His conversations with Aisling, on the other hand, were another matter entirely. The dark elf had taken to speaking with him in a cheery manner. Cyrus kept the acidity of his responses low, usually not deigning to answer rather than say something that might drive Aisling away. In something of an odd move for her, Aisling had steered well clear of any innuendo in speaking with him—a fact that by the fourth day was not lost on Cyrus.
“So you were born and raised in the Society of Arms in Reikonos?” she asked him.
Cyrus gripped Windrider’s reins tighter. He could feel the horse tense under him, and he ran his gauntlet along the side of the horse’s neck gently. “No. I was dropped off there at age six, after my mother died.”
“Oh,” she said. “Did you know your father at all?”
He thought back, thought about memories from so long ago that they swirled together. “Not well. He died when I was very young, and he was away in the war off and on for a year or two before that.” Cyrus tried to remember his mother’s face and failed, only a blurry haze where it once had been, the only distinguishing feature being bright eyes, as green as the summer grasses in the plains outside Sanctuary. “I don’t really remember my mother either, come to that.”
“That’s a shame,” Aisling said. “What do you remember? About your childhood, I mean?”
Cyrus thought about it, trying to stir some memory in his brain. He felt his nostrils flare and the salt air of the sea loomed large in his mind again. “Meat pies,” he said softly, almost too low to be heard. “My mother used to make them. Big, hearty ones, with beef and pork and chicken all crammed into a doughy crust.” He could almost smell them, taste them, even though it had been more than two decades since last he had tasted the ones his mother made. “Every time Larana makes them, it brings me back to sitting at the wooden table in our house, eating dinner.” He squinted his eyes and the horizon grew fuzzy, blurring. “I can almost picture her when I think of eating meat pies.” He remembered brown hair framing the green eyes, and the soft touch of a hand along his face to wipe off dirt or grime. “What about you?” He looked to her and caught a faint blush of darker blue on her cheeks.
“Another time, perhaps,” she said, a coy smile covering her embarrassment. Drops of rain splashed upon her head, the first signs that the dark skies above them were preparing to loose their fury. She steered her horse away from him as he watched her go, suddenly regretful at her departure.
He called a halt to their travel as the downpour became so heavy that they could scarcely see the bridge in front of them. Cyrus sat against a pillar as the rain washed down, gathering in puddles that became nothing but rippling rivers running over the sides of the stone bridge in great waterfalls. He looked back at the outline of shapes behind him. He felt a pang and knew that when the rain let up, he’d need to check with the other officers to make certain someone hadn’t wandered to the edge of the bridge to relieve themselves during the storm and been swept off by the deluge.
As the rain poured down, rattling his helm, he sat in the shadow of the pillar, Windrider next to him. He looked up at the horse, which whinnied. “Soon,” Cyrus said. “You’ll have fresh dirt under your hooves soon. Another day at most.”
The snort of reply caused Cyrus to crack a smile. “Well, if this rain lets up, anyway. What’s wrong, you don’t like conjured oats?”
Cyrus could swear he heard a slight growl in the horse’s whinny as Windrider answered him, and he looked into the shapes to his side, shrouded in the rain. “I don’t like it either. But we’ll be there in a few weeks … and after that, we’ll be home … sometime. A couple months, maybe.”
Cyrus could almost hear the thoughts of the horse as he whinnied. He shook his head, wondering how pitiful he must be to think he was talking to a horse. He looked up at the beast, white coat and mane looking grey in the rain. “Then what? I don’t know.” Cyrus’s eyes settled again on the horizon, the darkness ahead where the bridge disappeared into the pouring rain only a hundred feet in front of him. “I don’t know what happens when we get home.”
