Warlord

by Robert J. Crane

  “Not slight enough to ignore, though,” Longwell said, doing a little head-shaking of his own. “This is about to be it for you lot. Best get to evacuating.”

  “We will not leave,” Cora said stiffly.

  “If you stay, you die,” Longwell said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “Trust me, I know it’s hard. I’ve had these very discussions with Administrator Tiernan in the Emerald Fields; if you value the lives of your people, you’ll move out of the way of the damned near unquenchable enemy, because their thirst for violence is like nothing I’ve ever seen, even from implacable death.”

  “We will not abandon our homes,” Cora said.

  “It was nice knowing you, then,” Longwell said sarcastically, adding a short salute.

  “Can we defend them?” Cyrus asked, just throwing the question out.

  “No,” Longwell said before he finished.

  “Maybe,” Mendicant said.

  Every face in the chambers turned to the goblin. “How?” Longwell asked. “We can’t get a force onto the savanna; even J’anda’s little gambit to bring titans into the dragon shrine nearly got wiped out by—”

  “We can teleport directly to Amti,” Mendicant said nervously, his eyes dancing around the table’s top. “They have druids that can bring a couple spellcasters in at a time with return spells by putting ourselves in closest physical proximity to them—”

  “Uncomfortably close, some of us might say,” Vaste said with a cocked eyebrow.

  Mendicant continued. “We set up a simple chain, bringing in a few spellcasters at a time to Amti, letting them anchor their souls, and then having them cast their teleport spell to bring them back to the great seal in the foyer. They take a couple more spellcasters, until all our spellcasters are bound in Amti—”

  “That’s insane,” Ryin said, leaning forward, eyes wide. “If Amti falls, the quickest route out is a wizard teleport spell spread over a wide area, and the widest radius teleport spell is the one that returns you to your point of binding. If you execute this particular plan, all our spellcasters will be bound in a place being torn apart by the titans. They’ll be trapped; unable to escape, save for the druids and wizards who can cast their own teleportation elsewhere.”

  “It’s not without risks, certainly,” Mendicant said with a shrug, “but the question was ‘Can we defend them’? The answer is ‘yes.’”

  Cyrus cast Vara a look and was met with a somewhat stricken one in return. “He is right,” she said. “On all counts. This is perhaps the most dangerous strategy we have ever embraced. There will be no effective retreat from this.”

  “And defending a people that are mad and choosing to stay there,” Longwell said.

  “We’ve fought gods,” Vaste said dismissively. “Did we have a possibility of escape when we fought Mortus, trapped in his realm? Or Yartraak, when we were stuck in Saekaj?”

  “These are long odds,” Longwell said cautiously. “I’m not above nasty battle, but if we’re already counting dear our losses, this idea will cost us more. Sure and certain.”

  “Can we even defend them when we get there?” Cyrus mused. “The whole of the army of the titans in the Gradsden Savanna, probably pouring toward Amti even now?” A faint desperation clawed at his thoughts.

  “It would be the sort of battle an adherent of Bellarum would charge into with sword held high, I would think,” J’anda said, his eyes sparkling faintly.

  “It is the sort of battle that a paladin would go into believing that even the hopeless causes should be fought for,” Mendicant said, looking at Vara. “Am I wrong?”

  “You are not wrong,” Vara said, giving the goblin a nod. “Not at all.”

  And so it comes down to this, Cyrus thought, his mind aswirl. Two choices before me, to stay and let them die, or to fight and lead us to almost certain death …

  The bloodthirsty warrior would fight for the sake of it, and the paladin would fight to protect the people. Two paths, and both lead the same direction.

  Who am I? The question whispered through his mind unbidden.

  Either way, the answer was the same.

  “This is to be utterly voluntary,” Cyrus said, and he could feel the blood draining out of his face. “Pass the word that no one need come unless they are prepared to die in the south, with no hope of revival.” He looked at Mendicant. “Even with your plan, how long will it take to get our army down there in its entirety?”

