Master (Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

He watched the retreating columns of dark elves, falling back down the road into the forest, and saw the first sign of the cavalry’s long, charging column snaking its way onto the path to pursue the fleeing dark elves. A whole army. They just threw away a whole army here. I wouldn’t have thought the Sovereign had any of those left to waste like this.

  “But we’re not done with the war, are we?” Vara asked. Her voice was cold and clear and lingered in the night—and he knew that she did not need him to answer.

  Chapter 35

  “That took the piss right out of them.” Longwell was jubilant, and to Cyrus’s ears he sounded more alive than he had in roughly forever. “Nothing like a cavalry charge to put a damper on a dark elf’s day.”

  “They do seem particularly susceptible to being run over by men on horseback,” Vaste said. “Though I suppose this time it wasn’t just dark elves, but the whole mixture of overlarge brutes that Goliath employs for their warrior corps.”

  “The reason they’re particularly susceptible to men on horseback,” Vara said, sounding to Cyrus like she was explaining something very basic to a child, “is because they don’t carry spears among their warrior class. It’s hard to break the charge of a galloping army by holding out a sword and hoping for the best.”

  “That was a very technically proficient explanation,” Vaste said, “but I think you left out the part where it’s difficult to maintain a formation when everyone in front of you is screaming, crying and dying from getting trampled by hooves.”

  The battlefield already smelled of rotten, stinking death. Cyrus watched the Council members bicker with little interest. The black of night had settled in over them, and only a few hundred of the Luukessian dragoons were still riding scouting parties down the trail. A thousand campfires were spread across the meadow where the battle had been fought, and there were guards posted all through the woods and along the road to insure that the army was not taken by surprise. Cyrus had ordered a quiet vigil and suspected that his order was not received very popularly. Still, there had been minimal grumbling that he’d heard—not that many would have had the courage to complain to him.

  “Do you think they’ll come back?” Vaste asked, and Cyrus glanced over to see the troll looking directly at him.

  “Probably not,” Cyrus said, feeling the heat of the nearest fire cut through the cold night air. He looked back at Livlosdald keep and saw the light of the torches and watch fires up on the high walls. Looks like they’ll see the dawn. And they wouldn’t have if we weren’t here. “I would have to guess we killed greater than half their number. Goliath alone probably lost some four thousand.”

  “Along with a goodly portion of the spell casters,” Vara said. “Too bad Malpravus escaped with their officers.”

  Cyrus lapsed into a silence with the rest of them at that point, and the crackle of the fire filled his ears. He had checked carefully among the corpses, but there was no sign of Orion, nor of Selene. There were a few spell casters he recognized from the days before Goliath had broken from Alliance with Sanctuary, but very few. They were all much like Yei—he knew their faces, might have remembered their names, but they were little more than acquaintances. “You know who I didn’t see?” Cyrus asked, still contemplating. “Tolada. I wonder if he’s still in Goliath.”

  “Hard to believe he could find a place elsewhere,” Vaste said. “Most guilds have basic competency requirements, after all.”

  “We don’t, apparently,” Vara muttered.

  “General.” Odellan’s voice caused Cyrus to tilt his head to look. The elf was making his way toward the officers’ fire from where the front line was still standing guard. “The dark elves have sent an envoy under flag of truce to discuss retrieving their dead.”

  Cyrus stared at Odellan blankly. “Their dead? Since when do the dark elves care enough to retrieve their dead?”

  Odellan shrugged, removing his winged helm. “Since now, apparently. They’ve sent unarmed men in empty wagons to do it.”

  Cyrus blinked. Repatriating the dead was a long-held practice—for the humans and the elves, at least. I’ve never heard of the dark elves giving so much as a blue fig for their dead. He turned his head to face Erith. “What the hells?”

  She shrugged, at least as confused as he was. “I don’t know. Unless the dead are highly esteemed, they’re used for compost in a place called the Depths.”

