“But if I do, you’re absolutely going to resurrect me so you can kill me again yourself, right?” Terian fired back.
“No,” Cyrus said, grinning, “I’ll let her resurrect you,” he chucked a thumb at Vara, “and she’ll tell us both, ‘I told you so’ for the rest of our lives, and probably say it over our gravestones after we’ve died of old age.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Vara said, whispering in the dark passage. “But I would be bloody right.”
And the three of them chuckled all the way out of the prison.
75.
“What are the odds that both J’anda and Mendicant are at the wall right now?” Cyrus asked as he and Vara swept into the foyer a few minutes later, light shining through the circular stained glass window above the massive doors.
“They could honestly be anywhere,” Vara said, “but as they’re definitely not in their quarters, I would say—”
“Excuse me,” Larana said, halting them both in their tracks. Cyrus spun around and so did Vara, at his shoulder. The druid stood in the entry to the Great Hall, clutching Philos in her hands, the wood of the long, cherrywood staff gleaming. Larana’s robes looked cleaner than usual. “Did you … did you need someone to teleport you somewhere?”
“Ah, well,” Cyrus said, exchanging a look with Vara, “yes, but … uhm … can you by any chance read the runes of the ancients? Because we need someone who can—”
“Yes,” Larana said, blushing furiously. “I can read them.”
Cyrus stared at her. “You’re a very talented woman, Larana.”
She blushed even deeper as she bowed her head to avoid his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Well, now all we need are horses,” Vara said, breaking the awkward tension as she whirled to lead the way to the door. Cyrus followed her, not daring to be left behind with Larana, and when they reached the massive doors, he waited as she threw one open, stealing a glance into the lounge. Zarnn was sitting inside, a tiny book in his massive hands, his eyes squinted as he concentrated on the page in front of him.
“Huh,” Cyrus said, nodding to Zarnn. Vara paused and looked back at him. “What are the odds he’s reading The Champion and the Crusader?”
“Very good,” Vara said, doing a little blushing of her own, “as I lent my copy to him.” And she ducked out the door. Larana, blushing similarly, as usual, followed.
When Cyrus stepped outside, the skies were cloudy, and to the south and east he could see dark skies, almost black, like night itself was moving in upon them. “Shit,” he said, pointing to it, “is that the direction of Aloakna?”
“Yes,” Vara said, giving the gloomy skies a glance of her own. “I suppose we’re going to get wet.”
“More than that if you’re meaning to go to Aloakna,” Larana said quietly. They both looked back at her. “That’s a typhoon coming off the Bay of Lost Souls,” she said. “It’ll be torrential rains and winds powerful enough to level houses, tornadoes will come out of the sky and leave great swaths of destruction behind them; thunder and lightning …” Her voice drifted off.
“I am becoming more certain that this expedition is a poor idea, poorly timed,” Vara said sourly, looking right at Cyrus. “We should delay.”
“We should hurry and go now,” Cyrus said, looking once more at the dark clouds. “That way we can come back before the storm hits, and if we don’t find anything, we can return and look again after the worst passes. But we might find something before it hits.”
“What … are we looking for?” Larana asked, her voice a little higher than usual.
“I don’t know,” Cyrus said, shaking his head as he stalked toward the stables. “Carrack said Yartraak—presumably Yartraak—killed the city with a spell, that it wasn’t sacked like we’d heard.” He glanced back at Larana and gave her a reassuring smile. “I wouldn’t worry about it, though. It’s not likely to be anything lingering, is it?”
“Why are you going there, then?” Larana asked.
“Because Malpravus was there when it happened,” Cyrus said as he reached the stable door and tugged it open, “and I want to know what he was looking for. Dieron!” he called.
There was no immediate answer from the stableboy, however, as the horses were going wild within their stalls. Whinnying echoed through the massive stables like screams, and there was much rustling, the smell of horse heavy in the air.
