Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  Cyrus watched Terian’s slow collapse; Grinnd was attacking Lexirea’s hindquarters to no effect, his mystical weapons chipping away at her skin, hewing fragments out the size of fistfuls as she screamed in Terian’s face. He can’t hold out, Cyrus realized, he’s going to—

  Terian’s arm buckled and Lexirea howled triumph, knocking Noctus out of his grasp and thumping Terian into the ground. Cyrus saw blood spurt from Terian’s lips, a blue cloud in the air and a subtle moan escape his lips as the Goddess of Justice lifted her hand high to strike the killing blow—and Cyrus was still twenty feet away—

  Something flashed in the air above, something Cyrus caught only a glimpse of as it sailed past. It was too small to be a person, too dark to be a spell, even if they hadn’t been under cessation. It flew straight and clean, right toward its intended target—

  And buried itself in Lexirea’s eye.

  The goddess spasmed in pain, pulling her hand, poised to strike at Terian, away and fumbling for her red, glowing eye socket. Cyrus could see the obstruction, like a shadow across a red sun, thin and long like—

  Like an arrow.

  He turned his head, expecting to see Calene—but hadn’t she been fighting Nessalima only a moment earlier? Instead his eyes caught a green-cloaked archer with dark, flowing hair, her face showing all the signs of fury and rage and all her years of experience—

  And Martaina Proelius let fly another volley, expertly aimed, as all her arrows were, and she struck Lexirea’s other eye as Cyrus reached the goddess at last. Distracted, Lexirea had forgotten him and was plunging her fat, slimy-looking fingers into her glowing eye sockets.

  Cyrus jumped and hit her in the chest, a full-body slam following his sword thrust, driving the point into her. She let out a muted scream that cut off. This time there was no avoiding the collapse; Lexirea dropped upon him like an avalanche down a mountain, covering him as she fell. Cyrus worked Praelior’s blade around inside her like he was carving a roast loin, jerking the tip as much as he could, crushed beneath her weight.

  “You won’t … win … Davidon,” she said, shrunken now to the point where her head was only twice the size of his own, her eyes obstructed by the arrow shafts sticking out of them. Black ooze slopped down into his face, splattering along his mouth and nose as he ripped and tore at her innards with his sword.

  “I don’t care about winning,” Cyrus said, spitting through her blood, staring up at those eyes with hate to match that which he saw there. “If I can kill you and your kind first, then you can take my life at the last, I don’t give a damn.”

  “Damned …” Her lips worked like the intestines of a beast, writhing and pulsing as she fought to get words out. “You will be … damned … for this …”

  “You first,” came a voice from above, and Noctus descended, striking Lexirea’s head from her shoulders, carefully halting before the blade carried through to hit Cyrus. Terian stood above him, lips bleeding, and carelessly kicked the corpse of the Goddess of Justice off Cyrus. Praelior pulled free with a great sucking sound, and disgusting, writhing entrails slopped down Cyrus’s front and to the dirt.

  He cast a look at Martaina. “You’re back,” he said weakly.

  She still had an arrow nocked, watching him through a mask of thinly contained anger. “I’m an elf. They attacked my people’s capital. I could not stand by and let that happen—and neither could our fellows.” She nodded, and Cyrus turned to see others in the fight, dragging down Nessalima, shaving great pieces of rock from her. He saw rangers of the southern lands, elves in full armor and wearing the battle colors of Termina and Pharesia and other cities. There were armies coming over the horizon now, quick-marching toward the fight, bleeding out of the trees.

  And there, in front of them all, was Zarnn, slashing and carving at the Goddess of Light, pinning her to the ground without mercy, and striking her to pieces with cat claw and sword. Calene was firing arrow after arrow straight down into the goddess’s eyes, with less skill than Martaina, but still too good to miss at that distance. Longwell had his spear buried in the side of the goddess, who was on her back. Aisling struck, carving a hand free at the elbow and leaving the goddess with one hand, one quivering hand thrust into the air as though she were reaching for the sun and falling short.

