Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four

by Robert J. Crane

  Cyrus blinked and stared at the fire for a spell. “I didn’t feel fear for the longest time, you know? They carved it out of me at the Society of Arms, made it so that I didn’t feel it anymore. They taught me how to vanquish it, to make myself the master of it and turn it against others.”

  “No, they didn’t,” Curatio said quietly. “They taught you how to not care about anything, how to cut yourself off from thoughts of a future, of the idea of people you loved, of having things to believe in beyond the God of War and the path of chaos.”

  Cyrus stiffened and gave it a moment’s thought. “So what if they did? Fearlessness is the most prized attribute of a warrior; it allows you to throw yourself into battles you know you can’t win, to give a full commitment to the fight of a sort that an undecided, fearful person won’t.”

  Curatio cleared his throat. “Forgive me for contradicting your years of training, but you’re quite wrong. I’ve seen your Society of Arms at work, and they certainly produce some impressive warriors. But I haven’t seen any of them fight half as hard as I saw that Guildmaster fight for his people. No one has the indomitable spirit of a man with a cause in his heart. I’ve watched Society-trained mercenaries go up against half their number of men defending their homeland and seen the lesser win. You think fearlessness is some strength? It is a lie; it is deception at its most base. A man who has nothing to live for can be fearless because he has nothing to lose. But a man who fears and throws himself into the battle regardless …” He shrugged lightly. “That is a man I wouldn’t care to face in a fight. And I’ve faced more than my share.”

  Cyrus ran a hand along his beard. How can that be right? “That doesn’t make any sense, Curatio. A man filled with fear would be paralyzed, halted in his tracks, hesitant—”

  “No,” Curatio said. “A man filled with fear who surrenders to it would be all that you describe. But that is the great lie—you see a man charge into battle without hesitation, with great strength, against impossible odds, and you label him fearless. But if you talk to him afterwards, many a man of those would tell you he felt fear the entire time—but greater than his fear of what would happen to him was another—that he would not be there for his brethren in a battle, that he would let them down, that his homeland would be destroyed if he failed to act.” He waved his hand around. “These men of Luukessia? Most of them have no hope of one of our healers bringing them back from death, yet they fight to the death and most of them in a manner you might call fearless, yes?”

  Cyrus nodded. “Close enough. Some hesitation, not much. But a few, yes.”

  “You think them fearless?” Curatio smiled grimly. “They are driven by the greatest fear of all—the loss of their homes, their families. They fight hard, harder than our own in many cases. A man fights harder for what he believes in, that’s a simple fact. It drives him to overcome that fear, to not let it paralyze him. No, Cyrus, I tell you right now that being fearless is never what would make you a great warrior. Being fearless could make you a great mercenary, perhaps. Believing in something so deeply that you’d not only fight and die for it but that you’d see yourself thrown down for it a hundred times, and get back up a hundred and one—that’s what would make you a great warrior.” He blinked. “That’s what made him great.”

  Cyrus let the quiet wash over him. The smell of the fire and its crackle was all that consumed him; he felt as though his bones were roasting over it. Cattrine. He imagined her in Caenalys, tied to a stake. I’ve been a fool. He rose unexpectedly.

  “Going somewhere?” Curatio asked, watching him shrewdly.

  “Can our army continue to hold the center without me?” Cyrus asked.

  “It could.” Curatio looked around the flames.

  “I have to go to Caenalys,” Cyrus said. “I have to …” He felt his cheeks flush. “I have stop Hoygraf from killing Cattrine.”

  “Hmmm,” Curatio said, nodding slowly. “Caenalys is a long ride from here. A far distance.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Cyrus said. He hesitated. “How far would you go to fix a mistake, Curatio?”

  The elf raised an eyebrow, but his seriousness never wavered. “All the way to the end, of course.”

  Cyrus frowned. “The end of what?”

  “The end of the world,” Curatio said, “or the end of me, whichever came first. When the cost is high enough, could you pledge any less?”

