Master (Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  “You’re unlikely to forget it after this,” Curatio said with a faint smile, “as it should be a rather well-known battlefield following this victory.”

  “I find it interesting that you assume we will win before we have so much as set the first foot upon the field,” Vara said.

  “I always assume we will win,” Curatio said, drawing his robes about him as he stood. “I plan for defeat but try not to let it become much more than a weak suggestion.” He gave Cyrus a nod. “I will assemble the healers and prepare them to do their duty.” He breezed out the door with the aid of his robes, the white fabric catching the wind from the doors behind them. Andren, Erith, Vaste and Mendicant followed in his wake, with Longwell and Odellan out the door just after.

  “Will I be left in charge of Sanctuary’s defense in your absence?” Thad asked, rising from his place at the table.

  “You’re the duly-appointed castellan, Thad,” Cyrus said with a smile. “You’re always in charge of Sanctuary’s defense. I think it would be wise to leave you here to do what you do better than anyone else, though, yes.”

  “As you will,” Thad said, scooping up his helm and saluting. Cyrus returned it from a seated position and watched the red-armored warrior retreat from the room.

  Cyrus did not look at Vara, instead turning to Ryin, who remained seated. “Any words of gloom or warning you’d care to sprinkle upon the occasion like water upon a flame?”

  The druid’s expression was dour, a flat, pensive gaze fixed on the empty air at the center of the round table. “I hope Curatio is right and that we win. I hope you are wrong and that Reikonos does not fall.” He gathered his own robes about him and stood, looking glummer than Cyrus had ever seen him. “All else, I reserve my judgment on.”

  “That is … a decidedly more … quiet … opinion than you usually render,” Cyrus said.

  Ryin blinked at him. “I was raised in Reikonos as well, you know. I have no interest in seeing it overrun with dark elves. I may be here to provide a contrarian opinion, but what am I to say in this moment? If we do not do this thing at Leaugarden, the Confederation’s food supplies will be cut off, Reikonos will starve and fall, and we will become the next convenient target of the Sovereign of Saekaj.” He shrugged. “All roads lead to our facing the dark elves at this point; there is no more waiting it out and hoping for the best.” He swept his robes behind him and the air felt curiously still. “The best we can hope for is to be the block upon which the Sovereign stumbles.” He disappeared out the door.

  “And what do you say, Lady Vara?” Cyrus asked, still watching the door as it closed behind Ryin Ayend.

  “I say you should do what you do best,” Vara said, standing and striding toward the door. “Pretend the Sovereign is a certain dark elven slattern, bend him over the nearest handy object, and fuck his unshapely arse into submission.”

  She did not look back, and left the door to the Council Chambers wide open as she left Cyrus in the silence, nothing but a gust of wind to stir him out of his stupor.

  Chapter 58

  Dark clouds hung over the field of Leaugarden, a hummock high on a swampy plain that dipped into the water at regular intervals. It looked a little like it had been transported out of the ground near Gren and plopped into the eastern Riverlands of Arkaria, the beating heart of the Human Confederation’s farms and fields. From where he sat atop Windrider, the horse whinnying at the activity all around them, Cyrus could see one of the countless streams that crossed the land. It was a wet place, especially now, the skies threatening to turn loose a deluge at any moment. Cyrus could feel the droplets every now and again, first signs of what was surely coming.

  “Grim day, grim deeds,” Curatio said from his place in the line of officers. They were as ready as Cyrus assumed they could be, given the short time they’d had to prepare. The smell of the horses and the greenery mingled with the wet air in his nose, making him remember days long gone by when he’d felt soaked and chilled. Not a good combination for battle, that’s sure.

  “Let us hope our grim deeds include a number of beheadings,” Vaste said. “I, for one, would like to see Malpravus’s head on a pike, displayed for all to see.”

  “We don’t do that,” Cyrus said absently, stroking Windrider’s neck and mane, garnering a whicker of approval.

  “We should make an exception in this case,” Vaste said. “I don’t feel like I’ll believe he’s dead until his head is separated from his body and most of him is burned to ashes. Then, perhaps later, we can burn the head as well.”

