“Oh,” she said. “Did you know your father at all?”
He thought back, thought about memories from so long ago that they swirled together. “Not well. He died when I was very young, and he was away in the war off and on for a year or two before that.” Cyrus tried to remember his mother’s face and failed, only a blurry haze where it once had been, the only distinguishing feature being bright eyes, as green as the summer grasses in the plains outside Sanctuary. “I don’t really remember my mother either, come to that.”
“That’s a shame,” Aisling said. “What do you remember? About your childhood, I mean?”
Cyrus thought about it, trying to stir some memory in his brain. He felt his nostrils flare and the salt air of the sea loomed large in his mind again. “Meat pies,” he said softly, almost too low to be heard. “My mother used to make them. Big, hearty ones, with beef and pork and chicken all crammed into a doughy crust.” He could almost smell them, taste them, even though it had been more than two decades since last he had tasted the ones his mother made. “Every time Larana makes them, it brings me back to sitting at the wooden table in our house, eating dinner.” He squinted his eyes and the horizon grew fuzzy, blurring. “I can almost picture her when I think of eating meat pies.” He remembered brown hair framing the green eyes, and the soft touch of a hand along his face to wipe off dirt or grime. “What about you?” He looked to her and caught a faint blush of darker blue on her cheeks.
“Another time, perhaps,” she said, a coy smile covering her embarrassment. Drops of rain splashed upon her head, the first signs that the dark skies above them were preparing to loose their fury. She steered her horse away from him as he watched her go, suddenly regretful at her departure.
He called a halt to their travel as the downpour became so heavy that they could scarcely see the bridge in front of them. Cyrus sat against a pillar as the rain washed down, gathering in puddles that became nothing but rippling rivers running over the sides of the stone bridge in great waterfalls. He looked back at the outline of shapes behind him. He felt a pang and knew that when the rain let up, he’d need to check with the other officers to make certain someone hadn’t wandered to the edge of the bridge to relieve themselves during the storm and been swept off by the deluge.
As the rain poured down, rattling his helm, he sat in the shadow of the pillar, Windrider next to him. He looked up at the horse, which whinnied. “Soon,” Cyrus said. “You’ll have fresh dirt under your hooves soon. Another day at most.”
The snort of reply caused Cyrus to crack a smile. “Well, if this rain lets up, anyway. What’s wrong, you don’t like conjured oats?”
Cyrus could swear he heard a slight growl in the horse’s whinny as Windrider answered him, and he looked into the shapes to his side, shrouded in the rain. “I don’t like it either. But we’ll be there in a few weeks … and after that, we’ll be home … sometime. A couple months, maybe.”
Cyrus could almost hear the thoughts of the horse as he whinnied. He shook his head, wondering how pitiful he must be to think he was talking to a horse. He looked up at the beast, white coat and mane looking grey in the rain. “Then what? I don’t know.” Cyrus’s eyes settled again on the horizon, the darkness ahead where the bridge disappeared into the pouring rain only a hundred feet in front of him. “I don’t know what happens when we get home.”
Chapter 5
The end of the bridge came into sight by midday next. The storm had passed, giving way to blue skies and intermittent clouds, white, puffy and without a trace of the dark greys that had blackened their crossing on the day before. The sight of green shores sent a murmur through the army at Cyrus’s back, enlivening them with energy that had been absent in the last few days. When he reached the end of the grey stone bridge, Cyrus dismounted and walked onto soft ground once more, the cheers of his fellows bringing the ghost of a smile to his face. With a wave of his hand he beckoned them forward as he moved out of the way and the army surged onto the shore as the sun began to set behind them.
The shores were white and sandy, with a beach laid out in either direction to the north and south, curving inland before it reached the horizon. Cyrus could see the red disk of the sun, settling in a half-circle over the water, turning the sapphire surface red. Behind him, he heard his army moving in jubilation, the noise of boots on stone fading as they streamed off the bridge and began to make camp. He had sent Longwell and a few others ahead on horseback to scout above the berm that ended at the inland edge of the beach. He had no desire to be caught under the attack of a hostile force while the Sanctuary army recuperated from their march.
“It’s been a long week,” Curatio said, appearing at his shoulder.
“Aye.” Cyrus stared at the sun, now only a slight edge showing above the waves.
“Perhaps a day of rest might be in order for tomorrow?” Curatio’s tone held the air of suggestion only. Cyrus turned and raised an eyebrow; the healer outranked him on the Sanctuary Council, being the lone occupant of the station of Elder, an honorific one step below Guildmaster. Still, Curatio had presented his idea as mere recommendation. “To give our new recruits a chance to enjoy themselves, to give their feet a rest before we head into hostile territory for the next month or so?”
Cyrus watched the waves crash over the shore. He felt a tug inwardly, the strange and insatiable desire to march onward, to keep going until they reached the castle of Longwell’s father, to smite anything in his path. Yet somewhere beyond that was an overwhelming urge to linger, to remain away from Sanctuary and all the inherent problems that would greet him upon their return.
Cyrus rolled his helm between the metal joints of his fingers, listening to the steel scratch against its equal. “We’ve found fresh water nearby?”
“Aye,” Curatio said. “And tracks just inside the woods ahead suggest that there are wild boars in the area. A day of rest could allow for a hunting party to track them-”
“Then we feast upon roast pig and fresh fish?” Cyrus drew a deep breath, and it was almost as though he could feel sundown approach the way an old friend would come to visit. “It’ll be good for our morale, I suppose. And as you point out, we are likely to be under stress of worry from potential attack over the coming weeks. Very well. A day of rest is ordered.”
Curatio’s hair was speckled with silver, but never had his age been more evident than when he smiled, very slightly, back at Cyrus, and the warrior knew he had been maneuvered most expertly. “Duly noted. I’ll take care of it.” With a slight bow, Curatio turned and began to walk away.
“What would you have said if I’d ordered us to march on?” Cyrus didn’t watch the healer, but he heard Curatio’s leather shoes stop, the sound of the sand they kicked up on each step coming to a halt.
“I would have tried to convince you, of course.” The healer’s answer was crisp, serious, and muffled because Curatio had not turned to face him as he gave his answer. The footsteps in the sand resumed, and Cyrus heard the elf move away, back to the sound of camps being set up and fire being started. He pondered Curatio’s answer again, and listened once more in his mind to the inflection. It had been very cleverly given, Cyrus thought.
It was also, Cyrus knew, a blatant lie.
Chapter 6
Thanks to the efforts of Martaina and a few of the more experienced rangers, there was indeed wild boar meat waiting for them the next day at breakfast. The smell of the roasting flesh awoke Cyrus, and he sat up to look at the fires along the beach. Many of them bore spits, and recruits talked while circled around them, their voices loud, with much merriment being made. Cyrus could see even at a distance that there were bottles being passed around, spirits of varying kinds that had made the trip from Sanctuary.
Cyrus pulled himself up next to his fire, a small one down the beach from the others. Someone had added logs to it during the night and done so quietly enough that Cyrus hadn’t awakened. “Aisling,” he said in a low whisper. The next nearest fire was a hundred feet away, and he could see Terian’s shadow next to it in the pre-
