“Yes,” he replied. “I hope I'm not interrupting.”
Alaric smiled. “We were discussing Terian returning to us following his assistance with Ashan'agar.”
Cyrus restrained a smile as he took his seat. “You'd give up 'walking the world' to rejoin us?”
Terian's smile vanished. “You're such a smartass, Davidon. I'd say that I hope it lands you in trouble someday but I'd likely land in it with you.”
Alaric's eyebrow cocked in amusement. “I will wait for the Council's opinion, but since he helped save the world from the threat of the Dragonlord's rise, I recommend we reinstate Terian as a member of Sanctuary – and an officer.”
“Not Elder?” Cyrus said, referring to the title accorded the most senior officer of the Council.
“I don't want it.” The dark elf studied his hand as he spoke. “Officer is almost too much for me – I don't like people enough to take on more responsibility.”
The door swung open behind Cyrus and he swiveled to find Niamh striding into the room, red hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Nice to see everyone's working late tonight,” she giggled, sounding like a teenager. Cyrus knew she was over six hundred years old – yet she looked less than thirty in human years. She shot a smile at him as she slid into the seat to his left.
“Ah, yes,” Alaric began, but was interrupted as the doors to the Council chamber opened once more and disgorged Vara, now clad in her shining silver armor, and another.
“Vaste,” Cyrus nodded with a smile at the being standing beside Vara. Vaste was a troll who stood close to seven feet in height with skin of a light green hue. A few scars stood out on the troll's head and face, all recent – enough so that Cyrus hadn't yet to had a chance to ask about them. Vaste nodded as he took his place between Cyrus and Vara, smacking his lips and yawning.
“I cannot recall when so many officers were rendered sleepless at the same time,” Alaric remarked.
“Blame him,” Niamh yawned as she pointed at Cyrus. “He woke up everybody in the officer's quarters with his howling.”
Cyrus turned a deep crimson. “I'm sorry.”
Alaric turned to Cyrus, brow furrowed. “Is everything all right, brother?”
Cyrus waved him off. “I'm fine.”
Before Alaric could respond, the last of the officers breezed in, looking a bit fresher than the others. J'anda Aimant was a dark elf and an enchanter, a spell caster who could bend the minds of his foes with illusions.
Cyrus still remembered the night that J'anda had shown him a mesmerization spell – he paralyzed foes by showing them a vision of the deepest desires of their heart come to life – in Cyrus's case, it had been a vision of Vara, seductive and sweet. He had felt her touch against his skin and the warmth of her kisses. He shook the memory off before it had a chance to linger.
“You too, J'anda?” Cyrus grimaced. He studied the enchanter. “You look much more awake than the others.”
The dark elf's distinctive, stitched blue robes swayed about his thin frame as he took his seat and waved a hand in front of his face. The skin rippled as the illusion spell fell away and his expression changed; the enchanter looked haggard, eyes half-lidded. “I took a moment to freshen myself up,” he admitted, waving his hand again. The sleepless look was replaced by a smiling and bright-eyed visage. “What are we discussing?”
Alaric looked around the table. “We were discussing returning Terian to Officer status.”
J'anda nodded, a subtle movement of his head. “All in favor, say aye.” A chorus of ayes, most tinged with fatigue, filled the air around them.
“The motion passes,” J'anda yawned. Cyrus looked at the dark elf in amusement. J'anda looked back. “I can't cast an illusion to cover a yawn, sorry.” A pensive expression crossed his face. “Why am I apologizing to you, you're responsible for this...”
Alaric turned to Terian with a broad smile. “Welcome back to the fold.”
Terian removed his foot from the table. “That's good, because I already moved all my stuff back into my old quarters.” He looked at his fingernails, every one of which came to a vicious point. “It's a real bitch to move some of it, too.”
Alaric turned his attention to the parchment in front of him. “Since we're all here, does anyone object to covering the items we were going to attend to in the morning meeting?”
