Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four

by Robert J. Crane

  He checked after a half a mile, just to be sure that the army had fallen in. It had, a long line of marchers, with a few wagons visible at the far back of the column, bringing up the rear. A few of the officers and veterans on horseback rode alongside the column rather than at the front with the other horses. Odellan and Longwell were the most obvious, their armor in shining silver and deep blue, respectively. Longwell’s white surcoat had appeared as clean as ever, showing no signs of the battle yesterday. Behind them, some distance back, a pillar of black smoke rose into the heavens.

  Cyrus’s wandering eyes found Curatio in deep conversation with J’anda, the two of them especially cheerful this day. The sun shone down; Cyrus could feel the warm tropical air of spring and wondered if the mild winter around Sanctuary had broken yet, if the occasional patch of white, frosted grass that could be found in the mornings had disappeared. It was like seeing the first signs of age, the little bits of silver streaking hair, leeching the color from the strands.

  He thought of Reikonos, of the bitter snowfalls that encased the city in winter, the white snows that would pile up while one slept, waking to find the world changed the next morning. He thought of the uneven roofs of the city, the high and low buildings situated next to each other, the towers beside one-story dwellings. He thought of the slums, of the deep valley that saw direct sunlight only at midday and of how bitter and dark it became in the winter. He wondered if the dark elves had surrounded the city or if the humans still held them at a distance.

  Cyrus thought back to a winter in Reikonos, the worst of all of them, and it was like a thread of oddly colored string in a tapestry; unfamiliar, unmatching, that looked nothing like the rest of the weaving. When was that? I was young … first year at the Society? Yes …

  “What were you thinking,” Terian’s voice whipsawed Cyrus out of his memories, “having her come along? Are you so hard up to get laid that you’ve taken to embracing the wives of your enemies before they’re even dead?”

  “Are you a little testy because she held a knife to your throat?” Cyrus tried to keep his tone indifferent.

  “That’s hardly the closest anyone’s gotten to me with a blade,” Terian said, and Cyrus heard the groan of metal in the dark knight’s gauntlets as he gripped the reins of his horse tighter. “We’re in the middle of this hostile Kingdom. Her husband ordered the capture of our people and personally tortured and beat them.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” Cyrus said.

  Terian’s face turned a deeper blue, darkening, almost purple. “Then why did you have the wife of an enemy who you personally gutted and left to die a slow, torturous death come along with us? She could be a spy, she could be harboring a desire for revenge—she could just be here to try and get close to you so that she can slip a knife in your back.”

  “She had a chance to do that last night,” Cyrus said. “She’s coming with us because with her husband’s death she loses everything. I offered her a chance to come to Arkaria, to make a new life in a place where she’s not reliant on a man for everything.”

  Terian’s flush subsided and his face loosened, settling into a kind of disbelieving wonderment. “And you believed her? Did she try to sleep with you?”

  “Lately, who doesn’t?” Cyrus asked warily.

  “Umm, me,” Martaina said from over Cyrus’s shoulder. He looked back and saw the elf raise her hand in the air.

  “I was joking,” Cyrus said. “But duly noted, and thank you.”

  “I don’t know how to take that,” Martaina muttered under her breath. “But you’re welcome.”

  “She tried to use her feminine wiles on you,” Terian said, bringing Cyrus’s attention back to their conversation. “She’s getting close to you to exact revenge.”

  “Revenge would be easy.” Cyrus shook off the dark knight’s concern. “I’m not worried about that. And if she ‘used her feminine wiles,’ as you said, it’s probably because the women of Luukessia have no other weapon to use. We’re in a land where women don’t carry swords and are subject to men’s whims. What else are you going to use when force of arms is denied you? Sharp words?”

  “I find they get me where I need to go.”

  “Because you can use a sword to back them up,” Cyrus said. “The women of Luukessia have no such option; they’re not trained with weapons, and if you’re going to take a blade to a skilled swordsman, you damned sure better have the element of surprise on your side, otherwise you’re going to get cut into tiny fillets. So what else is she supposed to do? She tried to persuade me, it didn’t work. I didn’t give her what she wanted, I offered her an alternative that she decided to avail herself of.”