  “You compost your dead?” Vaste asked, and the troll had one shining yellow eye larger than the other in the darkness. “And grow what with them?”

  “Mushrooms,” Erith said with a shrug. “Wildroot. Staples of the diet of the poor.”

  “You essentially feed your dead to the poor, then,” Vaste said, nodding. “Suddenly, so much makes sense about Saekaj Sovar.”

  “This is more of a Sovar thing,” Erith said, though not very loudly.

  Cyrus felt a desire to chew his lip, but resisted. “Fine, go ahead and allow the dark elves to come and get their dead. It’s not like they’re going to be able to resurrect them.” He paused. “Wait, can Malpravus bring them back to life to fight for him now?”

  “No,” Vaste said, shaking his head. “His magic can only bring back the recently dead that way, and—” He froze. “You son of a bitch!”

  Cyrus eyed him warily. “Just got it, didn’t you?”

  “You knew he’d bring them back to life,” Vaste said, voice rising, “if you didn’t cast the cessation spells over the battlefield—”

  “Go ahead, Odellan,” Cyrus said, feeling all the energy bleed out of him with a sigh. “Might as well be decent to our enemies. Keep a close watch on them, though, and have archers standing by with bows drawn, spell casters with hands at the ready. If this is some sneak attack, kill them first and resurrect later. I won’t have us get annihilated by some treacherous trick Malpravus schemed.”

  “Understood,” Odellan said, and with a sharp salute, he retreated into the darkness.

  Cyrus could feel the fatigue settling in on him like nightfall. The day’s battles had taken their toll, and his eyes fought to stay open.

  “You should get some sleep,” Erith said with—to Cyrus’s surprise—sympathy.

  “Yes, sleep, you devious bastard,” Vaste said, still eyeing him. “Sleep, and enjoy this triumph of outwitting me, because it shan’t happen again.”

  “Perhaps you should set a more aggressive goal for him next time,” Vara said, “such as being more swift-witted than a gnome.”

  “You know,” Nyad said, “there are some truly clever gnomes out there …”

  Shuffling off into the dark, Cyrus did not catch the rest of the wizard’s statement. He looked again to the towers of Livlosdald keep, wondering what was going on within them now. He sniffed the air; the same aroma of dead things hung heavy. Campfires were burning closer to the keep as well, now, and Cyrus knew from the reports of the division he’d tasked to guard the portal that even now Pretnam Urides’s army was massing nearby. A scant few more hours and we’ll be relieved. For some reason, I doubt Malpravus will rally in time to give us another headache before he leaves.

  There was a tent set only a hundred paces away, and he could see a half dozen warriors standing in a perimeter around it with a wizard and a druid in close attendance. The warriors saluted as he approached, and in the shadows just behind it he caught a hint of movement. He peered closer, almost certain what he would find. Martaina stepped out just far enough for him to see her, a distant fire’s light catching the curve of her bow, and then she melted back into the shadows. Always watched, now. He pushed through the tent flap after returning his salute to the warriors and found a lamp already lit inside for him.

  A small cot lay in the middle of the room, and a trestle table with a map of the battlefield and surrounding area stood just to his right. There was a scent of the lamp burning to help blot out of the stench of war and death, but only just. The lingering scent hung with him, as though it was somehow seared into his flesh.

  “You should be
more careful.” He turned to see Aisling lurking just behind him to the left, sitting in a wooden chair that had cloth stretched over it and was hinged to fold. She was on it only lightly, poised to strike to his eyes, though she sheathed the dagger she had in her hands as soon as he turned to see her. “Your guards do not make you invincible.”

  “No, they make me guarded,” Cyrus said, and took a step toward the desk. He lingered there, staring across the tent at her, feeling the gulf of distance between them. “But not from you, apparently. Did they let you in or did you steal in all on your own?”

  “‘Steal’ is a funny choice of words,” she said, nearly impassive.

  “An appropriate one,” Cyrus said. “And not one I think you would take offense to.”

