A fire burst held the next gap, surging, almost a living flame, reminding her of the bit of magic she’d seen used against the trolls at the last assault on the foyer. We’re losing. Too many of them, too few of us, and all the time in the world helps us little. She felt a nick against her arm as a dagger bit into it and she gasped but did not halt her swing. She killed the wielder of the blade and was prepared to deal death to the next dark elf in line when a face popped into her view.
“This is not going well,” Aisling said to her, wrenching a dagger across the throat of an unsuspecting dark elf who stood between her and Vara.
“Ah, so your talent for understatement is what Cyrus finds attractive about you,” Vara muttered, striking down another dark elf with even more fury than she thought she had in her.
“Actually, it’s my talent for—” The dark elf was forced to parry a strike by a troll, rolling between his legs and coming up behind him to strike him in the kidneys with two blades. “Well,” she called back to Vara as the troll toppled over, clutching his back. “You know.”
Vara did not answer, but a bout of fury overcame her and the next enemy who crossed her sight line ended up bisected at the waist from an unrelenting strike. As the upper body fell, she parlayed it into a diagonal cross strike of her next foe, and she saw the blood shining from his exposed ribs as he fell. Go on, bitch. Say it again. Tell me all about it, I could use some rage to fuel my fire. She raised a hand at the gap in the wall to their left and mentally repeated the incantation she knew by heart; at the last moment a bit of excess anger bled into her thoughts and something hiccupped from her hand, a blast of pure, furious force that ballooned wider than she’d ever made it go before. It surged forward, knocking flat half a hundred dark elves flooding through the gap, flinging countless numbers of them into the air and into their fellows to sounds of bones breaking, men screaming in pain, and bodies falling from their apogee, some launched as far as twenty feet into the air. She blinked and looked back to Aisling in surprise.
The dark elf stared back at her, openmouthed. “Would it help if I taunted you again?”
“It wouldn’t help you,” Vara growled, and turned back to the enemies that came at her in two prongs. Her sword was a blaze of motion, and the frenzy was more than she could stand. He held her, touched her, was—WITH her—smelling her white hair, pressing his skin against hers. She fought off the urge to feel anything but the rage and turned it loose, sword a blur of fury, blood scything through the air around her.
“We can’t hold them back!” The voice broke into her consciousness after several minutes and she seemed to come back to herself. It was darkening, the skies above them, and not with rain. The sun was nearly below the wall and the sky was dimming. How long have we been fighting? The lawn was strewn with bodies, countless dark elves and more than a few of her own. Healers are mitigating that. If they weren’t, we’d be matching them corpse for corpse. “We need to retreat!” She looked to the source of the voice and realized it was Vaste, his staff in hand, at the top of the Sanctuary steps only feet away. The troll whipped his staff across the face of a dark elf that charged up at him then grabbed the man and flung him off the top of the stairs. “Vara, do you hear me?”
“Just … keep healing us!” she called back, at the base of the stairs herself. She blinked in surprise. Wasn’t I at the left break in the wall just a moment ago?
“We’ve been doing so for hours,” Vaste called back. “We’re nearly dry of magical energy. Call the retreat and barricade the doors while we recover, or every soldier you lose will be lost for good.”
The world spun about her, filling her vision with cracks and a whirl, as though the sky had taken up its own rotation. We can’t lose. We can’t fall, not now. She looked to the front gate, where it had stood; even Fortin had moved back now, only thirty feet in front of her, and a solid wall of dark elves was pushing forward. The rock giant wobbled, and black liquid ran down the surface of his body as he battled with three trolls simulataneously. They were all of a height and looked like titans fighting in the middle of the battlefield.
“Retreat,” she whispered, so low only she could hear it at first, or so she thought. Aisling’s head snapped around to gape at her in shock. “RETREAT!” she called again, louder this time, and heard other Sanctuary voices take up the call, weary ones, almost drowned out by the screams of victory by the dark elves around them, screams that echoed off the remains of the walls of Sanctuary and up and up, until she was certain that they could be heard the whole world over.
