Cyrus jerked his head to the right. If they come for me, I’ll have a hell of a time trying to fend them off flat on my back. He tried the healing spell again with no result and then locked his gaze on one of the bows on the rack. Better than nothing.
With agonized slowness, Cyrus dragged himself along the wall to the weapons rack as the sounds of battle rang out overhead. Vara’s cry of war washed over him at one point, followed by another body being thrown from the parapet, but he did not see whose; he heard only a man’s scream end with the hard thump of a body against the muddy bailey courtyard.
Cyrus crawled to the rack and fumbled for the bow, grasping it in his metal gauntlets with weak and fumbling fingers. “Godsdammit,” he muttered through gritted teeth, holding off the pain from overwhelming him only by hard effort. It was like it was creeping up his body, threatening to drag him into the fetal position; he wanted only to curl up into a ball and make it go away. But it’s not going away, not until this is over, and this is not going to be over until I help kill every last one of these bastards.
Once he had the bow, he needed to crawl only a few feet to reach a full quiver, and once he was there he braced his leg hard, anguish seeming to pump through his very veins as he did so. He thumped the weapon rack with his helm, causing it to rattle, but then the pain mercifully subsided, and he left the damned leg alone. He leaned his head back and readjusted his helm, blinking again to shake off the stupor of the pain, to drag his attention forward.
He was clear of the wagon now, and to his right he could see the slow-burning drawbridge, firelight visible through the timbers as it burned. Smoke pooled above him in the arch of the keep’s portcullis under the parapet, gradually drifting out into the sky as though it were running toward the courtyard like water.
Cyrus took a hard breath and slipped off his gauntlets, blinking as he looked across the courtyard. There were three of Amarath’s Raiders down here, staring up at the fight upon the parapets, their faces drawn. They were watching intently and apparently displeased, for their lips were tense and turned down, their jaws were tight, and their hands clenched their swords.
They were facing to Cyrus’s right, so intent on the parapets that they had apparently not noticed him slowly dragging himself out from behind the wagon to the weapons rack. Should be aware of everything going on around you, General, he thought, staring hatefully at Archenous. He plunged his hands into the mud and then rubbed them against one another, trying to eliminate the sweat that felt as though it had puddled on his palms and fingers. He could feel the grit of the dirt as he rubbed it between his digits and pushed it into his palms.
Cyrus took a steadying breath and lifted the longbow sideways across his lap, for it was too tall to shoot upright while sitting. Just like being back in the Society again, practicing for all occasions. He drew back the string, the arrow between his fingers. How long has it been since I’ve practiced this particular method of shooting? He looked straight ahead, blinked once more to focus himself, and pointed at the guard on the right. If I kill Archenous before Vara can, she’ll tear me a brand new arse.
He let fly the arrow. To his annoyance, it did not quite hit where he aimed; it struck low and to the left, burying itself in the neck of the guard on the left rather than squarely in the middle of his face where Cyrus had aimed.
“Shit,” he muttered and nocked another arrow. Archenous spun in surprise, clearly caught off guard that one of his protectors had been suddenly felled. The other guard jerked to look as well, and as soon as he had settled into that position, Cyrus let fly his next arrow, correcting for what had happened last time.
This time he hit closer to his mark. The guard was sweeping back around to look for the origin of the arrow that had killed his fellow, and he found it, albeit a little too late, as Cyrus’s arrow found his right eye first. The arrow sunk in halfway to the fletchings and the guard did not finish his whirl. He slipped and fell, straight to his back, making a strange gurking noise as Cyrus hurriedly put another arrow on the bow and drew it back.
Archenous Derregnault stared at Cyrus across the courtyard, his head cocked, his dark face twisted in something between rage and confusion. “You?” he asked.
“Still me,” Cyrus said, drawing a steady breath and trying not to let the bow shake as he did so, “but probably not for very much longer.” He muttered the healing spell under his breath once more and was rewarded with not a damned thing.