  “Days,” Mendicant said. “Accounting for magical regeneration, the sheer number of spells we’d have to cast, and—and you’d have nearly no magical support during the period we’re bringing people in, which would leave the army—”

  “Vulnerable,” Cyrus whispered.

  “Fighting titans without healers or aid of magic?” Vara asked, her own eyes wide. “That’s putting it a bit mildly.”

  “No one but volunteers,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “If I find out any person coming on this has been coerced in any way—”

  “You’ll what?” Vaste asked. “Kill the responsible parties? Assuming the titans don’t do the job for you—or on you—”

  “I’m going,” Cyrus said, and he stood.

  And every other officer in the room stood a second later.

  “So that’s how it’s to be, then?” Cyrus asked, looking at each of them in awe, from J’anda, who nodded, his staff standing taller than he in his grasp, to Ryin, who held a look of flickering hesitation that turned into resolve before Cyrus’s eyes, to Mendicant, holding himself high as he could, and Erith, whose shoulders were hunched in calm resolution. Longwell stood nearly at attention, his own lance threatening to put a gouge in the ceiling, and Vaste snatched his staff up and passed it between hands nervously.

  “That’s how it is, oh fearless guildmaster,” Vaste said.

  Cyrus turned his eyes to Vara, who stood at his side—and he at hers. “We await your command,” she said with a nod.

  “If this be our end,” Cyrus said, “then let’s make it one so grand and glorious that the titans whisper our names in fear for twenty generations.” He favored them with one last look and his gaze settled on Cora, who stood now at last, in the middle of it all, the calm, watching eye as the storm passed around her. He saw something there, some approval perhaps, but it was buried under layers and years and came out in the form of the faintest nod. “Let’s go to war.”

  80.

  Cyrus’s speech to the assembled guild was blessedly short, at least in his eyes, and well received, to no one’s surprise but his. His preparation after that lasted only seconds and extended to telling Mendicant to travel to Emerald Fields and Saekaj to carry word of their actions to both their allies. With that, he clutched tightly to J’anda, freshly returned from binding in Amti with the aid of one of their druids, and he and Vara were carried back to the jungle with the enchanter sandwiched between them.

  “She smells lovely,” J’anda said, nodding his head over his shoulder at Vara as they separated in room entirely composed of wood. “You, though … you smell like fire.”

  “I expect that’s an omen of some sort,” Cyrus said, looking around swiftly as more bursts of light came into being around them, the officers of Sanctuary arriving a few at a time either under their own power or clutching to spellcasters.

  “It’s not that I dislike you,” Longwell was telling Ryin as the dragoon pulled himself awkwardly back from holding tight to the druid on one side while Calene Raverle let go of Ryin’s back, “it’s just a bit uncomfortable being as I don’t feel like we’re that … uh … close.”

  “Officers,” Cyrus said, snapping them all to. The door opened on the far end of the room and Martaina entered, her bow in hand, her hair looking longer than he remembered and her eyes as dark as he’d ever seen them. The lack of sleep was apparent, and her cloak hung tight behind her as she entered. “Lady Ranger,” he said.

  She gave him a look of pure annoyance. “Don’t be a jackass,” she said. “You’ve known me for years, don’t act all
formal now, it’s not the moment for it.” She addressed them all quickly, her haggard appearance trickling down into her manner. “They’re on the horizon, and they’re making a very direct line for Amti. There’s rather a lot of them—”

  “How many?” Longwell asked.

  “Thousands,” Martaina said tightly. “Tens of, perhaps. Enough that our little traps and preparations won’t but barely slow them.”

  “You set up traps?” Cyrus asked.

  She favored him with a tired look. “I didn’t have that many rangers to train here, so I looked down other avenues to cement my worth. There are small spike pits throughout the jungle, and some log traps made of vine and rope. Not enough to cause significant damage to these numbers; they were meant as a discouragement for casual wanderers.”

  “You know what I find is a discouragement to casual wanderers in whatever area I choose to be in?” Vaste asked.

  “Casual nudity from a bellicose and frighteningly ugly troll?” Vara suggested.

