“It’s you,” Calene said without hesitation, causing Cyrus to freeze in place. “It’s always been you.”
He pursed his lips and felt the guilt well up. “I appreciate that, really I do, more than you know. But that’s a vote of confidence I don’t think I deserve. If anyone on this expedition should be skeptical of me and my ability to command effectively it should be you, after what you went through-”
“After what I went through?” She bristled. “I got captured by the enemy, a cruel, vicious and subhuman one. He did some nasty things, things that made me feel like less than a person.” She leaned forward. “But you weren’t him. And you didn’t let him get away with it, either. You came for me, and you didn’t have to. Anyone else would have left us behind, or struggled to get us back. You saved me. You saved the others-”
“But not until after-”
“After what happened had already happened,” she said, and Cyrus heard the razored steel in her voice. “You saved us. Led us out and made him suffer.” She sat back and looked at him coolly. “I believe in you.”
Cyrus put a hand against his face. “Everyone keeps saying that. I’m not even sure I know what it means anymore.”
She stared back at him, quiet, then looked at Scuddar, then Longwell. “Haven’t you ever had someone you knew you could count on before? That no matter how bad it got, you knew they’d be there with you, no matter what?”
Cyrus felt an icy chill run through his gut and a memory flitter.
“Belief in others is a powerful thing,” Scuddar said, his quiet, deep timbre. “Hope is sometimes all we have. There’s an old legend among my people, the story of the Ark. Have you heard it?”
“No,” Cyrus said with a shake of his head.
“When the world was first new,” Scuddar began, “there were only two gods who ruled over it-the God of Good, and the God of Evil. They divided among themselves all the attributes and aspects that each prized. Courage, Light, Knowledge, Life-these were but a few of the virtues held by the followers of good.” His countenance darkened in the firelight. “Darkness, Despair, Death and War-those and others were held high in esteem by the God of Evil. It was a mighty struggle, waged day and night over the surface of the bare land. But the forces were too evenly matched, as evil had captured the hearts and souls of mortal beings to even the score. Mortals began to despair, so wracked were they with the darkness sent from evil. And so the God of Good sent forth his last gift to mortals-the Ark. It was to be what they looked to in times of trouble, as within they could find that most ephemeral of all the virtues.”
Cyrus stared across the fire at the desert man, heard the pop of the logs, felt the smoke fill the air around him as though the words were taking on a mystical quality of their own. He took a deep inhalation through his nose and the smell of the wood fire took him back, as though he were around a campfire in the days when the story was happening. He listened on as his skin prickled from the back of his neck and up his scalp, and he watched through the flames as the man of the desert moved his hands in time with the story, as though he had told it numerous times before. “What was it?” Cyrus asked, and realized that if Scuddar had, in fact, told this story numerous times before, he had paused and was waiting for someone to answer.
“Hope.” Scuddar’s hands came down. “It is in our darkest hours that we let despair creep in, let it drain us of any faith in ourselves. Hope is our respite, the answer to our cries. The belief that darkness can be destroyed by the light, that despair can be turned back if we believe-if we have hope for a brighter day ahead.”
Cyrus ran his hand up to his long hair, tangled and matted.
Scuddar leaned forward over the fire, and his eyes caught the light; they were yellow, and Cyrus had never noticed that before, but they glowed. “Because darkness … and despair and death … these are things all rooted in your past. Hope … is about a future. You need not live your whole life governed by them. That road is despair. Futility. Hope is the idea that no matter what evil you might have done, willing or unwilling-it can redeemed.”
Cyrus felt the gut clench of emotion. “I fear that there are some things so wrong, so dark, that there is no redemption for them.”
Scuddar’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Well, that is not really up to you now, is it?”
“Didn’t you believe in the God of War, once upon a time?” Longwell asked, breaking Cyrus out of his trance and turning his head away from Scuddar. “In battle and chaos, destruction and death?”
“For combatants, yes,” Cyrus said. “Not for the innocent. For those who wanted it, for those who thrived on battle, the clash of blade, the evangelism of the trial by fire.”
“Those things are combatants,” Longwell said, pointing him toward the field of battle, somewhere ahead in the darkness, barely visible beyond the fire-lit camp. “You don’t believe they deserve to die?”
“They’re already dead,” Cyrus said, “but yes, they deserve to die. And I’ll kill as many as I can.”
“Ah,” Scuddar said. “So you believe in something, at least. Even something so minor as that. It’s a start.”
“And what do you believe?” Cyrus asked, watching the smoke waft between him and Scuddar, between the night and those yellow eyes.
“I believe that when you come to the moment when you believe all hope is gone,” Scuddar said, “you will be forced to reach down inside yourself, to touch whatever remains within you. I believe in that moment, General … you’ll find the embers of whatever is left. You’ll find what you truly believe in. And I think …” the desert man smiled, “… that whatever it is, our enemy will have cause to fear. Because a man can only live with despair for so long before hope resurges.”
Chapter 103
The next day was a long battle, one that grated and dragged along him, like a whip taken to flesh. He could feel the pain in his muscles at the close of the day, the smell of death fixed in his nose as though he had swallowed it, the stench hanging in the back of his throat and threatening to gag him with every breath. The sound of swords tearing flesh was in his ears as was the guttural screaming of the scourge, their cries echoing in the night even now, far behind the lines. Cyrus was arrayed in a council, Curatio and Martaina with him along with Terian. Opposite him were Longwell and Ranson, directly across, Briyce Unger to his left and Milos Tiernan to his right, a fearsome scarring present on Tiernan’s face.
“Before we begin,” Tiernan said, nodding in acknowledgment to Cyrus, “I owe you my thanks for saving my sister.”
“I only wish it hadn’t cost you Caenalys in the process,” Cyrus said. Tiernan’s jaw clamped shut; he said nothing.
Silence reigned for almost a full minute. “Well, we’ve come to it at last,” Unger said. The mountain King’s shoulders were slumped, as though one of the fabled avalanches had finally come down on him.
“Aye,” Longwell said. “Our flat ground is done; from here to the bridge it’s a swampy corridor of peninsula. Our last advantage is gone.” He made as if to turn and look to the fields of recent battle. “It was a good fight while it lasted, though.” He turned serious, sober. “We could have the dragoons dismount and fight as foot infantry-”
“Foolish,” Unger said, shaking his enormous head.
“A waste,” Tiernan agreed. There was a somber spirit of dejection upon them, but Tiernan seemed to brush it aside. “The time has come to plan the next phase. To see our people safely across to the west. We have the foot troops to hold the last of the peninsula for a time.” The King of Actaluere set his jaw. “I’ve discussed it with