Archenous’s face wavered, as his gaze moved to the parapets for a beat. A troll roared and a dark elf in armor was hurled into the stone tower behind the Amarath’s Raiders’ Guildmaster, who stepped aside to let his man fall beside him. “Just as well for you,” he said. “I would have taken great glee in impaling you.”
“As he’s not a woman you professed to love,” Vara called from somewhere above, “I doubt you’d get him to turn his back on you long enough to impale him—which is the only way you’d manage it.” A troll fell off the edge of the bailey, Longwell’s lance in his face, and slammed into the ground on the opposite side of the drawbridge from Cyrus.
“I was always better than you, Vara,” Archenous replied, his face darkening further, the scar standing out like a pale line as he watched the parapets. His gaze was moving, shifting as she apparently made her way toward the stairs at a leisurely pace.
“You were never better than me, Archenous,” Vara said, and he saw her now, her shining armor slick with red, blue, and green blood as she descended the stairs, Longwell behind her, his spare sword in his hand, and Zarnn a couple paces behind them. “It’s why you grew to hate me so much.”
“I grew to hate you because you thought you were better than me—than everyone,” Archenous said, his hair whipping behind him as he stood framed by the massive door to the inner keep. “It was the same for Trayance Parloure—”
“Do not say his name,” Vara snapped as she came to the bottom of the steps and froze there, the entire bailey courtyard between them. “You are not worthy to so much as whisper it, you revolting turncoat. You destroyed an entire guild for your pathetic jealousies—”
“I built one of the big three guilds—” Archenous began.
“YOU STOLE IT!” Vara screamed at him, her sword in hand. “You threw away everything you had—loyalties, friends, love—and stole everything you hold now.” She pointed her blade at him. “Do not speak to me of what you built, for I am about to tear it away from you the way you tore everything from me.”
“Any minute now, my people will arrive,” Archenous said, shaking his head, a soft smile on his lips, “and then you’ll see what happens when you go against one of the foremost guilds in the land, Vara—you were better off small with Sanctuary. It’s how you started, and it’s how you’ll die, after all, when the rest of my army gets here—”
The drawbridge exploded into shards of wood and Cyrus cringed away, splinters clinking off his armor as he held up an arm to shield his eyes. When he looked back, an imposing, rocky figure stood framed in the smoking entry, a shadow against the glow of the fire consuming the remains of the drawbridge.
“Knock, knock,” Fortin proclaimed, stepping through the smoke to enter the keep.
Cyrus whipped around in time to see Archenous Derregnault’s face fall, his eyes as large as a gnome’s head. He paled three shades and then straightened, as if determined not to show his disappointment.
“Sorry I’m late,” Terian Lepos said, his armor glinting as he stepped in behind Fortin, J’anda’s purple staff and Vaste’s spear both glowing behind him as they entered. Larana followed, along with a host of others; Zarnn’s trolls, Mendicant, Menlos Irontooth and his wolves, some dark elven troops in their distinctive armor. Behind them, he could hear the snort of horses and knew that the Luukessians had arrived in Isselhelm as well. “I had to stop and smear some Amarath’s Raiders trash at the portal with my army,” the Sovereign of Saekaj said casually.
Archenous fidgeted and backed into the tower door. He looked around at what he f
aced and then forced a smile. “It would appear that someone has cast a cessation spell over our little battlefield.”
“That was me,” Vara said, smiling with grim satisfaction as she walked across the bailey toward him, slowly, with final certainty. “You will not run away from me this time, Archenous.” She raised her voice. “No one interferes in this battle, do you hear me? This is to be between he and I, to the death.”
“The ice princess is going to crush this plaything as though it were a—what are those tiny creatures that play with other tiny creatures?” Fortin asked.
“Cats and mice?” J’anda asked.
“Rock giants and gnomes?” Vaste asked.
“Goblins and—” Mendicant started
“Well, from now on,” Fortin said, apparently annoyed by the responses he’d gotten, “it will be ice princesses and dark knight scum-things, that shall be the saying.” He looked at them all crossly. “You will say this from now on, when the situation is appropriate.” He waited. “GO ON. SAY IT.”
J’anda raised an eyebrow. “She’s going to play with him like an ice princess with a dark knight scum-thing’?”
