The Sanctuary Series: Volume 03 - Champion

by Robert J. Crane

  Vara was sickly white when she answered, but it was with a mechanical voice. “I thank you. All of you.”

  “I leave it to our general to work out the details,” Alaric said, nodding to Cyrus. “With that, let us adjourn.”

  Cyrus remained in his chair while almost everyone else beat a hasty path to the exit. Vara looked back at him as though she were about to say something, then turned away, disappearing through the door behind Nyad. Cyrus turned to find Curatio staring down Alaric.

  “You should have told me,” the healer said.

  “I should have.” The Ghost looked back at him. “But I was sworn to secrecy.”

  “And you violate it now?” Curatio’s words came out low and accusatory, harsher than anything Cyrus had heard from him.

  “Lives are at stake, and you know this may be part of a larger plan by Mortus.” Alaric stood facing Curatio. “I am sorry I did not reveal...” His eyes flitted around the room to find Cyrus watching, as well as Terian. “...what I know...sooner. I did not wish to—”

  “I know what you didn’t wish to do,” Curatio said, voice rising. “I know damned well what you didn’t want to admit to. To hell with it, Alaric. It was always you anyway. I thought I made my peace with...” An agonized grunt came from Curatio, and he shook his head, face awash in unexpressed emotions. “Damn it all. I’m 23,000 years old, I shouldn’t...”

  “You are a man,” Alaric said, soothing. “Regardless of age, you share the same flaws as the rest of us, tempered only by greater wisdom than any other.”

  Curatio stared back at him for a moment before reaching out in a fit of pique and knocking the Ghost’s helm from the table to the floor. “To hell with wisdom. To hell with tempering. And to hell with you.” With a snarl, the healer swept from the room, his cloak trailing behind him.

  Alaric stooped to retrieve his helm and placed it upon his head. “I am sorry you had to witness that.”

  “It’s kind of like watching Mommy and Daddy fight,” Terian said with a sadistic chuckle. “I’ve never seen even a hint of discord between the two of you before.”

  “Yes,” Alaric said with a sigh. “I’m afraid there’s much more to it than my witholding information. But that is a story—”

  “For another time,” Cyrus and Terian chorused.

  A flicker of amusement made its way across the Ghost’s face, but did not reach his eye. “What can I do for the two of you?”

  “Nothing for me,” Terian said. “I need to talk to Cyrus.”

  Cyrus stared at the Ghost, who, after the argument with Curatio, seemed somehow smaller than he had ever looked before. “I...I have nothing that can’t wait.”

  Alaric nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I feel the ether calling.” He took a deep breath, and Cyrus watched his armor rise with the inhalation. As it began to sink with his exhalation, the lines of the Ghost’s armor began to fade, and the streaks that ran down the plate of his mail blurred and became insubstantial, a thin mist filling the room around his feet, as Alaric became the Ghost in deed as well as name, and the fog disappeared from the room.

  “Of all the weird things he does, that’s the weirdest,” Terian said with a shake of the head.

  “What do you need?” Cyrus leaned against the table, watching the dark knight.

  “Ah,” Terian said with a smile, “I need nothing. In fact, I come to you with assistance.” He straightened. “I can help you with invading the Realm of Death.”

  Chapter 45

  The light was dim in the Brutal Hole, a bar in the slums of Reikonos. Though he had seen it when living there, Cyrus had never trod in the establishment, which was for dark elven laborers that worked on the waterfront. The patrons were surly, protective and quarrelsome when standing outside, thus he had never been motivated to find out if the interior was as shabby as the broken down wooden facade.

  Until now, he thought. It matches. Terian had dragged him here with the assistance of Nyad, who was waiting for them at the old Kings of Reikonos Guildhall only a few blocks away. The bar had a dim mirror stretched behind it, the edges scarred and blackened from age and poor use. The whole place had a smell he associated with unwashed garments mixed with saltwater. I’m used to smelling the death and horror of battles, and this place has a scent that makes me ill. What does that say about it?

  Terian took a deep sniff. “Smells like home,” he said with a serene smile.