Chapter 5
The end of the bridge came into sight by midday next. The storm had passed, giving way to blue skies and intermittent clouds, white, puffy and without a trace of the dark greys that had blackened their crossing on the day before. The sight of green shores sent a murmur through the army at Cyrus’s back, enlivening them with energy that had been absent in the last few days. When he reached the end of the grey stone bridge, Cyrus dismounted and walked onto soft ground once more, the cheers of his fellows bringing the ghost of a smile to his face. With a wave of his hand he beckoned them forward as he moved out of the way and the army surged onto the shore as the sun began to set behind them.
The shores were white and sandy, with a beach laid out in either direction to the north and south, curving inland before it reached the horizon. Cyrus could see the red disk of the sun, settling in a half-circle over the water, turning the sapphire surface red. Behind him, he heard his army moving in jubilation, the noise of boots on stone fading as they streamed off the bridge and began to make camp. He had sent Longwell and a few others ahead on horseback to scout above the berm that ended at the inland edge of the beach. He had no desire to be caught under the attack of a hostile force while the Sanctuary army recuperated from their march.
“It’s been a long week,” Curatio said, appearing at his shoulder.
“Aye.” Cyrus stared at the sun, now only a slight edge showing above the waves.
“Perhaps a day of rest might be in order for tomorrow?” Curatio’s tone held the air of suggestion only. Cyrus turned and raised an eyebrow; the healer outranked him on the Sanctuary Council, being the lone occupant of the station of Elder, an honorific one step below Guildmaster. Still, Curatio had presented his idea as mere recommendation. “To give our new recruits a chance to enjoy themselves, to give their feet a rest before we head into hostile territory for the next month or so?”
Cyrus watched the waves crash over the shore. He felt a tug inwardly, the strange and insatiable desire to march onward, to keep going until they reached the castle of Longwell’s father, to smite anything in his path. Yet somewhere beyond that was an overwhelming urge to linger, to remain away from Sanctuary and all the inherent problems that would greet him upon their return.
Cyrus rolled his helm between the metal joints of his fingers, listening to the steel scratch against its equal. “We’ve found fresh water nearby?”
“Aye,” Curatio said. “And tracks just inside the woods ahead suggest that there are wild boars in the area. A day of rest could allow for a hunting party to track them—”
“Then we feast upon roast pig and fresh fish?” Cyrus drew a deep breath, and it was almost as though he could feel sundown approach the way an old friend would come to visit. “It’ll be good for our morale, I suppose. And as you point out, we are likely to be under stress of worry from potential attack over the coming weeks. Very well. A day of rest is ordered.”
Curatio’s hair was speckled with silver, but never had his age been more evident than when he smiled, very slightly, back at Cyrus, and the warrior knew he had been maneuvered most expertly. “Duly noted. I’ll take care of it.” With a slight bow, Curatio turned and began to walk away.
“What would you have said if I’d ordered us to march on?” Cyrus didn’t watch the healer, but he heard Curatio’s leather shoes stop, the sound of the sand they kicked up on each step coming to a halt.
“I would have tried to convince you, of course.” The healer’s answer was crisp, serious, and muffled because Curatio had not turned to face him as he gave his answer. The footsteps in the sand resumed, and Cyrus heard the elf move away, back to the sound of camps being set up and fire being started. He pondered Curatio’s answer again, and listened once more in his mind to the inflection. It had been very cleverly given, Cyrus thought.
It was also, Cyrus knew, a blatant lie.
Chapter 6
Thanks to t
he efforts of Martaina and a few of the more experienced rangers, there was indeed wild boar meat waiting for them the next day at breakfast. The smell of the roasting flesh awoke Cyrus, and he sat up to look at the fires along the beach. Many of them bore spits, and recruits talked while circled around them, their voices loud, with much merriment being made. Cyrus could see even at a distance that there were bottles being passed around, spirits of varying kinds that had made the trip from Sanctuary.
Cyrus pulled himself up next to his fire, a small one down the beach from the others. Someone had added logs to it during the night and done so quietly enough that Cyrus hadn’t awakened. “Aisling,” he said in a low whisper. The next nearest fire was a hundred feet away, and he could see Terian’s shadow next to it in the pre-dawn light, his sword once more across his lap. Curatio and Longwell lay around their fire, still sleeping; he could tell them by their garb.
