There was a nod from the enchanter, whose hair was now streaked with a faded grey. “Worth it, I think,” he said, voice raspy. “A few hundred years of my life to spare thousands of lives.” He shrugged. “In mere days, it may not matter anyway.”
“Very laudable,” Curatio pronounced as he arrived.
Cyrus shook his head at J’anda. “It’s your life, I suppose.”
“I did what I thought was right,” J’anda said with another shrug. “I regret nothing.”
Cyrus waved toward Longwell, who sat at the front of a line of horsemen. “Start them across. They’ll be able to catch the back line of those refugees fairly easily. Tell them not to hurry, not to push. We don’t want to start a stampede, and we’ve got some time.” He paused. “I think.”
Longwell tossed him a mock salute with only a little acrimony and motioned for the horsemen to start across.
“How many horsemen do you have?” Cattrine asked, with a look of slightly shocked awe as she looked at the perfectly formed lines, moving up the bridge at faster than a walk.
Cyrus dismounted and landed his hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “More than ten thousand. Enough to give the scourge a fight if we can get to open ground on the other side of the sea. Transport will be a problem because you can’t teleport nearly that many in one bunch with one wizard, but if we can get to the portal two days north of the other side of the bridge, we can transport everyone fast-in half an hour or so-back to Sanctuary.”
“Your magic still amazes me,” Cattrine said with a shake of the head.
“I don’t have any magic,” Cyrus said. He gave Aisling a nod of greeting, which was returned with some reserve. He looked Cattrine in the eyes. “I’m sending you with the second regiment of dragoons.”
She looked to him, and her head went from leaning forward, eager to see him, to relaxed and falling back as her face did the same; it fell. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother, I suppose.”
“Not a bother,” Cyrus said. “But I promised your brother I would see to your safety, and I need to keep my word.”
“Very well,” she said. “Did he send any other message?”
He let his jaw relax. “Just to see you to safety. His last worries, aside from wanting to die fighting the good fight for Luukessia, were about you.”
She gave a slow nod and started to turn away toward the horsemen marching up the bridge. “I don’t suppose he gave a thought to what would happen to our people in this new land? Of how he should have stayed to lead them?”
“I don’t think he much wanted to contemplate a new land,” Cyrus said. “I believe the pain of the loss of the old was the sort of wound he would not ever have been able to put aside.” There was a sting in his words, as though he were rubbing salt on a wound of his own. “That’s my suspicion, at least.”
“I’m certain you have no idea what that feels like,” Cattrine said, her eyes warm, but her tone slightly sardonic. She knows. “I’ll take my leave of you now, Lord Davidon, so you might fight whatever battle comes without concern for my safety.” She stepped to him, gave him a peck on the cheek, then a longer, fuller kiss on the lips. “I do hope to see you on the other side.” She lifted her skirts and trod across the beach, her feet leaving impressions in the sand.
The horsemen went on for the rest of the day. As the night began to fall, the Sanctuary army moved onto the bridge at last, the back ranks going first-the most wearied, in Cyrus’s eyes, along with Windrider and the other horses. Curatio and a few of the others came toward the end, with their spellcasters, and finally Cyrus himself, along with Odellan, Longwell, Martaina, Scuddar, and Terian.
After the first hour, Terian eased over to Cyrus. “You haven’t asked me to fight alongside you.”
“You’ve been fighting alongside me on and off since Enrant Monge,” Cyrus said, unimpressed. “What’s different now? You finally going to try and kill me again?”
“Not today,” Terian replied. The clank of his boots and Cyrus’s, and countless others, was soft in the night, and somewhere far below the splash of water against the pilings of the bridge could be heard. “Maybe tomorrow, though,” the dark knight said with a wicked grin.
“You don’t even really believe it anymore,” Cyrus said.
“Hm,” Terian said with only a trace of amusement. “I think it’s more accurate to say I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
“Lot of that going around.”
