Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (43 page)

“I don’t know why you hate me so, Ermoc,” Cyrus said, staring at him with angry eyes.
Hope he doesn’t notice my lip has stopped bleeding. Probably can’t see it’s healed under all the blood
. “The first time I met you, you accused me of something I didn’t do. The next time, you killed a prisoner I brought you—”

“And insulted me.” Ermoc’s eyes flashed darkly.

“I get the feeling lots of people have insulted you in your time, Ermoc,” Cyrus said. “Mostly your intelligence, but—”

Ermoc lashed out again and this time caught Cyrus just beneath the cheek, but more lightly. It was a searing pain, but one that he grimaced away from as he felt the warmth of the blood running down his stubbly face. He brought his left hand behind him again and counted to five before casting the healing spell, giving the blood plenty of time to well and run before he did.

“You always had everything handed to you, didn’t you?” Ermoc asked, grin fading, replaced with anger. “Big strong warrior with a big strong name. War hero’s boy. I bet you said your daddy’s name everywhere you went. Him just giving you that and your armor probably opened every door. He gave you everything, you’re nothing without that armor, this sword,” he slapped the blade, “and your name. I wish I’d known about your stinking heretic mother before, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time thinking you were hot shit.”

Cyrus blinked. “You … you were jealous? Of me?”

Ermoc’s dark skin flushed even darker. “I’m not jealous of you, you—you—scum!”

“Says the man who betrayed his homeland and joined a guild that was cast out of Reikonos for doing the very thing you looked down on me for supposedly doing,” Cyrus said.

“I—I—” Ermoc stuttered.

“Rhane, there’s no point in arguing with him,” Orion called down from behind Cyrus, atop the guard tower. “He’ll just sit there and spin you around all day. It’s what he does.” There was unmistakable hatred in the way the ranger spoke.

“I ran into your wife the other day,” Cyrus said, glancing back at Orion.

The bow wavered in the ranger’s hand. “You’re lying.”

“She’s not doing so well,” Cyrus went on, as if Orion had never spoken. “Seems she abandoned you when you were crawling through the Bandit Lands?”
If they’re going to kill me, I might as well strike them with the only weapon I have left—their pitiful insecurities.
“I guess she couldn’t take the sight of your face any more—”

An arrow spanged off the chainmail at Cyrus’s elbow, and he turned his face away, chuckling. “Hey, Orion, I finally got better chainmail than you—”

“Ermoc, just gut him!” Orion screamed, voice echoing with odd resonance under his helm.

“With pleasure,” Ermoc said, his face stiff as a smile cracked through. He started forward—

And a blast of fire hit the troops behind him as he stepped away, flames streaming out of the middle of them as screams echoed through the wooden bailey. Cyrus saw faces of the Goliath warriors charring and blackening in their armor, and immediately he knew what had happened—J’anda had charmed Carrack and set him against his own.

In the formation behind the dark knight named Sareea, the men yelled and started to charge—right into their own numbers. Swords were plunged into their fellows, and the front lines broke as they tried to kill both the men behind them as well as Sareea, some four soldiers breaking off to attack her from behind. She managed to avoid their first attacks through a careful ballet of agility, surprising Cyrus with her speed.

Cyrus grabbed hold of the hilt of his sword as he heard a cry behind him, and he turned his head involuntarily. The world began to slow around him, as though everyone had decided to move at their most leisurely pace. He made it around in time to see J’anda standing there, painful grimace on his face, as though he’d been pinched particularly hard. Three arrows jutted from his chest, navy stains seeping through his robes.

“Damn,” the enchanter said mildly, talking at normal speed.

Vaste was hit next, an arrow plunging through his neck, dark green blood fountaining down his black robes and soaking into the dark material. He looked at Cyrus with those onyx eyes, dark blood staining his chin. He tried to speak, but no words came out, only blood, and the troll sagged to his knees as he went limp in death, falling face first into the mud.

“Take Ermoc!” Longwell shouted, words slow, already surging into action, charging at half-speed at Sareea Scyros, leaving J’anda and Vaste behind. Cyrus watched him begin his charge and suddenly realized—

We’re going to—

He spun just in time to see Rhane Ermoc come at him and slammed his weapon against Praelior in a hard clash of the blades. His defensive move could not win out against the strength of Praelior, and he took a step back. An arrow clanged off his back plate, and Orion shouted in rage above him.