  While he watched, the hand sagged, and the arm lost its vigor. Black blood splashed freely as a hundred elves and the last of the Army of Sanctuary fell upon the shrinking Goddess of Light, and Cyrus watched without pity or any desire for mercy as they stole the last of the life from her.

  26.

  Alaric

  I stood in that last holding area before the sands of the Coliseum. I stood and waited at the head of my little army of dozens, peering through a gate at the crowds beyond, shouting to the heavens in their anticipation for what was coming. I looked out as I’d envisioned, but there was none of the orange cast to the sands today; when we had come in it had been a grey and drizzly iron sky above, impermeable, impenetrable by the sun.

  I stood, my knees threatening to shake, my mind working its quickest to undermine me. I had learned from Jena at least a little. Enough to possibly save me if the moment came, but she had been firm: “The Butcher is more practiced at spellcraft than you. If you make this your opening gambit, if you try to start the battle in this way, he will destroy you utterly.”

  And so it had been decided that I would hold it back, keep this my little secret. With practice, I could now do a few things, but none of them particularly well. Even as pitiful a strategist as I was, I held no illusions—this advantage was not an advantage at all, merely a small attempt to level the scales. Very small indeed, and useless if I used it wrong.

  I waited in front of my little army, and at last I realized that none of them knew what I knew. I hadn’t shared my new ability for fear that word might get around, spoiling my surprise. I could hear their hard, nervous breaths, could hear someone in the back appealing to his ancestors. The fear at that moment was practically tangible, something I could reach out and stroke, or that could come at me from behind and kill me the moment the gate opened and we all flooded out into battle.

  “Listen,” I said, remembering the generals I’d met in court and interviewed, thinking that I could learn to lead simply by asking the right questions. Some of them recommended inspiring speeches on a regular basis, others more sparingly, but they all spoke as if encouraging oratory were a vital military tactic. I felt I could be no different, not in this moment of trial. “I know what you have heard regarding this … elf. This Butcher. The tales that have circulated would have him as some sort of … mad beast, unkillable. Well, I don’t believe that—”

  “The guards are unkillable,” Olivier said, his quivering voice coming out of the dark, loud enough that I heard him for the first time in what felt like a decade. “Why should this creature be any different?”

  “Because he’s not one of them,” I said, tightly. Olivier was ruining my chance to inspire the men, and I could feel my teeth ache to grind together at what I perceived to be his insolence. Couldn’t he have just stayed silent for a few more minutes, damn him?

  “But he’s got their magic,” Olivier said as the gate started to crank, rising before us, opening our path to the wetted sands of the Coliseum floor. “He’s as good as one of them.”

  “He is not one of the blue men,” I said. “He’s not a Protanian—”

  “When he burns us to death like one of them, you tell me the difference,” Olivier said, his voice breaking at the last.

  The cheers of the crowd interrupted any reply I might have made. This was the moment we had to enter, there was nothing else for it. I started forward, outpacing the men easily, save for one. Varren followed along at my heels, hectoring the others behind me to, “Hurry up, damn you!” and “Get in line, you idiots!” He was followed by a surly Stepan, who did as he was told but said nothing in the process.

  Standing there, in the middle of the Coliseum, the crowd chanting with antic
ipation, I could feel a wall between myself and my men. It was a wall that I had foolishly thought I’d dissolved through my efforts, through my newfound leadership, but as I cast a look back at the faces behind me—frightened, twisted with fear—I knew that I was leading Varren and few others. Fear was leading the rest of them—fear of the Butcher ahead of us and fear of the blue men guards and what they would do if my army didn’t march out to meet our fate.

  The crowd cheered, assailing my ears with its boisterous glee. They were louder than I ever recalled them being as I looked up, past the stands to the grey sky, covered with clouds like a storm was brewing. I looked down at the shredded, hanging front of my doublet, my dirty chest buried under sand and muck from my fights and my practices with Rin. I had learned so much in my time here, a brutal education that had just seemed like it might be paying off as I was marched into this fight.

