Call of the Hero

by Robert J. Crane

“We all have to make our choices in the end,” Alaric said, “for we are the ones who most have to live with the consequences upon on our consciences.” And with a last nod, away he went, leaving Cyrus to mull what course he should take.

  Chapter 85

  Alaric

  Curatio was waiting, just past the first ship, along the path back to the main gate. When the healer saw him coming, he stepped out from behind the partial cover where he stood, long robes swaying beneath him. “He's going into the trap, isn't he?” the healer asked. In spite of the way he phrased it, it was not a question.

  “I think so, yes,” Alaric said, nodding once. “For how he could he do anything else and live with himself afterward?”

  Curatio hesitated, lips pursed tightly into a line. “Damn. Can we defend the dockyards against whatever treachery Malpravus has to offer without him?”

  “Cyrus is a gifted strategist and tactician,” Alaric said, “but he is hardly infallible in battle. He has set our defense. We need but maintain it without him.”

  “That's not much of an answer.”

  “It is the one I have,” Alaric said. “We were always in uncertain territory here. Nothing about this rebellion has been easy, especially considering we have yet to begin our attempts to feed the people.”

  “The grain stands ready to be moved,” Curatio said, “but I've been loathe to open the gates or send our people out knowing that the counter-blow could fall at any time. Malpravus lurks, and I worry.”

  “You are right to, given what he has done up to now,” Alaric said. “But it feels different this time, doesn't it?” He frowned. “Always before, it was a steadily evolving treachery that he blighted us with. First we were allies, and he undermined us. Then he turned others against us, seeking to box us in and deliver us into his hands. Then, we were enemies, and he sought to destroy us. Now...” He shook his head. “He rules a city, and we try to rip it from his clutching grasp.”

  “Truly, we have wandered far afield from our start,” Curatio said. “Recall when I was an ambassador and an arena fighter with a taste for slaughter, and you were but a spoiled princeling who caught the eye of the most powerful girl in the land.”

  Alaric felt a quiet peace descend over him. “Truly, she was the best of us, yet she lasted the least.”

  “People so good as Marei cannot live long in a cruel world,” Curatio said. “Their lives are brief, like the melting of ice when wake the rays of the sun after a snow.”

  “I thought much the same about Raifa,” Alaric said, “though she was...different, obviously. We have come far since then.”

  “Not so far, as the crow flies,” Curatio said with a tight smile. “I wonder if the arena still stands.” His smile vanished. “Did I ever tell you why I became a healer? When they put the constrictions upon magic after the razing of Sennshann?”

  Alaric paused. “No. I don't believe so.”

  Curatio smiled, ever so slightly. “I thought it would be a good way to atone for all the evil I did in that arena and on battlefields over the years.”

  Alaric nodded. “And here I thought it was because you believed Caraleen would be impressed by you taking on the quality of a compassionate healer.”

  Curatio's lips moved, slightly, perhaps in umbrage, before turning to a smile. “There might have been a bit of that in there, too, if I were forced to be honest at the point of a knife.” They shared a laugh, and then the healer grew still. “Truly, we have come far.”

  “Yet as you said, not so far,” Alaric said. “I remember well that night we held the Citadel, the red magic dancing outside the windows as Marei held back the tide of spell-death that threatened to consume us as it did the Protanians and their glorious city. This is different, yet the same. No magic, but still force, Malpravus meaning to choke out the lives of the people here for his own benefit. They will not submit, so he will end them. It's a very similar story, in spite of the peoples being different, the time being different, the players, too.”

  “A glorious advertisement for all our hearts being driven by the same evils,” Curatio said. “Still, not all the players are different. We're still here.”

  Alaric nodded slowly, smiled. “We're still here. But this time – let us stop this.”

  Chapter 86

  Cyrus

  “My lord,” Willems said as Cyrus climbed up the stairs to join he and McCoie at the top of the wall. This was the interior defense wall, the one that separated the yards from Reikonos, and beyond the crenellations, the teeth of stone that lay atop the wall, he could see the city of Reikonos spread before him.

