asked in her usual quiet voice.

“I wanted to thank you for transporting us today,” Cyrus said, “and ask you again to please keep secret from absolutely everyone where we’ve gone.”

She nodded hastily. “Of course.”

Cyrus took a step that crunched a blade of grass as wide as his thigh. “Did your father … ever talk about my mother?” He glanced sideways at her.