  “Remind me never to visit Saekaj,” Cyrus said, taking a sip of the green ale in front of him. He kept his head hidden under his cloak, less worried that the patrons might start a fight with him than he’d end up killing all of them and have to answer to the Reikonos authorities. He looked around the motley crowd shouting crass comments at the woman behind the bar; she matched every one of the dock workers profanity for profanity, causing them to laugh even more.

  “It’s no worse than here,” the dark knight assured him. With a slug of his ale, Terian looked back at him. “Aren’t you pleased to see that your city is still standing?”

  Cyrus was reminded of the discomfort in his belly as they teleported into the main square. As it appeared before him, he let out a slight yet obvious sigh of relief. They were stopped by Reikonos guards that were stationed around the square and detained because of Terian’s presence. Once Cyrus’s identity had been established, the guards had let them pass with a glare at the dark knight, who shrugged the whole thing off. “If my city was under siege by humans, they’d kill any of you trying to teleport in.” He grinned. “Your people are far too merciful.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t cost us the war,” Cyrus had said without amusement.

  In spite of the frigid Reikonos winter, the hearth was empty of a fire, with only the faintest embers still burning within it. “Wood is worth more than gold right now,” the woman behind the bar had said when she brought their drinks. She looked with suspicion on Cyrus’s downed hood, but didn’t press the issue. Terian had thrown extra coins her way to expedite her retreat, which she took without question and returned to the bar and the rowdy longshoremen gathered around it.

  “How much longer?” Cyrus kept his voice low, in spite of the fact that it would be near impossible to be heard over the din the drunks were causing, another peal of raucous laughter filling the air.

  “Now, I think,” Terian said as the door opened, allowing a sliver of sunlight to cross the floor. The obnoxious laughter of the crowd at the bar stopped as a figure entered, also hooded, and swooped past them with a shuffle, drawing the attention of the dock workers as it passed. After a moment, the laughter returned; a choice comment in dark elvish reached Cyrus’s ears, which he didn’t fully understand but grasped enough of to shake his head at the crudity.

  The figure approached them with caution, shuffling on a leg that appeared unsteady. When it reached them, Cyrus was struck by the trailing stench that came in its wake, overwhelming any of the horrible fragrances of the bar. It smelled of the decay Cy had pondered earlier, overwhelming and gutwrenching. With a nod, it sat, and the lamplight caught features that were gray as a stormy sky.

  With a sudden sense of revulsion, Cyrus pushed back against the chair. Terian’s hand gripped his, holding him down as he reached for his sword. “Don’t,” the dark knight said.

  “It’s...it’s a...” Cyrus reached again for his sword but Terian blocked him with a gauntlet, clanking metal against metal.

  “A wendigo?” The creature slid forward into the light, revealing a wreck of face. His eyes were sunken in the skull and a skeletal hand that reminded Cyrus of Malpravus slid across the table and picked up a gold coin from a stack in front of Terian. Its mouth was mangled, twisted with jagged teeth, and when it breathed on him Cyrus felt a need to vomit. “I am, a creature of Mortus that has long since fled the master’s realm.”

  Cyrus yanked his hand away from Terian and held it in front of his nose. “What brings a foul servant of a foul god to Reikonos?”

  “A foul place.” The wendigo’s mou
th twisted into a smile, giving it a more grotesque look than before. “I come here to meet you, to treat with you, to offer you information for coin—are insults all I am to receive?”

  “Don’t act so offended,” Terian said, sliding the stack of coins off the table and into his hand. “You’re a wendigo; your skin is rotted and you smell like a troll brothel on Sunday morning. Hrent, this is Cyrus Davidon. He’s faced your kind before.”

  “You’ve fought the footsoldiers of death?” Hrent reached across the table, emaciated gray hand facing up, pointed toward Terian. “Then you know most of what you’ll be up against if you’re planning on going to the Realm of Mortus.”

  “Aye,” Cyrus said, holding his breath. “Is there still a hydra and demon knights?”