  “No,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Take over command for me, will you? I have to leave.”

  “Right now?” Curatio asked. “Tonight?”

  “Yes,” Cyrus said. “Tiernan rode hours ago, with a good portion of his army. I’ll need to catch him.”

  Curatio frowned. “With much of Actaluere’s army gone, we will give ground faster. But you already know that, don’t you?”

  “I do.” Cyrus said, feeling for Praelior’s hilt. “I’ll rejoin you as quickly as I can, and perhaps I’ll be able to send back the rest of Actaluere’s army when I do.”

  “That would be good,” Curatio said. “As I suspect we’ll need them before the end.”

  “The end of what?” Cyrus said with dry amusement. “The end of you or the end of the world?”

  Curatio’s smile was there but it was thin. “I’m beginning to think that they may just be one and the same.”

  Chapter 90

  Vara

  Day 198 of the Siege of Sanctuary

  The Council Chambers were quiet, again, the hearth crackling through the silence. Vara sat at her seat at the table, along with Vaste, who wore a black robe this day, Ryin, Erith, Thad—who was present in his capacity as castellan—and Alaric at the head of the table. Grimness was all that was present; even Vaste seemed to be starved of his usual aura of mischief. He leaned back in his chair, staring out the window behind Alaric. There was a smell of defeat in the air, bitter, and it choked Vara, filled her throat with bile and anger.

  “Shall we go through it again?” Ryin asked.

  “Has something dramatically changed?” Vaste replied, still staring out the window, emotionless.

  “We’ve been besieged at our very walls eight times in the last thirty days,” Ryin said.

  “Being neither deaf nor stupid, I not only counted when each of those attempts were made,” Vaste said, “but I also heard it moments ago when Thad mentioned that number.” The troll’s arms were folded across his chest. “I remain unimpressed as they have yet to breach the gates and we have four weeks worth of rotting dark elven carcasses piling up outside our walls. The smell of those is the most fearsome of our worries thus far.”

  “When will it end?” Ryin asked, and this time no one answered. After he waited a spell, the druid turned around the table. “Can we finally discuss it?”

  “If by ‘it,’ you mean the delightful fashions that will be on display in Reikonos when spring rolls around, then yes, and the sooner we start discussing those lovely and cheery frocks, the better,” Vaste answered. “If you mean what I suspect you mean, then no.”

  “I have no appetite for discussion of frocks—” Vara began.

  “Big surprise, there,” Vaste said.

  She looked daggers at him. “But perhaps there is some merit to considering what the druid is suggesting.”

  Ryin gave her a wary eye. “I love that you call me ‘the druid’ instead of using my actual name. I do have one, by the way.”

  Vara let out a small exhalation. “Very well. Perhaps we should consider what the odious pile of troll dung is suggesting.”

  “My defecation is not so preposterous as he,” Vaste said, “and it smells sweeter, too, like freshly baked cinnamon bread.”

  “Is it really that difficult,” Ryin said, with barely constrained desperation, “to consider evacuating Sanctuary for neutral territory—”

  Alaric’s hand slammed into the table and the whole thing jumped slightly, causing everyone sitting at it to jump in fright—all save for Thad, who merely continued to watch the whole proceeding without blanching. “We
will not abandon Sanctuary.”

  Vaste looked at the Ghost, his eyebrows raised. “And I thought I was reacting poorly to this entire line of discussion.”

  “You are,” Ryin said, wide-eyed, his entire focus on Alaric, “but I believe our esteemed Guildmaster just aced you quite easily.”

  “Our walls have held against everything that the dark elves have thrown at us,” Alaric said, his face dark, “and we have yet to lose more than a few unfortunate souls in these assaults. I see no reason to consider discussing alarmist measures.”