“Sorry, Lord Davidon!” Dieron Buchau came running down the row nearest the door, out of breath, and stopped before Cyrus, panting. “Got a bit of … well … it’s a little mad here this afternoon, as you can tell.”
“I can tell,” Cyrus said as a horse snorted, head sticking out of a stall at him. “What the hell is all this?”
“The storm,” Larana said, almost too quietly to be heard.
“It’s the storm,” Dieron said, nodding. “It’s got them all riled, they can feel it coming.”
“I need Windrider and Vara’s horse,” Cyrus said, “and also a horse for Larana.”
They stood in the wild and unruly stables, listening to the horses stamp under the wide rafters of the stables while Dieron Buchau saddled the three horses and readied them, bringing them out to their riders one at a time, looking as distressed as his animals. “I can’t recall ever seeing anything like this, not at Enrant Monge and not here, I tell you …”
“We’ll be back in a hurry,” Cyrus said, nodding at him, “hopefully before the storm breaks.”
Buchau looked out, holding open the door of the barn for them as it fought against him, trying to slam shut in the rising wind. “That’d be a real sound idea, sir.” He turned his eyes southeast, toward the black formation of clouds rolling across the sky. “I don’t think I’d care to get caught out in that, m’lord. No, I wouldn’t.”
“Nor would I,” Vara said as they left the stables, stopping about twenty feet away, in the shade of the yew tree whose branches were blowing like mad, the three of them all on horseback.
“We’ll hurry,” Cyrus said as a drop of rain plopped on his wrist, finding a gap between the rings of his mail and wetting his skin.
“We’d better,” Vara said, the concern obvious in her voice as the druid spell whipped up around them with a wind all its own and carried them off to their destination.
76.
A gale lashed at Cyrus as the spell faded, rattling the helm upon his head and causing Windrider to let out a ferocious whinny. “Calm down,” Cyrus said, stroking the horse’s neck, “your name is Windrider; you should be right at home here.”
They had emerged in a green and overgrown place, the ground around the portal covered in tall grass, untended and untidy. From where Cyrus stood he could see the Bay of Lost Souls and an old port, with collapsed docks and crumbling stone block quays, white-capped waves washing over all that remained. Not a single boat was in sight save for a few broken boards that might once have been one, pulled up on a beach at the end of the port.
“I’m thinking scavengers have stripped the place bare,” Terian called, his horse cantering up to Cyrus. The paladin was squinting under Alaric’s helm’s eye slits. There was a steady tap-tap-tap of the rising rain against Cyrus’s own helm, and he found it distracting. The salt air was thick, so heavy Cyrus could taste it. “Came in after the fall and took every seaworthy boat.”
“You’d think word of this would have gotten out,” Vara said as Cyrus looked north to see the city resting behind forbidding stone walls. He could see nothing of the structures beyond, but there were the remains of a thousand shanties blown down between where they stood and the wall of the city, timbers sticking up at odd angles and in different directions, the remains of more hovels than he could count.
“I asked some enterprising friends of mine,” Aisling said, appearing behind Cyrus atop her smaller horse, her cloak whipping in the fearsome wind, “and they said it was all whispers and rumors, Aloakna surviving. Said everything of value was plundered years ago by a few bands of thieves, nothing left here now b
ut bones and ash.”
“Because when you find a promising treasure trove and you’re a thief, you don’t tell anyone about it until the carcass is picked clean,” Cyrus said with measured disdain.
“It is the smart move,” Aisling agreed. Cyrus looked past her and saw Dahveed and Bowe on horses of their own, as well as a massive dark elven warrior taller than himself. I’ve met him before, but I can’t remember his name …
“We should hurry,” Larana whispered, apparently loud enough that everyone heard her, for they all started their horses forward at roughly the same time. Cyrus guided Windrider toward a cobblestone road that had weeds sprouting all through it, almost like the stones didn’t stop them much at all.
They rode ahead, past the endless fields of collapsed hovels, through the wreckage of more lives than Cyrus cared to think about. There were bones aplenty, that was sure, no flesh left to rot. “I suppose four years in the sea air doesn’t leave much of anything but bone,” Cyrus said under his breath.