  “That is truly disgusting,” Nyad said, “and in violation of Sanctuary’s charter on many levels.”

  “Tell me you wouldn’t feel safer having that necromancer spread to the four winds,” Vaste said, looking pointedly at the elven princess. Nyad did not respond for a long moment. “I’m waiting to hear the staunch denial, that you’d be okay with him lingering in a prison cell. Perhaps directly under your chambers?”

  “I did not say we should leave him alive.” Nyad was a little flushed, and she did not meet the troll’s eyes. “I simply think that putting heads on pikes is barbaric.”

  “Lucky for us that our General is something of a barbarian, then,” Vaste said.

  Cyrus felt the frown come from annoyance and surprise. “How the hell did I get dragged into this?”

  “I still haven’t forgiven you for not telling me about your plans last time,” Vaste said.

  “I’m just hoping that we’re up against a dark elven army only,” Cyrus said. “After all, with what the Sovereign is trying around Reikonos, it feels like he’d need his magical talent working on that front. Maybe we’ll have a nice, easy roll-over battle with nothing but a few angry trolls.”

  “Army on the horizon!” Ryin called from above.

  “Are there trolls?” Vaste called.

  “Some,” Ryin returned. “Not as many as last time.”

  “Looks like you get at least some of your wish,” Vaste said. “Happy now?”

  I’ll be happier once we’re done with this, Cyrus did not say. “That’s hardly a complete picture of the threat at hand,” he said cautiously.

  “The threat at hand is the annihilation of every bastion of free peoples in Arkaria,” Vara said, weighing in at last. She was positioned directly next to Cyrus in the line, though she had yet to look at him. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the horizon, leaving Cyrus to wonder if she did, indeed, see anything there. “The complete picture is relevant only so far as strategy and tactics are concerned; we make our stand here or we damn everyone by our failure.”

  “Yes, let’s not go damning anyone,” Vaste said. “Least of all ourselves.”

  Vara shot him a careful look, sideways, without turning her head. “That was less joking and more concerned than you are usually capable of.”

  “Well, I’ve heard the stories of the damned which you all faced in Luukessia,” Vaste said. “I don’t care to become anything close to that.” He seemed genuine, Cyrus thought, waiting, just waiting, for the jibe to follow. It did not.

  “Let us all take a moment to recover from our shock in Vaste’s staidness,” Curatio said.

  “Hey,” Vaste said, “I can be serious, too. Like that time in the Realm of Life, for example.”

  “When the chipmunks went after your groin?” Cyrus deadpanned, staring ahead at a distant horizon that was partially blocked by trees. If there was an army there, they were down the road quite a ways.

  “That was serious business,” Vaste said without a trace of humor. “If they had impaired my functioning, why, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “Bitch and whine until you realize you don’t actually use those parts?” Vara suggested.

  “Admittedly I’m no Cyrus Davidon,” Vaste said smugly, “but I’ll have you know that they see use. Plenty of use.”

  “Again, he drags me into this,” Cyrus said aloud, “as though I’m not even here.”

  “He makes a valid point,” Vara said, “you are the ex
emplar of using those parts to ill purpose.”

  Cyrus made a noise of sheer frustration with his throat, a tsking sound that rattled the back of his tongue, driving up hints of the flavor of the eggs he’d had for breakfast. Not lately, he thought, trying to still his reaction. He did not give an answer aloud.

  “I thought he ended it with Aisling?” Vaste asked.

  “He did,” Erith said. “Or so the rumor goes.”

  “She’s quite dispirited,” Nyad said, sounding a little gleeful about it. “She had to leave for a few days to get over it, I hear.”

  “I expect it would take more than a few days to get over the hero of Termina, wouldn’t it?” This from Andren, who was peering down the line.

  “You all are annoying me beyond my capacity to express it,” Cyrus said under his breath.

  “Take it out on the dark elves,” Curatio suggested. “I heard he even summoned her to his quarters to do the thing right; messenger and all. Then delivered the axe blow—”

  “Curatio!” Cyrus snapped, sending a fiery gaze at the healer. “You are over two hundred centuries old; this common, small-folk gossip cannot possibly still be interesting to you.”

