Crusader

Sylorean one by half-rejoined him after the charge, they formed a line and held against the rage of the Syloreans for a full day without breaking. That was forty years ago or more, I suppose. That was the battle that made Briyce Unger King of Syloreas. My father had only been on the throne of Galbadien five years or so by that point.”

“Briyce had no thanks for the gift of his crown?” J’anda sipped delicately from the cup again, then set it upon the table.

“No,” Longwell said with a shake of the head. “As soon as his coronation was over he rode out at the head of their army and started to take back territory. They gained a half dozen towns and a major seaport by the end of his first week of fighting. Sent my father into a rage. Of course, I wasn’t born yet when this happened, but my mother told me. By the time I came along, she said he was a different man than the one she’d known when he began. He only got worse after that, raging at the wrong people, fearful of losing so much as an inch of his Kingdom. He didn’t lead battles anymore, no reckless charges. He was afraid to take a risk for fear of what it might cost him.” Longwell brought his own goblet up. “And we lost territory after territory, and he got more calculating as time went on. Since the day I was born, Galbadien is a hundred miles shorter across the top than it was. Not much lost to the west, but still.” He shrugged. “Father hasn’t taken it very well, but he’s yet to make an aggressive move to stop it, other than when he tried to invade Syloreas while Unger’s back was turned.”

“Fear of loss does funny things to a man,” Curatio said, speaking for the first time since they’d sat down. The healer’s eyes were firmly rooted in his own wine, though he hadn’t had more than a few sips since they’d arrived, Cyrus knew. “It quickens the blood, slows action, paralyzes you. A man could have everything he wanted and be truly happy, but if you take away only the smallest thing, he becomes angry, resentful, and his happiness rots like a deshfruit left in the midday sun.” Curatio took a finger and dipped it into his glass, then brought it out and let it drip on the table. “It only gets worse as you age, you know. The older you are, the more you see what you have to lose, and the more you fear what that loss might mean.”

“I’ve heard he’s not even the same since I left,” Longwell said. “He dwells in his chambers, doesn’t see anyone for days at a time, that not even the maidens they send him can lift his spirits for more than an hour or so at a go. He’s fearful, all right, though I didn’t see it when we quarreled before I left. He argued me right out of Vernadam, without so much as a notice that it might be anything other than petty anger driving him.”

“A father and a son arguing?” J’anda said with a quiet chuckle. “Hard to believe.”

“Oh, yes,” Longwell said. “There was stubborn pride on display enough to choke the both of us. He rooted in his conviction, and I in mine.”

“What did you argue about?” Curatio asked, ever the sage, implacable, all-knowing.

Longwell thought about it, and Cyrus watched the dragoon’s face as it squinted in consideration. “I don’t rightly know,” Longwell said. “It seemed of vital importance at the time, some minor trifle about how the army ran that felt like the most important thing in the world, but upon reflection …” Longwell let out a quiet, mirthless laugh, “I’ll be damned if I can remember.”

“Pettiness is hardly an exclusively human trait,” Curatio said. “I recall-just barely, you understand-arguing with my own father. Though obviously this was some time ago.”

“How did your father die, Curatio?” Cyrus asked.

The healer stared into space, his face blank. “It was a long time ago.”

“Does that mean you don’t recall?” Longwell asked, his attention turned to the elf. “Or that you don’t want to?”

Curatio didn’t change expression, and continued to stare straight ahead. “It was a long time ago.”

“It would appear we’ve brought some of Alaric’s ‘vague and mysterious’ along with us to this new land,” J’anda said, prompting a chuckle from Longwell, and even a smile from Curatio, one that lasted far past all the other smiles at the table.

That night, when Cyrus lay down in his bed, the sounds of the inn alive around him, he tried not to think about what was to come. There was a fire in the hearth beside him, and the Syloreans were still drinking downstairs and telling stories, though Milos Tiernan and his few aides had left even before Cyrus and his party had called it a night. There was a quiet creaking as Cyrus shifted in the bed, which was old and made a corresponding amount of noise every time he moved in it. It gave a squeak of protest, the wood in the old frame taking umbrage to his motion on top of the thin mattress. There was still the smell of chicken in the air, and the aroma of the pickled eggs that had been kept in a barrel in the corner which the innkeep left open all night, as though the smell were of no consideration. The smoke of the fire did all it could to overcome it, yet still failed. The nub of a feather was sticking out of the mattress and poking into Cyrus’s back, and when he shifted, another took its place.

There was a very quiet sound of a door opening, and a thin shaft of light flooded into the room, running across his bed for only a second before a shadow blocked it, then one more second before the door closed quietly again. He saw the figure, unmistakable in her curves and careful, quiet walk. “Aisling?” he whispered, and he felt a finger cross his lips as she silently slipped into the bed.

Her lips pressed onto to his, and the swarm of thoughts in his mind faded blissfully. The bed frame continued to squeak, building to a fever pitch of motion, and then subsided. She left as quietly as she came in, and once she was gone, his thoughts plagued him no more.

Chapter 61

Vara

Day 18 of the Siege of Sanctuary

The alarms sounded in the middle of the night, along with the customary calls of “Alarum! Alarum!” that set her teeth to rattling. Why call out the elongated version of the damned word? Why not just say “alarm” and be done with it?

She had slept once more in her armor and was down the stairs quickly enough to avoid the pileup that had seemed to occur with every alarm of late. Her only consolation was knowing that the members were taking every attack seriously. Except perhaps now, in the dead of the night, the slowness of things coming to awakeness. Of course they would attack us now, draw us out weary and exhausted after I’ve just spent another day preying on their convoys and shipments. She let slip a feral smile. I’d strike them that way, just the same. No mercy.

There were only two heralds in the foyer, two warriors shouting the alarm. Rather than correct them (or slap them, she thought uncharitably) she instead followed their outstretched hands, pointing to the front doors. She ran past the ranks of guards stationed around the portal in the foyer, swords, spears and axes pointed at the center of the room and she fled down the steps at a run, only a few others with her. She had heard the sounds up the stairwell and on the other floors as she passed them; They’ll all be awake and turned out soon enough.

The night air was cool as she crossed the distance of the yard to the wall. The slap of her boots on the steps was lost to her breathing this time, steady, determined. She burst out onto the parapet and found a surprisingly quiet scene-a crowd of people circled down the wall a space, no one watching the fields below. She stole a glance over the edge, and by the light of the crescent moon she could see no army close by, no immediate threat, the grounds below still wafting the stench of the dead from the last battle, their bones now picked clean by the carrion birds, rats, worms, and maggots.

“What the bloody hell was that?” she asked as she shoulder checked her way through the crowd standing on the wall. Most moved aside when her voice was heard. It is nice to know that some move aside not only because I am the shelas’akur but because I’m bound to knock them aside if they don’t. She burst through into the open space on the other side of the wall and there found Alaric, standing with his arms folded next to Thad, surveying the scene.

There were a dozen bodies lying splattered atop the wall, all dark elves she could see by the complexion of the ruined flesh, every one of them in armor of some sort. One of them was obviously a dark knight, fully covered from head to toe in plate mail, a stream of blood oozing out of the cracks and clefts. “What the hell is this?” Vara asked again, and this time Alaric turned to face her, registering no surprise.

“Hello, lass,” the Ghost said. “It would appear that our enemies intended to launch a surprise attack to open