blanched and he stopped speaking.
There was a pregnant pause before she spoke. “You asked, and in your question you have your answer.”
He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re guileless,” she said with a sigh. “There’s no deception within you when it comes to personal matters. In battle you’re cunning when need be, but you’re straightforward in all else-you go right at what you want, no treachery, no trickery.”
Cyrus raised an eyebrow at her. “What about Vara? I danced around her for ages.”
“Not exactly.” She steadied herself on the horse. “That wasn’t guile, that was a form of cowardice.”
“I don’t know whether I should be offended by that or not.”
Aisling shrugged. “You didn’t think you had a real chance with her. When it became obvious she’d warmed enough to you, you tried. Good effort, but it would appear she needed more time. That’s not on you, that’s on her. You threw yourself into the path of a god, ready to die for her. It’s hardly your fault that she became fixated more on what she’d do after she lost you than what she’d get from being with you.”
“That … was sweetly poetic,” Cyrus said. “But I think you give me too much credit.”
“Nope,” she said, voice flat. “Unless you didn’t jump in front of Mortus’s hand, the credit is yours. You were willing to die for her; she was unwilling to live past your death. Kind of a peculiar irony, but there it is. Not all that surprising, though; human and elven ideas about death are dramatically different. Probably has something to do with your lifespan.”
“Not for me it doesn’t,” Cyrus said. “For me it’s training and doctrine. The God of War doesn’t suffer cowardice-at least, not on the battlefield,” he said, face flushing at the recall of Aisling’s earlier mention of his cowardice. “That means committing to the fight, above all else, including one’s life.”
“I don’t hear you talk much about your religion,” Aisling said, matter-of-factly. “One might conclude you’re either not terribly faithful or you’re just not much of an evangelist.”
“Following the path of the God of War is who I am,” Cyrus said, a little miffed. “I don’t evangelize because no one wants to hear about the glory of battle, the sacrifice of blood on the altar of combat. Most Arkarians consider that savage behavior.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing about it sometime,” Aisling said, “but I doubt you’ll get me to change my lacksadaisical worship of Terrgenden to a lacksadaisical worship of Bellarum.”
Cyrus chuckled. “Now who’s the unfaithful one?”
She smiled. “I never said I was faithful. But I would say I’m worth it.”
He laughed again. “Well, I’m not sure I am.”
“From what I heard the other night, you are,” Aisling said, a little regretfully. “And what girl wouldn’t want a man who’s willing to die for them? What you did that day in the Realm of Death confirmed everything I’d felt about you from the beginning. Vara is more the fool for letting you slip away.”
“It’s kind of you to say.” Cyrus steered Windrider out of the swamp as they reached the edge of the plain. The horse whinnied in gratitude when they reached dry land and Cyrus patted him on the back of the neck. “Soon, old boy. You’ll get unsaddled and brushed out, and we’ll get you taken care of. Just a little farther back to the crossing.”
“Sir.” Longwell drifted toward Cyrus, Partus trussed up and gagged on the back of his horse. “Now that we’ve won the battle, my father will want us to stay for a spell, to enjoy at least a moon of feasting and celebration for winning the war.”
“Winning the war?” Cyrus looked at him in askance. “We broke one of Syloreas’s armies, but surely they must have more manpower somewhere. This army was hardly the be-all, end-all.”
“I suspect they do have more, yes,” Longwell said. “It was a weak offering, and uncharacteristic of Unger not to have led the battle himself from the front. For him not to be present at all is simply bizarre.”
Cyrus shook his head. “I can’t imagine he thought that was wise strategy, sending only that many and no more. Unless perhaps Actaluere drew him away with an attack, I would have thought he’d throw everything he had at this fight; after all, he was inches from defeating your Kingdom. That’s hardly the moment to pull back and be cautious.” Cyrus thought about it. “Is it possible he brought another army around wide and flanked us, attacking Vernadam?”
