Call of the Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  When a rope followed a moment later.

  “Guy,” Alaric said, and shoved Guy firmly toward the rope.

  Guy caught it in one hand, easy as plucking a flower stem off a cart. He kept the sword in his other, and looked at it in askance for a second before Alaric shouted, “Climb! With the sword, you can do it!”

  With that as motivation – that and the red death spell creeping ever toward them, Guy did just that, scaling the bloody rope like his life depended on it. Because it did.

  When he reached the halfway mark, he dared a look back. Alaric held the bottom of the rope again, and was offering it to the executioner. A quick glance proved that, yeah, the red spell was coming awfully quick. “Might want to hurry it up there, Alaric!” Guy called, then kept climbing to do his bit.

  The rope wavered in Guy's hands, but he held tight. The executioner was climbing now. But slower, trying to get up, his ungainly body struggling to move.

  Red light danced over Guy's face; the spell was creeping ever closer.

  “Hurry!” the captain's voice fell over them, urgent and rushed. “Get on the ladder!”

  Guy paused in his climb, looking back. Without the sword in his hand, the likelihood he was going to be able to climb this rope was somewhere between zero and none. But what kind of help could he offer to the executioner? If he even wanted to help the bloke, which he sort of didn't. Cursed bunch, they were.

  “Here!” Alaric's voice washed over Guy, prompting him to look again. The executioner was still stuck down there, unable to climb–

  And Alaric was offering him the sword.

  The bloke looked at it for a moment, seemingly unsure, but he took it. Alaric gave him a shove–

  And the executioner was climbing, much stronger and more sure-footed this time.

  “We have to go!” The captain's shout reached Guy's ears again. He redoubled his own efforts, an idea sprouting in his head. He looked back, trying to see–

  The rope was swinging wide from the executioner's swift climb. Alaric had lost his grasp, and it was well out of his reach.

  “Alaric!” Guy shouted. He was still some ten feet from the ship's edge, still needed to climb–

  The ship was rising, though, and the captain was screaming something in her native tongue as the ship climbed–

  Chapter 123

  Alaric

  The rope was well out of his reach, and Alaric was fine with it. The mission of Sanctuary had always been clear in his mind: help others, fret not about your own neck.

  To that end, he'd seen the man clad in black onto the rope, Aterum clenched in his hand to aid his climb.

  That done, Alaric stared out at the red spell, creeping across the last hundred feet of ground toward the platform upon which he stood and–

  Truly, he was fine with it.

  “I have answered the call,” he whispered, mostly to himself. Sanctuary was finished; why should he not be?

  Something thumped into the wood platform by his side, and he opened his eyes to look–

  Praelior lay lodged there, buried up to the tip.

  Alaric shot a look skyward, and there, up the rope, Guy hung on with all his fervor, clenching, red-faced, to his life's line. He met Alaric's gaze and nodded, once, the meaning plain.

  “Well done, my friend,” Alaric said, and pried the sword from the platform with a single pull.

  The rope dangled some twenty feet away now, the Yuutshee's engines straining to carry her away from encroaching death. Assured that he had but a second's window to act, Alaric leapt–

  His broad jump was, indeed, broader than any he could recall himself or Cyrus or Vara ever making. It was a leap born of desperation, red spell magic crackling so close behind him he could have sworn he felt the tendrils touch his armor.

  The rope was there, then and Alaric reached for it with his free hand–

  Caught it–

  The tip hung in his grasp, little more than an inch hanging from beneath his fist. Mazirin's voice sounded above, urgent.

  With no warning, the ship jerked, the engines grew louder still. They practically screamed, and the angle of ascent changed abruptly. The Yuutshee's nose angled up and she banked hard to the left.

  Something – someone – screamed above–

  Alaric looked, and a dark shape was tumbling, brown coat flapping in the wind as it descended–

  Mazirin.

  “Hang on!” Alaric shouted, and he swung his body. He had but the hand with Praelior in it, and he made his grab, swiftly spinning the grip in his hand so the blade faced down-

  He caught the flailing mass with his arm, felt his shoulder joint jerk at the impact. Gritted his teeth; didn't care about the pain upon his aging joints. He snugged his arm tight with all his force, pressed the flailing mass pincered tight against his chest.

  Mazirin stopped struggling the moment she realized he'd caught her. Her ragged breaths came more slowly as she opened her eyes and found his looking back at her. “You...caught me,” she said, when she had her breath.

  “As you did for me,” Alaric said. But neither of them looked away this time, as the Yuutshee rose into the sky.

  Chapter 124

  Baynvyn

  The ship's rise was near impossible but necessary. They cleared the wall easily, the engines running at full. He held tight to the mast as they whined, metal screaming against metal, far beyond the tolerances of this ship.