  “Which involves following in your wake for the next few months,” Terian said, shaking his head, “being in perfect striking distance—I mean, she already has a knife. You should at least take that from her.”

  “I think not,” Cyrus said. “If I were a woman in the middle of a foreign army, with the upbringing she’s had, married to the monster she was, I’d carry ten swords, three spears and a battleaxe just so I could feel safe. I remain unconcerned about her dagger.”

  Terian’s hand went to his throat, fingers playing in a line across it. “Something you might learn—and I hope you don’t—there’s an old quote from my people. ‘A woman can slit a throat as easily as a man.’”

  Cyrus looked at Terian with undisguised amusement. “Are all your people’s sayings that dark?”

  Terian stared at him blankly. “Perhaps you’re mistaking darkness for truth. It’s a hard, bitter, and cruel world, and the people you think you can trust aren’t always what they seem.”

  Cyrus raised an eyebrow at him. “Weren’t you the guy who once told me that you can’t stand people who aren’t what they appear to be?”

  Terian blinked, bewildered. “I … what? I said that?”

  “When we were about to kill Kalam, the black dragon. You were talking about the Alliance and why you hated them.” Cyrus smiled. “It always stuck with me because it was the first time any of you officers had bothered to explain why you detested the Alliance. And of course,” he said grimly, “about a week later, you left Sanctuary. You know, to ‘roam the world’ or whatever.” Cyrus cocked his head in curiosity. “You know, you never did tell us what you did while you were ‘roaming.’”

  Terian’s eyes, dark purple, had been focused on him until the last. The dark knight seemed to lean back in his saddle, and Cyrus watched him swallow hard. “You know what I was doing.”

  “No, I don’t,” Cyrus said. “We may have this easy familiarity, but you’re not exactly the easiest guy to get to know on a deeper level, Terian. The Gatekeeper suggested you were doing things that wouldn’t make any of us proud, but I don’t know what you were up to. You could have been dancing in an all-male revue in Saekaj, for all I know.” Terian’s eyes narrowed and Cyrus shrugged, a smile on his face. “Well, that wouldn’t exactly make me proud of you, but hey, we all hit rough times …”

  “I think I liked you better when you were moping and brooding over the loss of your blond elf-princess,” Terian said with a note of bitterness.

  Cyrus felt a stab of pain within. “Yeah, well … I’m sure I’ll be back to my old self any day now. I doubt that I can shed the pain of her easily, like a snake shedding its skin.”

  “How do you know if it’s easy for a snake to shed its skin?” Terian stared ahead, looking at the road in front of them as he spoke. “Just because it happens often? It could be painful as all hell, trying to leave behind something you’ve lived your life in like that. It could be as tough as leaving behind family, upbringing … anything you’ve carried with you.”

  Cyrus turned to look at the dark knight. “Is that like you, then? A dark knight in the service of Sanctuary, trying to shed the wicked parts of your training?”

  “Probably.” Terian turned his head and the mask was there, visible for Cyrus to see, nothing underneath it, no lines on the dark elf
’s face. “I was raised to serve Yartraak, the Lord of All Dark. At seventeen, in my eighth year of training with the Legion of Darkness, I, along with all the other budding dark knights, was expected to seal that oath of loyalty with a soul sacrifice.” He let that hang in the air between them.

  “What’s a soul sacrifice?” Cyrus stared at Terian, who kept his eyes ahead.

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” Terian turned his head, and Cyrus caught a glimpse behind the mask—a cool, calculating look lay on the face of Terian, something Cyrus hadn’t seen from him before. “They might scare you, after all, shake your pretty little worldview and crush all your ideas about honor and virtue and nobility in the world.”

  “Maybe you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to,” Cyrus said, feeling the irritation rise within him. “I’m not Alaric.”