  “I’m going to show you my arse later,” Vaste said. “Just for that. And you will look upon it and go, ‘My, what a firm and supple arse. Perhaps I should have been nicer to Vaste for all these years, seeing as it’s such a damned fine apple of an—’”

  Cyrus rolled his eyes and kicked the troll lightly in the rump, knocking him off balance. “Enough of that. We’ve got a sizable battle laid out before us.”

  Vaste recovered, straightening his robes. “Of all the regrets you’re going to take to your grave, not seeing this magnificent troll arse is going to work its way right to the top, I assure you.”

  “Oh, Vaste,” Cyrus said, squeezing past him, “you’ve shown me your ass more times than I can count.” He gestured to Martaina. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  He followed her wordlessly up the spiral inside of the tree. The walk seemed infinitely long and was made all the worse by the silence both in front of him from Martaina and behind him from the few officers and others following behind him. Every step on the grain of the wood sounded hollow, like he was being led to his doom, and it was curious, he thought, that he felt no dread at the prospect.

  They came out atop the trees, hidden among branches and boughs that were tied off and arranged in such a way to allow this place to be used as a watch post over the canopy of the jungle. Cyrus followed Martaina’s careful steps out onto the branches, and looked where she pointed, in the far distance, and saw immediately.

  Trees shook as though mighty things were rattling them at their base. It did not worry Cyrus until he remembered the scale of the trees in this jungle. The line of their disturbance was massive, stretching for miles, and it centered entirely on one direction—the one that led to Amti.

  “Here it comes,” Cyrus said, Vara and Longwell easing up behind him. “How long?”

  “Half an hour,” Martaina said, “at most. But worse than that,” she said with considerable sourness, “we have to fight at ground level.”

  “That’s mad,” Longwell said, shaking his head. “We need Falcon’s Essence.”

  “Too few druids,” Cyrus said.

  “And not to mention that,” Martaina said, “even if you do use it, if they cast a cessation spell on our defenders while we’re attacking—”

  “Splat. Battle over.” Cyrus exchanged a look with Vara. “How many people will we have here in half an hour?”

  Her lips went pale, pressed together hard as she allowed a moment to contemplate his answer. “Less than a thousand.”

  He looked to the sky and saw the sun beginning to set, then surveyed the jungle before him, with its myriad paths and utter lack of bridges or passes to make defense even marginally easier against the gargantuan titans. “This is either going to be a long night,” Cyrus said, staring into the growing purple dusk, “or a very, very short one.”

  81.

  The view from the ground was no more encouraging, certainly not with only a few hundred melee fighters spread out around the trunks of the large trees that comprised Amti. Cyrus stood between the tangled roots, wondering if the footing was even a quarter as inhospitable to the titans as it was for his army, and deciding that no, this was exponentially worse for the shorter party.

  Gareth slid down the nearest tree trunk, his cloak acting as a sort of sled as he perfectly balanced the angle of the roots as it furled around. He sprang off and landed next to Cyrus, recovering his footing flawlessly as he came to stand next to the warrior.

  “Five minutes or less,” the ranger said, pulling his bow off his shoulder casually. “Your glorious battle is coming.”

  Cyrus eyed him. “I’m not convinced it’s going to be all that glorious.” The smell of greenery was in the air around them, and the jungle felt close and heavy, not quite steamy but only a few degrees off.

  Gareth smiled. “Isn’t your guild founded on these sorts of defenses? All give, no quit, fight to the last?”

  “It’s easy to say that, I suppose,” Cyrus said, “and I’ve certainly professed it a time or two myself.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t even mind for my own sake, but … leading these good people into death?” He shook his head. “Not much glory in that.”

  Gareth’s face fell. “I convinced them to get as many children and non-combatants out as I could, but … it’s a low number.”

  “Every little bit helps,” Cyrus said, pulling Praelior out of its scabbard and kicking at the edge of an exposed root that was almost as tall as he himself was.

  “Your help is more than a ‘little bit,’” Gareth said with a faint, fleeting smile. “It gives us a chance.”

