The Sanctuary Series: Volume 03 - Champion

by Robert J. Crane

  The foyer was loud with conversation; explanations flew from those who had remained for the battle with Mortus to those who had left. Exclamations, curses and disbelief all flowed freely in the hall. Cyrus walked Vara to the stairs, ignoring the inquiries that came his way, steering past Alaric, who stood stonefaced, watching everything that was transpiring, and past Longwell, who had sunk to the floor, shaking his head in disbelief.

  He climbed the stairs and she leaned on him for every step. He opened the door to her quarters and helped her to the bed. He unstrapped her armor and set it to the side, and still she did not resist, did not fight back, did not say anything. As soon as her armor was off, she curled up on her bed, facing away from him. He started to leave, but she spoke.

  “Will you...stay with me?”

  He turned to find her looking at him, her eyes filled with fatigue and sadness, and something else, something undefined that recalled the day they first met. “Yes. I will.”

  He sat in the chair by her bed until she slipped off to sleep; it wasn’t more than a few minutes and she was breathing softly, unconscious. He crept from the room, taking care when shutting the door and admonishing the guards who had taken up posts outside to not allow anyone to disturb her for any reason.

  He went to the Council Chambers and found them already full, no conversation taking place within. It was a grim and quiet group of officers inside, and Alaric seemed to be the grimmest of all, staring down at the table, not acknowledging that anyone else was even present.

  “So,” Terian broke the silence as Cyrus took his seat, “I’m just gonna say it. We killed a god.” He leaned back in his chair and frowned. “When you say it out loud, it sounds kind of bad.”

  “We killed a god,” Vaste repeated. “Yeah, I think that’s bad.”

  “We’re heretics for certain,” Ryin Ayend said.

  “Doubtful.” Curatio held his hands cupped in front of his mouth. “No one gives a damn about the God of Death except some truly dark souls on the fringe of society. No one from the Leagues is going to care enough to declare us heretics; hell, most of them will congratulate us on a job well done.”

  “Won’t...” Nyad twitched. “...won’t the other gods be upset with us? You know, for being mortals who killed a god?”

  “That is what the legends say.” Erith cast an uneasy glance around the table.

  “I’m starting to believe your legends after tonight,” Longwell spoke up. “But should it really be that easy to kill a god? I mean, I had some trouble piercing him, but it seemed like Cyrus and Alaric were cutting through him like he was a fresh softbread.”

  “Yes,” J’anda said, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, “if I didn’t know better, I would swear both of you were wielding godly weapons.”

  Alaric looked up slowly. Then, without warning, his hand went to his hip and removed his belt, scabbard and all, and threw it on the table. “This is Aterum, the blade forged by Marei, the Goddess of Night, daughter of Yartraak, 10,000 years ago.”

  Terian looked down the table at Cyrus, who shrugged. “Mine’s Praelior. Not sure what its story is.”

  “Oh, but you do,” Alaric said, eyes filled with sudden intensity. “Praelior was assembled by you, it’s true, but the quest was given to you by the God of War himself.”

  “I—” Cyrus started to protest, but stopped himself. “How did you know that?”

  Alaric ignored his question. “Praelior was forged by Drettanden, the Demigod of Courage, who poured his very essence into the blade to give it the power it now holds. After his death, it was disassembled and scattered by the gods, so as not to be a threat to them in the future.”

  Vaste let out a low whistle. “Should have hid it better.”

  J’anda looked back at Alaric. “I have never heard of this Drettanden nor Marei.”

  Alaric sighed. “That is because they are both dead. The legend, which isn’t widely circulated because of how weak it makes the gods look, holds that Drettanden was killed by the Guildmaster of Requiem—the same man that killed Eruditia with Ferocis—and beginning much of the destruction that took place during the War of the Gods. Marei was killed around the same time period, one of countless others.” He looked around the table. “Their names are buried in obscure tomes; gods and goddesses who died in that war and whose names lay forgotten in the dust of time.”

