Crusader

“Did he teach you everything?” Cyrus asked, forced to parry an incoming scourge that went too low for him to effectively hit. “About how to fight?”

Terian did not respond for a long moment, and the sounds of his heavy exertions hung in the air between them instead. “No. Not nearly everything.”

The night dragged on as did the war for ground. When the first rays of the sun crept over the horizon, there was a gasp when Cyrus looked back; the green and verdant shores of Arkaria were well in sight, the jungle past the beach was visible, the trees swaying in the wind.

“Hours,” Odellan said next to him. “Few enough of them, too.”

Cyrus felt his teeth grit unintentionally. Damn it. He felt the strength in his arms return, the weariness fade, replaced by an anger that brewed deep inside. He looked back to the enemy. Breathing deep, furious breaths, he clutched Praelior tighter and ripped into the flesh of the first of them that came at him, shredding it and sending it mewling to the side of the bridge and over the edge with the fury of his attack; it took two others with it from sheer force. Cyrus let out a warcry, a soul-deep shout of rage that did not even slow the scourge as it advanced at him. There was a rumble after that, and he both heard and felt it, a shake in his legs from the motion, and it gave him pause.

The breeze cut over from the sea, just for a moment, shifting off the scourge’s stink of death. It felt warm, as though the chill of the night had dissipated. Cyrus’s eyes sharpened, his ears listened closer for the sound of thunder in the distance. No. Not thunder. He looked, and beyond the farthest reach of the enemy he could see it, a massive head and body, lengths above the height of a normal scourge. A cold chill came over him, the clutch of something unpredictable-unfelt-unexpected.

Fear.

Chapter 108

Vara

Day 223 of the Siege of Sanctuary

“Is this all you have?” she shouted over the crenellation of the wall, through the gap between it and the next, the teeth of the rampart. She threw an arm out and sent a blast of force at the nearest tower to her and watched it hit, blasting the supports out of the second level of it. She cast again, a quick incantation, and scored another hit as the siege machine crashed down upon the dark elves below it. Bodies fell in a wave all around it, like a stone dropping into the water sends out ripples.

She took a breath; the smell had worsened atop the wall, both from the unwashed bodies above and the dead in rot below. They keep pressing toward the mark, though, don’t they? And they surely did; the advance had not relented since Alaric had left two days earlier.

The sound was still an uproar, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them yet, minus however many were dead around the walls. She let her hand clink against her armor, bracing herself against the battlements. “Come on, then,” she whispered, more to herself than them. “Is this all you have?”

“You just have to go and tempt the gods with that, don’t you?” She turned to see Andren slumped, much as she had seen him before, his flask in hand, taking a swig while shaking his head at her. “They’re vengeful, you know. Lightning and fire and all that. They’ll get you back for that.”

“I welcome them to try,” she said, looking back over the rampart. “Hmm. They’ve brought more of their armored trolls, it would appear.” Lightning streaked past her head from a spell. “And wizards, too.”

She chanced a look at Andren, who shook his head. “Lightning. I warned you.”

She breathed again deeply, twice, and dipped her head and hand over the wall. Another siege tower rolled forward and she aimed for it but pulled back as it burst into flame. Down the wall she saw Larana throw fire at another one then dodge behind a crenellation as a volley of arrows targeted her segment for bombardment.

“Don’t they know by now we can kill their siege towers?” Andren asked, looking slightly sideways, just for a second, around the battlement, before dodging back as an arrow shot past his head. For that, he took another drink.

“Certainly,” she replied and dodged out to fire twice at ladder-bearing enemies. The two in front were blasted clear and the ladder dipped, hitting the ground and causing the dark elves at the back to stumble. “But every one they push forward is another distraction for us.” She turned her head to look at the gates. “Soon enough they’ll have their battering ram back in service …” She let her voice trail off as she stared at the battering ram. It was unmoving, with only a few dark elves hiding behind it for cover. “That’s odd.”

“We’re being bombarded by enemy arrows numbering in the millions,” Andren said, “siege towers are rolling across our fields as fast as the dark elves can push them. Tell me, in the midst of all that, what is odd? Flying mounts? Because I’ve seen those before.” He looked skyward for just a moment. “Actually, I’m surprised I don’t see them right now.”

“They’re rare and valuable enough that surely the Sovereign wants to keep them for an assault on the Elven Kingdom if he needs to,” she answered almost by rote instinct. “No, they’re not making any efforts with the battering ram.” She turned to look at the siege towers. “But neither are their siege towers making the sort of progress which would inspire one to halt their efforts there.” She frowned. “Which begs the question of why-”

It was not even before she got the words out that the explosion rocked the battlements and the stone arch above the gate disintegrated in a cloud of flame and debris. Her head ached and she realized she was lying flat, her cheek pressed against the stone of the curtain wall. She lifted herself up, tasted blood in her mouth and felt the sting on her lip where she must surely have bit it. There was a ringing in her ears, as though someone was calling her to worship with a bell just outside her helm, and she had to blink to see clearly. Somewhere, faintly, in the distance, there was a roar, and as she pushed herself to her feet she felt a deep disquiet, a certainty- fear, she realized, as she whipped around to look at the gate, where the dust and cloud of smoke had already begun to clear, leaving a twenty-foot-wide gap in the wall where the gate had fallen, and already there rushed an onslaught of dark elves-banding up, filling in, like water rushing forward into a crack.

The dark elves had entered the grounds of Sanctuary.

Chapter 109

Cyrus

The fear did not pass, not as Cyrus expected it to. Imagine the arena, imagine the sand beneath my feet, the smell of- All that came to his mind was left behind as Drettanden, the God of Courage-or what remains of him-came forth, knocking aside his own allies, clearing the bridge as he went.

“Not good,” Odellan said. “Any plan to stop this thing?”

“Flame!” Cyrus called out, and a moment later the wall of fire dropped down in front of them, ten feet high. Cyrus could see through the jumping inferno as the smaller scourge stopped. He blinked; He’s not stopping!

Drettanden kept on, charging along the bridge, and sped up as he came to the flames. With only a second’s warning, he jumped, half clearing the massive wall of fire that crossed the stone bridge, dividing it off.

“DIVE!” Cyrus called and jumped sideways, slamming into Terian, who reacted just a second more slowly than he had. Cyrus’s head hit the inside of his armor, hard, and jarred him as it did so. The two of them spun off, just out of the way of the beast’s massive paw as it came down where Cyrus had been only a moment before. He watched the one on the other side catch Odellan in the chest, and the elf had only the briefest chance to scream before he was caught underfoot in a sickening crunch of bone and blood, as red liquid squirted out from the place where Drettanden had landed.

“You SON OF A BITCH!” Cyrus forced himself upright, sword in hand. He waved Praelior in the sunlight at the creature, “you see this?” Drettanden’s head snapped into line with him. “Was this yours? Well, it’s mine now!” He brought it back, ready to swing. “If you want it, come and take it.”

“Bad idea,” Terian said from behind him. “That thing’s pretty big, it might just do it-”

Without warning, Drettanden swiped out with a paw the size of a dwarf, and Cyrus used all the speed that