Chapter 114
Cyrus
It was nearing night now, and the end of the bridge was close, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. The sweat poured off him in gallons, he was certain, as though his whole skin were drenched with it and the blood of the scourge, that foul-black stuff that had smelled of death only this morning. The gasping of those fighting on the line beside him was strong but not overwhelming, and Cyrus could scarcely feel his arms but to know that they were there, and that Praelior was in a death-grip in his right hand, ready to deal out whatever destruction he saw fit to mete.
“Running out of time,” Terian’s call was calm, calmer than Cyrus thought it should be given the circumstances.
“And to think,” Longwell said, driving a lance through three of the scourge to the far right of Cyrus, “I could have been mouldering and dead on the shores of my homeland right now. Instead I get to watch us fail here and see these things delivered upon the shores of Arkaria.” He almost sounded mocking, but there was no joy in it. “I can’t thank you enough for saving me so I could witness this day. Truly, it will haunt me for all the rest of my life, all six months of it, should the pattern of Luukessia hold.”
“I don’t wish to see these days, either,” Odellan said darkly. “To think of what we’ve wrought on the people already dead is almost too much to bear. To add Arkaria to it is a frightful thing, not worthy of contemplation. I would rather die here than watch my land go slowly into the devouring mouths of these things the way we watched Luukessia go. Better to finish out swiftly than the slow slide, like ailing to death.”
There was silence for only a moment before Alaric spoke from Cyrus’s left, his blade always in motion and faster than even Cyrus’s had been. “I find it dispiriting, your lack of faith that we can stop these beasts before they reach the shore.”
Terian answered. “No offense, Alaric, but they’ve been pushing us back just as hard since you got here as they were before. Cyrus killed the King Daddy and they’re still coming like they didn’t feel it. Their numbers make me think the bridge is filled clear back to Luukessia and likely beyond that.” The dark knight parried an attack and cast a spell that left a scourge choking on bile, green sludge pouring out of its mouth. “If you have a solution to stop them, I think we’d all be keen to hear it. If it’s to continue what we’re doing …” Terian looked around at the others on the line with him and met Cyrus’s eyes; the warrior saw defeat in the dark knight’s look, an utterly dispirited expression that he’d never seen from Terian before. “I believe we’re about to be done. We failed.”
Alaric’s next blow sent a corpse ten feet into the air, and the paladin gritted his teeth as he leveled a swipe that killed four scourge and sent their bodies falling back into the charging ranks of the next run of them. “Do you truly believe that? All of you?”
“I’m afraid so,” Longwell answered.
“I don’t see a victory here.” Odellan dodged a scourge coming at him and buried his sword up to the hilt in the beast then kicked another one free long enough to bring around his sword and stop it.
“And Scuddar In’shara?” Alaric asked the desert man, whose scimitar was still a blur of motion, hacking the enemy to pieces.
“I believe,” Scuddar said in his deep intonation, “that we are not on the shore yet, and there is still fight left within us.”
“Spoken like a man whose village is first in the path of destruction for these things,” Terian
said, driving his sword into one of them. “It ain’t gonna happen, Alaric. They’re going to eat Arkaria whole. There’s no stopping them now.”
“Do you truly believe that?” Alaric said, not looking up from dispatching two more of the scourge in a row.
“Yes,” Terian said quietly, casting a spell on the next beast to attack him. “There’s no path to victory from here.”
Alaric was strangely quiet then, but his sword never stopped moving. “Back up, all of you.” He moved forward, his weapon dancing so fast he carved his way through the scourge that came forward in waves to attack him, making a pocket of death as he took another step forward, pushing into the enemy ranks, the bodies piling up around him.
Cyrus felt the weariness in his arms and pushed it aside, trying to command Praelior the way he saw Alaric wield Aterum; it almost worked, he was nearly as fast, fast enough to keep the enemy at bay, but barely. He looked back, just a glance, and saw the others behind him, the scourge surging between them all, creating a solid packed line between Cyrus and the others, and Alaric still ten feet in front of him.