  Cyrus chewed that one over as thoroughly as the dried meat he’d supped on a few minutes earlier. “I don’t believe it does, not against these numbers.” He nodded to the distance, where the sound of crashing through the underbrush could now be heard easily. “Unless they run right past, these odds are so long that even the most foolish gambler in Reikonos would fail to take them.”

  I believe in you, whispered a familiar voice, faintly, somewhere in the distance.

  “What?” Cyrus jolted upright.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Gareth said. “Couldn’t think of anything to say to that.”

  They fell into silence, and once more Cyrus surveyed his impromptu army. Erith lurked by a tree trunk, hiding one of the hollows, barely peeking out. She was the only healer on the field of battle, and so far as he knew, the only one who had not bound herself here in Amti. She watched tentatively as the crescendo of noise approaching out of the west grew ever louder, and the battle lines of the Sanctuary army grew ever more restless. Weapons were clutched in hand, bows were nocked with arrows, and Vara drifted to Cyrus’s side at the last, as he guessed they were no more than a minute from the first of the titans breaking through into sight.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asked at a whisper.

  He looked at her in surprise. “You’re not?”

  She smiled, both impish and sad in one. “It does rather put a halt to that marriage proposal, doesn’t it?”

  “I could marry you right here,” he said with a smile of his own, “with battle as the backdrop. It’d be very ‘Warlord of Bellarum,’ really, almost a holy rite—”

  “Yet somehow not exactly what I dreamed of in my youth on those exceedingly rare occasions when I contemplated my wedding day.” Her expression softened as the crash of the underbrush grew to a pitch. “How did you imagine it?”

  “I didn’t back then,” Cyrus said, staring into the dark of the canopy, no light coming in from above, his eyes only able to see via spellcraft. Another thing I’ll lose if they cast a cessation spell. “I never once imagined it—which is probably why I jumped on the possibility so quickly with Imina.” He smiled wanly. “The thought of relying on others … it wasn’t part of who I was back then, so the thought of sharing my life with someone … well …” He lowered his gaze. “It was a little too farfetched for me to believe.” He took her hand. “But now? I can’t imagine my life without you.�
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  “That’s so precious,” Erith called from her place between the roots. “Kiss her already!”

  Cyrus did, but it only lasted a second, perhaps a little less, before the warm, tenderness of her lips was pulled away as the first of the titans broke through the jungle into sight less than a hundred meters away.

  82.

  There was no exchange of wit when the titans came, no fiery repartee, words thrown and challenges made. The beasts from Kortran carried a branch at their fore with an elf tied upon it, both legs and an arm pinched off, almost limp within its bindings, but his remaining hand pointed out, croaking, “There … there …” directly at the trees of Amti.

  The titans charged without hesitation, without pause, without mercy. Cyrus met them, as he always did, on the fore of the battle line, Praelior finding a knee above the metal boots of his first attacker. His attacker faltered at the strike, failing in his counterattack, an unarmed slap of the hand. The titan tumbled down and was stabbed through the face by Longwell.

  A blast of force from Vara spit into the face of the next titan coming at Cyrus, slamming him back into a tree and splitting his skull with a mighty crack. He slid down the bark, dropping his prize of the elven hunter on the stake, and the poor man went face down in a root.

  The ground was thick with roots, and it made for an uneven charge for the forces of Sanctuary, vaulting the living wood obstacles before them even as the titans walked easily over them. Cyrus found himself battling for breath as he took down his next foe, the titan hordes coming as exactly that—a horde, not lines of an army, led into the fight by a tortured man on a stake, with much cheering, like a hunt with near-wild dogs and men that Cyrus had once had the misfortune to witness.

  Even now, the titan jeers filled the air in that peculiar language of theirs, full of glee and rage all at once. The smell of them was in the jungle air now as well, musty and deep, the first few dead adding their own particular scent to the early night air.

  Cyrus severed a hand that reached for him, fighting furiously against all threats. Calene lanced an arrow into the face of that titan, sending him flinching back. Menlos Irontooth followed it with his wolves, attacking the exposed ankles of this particular titan.