“This is quite the atrocity, isn’t it?” Terian scanned the field, and though Cyrus could not see his face beneath the helm, he could tell the Sovereign’s mood from his voice—grim, dark and angry.
“Doesn’t make me sorry we killed your predecessor,” Cyrus said.
“I killed him while you stood there and let him swat you around like a clumsy servant,” Vara sniffed.
“I provided valuable distraction,” Cyrus said.
“Yes, thank you for being his whipping boy while I did the real work.”
They settled into silence as they approached the gates. Cyrus could see where the stones had begun to fall out of the wall, and the great wooden gates that had once stood in place had rotted and been battered, holes appearing throughout their tall structure. The rain was steadily coming down now, and the rhythmic tapping upon his helm had increased. One of the doors had been ripped far enough off its hinges that Aisling was able to ride through without doing anything other than ducking. Cyrus, Vara and Terian were all forced to dismount in order to lead their horses through.
“Looks clear,” Aisling called from the other side as Cyrus emerged into the ghostly ruins of a dead city. The rain had ceased to tap at him for a moment as they stood under the stone arch to enter Aloakna. He could see it coming down ahead, though, and felt the chill carried on the wind, drops splattering in his face as he looked out over the ruined city.
There were bones in the street ahead, a road that curved off to his right toward what he reckoned was the center of town. Bare skulls grinned at him, rib cages stood out on the weed-riddled cobblestone street. Houses had collapsed on either side of the road, skeletons of a different sort, made of stone but lacking their roofs after so many seasons bereft of care and maintenance. Other dwellings were made of wood and had collapsed; two that he could see were clearly burned, blackened timbers sticking up, remainders of an untended fire within gone wild.
“This is quite possibly the grimmest damned thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Terian said, looking over the city ahead. “What are we looking for here again, other than our own tears?”
The wind picked up, nearly jarring Cyrus’s helm from his head. “I don’t know,” he called against the wind, which howled through the gap in the gate behind them as the big dark elven warrior struggled to pull himself through while Dahveed, Bowe, and Larana looked on.
“But you’ll know it when you see it, right?” Terian asked drily.
“Well, right now I see a lot of death caused by your god,” Cyrus said, returning his reply with only half the irony that he felt it deserved.
“Not mine,” Terian said, “I helped orchestrate his death, all right? You don’t have to convince me of his utter lack of decency. I knew him firsthand. This is very much within his power to do and most probably something he would do, just out of spite.”
“If he had this much power,” Cyrus said, shaking his head at the carnage, “why didn’t he use it on me and Vara when we fought him?”
“A spell of this magnitude would take time,” Larana said, surprising them all, “and concentration.” A hard gust blew through but she didn’t move, Philos clutched in her hand. “He would not have been able to fight you while casting it.”
Cyrus frowned at her. “Did you learn that in your studies with Mendicant?”
She looked right at him. “No.”
“Movement ahead,” Aisling said just as Vara was opening her own mouth to speak.
“What is it?” Cyrus asked.
“I would have told you, had I not been outshouted,” Vara said. “It is some small mammal, a furry one. Smells a little. Possibly a muskrat, a beaver, raccoon, or a dark elven harlot.” She smiled icily at Aisling, who rolled her eyes.
“Wow,” Terian said, shaking his head, “it never ceases to be awkward with you two, does it?”
“I would have restrained myself in the event of it being something of consequence, such as a Goliath ambush,” Vara said, “but as there is no apparent danger, I feel no compunction not to afford myself the occasional arrow to sling at her.”
“I’m such a lovely pincushion,” Aisling said.
“Much like Vaste’s arse, yes,” Vara said, urging her horse forward on the street, hooves brushing aside the tall weeds as she rode.
