“I wouldn’t consider you too indebted to me,” Cyrus said, “after all, we did unleash this scourge by our own actions-by my own actions.”
“No one could have predicted that,” Longwell said quickly. Too quickly. “We need to leave soon. Perhaps after a short rest?”
“Early evening, I think,” Cyrus said. “A few hours of sleep if possible, and then we’ll be on our way. Tell the others, will you? I’ll speak with Curatio and gather us a healer.” He looked around. “They’re pitching tents,” he pointed to a few of Actaluere’s men, already hammering the first stakes into the ground, and the Syloreans across the camp were doing the same, “We’ll rest, then we’ll leave. I’ll need to send a wizard to Sanctuary to request aid again, if they haven’t already sent it. If they have, I’ll still request more.”
“Aye, sir,” Longwell said. “I’ll inform the others.”
“Don’t worry about Aisling,” Cyrus said carefully, drawing Longwell to turn back to him, just as a cool gust blew through. “I’ll tell her myself.”
“Aye,” Longwell said with care of his own, not revealing anything he might be thinking, masklike.
Cyrus watched the dragoon walk away.
He walked across the campsite, the smell of weary and war all around him. He could hear faint snores from some of the men, light talking from others but in hushed voices, the quiet maintained, as though any sound above a whisper might bring the dread monsters down upon them again. He could feel the light touch of the north wind again that told him winter was coming, was not as far off as he wanted it to be, here at the end of summer. Autumn would surely come first but would be the only buffer between them and the snows that would likely bury these plains in only a few months. The taste of snowflakes on Cyrus’s tongue was something he could almost sense now, and he longed for water to wash it off, as there were another taste he could remember, one from the last retreat he’d ordered, not quite a year ago, in Termina, where the ash fell from the burning city across the river.
Cyrus’s feet carried him along, a short walk to a tree that rested in the middle of the plains. There were men all around, in every direction, and horses beyond them. Even in the quiet of the camp there was activity, though subtle, understated. He could see Windrider where he’d left him, working on conjured oats that a wizard had made for him and the rest of the animals. Cyrus looked over the small knot of Sanctuary officers nearby and then to Mendicant, who sat next to Terian, still bound in chains and watching him.
Cyrus edged closer to the dark knight and the goblin wizard; Mendicant’s back was turned, paying him no mind, but Terian kept an eye on Cyrus, his mouth covered by a rag that was tied in a thick knot. Cyrus could see that there was a rock stuffed between his lips by the tilt of the dark elf’s jaw. His eyes blazed as he watched Cyrus approach, and when the warrior was only steps away, Mendicant stirred and turned to see him there.
“Lord Davidon, sir,” Mendicant said, rushing to his short legs. The goblin came only to mid-chest on Cyrus and seemed nervous in his presence.
“I need you to cast the cessation spell, Mendicant,” Cyrus said. “I need to talk to Terian.”
“Of course, sir,” Mendicant said, and shut his eyes, letting his hand rise as though to cast the power of his spell in the direction he was pointed. His eyes rolled under the thick, scaly lids as Cyrus heard the faintest mumblings under the goblin’s breath. When his eyes opened, Cyrus saw a faint movement around his hands, the barest hint of the air rippling like water, not with the strength of a paladin’s spell but enough to create a disturbance around them, causing the nature of the world to blur within the bounds of the spell in a way Cyrus had never noticed before.
Cyrus squatted down to where Terian sat, legs in front of him. No one had bothered to strip the dark elf of his armor and so he still wore parts of it, dark-tinged metal protection from battle. Normally it was spiked in a way that Cyrus had never seen in armor. Terian’s pauldrons were gone, though, the most lethal piece of pointed armor he possessed, as was the helm, and the jagged additions to his elbows and knees, as well as the dark elf’s boots. He wore a motley assortment of armor and leather, his footcovers now worn, holes in them from all the walking.