  And of course, I worried like the rest of them that this fight would be my last.

  I didn’t try to shout over the crowd, didn’t try to stir the passions of my men to stay by my side. I had nothing but a secret with which to motivate them, and I felt resentful, still, that they did not accord me the respect I felt was my due. Part of me hoped they’d all die, that I’d be on my own, because I could handle that better than having to lead these ingrates who wanted me to teach them but didn’t give a damn for following. I could feel the sting of the beating I’d suffered in the wagon ride to the camp, like it was fresh, could almost taste the blood in my mouth again as it dripped down into the back of my throat. It was vile and it made me angrier yet.

  My eyes looked over the indistinguishable crowd and fell again on the box at the far end of the Coliseum. There they were again, guards surrounding the tented-over seating area, with one man at the middle of it all. Once again, I knew he was watching me, but all I could see was his blue skin, and that of a woman next to him, their dark hair shadowed under the canopy.

  The shouts faded, and the voice of the announcer picked up again, screaming to the heavens that same damned word the crowd had chanted last time: “Gongh-ete!” He said something else along with it, but I didn’t understand anything other than the word, the word that told me my foe was coming.

  The gate at the opposite end of the Coliseum, the one right under the king or emperor’s box, opened, and darkness was all that lay beyond. I stared, hoping I would see nothing, nothing for the next hour. I felt that twisting sensation in my stomach, the one that told me that my fear was overmatching any anticipation I had for this bout. Fighting still wasn’t my thing, but at least I’d gotten better at it.

  At last, I saw movement in the dark, carefully sculpted armor on a figure that was marching out with a purpose. He wore a helm on top of his head, and I could see pale skin where his face was, though his features were so distant that they were indistinguishable from anyone. He could have been my father, for all I knew. As I watched, he flipped down a metal visor to cover his face, and raised his weapons in a salute that drew cheers from the crowd.

  “He looks … small,” Varren said behind me. I looked back, and he shrugged. “After all I heard, I was expecting a beast ten feet tall.”

  “He’s just a man,” I said, but my words were hollow. I didn’t believe the Butcher’s reputation was unearned or undeserved. He’d killed many of our kind, I was sure of that. Just as sure as I was that the unassuming blue men who had attacked us in the north of Syloreas were as near to invincible as any Luukessian had ever known.

  The Butcher walked his way out to the center of the Coliseum, his gait steady and his shoulders back. He had weapons in his hands; one looked like a long, nasty blade with an ugly curve to it, and the other was a metal ball atop a haft the length of a short sword. I’d seen some similar weapons in Luukessia, morning stars and the like, but generally they weren’t as simple as what he was carrying. Also, they usually had spikes.

  The announcer went into a long string of Protanian, and the crowd roared with their anticipation. It felt like it was reaching a fever pitch, with feet stomping and chants breaking down the sides of the stands. “Gongh-ete! Gongh-ete! Gongh-ete!”

  “They know we’re doomed,” Olivier said, too far out of my reach for me to backhand him into silence. And I would have, too.

  “Won’t they be surprised,” I muttered. I had a plan. It was predicated on all the things that Jena had told me about how the Butcher approached battle, but it was still flimsy at best.

  The Butcher turned and saluted to the man in the canopy-covered box. The man saluted him back, never rising, just offering a wave of the hand, and the Butcher turned back to us, entirely too quickly for me to have mounted a silent assault across the hundred feet of ground between us.

  The Butcher flipped down a mask to cover his face, and he began to advance on us. “Hold your ground!” I said, holding up a hand to stay my army. “When he gets closer, encircle him!”

  The Butcher spoke, loud and yet melodic, in a language very different from that of the Protanians. He advanced with his weapons still at his sides, plainly unconcerned about us or any tactic we might employ. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I found out later that he’d said, “Do all you can, and I will still take from you your last hope.”

  He said it every time he battled humans in the Coliseum.

