“Oh?” Baynvyn was still circling. He seemed like he had a vague interest. Or was just waiting for an opening that wasn't coming.
“Surely she told you.” Cyrus clubbed a loyalist who came through the fray at him. The man took the hit to the face and stopped, slamming into the ground as though he'd run into a solid post. “It was a great battle. Not like Leaugarden, which was neither a great battle nor one she was there to witness, really, since she teleported out with that godsdamned wizard, Verity–”
Baynvyn froze, his eyes flickered in shadow. “You know her name.”
“Verity?” Cyrus chuckled, then kicked the shin of a loyalist, who doubled over. Cyrus raised his fist and bashed the man in the face, clubbing him off his feet and into a pile. “It'd be hard to forget that straw-haired clucking shrew. She looked like she wore canvas and acted like it was bunched up in all the wrong places, too.” He paused in concentration. “You know, I never saw her again after Leaugarden. I wonder what happened–”
“My mother killed her,” Baynvyn said, almost whispering. He was close enough Cyrus could hear him, though, albeit barely.
“Well done, Aisling,” Cyrus said, breaking into a smile. “I didn't see your mother again after that until we invaded Saekaj and killed Yartraak. She shows up, bloody, beaten, a soul ruby the size of a head in her hands.” Cyrus was trying to remember the intricate details. He could see he was getting through. Baynvyn's face was frozen as he watched and listened. “See, Yartraak was draining the essence of Vidara into it. You know the next time I saw Aisling after that?”
“When?” Baynvyn took a step closer. Only a few surging battlers separated them now. No one seemed to be coming at Cyrus anymore.
“When she saved my life. Vara's too. It was in the throne room of the elven kingdom.” Cyrus took a step toward Baynvyn. “You must have been born by then; but your mother was an ambassador, because Terian had sent her – with that,” he nodded at Epalette, gripped tight in Baynvyn's hand, “to watch out for us because he suspected Danay's treachery. And he was right.” Cyrus made a face. “Terian was actually right a lot more than I would have liked to admit, especially toward the end–”
Baynvyn's eyes flickered again, just for a second, and Cyrus knew he'd been lulled.
“Shit!” Cyrus raised his sword guard as Baynvyn sprang into motion. “You treacherous–!”
But Baynvyn was already at him, under his guard, the blade at his side.
And grinning. “Just like my mother,” he said, as he swept Epalette beneath Cyrus's plate armor.
Chapter 62
Alaric
Qualleron the troll swung his immense blade with the tooth-rattling fury Alaric might have expected from a titan. Hell, it certainly felt similar to the damage Alaric had felt in battle with the damned titans. It wasn't terribly far off from the power of Mortus, come to think of it.
“I respect your strength,” Alaric said, holding Aterum tightly in a high guard above his head. The troll circled, then swung down with another rattling blow that Alaric – barely – blocked. The size of Qualleron's sword made precision important. To fail to raise his blade in the proper place meant the troll's weapon might go slipping off his edge and hit his armor. While he had a certain amount of faith in the Protanian metallurgy, the strength, the sheer force the troll brought to bear in each swing made him wonder at his efficacy at blocking it. “But strength alone will not win you this battle.”
“You are stronger than any human I have fought,” Qualleron said, circling, forcing Alaric to turn nearly halfway around with his massive steps. “Usually your kind resorts to dishonorable conduct immediately upon the commencement of a fight. You can see it in their eyes; the fear seizes hold, claws down to their hearts, makes them desperate to death.”
“I am not most men.” Alaric spun out of the way of blow that cleaved into the earth, leaving a rut in the dirt and stone the width of his forearm where Qualleron's sword fell. “The lack of honor is a lamentable failing of the men of these days. It is a thing that extends beyond your personal conduct, though. It is like a ripple that turns to a wave. You see it first in a duel such as this, but it goes far further, into this city, into its governance.” He raised his sword. “Surely you cannot believe that the Lord Protector of this place acts with full honor. Look at what he has you doing.”