  Terian let out a low chuckle. “I suppose not—stabbing your enemies in their guts and letting them squirm to death, taking their wives away before they’re even dead? You know, I would have had a whole new level of respect for you if you’d told me you had slept with her.” Cyrus turned to look at Terian in disgust. “I know,” the dark knight said, “it’d be low, I’ll admit, but let’s face it, she’s pretty and you’re … well … I hesitate to say you’re not a man in your urges, but … I mean … come on, Cyrus, it’s been since before I met you, hasn’t it? Do you just feel nothing down there?” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you a eunuch?”

  Cyrus gave him the hard glare, and Terian shrugged. “Just asking. Most men who hack and slash with a sword for all the days of their life tend to be fairly free with the other sword as well, if you take my meaning. So is it something to do with the God of War?” Terian cracked a smile. “Did Bellarum order his initiates to keep armor between them and women folk at all times, or something? Was there a command to avoid sex at all costs, even when offered to you by beautiful women of varying races and species?”

  “No!” Cyrus shouted his answer then looked around, drawing the curious stares of others. He ignored Martaina’s giggles behind him, and when Curatio caught his eye, the healer looked away as did Odellan. “It’s not that,” Cyrus said.

  “Please tell me you weren’t holding out for Vara,” Terian said. “Because that would be … actually, that would be comically amusing.” The dark elf snickered, then straightened out his expression. “Though not for you, I suppose.”

  “I was.” Cyrus let the words out, scarcely believing them. “I actually was.”

  “Oh dear gods,” Terian said. “You don’t mean you’re a … I mean, you never? Not even with your wife?”

  “What?” Cyrus stared at him, uncomprehending. “No, of course I did with Imina—my wife,” he said, when he caught the confused gaze from Terian. “But she was the …” he lowered his voice. “The first … and the last.”

  Terian let out a sharp laugh, like a bark, then cut it off. “Sorry. The first and the last? What the hells, man? You’ve been divorced since before I’ve known you. And not before? What, did you marry when you were sixteen?”

  “I … no, I didn’t even meet Imina until I was nineteen or so.” Cyrus caught his breath. “I don’t know. After her, I was focused on building my guild, and there wasn’t really much chance to—” He flushed. “You’ve seen where we lived when we were in the Kings of Reikonos. I didn’t want a public exhibition, and frankly, it’s not as though I met many women. Every now and again, I’d see my ex-wife, and we’d … well, you know. But that was it.”

  “Yeah, but again, you’ve been with Sanctuary for … what? Over three years now?” Terian looked at him with guarded disbelief. “You’ve been an officer for most of that time, and I hate to break this to you, but the women say you’re easy on the old eyeballs, so I think you’d have had an offer or two. I’m saying if you really wanted to—”

  “I came close once,” he said. “With Nyad.” He looked around and didn’t see the wizard in the formation with them. He caught sight of crimson robes further down the column. “When we were out on the recruiting mission. I mean, I had started to come out of the melancholy I was in after Narstron died, but, well, we were close to it, and she—” he flushed again, “—she found out about how I felt about Vara and stopped me.”

  “Ouch.” Terian grimaced. “Nyad never stops anybody.” He looked behind them. “Guess there had to be a first time, but I’m a little shocked it was you. But since then, there have been offers, right?” He looked around again. “That ranger, Aisling? Hasn’t she been on your trail for a while?”

  “Yes,” Cyrus said. “But Vara … I don’t know. I always … held out this hope in the back of my mind that Vara and I could … you know. It seemed like we were right there—she told me she felt the same way about me, and …” He sighed. “Everything … just completely fell apart.”

  “What did she say to you that night?” Terian looked at him, and Cyrus could see the curiosity, curiosity and something else. “The last night in Sanctuary, before you came downstairs and offered to go with Longwell?”

  Cyrus felt the tension run through him, felt his muscles ache, smelled the fresh air and the outdoors. “She said …”

  We will not, cannot be. Not ever … I thank you for trying to comfort me in my hour of need, but I’ll have you take your leave now.