“Indeed there is,” Terian said. “We’re still not done yet though, you and I.”
“No,” Cyrus said, “I suppose we’re not. I’m fine with that, so long as it doesn’t bleed into this.”
“No,” Terian said somberly, “I won’t let my personal vendetta against you stop us from saving these people as best we can.”
“‘As best we can?’“ Cyrus mused. “I don’t know, Lepos, maybe there’s some hope for you yet.”
Terian shot him a scathing glance. “Why? Do you think there’s some chance for redemption for me, even after I tried to kill you? Because if you say ‘yes,’ I may have to kill you now, outside of my promise, just on the principle of it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Cyrus said. “Redemption’s a funny thing.”
“Oh?” Terian said with a scowl. “What’s so funny about it?”
“I don’t know.” Cyrus looked back over his shoulder, into the darkness, to the long, empty stretch of stone behind him. “The Kings-Unger, Tiernan, Longwell,” he looked to the side and gestured to Samwen, who trudged alone quietly to their left, “and Ranson, I suppose. They thought they’d failed to protect their Kingdoms, the places they were sworn to serve. They failed their lands, their people. They were Kings, supposed to be the most exalted, but they understood that basic truth that they were supposed to serve their people. Their redemption for that was to stand at the last edge of their land and die trying to stop these things from coming any farther.” Cyrus shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the willingness to fight that hard, to die for what you believe in … maybe that brings its own sort of redemption. And peace, I would hope.”
Terian looked back now, as though he could see the scourge behind them. “I don’t know what peace death brings, not after all we’ve seen this year. Those things. I don’t know what sort of redemption there is out there for those of us who have …” He bowed his head. “Erred, let’s call it.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider your attempt to kill me in that category, would you?”
“Don’t push it, Davidon,” Terian said irritably. “I’m already having the sort of conversation with you that I don’t comfortably have with anyone else.”
“But because you’re going to kill me, it’s almost like you’re not talking to anyone at all, huh?”
“No one keeps secrets like the dead,” Terian quipped.
They walked on in peace for two more days after that, a solemn, quiet, cool breeze coming off the sea of Carmas in gusts that ran through the cracks in Cyrus’s mail. The salt air was good, a pleasant smell, but it left a film on his armor. The nights were long and he spent them alone. Aisling looked at him from across the army a few times, as though she were waiting for him to beckon her forward. He did not, though, and instead lay awake staring at the stars until his eyes finally drooped into sleep.
It was at the close of the third day that the wind shifted directions, from out of the south. Cyrus could feel it, tangible, a change in current. The stone bridge went on into infinity before him, packed tightly with men and horses as far as he could see. When he turned back, as he had every few minutes for the entire journey, afraid that his next moment would be the one when a scourge jumped onto his back and dragged him down, he still saw nothing but the faint distortion of a mirage in the distance. The sun was falling in the sky but it was surprisingly hot, the southern breeze doing little to shift the air. Early summer weather? It’s not even finished being spring yet.
There was movement to his left and he turned to see Martaina, he
r cowl falling behind her head and exposing her hair to flutter in the breeze. She stared into the distance behind them, peering carefully, then dropped to the ground and put her ear against the surface of the bridge.
“Interesting place to sleep,” Terian said with a grin.
She waved at him for silence, and they waited. A moment later she sprang up and looked at Cyrus, deadly serious. “They’re coming.”
He tensed. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I can hear their claws. Much different sound than horses clip-clopping along ahead of us. It’s faint, but there. A whole bunch of them, too, coming on fast. They’ll catch up to us in a few hours, maybe a half-day at most.”
“We’re only two days from the shores of Arkaria. We need to buy time,” Cyrus said, thinking. “Nyad!”
“Buy time for what?” Terian asked. “Once those things hit the shore, we’re done. Good luck bottling them up again, or beating them in the jungle as they sweep north. Once the cork comes out of the bottle, the wine is going to escape all over your new dress.”
