Sanctuary 5.5 - Fated in Darkness

by Robert J. Crane

  “You don’t understand,” Terian said, pausing, trying to drive home his point with emphasis in the midst of a sea of the rising dead, “you need to withdraw the Sanctuary army now. You cannot handle the numbers Malpravus has without a strong front line and a more organized spell caster front. You—we’ve already lost.”

  “A convenient thing for someone in the opposing army to say,” Vara shot back. Her eyes were wild with fury—at him, at the battle, at the circumstances, at Cyrus—and I would not care to bet on which of us is in the lead for catching her ire at the moment …

  “It is,” Terian said, “but no less true. Have you not noticed what you’ve been facing all along? Have you not seen what is hidden behind the armor of the dark elven troops?” How can you miss it? They’re coming back to life all around us as we fight.

  “Dark elves,” Fortin said, and bones exploded from a strike he leveled against several of the dead, ripe and rotting flesh splattering like pus as he struck putrefied bodies.

  “Dead dark elves,” Terian said, swinging his axe as hard as he could. “And not the sort Malpravus is raising now, either. You face a limitless army of the dead, raised from every soldier the dark elves have lost in battle whose corpses they were able to recover.”

  There was a pause as he heard her do her work with a blade behind him. He waited, holding his line, fighting his foes, and a breathless gasp escaped her, audible, a moment later. “Retreat,” she said quietly, then let it turn to a horrified shout that echoed over the battlefield. “RETREAT!” Others took up her call, loud voices shouting it over the splintered and faltering Army of Sanctuary. He took up his axe and ran after Fortin as the rock giant began to hew a path back to the Sanctuary line, disorganized and beleaguered as it was.

  “You will answer for your crimes, dark elf,” Vara said as Terian closed in with her, beating his way back to the friendliest army to him currently on the field. Not that friendly, though, he reflected as he caught a look of unadulterated hatred from her, swinging her sword against the legion of dead surging in upon them.

  Terian had no answer for that; it should have been frightening, the threats of a furious holy knight as a superior army battered against them in the rear.

  Yet somehow it wasn’t.

  The undead are rising behind me, trying to sweep us from the battlefield and leave nothing but our dead in the wake.

  The woman fighting at my side hates me and would—will—kill me at her earliest convenience.

  Kahlee and the others are in danger because of my betrayal.

  I should be scared shitless, frightened beyond the believing. I should be crying in a pile in the middle of the battlefield, because—let’s face it—the whole world is my damned enemy at this point.

  And yet …

  He felt the curious tickle within; a strange thrill of anticipation that felt so terribly out of place in the midst of the massacre, the rout, that he had to check again to believe it was real. It was warm, a tingle that twinged at his eyes as he struck down the last of the dark elves and rejoined the Sanctuary line, steadying himself to anchor it until the spells began to fly, the ones that would carry him—

  Ah. That’s it.

  Redemption is a path we must walk every day.

  I’m finally back on the path, Alaric.

  “Take us—” Vara shouted, but the last word was caught in the roar of a surging charge by the dark elves. Terian readied his axe, swinging it now harder and more furiously than he would have otherwise. The word unspoken gave that strange emotion within him new life, like kindling caught hard aflame on a heavy log, burning bright as he battled to protect the Army of Sanctuary in retreat. The appearance of the blue orb glowing in front of him was mere confirmation of the truth he knew was as unspoken as the word Vara had left off.

  I’m going home.

  35.

  Aisling

  There was no light where they appeared, not even a sliver, darkness falling over her as suddenly as night, intruding in the daytime as an uninvited guest who batters down the door. Aisling took a breath as soon as she appeared, the horror of the scene she’d left behind still a stunning visual flash in her mind. The Army of Sanctuary would endure, she figured, but whether it would have its General was rather a more open question.