  “She said that it would never work between us.” Cyrus heard the words echo in his mind, heard the quiet around them, felt the seeping darkness of her quarters as she had said them. “That she would outlive me by so long, that her pain would be so great that it wasn’t worth it to her.”

  “Ouch.” Terian let out a low whistle. “She knows how to drive the dagger deep, doesn’t she? I mean, you’d think she’d had a hundred years of experience doing it to say something like that.”

  “She was just trying to …” Cyrus let the words hang there. “Cut me loose with as little pain as she could.”

  “Still. That’s the easiest she could come up with?” Terian shook his head. “Brutal. It was just brutal. She could have at least given you a roll in the proverbial hay for your years of pining before she booted you from beneath her sheets.”

  “Oddly enough,” Cyrus said, “I don’t think that would have helped.” There was quiet for a few minutes, unbroken by either of them until Cyrus said finally, “I haven’t told anyone that yet. Thank you for listening.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Terian asked.

  “You’ve been a little strange lately,” Cyrus said. “One minute you act like my friend Terian, then the next it’s like you’re channeling Vara.”

  “That’s low,” he said, wincing. “I’ve been your friend for a long time, Davidon.” The wince disappeared, replaced by a knowing smirk. “Can you think of anything you might have done that would change that?”

  Cyrus thought about it and shrugged. “I can’t think of anything. But I wondered if maybe I’d done something to piss you off.”

  “Yeah. Well …” Terian said, pensive, “… you did give me this very impressive sword.” He pulled the blade from his scabbard, holding it up. The steel held a bright red edge to it and it glimmered and shone, the mystical power beneath the forging obvious in the daylight. “This is a blade given by the Sovereign to his truly great dark knights, the ones of such skill and virtue that they remain unchallenged in the realm of personal combat. It’s a rare honor to get one of these and they say the red in the steel is from the blade, drinking the blood of its enemies to grow stronger.” He smiled, a very slight one. “So that’s noteworthy, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Cyrus said, inflectionless. “Such a trivial thing, though. I wasn’t ever going to use it.”

  “Ah, yes, trivial things,” Terian said, a bitter smile on his lips. “It’s funny how the things we think are so trivial really aren’t. But that’s all right,” the dark knight said, his smile widening, the bitterness leaving it. “I’ll make good use of it.” He stared at the length of it and swung it to the side, causing his horse to shuffle f
ooting with the change in weight. Terian laughed. “It’ll drink the blood of my enemies.” He looked back to Cyrus, and nodded his head in gratitude.

  “Every last one of them.”

  Chapter 13

  Weeks passed as they traveled across the land. Cyrus stayed at the fore of the expedition save for once per day, when he would ride along the sides of the column and speak to the soldiers. They nodded and smiled at him, giving him hope and encouragement and taking his mind off Vara.

  Aisling seemed to avoid Cyrus in the days that followed the castle siege. She nodded and smiled politely at him but made no attempt to initiate conversation. Uncertain of what to think or feel, he nodded courteously when he saw her and even doffed his helm but said nothing more than pleasantries.

  While Cyrus spoke with the Baroness only occasionally to check in on her—to little effect, she would answer politely but offer little else—she seemed to be getting along well with almost all his other officers. He regularly saw her riding with J’anda and Curatio as well as Nyad and Ryin. Occasionally he would also see her speaking with Longwell or Odellan, or Martaina. Once he even saw her talking with Aisling. Both of them had been looking at him when he turned around, and they averted their eyes quickly, leaving him with a distinctly embarrassed sensation, his ears burning.

  The weather changed as the weeks wore on. The sun grew warmer, and they made the turn into croplands, where corn dominated the fields, along with grains of all sorts. The days grew longer, and the breeze carried less chill. The hills gave way to long stretches of flat plains, with just the slightest roll to them; they reminded him most of the Plains of Perdamun, of Sanctuary and home—and of an elven girl that he could not get off his mind, no matter how he tried.

  “We’re less than a week from my father’s castle,” Longwell said to Cyrus one day as they were passing a field with a fence of stone that encircled it. The skies were grey, a light drizzle of rain making its way down upon them.