Warlord (54 page)

“You were supposed to be an instrument of war,” Bellarum said, “but without your weapon
you are nothing
.” He leaned down closer to Cyrus and grabbed him around the chest so quickly that Cyrus could not respond, pulled him aloft, and shook him. “Without me … you are nothing.”

Cyrus felt the squeeze of the God of War held at bay by his armor, but the tension, the power of the grip was evident. “Alaric!” Cyrus called out impulsively.

Bellarum’s eyes glowed harder crimson in fury, but his voice sounded almost amused. “He can’t help you now.” The God of War chortled. “Do you know what I did—what I have done to him?” The red eyes drew closer as Cyrus was raised up to Talikartin’s horrendously glowing eyes. “I sent this shell north into the Plains of Perdamun all those years ago to kill Raifa Herde out of sheerest spite for her husband. Talikartin, unlike you, is a loyal servant, and he did my bidding well.” Bellarum’s mouth twisted in rage and glee. “He remains uncorrupted by the pox that is Alaric Garaunt.
Unlike you
.” His nostrils flared. “Yes, I see it now. The weakness cannot be burned out of you by any cleansing fire. It is soul-deep, this filth.”

He paused, and his voice grew deep as Cyrus blanched away from the pressure through his armor. In some of the cracks, the chainmail picked up the pressure and pushed inward on Cyrus, in the soft spots around his stomach and waist. He could almost taste the metal in his mouth … or was that simply the blood?

“Now,” Bellarum said, resolved, “die like as much of a warrior as you can … by looking me in the eyes as I kill you.”

A tingle ran over Cyrus’s scalp and down his entire body, and he brought his head around to look the possessed titan in the eyes.

I meet you.

As Bellarum brought back his other fist to finish the task at hand, there was no mistaking the lethality of the maneuver. He would pummel Cyrus so that his own armor would cut him cleanly in two. Perhaps after that he would rip off the head, tear off limbs, shred him into a paste while the Army of Sanctuary watched, unable to reach him—

Cyrus swept his gaze in the cool second before his death and saw the fight continuing, futile, the titans having taken advantage of the moments of truce to pour reinforcements into the trees around Amti—while no such numbers could possibly come on Sanctuary’s side.

The world seemed to slow as the fist of a god came crashing toward Cyrus, reaching its high arc, the height of its force and beginning its descent to crush him. The air around him was still, the call of battle was like the silence of death, closing in, unerringly.

And a voice spoke into that silence.

Arnngraav, urnkaaav.

The words came in a voice he trusted implicitly, a voice deep and resonant that seemed to pluck at the very heartstrings deep within him. Cyrus blinked as the fist of Bellarum came toward him, and he put up a hand to ward off, instinctively, even knowing deep within it would do no good.

Arnngraav, urnkaaav!
the voice came again, saying words that Cyrus did not know, but had heard—somewhere, once, perhaps?

ARNNGRAAV, URNKAAAV!
the voice of Alaric Garaunt bellowed in his ear, snapping him out of the stunned, fearful wait for death that had consumed him and spurring him into simple, mad action.

“Arnngraav, urnkaaav!” Cyrus shouted into the night, and the hand of Bellarum wavered just a second in its fall.

Long enough for a billowing blast of flame to spray forth from Cyrus’s hand and consume the head of the Avatar of the God of War.

The shrieks of a burning god spilled into the jungle night. The frightful grip around Cyrus faltered, and he fell some fifteen feet to the jungle floor, hitting soft soil and a patch of small ferns. He landed with a thump and looked up in surprise.

Bellarum clutched at Talikartin’s face, fire still burning the flesh as though it had been brought to life behind the titan’s very eyes. He fell to his knees and scratched at his eye sockets as he tried to beat out the fire that had struck him and caught eyebrows aflame.

Cyrus did not wait, did not watch; he scrambled forward on uncertain legs, lurching toward the glowing blue sword some ten feet away. He moved unsteadily, swaying from side to side, fatigued in a way he could not recall ever feeling, as though something had been drained from within him, some energy that he had never before noticed, until it was gone.

Cyrus’s pained fingers closed in on the hilt of Praelior, and the world slowed around him. He scooped it up with the aid of its dexterity, and turned on the God of War, still kneeling and striking at his own face, the flames gone but the pain still clearly there.