  The air was filled with the scent of greenery, and at last Aisling spied a hint of light from somewhere above her, a thin line of it appearing in a crack like two boards were split just enough to allow a few points of illumination to come down on her. She was on her knees in this silent place, quiet save for her breathing and that of Verity next to her. The wizard was grunting in pain, and the subtle sound of bones shifting in the elf’s leg told Aisling that it was likely broken.

  “Where are we?” Aisling asked coolly, getting to her feet and prowling the space. Her eyes could make out the dim outline of a portal behind them, one lone shaft of light running across the top of the ovoid shape.

  “Old dark elven settlement in the southern Waking Woods,” Verity grunted as she shifted on the ground. “One of the abandoned ones. Built a warehouse to hide the portal before they left it, the fools.” She made a noise of absolute pain that was constrained only by the elf’s considerable will. “Give me a moment, and I’ll take us back to Shrawn.”

  “Okay,” Aisling said, letting her eyes dart around. There wasn’t much to be seen in here, after all.

  “Fool girl,” Verity said, drawing a hard breath, panting as though she’d exerted herself considerably. “You were supposed to kill him.”

  “I stabbed him good and proper,” Aisling said, pacing under the yawning mouth of the portal. Nothing was behind it but old wooden walls. She could just barely see the texture of them, now, such was the darkness. She looked up to the crack of light again and realized it must have trees growing high above it. Utterly abandoned, then. How many people even come here? “Why here?” Aisling asked.

  “Because, you vexing moron,” Verity snapped, the pain clearly diminishing her patience, “I couldn’t cast a return to take us back to Shrawn’s with you standing half a league away from me, and I didn’t want us to appear at a dark elven portal, where they’d likely kill me right away. God of Death, what a pain—” She paused, swallowed hard, and then called out. “Come here, girl. Let’s be done with this.”

  Aisling drifted from behind the portal coyly, staring at the wizard. “You sure you don’t need a few more minutes?”

  “I need a bloody healer,” Verity snapped, “and I’m unlikely to find one here, a hundred miles south of Saekaj Sovar. Get over here and let’s be done with this business. You have your stupidity to answer for, after all.”

  “Yes,” Aisling said, stepping slowly back toward the place where the wizard lay, “I suppose I do.”

  “Grasp me tight,” Verity said, sitting up. Aisling moved to kneel next to her, but the wizard made a “hem!” noise and paused. “You’re going to hold tight to my legs, as though I could carry you off in flight, idiot? God of Death, spare me from this lackwit. I swear, behind me, fool. Grasp me from behind, lest you get left in this forsaken place.”

  Aisling shrugged lightly and did as the wizard asked, slipping behind her and kneeling, prepared to grasp her around the shoulders as expected. She pressed her front against the wizard’s back, caught the scent of dry soap in Verity’s hair.

  “That’s more like it,” Verity said, voice still thick with impatience. “Now we can—”

  The sound of the dagger rushing across the wizard’s neck was a small thing, quiet as a footstep on stone. The sound that followed, however, was considerably louder, gasps as blood rushed out in a great flow, as Verity struggled to form words. Aisling held tight to her, pushing her head down, hiding behind her back. Verity raised her hand and hurled a silent spell backward. Flames burst just past Aisling’s shoulder, a hard burst that dissipated as soon as it hit the portal’s stone, the wash of heat running over her like a summer day sun had crowned and set abruptly just behind her.

 
; “I don’t like you,” Aisling said, jabbing her dagger into Verity over and over with her free hand, still slumping low behind the wizard’s shoulder. “I haven’t liked you since we met. The funny thing is, considering the position I’m in, I hate relatively few people. You—you’re close to that line.” She ran the blade into the heart, again and again. “If you weren’t so damned dangerous, I’d be content to let you bleed to death here, slowly.” She felt the wizard summoning up one last spell and ran the tip of the dagger right into the wizard’s temple, twisting as it broke through the skull. The pointed grey hat fell off Verity’s head, and with a final, choked gurgle, Verity went limp in her grasp. “But that’s simply not possible.”