Fortin nodded. “Very good.” He looked back at Vara, who, along with Archenous, was watching the proceedings rather spellbound, and nodded. “You may go about your play, ice princess.”
“Thank you for that, I think,” she said. Her shoulders tensed beneath her armor and she assumed a defensive stance as she closed on Archenous, intent on battle.
Archenous thrust out a hand and nothing happened. His face twitched, and then he smiled. “Worth a try,” he said by way of explanation.
“Worthy of you, more like,” she said and came at him without further ado.
Her sword clashed against his. He blocked her, but barely. He threw his broad blade up in a cross block in front of his face, but it was weak and she pushed it back to hit his breastplate at the collarbone. He’d taken a few steps away from the doors to the middle of the bailey, which was fortunate for him, for he had to dance to the side to avoid being pinned against the tower. The strain of the blow showed on Archenous’s face, his cruel eyes furious and casting about for escape.
Vara came at him again and again, and he parried and blocked, losing ground slightly each time, the worry beginning to show on his face. She came at him like a woman possessed—and possessed of a singular mind to cut him to pieces. Cyrus saw no clear strategy in Archenous save to dodge the next blow and the next, and the dark knight seemed to suffer for it as the panic clearly rose within him.
“Even if I—” he said as she struck a blow so hard that the rattle of the swords against one another jarred Cyrus in his very teeth, “—manage to survive, your friends are going to cut me to pieces anyway!”
“No,” Fortin rumbled. “Because unlike you, we are not lacking in honor.” He sidled over to Cyrus and lowered his voice. “If she dies, I will rip his limbs off and remove his tongue while you resurrect the ice princess to deliver the final blow.”
“A kind offer, Fortin,” Cyrus said, straining, his leg still aching, his back uncomfortable against the weapon rack behind him, “but I don’t think she’s likely to lose this particular contest.”
“Never underestimate the power of treachery,” Fortin said.
“I doubt I can any longer, after what we’ve been through these last months,” Cyrus said.
Vara did not let up in her withering assault, and it pained Cyrus’s arms to watch her attack him with seemingly limitless strength while Archenous was battered about like a leaf in a gale. He tried to mount an offense but was forced away from it at every turn, Vara never once letting up in her attacks long enough for him to do anything but block in an increasingly ineffectual manner. It was like watching her pour out years and years of rage through the strength of her arms, beating him down by inches at a time.
“You—you can’t win!” Archenous screamed. He sounded to Cyrus like the desperate voice of a man trying to convince himself and perhaps his foe in the bargain.
She struck a nasty blow overhead that he could not adequately defend against, and it once more forced his sword down from the sheer power. This time, though, the tip of her blade found his forehead and scored him from brow to cheek, a long jagged cut. Blood ran down his face and into his left eye. “I disagree,” she said. She struck again, this time sideways, and he blocked her barely in time.
“You were never good enough!” he shouted, backing up as quickly as he could, stumbling, trying to blot the blood from his eye. “That’s why I couldn’t—couldn’t stand to be with you—”
“You were never good enough, either,” she said, knocking aside his next clumsy parry. “And I was always loathe to tell you, but you were endowed like that old cat they kept at the Holy Brethren in Reikonos, the poor, smallish thing. I truly did love you, to put up with all else plus that. It’s a shame you weren’t man enough to—”
Archenous’s eyes flared, and he dodged to the side and saw his opening. “When I’m done with you, I’m going to find that damned cat and kill it, so just know—” He spun with a high slash, aiming for Vara’s neck—
But failed to see that she’d goaded him and was waiting for him to open himself up. She dodged his clumsy, too-forceful attack and he spun past her, his blade catching naught but air. She had hers at the ready, though, and struck forward with a solid stab—
And caught him right in the throat.
Her blade ripped through the front of his neck, leaving it half on, half off; she slid it out like she was carving meat from a succulent pig at dinnertime and was rewarded with a geyser of blood. His jaw worked up and down ineffectually, words trying to come out with no breath—
Fortin slammed a hand against the wall. “HA HA!” He looked down at Cyrus. “First she takes his pride, insults his manhood, and then she rips his throat out! This is why I like the ice princess the best of all of you.”
