Crusader

the Sovereign’s army to his knees, but if we did this regularly it’d be enough to keep us in the fresh foodstuffs for a while.” He gave a long look around, surveying the damage they had wrought. “Well, it worked.”

“Of course it worked,” she said, looking over the ill-gotten gains. “And this is but the first of many. We need to hit them with such force and so often that they are compelled to send hundreds of troops with every wagon for fear it will disappear from the road as though swallowed up by the very earth itself.” Something in the way she said it made Vara’s own scalp tingle, and an idea worked its way in, just a passing one at first, framed from a memory. We could … She shook her head, as if to rid herself of it. No, ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous …

But it stayed with her just the same.

Chapter 60

Cyrus

The days passed slowly after Cyrus’s meeting with Tiernan. Cyrus remained in an agitated state; the river nearby was now clogged with bodies, so many of them falling downstream that he wondered how there could have been that many people in the north for so many to have washed downward.

“There are several major villages on this stream,” Unger said to him as they stood nearby, watching the water source turn more and more tainted as the days passed. “It bodes ill for Syloreas that so many of our sons and daughters are feeling the teeth of these beasts.”

It bodes ill for our army as well, if every source of fresh water is given over to being filled with rotting corpses, Cyrus thought, but he did not say it. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought of bathing as well, though that scarcely seemed to matter to Aisling. She had come to his tent in silence every night since their first rendezvous by the river, and she said not a word, no conversation, nothing. He did not want to break the quiet that she imposed to bring about any of the questions she might have that he cared not to answer. So he said nothing, but instead buried his lips in hers, pressing his face against her cheek, her neck, in her bosom. The silence was like water to him, just as vital to his survival, and he needed what she gave him so desperately now that he wondered how he had survived without it for so many years.

The camp had been quiet until the second army from Actaluere arrived. Cyrus watched them stream into the camp, at least thrice the size of the host that Milos Tiernan had brought with him to Enrant Monge. Other armies streamed in, too, from the east and west of Syloreas. “They’ve been turned out by riders,” Unger had said to him as they watched a steady line of men in furs and skins come into camp day after day, few enough of them possessing any armor at all. A few genuine armies of Syloreas came as well, more of them bearing at least some protection for battle but not nearly as many as came in cloth and with rusty swords and spears.

They moved north the day after the Actaluereans joined them, striking out across the plain, following a road that seemed familiar to Cyrus. When the wind blew out of the north it smelled of rot and decay and carried a chill that ill-fitted late summer. When it came out of the south it was enough to remind Cyrus of the harvest and brought warmth aplenty. The memory of the Plains of Perdamun was still strong with him, and though the grains looked marginally different, he was reminded of home nonetheless as the days grew shorter a few minutes at a time. The ride north was slower than when last he had done it, the mountains in the distance still capped with snow.

Cyrus kept his own counsel as the days went on, meeting with his officers only when needed. They were well enough instructed that he didn’t worry, and Odellan had a firm handle on the warriors and rangers who made up the front ranks of battle. He watched them drill at the elf’s commands and tried to feel fortunate at having come across the Endrenshan from Termina. I doubt he would feel quite the same. All things being equal, I rather suspect he’d prefer to still be there, in his city, were it still standing. Hell, perhaps even now that it’s not.

The last day of their ride carried them to a small town on the edge of the river, where the folk they found turned out en masse when Briyce Unger led the march through their village. Cyrus looked over the village, which was no more than a collection of hovels with thatched roofs and stone walls, perhaps two dozen at most, all grouped together around a mill with a waterwheel that turned. There was a sound within that Cyrus presumed was the sound of rocks grinding grist.

Cyrus listened as the townsfolk pelted Unger with questions, their worry bleeding into their voices. What about the dead bodies? Should we go south and find safety? What comes for us? What killed those people? Will it kill us as well? Has Scylax truly fallen?

The voices were overwhelming, and Cyrus watched as Unger held up his hands for quiet. The last of the cacophony died away, leaving an eerie calm settled over the village as the people waited to hear Unger’s pronouncement. “Good people,” Unger began, still atop his horse, looking like nothing so much as a mountain astride his destrier, “I bring with me sad tidings of news you’ve already heard. A vile enemy comes out of the mountains, and yes, it has taken Scylax and slaughtered the people there. This is done, and no amount of wishing will make it undone. But I bring with me allies-magicians from beyond the western shores of our land, the full army of Actaluere and all the men Syloreas can spare. You’ve heard the rumors and heralds and the messengers. Now hear me-we will fight our enemies back. We will drive them from here, whip them before us with sword and shield and send them scurrying back to their mountain den where we will crush them and ensure they never return to haunt our mountain home again.”

Cyrus listened as the King of Syloreas said his piece. There was a certain magic in the way he did it, weaving his words together, causing the crowd to stay silent. Unger was not much of a wordsmith, but his ability to speak in front of the villagers came out and there was a calm in the midst of what was coming, a reassurance from their own King that they would be safe. Cyrus took it all in, unsurprised, and when they met at the inn that night, Cyrus said as much to Curatio, J’anda and Longwell.

“Unger’s long been a thorn in my father’s side,” Longwell said, chewing on the moist bones of a chicken. “Unger’s father was a dreadful King, to hear it told. The people were in an uproar all the time, there was a famine that he dealt with poorly or somesuch, I can’t recall. Briyce, though, has been skillful, especially for a man so focused on battle. What he managed to do-striking into the heart of Galbadien-was shocking, considering that a generation ago Syloreas had lost a quarter of its territory just to our predations. Briyce can persuade and he can fight. He took back all that lost ground and then some.” Longwell shook his head. “I wasn’t looking forward to ever staring across our northern border at him.”

“You were to be a King here,” J’anda said, his delicate hands cradling a battered brass goblet of wine that looked so out of place in the refined enchanter’s grasp as to nearly be alien. “What happened to make you leave?”

“Long story,” Longwell said, and gnawed on a leg bone without enthusiasm.

“It would seem we have time,” Cyrus said, glancing around the candle-lit room. It was dim, and reminded him of a bar he’d been to in Reikonos with Terian at his side. He tried to push that thought away; he’d last seen Terian being walked along behind Mendicant’s pony.

“I suppose,” Samwen grudgingly admitted. “You’ve met my father. You got a sense for what he’s like.”

“More than a sense,” J’anda said, looking sidelong at another table, where Briyce Unger sat with several of his men, drinking mead and speaking in boisterous tones; Cyrus could hear some braggadocio, something about a battle on a western shore.

“He wasn’t always that way,” Longwell said, carefully licking the grease from each of his fingers. His gauntlets lay on the table beside him, and his steel blue armor looked dark, almost black, in the candlelight. “He used to be a warrior himself, a dragoon, like me. He had courage, little fear-they said he won a battle against the old King of Syloreas by riding him down in a charge. Which would be unremarkable except that my father had only himself and the King of Syloreas had a hundred guards following him into the fight.”

Cyrus raised an eyebrow. “I presume the Syloreans backed off after your father struck down their King?”

“You presume correctly,” Longwell said, his head down, voice still clear. “They’re fierce warriors, and they would have been glad to take revenge, but he fought him singly and won. When my father’s army-smaller than the