  “Alarmist?” Ryin asked. “We’re surrounded by the foremost army in the world. They’re battering on our door with increasing frequency, aiming to take our keep and burn it to the ground. I’m not ready to retreat either, but it might be useful to have a contingency plan in place should we need to evacuate—”

  “There will be no evacuation,” Alaric said menacingly, and Vara heard a darker edge to his voice than she had ever known before. “We remain secure with our portal closed, and we will continue to turn back any advances. Let them stay out there, rallied around us. That will keep them from mustering any sort of a counterstroke against Reikonos or the elves, and give the others time to perhaps find their courage and begin to take the war to the Sovereign.”

  Vara heard him and felt a tingle of despair. She looked to Erith and saw the healer match her own expression. No one is going to rise against the Sovereign; they’ve felt the taste of defeat against him, and it is a heavy sauce to flavor the stew. The dwarves and the gnomes will not intervene, and we will sit here as the years tick by, waiting for the Sovereign to lose interest—which he won’t.

  “And when the century rolls past,” Ryin said calmly, “and some of us are dead of old age or from battle—”

  “Or from eating conjured bread and water every day for our entire lives,” Vaste interrupted. “And never meeting that special woman who appreciates you for the brilliant, witty, especially handsome green man that you are?” He flicked a look around the table. “That last one is probably just for me.”

  “How long, Alaric?” Ryin asked. “Sooner or later, the members will grow sick of being trapped here, without true food to eat, or a life to live. Will we ever discuss it? I would even settle for being promised a discussion ‘in the fullness of time’ at this point. It would be better than thinking we will never—”

  “We will not,” Alaric said, “yield. Not Sanctuary.” There was an unmistakable hardness to the Guildmaster’s voice.

  “We are all officers here, Alaric,” Ryin said quietly. “It should be put to a vote.”

  “Vote, if you must,” Alaric replied, “but I am the Master of Sanctuary. If you wish to flee, you may. Take any who want to go with you. But we will not evacuate entirely; I will not halt our defense. I will not surrender to the dark elves. Not when this place is all that stands … it is the last bastion that holds against them marshaling their forces and striking the head from the Human Confederation from Reikonos. I will remain here, manning the wall, destroying the Sovereign’s every soldier until I can do so no longer.” The Ghost’s eyes blazed with fire, and Vara could hear the forged steel in his tone. “We will not discuss evacuation because it is not a guild matter, it is a matter of individual choice. If someone chooses to leave, that is their business and they may conduct it. But until such time as the wall breaks and the dark elven hordes pour in upon us, there will be no discussion of abandoning our home—my home—to these chaos-bringers so that they may have their way with it and be on about destroying the next unfortunate target on their army’s list.”

  There was a long and ringing silence, into which no one spoke before Alaric did again. “You are all you dismissed.” Without another word, he puffed into a light cloud of smoke and dissolved, more abruptly than Vara had seen him do so before.

  There was a slow movement toward the door; Vara stood, not wanting to be the first nor the last. She found herself next to Thad—that cursed idiot—and wandered down the stairs awkwardly next to him, trying to speed up just as he did, resulting in an uncomfortable silence between the two of them as they settled into walking down the stairs roughly next to each other. I should make a conversation attempt, I suppose. “You, uh—”

  His head snapped up at the sound of her voice, and he looked at her in near-shock. “Yes?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “You had mentioned before that you were of the … Swift Swords when you were in the Society of Arms.”

  “Indeed I was,” he said with a nod.

  “I see,” Vara said. “And was Cyrus … uhm … a Swift Sword with you as well?”

  Thad frowned; she cursed herself for asking as his earnest face crumpled, forehead lined and eyes slightly squinted. “No, ma’am.”

  “Ah,” she said with a nod to the younger man. “He was an Able Axe, then. I’m certain you faced him in those fabled child slaughter games that they presented you lot with under the guise of practices.”

  “No, ma’am, he wasn’t an Able Axe, either,” Thad said, shaking his head. “I didn’t typically face him in the exercises because they always had the older kids band together to fight him when it was called for.”