Cyrus did not hesitate, but simply followed the training of the Society of Arms. He leapt like the paladin he now loved more than any other, using the strength provided by his sword to fly over the back of the God of War’s mortal form. He swept down with Praelior as he did so, burying his blade into the back of Talikartin the Guardian’s thick neck. It took a good, hard twist to land it right, and then Cyrus let his own weight carry him down—

And he cut off the head of the Avatar of the God of War.

A silence fell over the Jungle of Vidara, whispering through the trees quieter than the rasp of crickets. It was broken by the first scream, then another, then another, the roar of titans not enraged, but terrified.

Terrified, for they had seen their own god die before them.

Cyrus listened to the shrieks, the wails, the plaintive moans, the first footfalls as titan after titan broke from the battle and ran, their opponents forgotten, their helms knocked aside and cast away, massive gauntlets shrugged out of and dropped in the underbrush like so much refuse.

“I think we just …” Terian staggered up to Cyrus, navy blood running down his jawline, splattered on his breastplate. “Did we just …?”

“We won, yes,” Vara said, sword in hand, moving into view on steadier legs than Terian exhibited. She looked sideways at Cyrus, with more than a little suspicion. “Or you did, at least.”

Cyrus lifted his hand, transferring Praelior to the other, and held his gauntlet up, staring at it. “Did you see …?”

“You shoot a big damned fire spell out of your hand into the face of the God of War?” Terian asked, sounding more than a little wary. “It would have been to hard to miss in this light.”

Cyrus studied the lines of his gauntlet, staring at the traces of the folds. “How … how did I?” He looked up, feeling the cool trickle of something like fingers rubbing across his scalp. “What am I?”

“I don’t know,” Vara said, swallowing hard. Cyrus looked around them and saw every face on them—on him. “But I do know what they will call you, when the Leagues hear about this.

“Heretic.”

Falcon’s Essence carried Cyrus along, Terian racing beside him as they ran through the Jungle of Vidara, the first hints of blue appearing in the gaps of the canopy above. The run was oddly uninvigorating despite the crisp morning air. The taste of blood and bitterness was still thick on his tongue, and Vara’s speaking of the word echoed in his ears.

Heretic
.

She was behind them a little ways, the power of Noctus and Praelior speeding them forward. J’anda and Fortin had gotten even farther ahead, the rock giant’s mighty strides carrying him away from Amti even before Cyrus and Terian had made a start of their run. J’anda had followed, five titans still in his sway, riding atop the tallest of them.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Terian asked as they circled around a particularly large tree trunk.

“Not really,” Cyrus said, his head still awhirl. “I just want to make sure the titans don’t rally and come back for more.” The word bounced around in his mind like thrown mud, sticking to everything.

Heretic
.

“Where’d you learn it?” Terian asked. “The fire spell?”

“I heard it from someone,” Cyrus said, thinking of Mendicant but not daring to say his name aloud, “while they were trying to save my life.”

“Good instinct,” Terian said with a sharp nod, “keeping it to yourself. Whoever slipped up, well, they’re going to get the full fire of the Leagues on their tail as well.”

Cyrus frowned, and it felt like mud stuck in the creases of his face, freezing it into place. “It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?”

Terian cocked his head. “You have trouble coming your way, my friend. I hope you’ll call for my help if you find yourself needing it.”

Cyrus felt a grim, ashen smile take root on his face. “It’s very strange to hear the Sovereign of Saekaj Sovar say that.”

“It’s just a title, Cyrus,” Terian said, looking at him as earnestly as the knight had ever appeared to Cyrus’s eyes. “It’s not who I am—or at least not all of it.”

“Lord Davidon!” Fortin’s voice rumbled as the first breaks in the jungle appeared ahead, deep blue sky of early morning shining through beyond. Cyrus slowed as he caught up to the rock giant, who crouched behind a tree, J’anda atop a titan behind another. “You will want to see this!”

Cyrus ran the last hundred meters or so to where the two of them crouched at the edge of the jungle, but it did not take him that long to realize what the rock giant was referring to.