  The rotted face of the wendigo twisted again. Milky white eyes stared back at him from beneath the hood. “Perhaps. Perhaps there’s more. I find gold helps me recall.”

  Terian shared a look with Cyrus, then dropped a half dozen coins on the table. “Start talking. If what you say sounds good, more may follow.”

  Hrent reached out and grasped at each of the coins, bringing them up to his teeth and biting them one by one. “All right,” he said when finished. “Yes, there’s a hydra and a host of demon knights; nothing different about them. But there’s more now.”

  “Such as?” Cyrus said from behind his gauntlet.

  The gray finger beckoned, and two more gold pieces were tossed upon the table. “Might be skeletons. I can’t recall.” Another gold piece clinked in front of the wendigo. “Yeah, skeletons. A whole army of them. Not particularly strong, but a nuisance when coupled with the demon knights and my brothers.” The thin fingers came up to Hrent’s face and scratched the skin, long claw digging into dead flesh, leaving a mark but no blood welled up within. “Something else, too.” He nodded at the small but growing pile of gold in front of him and two more pieces landed upon it. He nodded again and Terian threw two more. “They’ve changed their strategy. They don’t hide anymore; everything waits in the fields of Paxis by the portal. Except the hydra. You won’t have to face him unless you go looking for him.”

  Cyrus exchanged a glance with Terian. “Anything else? A dragon skeleton or anything like that?”

  The sunken eyes watched him. “No. Nothing like that. All that’s left is the time.”

  “When?”

  The long claws clicked on the gold, and Terian poured five more pieces out of his coinpurse and slid them across the table one at a time as Hrent bit them, his long teeth leaving little flaws in the face of the metal. “Tomorrow,” he said, scooping them all off the table. “He’ll be gone for three days; has a meeting with Bellarum in the Realm of War. Those two...they do go on and on,” Hrent said with a smile that made Cyrus’s stomach turn.

  “Anything else you’d like to tell us?” Terian watched him expectantly.

  The wendigo licked his split and cracked lips with a dry tongue. “Might be I’ll have some information on Yartraak soon; I’m making inroads with some of his former servants, but he’s a secretive bastard, that one.”

  “We’ll see,” Terian said. “I doubt that will do you much good.”

  Hrent slid the last coins into a leather pouch and Cyrus watched them drain into it through his rotted fingers. “Nice to know I’ve got a new customer to sell to,” he said with a pointed grin. “Tired of dealing with Goliath all the time. I do miss Endeavor and Amarath’s Raiders; they always had class—”

  “You sold information to Goliath?” Cyrus left his seat and leaned across the table, grabbing hold of Hrent’s cloak and yanking him back.

  The sunken eyes were wide with sudden fear. “Yeah, they bought off me a few times. What of it?”

  “Cyrus...” Terian’s tone was warning and the warrior looked across the bar. The rowdy longshoremen were all looking at him, his hood now behind his head, face exposed for all to see.

  “Never mind,” Cyrus said to Hrent. “Come to us again when next you have information. Go on.” Without hesitation the wendigo grabbed his pouch of gold and limped from the bar. At the counter, the dock workers watched Cyrus with sullen faces. He parted his cloak at the front so his armor was obvious, and rested a hand on Praelior. “Reckon I’ll be leaving now, too.” He led the way, keeping watch on the resentful eyes of the dark elves as they passed, flipped a silver coin to the bartender as he left, and she flashed a grateful look.

  “So now we know when,” Terian said, walking beside him through the slums. “Can we put together an assault by tomorrow morning? Because it’ll take us at least a day to get to the portal to Death’s Realm.”

  “We’re a little out of practice,” Cyrus said, steering around a vegetable cart that had only a few meager pickings left on it. “But the numbers are in our favor with an army of over three thousand, so a little sloppiness won’t harm us as it would have when we were a hundred or two hundred strong and reliant on larger allies.” He let out a breath and watched it fog the air in front of him. “The larger question is, can we trust him?”