  “McCoie, Willems,” Cyrus said, nodding to each of them in turn. “How goes the watch?” He spoke in muted tones, casting his gaze out over the buildings that spanned beyond the wall.

  “No sign of the enemy,” McCoie said, his head bowed before Cyrus. Willems did not observe such pieties, which Cyrus found to be a relief. Every time McCoie threatened to launch into a worshipful ode, Cyrus felt the urge to throw himself over the nearest crenellation. “No hint of spies.”

  “They're out there, if I know Malpravus,” Cyrus said, stepping up to the stone. Surely they were. Malpravus was all about the preparation, about reaching out his hand and taking that which he wanted. What more could he possibly want than to wrap his gaunt fingers around the sole transport hub controlling any movement into and out of Reikonos?

  “We are watching, my lord,” McCoie said, bowing deeper. Cyrus caught a movement of discomfort from Willems, as if he wanted to distance himself from McCoie's reverence.

  “I know you are,” Cyrus said. “You are faithful in your duties.” He rested his hands upon the crenellations, looking out. There was no sign of archers, of rifles sticking out of nearby windows. There were a few faces looking out at him, wide eyes tracing over him from the surrounding factories and apartment buildings. “We wouldn't have taken this place with your help. Both of you.”

  They both mumbled something, McCoie more quietly than Willems, but Cyrus heard neither of them.

  There, in the distance, was the Citadel, looking like a tall pole in the middle of the city. It was no accident Malpravus had located his seat of power in the same place as the Council of Twelve. High views, central location, magisterial construction. The powerful would always gravitate toward that location, wouldn't they, if given the option? It looked over everyone like Cyrus looking over an army of men.

  He held such a muddled feeling where once it had been clear. Kill Malpravus, decapitate his government, remove the enemies, feed the people. A multi-part plan, sure, but now they were bogged down. In order to feed the people, they had to hold this yard, lest the food supply cut off. But holding this yard was no small feat, and left them with no forces to reach out their hand to, say, storm the square and fight for Baynvyn.

  “A mire,” Cyrus said under his breath, for mired they were. Pinned in place, forced to hold this one spot. Now Malpravus beckoned, trying to pull away Cyrus, which would reduce the strength of their garrison here in the yard. Divide, conquer. Such a timeless plan.

  But...was it?

  “My lord?” McCoie asked. Possibly Cyrus had missed something.

  “How many men of the City Watch remain with Malpravus?” Cyrus asked.

  McCoie seemed caught off guard by this, but Willems answered. “Hard to say for certain, but probably some thousand or two.”

  “Not small,” Cyrus muttered. Holding the yards against dedicated assault, even with the barricades, would be difficult.

  “What are you thinking, my lord?” Willems asked.

  “How very pushed into a corner we are,” Cyrus said, “tactically.” He adjusted his helm.

  How could one know what the right thing to do was in this situation? Hell, how could one even discern “right” from “correct?” Correct might have him defending this yard against an onslaught, but unable to take the grain they received and get it to the people that needed it, for they could be besieged every hour and thus prevented from sallying
forth to deliver it into the hands of the people who needed it to survive. That wouldn't be “right,” letting the people starve while you had immense grain reserves ever-growing here in the yard.

  Give up their position here, though, and there was no food. That was neither right nor correct.

  “I cannot see my enemy in the field of battle,” Cyrus whispered. “He comes when he wants, draws me to places he wants me to be, takes hostages to entice me out.” He licked his lips. “I have no redoubt of worth, only a place I must hold.”

  Right wasn't letting Baynvyn be killed by Malpravus's threat, even if it meant sparing Cyrus to fight the battle here at the dock yards, was it? But it was hardly correct to take his own power, worth ten, twenty, thirty defenders, and squander it by walking into Malpravus's trap, was it?