“I don’t wear a dress,” Cyrus said as Nyad appeared at his side. “Go back to Sanctuary and warn Alaric that these things are coming and we need help, now, at the bridge. No time to waste. Don’t take any excuses; these things aren’t on Luukessia anymore, they’re coming, and they will destroy our land if we don’t stop them. You need to make him understand. Got it?”
She nodded, and closed her eyes, lips moving in subtle ways as she repeated the incantation. Her hands glowed slightly, and there was a burst of green energy that exploded over them, causing Cyrus to turn his head and avert his eyes. When he opened them again and looked back, Nyad remained standing in the same place, a look of puzzlement upon her face. She closed her eyes again and began to cast the spell, the glow came forth once more, the light burst with sparkles, and when the spots cleared from Cyrus’s vision she still stood in the middle of the Endless Bridge.
“Maybe I should send someone else?” Cyrus asked.
“No,” Nyad said with a shake of her head. “It’s not that. It’s not me. It’s the spell-the portal! It’s not working.”
“What do you mean it’s not working?” Terian asked, his eyebrows knitted together in a deep furrow. “How does a spell not work?”
Nyad seemed to consider this for a moment, staring off at the horizon. “There are only two reasons why the spell wouldn’t work. Either the portal has been shut down, or-” She stopped speaking and paled, her complexion looking a flushed orange in the light of the late afternoon, as her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “Or it’s been destroyed.”
Chapter 106
Vara
Day 221 of the Siege of Sanctuary
The battlements were in motion, a steady flow of people. The smell of them was strong, unwashed after a few days of long watches; Vara could even smell herself from under the armor. There had been only time for a few hours of sleep per night as the dark elves had begun a near-constant assault on the front gates. She looked down on the battering ram they were currently employing, hundreds of arrows sticking out of it in all directions, as the twenty or so dark elves carrying it were surrounded by an additional phalanx with shields to protect them. This situation needs Alaric’s touch. I dearly hope he’s on his way.
The sound was riotous, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them, ladders flung upward to the top of the wall every few minutes with a clack of wood against stone and thrown back down only moments later with screams. Of course, some of the screams came from atop the wall as well, Vara knew, as there were volleys of arrows coming at them thickly, like a diagonal rainstorm of shafts, fletchings, and arrowheads. She kept her head down and heard them whistling all around her, the occasional scream close by attesting to another poor soul who’d caught one. One came from beside her, presently, and she heard a scuffle. A ranger had an arrow sticking out of his eye and was shouting, his bow cast aside from where he had been using it to aim at the shielded enemy.
“Healer!” Vara called without looking back. She plucked the bow and arrow off the ground and fired blindly over the ramparts.
“You called, Shelas’akur?” Vaste’s droll voice came up behind her. “Ow, this one looks like it hurts. Eyeball, eh? Wouldn’t want him to end up as Alaric the Second.” A scream came from behind her but she didn’t bother to look, just plucked another arrow and fired. “Well, hold still, damn you,” Vaste said. “This arrow isn’t going to pull itself out, and I can’t exactly heal you with it still in your eye, can I? Oh, dammit!” There was a sound of a hard hit behind her and she jumped, looking back, forcing her back against the crenellation of stone. Vaste smiled weakly over the fallen ranger, who was unconscious with a blatantly broken jaw. “Sorry. I had to knock him out. I’ll fix it now.”
“Try not to enjoy yourself too much harming our allies,” Vara said, snagging the ranger’s quiver from his back and pulling it free, then blind-firing another arrow over the battlements.
“I can’t imagine you’re doing much good shooting like that,” Vaste said, his hands beginning to glow.
“I can’t imagine I’m not hitting something,” she replied, releasing another arrow, “seeing as the dark elves are filling the ground before us all the way to the horizon.”
“More of a random act of hoping to hit something?” Vaste asked, his healing spell complete, the ranger’s eye now open, unfocused, and returned to normal. “Sounds like a metaphor for my love life.”