“What are you doing, brother?” Alaric said, looking back at Cyrus as a thick burst of black blood spattered across his helm.
“I’m coming with you,” Cyrus said. “I believe in you; we can do this.”
There was silence between the screams, just for a beat. “Thank you,” Alaric said. “But you need not believe in me for my sake; it was I who believed in you when no one else did. I and others, some of whom you do not even know, who saw the seeds of that greatness in you. Your faith returned means more to me than you know, and I … apologize for speaking to you so brusquely when last we talked at Sanctuary.” The paladin’s face fell, and he held out a hand. The concussive force blast jumped forward from his palm, scattering the scourge for twenty feet in front of him, sending countless number of them flying off the bridge, clawing as they went, others struggling to stay on. “One tends to become attached to life the longer one lives it, you understand.”
“Sure,” Cyrus said, batting away the scourge that lingered behind them, pinned between them and the others. “No one wants to die.”
“True enough,” Alaric said, now still, the scourge before him regarding him carefully. “But most fear to tread on its ground, fear to go into it.” He swept a hand to the horde of scourge around them. “And why should they not, when this appears to be their future? The worst of it, the worst fear, to become something you don’t wish to be, to live in torment and agony for the rest of your days, to be reduced to less than yourself, a mindless thing with no purpose, no desire but to destroy.” He took a step toward Cyrus. “Thank you for your faith in me, my friend, my brother. I have something for you.”
Cyrus blinked. “I’m sorry … what?”
Alaric reached up. With his hand, he unfastened his gorget and removed it from his neck and grasped at a chain that lay across the back of it. He pulled it up, still keeping a wary eye on the scourge, cowed for the first time and staying at a distance, growling, waiting as their numbers reformed, their line gaining strength. Cyrus could see them preparing to charge, but he could not tear his eyes off Alaric, even as the Guildmaster removed the chain from his neck and brought with it a pendant, a small, circular object that was shadowed in the dark. He held it out to Cyrus, who looked at it for only a moment before glancing back to Alaric’s eyes under the helm.
“Take it,” the Ghost said and used the hilt of his sword to push his helm up, then off the back of his head. It fell to the ground with a thunk and his face was exposed, long hair flapping behind him in the salt breeze. “Please.” Cyrus reached out and grasped the pendant by the chain, holding it up to look at it in the light. “Now hold tight to it,” Alaric said.
Cyrus squinted past it, at Alaric. “What are you doing?”
The Ghost looked at the enemy arrayed before them then back to the army of Sanctuary, which had moved back even a bit more, braced for the next attack of the scourge—relentless, unceasing. “My duty. You will see them to safety and protect Sanctuary.”
Cyrus blinked. “What? Alaric—”
The Ghost’s hand closed across Cyrus’s gauntleted arm. “Do as I ask. And one other thing.” Cyrus saw the warmth in Alaric’s eyes now, the regard, and it stirred something within him, goosepimples across his flesh, across his scalp. “Don’t be afraid.”
With that, he pushed Cyrus back, causing the warrior to stumble and fall onto the hard stone of the bridge. Without looking back, Alaric took a step toward the scourge, letting his sword rest at his side behind him. The wind picked up, blowing across now from the west, from land, a hot breeze that whipped Alaric’s long hair all around him. He held up his hand at the scourge, and now they were charging again, twenty across, four-legged beasts galloping across the bridge toward Alaric, their tongues out and hanging low, salivating at the unguarded man there for the taking.
The Ghost’s hand dipped, and Cyrus tensed; it would not hit the scourge, would not throw them back, and Alaric was undefended. He pushed hard against the ground, started to get up, but before he could, Alaric’s hand pulsed with a glow and the spell broke forth from it, slamming into the stone bridge.