  “Who?” Terian cocked his head back in the direction of the bar. “Hrent? Not remotely. But he’s sold to others and he wants more people to sell to, so I think his information is accurate.”

  “Listen to what you just said.” Cyrus shook his head in amazement. “We’re about to invade the Realm of a God, searching for the cure to a mystical curse, and on the say-so of one of his former servants.”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds like fun.”

  Cyrus laughed. “When I put it that way, it sounds like madness.” The mirth vanished from his face. “That’s a sobering thought.”

  “No, it’s not,” Terian said. “It makes me want to drink.” They turned down an alley and Cyrus caught a sidelong glance from the dark elf. “This really is crazy. Why are you doing it?”

  “I’m just spearheading it,” Cyrus said after a moment’s pause.

  Terian stopped him with a hand on his arm. “We’re talking about crossing into the Realm of the God of Death and upending one of his schemes that is so nefarious, it ends in the death of a whole race. Do you have some kind of hero complex or just a death wish?”

  Cyrus looked to the next building, the old horse barn where Nyad was waiting for them. “We’ve done it for lesser reasons. For gold, armor and weapons.”

  “Yeah,” Terian said. “But what’s the reason this time? To find some miracle cure that probably isn’t even there? I mean, do you think that just because we show up and steal some of his stuff, Mortus will forget that he wants Vara and Curatio dead?”

  “No.”

  A hard look found Cyrus from the dark knight. “Then why?”

  There was a long pause. “Because we have the power now. Because this is their last hope and there aren’t any others. Because we could save an entire race from dying out.” He took a deep breath and struggled with it, feeling the chill deep in his lungs, awakening an ache there.

  “That it?” Terian stared him down.

  “Yeah. That not enough reason for you?”

  The dark knight looked away. “That’ll do, I guess.” He turned, going the last few paces to the old guildhall, where he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Cyrus waited, hesitating just a moment before following him. And...because...I can’t bring back her mother and father.

  Chapter 46

  The quiet of night overwhelmed him. His window was open, and far below, the occasional whinny could be heard from the stables as well as voices from the guards walking patrols along the high walls that protected Sanctuary. A low, rhythmic snoring was audible from across the hall in Vaste’s room. It was not so loud it disturbed him on a normal night. But this is not a normal night, Cyrus thought.

  Surrendering thoughts of sleep, he wandered to the window. The sill was stone, square, and high enough for him to rest his elbows as he leaned forward and out. He looked to his left and saw, two windows down, that Vara’s was open. She’s been through hell since Termina. Her c
ity lost, her mother dead, then her father. Still, after years of dancing around it, I kissed her and she kissed me back. I feel selfish thinking it, but I hope she gets through this rough patch soon. A welling of guilt came up from deep inside him. I just wish she’d let me help her in some way.

  A sob echoed through the night air, jarring him out of his thoughts. It was followed by another. He snatched a cloth shirt and pants and struggled to get them on, then walked down the hallway, his bare feet padding along on the cool stone. “At ease,” he said to the six guards stationed in the hallway. Quietly, he knocked on Vara’s door.

  “Who is it?” came the muffled voice from the other side.

  “Cyrus. I heard you through the open window. Can I come in?”

  After a moment, a small reply made its way to him. “Yes.”

  He opened the door, and she sat on the bed in full armor. The only visible light was from the moon outside. Her back was facing him, her head angled toward the window, but bowed instead of looking out. He shut the door behind him.

  The silence filled the space between them, with only the ambient sounds to disturb the peace. She sniffed, enough to catch his attention, but still she did not turn. “Why did you come here?” she asked him at last.

  “Why did you let me in?” He said it as gently as he could manage.

  “If I hadn’t you’d likely take the same approach as putting a castle under siege; stand outside the door and hammer it, break it down and storm inside.” She sniffed again and turned to him. Her face was dry, though her eyes were red and swollen, the traces of tears still visible even in the moonlight.

  He breathed in, then out. “You’re right. I likely would.”

  “Yes. Since there’s nothing you can do to help me chase away these annoying emotions I’m grappling with, you might as well just leave me be.”