That brought Qualleron up short, as he repositioned himself to rest weight on his back foot. He seemed to be setting himself up to take the defense for a time, as though inviting Alaric to attack. “No, I don't care for this place or its governance,” Qualleron decided, rumbling out his answer. “But I cannot change it, anymore than I can change the honor of any man. I can only do what I must, and that is to enforce the will of my paid liege as best I can within the dictates of my own honor. To do anything else would be to sully my name, my reputation – my honor.”
Alaric took the troll's cue and moved forward on the attack. Qualleron met his offensive with good blocking and little counteroffensive, which the knight found curious. “Your answer, then, to the notion that you are working for an honorless man is merely that you must serve some master, and their dishonor does not belong to you?”
“I take no order that violates my honor,” Qualleron bristled, neatly turning aside Alaric's sword. “Here, for instance, I waited for you and your kind. I did not engage in any of this...” He shot a look sidelong at the nearest ship, a smooth-lined vessel that seemed much sleeker and longer than the Yuutshee. “...thievery,” he finally decided.
“But you are abetting it,” Alaric said, tensing as he moved back. Qualleron's balance had begun to shift, the troll's movements obvious; he was preparing for attack once more. There was a definite poise and balance there. “For how can you support your paid liege in his efforts when they are so honorless?”
The troll hesitated. “In truth, I spend time arguing it with myself. But there are no places of pure honor these days, and the Lord Protector has long granted me such leeway as to avoid these troubling moral events that would plague my conscience. So I sleep well enough knowing that I myself must not be a part of dishonor, one eye safely turned away. And I engage with the real combatants such as yourself.” Qualleron smiled from beneath his helm. “Though I rarely have the pleasure of such formidable foes, and never ones with such a sense of honor. I should thank you and you friends for that.” The smile vanished. “It will nearly be a shame to kill you.”
“I don't think you'll–” Alaric started.
But before he could finish, Qualleron swept in with speed and fury, pressing his attack. Alaric felt the battering run through his arm, pain lancing through the joints from the heavy blow as surely as if he'd been stabbed. His elbow, his shoulder, both cried out beneath his armor, radiating pain into the muscles around them. His armor rang like a bell though Qualleron's sword touched it not at all.
A second strike, lifted and brought down almost immediately, landed and the pain surged louder. It drowned out Alaric's thoughts, shocked him. It was stinging, angry, and within his own body, lancing into the muscles and down his arm. It shot into his fingertips, numbing them, weakening his grip until–
Qualleron brought down another furious blow less than a second later. It rose and fell in the space of two feet, the huge troll bringing all his power to bear and clashing his blade against Aterum. The pain surged, the shout becoming a scream as Alaric's fingers released the hilt–
Aterum fell from Alaric's grasp, and with it, the world became a faster, swirling, furious place. Dust kicked up by the immense boots of Qualleron flooded his senses, surged into his nose and mouth, coating his tongue and choking him. The pain in his arm went became an agony, and he couldn't contain it anymore.
Alaric stumbled back, his sword lost, the immense amber troll seemingly all around him, he was so large. Alaric's back hit the ground a moment later, the pain surging across him as he clutched his arm to himself.
“You dropped your sword,” Qualleron mused idly as the loud sounds and scream
s of battle and weapons flooded Alaric's senses. The smell of fire overcame the dirt clogging his nose, the musk of troll sweat crept in just after it. Qualleron was there, and now he had held Aterum between his huge fingers like a toothpick, raising his own blade up, once more, above his shoulders.
Clutching his wrist as the pain surged through him, Alaric had no place to concentrate. The pain was everywhere, was everything, blotting out all other thoughts save one:
When Qualleron swung his sword, Alaric knew his life would be over.
Chapter 63
Vaste
“I know, dimly, why we're fighting for this place,” Vaste said, surveying the flames and screaming and gunshots happening all over the expansive dockyards from atop the wall – finally! “But I'm really not sure why it's such a hellacious pit.”