“If it means we can cancel it and sleep, I vote yes,” Niamh said without enthusiasm, face resting against her hand. “I need rest to keep up with you younglings.” A wide grin split her face. “Except you, Curatio – old man.”
J'anda leaned forward. “You have such a timeless quality, Curatio. How old are you?”
A sparkle lit the eye of the healer. “I am however old you think I am; it matters not to me.”
A laugh rounded the table. Alaric smiled once it was finished. “The first item on our agenda is to discuss our recent glut of applications.”
Curatio spoke. “We had around 850 people when we faced off with Ashan'agar. Nobody died, but we lost about 75 after the battle. We had recruited people that had never seen battle before, so they left after realizing it wasn't for them.”
“That's not good.” Niamh's frown was interrupted as she stifled an involuntary yawn.
Curatio smiled. “It's not bad. Our newfound prestige from slaying the Dragonlord netted us another 350 applicants in the last week. It's tapered off quite a bit the last couple days, but we're still getting a steady stream.”
Alaric frowned in concentration. “I would have thought the surge would continue for a few more days.”
“No complaints,” Curatio said with a shrug. “We have over a thousand people at our command now.” A gleam filled the healer's eye. “The new people that have joined us are almost all veterans, unlike those we were recruiting before the battle.”
Cyrus cracked his knuckles. “That'll make my job as General easier.”
Alaric smiled at the warrior. “In that department, I am curious as to what you believe to be our next step?” A long moment passed in which Cyrus did not answer. “Cyrus?” Alaric asked.
The warrior's attention was focused out the windows behind Alaric. Cyrus stood without warning, chair tipping over behind him. “Gods dammit! They got another one!”
He rushed past Alaric, throwing open the doors to the balcony. The chill of the night air rushed over his skin and the grassy smell of the Plains of Perdamun filled his nose, but he ignored it as his eyes stayed focused on the horizon. The night noises of the plains were drowned out by the sounds of the Council joining him.
Alaric's eyes narrowed at the spots of light in the distance. He turned to Niamh. “We must go to their assistance. We require the Falcon's Essence.”
The red-haired elf nodded, and muttered a spell under her breath, giving them all the ability to walk on air.
“Is everyone armed?” Alaric asked.
“No,” Cyrus replied.
“Take this.” Terian pulled a short sword from under his back plate and tossed it to Cyrus. “But I want it back.”
“Curatio –” Alaric cast a look at the healer. “Awaken the guild. I do not anticipate difficulty, but just in case...” Curatio nodded and hurried back through the Council Chambers.
“Whaddya think?” Terian asked. “Twenty miles?”
Cyrus looked at the fires on the horizon. “About that.”
“With the Essence of Falcon,” Alaric remarked, stepping over the edge of the balcony and off the tower, “we will be there within the hour.” His voice receded into the darkness.
Without another word, they all followed him over the edge, running into the night.
Chapter 3
Alaric was barely visible in front of Cyrus, leading the charge across the plains toward the distant fires. Cyrus raised his gaze and felt his altitude increase; he brought it back down and joined the rest of them running low, skimming the tops of the tall grass.
“How many this week?” Vara said from his right.
“Four?”
Vaste chipped in. “Five now, I think.”
Terian whistled from behind Cyrus. “I've been with Sanctuary since almost the beginning. We've had bandits in the Plains of Perdamun for years. But they only attacked people traveling in small groups or by themselves.”
“Whoever they are, five convoys in a week is a lot.” Cyrus's face hardened as he added his opinion. “All from different places, with different destinations, and all destroyed, nothing left but dead bodies and burnt wagons. Whoever's behind it, they're putting a squeeze on the trade routes of the southern plains.”
“Disappearing without a trace is a neat trick for bandits.” Vaste spoke between gulps for air. “I wouldn't feel so bad if they'd left behind even one of their dead, or a clue of some kind to tell us they were there. Whoever they are, it's like they don't exist after the attack.”
“Maybe it's a ghost,” Terian said with a laugh.