Cyrus spurred Windrider after her, the skies blackening overhead. The relentless attack of the rain against his armor was back and twice as fierce now. It rattled against the metal, splattered through the holes in his chainmail and began to soak his underclothes. It was coming down sideways, in torrents, the wind picking it up and hurling it in his face like thrown buckets of water. Cyrus tried not to flinch away, but it was exceedingly difficult.
He looked back and saw Terian’s eyes blinking furiously, water cascading down his helm and streaming off onto his pauldrons and down his breastplate. “I’m the damned Sovereign,” he muttered, “I bet the rulers of other nations don’t have to ride through typhoons on insane expeditions.”
“You’re so special,” Cyrus said.
“I’d rather be dry,” Terian replied. “And warm.”
The black clouds pulsated above them, lightning flashing through the apparent valleys in the clouds, illuminating the depths and striations in the heavy sky. Thunder cracked hard, rattling Cyrus’s helm harder than the downpour. They were passing larger buildings, wooden structures that had collapsed in on themselves, fresh green springing from beneath their ruins. Cyrus saw a tree fallen into the middle of an old pub, its roots an enormous circle, torn from the ground.
“Please tell me Yartraak didn’t do that with his spell,” Aisling said.
“He didn’t,” Larana said, riding quietly behind Cyrus. “The spell killed the people but left the town untouched. All this damage is four years of the bay’s relentless, pounding weather.”
“You seem very sure of that,” Vara said, turning her head at the fore to look back.
“I’m getting more sure by the minute,” Larana said and then lapsed into silence.
They rode on another ten minutes as the wind picked up harder, blowing twigs and leaves along with the torrential rains. Now Cyrus was wet and soaked, cold all the way to the bone. A piece of parchment blew across the road in front of him, twisting and dancing in the strength of the wind. He could hear Aisling trying to keep her teeth from chattering as she rode, her leather armor glistening. Even Vara seemed to shudder here and there, sitting straighter in her saddle than was usual for her.
When they reached the center of Aloakna, they found only more death. The remains of at least a hundred bodies were strewn about the area, just as clean of flesh as any of the others they had seen. Here, though, in the middle of a circular road, there was a monument of some sort formed something like a rectangle sticking out of a short cylindrical mount. Cyrus steered toward it, Windrider now being buffeted by the winds that had picked up in intensity to the point that Cyrus was beginning to fear he would be thrown from his mount.
“We need to get out of here
!” Terian called, struggling to keep from falling over himself as another loud crack of thunder echoed through the empty streets of the dead city. “First time since my youth I can recall being eager to get back underground.”
“Just a minute!” Cyrus called back, trying to reach the monument. When he got closer, he stared at it; there were definitely words there, but inscrutable ones, written in a script he couldn’t make sense of. “Is that the language of the ancients?” He looked over the monument, plain and granite and completely unlike the portals that dotted the land or the interior of the Citadel.
“It’s dark elven,” Larana said, moving close enough to see for herself. Her cowl was whipping behind her, and the rains had washed the dirt from her face. Cyrus stared at her, realizing he had perhaps never seen her this clean. She looked even younger now, he thought as she concentrated on the monument. He frowned. She looks …
“It’s a declaration of principles,” Terian said, leaning hard against the wind threatening to topple him, “for the free people of Aloakna By the Sea.” He strained, staring against the hard rain and buffeting winds. “It’s … I mean it’s properly insulting to the Sovereign, I can see why he might have been offended enough to come destroy this place himself, there are swipes against him couched in every line … ‘We pledge ourselves to always stand in the light, eschewing the darkness … ’”
“So very insulting,” Vara said. “Practically a suggestion that he go fornicate with his mother.”
“If you knew his ego,” Terian said, staring, “you’d realize that for him, it was probably so much worse.”
“There’s nothing of the ancients here?” Cyrus asked, hurrying Windrider in a quick loop around the monument. He stared at the other side, trying to make sense of it, wondering if it simply said the same thing as the reverse. Larana came around to join him, and after giving it a look, shook her head at him, wind whipping her hair around to cover her face, strands blocking her mouth and cheeks from view.
Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) Page 45