  “Wait,” Nyad said, a confused look on her face. “Is that why we don’t know the names of the God of Good and God of Evil? Were they killed during the war as well?”

  “Doubtful,” Curatio answered. “Alaric and I have done considerable research—some of which is aided by my memories, some of it hampered,” he said with a smile. “The good news is, I doubt we need to worry about any immediate reprisals from the gods. Mortals have killed gods before, and the division in the pantheon works to our advantage.”

  “But what about the legend?” Nyad pressed. “If the gods didn’t unite in fury over Eruditia’s death, what was it?”

  “There’s no evidence that they united against anyone but Bellarum.” Alaric stood and walked to the balcony window.

  “In other words,” Terian said, “you don’t think we have anything to worry about. Other than the threat of the dark elves sending an army our way, someone else declaring war on us, or the gods themselves coming down and smiting our little haven off the face of Arkaria.”

  A knock at the door sounded, startling them all. “I wonder which of those it is?” Vaste asked, sending a smile Terian’s way.

  Thad peeked his head through the door. “Sir Longwell, you have a messenger—a man named Teodir—here to see you.”

  Longwell blanched. “He’s one of my father’s men,” the dragoon said in surprise. “But he’d have to have traveled months to get here.”

  Thad nodded. “He’s waiting for you in the foyer.”

  Longwell looked to Alaric, the question in his eyes, but the Ghost did not turn from his place at the window, staring out across the plains. “We are adjourned,” he said. “We will assemble again tomorrow at some point.”

  Cyrus waited as the others filed out. Curatio was the last, sending a final look at Alaric that was as mysterious as it was brief. When the door closed, he spoke. “How did you know that Bellarum guided me to my sword?”

  “Not now,” came the knight’s quiet reply. His words came out even more weary than usual.

  “But I—”

  “I SAID NOT NOW!” Alaric’s fury blazed, and Cyrus flinched back from the heat in his words. He hesitated, unused to fleeing from anything, but took slow steps to the door and shut it behind him, placing it between them like a shield, to protect him from the anger of the man who was the closest thing he could remember to having a father.

  Chapter 52

  Vara stirred when he shut the door, even though he closed it as quietly as he could. Damned elven hearing. She rolled over to look at him, and he could see by her eyes that she had been crying again. In her sleep? She sat up, the fire in the hearth still crackling, spitting its warmth across the room. “Hello,” he said.

  She nodded at him. “How fares the Council?”

  “Awash, athwart and abuzz.”

  She scrunched up her face, perplexed. “What?”

  “Never mind. They’re confused. Alaric is as upset as I’ve ever seen him. He yelled at me when I asked him a question. I can’t recall him doing anything like that before.”

  She pulled her knees close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “We did just kill a god. It’s a rather heady feeling.”

  “Apparently I’m the only one excited about that,” Cyrus said. “I mean, if you can kill one—”

  “Don’t. That road leads to madness; to a quest that has no good end and no real purpose.”

  “I suppose not.” A moment passed, and he found the courage to speak the words on his mind. “In Death’s Realm, you were ready to—”

  “I was.” She cut him off. “Perhaps I still am; I don’t know my own heart at the moment.
Things seem very dark indeed, as though all my hopes were drained along with my spirit.”

  “There’s always hope.”

  She lowered her head. “No. There’s nothing left now. My people are doomed. My parents are dead.” Her hand reached up to her face, brushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. “My hope is gone.”

  “I know it seems that way right now,” he said, a hand stroking her shoulder, feeling the cloth of her undershirt against his fingers, “but your life is long, and the black despair that covers you now will lift, given time and fortune. Trust me. I know.”

  “You didn’t know your parents.” Her words came out free of accusation, but they stung all the same.

  “True,” he recovered from the pain of her last statement. “But my wife left me, and I lost Narstron—”

  “Let us not compare agonies. My last lover stabbed me through the back and then killed all my friends.”

  “I am not minimizing your pain,” he said, trying to keep his voice soothing, “but you eventually recovered and continued living your life—”

  “And that’s worked out marvelously for me.”