Cyrus tugged the gag out of Terian’s mouth, and the dark elf spat out the rock, though not with any particular violence. Cyrus had been ready for him to launch it, but he didn’t. He stared at Cyrus, and Cyrus stared back, but the hostility was all one sided. “I’m leaving,” Cyrus said at last, wondering if Terian would speak at all.
“How nice.” Terian’s tone was cold and flat, and he lifted his hands, still bound. “Finally decided to get out while you can?”
“I’m going to Vernadam to try and involve Galbadien in this war,” Cyrus said, and watched Terian’s expression change not a whit. “I’m taking Longwell and a few others, and I’m going to see if we can tip the scales, because if we don’t it’s going to end very badly. You saw the battle?”
“I saw,” Terian said at last, almost reluctant. “Looks like you’re overmatched.”
“Indeed,” Cyrus said. “This whole land is overmatched by those things.”
Terian shrugged his shoulders; without the spiked pauldrons he was much less intimidating and shorter than Cyrus had noticed before. “They’re all going to die, one town at a time, until this whole damned land is wiped clean. And you get to live with the knowledge that you’re responsible, Cyrus.” Terian broke into a hollow smile. “How’s that feel?”
“I don’t know, Terian,” Cyrus said with more calm than he was feeling, “how does it feel? Because I believe you were right there with me when we killed Mortus.”
“I didn’t make the choice,” Terian snarled back. “I didn’t lunge in front of the God of Death as he was about to strike down a willing sacrifice. I damned sure didn’t cut him or finish striking him down when it was all said and done. I didn’t do it, you did. So, the consequences are yours. Just like my father. I know you didn’t know what it was going to cause you, but the consequences for that are yours, too.” The dark knight let a bitter smile curl his lips. “And aren’t they a real bitch, too?”
“I didn’t know he was your father, you’re right,” Cyrus said, feeling the pressure on his knees as he squatted there next to Terian, “but I would have killed him even if I had.” He watched Terian stiffen. “He was going to kill me, for sure. I know that doesn’t bother you, but I don’t just lie down and die when someone means to have at me.”
“Really?” Terian asked, and it was a cold fury grimace that he wore. “Because I heard you did just that, and Vara had to save you.”
“Maybe she did,” Cyrus said, “but I wasn’t going to let her fall, not at the hands of your father, not at the hands of the God of Death, not by anyone, not then.”
“I dunno, Cyrus,” Terian said, still wearing his smile, “your elf-bitch sounds like more trouble than she’s worth. She seems to have landed you in all manner of shit. You’re in deep now, old friend, near to over your head, if you’re not already.”
“She’s not mine,” Cyrus said. “Not anymore, if she ever was.”
There was a silence for a beat, only the sound of Mendicant’s continued incantation behind them. “You realize, of course,” Terian said, “that if you’d only let my father kill her, none of this would have happened. Not any of the deaths here in Luukessia, not you and I-”
“Somehow, I think if you’d been there on the bridge, you might have seen it differently,” Cyrus said. “Your father, a man you talk about when you’re drunk as though he’s the second coming of Yartraak-” Cyrus watched Terian blanch, “-and yet when he’s dead you lionize him. You’re willing to throw away your entire life to for a man who you couldn’t stand while he was alive. Would you have let Vara die, standing on that bridge? Do you have so little regard for your guildmates that you would have switched sides right there, shifted your allegiance to the Sovereignty without care for the words you swore to Alaric, to the loyalties you pledged to me, to our fellows?” Cyrus gave a wide sweep of the arm to take in all of the people around them. “Or would you have just … abandoned your duty? Let him hammer her down with a sword until she died, let him go through the rest of us one by one until he’d killed us all and taken Termina for the Sovereign?” Cyrus watched Terian with cool loathing, saw the doubt buried deep in the dark elf. “Did you love him? Was his path the one you envied, or did you have prickle of conscience somewhere inside that was as quiet as an ember snuffed out of a dead fire? Which was it, Terian? Did you leave him or did he cast you out? Was he the one you wanted to be? Or was he everything you hated