  “Right and correct,” Cyrus whispered. He heard nothing from McCoie and Willems. Perhaps they thought he'd gone mad. They remained silent either way, giving Cyrus's mind lease to pursue his way out of these brambly thoughts. “What is right, and moral? And does it intersect, anywhere, with what is correct, strategically and tactically?”

  It came to him just then, how often he'd made the incorrect move. Throwing himself in the path of Mortus had been incorrect. All of Sanctuary could have walked out of the Realm of Death, save one, had he but stayed. No mindless scourge would have visited itself on Luukessia, either, had he but stayed where he was and watched the god's hand descend.

  A flash of blond hair in his mind, her small frame bowed against defeat of the sort Cyrus felt moving into his thoughts, came back to him. For Vara had given up in that moment, surrendered to Death, himself, before he'd thrown himself between her and Mortus's descending hand.

  Not correct, what he'd done. Years of hell had followed that choice.

  But it was right.

  “How do I live with making a 'correct' choice like that?” Cyrus wondered. For how could he have walked the rest of his days with a regret like watching Vara dissolve under the force of a godly blow, to see her sacrificed to appease a monster such as Mortus?

  Such as Malpravus.

  I wish you were here, Vara.

  “You men have the wall,” Cyrus said, checking his sword, then that Epalette was still tucked in his belt. It was, but he had no flintlock pistols, nor bullets for Baynvyn's curious – and empty – weapon, and would not have any man in the yards parted from one for his own selfish need. “I need to sally forth out of the nearest gate and probe the enemy. We grow complacent here, and I must make a strike to keep them off balance.”

  “My lord?” McCoie asked. “Let me come with you, then–”

  “No,” Cyrus said. “I won't have you slow me.” He closed his eyes, concentrated–

  A familiar whinny came from beneath. Windrider was waiting at the base of the stairs.

  “You are charged to defend this place should the blow fall in my absence,” Cyrus said, looking Willems in the eye, then McCoie. “I am going to stick a thumb in the eye of our enemy–”

  “You're not taking his bait, are you?” McCoie asked, a hitch in his voice.

  “Yes,” Cyrus said, with a trace of a smile. “I am.”

  “But it's a trap,” Willems said.

  “Most certainly,” Cyrus said. “But walking into it is the right thing to do nonetheless.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Listen to me now, for this is a most important lesson, perhaps the most important I can impart.” He reached a hand forward, resting it on McCoie's shoulder. “The army we build must stand on the foundation of fidelity. Loyalty. If any man be captured, let him know that I – that we – would come for him.” Cyrus nodded. “We will leave none behind.”

  “But that man is a mercenary, my lord,” McCoie said. “He fought against us.”

  “He is my son,” Cyrus said. “And in spite of him fighting against me, I would not leave him to my enemies, just as I would not leave any of you in their clutches.” He straightened his back, took a deep breath, now certain. “We must do what is right, not merely that which is strategically correct, else we become prisoners and slaves to that which is convenient for us.”

  “Aye, my lord,” McCoie said, and he seemed to get it. If Willems, by contrast, were skeptical, he held it in.

  “Inform Alaric of my going,” Cyrus said, descending the stairs. “Inform them all. And hope for my return, soon.”

  “But...shall you return, my lord?” Willems asked. “The city is uncontrolled. Enemies could be anywhere. They would ambush you.”

  “They can try,” Cyrus said, steeling himself against the worry that gnawed at the certainty. “But they will have to succeed where none have before.” And he mounted Windrider, and with a snap of the reins, he was off, to the nearest gate and then, after that, to ride into the certainty of a trap.

  Chapter 87

  Alaric

  Standing around was hardly an effective way of spending one's time, and yet Alaric found himself standing around nonetheless. Administrating in Sanctuary had never been his style; nor had doing the things of a general, a healer, chef, or any of the myriad other day to day items of running that seemed to be necessary. He delegated, always, and his faith was, mostly, rewarded with a guild that ran.

  This did not mean he took no interest in the smaller details. Now, though, standing beside Curatio and staring at a pile of grain stacked in canvas bags, he wondered if perhaps he might be examining too much at the granular level.