“You’ll not get away this time,” Ermoc hissed and came at him again, so much more slowly than he should have, like he wanted to savor the kill. Cyrus blocked him, then blocked him again, Ermoc’s face twisting in fury—

And then Cyrus heard the last cry, the one he’d been dreading.

He could see from where he stood when it happened. Sareea Scyros was no longer fighting her own men; J’anda’s death had released the magic that bound the troops behind her, and now she stood with her fellows, surrounding Longwell, blades plunging in and out of him at the cracks of his armor, warm, red blood squirting—

Gods
, Cyrus thought.
This is it. I’m
—

Ermoc screamed and came at him again, Praelior held high, slashing down, and Cyrus clanged his blade against that of his enemy, turning him aside again. The sun flashed on his blade as he knocked Praelior away, and something at last clicked in Cyrus’s head, something he had not realized until now.

The sword Cyrus held in his hand was not the sword he’d been carrying for the last several months.

This one … was different.

It bowed out along the blade into a curving edge along one side, like a scimitar, but was flat on the back of the blade. The hilt was wrapped with the finest leather, and clung to his hand like it was bonded with it. Even in the sunlight, it seemed to carry a faint glow of white. When he brought it around again, he realized that Ermoc wasn’t moving slowly—

Cyrus was moving faster.

“How?” Ermoc screamed impotently, raising Praelior above his head again, his nose running in his fury, disgusting yellow dribbles on his stubbled, scarred upper lip.

“You said it yourself, Rhane,” Cyrus said, smirking in spite of himself, in spite of his situation. “My father gave me everything—name, armor.” He brandished the blade high, and suddenly he remembered a moment he had forgotten, standing in their old house, his father’s voice coming back to him, resonating between the clash of his new blade against the old. “And now I’ve taken up his sword. Rhane Ermoc, meet Rodanthar—” Cyrus whipped the sword in front of him, feeling a warm satisfaction that reminded him of the moment he’d first taken up Praelior, and watched his new blade shine in the light, “—The Saber of the Righteous.”

There was no time for gloating, for before Cyrus even finished his taunt, another arrow winged him from behind, bouncing off his armor and reminding him of the precarious position he found himself in, even with his new weapon. He lashed out at Ermoc, driving him back with a violent slash. Ermoc staggered away, fear in his eyes, the blue blade of Praelior clutched tightly in his hands.

Cyrus heard the stampede of footsteps in the mud, metal slapping against wet dirt. He spun and caught the first soldier attacking him with a plunging point to the face. It splashed blood at him, but he ignored it as he ripped the sword out. An arrow skipped Cyrus’s cheek and tore it open, and he felt a burning rage enter him.

“Well, that’s about enough of that shit,” he muttered as the blood streamed down his face.

He kept Rodanthar in front of him, fending off the attacks of the soldiers coming at him, and turned his left hand loose at the tower, not even looking. A fire spell surged out in a second, a billowing ball of flame that slammed into the tower where Orion had been practicing his craft. Cyrus saw motion out of the corner of his eye as the ranger leapt from the twenty-foot height and slammed into the mud below. The sound of bones breaking and a cry of pain was like sweet music played right into his ear as he made the same motion and destroyed the other guard tower, just in case Carrack was still atop it, waiting.

Cyrus plunged his blade into two more soldiers coming at him, in rapid succession, both in the neck, both without mercy, cutting both the heads cleanly off. His aim was such that he neatly avoided their gorgets, striking to kill in such a way that even if a healer were present, there would be no reviving them. He slashed through them as though they were straw men, no more substance than he might have found practicing against air, and when he drew the bloody, gleaming blade of Rodanthar back, he saw the others waiting fearfully, cowering behind Sareea Scyros, who watched him warily.

Cyrus looked sidelong at Ermoc, who still stood, stunned. “I guess Malpravus should have sent more men,” he said and pointed Rodanthar at Sareea, who blinked as he pointed the blade at her and the men behind her. She took a step back, clearly intimidated, and Ermoc ran at her as she began to twinkle with light, a return spell clearly at work. Ermoc slammed into her as she disappeared, the spell drawing the both of them out of the line of fire the second before Cyrus let loose a billowing flame spell that struck the other rank of soldiers, immolating them in an instant.