He looked down the beach in the opposite direction. The angle of the curves on either side told him that they were on a peninsula. He snuck a look back at the joviality around the fires, at the silent stone bridge that watched over them, and began to walk, his boots kicking up sand. He looked again behind him; no one seemed to take any notice as his footsteps carried him away from his army.
His hand fell to the scabbard and the hilt of his sword as though he were looking for reassurance. His blade, Praelior, was still there, ever-present and ready to be drawn. He felt the urge to pull it loose and practice with it. Later. When we’re out of sight of the camp, perhaps.
Tall grasses reached out from the treeline on the berm above the beach, a deep patch of grass that looked as though it would stretch to Cyrus’s waist. The chirp of crickets from within was loud, and the trees hanging over the patch of grass waved in the wind, their branches rustling. Somewhere behind them, Cyrus knew the sun was beginning to rise, even though he couldn’t see it yet.
“You’re not supposed to wander away from the army.” He turned to find Aisling standing behind him, a few feet from the grass, a thistle in her hair.
Cyrus let his hand drift away from the hilt of Praelior, where it had come to rest when she had spoken to him. “You don’t think we can make an exception for the general who leads said army?”
“Mmmm,” she seemed to purr as she considered it, her face pensive. “I think we’re in a foreign land with enemies an uncertain distance away.” He caught a glint of light in her eyes. “It would probably be better to play safe than be sorry.”
He felt his face set in hard lines, an unamused smile only barely there. “You don’t think I could take on an entire non-magical army by myself?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “I believe that if anyone could, it’d be you—but I also believe that you might need more than luck in order to do it.”
Cyrus’s hand tensed again around Praelior’s grip. “I have more than luck.”
“Oh, indeed,” she said as she began to walk toward him, her small feet leaving little indentations in the dry sand, small craters where her worn leather boots trod. “But perhaps you’ll accept that having more help would be ideal, especially if you mean to wander far afield.”
“And that’d be you, would it?” He looked back at her, wary.
“Unless you fancy going back to camp and rounding up some others?” She looked at him coolly in reply, impassive.
“What I fancy is doing what I want, when I want, and not being questioned about it.”
“Too late for that,” she said, smug. “It was too late for that the day after you took your officership. Maybe even the day after you joined Sanctuary. It’s hard to go unnoticed around here, even when you’re one of the small folk. As an officer and the general of this expedition, it’s well nigh impossible.”
“I just need to walk—to get away for a bit.” He said it with every element of patience he could summon from within.
“Until you what? Walk her right out of you?” She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “You’ll be walking a good long time to pull that off, til your feet bleed and your bones rub down to powder. Even then, you’ll be lucky to get her out of you before there’s nothing left to get her out of.”
Why am I talking to her about this? “This isn’t your concern,” he said.
“It kind of is. You are my general, too. Our expedition counts on you.”
He felt a great weariness. “I’m not some sort of communal property that belongs to the whole guild or the army. I’ll lead, but this is a day of rest.”
“And you’re looking so very restful.”
“Why are you here?” He spoke in near-silence, his words almost drowned out by the breaking of waves off the shore.
Aisling did not respond at first, and she turned to look back to the forest, staring into the dark spaces between the boughs of the trees, eyes piercing them as though she could see things hidden within. “Because you look like you could use a friend.”
“I have friends,” Cyrus said, too quickly.
“Do you?” She drew her gaze away from the woods and onto his eyes and he felt himself look away first. “I see a man who leads an army, and who hasn’t had a soul talk to him directly in days but the Elder of Sanctuary and myself. The Elder to relay commands and establish order, and myself—for my own reasons, of course.”