  Aisling threw the body forward, off of her, pushing the dead face into the dirt and stone before slamming the dagger home one final time in the back of the skull, just to be sure. A wizard was no foe to rejoice in having, and a wizard with Verity’s power was not someone she wanted to take a chance on having at her back at some point in the future, especially not given all else that was arrayed against her at present.

  When the deed was done, she found the door and looked out once she’d opened it a crack. The Waking Woods had grown tall here, ancient trees reaching up to the sky, their interlaced boughs full of green life and blocking the sun almost as effectively as the caves of Saekaj and Sovar. But not quite. She surveyed the ruins of the old town, with weeds all overgrown and ivy covering the old buildings. Some of them had a wicked tilt to them, their wood construction overmatched by years of neglect.

  She found a good site nearby, an old ditch that was filled near to brimming with small, weedy plants that were somehow surviving in these low light conditions. A few mushrooms grew in the dampness of the rocks, and it was here that Aisling dragged Verity’s body. It left a trail of blood that was likely to fool no one who went looking, at least not for long, but it was far enough off the immediate trail that she felt a wizard teleporting in randomly would have to expend time looking for the body. She covered it with a few stray branches, then went over the trail with dirt with her leather boot, sweeping it clear as best she could, dropping sand in the red liquid to mop it up.

  When she’d finished, she stood outside in the old town, admiring the destruction, and cast a look at Verity’s final resting place. Over an hour had passed, that she was certain of, and she felt quite assured that while the body was hidden from any dark elven searchers that might wander this way, the open wounds she’d left would attract a different sort of seeker. She’ll be nothing but bones within a week, Aisling thought with cool assurance. She took in a deep breath and sighed it out, a strange relief falling over her at the thought of what she’d done.

  One less trouble on my mind. One less link in my chains. And now I can tell the story I want to, within the framework of what happened, and I’ve got one less voice to oppose me. She blinked. I don’t have much longer, though. That much is certain. The days of my deceits are winding to a close, and I’ll need an angle if I wish to avoid his wrath, avoid his desire to dispense with me.

  Fortunately … that one’s already taken care of.

  Without so much as a look back at the place where she’d left the body, Aisling set her path in the direction of Saekaj Sovar, curiously relieved to face the future—and with a slightly less full abyss of emotion yawing at her feet.

  36.

  J’anda

  When he woke in the mornings, it was with Zieran Lacielle at his side, the both of them politely uncomfortable with the arrangement they’d been forced into by their deceit. For his part, J’anda wondered which of them was the less comfortable with their sharing arrangement. Zieran bore the whole ordeal with a surprising lack of emotion, given how well she’d known him before.

  “The silence is deafening,” J’anda remarked one morning as they dressed, separately, as though there was a wall dividing the center of the room.

  “You of all people should know how much work goes into maintaining even the most rudimentary illusions,” she said coolly, her purple eyes devoid of emotion.

  “Indeed,” he said, taking a sharp breath in through his nose as he fastened his robe and draped the vestment of the enchanter across his shoulders. It is far beyond strange to be in this place again, and it defies explanation to be here in this way, with this sort of … companion. “I suppose it almost like a real marriage, but … without the marriage.”

  “The Sovereign may yet command that particular sacrifice of us,” Zieran said darkly. Was it his imagination or was there more than a hint of resentment there? I would have to imagine very hard in order to see none there; how can one live in these forced conditions without feeling some resentment? His eyes dashed around the room at the thin walls, and the hum and buzz of the Gathering of Coercers made its way through them, a hundred voices in the dining hall somewhere behind Zieran.

  “I am sorry it would be a sacrifice,” J’anda said without any discernible emotion of his own.

  Zieran hesitated, her youthful visage torn in sudden contrition. “I’m sorry, J’anda. I didn’t mean to say—”

  “I know what you meant,” he said with a pained smile. You meant that being told what to do, who to be and who to be with is an indignity. How well I know this. “No offense was taken.”

