Crusader

Praelior gave him to surge forward and attack it. He met the blow head-on, sword extended-Just like with Mortus-and when it sent him flying he had the momentary satisfaction of knowing that the howl he heard was his foe in pain.

He lay there, staring up at the clouds, the dawn and the horizon. It was bright, the sun, shining down on him, and the sound of sea gulls not far away was almost peaceful somehow. There was pain, but it was distant, already fading. He felt his fingers curled around the weapon in his hand, and the thought came to him. Praelior, the Champion’s Sword. Made by the God of Courage. Did he fight to the death to keep it when they came for him? He felt a smile crack his face, realized there was a tooth out of place in his mouth and pressed his tongue idly against it. Did he show courage at the last? Did he fight til the end or cower? Because that would be quite the irony, wouldn’t it …? the God of Courage, filled with fear …

“Get up,” Curatio said, shaking him.

Cyrus felt the life flood back to his limbs, and the pain went to a dull ache, replaced in his guts with a blinding rage. He vaulted to his feet and came up to the spectacle of a battle on the bridge. Drettanden was covered with arrows all over his grey flesh. A flame spell hit him in the face as he shrugged it off, roaring and snapping into a Sanctuary ranger who Cyrus didn’t get a good look at before the man was gone, devoured whole, red staining the teeth and lips of the beast. The wall of flame remained behind Drettanden, cutting off the smaller scourge, keeping the flood of them from coming forward and overwhelming the Sanctuary army, which was already hesitating; he could feel it.

He cried out again, a bellow of fury, and leapt through the air after a few running steps, and buried his sword in an upper leg. Just like a dragon, only it can’t fly. Dangerous mouth. He could feel his mind breaking it down. I ran at Kalam, went right at his face. I taunted the Dragonlord into making some stupid mistakes. I came at Mortus head-on, I won-with help. Hacked him to pieces. “Sanctuary!” Cyrus called out. “To me!” He buried his blade again in the upper thigh and let himself slide down as the leg kicked and kicked again, as though Drettanden were a dog trying to rid himself of a flea.

Cyrus took the chance. He planted both feet then backflipped, withdrawing his sword as he did so. He landed perfectly, the balance granted by Praelior saving him from a catastrophic landing. Agility. Speed. Hostility. He cannot match me in these ways. Drettanden let out a roar that flattened the Sanctuary ranger standing in front of him.

Maybe the hostility.

Cyrus brought back the sword and hacked at the tendon at the back of the leg, drawing a sharp cry from Drettanden. Cyrus dodged the back kick that followed and slunk back as the former god swiveled to face him. Cyrus let him come, dodged into the blind spot behind the neck and raked his sword across the fold at the back of the jaw, sending a slick line of black blood whipping across the ground. He struck twice more, pivoting and rolling against the body of Drettanden as the creature turned, bouncing off and using its own momentum against it. Here’s a trick I bet you haven’t seen before, outrunning you with your own strength. At the last move, he spun again out in front and brought his sword across the creature’s flat nose, drawing a screech of pain that caused it to buck its head.

The nose hit Cyrus perfectly in the arm, numbing it to the elbow and sending him flying. As he was tossed through the air, he saw the battle unfolding. Odellan, pulled off to the side, alive again but a mess, nowhere near ready for combat. Scuddar, lingering in the shadow of a supporting pillar of the bridge, his scimitar raised and attacking Drettanden’s tail. Longwell, backed almost to the firewall, his lance gone-no, buried in the side of the beast-sticking out like a splinter of wood. Cyrus felt all the air leave him as he hit the ground, his head slammed against the hard stone, and then felt the ground give way around him.

Edge-

His good hand reached out, scraping against the stone surface, and he caught himself just as he started to fall over. The jarring ran down his whole arm, all the way up to the shoulder where he felt the scream of pain, agonizing, ligaments tearing and protesting as he held his own weight and all that of his armor with one hand. He hung there, fingers tight against the stone, as he fought to get the other up to grip the edge. A blast of foul, rotting breath hit him in the face like a physical blow and he recoiled. His eyes danced toward the shore, miles and miles off. Not in this armor. Not on a day when I was fully rested, let alone one where I’ve fought without sleep nor a good meal in over a day …

The face of Drettanden appeared over him, at the edge, looking down. The red eyes twitched, and Cyrus could hear pain being inflicted on the creature by the Sanctuary army behind him. It doesn’t care. It stared at him, two red abysses looking deep into his own eyes, and Cyrus watched the dead god raise his foot, five claws hanging off the grey flesh-raised it and brought it down-

Chapter 110

He remembered the arena in a flash, like the rumored last memory that came before certain death. It was more than a feeling, more than words; it was everything about the experience, all summed up in something that lasted a mere second of time but encompassed so much else beyond that.

Six. I was six.

The man’s name was Erkhardt, and Cyrus knew him only in passing. A dwarf he was, the one who had waited outside the Society the night that Cyrus had been brought back as a child. The dwarf smelled of old leather and wafts of something else, a strong, fermented scent. He stood before young Cyrus, in the arena, the quiet all around them. Cyrus shuddered, the chill in the air from winter. His eyes caught the glint of the still-burning candles off the axe slung over the dwarf’s shoulder, a battle axe with a blade wider than Cyrus’s entire body. He shivered again, rubbing his hands against his bare arms; since being assigned no blood family, the clothing that was fought over once per month when new skins and cloth came in had been too difficult for him to secure. Blood Families stick together for everything. Cyrus was small, too small to fight them all. Put me against the ones my own age and I’d-but I can’t, the others are too big, they’re just too big, and the Guildmaster will-

“Listen,” the dwarf said.

Cyrus did. He was not allowed to address any of the trainers unless they asked him for a response. None of the others even addressed him individually, let alone found him where he hid in the night and bade him to follow them to the arena.

“Do you hear that?” Erkhardt asked.

“No,” Cyrus said, his voice unusually small even to him.

“That’s silence, lad,” the dwarf said with a slight smile, one finger held in the air. “The silence of rest. You’ve learned to hide yourself; that’s good. It’ll be necessary until you get bigger, big enough to fight them. You’ll be a big lad too, no doubt. Until then … you need to learn something.”

Cyrus waited, patiently. I will not speak until spoken to, I will not speak until spoken to, ran through his head over and over. He felt a weak memory of pain radiating from his lip until that lesson had sunk in. There was a question, though, one that he wanted, needed to ask, couldn’t contain anymore. “Can you take my fear away?”

The dwarf blinked at him. “Sorry, what?”

Cyrus swallowed, hard. “What the Guildmaster said on the first day. He said he could teach us to be without fear. I don’t … I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

Erkhardt surveyed him with a solemn eye. “What are you afraid of?”

Cyrus swallowed, hard. “Everything.”

The dwarf gave him a subtle nod. “You need not fear everything. And I don’t know that there’s any man who is truly fearless.”

“But the Guildmaster said-”

“The Guildmaster,” Erkhardt says, “fears many things. Bellarum, for one. The Leagues and the Council of Twelve, for others. Listen,” he knelt down, just slightly, to put his hand on Cyrus’s shoulder. Cyrus stared at the subtle pressure in surprise; no one had touched him since the night he’d returned to the Society for any purpose other than striking him. “The only way a man can be truly fearless is to care for absolutely nothing, including his own life. That’s a dark road, and few enough men can become soulless enough to pull it off.” He gave Cyrus a