Longwell thought about if for a moment and then shrugged. “I can’t see what good it would do him. He might conquer the town, but in order to take the castle, he’d need time, which he wouldn’t get if we beat his other army in the field. He’d get flanked while trying to mount a siege of the most impregnable fortress in the land.” Longwell shrugged again. “Not the wisest course, and Briyce Unger is no fool. No, more likely he’s into something else, though I can’t imagine what.”
A fearful wind was whipping across the plains now and it brushed through Cyrus’s hair with all the enthusiasm of a cat at play with yarn. The green grasses came up to the knee of his horse, and the smell of the animals, wet with the travel through the swamp, followed them. He could hear the chatter behind him and the rustling of the grass in the breeze, as well as the occasional whinny. The plains lay uneven all the way to the horizon, and Cyrus could see the river ahead.
A thought occurred to him and he turned back to Longwell. “Your father greeted you with great enthusiasm when we arrived the day before yesterday.”
Longwell’s jaw tightened under his helm. “Aye. I expect he was quite pleased that I returned, especially seeing how I was at the head of an army that could save his realm. Even as … distracted … as he is nowadays, it had not escaped my father’s notice that Syloreas was about to conquer his Kingdom.”
“But you left,” Cyrus said. “You’re the heir to the throne, aren’t you? But you went far, far away. You must have gone for a reason.”
“I did,” Longwell said. “My father and I had a great disagreement. My mother has been gone for many years, and she and I always got on better than my father and I did.” The dragoon’s tension was obvious even through his armor. “My father thought I’d come under unsavory influences.”
“What?” Cyrus did a double take. “You’ve never acted with anything but honor for as long as I’ve known you.”
Longwell gave Cyrus a slow, subtle nod of acknowledgment. “I’ve always tried to; but it led me to defiance of my father’s will. In his eyes, there is no greater sin. It led me out of his house, out of his Kingdom, and out of this land, as I couldn’t see myself fighting for Actaluere or Syloreas.” He puckered his lips in distaste. “That much a traitor I am not. Now, in his hour of need, I return. Let us hope that buys me back into his good graces for longer than a fortnight.” The dragoon shook his head as if to clear it. “It matters not. We shall find ourselves in good company and my father will throw an impressive feast.”
“I could use some time to rest after this journey,” Cyrus said. “Two months to get here, a nasty battle along the way, one big fight, and a little hunt for a dwarf,” he waved toward Partus, whose wide-hipped rump was facing Cyrus off the back of Mendicant’s horse, “and we’re done. Some feasting and celebrating doesn’t seem out of line. Our people have earned it-especially given how far they’ve walked,” he said with a smile. Windrider whinnied. “And horses, too, of course.”
The river appeared before them, broad and dark in the falling light, and within an hour they were crossing the bridge, the Galbadien army already encamped on the other side. Tents had been set up, large ones, and there was some manner of dinner being served from the fires. A wagon train had come with the army, giving them more sustenance than conjured bread and water. Cyrus saw Sanctuary army members, looking far different than the Galbadiens in their distinctive livery.
They rode into the camp in the gathering twilight, cheers from the men, cups hoisted into the air in their honor. The men of the Galbadien army, dragoons and footmen all, came forth to see the dwarven mercenary who had caused them such fear paraded along on the back of their prince’s horse. That thought crackled across Cyrus’s mind as they walked in a procession toward the area where it appeared Sanctuary’s army had concentrated.
“You’re the prince of this land, aren’t you?” Cyrus asked Longwell, who was waving obligingly to the troops they passed, and receiving a great many toasts of hoisted mugs and shouted promises to buy him ale when they returned to town.
“Yes,” the dragoon said bitterly. “Why do you ask?”
“It just occurred to me, that’s all.” Cyrus steadied himself as the crowd closed in on them, cheering louder. “I’d never thought of you as a prince before, and I didn’t know if someday you were going to be ruler here, or if