  I advanced to meet him, though not with nearly the eagerness he did. Varren moved to my right and Stepan to my left, the only two to advance with me. They carried their swords before them in a guard, ready for the attack as the Butcher walked the last ten feet to us and swung his weapons.

  Varren caught the metal ball and barely turned it aside with his sword. Stepan struck the elf’s sword, and his buckled under the strength of the weapon. The elf shoved the blade back and it lodged in Stepan’s head, splitting his face down the middle. Stepan wobbled, then fell, his jawbone cloven in two.

  The crowd roared with approval at the drawing of first blood as I moved in to strike. I came low and my sword bounced harmlessly off the Butcher’s armor. He grunted as I struck. My weapon rebounded, and I barely brought it around in time to strike a glancing blow against his sword, enough to deflect it from taking my arm.

  The elf laughed, then twisted the mounted metal ball, jabbing it into Varren’s face. I heard bones break, saw teeth fly out of his mouth, and then, at the apex of the attack, the elf flicked a switch in the haft of his weapon, and I noticed little holes in the metal ball. I had only a quarter-second to ponder their purpose before I found out.

  Spikes burst from the ball, shredding what was left of Varren’s face. He staggered backward and the elf pulled the weapon back, rolling it in an underhanded motion, and then brought it up as Varren was starting to slump.

  The spiked ball caught Varren beneath the chin and smashed his lower face. Eight to ten bloody welts opened in his throat and beneath his jaw as he was knocked from his feet like someone with a rug ripped out from beneath them. He landed on his back, his head hit the dirt, and Varren, my only steadfast supporter left, died right there, eyes open and facing the grey heavens.

  “You bastard!” I said, continuing my attack. The Butcher laughed and shoved me back, cackling with dire fury.

  “To hell with this!” shouted a man at the back of my army. I heard swords being thrown down and sandaled feet running across the Coliseum floor as someone beat a hasty retreat. They did not get far, however, and there was a flash as someone cast magic out of the stands. I turned my head enough to see three men covered in flames, screaming and pirouetting, on fire in the middle of the sandy ground behind us.

  The Butcher laughed even louder.

  I came at him again and he parried, though a little slower this time, his sword against my sword, holding back his spiked mace in reserve. I could see his eyes dancing behind the mask, his lips split in a grin. He blocked my attacks, though he had to put some effort into it. I could see him straining with each assault; although he had seemed faster than me at first, I couldn’t tell whether he was tiring, or
merely obliging me.

  “You have spirit,” he said, finally, in my own language. “You’re a fool and an animal, but you have spirit. And here I had thought your people entirely geldings.”

  I didn’t answer, instead redoubling my attack against him. In response, he laughed even harder. I came at him high and he turned it aside with a thrust of his own. I came at him at the middle and he struck my sword away. I came at him low …

  And as he made to block my attack in the exact same manner he’d blocked the last two, I swept my weapon up and caught him underneath the mask, running my blade across the skin of his neck.

  His eyes widened beneath the mask, red blood fountained up as he dropped his sword and stumbled back. He slapped up the mask and it sprang to a ninety-degree angle from his forehead, the hinge opened. He looked shocked. And now that I was close to him, I realized he looked nothing like my father. His nose was average, his cheekbones were a little pointed, and he had a weak chin that was now smudged with his own blood.

  I kicked his sword away and raised my own to pursue, but he brought up his empty hand and it twinkled white light. He pulled his hand away from his neck and it fountained blood no more. The stunned look on his face vanished in an instant, replaced with white-hot rage.

  The crowd noise had died in an instant, stunned silence as though someone had drowned the entire Coliseum around me.

  “You … struck me,” he said, staring at me, mouth still agape.

  “That is the point, is it not … Butcher?”

  His defenses were back up, his mace at the ready.

  Rage crackled across his features, his pale face turning red as a field worker’s. He threw a hand up and it gleamed with black light for just a flash, enough to distract me. “My name—is Curatio!”

  Before I could respond, he brought the spiked mace up from a low swing, aimed right at my chin like he had when he’d killed Varren.