Cyrus slowed his pace and felt Terian do the same behind him. Vara huffed as she caught up then stopped. He did not turn, but he felt certain that Vara’s mouth was as agape as his surely was.

The Gradsden Savanna burned.

The fire started only a few hundred meters past the end of the jungle, scorched ground already giving way, the grass fire having nearly burned itself out already, black soil and ashen remains all that was left—that and scorched bones, too massive to be those of anything but titans.

“Gods,” Cyrus murmured.

“Probably don’t want to be invoking them right now,” Vara corrected gently.

“Shits,” Terian said, staring out at the spectacle of destruction before them.

“Probably shouldn’t invoke that, either, for fear of—”

“Too late,” Terian said, stepping forward.

“Poor Alaric,” she said. “I hope he doesn’t ever plan to get that armor back.”

There was little smoke, but the damage was plain from what had been done. Fast-burning fire had consumed the retreating titan army, and it was obvious and visible that the fire had not stopped with just that army. Black clouds were strung over the flat savanna in patches that Cyrus suspected corresponded to every single titan supply camp.

“What do you think did this—” Terian started to ask, but the question was answered before he even finished.

A deafening screech of anger was followed by a sweeping shadow flying overhead, and five more after it. The wings whispered with each flutter as they caught the dawn’s light behind them. The dragons flew overhead, bellowing their anger out upon a savanna devoid of life—as they had made it.

“Look,” Vara said, and she pointed to the mountains in the distance, far, far to the south, around the valley where Kortran was nestled.

Black smoke hung thick here, still alight with red flame on the dark edge of the horizon, and Cyrus knew that below the edge of the valley was a pyre that would stay lit all the day.

“I believe that is the end of the titans,” Cyrus said, that ashy taste still in his mouth. They stood there for quite some time, in the dark of the jungle, watching the shadowed dragons fly overhead, occasionally swooping down to inflict their wrath on some poor unfortunate out of sight—the fulfillment of a promise that had come at the highest cost.

The journey back to Amti had been strangely swift, barely noticeable to Cyrus after long hours spent watching the dragons do their horrible work over the savanna. The jungle had been cleared in Cyrus’s absence, no titan stragglers found, and by the time that all that had been declared to be sure, the dark elven army and Terian gathered and left in shortest order with only the kindest of regards on their way out.

The Sanctuary army began to clear, albeit slower, and Cyrus found himself in Tierreed with the four members of Amti’s council as well as Martaina as he waited for the druids and wizards to do their slow work of teleporting everyone home.

“Are you sure you want to stay?” he asked Martaina, who stood off from Gareth just a little, the distance between them telling Cyrus quite a bit.

She thought about it before answering. “I don’t want to go back to Sanctuary, no. Too many … unfortunate memories.”

Cyrus could not help but think of Andren, and the thought was like a physical pain punching into his chest under his armor. “I understand. If you ever change your mind …”

“I know where to find you,” she said with a ghostly smile that told him that she would not be changing her mind.

“And you—” Cyrus said, turning to look at Cora, who stared back at him with an effervescent smile of her own.

Cora held up a finger to stay him. “I will say my piece first, and then you may remonstrate with me for my furtiveness however you desire.” She led Gareth, Fredaula and Mirasa in a long bow, during which Martaina rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Cyrus, Vara, and Sanctuary,” Cora said when she came up, smiling, “for by your efforts, you have saved Amti.”

“You’re welcome,” Cyrus said, but could not help but add, “it’s what good neighbors do.” Vara smacked him on the shoulder.

Cora’s eyes faltered. “I was not a good neighbor, though, was I? For if I had been, I would have kept you longer than the time I did.” She looked him up and down, at his armor. “I might have kept you from … that place.”

Cyrus frowned at her. “The Society?”

“The Society, aye,” Cora said, sounding a little disgusted. “It was not where your mother and father wanted to you to go.”

Cyrus straightened a little. “What? Why not?”

“Because warriors go off to war for years at a time, of course,” Cora said, as though it were evident. “Most of them have no magical support, no hope of resurrection in death, and then … there was the training.” She looked away. “But you know about that.”

“I know about that,” Cyrus said, and smiled wanly. “I made it through, though.” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “What did they want me to do? What did they want me to be?”