  “It is considerable, the piles we have already,” Alaric said, brow furrowed beneath his helm.

  “Especially without a plan to distribute it,” Curatio said. “When the others ships begin to return, it will accumulate more quickly still. If we could but open our gates and begin to get it out there, it would vanish more quickly than it came in.”

  The furrow in Alaric's brow deepened. “We can scarcely afford to simply open the gates and allow anyone to walk off with as much as they can carry. We might not even be able to afford opening the gates, forgetting all the other parts of that notion.”

  “Aye,” Curatio said, “and yet we have hungry people and grain, a natural pairing. All we need worry about is enemy attack, hoarding, profiteering, and maintaining our line of supply. Oh, and not running out of gold in the process.” He smiled. “Such minor things, hm?”

  “Indeed,” Alaric said, not feeling his brow slacken. There was much to consider. “We can ill afford to give it away entirely for free. Perhaps if we set a price equal to or lower than it had been before this crisis began, we could keep the grain supply coming while not entirely losing our entire balance of gold...?”

  “Perhaps,” Curatio said. “I am of the mind–”

  “Lord Garaunt,” came the voice of a man. Alaric turned to find one of Cyrus's new lieutenants approaching, a hurried gait to his step, a worried look upon his face. Vaste was trailing him by some margin, slouching along, perhaps trying to look incognito and failing.

  “What is it, Willems?” Alaric asked, remembering the man's name just in time.

  “Lord Davidon,” Willems said. “He has endeavored to undertake a strike at the enemy's belly, he says.”

  Alaric did not feel much need to blink back surprise, keeping his face in a cold, stony mien. “Has he? Where does he strike?”

  Willems's face twitched as he supplied the answer. “Into the mouth of the planned ambush, my lord.”

  “Damn him,” Vaste said, now only a dozen paces away. “He's gone and done the fool thing again.”

  “He said, my lord,” Willems went on, “that it was the right thing to do – though he knew it was hardly the correct one.”

  “As I said, 'fool',” Vaste said with a deep sigh. “Perhaps even 'damned fool', given what he's up against.”

  Right? Alaric puzzled at that, and then the answer came to him. “I think...maybe not. He hits upon a great question, one that I have occasionally thought upon myself – where is the line between what is right, and what is expedient?”

  “What's 'right?' It's
over there, on the other side of 'not walking into Malpravus's murderous ambush,'” Vaste said.

  “Walking into the teeth of the enemy at any time is hardly expedient,” Alaric said. “Nothing we have done here is 'correct' by most standards. Which is why no one has ever done anything about the Machine, the Lord Protector.” He found himself nodding along with Cyrus's rationale. “This is all foolishness. None of it is correct, if we merely desire to survive, to eke out an existence. We would never have sought out these battles if we wished to be 'correct.' We would not have intervened in the unjust executions in Vara Square if we merely sought to do the smart thing. The expedient thing.”

  “But to stand aside and see evil done,” Curatio said, now nodding along, “that is not right.”

  “Exactly,” Alaric said. “So Cyrus walks into the teeth of the enemy, willing to sacrifice himself to save a son he didn't know he had. Bold. Deadly. But...is there anything so noble as being willing to die for your brethren? Because if that's not worth fighting for...why are we even here? Why fight at all?”

  Vaste's eyes moved back and forth, contemplating that. “Okay, yes. But there is a point where fighting for what is right becomes fighting stupidly, and I feel Cyrus has leapt over that threshold in this moment. Leapt over it and went flying off the wall behind it, plummeting to the moat below where he will be devoured by the scourge that lie beyond.”

  “Perhaps.” Nonetheless, Alaric found himself smiling. “But he answers the call that comes to all of us of Sanctuary at some point.” And he, too straightened, now certain of his path. “We must prepare yourselves for our part in this. For the enemy shall surely be coming, and soon – and we will hold against them, fighting for one another...in the way that we always have.”

  Chapter 88

  Cyrus