The intensity of the heat made Cyrus flinch back. It was as hot as any spell he’d ever cast, perhaps hotter, and it had landed in a solid thirty-foot circle, scourging the men within it with flames worthy of a blacksmith’s furnace. The armored figures within danced in agony, running to and fro until they fell to their knees one by one like puppets being dropped as their master cut them loose.

Cyrus felt the sweat trickle down his forehead as he surveyed the battlefield. There were no other survivors save one; Orion was grunting, trying to get back to his feet at the base of the burning guard tower. Carrack’s corpse was beneath the flaming wreckage of the other tower, the wood structure already collapsed on itself. The gates of the keep were thrown open and the guards who had barred the doors had made good their escape, no sign of them on the drawbridge.

Cyrus cast a furious eye at the tower behind him and raised a hand. “Reynard Coulton!” he shouted, and heaved a fire spell at the wooden roof far above. It blossomed in flame as a meek face peeked out of third floor window, wide eyes looking up in shocked surprise. Cyrus could see a beard on the man, and hints of fine cloth in the form of a cloak draped around his shoulders. The flame Cyrus had cast would burn his roof, spread to the interior of the tower, and surely, eventually, leave the entire thing a charred mess, burning the governor out of his home. “Come out before I start a fire at your front door as well!”

Cyrus did not wait for the governor to follow his instruction. He hurried over to Samwen Longwell. The dragoon had been pierced with so many swords and blades that the mud around him ran a dark shade of red. Summoning the words to mind, he drew upon the resurrection spell and cast it, and Longwell lurched painfully back to life, blood spurting once more from his many wounds. The smell of the blood was sticky in the warm air, and Cyrus hurriedly cast the healing spell upon him, watching the sprays of red come to a halt as Longwell’s wounds were healed. He breathed in and out, the harsh and ragged breaths slowing, losing their fearful urgency, as Longwell’s deep brown eyes met Cyrus’s.

“We … made it?” the dragoon asked, his gaze almost blank, drifting around Cyrus.

“So far,” Cyrus said, kicking the dragoon’s lance back in easy reach from where it had fallen. “Get yourself together; it’s not over yet.”

Cyrus rushed over to Vaste where the troll had fallen. His face was buried in the mud, and Cyrus knelt down to roll him. It was not easy, even with Rodanthar in hand, but he managed it with some grunting. The first survivors from the burning keep’s tower began to emerge as he was casting the resurrection spell upon Vaste. He watched them with furious eyes as he brought the troll back to life. They did not watch him nearly so closely, coughing and hacking as they cleared the smoking entry to the now-burning tower. Plumes of black were starting to reach into the sky, soiling its pleasant blue with their smoke.

Vaste surged back to life with a vomiting of nearly black blood, and when the healing spell was done, he had not finished regurgitating the blood from his mouth. His eyes were wide and panicked, as if he were choking upon his life’s blood—which, Cyrus realized, he probably was. The troll groaned as he hacked up the last of it, spitting into the already saturated mud. It did not smell like human blood smelled, Cyrus reflected dimly; it was different, more earthy, perhaps. “Or maybe that’s just the horse manure,” Cyrus muttered.

“Wha … t?” Vaste said through sputtering lips, strings of blood still oozing their way to the ground as he rolled to all fours in preparation to stand. “Oh,” the troll said, his normally yellow-green skin looking far, far more yellow at the moment, like fresh-shucked corn. “That’s horse manure, right there. My hand is in it. Gods. This is the worst resurrection ever.”

“Count yourself lucky you’re back,” Cyrus said, hurrying over to J’anda, once more casting furious looks at the men streaming out of the tower. He was waiting for Coulton, but once the man showed up, he wasn’t likely to stop what he was doing just to deal with the bastard.

As he began to cast the spell to bring J’anda back, Cyrus could feel the drain of the spells he’d cast like a hard-settled fatigue wearying him. It was like he’d done a whole day’s labor and was ready for bed, but it was not yet even midday. He cast the spell, watching the light at his hands, hoping it would not turn red. It didn’t. J’anda sprang to life, and Cyrus grabbed his fallen staff and thrust it in his hand. J’anda’s thin fingers clung to it, hard, as Cyrus ripped the arrows out of him, chopping them neatly beneath the heads with Rodanthar and pulling them through, and then cast the healing spell. Again his fingers flashed white, though once more he felt the curious drain. He clutched tightly to his new sword, as if afraid to let it go.