  “It gets better,” Cyrus said in a whisper.

  “Does it?” Her words were bitter, tinted with the emotion within her. “Tell me, warrior of Bellarum, how it gets better? I realize that you got over your parents quickly and easily by burying your sorrows in the bosom of your ‘blood family’ when you joined the Society—” he rankled at her words, feeling the swell deep inside, wanting to correct the wrong of what she said, but he held it in—“but some of us don’t open up that easily, don’t have anyone to go to.”

  “You can come to me,” he said, eyes burning. “I have been here for you.”

  “Can I?” She stared at him, dull, dead in the eyes. “Can I truly?”

  “Yes!” He felt the words flowing over him, the feeling, and he let it take him. “I have loved you since the day I first saw you. I have dreamed about you, about what it would be like to be with you, and all I’ve wanted—all I’ve ever wanted—is to be with you, to love you...to have you love me.”

  She stared back at him, unflinching at his admission. “And in a hundred years, when you are dead and I yet live, who am I to go to then?”

  He heard her speak the words, but they hit him with almost physical force, stunning him. “What?”

  “In a thousand years, will you be there for me? In two thousand, will I have forgotten your name? The touch of you against my skin? Will my memories of you be vivid, painful and bright? Or will they dry up like water in the desert, and leave me without remembrance of the blue of your eyes, the lines of your face, the callouses on your hands?”

  He felt dry in the mouth, and stilled himself lest a tremble make its way through his body. “What...are you saying?”

  “It will not work, Cyrus. It can never be, you and I. For I am elf, and my life is long and my duties are as great as my sorrow. We will not, cannot be. Not ever.”

  He staggered off the bed, barely in control of himself, feeling drunk though he hadn’t had a drop. “You don’t mean that.”

  She looked at him coolly. “I mean every word of it. I thank you for trying to comfort me in my hour of need, but I’ll have you take your leave now.” She turned over in the bed and lay down, facing the window.

  He staggered away and through the door, not bothering to shut it behind him, letting the guard do it instead. The world seemed to carry a strange hum, loud enough in his ears that he couldn’t hear anything around him as his feet carried him down the stairs to the foyer. There was still a gathered crowd, and a great many hands slapped him on the back as he passed. He felt them dimly, as though they touched him in a dream.

  He found himself sitting in a chair in the lounge, staring out the front window into the darkness. Did she ever feel the same as I did? Was she just confused after having so many emotions running through her for so long? Is this because of that bastard Archenous Derregnault? If I killed him, maybe...

  He looked up in surprise when he realized Longwell had spoken his name several times. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Didn’t mean to disturb you,” Longwell said. “I wanted to say farewell.”

  “Farewell?” Cyrus tried to shake off the veil of confusion that hung around his head. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” the dragoon said. “I leave on the morrow. My father’s kingdom is invaded and the situation is grim. My father finds himself at war against long odds against our neighbors. He sent one of his knights to bring me home.”

  “Where is home?” Cyrus asked the question almost ruefully, as much to Longwell as himself.

  “Over the Endless Bridge, across the Strait of Carmas, in the Land of Luukessia. It’s a large place, but only humans live there; three kingdoms forever jousting back and forth over territory.” He looked down at his boots. “I hoped to escape that life of constant, pointless combat, but my father calls, saying things are dire. Luukessia has been deadlocked for a thousand years, and it seems the northern kingdom of the mountains has grown strong enough to upset the balance. My father needs every hand he can find.”

  “Does he?” Cyrus said. “Could he make use of me?” He looked up at the dragoon, finding Longwell’s eyes startled.

  “I daresay,” Longwell replied. “My father could use any able sword he could get, to say nothing of the fiercest warrior in all Arkaria.”

  “Keep talking like that and you’ll swell his head.” Terian spoke, crossing to join them from where he had been seated by one of the hearths. In his hands was something familiar, a scabbard, the one that held the sword that Aisling had brought Cyrus from Termina.

  “That’s mine,” the warrior said, pointing at the weapon in Terian’s hands.