  “Indeed, the follies of you short-lived people in your mad scrambles to bed everything that is not nailed down is the source of much amusement to me,” Curatio said with a twinkle in his eye. “It helps while away the dull days as few things do.”

  “Perhaps we should spare the ‘hero of Termina,’” Vara said acidly, “and discuss this after the battle, in a more appropriate locale, where the subject of your ferocious rumor-mongering is not around to be irritated by your insipidness.”

  “Thank you,” Cyrus said cautiously. He waited for her to make another jab, but she did not. He lowered his voice so that only she could hear him. “You still run rather hot and cold on me, you know.”

  Vara let out a long, irritated sigh. “I am easily angered. You know this, and yet still you seem to put special effort into making me angry of late.”

  “I don’t mean to,” Cyrus said.

  “I suspected it was unwitting,” Vara said, “but that makes it no less irritating.” She lost a note or two of anger, and her next reply came out much softer. “Still, I know what it feels like to have others talking about you incessantly behind your back. To have them do it in front of you as well, as though you were not even here—well, it’s more than a bit of a plague upon decency.”

  “Thank you,” Cyrus said. “And thank you for refraining from making any … choice comments … about my decision to end things with Aisling. I know it would have been easy to say something gleeful and unkind—”

  “Such as?” Vara asked, and he noted the raised eyebrow. It was the only hint of any emotion she gave.

  “I’m sure you can think of something uncharitable given half a chance,” Cyrus said. “But thank you for not expressing it.”

  “General,” Andren said from down the line, in a high, slightly gleeful murmur, “you have a visitor.”

  Cyrus turned his head to look in the direction Andren had indicated and found Aisling upon her horse, out of formation and approaching him from behind the lines. She was between the front rank of the army and the line of officers at the fore, her horse making a slow approach. “Gods,” Cyrus said under his breath.

  “Can I talk to you for a moment before the battle?” Aisling asked. She was hooded, the cowl not doing much to hide her face even in the grey light of the day. He could tell by looking at her that her heart was heavy. The usual light was gone from her eyes, the smooth slyness ever-present on her lips was missing, replaced by a weight of emotion that Cyrus felt from ten feet away.

  “Can it wait?” Cyrus asked. “We’re moments from the start of a battle.”

  She blinked, and he saw the greyness of the day reflected on her face. “Not really,” she said, almost a whisper.

  Cyrus cleared his throat. “All right. Can we make it quick?”

  “Certainly,” she said, and led her horse into a trot.

  “Go on,” Vara said quietly, “harken to the crack of your master’s whip.” Even as low as she spoke it, he could hear the amusement radiating from every word.

  “There we go,” Cyrus said, “gleeful and unkind all in one.” He let out a thick sigh and started Windrider to moving, following Aisling out into the field before them.

  She rode her horse into the field twenty feet, then fifty. Each step that carried them away from the lines of battle deepened Cyrus’s discomfort. Still, he followed and brought Windrider to a halt when she stopped. She dismounted and he heard her feet make a slight slopping noise as her boots touched down on the muddy field.

  Cyrus lingered on Windrider for a moment, staring down at her, clutching the reins of her animal, before making the decision to follow her lead. He dismounted, his boots hitting the soft ground with a sucking sound. It wasn’t horribly wet, but he did sink into the soil a few centimeters. He pulled one of his boots free with a very subtle slurping noise and stepped closer to her. He looked her in the eyes, standing only a foot from her. “Well?” he asked.

  “Have you reconsidered?” she asked, voice a ghostly hollow.

  This is not good. “No,” he said as gently as he could. “Aisling, it’s over. Nothing is going to change my mind.”

  She turned her head slightly, and he saw her lips purse. He looked away from her face, not wanting to see her cry. “Okay,” she whispered. “All right.” She rustled, just slightly, as she moved toward him. He stood there, frozen, deeply uncomfortable. He felt her arms wrap around him as they had so many times, circling his breastplate, drawing him ever-so-slightly down to her. He felt his armor adjust as he slanted his body to comply with her desire, ready to put the halt to it should she try to kiss him. A final embrace was not so unwarranted, he thought.