“Because nearly everything in this town is a hellacious pit,” Pamyra said, already hurrying to follow the City Watch that they'd so painstakingly worked to get atop the wall, already running to – of course – get down it at the nearest stairwell.
Vaste took only another moment to survey, to compare everything he was seeing to the map he'd seen of this place. “That's true. If there's anything humans are good at, it's creating outhouses like this and then fighting over them.” He started to bound ahead, overtaking both Pamyra and then Shirri within a few steps. The stairs were ahead, and he supposed there was, indeed, a battle to be fought and won.
“A curious critique from someone who finds himself charging into the middle of the battle for this particular outhouse,” Shirri called after him. The younger of the two women was quicker on her feet than her mother, but not by much, and Vaste outpaced her easily. Someone below was surely in need of their help already, and he should probably get to that.
“Well, what can I say?” Vaste shrugged. “I'm a sucker for these hard luck cases and lost causes.”
“And here I thought our cause was beginning to look so much less lost,” Shirri muttered, barely audible.
“I would not worry about it overly much,” Vaste said, taking the stairs two and three at a time, nearly knocking over the Watchmen traversing them. He caught more than a few looks of fear from the men. It was probably good that they were afraid of him. Maybe that would keep them from making stupid demands of him and wasting his time. “Cyrus always finds a way to turn these hopeless causes into winnable battles. This is probably no different.” He landed firmly on the stone-lined path at the base of the stairs. “Probably.”
“I find little comfort in your words!” Shirri called, still halfway up the stairs. Damned elven hearing.
“Will that make you work harder or despair more?” Vaste called back. “Because I don't want you to be getting all slack on me. I have to carry this bunch enough as it is, I don't need to add you to the weight upon my shoulders.”
“I don't – I–” Shirri reached the bottom and joined him as Vaste looked around, trying to decide which way to go. There seemed to be conflict ahead, the mighty rattling of what sounded like blades ringing together like bells in the night.
“This way, then,” Vaste said, and Shirri was after him a moment later, Pamyra trailing behind. “I like how you follow behind me anyway, even though you're not sure how to answer that. Blind obedience is a plus, so maybe even if you are despairing, it'll all work out anyway.”
“What? How?” Shirri asked, sounding quite outraged about it.
“I really don't know,” Vaste said, as patiently as he could. “Like I said, this is Cyrus's department. He's the one who always pulls the miracles out of his helm – somehow.” A cannon blasted off, loudly, to his left. “And hopefully he's working hard at one of those right now.”
Chapter 64
Cyrus
With an elbow to Baynvyn's face, Cyrus knocked the dark elf away from him. Pain spiked in his side, the pointed tip of Epalette having found a space between his chain mail.
“Oh ho ho,” Baynvyn chuckled, nose bloody, dark blue liquid coursing down his upper lip. “Not only is your armor quartal, but your will is quite impressive. Most give up once I score first blood.”
“I'm not much into giving up,” Cyrus said, keeping Rodanthar pointed at him as he muttered a healing spell under his breath. It seemed to work mostly beneath the surface of the skin, though the trickle of blood slowed a bit as it took hold. “Especially at a pin prick. I mean, really, if your mother told you what she did to me, you can't possibly think a needle tip like that, without any black lace, is going to make me throw down my sword and go home.”
Baynvyn's smile vanished. “You don't have a home anymore.”
“Actually, I do,” Cyrus said, and advanced on him. The battle was surging around him, Cyrus's army of Watchmen clashing with the loyalists, a space cleared for he and Baynvyn, either out of respect for them or fear of what they might do if anyone got too close. Cyrus caught sight of a Machine thug racing at him out of the corner of his eye and pointed his free hand at the man. His spell, usually a whisper, became a shout and the air rippled as a more powerful force blast than he had managed to conjure since arriving blew out of his palm–
The Machine thug flew backward and over the edge of the wall with a scream.
