they were sworn to serve. They failed their lands, their people. They were Kings, supposed to be the most exalted, but they understood that basic truth that they were supposed to serve their people. Their redemption for that was to stand at the last edge of their land and die trying to stop these things from coming any farther.” Cyrus shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the willingness to fight that hard, to die for what you believe in … maybe that brings its own sort of redemption. And peace, I would hope.”
Terian looked back now, as though he could see the scourge behind them. “I don’t know what peace death brings, not after all we’ve seen this year. Those things. I don’t know what sort of redemption there is out there for those of us who have …” He bowed his head. “Erred, let’s call it.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider your attempt to kill me in that category, would you?”
“Don’t push it, Davidon,” Terian said irritably. “I’m already having the sort of conversation with you that I don’t comfortably have with anyone else.”
“But because you’re going to kill me, it’s almost like you’re not talking to anyone at all, huh?”
“No one keeps secrets like the dead,” Terian quipped.
They walked on in peace for two more days after that, a solemn, quiet, cool breeze coming off the sea of Carmas in gusts that ran through the cracks in Cyrus’s mail. The salt air was good, a pleasant smell, but it left a film on his armor. The nights were long and he spent them alone. Aisling looked at him from across the army a few times, as though she were waiting for him to beckon her forward. He did not, though, and instead lay awake staring at the stars until his eyes finally drooped into sleep.
It was at the close of the third day that the wind shifted directions, from out of the south. Cyrus could feel it, tangible, a change in current. The stone bridge went on into infinity before him, packed tightly with men and horses as far as he could see. When he turned back, as he had every few minutes for the entire journey, afraid that his next moment would be the one when a scourge jumped onto his back and dragged him down, he still saw nothing but the faint distortion of a mirage in the distance. The sun was falling in the sky but it was surprisingly hot, the southern breeze doing little to shift the air.
There was movement to his left and he turned to see Martaina, her cowl falling behind her head and exposing her hair to flutter in the breeze. She stared into the distance behind them, peering carefully, then dropped to the ground and put her ear against the surface of the bridge.
“Interesting place to sleep,” Terian said with a grin.
She waved at him for silence, and they waited. A moment later she sprang up and looked at Cyrus, deadly serious. “They’re coming.”
He tensed. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I can hear their claws. Much different sound than horses clip-clopping along ahead of us. It’s faint, but there. A whole bunch of them, too, coming on fast. They’ll catch up to us in a few hours, maybe a half- day at most.”
“We’re only two days from the shores of Arkaria. We need to buy time,” Cyrus said, thinking. “Nyad!”
“Buy time for what?” Terian asked. “Once those things hit the shore, we’re done. Good luck bottling them up again, or beating them in the jungle as they sweep north. Once the cork comes out of the bottle, the wine is going to escape all over your new dress.”
“I don’t wear a dress,” Cyrus said as Nyad appeared at his side. “Go back to Sanctuary and warn Alaric that these things are coming and we need help, now, at the bridge. No time to waste. Don’t take any excuses; these things aren’t on Luukessia anymore, they’re coming, and they will destroy our land if we don’t stop them. You need to make him understand. Got it?”
She nodded, and closed her eyes, lips moving in subtle ways as she repeated the incantation. Her hands glowed slightly, and there was a burst of green energy that exploded over them, causing Cyrus to turn his head and avert his eyes. When he opened them again and looked back, Nyad remained standing in the same place, a look of puzzlement upon her face. She closed her eyes again and began to cast the spell, the glow came forth once more, the light burst with sparkles, and when the spots cleared from Cyrus’s vision she still stood in the middle of the Endless Bridge.
“Maybe I should send someone else?” Cyrus asked.
“No,” Nyad said with a shake of her head. “It’s not that. It’s not me. It’s the spell-the portal! It’s not working.”
“What do you mean it’s not working?” Terian asked, his eyebrows knitted together in a deep furrow. “How does a spell not work?”
Nyad seemed to consider this for a moment, staring off at the horizon. “There are only two reasons why the spell wouldn’t work. Either the portal has been shut down, or-” She stopped speaking and paled, her complexion looking a flushed orange in the light of the late afternoon, as her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “Or it’s been destroyed.”
Chapter 106
Vara
The battlements were in motion, a steady flow of people. The smell of them was strong, unwashed after a few days of long watches; Vara could even smell herself from under the armor. There had been only time for a few hours of sleep per night as the dark elves had begun a near-constant assault on the front gates. She looked down on the battering ram they were currently employing, hundreds of arrows sticking out of it in all directions, as the twenty or so dark elves carrying it were surrounded by an additional phalanx with shields to protect them.
The sound was riotous, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them, ladders flung upward to the top of the wall every few minutes with a clack of wood against stone and thrown back down only moments later with screams. Of course, some of the screams came from atop the wall as well, Vara knew, as there were volleys of arrows coming at them thickly, like a diagonal rainstorm of shafts, fletchings, and arrowheads. She kept her head down and heard them whistling all around her, the occasional scream close by attesting to another poor soul who’d caught one. One came from beside her, presently, and she heard a scuffle. A ranger had an arrow sticking out of his eye and was shouting, his bow cast aside from where he had been using it to aim at the shielded enemy.
“Healer!” Vara called without looking back. She plucked the bow and arrow off the ground and fired blindly over the ramparts.
“You called, Shelas’akur?” Vaste’s droll voice came up behind her. “Ow, this one looks like it hurts. Eyeball, eh? Wouldn’t want him to end up as Alaric the Second.” A scream came from behind her but she didn’t bother to look, just plucked another arrow and fired. “Well, hold still, damn you,” Vaste said. “This arrow isn’t going to pull itself out, and I can’t exactly heal you with it still in your eye, can I? Oh, dammit!” There was a sound of a hard hit behind her and she jumped, looking back, forcing her back against the crenellation of stone. Vaste smiled weakly over the fallen ranger, who was unconscious with a blatantly broken jaw. “Sorry. I had to knock him out. I’ll fix it now.”
“Try not to enjoy yourself too much harming our allies,” Vara said, snagging the ranger’s quiver from his back and pulling it free, then blind-firing another arrow over the battlements.
“I can’t imagine you’re doing much good shooting like that,” Vaste said, his hands beginning to glow.
“I can’t imagine I’m not hitting something,” she replied, releasing another arrow, “seeing as the dark elves are filling the ground before us all the way to the horizon.”
“More of a random act of hoping to hit something?” Vaste asked, his healing spell complete, the ranger’s eye now open, unfocused, and returned to normal. “Sounds like a metaphor for my love life.”
“I would have to miss considerably more to make that an accurate metaphor.”
“So cruel,” Vaste said. He glanced to the left and right. “Need any more healing done here? Other than your bitterness-encrusted heart?”