The effect was immediate; Alaric disappeared as the bridge broke and crumbled all around. Cyrus felt the ground shift underneath him and he was falling, falling down. He felt the cold splash of the water only a moment later, heard chunks of rock and stone from the bridge falling around him and swam madly to the side, as fast as he could, the waters roiling around him. He felt something threaten to suck him down as it passed to his right, and then he swam toward the light above, the brightness of the sun.
His head broke the water and he gasped for breath, looking back to where he had come from. It was a spectacle of horror and amazement; the bridge had broken, and he could see the Sanctuary army still standing on the last segment of it remaining; the rest, stretching east toward Luukessia was gone, fallen into the sea, a white, churning foam and a few supports sticking out of the water the only sign that it had been there.
“You all right down there?” Longwell’s voice reached him, and he looked up at the dragoon standing a hundred feet above him. “Can you swim?”
“I’m fine,” Cyrus said and slid Praelior into its scabbard to use both hands to tread water. He felt oddly weightless, as though his head were swimming as well, floating in the water all on its own. “Do you see Alaric?” he called back to Longwell.
The dragoon hesitated, and Terian’s head came over the side to look at him as well, followed by Odellan. “No,” Longwell said. “He’s …” The dragoon didn’t finish his thought, and he didn’t need to. “You need to start swimming, Cyrus. It’ll be a miracle if you make it to shore already without drowning …”
But Cyrus couldn’t, wouldn’t. He swam toward the bridge, toward the nearest support pillar, and when he reached it he threw his hand up to grasp hold, and something clinked in his palm. He held up his hand, and something dangled from it, on a length of chain that was twisted around his wrist. It was a round medallion, no bigger than a large coin, with a pattern carved into it that he could not see in the shaded light under the bridge. He hesitated for only a moment before placing it over his head and around his neck, then grabbed hold of the support pillar and waited. I could swim down, perhaps. He cursed. In full armor? Foolish.
The weight of the chain around his neck was almost insignificant, and yet it felt heavier than anything he had ever carried. Cyrus waited, watching the water where the bridge had stood, for minutes that turned into hours. He waited until past sundown for the Master of Sanctuary to rise from the depths, waited until his arms had begun to tire and his legs screamed they could hold him against the pillar no more. When there was no light to see by but the fires on the shore in the distance, he finally kicked loose of where he waited for the man they called the Ghost and began the long, slow swim toward home.
Chapter 115
Vara
Day 223 of the Siege of Sanctu
ary
She could hear the dark elves as they battered away at the doors outside. It was nearly a miracle that the defenders of Sanctuary had managed to do what they had, fought back to within the halls of Sanctuary and barred them shut. Their enemies clattered at the big, heavy, wooden doors, but she knew when they retreated that it would take time to move the battering ram inside the walls, time to take it forward, to carry it up the stairs and position it to break them down. And it would appear that the time has come—and ours has run out.
She closed her eyes and could feel the fear around her in the huddled masses. “Nyad,” she said, and the elven princess came forth, startling her with her appearance. “Can you teleport us out of here—all of us? Somewhere safe, like Fertiss.”
Nyad was always pale; she was paler than usual, now. “No,” she said simply. “The dark elves have positioned wizards outside; this entire area is under the effect of cessation spells.
Vara looked at her in alarm, and held up her hand, casting the most elementary healing spell. There was no tingle, no power, nothing. “So this is it,” she whispered.
“Nowhere to run,” came the rumble of Fortin, standing just behind the door, arms folded, his chest a scarring of dark, oozing substance that was thick as magma. “I like it better that way.”
“I always prefer to have somewhere to run,” Vaste said, clutching his staff. “Of course, I’m not quite the fighter that you are, and perhaps a bit squishier, so that might have something to do with it.”
There was a scream as the battering ram hit the doors again and a crack appeared in the wood. Vara composed herself, closing her eyes for a moment, taking a breath. When she opened them again, she spoke. “There is no escape,” she said, loudly, to all of them. “They mean to have us dead, or worse, as prisoners.”
“Prisoners is worse?” Vaste asked, sotto voce. She shot him a blazing look. “Right,” he said. “Worse.”
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Page 88