  “No,” she said. “No offense taken.” She stood, her hardened leather armor making not even a whisper as she did so. She had faint hints of blood here and there, a little dark blue clumping together at the ends of strands of hair on her left side. “You won a great victory today.”

  “I won a victory today,” he agreed. “Minimal losses for us, maximum losses for the Sovereignty. I guess you could consider it a good victory.”

  “I think it would be considered great, as I said before.” She stirred, and he felt again an odd distance between them, both literal and emotional. “You led us to success against the most formidable army in the land. To beat the Sovereign at this point—”

  “You knew he was Yartraak all along, didn’t you?” Cyrus watched her stiffen, watched her mouth shift in a subtle way. He wasn’t used to seeing her like that, not even when he’d first begun to figure out how to corner her years before. She was a curious creature to him still, mercurial in her temperament, strange in many ways, and unpredictable in her responses.

  “Of course,” was all she said.

  “I suppose you couldn’t tell me any more than any of the other dark elves could,” he said.

  “Not really.”

  “Why not?” Cyrus asked, turning back on her. “We’re lovers, aren’t we? We’re—”

  “Are we?” She stepped closer to him. “Are we lovers? I think if you would open the flap to your tent and let everyone see us right now, they might come away with a far different idea about what we are. Strangers, perhaps.”

  “Well, we do things together that I wouldn’t exactly do to a stranger—”

  “But those are all physical,” she said. “To call us lovers is laughable. You keep your distance from me, never letting me get truly close. You’ll bury your head in my breast in the night but you wish for morning so I’ll be gone.”

  Cyrus felt the sting of her accusations, felt the sting of the truth in them. “I don’t …” He cringed, unsure what to say.

  “Don’t hold back and practice a lie,” she said. “Tell me the truth that is on your mind.”

  “You told me once that you wanted only what I could give you,” Cyrus said. “I think you know by now that love is not one of the things I can give. Nor is closeness, nor true intimacy, nor any of the things you might wish of me. The only thing I have given you since we got back from Luukessia is the physical, because I think it’s all I have left to give you. I made a mistake—”

  She eased closer to him, and he could feel her begin to change in that moment. “You didn’t make a mistake. You made a choice. You wanted, on some level, to be with me—”

  “I wanted to—” He cut himself off again. “What I want is—”

  She leaned in and kissed him fiercely, cutting across the distance between them. Her hand came up and found his side, reaching for the straps that secured his breastplate and backplate together, and he turned them aside. She broke from him, the surprise in her eyes obvious even to him in his dulled state. It faded quickly, though, whether because it didn’t disappoint her or because she hid it, he did not know. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cyrus said. “I want to not wonder for a while. Not wonder how many things I’m doing wrong. How many things I’m screwing up.” He removed his helm and set it upon the desk, watching the sharp edges on the bottom crinkle the map’s parchment with its weight. “I want to walk through my life not feeling like I’ve made monumentally stupid choices that continue to haunt me every day.” He smiled faintly. “I want—”

  “It’s not always about what you want, you know,” she said quietly.

  He turned in slight surprise. “Didn’t you just ask me, though? Change your mind?” Afraid the truth might be something incompatible with what you want? A thought of Vara flashed through his head.

  “You’re a leader,” she said and brushed against him, leaning on his back as he turned away from her. “You don’t always get to choose what you want. You have … obligations.”

  “I have obligations,” he agreed. “But I’m only the General of Sanctuary. The rest is—”

  “Soon to be your responsibility as well,” she said.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You make a difference to these people.” Her words were low and breathy, warming his ear in a way he didn’t really want to feel right now, as satisfying as they were to his ego. “You’re a man of influence—the most influence in Sanctuary. You lead them whether you want to or not.” She hesitated, and he heard it in the way her voice broke. “You can be like Alaric—”

  “I’m nothing like Alaric,” Cyrus said, not turning to face her. He felt a slight smirk emerge with a thought that bubbled out. “You want to sleep with the Guildmaster of Sanctuary?”