  Vara ran his response through her mind, trying to make sense of it. “I’m sorry. You said he wasn’t a Swift Sword and then you said he wasn’t an Able Axe. But I remember distinctly being told that every single member of the Society is assigned a Blood Family, for training purposes, for espirit de corps. So if he wasn’t either of those, then … was there a perhaps a third Blood Family I am unaware of?”

  “Ah, no,” Thad said with an almost embarrassed shake of the head.

  I am dealing with a moron of some sort, as I have always suspected. Perhaps I should speak slowly in order for him to understand me. “Then he was … not a member of the Society of Arms in Reikonos?”

  “No, he was,” Thad said. The warrior cocked his head at her. “You don’t know, do you?”

  Vara felt the slow, hammering burn of annoyance in her cheeks, the sound of blood rushing into her ears flared and she restrained her hand from doing that familiar thing again, seeking the hilt of her sword. Why must I continue to be like him in this damnable habit? I’m not actually going to strike this fool down, after all, much as it might entice me … “No, I suppose I don’t know what you’re hinting at. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to enlighten me rather than standing there and making me feel like a complete fool.”

  Thad’s mouth opened wide and then shut abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I thought everyone knew by now, with the rumors that went around awhile back.”

  Vara felt a surge of impatience. “I seem like the sort who trades in rumors, do I? Do you see me with an abundance of people to keep me informed of the latest tidbits of gossip?”

  “No!” A slight look of shock ran over his face. “I don’t mean suggest you’re the disagreeable sort or anything of that nature—”

  Vara leaned in closer to the warrior in red, causing him to shut up immediately. “I am … very disagreeable. And I am about to become much more so if the next words out of your mouth aren’t a succinct explanation of that which you clearly realize I do not know regarding Cyrus and the Society of Arms.”

  “He was never in a Blood Family,” Thad said. “It happens, rarely, that a recruit for whatever reason isn’t given one, because the instructors want him to be killed off in the training process.”

  Vara frowned at him; no difficult feat since her natural state was to be somewhat displeased. “Yet he clearly has survived to this point, so it cannot have been all that bad—”

  “He was the first,” Thad said with a gulp. “The first to make it past a year without a Blood Family, the first to graduate without one. The strongest warrior they ever graduated, I think, because he did it all on his own.”

  She stared at him through half-lidded eyes. “No family? None?”

  He shook his head. “He slept on his own, hid in a different place every night. Took all his meals by himself.�
�� Thad’s jaw moved, but no words came out for a moment. “I don’t … I mean, the instructors would talk to him when they gave him orders, but uh … no one else was allowed to say anything to him. No fraternizing with the enemy, you know, it’s Blood Family law …”

  Vara felt a sudden dryness in her mouth, the taste of bitter acrimony faded away. “And he was there from the time he was …”

  “Six,” Thad said helpfully. “One of the youngest. He’s legend there, I mean … legend.”

  “Yet unable to find a guild when he left,” she said quietly, pondering.

  “Oh, that was because of the Guildmaster of the Society,” Thad said. “I mean, League recommendation counts for a lot in most guilds. I doubt he even knew it, but I heard a couple warriors in my last guild talk about it. Cyrus got struck down every guild he applied to—they’d use him for a while, an application period, and then cast him off, him and the other two with him. That’s why they ended up starting their own guild.” Thad blanched. “Don’t tell him I told you that; like I said, I don’t think he knows he was blacklisted by the Society. I’m actually a little surprised that Alaric wouldn’t have checked with the Society Guildmaster before—”

  All Thad’s words fell upon a great deafness in Vara’s ears; they came, she heard them vaguely, but they faded in the background, as though he were speaking to her at a distance of miles instead of a foot away. No father. No mother since he was six. Not a friend nor a confidant until age eighteen? A wife who left him, a best friend who died. Goddess, I hate pity. Truly, I hate it. Yet there it is, all the same. Pity and a great swell of … sympathy. She did not acknowledge Thad again, merely started her way back up the stairs. He mouthed some words behind her but she waved him off with one hand and climbed, passing the others who were finally descending, went all the way up to her quarters and lay down on the bed.