  But they made it, leaving the cursed red spell light behind. Baynvyn held tight, watching it fade from the back deck.

  “Thank you for waiting for me,” he said, once he was sure they'd made it. The light danced, a red dome covering all of Reikonos. The city was visible through it, and yet...

  Baynvyn was sure, even had his father said nothing about the origins of that foul spell. Not a soul lived within that red, glowing morass of spell-magic. Not one.

  “Weren't sure you'd make it,” Shipmaster Hongren said, in his deep voice. He was a wide man. Dark elf. Sworn to the service of House Tordor. Loyal nearly to the death – which he'd just proven again.

  “I almost didn't,” Baynvyn said, looking at the dark-armored figure that lay upon the dark wood deck.

  “I wasn't expecting you to bring a passenger,” Hongren said. He sounded indifferent about it.

  Baynvyn was far from indifferent, though. “Not passenger. Prisoner.” He beckoned for some of the deckhands. “Strip him of his armor.” He looked at the second blade, now in his hand, and stooped to pull the pistol from Cyrus's belt. “All of it. Clap him in irons. Then stow him below.” He looked back at the red spell, now fading on the horizon, like the city of Reikonos. Would it stop at the edges of town, he wondered?

  No matter, he thought as the engines whined and a small rattle ran through the whole ship. Either way, though, he needed to warn them what had happened. And...

  “You want him treated gently?” Hongren asked, leaning on the wheel. He liked to steer his own ship, a quirk that Baynvyn found interesting only in the most boring of times. Which this certainly wasn't.

  “I don't much care,” Baynvyn said, placing his pistol back in his belt. He'd reload it in his cabin, later. For now, he stared at his new sword, with its curved blade, and pondered the possibilities in front of him.

  Chapter 125

  Vaste

  The red glow of death was bright and furious, and Vaste watched it from the back rail of the ship.

  Qualleron stood beside him. Neither spoke for a long time.

  “This is the gravest dishonor I have ever been party to,” Qualleron finally said. The red spell had indeed stopped at the edge of Reikonos or a little beyond. Tiny black ants, lit by its glow, scrambled at the edges of the perfect circle where it had crossed over the imperfect moat. Scourge, Vaste realized, all scrambling to avoid its deadly touch.

  “Congratulations on hitting new lows with your life,” Vaste said bitterly. He cast but a look at the crew of the ship, who were all giving the two trolls a wide margin. Even the ca
ptain and the man at the wheel seemed afraid to but glance at them, even as they shared the same deck. A few other Reikonosian refugees had made it, too, but they were on the main deck, probably crying about this terrible turn of fortune. “May you continue to ever strive to greater achievements in death and destruction.”

  Qualleron looked like he wanted to answer that, and perhaps he started to, but paused when the spell winked out. “Look,” he said instead, raising a great, fat, finger.

  Vaste did look, though not because the honorable idiot told him to. The red, deadly dome over Reikons was indeed gone, now, as though it had never existed, sucked back to the center of the Citadel tower in one great flash. It glowed there, small, for but a moment–

  Then shot into the sky, straight up, disappearing into the clouds.

  “What...was that?” Qualleron asked. The mutter of the captain behind him seemed to be of a similar tenor.

  “That was your employer,” Vaste said bitterly, for he had no more brake upon his emotions; they all came to him now – despair, anger, fear for the future. They ate him and consumed him right there, as he stared at the dead city, which he had, in his own way, helped to kill. “Making his escape to who-knows-where,” he said, for he knew, in his heart, it was true.

  Malpravus had done the thing, this great, evil thing – and now, no life left to suck from the marrow of this city, had gone on.

  Chapter 126

  Alaric

  The red light of the spell died as they were pulled back up to the deck with the aid of many strong men. The crew of the Yuutshee's grunts of exertion were bare silence next to the feelings, the silent screams in Alaric's head as he looked at the darkness now fallen over Reikonos.

  The city...was dead.

  A flicker atop the tower as it collapsed in on itself. A spark of crimson light, and then it, too, flew up and out of sight.

  Malpravus had gone.

  His breath stuck in him, Alaric pushed Mazirin ahead of him onto the deck. The others were already up there, and he joined them presently. It was a quiet that he found himself in, first on his knees, wondering if even he should bother rising.

  Mazirin offered him a hand, though, and he took it, and up he went.

  “What was that?” she asked, transfixed. The ship was moving, cutting a slow course sideways and away from Reikonos.

  “Death,” Alaric said, simply, for he had no other answer.

  “Was that the guy?” The quiet, familiar voice reached him, and he looked. Dugras. Of course. The dwarf rose out of one of the hatches in the deck. “The one from the tower? Who we escaped?”

  With no words available to him, Alaric but nodded.