“You know we can hear you, yes?” J’anda called, looking somewhat nonplussed at the rock giant.
“Go destroy some terrible foe’s manhood, and then perhaps I will like you best,” Fortin replied.
“Give my regards to Trayance, won’t you?” Vara asked, staring coldly into Archenous’s eyes as he bled, falling to his knees, still gripping his sword weakly as his other hand fumbled for his gushing throat. “On second thought, you are unlikely to end up in the same place, so never mind that.” She stared at his hands. “You have had my sword for entirely too long. Allow me to return yours.”
With that, she spun and caught him in the back of the neck with a powerful slash that took his head from his shoulders, sending it into the air. Before it even came to rest, she twirled her sword around and drove it, tip first, into the gaping hole where his head had rested only a moment earlier, all the way up to the hilt. “Oh, and another thing—” she said, and Cyrus saw the glow run down her blade and through the crossguard—
Archenous Derregnault exploded, his armor blasting in six different directions. A boot hit the wall to Cyrus’s left as he turned his face away from the spectacle. His breastplate landed in the mud a few feet away and stuck there, like a tombstone planted in the ground. Other pieces clanged off the walls of the bailey, and when the air cleared—
Vara stood there, still drenched from top to bottom in gore and blood, but with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
“On second thought,” Fortin said into the still quiet of Isselhelm Keep, “that is why I like the ice princess best of all of you. That … was a perfect poem of vicious excellence.” He wandered forward into the middle of the mess, the bloody mud, and stooped to pick up Vara’s former sword from where it lay. “Are you done with this?” he asked her with greatest deference.
“I am,” she said and picked up Archenous Derregnault’s ornately carved sword, which appeared to be exactly the same size as the one she’d just returned to him, sliding it easily into her scabbard. “But what use will you have for it? It’s a bit small for you to wield, isn’t it?”
&
nbsp; The blade was practically swallowed up in Fortin’s mighty hands. “It is,” he agreed, and raised it up to push the blade into his mouth. A scraping sound caused Cyrus to cringe, and he caught Terian and J’anda doing the same only a few feet away, the high pitched screech akin to running a grater over stone. Fortin pulled the sword out of his gaping mouth and examined it; there was a chunk of something at the tip. “But it will make an excellent toothpick.”
“Well … that was truly marvelous,” Cyrus grunted, the pain in his leg coming back to him now. He cast the healing spell under his breath as he felt the bones in his leg twist and knit back together. He groaned under his breath, and then stumbled to his feet, bracing against the weapons rack, which rattled as he slid up. “Now … we need to find Governor Frost and get out of here before anyone else shows up to fight us.”
“Do we?” Ryin Ayend croaked from against the keep’s wall, blood dried upon his skull, Larana kneeling next to him, her hands glowing still from spell-light. “And what interest do we have in saving the Governor of a Confederation allied against us, I ask?”
“Interesting timing,” Cyrus said, hobbling from the phantom pain in his leg, “I wonder why you didn’t ask before, when we were stampeding through the streets toward inevitable—”
“And glorious,” Fortin added.
“—battle,” Cyrus finished.
“Perhaps our own troll pitching me over the battlements jarred the question loose,” the druid croaked, mopping up the blood with his sleeve.
“Well, see if you can hold it in a little longer, and perhaps I’ll be able to answer your question more fully in Council later tonight,” Cyrus said, trying to communicate more with his look than he did with his words. Ryin peered at him suspiciously, but said nothing more. “Now we need to find Frost and—”
“I’m here,” came a voice as the gates to the keep cracked open. Guards pushed them ajar and Allyn Frost came marching out, flanked by the same toadies with whom he had surrounded Cyrus at their last meeting. They didn’t wear the same sneers this time, though; now they seemed appropriately cowed, clutching their spears very delicately, and pointing them behind them, slung on their shoulders, as if to avoid offending the army within their very gates.
Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) Page 38