  Then her hand slipped up his backplate, under the chain mail, something cold finding its mark just to the side of his spine, and he started to react, his senses dulled by her presence, the comfort he usually experienced at her touch making him just a hair slow to answer her movement—

  Then the chill of metal against flesh turned to the agony of fire slipping into his back, and he realized too late that she had a dagger in him, in his—

  Every muscle seized and screamed, surged and cried out, and for a second he felt paralyzed, his knees barely able to still bear his weight. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear. “But once I told him I had lost your ear, he told me that I had to do this.”

  Cyrus pulled his head up to look her in the eyes. He could barely see them, hidden under her white hair. “Wh-who?”

  She raised her head, ever so slightly. “The Sovereign, of course.” She sounded dead, the iron in her voice every bit as cold as the steel she’d just slid into his back. “He’s the one who told me to get close to you.”

  “Y-you,” Cyrus said, feeling his head bob, his strength fade. “You were …” He felt her holding him up, keeping him from falling to a knee. The pain was astounding, an agony in symphony, four parts, eight parts, more parts than he could count—

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you have no idea what he’s like. What he can do. How he—and his servants—can compel cooperation.” She did not smile, and her face was all regret. “There’s a reason you never heard his name until now.”

  “They’ll … heal me, you know,” Cyrus said, every word struggling to get out. He tried to fight back against her, to summon his strength to push her down, knock her over. He could not quite manage it, the shock at her betrayal still causing him to blink in astonishment. “I’m not … finished.”

  “My blade was coated in black lace,” she said quietly, still whispering in his ear. “If there was ever a man strong enough to survive, it would be you.” She pulled it out, and somehow the pain increased, compounded, grew like it had little agony mites planted under his skin that spawned their own nest that was spreading all over him. “I hope you do. But your battle is over, I’m afraid, and that’s
what he wanted.” Her face was a blank mask.

  “You won’t … get away with this,” Cyrus said. He could hear movement behind him, looked over his right shoulder—

  Something exploded, a blast of fire that turned into a wall, an inferno ten feet high that descended like a falling curtain upon the officers of Sanctuary. It crackled and burned with all the fury of a dragon’s breath turned loose, and Cyrus watched, helpless, his body overcome by the wracking pain, as his friends disappeared in the flames.

  Chapter 59

  Cyrus could see the dark elves on the horizon, the marching, orderly lines of battle coming from before him, and the storm of flames sweeping in a circular motion behind him, holding in place over the officer’s line like a tornado of fire had descended from Enflaga’s own hand to burrow its way into the wet ground beneath. From the Sanctuary lines came a rider in grey, hat slightly askew as she rode with her staff still pointed at the fire. Verity came forth from a stunned army that was in disarray, the wizard’s work startling the horses that comprised the front ranks and quelling any immediate response.

  “Surprised to see me?” she asked as she brought her horse around Cyrus in a neat circle. She stared down at him from higher than Aisling, a faint smile on the elf’s lips.

  “Serving the Sovereign?” Cyrus was wracked with pain, and the taste of blood was upon his lips. “Not the usual … choice … for an elf.”

  “But before I served him, I served one of his friends,” she said, and her expression darkened as she stood off from him, whirling her staff so that the tip faced him dead on. “For Mortus,” she said, and he could see the energy of her spell turn the crystal red as she cast.

  A thunderous shock ran across the earth, causing Cyrus’s legs to quiver, and he turned his head in time to see Verity thrown from her horse by a shockwave that rippled the air. Vara’s horse was charging across the ground between them, the paladin herself with hand outstretched, the spell she’d heaved already landed for its full effect. Curatio sat upon the back of his horse, his hands raised, a dark expression upon his face, the air crackling with some undefined energy, and Cyrus saw nothing of the dilettante who had been gossiping about him only moments earlier. He was replaced with something that seethed with raw power, something drawn from the air and the ground, the fire that had surrounded him only a moment earlier, and it was as though his eyes glowed across the scorched black ground of the plain around him.