“I would have to miss considerably more to make that an accurate metaphor.”
“So cruel,” Vaste said. He glanced to the left and right. “Need any more healing done here? Other than your bitterness-encrusted heart?”
“I would laugh,” Vara said tightly, firing again, “but I seem to be in the midst of a crisis that has my attention. Be assured, though, I am remembering this moment for later, and I will certainly give it due amusement at that time. By which I mean I’ll be sitting around later whilst reading and will perhaps spare a moment to frown at your ridiculousness.”
“So long as we all live to see that moment, I’m fine with that,” Vaste said, still on his knees. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to crawl down the ramparts a ways,” he pointed toward the gates to the left, “and assist that poor bastard who has an arrow sticking out of his buttock.” The troll sighed. “One would think that armor would protect against that sort of thing. And who do you think will have to pull it out? Why couldn’t it have happened to a short, swarthy human woman? I like those.”
Vara rolled her eyes. “I have things to be getting on with, troll. Be about your business.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Vaste said, beginning to crawl left, “I didn’t realize it was my presence keeping you from looking at where you were firing, I thought it was the ten thousand arrows that were filling the air like the worst cloud of mosquitos ever visited upon a swamp.”
She shook her head as he left. This is ridiculous, this press of the attack. She stuck her head out of the rampart for one second only, and saw that the battering ram was down again, wreathed in flames, and she spared only a little smile. Not today, Sovereign. Not today.
“They come again,” the voice was shot through with fatigue, but the figure appeared in a cloud of smoke, wafting off him in waves. “I see they’ve already fallen,” Alaric said, peering over the rampart as arrows flew through his exposed face and upper body. “Let us make this moderately more difficult on them.” Vara leaned her eyes over and felt an arrow clink! off her helm, causing her to blanch. She looked down upon the battering ram as Alaric’s force blast hit it and sent it rolling as though it had been kicked by a titan; it hit the ground and bounced five feet into the air and off the trodden road, bowling over a knot of dark elven soldiers, landing on them while still on fire. Their agonized screams blended into the chorus already filling the air. He fired another burst and the ram bounced again into the air from the force of his spell, this time even higher, almost ten feet, before it came down into another thic
ket of men.
Vara eyed the chaos that the paladin’s spell had caused; that injured over a hundred men and killed quite a few of them. “Satisfied yet?” she asked.
“No,” Alaric’s voice was gruff, uncaring. “Wizards! Druids!” he called, as though his words were amplified beyond a shout. “SEND THEM RUNNING!”
She watched as the flames rose around the walls, a burning, roiling firestorm ten feet high of interconnected fire spells that ate into the dark elven army surrounding them like little she had seen. It was not terribly thick-not like Mother’s-but it burned with a fury, lancing into the thickest concentrations of soldiers and raising the volume of screaming that filled the air by a considerable amount. Some began to flee, throwing the knot of soldiers around them into disarray and chaos, and Vara watched as a soldier fell and was trampled while attempting to escape. She ducked back behind the teeth of the wall and put her back against it. “Not bad, Alaric.”
“I told you,” the Ghost said, “they will not breach our walls.”
“Thanks to you,” she said.
“Courtesy of our wizards and druids,” he replied. “I have little to do with it save for sending their battering ram off course in a fit of pique. It will take them a few attempts to get it back to the road and in position again. That will cost them a few men.”
Vara gave him a nod. “A few men indee-” she tore her eyes from him at a blur of motion that came out of the tower to her right, a leather-clad figure who ran surefootedly, bent double, keeping her white hair low as she crossed the top of the rampart to reach them. Vara blinked in surprise as she registered recognition. “YOU!”
“Me,” the woman said, coming to a rest and kneeling next to where Alaric stood. “And you wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get here.” Her white hair was caked with dirt as was the rest of her outfit, leather armor and all.
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