  “Oh?” The dark knight’s voice was suddenly cold. “How so?”

  “Aisling brought it back from Termina for me,” Cyrus said. “I was set upon by a dark knight, and we battled. I killed him.”

  “Ah,” Terian said with a bow. “In that case, here is your prize, good sir.” He knelt with exaggerated pomp and proffered the hilt as a squire would, holding the scabbard for Cyrus to draw the sword.

  “It’s all right,” Cyrus said with a shake of the head. “I kept it because I thought one of our brethren could use it; it’s a finer sword than most any and it seemed a shame for it to fall into disuse or be sold.”

  Terian looked back at him, emotionless. “Aye. I’ve been looking to put aside my axe for a while. If you’d be amenable, I’d take it off your hands until a day comes when you have need of it.”

  “I doubt that day will come,” Cyrus said. “Use it freely. I gift it to you.”

  “A princely gift. I hope the day comes when I can repay you for what you’ve done.” Terian took the scabbard and fastened it into his belt, then turned to Longwell. “Would your father have need of a dark knight in this Land of Luukessia?”

  “My father would find use for any who came with me,” the dragoon said. “His letter asked me to bring along any assistance I can provide. As I said, we know no magic in those lands, so anyone who fights with the aid of it, as you do, would be worth a hundred or more ordinary soldiers.”

  “Then I will go with you into the east,” Cyrus said.

  “We leave on the morrow,” Longwell told him. “We have a long ride ahead of us; I hope to have a wizard teleport us—”

  “To the portal on the beach on the Sea of Carmas?” Cyrus asked.

  “You know of it?”

  “I’ve seen the Endless Bridge, once,” Cyrus said. “I wondered where it went at the time.”

  “To another land,” Longwell said. “A green and beautiful place, but a long journey. It’s two days’ hike south on the beach, then five long days across the bridge. We must be provisioned amply before crossing, for there is no fresh water nor food to be found on it. At the other side lies the first kingdom of the three. They would let one man pass—perhaps two or three. Any more and we will be challenged. All told, it w
ill take us near two months to make it to my father’s lands from here.”

  “I’ll pack my things,” Cyrus told him, “and see you on the morrow.”

  After nodding farewell to Terian, he climbed the stairs and hesitated at the landing where the doors to the Council Chamber were. After a moment of doubt tugged at him, he stopped. I owe him at least an explanation.

  The door creaked as Cyrus entered. The hearth burned with a fire that warmed the room, and the smell of wood burning gave him a last sense of home. Alaric remained standing where Cyrus had left him earlier, and did not turn when the door opened. “Samwen Longwell is going back to his homeland, Luukessia, to help defend his father’s Kingdom, which is under attack. I wanted to let you know that I’ll be going with him, as is Terian.”

  The Ghost turned, and Cyrus saw neutrality on his face. “The land of Luukessia is torn by war?”

  “Aye,” Cyrus replied. “Longwell’s father has a kingdom there. They are in need of able hands to wield swords.”

  “Enrant Monge.” Alaric’s words were quiet. “Very well. We have a problem to attend to before you leave.”

  “Oh?” Cyrus rested a hand on the back of his chair.

  “Because of our rising fortunes and the notoriety you garnered in your defense of Termina, we have accumulated over a thousand applicants who have little to no combat experience. Without a general to lead them, they will languish. Indeed, the attack on the Realm of Death was the first taste of battle for some of them, yet most were not even through the portal by the time the fight was over.” He walked to the table and leaned over it. “If you are to be absent for...as long as you are likely to be gone...we will need these new recruits trained.”

  Cyrus stiffened. “If you have to appoint a new general, I understand—”

  “I will put out a call for volunteers to join you; you will take as many of them with you as will come,” Alaric interrupted him. “They are of no use to us until they have known combat, and we are unlikely to be engaging in any invasions in your absence. A land without magic is a good place for them to learn what battle is about. You will assemble forty to fifty experienced veterans and magic users, and I will send word to the newest recruits, whose experience is lacking, and see who is willing to accompany you.”