“Don't being ridiculous,” Vara said sharply. “You'll make Alaric think we're talking about him behind his back.”
“I can hear you,” came the voice of the Ghost from far in front of them. “And it is no ghost.”
They ran in silence the rest of the way. Flames were roaring from several wagons. “Lighting them all on fire – was that really necessary?” Vaste asked as they crossed the last hundred feet to the site of the attack.
Cyrus stopped behind Alaric, who was hovering a few feet above the road, surveying the wreckage. “Whoever did this wanted it to be found. You don't light thirty wagons on fire for the hell of it.”
“No sign of the attackers,” Alaric sighed. “Let us see if we can trace their movements.”
Bodies lay strewn around the burning wagons. A few corpses lay in the flames. The bodies were cut and bloodied; a few eviscerated. “No chance of resurrection spell – maybe give us a witness?” Cyrus asked, looking to Vaste.
The healer shook his head. “The time limit for a resurrection spell is an hour. These souls are lost to permanent death.”
Cyrus stooped over one of the corpses, a dark elf. “Looks like this convoy comes from a dark elven city?”
Terian joined him beside the body. “I'd say this was a shipment from Aloakna, the port on the Bay of Souls. It's a neutral town – big dark elf population, lots of elves and humans too. Probably a shipment of cloth, silk, maybe even some gold – bound for Elven territory – most likely Termina.”
Niamh was flummoxed. “You guessed that all from looking at one body?”
Terian frowned. “No, I guessed it because of the direction they're heading, the road they're on, and the types of trade that would go from Aloakna to Termina that would be done by dark elves.”
Terian's head swiveled to look at Alaric. “It's a sovereignty convoy.” He grasped the wrist of the corpse and held up its bracer, which bore a distinctive circular crest. “Sovereign's insignia. Not found on free citizens. This guy was a member of the Saekaj Sovar Militia. I see a few others as well.”
“Who would want to attack these convoys?” Cyrus mused. “This is wholesale slaughter.”
Terian answered. “Any group of bandits would want to. They're filled with riches, which is why they're protected the way they are. The question is, who possesses the strength to down a convoy? There have to be fifty soldiers mixed in with eighty or more traders.”
Alaric spoke first. “I do not know, but it is an ill sign that these attacks are occurring so near to us.”
“The Plains of Perdamun are vast,” Vara agreed, speaking for the first time since they had arrived at the site. “I wonder if perhaps there are other convoys being attacked elsewhere in the Plains? If not, this is no coincidence.”
Heavy footfalls padded behind them and Cyrus turned to see Curatio arrive with reinforcements. The elf's face fell upon arriving.
They scoured the remains of the convoy for the next four hours. By then it was well past daybreak and the fires were dying.
“I don't see anything,” Terian said with a curse.
Curatio nodded. “Not a visible footprint, no sign of hostile dead – nothing to prove anyone attacked this convoy.” The elf gestured at the wreckage. “Other than the ruin they left behind.”
Alaric's hand came to his chin. “We have done all we can here. Have one of the wizards return us to Sanctuary.” The Ghost turned to face them and his eye moved to each of the Council members in turn as he spoke. “We will meet in Council when we return, to discuss this and the other matters we left behind.”
“So much for that nap,” Niamh said.
Cyrus took a last look at the wreckage of the dark elven caravan before he grasped the orb of teleportation that the wizard conjured for him, and saw the last flickering flames of the convoy replaced by the bright blue energy of the spell that carried him back to Sanctuary.
Chapter 4
They reconvened in the Council Chamber almost an hour later. Alaric had yet to arrive, but the rest of the Council was seated. A thin mist filled the room, flowing toward the head of the table. It slid from the floor up the chair, and Alaric faded into view, demonstrating once more the genesis of his title, ‘The Ghost of Sanctuary’.
Niamh pulled her head from the table at his appearance. “Maybe you can explain to us how a knight can disappear and reappear at will, 'cause I've never seen anyone but a full-on spell caster do anything close to that.” She looked pensive for a moment. “And how do you do that thing with the mist? I have the forces of nature at my disposal and I can't do that.”