  She finished threading her hair in a careful braid and threw it over her shoulder. J’anda eyed it; it had been a few weeks since she’d been freed of the Depths, and she was starting to look a little healthy again, down even to her hair. Finally. It assuaged his guilt at least a little over the predicament she’d been cast into, though not much. “What are you doing today?”

  “Teaching new children some basics,” J’anda said with a shrug. “Possibly dropping back to Sanctuary to spy, if so ordered. I haven’t heard much of anything of consequence since their Gren expedition.”

  “Weren’t you just there yesterday?”

  “I was,” J’anda said. “But much can change in a day.”

  “Are the trolls leaving us?” Zieran asked with a frown.

  J’anda shrugged slightly. “Probably.”

  Her mouth was open to ask another question when the hammering sounded at the door. J’anda turned his head abruptly, frozen in place like he could see through it to the trouble beyond. He started to move to answer it when Zieran held up a hand to stay him. “Wait,” she said. “It’s my place to do this.”

  J’anda could not hide the flicker of annoyance. The standards of the Sovereign. “Very well,” he said and raised a hand in a most sarcastic, faux-magnanimous gesture as the second hammering fell upon the door.

  No sooner had Zieran unfastened the bolt and slid it open than the door was pushed open by six soldiers. The first of them moved Zieran aside without resistance; she kept her hands raised all the while. The rest flooded into the room and surrounded J’anda, shoving him roughly away from the bed to surround him. Swords were drawn, blades were in his back, and the points poked at his robes.

  “Good morning,” Vracken Coeltes said as he entered, holding the staff of the Guildmaster at his side. He was not smiling. “I hope you had a restful night.”

  “I have had better,” J’anda said with an artless shrug, his hands in the air in the non-threatening manner. “The mattresses here, they are simply not of the quality with which I have become accustomed.”

  “We don’t believe in human weakness in this place,” Coeltes said without humor.

  “But of course,” J’anda said, keeping himself on an even keel. You don’t believe in weakness, Coeltes, except as it pertains to others. Perhaps someday soon I’ll have a chance to illuminate for you those weaknesses you don’t think you have.

  “You are ordered to appear in front of the Sovereign immediately,” Coeltes said, and now he smiled slightly.

  “You seem happy,” J’anda said, “so I assume my execution is in order.”

  “Your friend Lepos betrayed the Sovereignty yesterday at the battle of Leaugarden,” Coeltes said, gleeful. “Since he was
the only one who saved you from death the last time you stood before the Sovereign’s justice, I don’t imagine you’ll find another candidate willing to stand in his stead.” Coeltes puffed himself up. “I, for one, plan to argue most strenuously for your death.” The smile broke wider. “And without anyone worthy of note to speak in your defense,” he cast his eyes to Zieran, who stood frozen in fear in the corner, staring at him as the obvious was hammered home by the Guildmaster, “I don’t expect you’re going to live to see tomorrow.”

  37.

  Terian

  Well … this isn’t quite so homey as I might have hoped, Terian thought, staring at the wall of the dungeon cell that he was presently occupying. Is this the same cell that Cyrus was in a couple years ago? He let his eyes dash around, from the hard steel door to the even stones that were the color of sand. They fit together beautifully, as everything else in Sanctuary did, and he paused for just a second to wonder at the craftsmanship of the guildhall before a knock sounded at the door.

  “Come right on in,” Terian said from his place on the cot. The mattress was a little flimsy for his taste, but better than the battlefield sleeping rolls he’d dealt with of late. He had a thought as he stood there; I wonder if they’ve got my old horse in the stables …

  The lock shifted in the door with a hard click and opened wide with a squeak to reveal two guards just outside, their armored pauldrons barely visible on either side of the shadowed opening while two others stood immediately across the hall, watching intently over the shoulder of his visitor.

  “Oh,” Terian said in surprise as he recognized the silhouette, “I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “You should have,” Curatio said, stepping into the cell as the door was shut by the guards behind him. “Have you spoken with J’anda recently?”