“Reikonos is my home,” Cyrus said, taking another step forward. “This is my city, and always has been. My statues dot its squares, my name is hailed within its walls. And if you think I'm going to let the skeleton-fucking necromancer that sits atop that tower continue to bleed these people dry – well, son, I'm going to do what your mother should have done a long time ago, and spank your ass so hard that you will no longer have any doubts that I'm your father.”
“My lord!” McCoie called, from the periphery of the battle, “Need you any aid in fighting this...specter?”
“He's just a man under a spell, McCoie,” Cyrus called back. The battle was pulsing, men fighting against men, with the additional wrinkle of the occasional combatant forced over the edge of the walls. To one side, a scream and a splash below followed. To the other came the sound of a body cracking upon the stones beneath. “And I need no help putting this child in his place.”
“This 'child' has lived longer than you,” Baynvyn said, squaring himself and lifting his blade for swift use. He was prepared for an attack. “Father.”
“Have you?” Cyrus asked, pointing his sword at his son. “Tell me, in all your years of experience, have you ever seen...this?”
With a sublingual cast, Cyrus loosed a force blast coupled with a flame spell, and it hit Baynvyn before he could so much as react. It caught him squarely just below the waist, setting his trousers aflame and causing him to hiss and stagger back.
Cyrus was on him in a moment, leading with elbow instead of blade as Baynvyn slapped at the flames that had casually caught his clothing. It was a prime distraction, perfect in its placement. In a second, Cyrus was inside his guard, wrapping his plate over Baynvyn's arm, pushing against his torso, burying a hip in his belly, with all its armored force punching squarely into his son's gut.
Baynvyn let out a sudden, forcible exhalation. His arms thrust out from the blow, all thought of patting out the flames forgotten as he lost his wind. He tried to fight back, surely, but was off his footing.
Cyrus wrapped an arm around his son's blade hand, lifting up, slipping beneath, controlling Baynvyn's motion. The dark elven hybrid tried to fight back, but the direction of his joints was now against him. Cyrus rapped him across the face, roughly, with the flat part of Rodanthar's blade. It was another distraction, more insult than anything, but a few drops of blood sprang from where the edge struck Baynvyn's forehead and spattered the stones beneath them.
“You won't–!” Baynvyn managed to get out between grunts. He had Epalette in the hand Cyrus had trapped, and he dropped it, moving his free hand up to snatch it out of the air so he could spin on Cyrus–
The moment the weapon left his hand, though, Cyrus yanked him with all his force, planting the flat edge of his forearm into Baynvyn's throat, careful not to
crush his windpipe. The dark elf let out a choked gasp, and Cyrus flattened him with a second strike, this one lower, across the place where the collarbones met. He knocked him cleanly off his feet, sent him tumbling back–
And caught Epalette in his off hand.
“I'm sorry, son,” Cyrus said, keeping the dagger behind his back in his left hand, “but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take away your toys until you learn to behave better.” He swept in and rocked the smaller dark elf with a kick to the ribs. He was holding back quite a bit, but Baynvyn still rolled, clutching at his side. “Who's your daddy now?”
“You – you—” Baynvyn gasped, and Cyrus did not for one moment believe he was responding to Cyrus's rhetorical question. “You sonofa–” Baynvyn finally managed to spit out.
Cyrus turned and booted a Machine thug over the parapets and down to the ground below, inside the dock yards, saving one of his Watchmen from impalement by less than a second. That done, Cyrus stepped away, swiftly, and watched Baynvyn's eyes follow his footsteps. The dark elf was good, no doubt. Even in the heat of this battle and in spite of all the clamor and clangor around, he never once took his eyes off where Cyrus moved.
For his part, though, Cyrus was circling, trying to lose his attention. Not to strike the fatal blow, but to at least put this literal bastard out of the fight. “I don't need your troubles right now, son,” Cyrus said. “You're backing the wrong horse's ass in this fight, a murderer and a maniac who'd just as soon slaughter this city as rule it, if he had but the power to make either happen.”
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