Alaric smiled. “Someday, I may explain. For now we have more pressing matters to attend to. These convoy attacks have become concerning to me.”
Cyrus looked around the table. “No one likes to see convoys get slaughtered, but is it our responsibility to get involved?”
“Are we not defenders of the weak and protectors of those who cannot protect themselves?” Vara bristled.
“Absolutely.” Cyrus met her gaze, unflinching. “But we are also only one thousand strong – with about five hundred veterans – and the Plains of Perdamun are sizable. If you restricted us to within fifty miles of Sanctuary in all directions, would you feel confident that we could guard that territory?”
The heat of Vara's gaze fell upon him, and did not abate, although the intensity of her words was lost. “We would struggle to protect even that.”
“Indeed,” Curatio added. “That would be almost 8,000 square miles and we wouldn't even be watching halfway to Aloakna.”
Cyrus looked around the table. “Whose territory is this?”
A shadow grew over Alaric's face. “The Plains of Perdamun are disputed territory for over a thousand years. The dark elves enforce a boundary at the eastern edge of the Waking Woods, the Elven Kingdom patrols west of the river Perda, and the human government in Reikonos has yet to stretch the Confederation's military presence south of Prehorta, which is a few hundred miles north of here.”
“But,” Cyrus realized with a start, “someone's been keeping the bandit population in check. How do they handle criminal matters in this part of the Plains?”
Alaric answered. “Each village has magistrates and lawmen to handle their own. We've swept the spaces between settlements as needed for the last twenty years, whenever a bandit group became problematic. While the elves, the humans and the dark elves don't fight over this territory, they all claim it and each race has settlements within it.
“This was originally Elven land, long before the rise of the current kingdom. Then it was claimed by the dark elves in a war about a millennium ago. They traded the territory back and forth in several wars since. It's been a hundred years since the last war when the possession of the Plains of Perdamun was contested.”
“They fought over it for two thousand years?” Cyrus boggled.
“What precisely did you learn in the Society of Arms?” Vara interrupted. “Because they certainly didn't teach you how to wield a sword – unless they taught you to use a cudgel and you've substituted it for a sword.”
He shot her a
n irritated look. “History was not my strong suit.”
Vara threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “Fine. Yes, they fought over these lands, the imperialist dark elves and the fair kingdom of light elves, in another timeless battle between the forces of good and evil –”
“Who are you calling evil?” J'anda straightened, glaring at Vara.
“Me, I hope,” Terian added with a nasty smile.
“Fear me, black knight,” Vara shot back. “My point is whoever won the last war got the territory.”
“So what changed?”
“This lesson in elementary history would go much faster if you would constrain yourself to shut up,” she fumed. “But,” her voice lightened a touch, “you asked the question, and you are the answer.”
“Me?” Cyrus looked at her, tentative.
“Your people, the humans.” Her frown deepened. “The coalition of human city-states that was precursor to your Human Confederation inserted themselves in the last war, tipping the balance of power in favor of the elves. There was a lasting peace after that war between the two major powers – now three, since you humans mastered the art of walking upright – and people from all three nations have settled the southern plains.”
Alaric took over. “Now, the hundred years of peace in this region might be undone by three different factions sending armies into our quiet little area, starting a war that will likely spill into the rest of the world.”
“You think,” Cyrus asked in astonishment, “that bandit attacks here, hundreds of miles from any of the major powers, could start a war?”
The Ghost straightened in his seat. “The Plains of Perdamun have become the breadbasket of Arkaria, supplying enormous quantities of foodstuffs to every major power. I have seen wars begin for lesser reasons. For example, the dark elves once began an assault on the borders of the Elven Kingdom when the King failed to send an appropriate gift for the Sovereign of Saekaj Sovar's wedding.”
The Sanctuary Series: Volume 02 - Avenger Page 2