  She kissed his neck and he did not stop her. He closed his eyes and felt the gentle, teasing touch of her tongue against his skin and it gave him a little thrill. “I want to sleep with you,” she said. She kissed his neck again, standing on her tiptoes to do so, tugging him down just enough to reach. He let her do her work, did not fight it. It doesn’t matter what I want, he thought. Not really. Everyone needs something from me. And I need—

  I need—

  He felt the urge and heeded it, keeping his eyes shut tightly as he leaned down to kiss her full on the mouth. He ignored the cinnamon, pretending it was something else, and unfastened her leather armor by hand, from memory—pretending all the while that it was shining and silver instead.

  Chapter 36

  When Cyrus awoke, sunlight was streaming in from the gaps in the tent’s cloth. He flinched, blinking from the brightness. He wondered only for a moment at what time it might be, then shifted on his cot to find he was, unsurprisingly, alone. She never stays, and it’s probably just as well. He let a low sigh. She might have been right about that one thing, though. They all hang on my every word around here, they set up guard on my tent without me asking. Even the damned dark knights of the Sovereign come at me first thing in a battle in order to get me out of the way.

  The thought came with great reluctance, like a donkey being dragged along against its will by a troll. I’m a leader. They expect me to lead, and not just in battle.

  But I’m not Alaric.

  I could never be Alaric.

  He shifted the light furs that covered his cot and sat upright, feeling his naked flesh against the softness of his covers. His underclothes were all spread across the ground, along with his armor. Eyeing the tent in the cold light of day, he realized that someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to bring the maps and desks and cot out here. Or perhaps they conjured them, Cyrus thought. For some reason he found that easier to tolerate somehow, as though it absolved him from having to concern himself with the idea that someone had gone to the trouble of bringing all this for him.

  He dressed and had nearly finished strapping on his breastplate when there was a rustling at the flap of the tent. He could already hear the sounds of the army outside—raucous, filled with laughter and yelling and good cheer. When the flap moved, his eyes went to it immediately, dropping the last strap of his breastplate, hand falling to the hilt of Praelior.

  One of the warriors stuck his head in. “Visitor for you, Gener
al.”

  “Thank you,” Cyrus said, nodding at the man. He didn’t know his name. How did he not know his name? The fellow had a square jaw and looked to be more human in appearance than elven. They always had smoother faces, somehow. “I’ll be out in a moment.”

  He finished with the last strap, listening to the satisfying sound of the leather stretching as he pulled it tight, and hastened toward the exit. He pushed back the flap of the tent and squinted against the daylight. A gleaming silver breastplate topped by shining golden hair awaited him.

  “Vara,” he said, acknowledging her with a nod as he let the tent flap fall shut behind him. Guards flanked the tent, different ones than he had seen when he had entered it the night before.

  “Gnome groin,” she replied, almost indifferent.

  Cyrus frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “They reproduce even more swiftly than your kind,” she said, and he caught a strong hint of disapproval from her. “They’re constantly rubbing up against something.”

  “Why do you hate gnomes so much?” Cyrus looked at her. “They’re not all like Brevis, you know.”

  “He was plenty enough to make me wary of the rest,” she said. “I have come to inform you of our current status.”

  Cyrus stared up into the sky above and saw the sun high, nearly overhead. “Is it noon yet?”

  “Very nearly,” she said, stiff and unyielding as she turned. He followed alongside. “Much to my amazement, Pretnam Urides has kept his word and has his forces massed along a defensive line nearer to the keep. Our scouts have returned and reported that the dark elves have entirely fled the region. Any reinforcement from them is days away, assuming they were to decide to try to hammer this particular anvil again.” She walked with her hands clasped behind her, strolling as though she were on a military inspection rather than leading him through a battlefield. “The Confederation forces stand ready to relieve us, and they have the remainder of our payment for services rendered.” She angled her head just slightly to look at him. “I hope this pleases you.”