Crusader

discussion,” Vara said, narrowly avoiding folding her arms in front of her, instead keeping her hand at a little distance from the hilt of her sword where it rested on her belt. “Let me state this again, for those of us in this conversation whose brains are not quite the equal of their bulk-I am here to see Isabelle. Is she inside?”

The troll on the left reached for his sword and had it drawn quicker than she thought would be possible, though his feet had yet to move into any sort of offensive posture. The one on the right made no such move, did not change expression, but held his ground. “She no see you-”

“I’ll see her,” came a voice as the tent flap was raised. A blond elf emerged into the daylight with a blinking countenance marking her otherwise smooth and timeless features. Her robes were flawless white, she was perfectly groomed and would not have been at all out of place in a ballroom. Even here, on the battlefield, Isabelle has an unflappable air about her, as though she weren’t presently standing on ground trodden by soldiers and surrounded by armies but instead was far away, at a society party. She even wears a tiara, Vara thought, looking at the simple golden circlet atop her sister’s blond locks, rubies and sapphires crowning it. “Come in, dear sister,” Isabelle said, holding the flap, “and your guest too, if he’d like.”

“Wait here,” Vara said to Ryin without looking back at him. She made her way between the towering trolls, who both moved aside, their dull, steel-plated armor catching the glint of the sun’s light as she passed. She grasped the tent flap herself and indicated to Isabelle to step back inside with a simple hand gesture. Isabelle smiled in amusement and did so without any comment, as Vara followed her in and let the flap fall behind her.

“You pick an interesting time to visit,” Isabelle said, making her way into the open area at the center of the tent. “But then, you always did have a sense for timing.”

“Good or ill?” Vara asked, letting the smell of the tent overwhelm her. It carried a whiff of incense; not too heavy, but present, enough to overwhelm the smells of the encampment around them and all the waste that came with it. A simple bed lay in the corner, a mattress with heavy pillows on it, all in good order. A table was deployed in the middle of the tent with folding chairs around it. A few stands littered the perimeter of the tent, and a blanket lined the floor, clean and neat, and padded enough to take the hardness out of each step. Vara felt the impact softened within her armored boots and tried to brush off the irritation at her sister’s accomodations. I can’t recall ever traveling in quite this high a style, not even when I was an officer in Amarath’s Raiders.

“Good timing,” Isabelle said, reaching toward a bowl of apples set upon the center table. “Hungry?”

“No.”

“You don’t approve of my accouterments,” Isabelle said, and that damnable amusement was still there, the faint tug at the corners of her mouth and the sparkle in her eye. “The little luxuries I’m afforded as an officer of Endeavor.”

“Oh, yes, you live in grand style for someone at the front line of the greatest war Arkaria has seen in centuries,” Vara said, brusque. “Very fine, indeed.”

“This bothers you … why?” If Isabelle was annoyed by her sister’s attitude, she showed it little or none, and Vara was quite used to the subtlety of her older sister’s emotions. Glacier-cool, she is. Which is why she is so annoying.

“I care not at all how you live while at war,” Vara said, “only that you continue to do so.”

“Concern, sister dear?” Isabelle picked the apple off the top of the pile and took a bite, a long, satisfying crunch. “Has the loss of our parents mellowed you at last?”

Vara bristled. “I have always cared for my family.”

“And always been exceptionally poor at showing it,” Isabelle said around a mouthful of apple. “Not that I haven’t appreciated the years of scorn through my attempts to cultivate a relationship with you.”

Well, I’m here now, you spotted cow, Vara thought, but did not say. Instead, she said, “I appreciate your forbearance during my more difficult periods of interaction.”

“That would be your whole life, dear,” Isabelle said gently, “but nevermind that, I suppose. What brings you to me now? Not a sense of familial loneliness, I suspect.”

“The war,” Vara said.

“Of course.” There was a flicker in Isabelle’s eyes, tired, and the smile faded as she held the apple in her hand then gave it a look as though it had lost its appeal. “This war consumes everything, and the attention of all. So what of it? What do you need?”

“News more than anything,” Vara said and let herself take a step closer to Isabelle. “How goes the front here? Is the Sovereign pushing his troops forward?”

Isabelle surveyed her sister with a demeanor almost more stoic than Vara herself could manage. “No. Not at present. Why do you ask?”

Vara considered for just the briefest space of time lying. To say something other than the truth might be preferable to letting Isabelle know, after all. But for Isabelle, it mattered little because-she always knew anyway. “We’ve been besieged. They surrounded our walls and threw an army at us-”

“The one that sacked Aloakna,” Isabelle said wisely. All two-hundred-plus years of her sister’s sageness were on display now, and Vara felt more than a rush of irritation. “Yes, that makes sense, revenge for Termina.”

“Thank you for your insightful analysis,” Vara said. “We broke them, of course-”

“Of course,” Isabelle said with the trace of a smile.

“Oh, stop going on about it as though it were some sort of foregone conclusion,” Vara said. “There were some fifty thousand of them, and our number is much reduced of late-”

“Why?” Isabelle asked, and took a walk sideways, eyes facing on a perpendicular line, as though she didn’t even care to look at Vara. “Why are your numbers reduced while your star is on the rise? Even here, the talk is of Sanctuary, and your slaughter of Mortus. Killing a god?” She cocked her head at Vara, and smiled slyly. “No one even thought it was possible, let alone that you would be strong enough to attempt it and crazy enough to try.”

“This is irrelevant,” Vara said, stubborn irritation clawing at her. “Yes, our recruiting numbers were up, until the blockade a week ago, and yes, people had been streaming to us in record number for protection and to join us, but-”

“But Cyrus Davidon left,” Isabelle said, stopping at a fold in the tent and pulling aside the fabric to look out, “taking an army with him, and vanishing over the Endless Bridge with both a strong corps of your best veterans and possibly your heart, should such an object exist.”

There was a quiet in the tent, a silence and chill unadmitted by the opening of the side to the air. “You bitch,” Vara said.

Isabelle let the fabric fold back on itself and fall free of her hands, letting the side of the tent close. “You have a quite the grasp of the human language, sister. There was a time when you were content to swear at me in elvish.”

“I’m expanding my horizons,” Vara said.

“You’re in love with a human,” Isabelle replied. “And you are not even willing to admit it to yourself.”

“This is all off the table for discussion,” Vara said. “Yes, Cyrus Davidon went on a mission to aid one of our guildmates across the Sea of Carmas. Yes, he’s been gone for several months. I need to know if the Sovereign is moving because he-Cyrus, I mean-is in need of aid in Luukessia and we can’t strip anything from Sanctuary’s defense unless we’re certain that the Sovereign’s armies are fully engaged elsewhere-”

“They’re not,” Isabelle said quietly. “This front has been quiet for nigh on a month and not from any stinging defeats we’ve dealt to the dark elves, that I can assure you. Our contacts with the Elven Kingdom-on a daily basis, in case you wonder-indicate no serious offensives along the Perda, either, not at Termina or anywhere else. The Sovereign waits and has removed some of his forces from both of these fronts, reshuffling them elsewhere.” She gave a little shrug. “Perhaps he directs them to the east, toward the Riverlands.” Her face darkened in the shadow of the tent. “But I would suspect not.”

Vara waited, just for a beat, before she asked the question that tore at her. “What do you suspect?”

“That the vek’tag herds in Saekaj that have supplied the meat that has filled the bellies of the dark elven army are running thin enough that they may not be viable if the herds continue to be killed at this aggressive pace,” Isabelle said, without a trace of care, “and that the mushrooms and roots and other crops that grow in the