“I’d find great mystery in your words,” Cyrus said, looking away from her and back to the waves and the shore, “if not for the fact that I have known ‘your reasons’ for as long as I’ve known you. Your intentions have been made plain; you needn’t bother trying to be my friend when we both know that my friendship isn’t the part of me you’re interested in—”
She stepped in front of him, eyes blazing. “I’ve never been coy about my intentions toward you, but you fault me for it nonetheless. Would you prefer I dance around it, exchanging biting insults with you? That I berate you for little or no reason and never let a kind word break through my imposing facade?” She stepped closer to him and he caught the scent of her breath, cinnamon, as she brought her face only inches from his. “Are you so steeped in the way of pain and combat that you can’t accept honest, sweet words? Does every advance that interests you have to come couched in the agony of bladed phrase and stinging words?”
Her hand was on his cheek, her fingernails tracing delicate lines down his face. She leaned in closer to him, and he felt the pressure of her nails increase even as she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you want me to hurt you? Is that what it takes?” She held her hand still, the pressure constant, her nails pressing into his cheek.
His hand came up and seized her wrist, yanking it away. “No,” Cyrus said, throwing her hand away from him. “That’s not what I want.”
She edged closer and he felt the press of her against him through his armor. “Then what does it take?” Her soft breathing seemed to surround him, filling his senses, drowning out the crashing breakers and the chirps of the crickets. “I’m not her. I’ll never be her. But I could be …” He could feel her push against him, saw her stand on tiptoes to bring her lips to his, “… what you need right now.” He turned his head and her lips found his cheek, and the delicate kiss she left there sent a surge of feeling through his whole body. “I can do … what she hasn’t, what I know you need … it’s been a long time, hasn’t it …?”
“Long time,” he said, echoing her, the truth stumbling from his mouth. He wished he could force it back in there, along with everything else that had happened in the last month, but it was there, nonetheless.
Cyrus felt the moment fade, and as Aisling leaned up to kiss him he gently shook himself free of her. There was no anger in him; only wistfulness and a deep sorrow. “I’m sorry. I don’t need what you think I do—and I’m not what you need, either.”
She looked suddenly very small to his eyes, but she summoned her courage and spoke again. “Do you even know what you need right now?”
He thought about it and heard his own breath as he inhaled then exhaled, thinking. Inhale, exhale. “I don�
��t. But I don’t think that me—really me, inside, not my urges, but me—I don’t think that’s what I need.”
She nodded, but it was subtle and slight, a barely-there movement of her head. “If you don’t know what you need—really need—then how do you know what I need?”
Without waiting for him to answer she turned and soundlessly she stalked off into the grass, disappearing at the treeline with only a single glance back at him before she faded away behind a tree trunk.
The last look was nothing but regret, pure and longing—and with life of its own.
Chapter 7
The celebration went on throughout the day. Cyrus could hear it from where he stayed, out of sight down the shore, swinging Praelior at imaginary foes, feeling the sweat from his exertions rolling down his face.
It will not work, Cyrus … He saw himself in the Realm of Death, his blade cutting into the chest of a demon knight, his sword biting into the bulging muscles of the creature, its breath foul and heavy with the stink of fetid rot, of death itself, on the day that he challenged the might of Mortus, the God of Death, and survived …
It can never be, you and I … He brought Praelior around in a slice that he imagined caught the ready neck of a dark elven footsoldier, landing at the seam of his armor. In his mind he was back on the bridge in Termina on a long, cold night that followed a day filled with infinite promise. He could almost feel the chill, even in the tropical air.
For I am elf, and my life is long and my duties are as great as my sorrow … He brought the blade down on the skull of a foe who wasn’t there, a goblin, heard the satisfying crack of sword on skull in his mind’s eye. He remembered the night that he and Sanctuary had invaded Enterra, the night that he had claimed the scabbard that rode on his hip, that made Praelior whole, a weapon unmatched in the world of men, and he could sense the clinging desperation of the moment when Vara had died in the depths, when he’d watched Emperor Y’rakh drop her to the ground, her golden hair spilling onto the floor …
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Page 4