  “He stole the power of Sanctuary,” Guy said. “'e killed Curatio.” He lifted Praelior. “Elf gave me this before he died. Looked like he was about ten thousand years old, but pressed it in my hand with his last breath.”

  “A worthy choice,” Alaric managed to gut out, though he knew not how. He drifted toward the ship's rail.

  Mazirin, he realized, was with him, her hand still in his. “What happened?” she asked softly.

  A thousand explanations formed, in infinite detail. Some flattering, some florid, his mind, numb, came up with them nonetheless, some artifact of his feelings, afraid to be admitted, compelled him to answer her, and preferably with something that would sum it all up eloquently, make a painting of his brave and foolish actions that she could plainly see.

  None of this came to him, though. Instead, it was a simple one, mired in darkness he felt in his heart.

  “Against Malpravus,” Alaric said, staring out at the dead, darkened city of Reikonos – this, the second time he had seen this city come to such ruin, “the power of Sanctuary failed.”

  Then he watched in silence, as the engines ran on, as if alive – and as nothing in Reikonos ever would be again.

  Cyrus Davidon Returns in

  THE SCOURGE OF DESPAIR

  The Sanctuary Series, Volume Eleven

  Coming in 2020!

  Author’s Note

  Thanks for reading! If you want to know immediately when future books become available, take sixty seconds and sign up for my NEW RELEASE EMAIL ALERTS by CLICKING HERE. I don’t sell your information and I only send out emails when I have a new book out. The reason you should sign up for this is because I don’t always set release dates, and even if you’re following me on Facebook (robertJcrane (Author)) or Twitter (@robertJcrane), or part of my Facebook fan page (Team RJC), it’s easy to miss my book announcements because … well, because social media is an imprecise thing.

  Find listings for all my books plus some more behind-the-scenes info on my website: http://www.robertjcrane.com!

  Cheers,

  Robert J. Crane

  Other Works by Robert J. Crane

  The Girl in the Box

  (and Out of the Box)

  Contemporary Urban Fantasy

  Alone

  Untouched

  Soulless

  Family

  Omega

  Broken

  Enemies

  Legacy

  Destiny

  Power

  Limitless

  In the Wind

  Ruthless

  Grounded

  Tormented

  Vengeful

  Sea Change

  Painkiller

  Masks

  Prisoners

  Unyielding

  Hollow

  Toxicity

  Small Things

  Hunters

  Badder

  Nemesis

  Apex

  Time

  Driven

  Remember

  Hero

  Flashback

  Cold

  Blood Ties

  Music

  Dragon* (Coming October 2, 2019!)

  Control* (Coming December 2019!)

  World of Sanctuary

  Epic Fantasy

  (in best reading order)

  Defender (Volume 1)

  Avenger (Volume 2)

  Champion (Volume 3)

  Crusader (Volume 4)

  Sanctuary Tales (Volume 4.25)

  Thy Father’s Shadow (Volume 4.5)

  Master (Volume 5)

  Fated in Darkness (Volume 5.5)

  Warlord (Volume 6)

  Heretic (Volume 7)

  Legend (Volume 8)

  Ghosts of Sanctuary (Volume 9)

  Call of the Hero (Volume 10)

  The Scourge of Despair (Volume 11)* Coming in 2020!

  Ashes of Luukessia

  A Sanctuary Trilogy

  (with Michael Winstone)

  A Haven in Ash (Ashes of Luukessia #1)

  A Respite From Storms (Ashes of Luukessia #2)

  A Home in the Hills (Ashes of Luukessia #3)

  Liars and Vampires

  YA Urban Fantasy

  (with Lauren Harper)

  No One Will Believe You

  Someone Should Save Her

  You Can’t Go Home Again

  Lies in the Dark

  Her Lying Days Are Done

  Heir of the Dog

  Hit You Where You Live* (Coming Late 2019!)

  Her Endless Night* (Coming in 2020!)

  Burned Me* (Coming in 2020!)

  Something In That Vein* (Coming in 2020!)

  Southern Watch

  Dark Contemporary Fantasy/Horror

  Called

  Depths

  Corrupted

  Unearthed

  Legion

  Starling

  Forsaken

  Hallowed* (Coming in 2020!)

  Enflamed* (Coming in 2021!)

  The Mira Brand Adventures

  YA Modern Fantasy

  (Series Complete)

  The World Beneath

  The Tide of Ages

  The City of Lies

  The King of the Skies

  The Best of Us

  We Aimless Few

  The Gang of Legend


  The Antecessor Conundrum

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my editing team of Lewis Moore, Jeff Bryan, and Lillie Applegarth.

  A big thank-you to Karri Klawiter (artbykarri.com) for the cover and for being an incredibly patient human being during my regular requests for additional art.

  Gratitude to my wife, my kids, my parents and my in-laws for keeping life interesting and running. Love to you all.