Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four (96 page)

“Pretty cavalier attitude for someone whose race is dying.”

Curatio snorted. “My race is already dead. We Old Ones were elves, true elves, if you want to get into an argument of blood purity. The elves that live now are almost as much human as they are elf, when you compare them to me. I am the last of the purebloods, remember? I don’t consider this change a bad thing, and it’s certainly not as dire of a watering-down as those in Pharesia make it out to be.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see it as a problem.”

“But you wanted to cure the curse,” Cyrus said. “You—”

“I did,” Curatio said. “But I’ve had a year to think about it. Now I wish we’d never gone to the Realm of Death. It was a foolish, fruitless endeavor, and greater than the curse visited upon the elven race is the ill luck that Mortus returned to his realm when he did.”

Cyrus let that rest for a moment as he smelled the smoke, felt the curious sensation of the heat on his front from the fire and the cold at his back from the lack. “Curatio …” The healer’s eyes found him in the dark. “I think about that day all the time. If I had …” Cyrus heard his voice crack. “If I had let her die … none of this would have happened. These people wouldn’t be losing their country. These people wouldn’t have died.” The smoke was heavy now, for some reason, and Cyrus felt his words choke off in the back of his throat.

“I was rather hoping you wouldn’t see it that way,” Curatio said quietly, and the healer looked up. Cyrus saw sparkles on Curatio’s cheeks in the light of the campfire, twin streams down toward his chin. “Because all I’ve been able to think about since we found out what they are is that if Vara had simply let me die … if I’d been more fearless, stepped up to Mortus and shoved her aside … none of this would have happened.” He stared into the fire. “I would not wish that guilt on anyone. Certainly not you.”

“We’re going to lose, aren’t we?” There was no doubt in Cyrus’s voice, but he kept it low, as though he could prevent the very thought from reaching any ears but his and the ones they were intended for.

“You were at the moot,” Curatio said, moving his face behind the fire. “I presume you all came to that conclusion.”

“Aye,” Cyrus said and felt a stir within. “We’ll fight to the end, but the aura of defeat is … it’s upon us. We cannot push this foe back, can’t seem to stagger them at all. All we do is lose ground, and so the Kings are resolved to give every man, woman and child as much time as possible by fighting a slow retreat to the Endless Bridge.” Cyrus swallowed heavily. “We’ll bottleneck them there, or try to outrun them, hope they won’t cross the water. But Curatio, if they do—”

“You think of Arkaria,” Curatio said. “Of them scourging across it as they have this land.”

“How can I not?” Cyrus asked, his voice hushed. “How can I not look at what I have wrought—or you, if you prefer to argue it that way, but regardless, the culpability is here at this fire—and not think about how this falls upon us? We may very well have caused the destruction of not only this land but also our own if these things follow across the Sea of Carmas.”

Curatio was quiet, the air of a lecturer upon him. “You asked if we are going lose … I have been in many battles, some more hopeless than this, if you can believe it. I was there at the end of the War of the Gods, when the city of the ancients was destroyed, everything but the Citadel. It was held by the Guildmaster of Requiem, a most stubborn fellow, as a place where the humans of the city—slaves at the time, most of them, stayed to avoid the devastation.” Curatio’s head came up, and he looked out into the darkness. “That was an impossible fight, if ever there was one. In no way should we have won that. Yet we did; the long night passed and the Citadel still stood where little else remained.” He looked back at Cyrus. “You ask me if we’re going to lose? I don’t think so. The odds are steep, but sometimes all it takes to win is to continue fighting until the odds change for some reason. There is temptation to call it a miracle when that happens. It is not, not always. Something changes, something little, something unexpected in many cases. But when it does change, victory goes to those who endure. We have not lost this fight yet, and we might not. I would tell you the same thing that I told the Guildmaster of Requiem that night in the Citadel when he wavered—‘Do not be afraid.’“

Cyrus blinked and stared at the fire for a spell. “I didn’t feel fear for the longest time, you know? They carved it out of me at the Society of Arms, made it so that I didn’t feel it anymore. They taught me how to vanquish it, to make myself the master of it and turn it against others.”

“No, they didn’t,” Curatio said quietly. “They taught you how to not care about anything, how to cut yourself off from thoughts of a future, of the idea of people you loved, of having things to believe in beyond the God of War and the path of chaos.”

Cyrus stiffened and gave it a moment’s thought. “So what if they did? Fearlessness is the most prized attribute of a warrior; it allows you to throw yourself into battles you know you can’t win, to give a full commitment to the fight of a sort that an undecided, fearful person won’t.”

Curatio cleared his throat. “Forgive me for contradicting your years of training, but you’re quite wrong. I’ve seen your Society of Arms at work, and they certainly produce some impressive warriors. But I haven’t seen any of them fight half as hard as I saw that Guildmaster fight for his people. No one has the indomitable spirit of a man with a cause in his heart. I’ve watched Society-trained mercenaries go up against half their number of men defending their homeland and seen the lesser win. You think fearlessness is some strength? It is a lie; it is deception at its most base. A man who has nothing to live for can be fearless because he has nothing to lose. But a man who fears and throws himself into the battle regardless …” He shrugged lightly. “That is a man I wouldn’t care to face in a fight. And I’ve faced more than my share.”

Cyrus ran a hand along his beard.
How can that be right?
“That doesn’t make any sense, Curatio. A man filled with fear would be paralyzed, halted in his tracks, hesitant—”

“No,” Curatio said. “A man filled with fear who surrenders to it would be all that you describe. But that is the great lie—you see a man charge into battle without hesitation, with great strength, against impossible odds, and you label him fearless. But if you talk to him afterwards, many a man of those would tell you he felt fear the entire time—but greater than his fear of what would happen to him was another—that he would not be there for his brethren in a battle, that he would let them down, that his homeland would be destroyed if he failed to act.” He waved his hand around. “These men of Luukessia? Most of them have no hope of one of our healers bringing them back from death, yet they fight to the death and most of them in a manner you might call fearless, yes?”

Cyrus nodded. “Close enough. Some hesitation, not much. But a few, yes.”

“You think them fearless?” Curatio smiled grimly. “They are driven by the greatest fear of all—the loss of their homes, their families. They fight hard, harder than our own in many cases. A man fights harder for what he believes in, that’s a simple fact. It drives him to overcome that fear, to not let it paralyze him. No, Cyrus, I tell you right now that being fearless is never what would make you a great warrior. Being fearless could make you a great mercenary, perhaps. Believing in something so deeply that you’d not only fight and die for it but that you’d see yourself thrown down for it a hundred times, and get back up a hundred and one—that’s what would make you a great warrior.” He blinked. “That’s what made
him
great.”

Cyrus let the quiet wash over him. The smell of the fire and its crackle was all that consumed him; he felt as though his bones were roasting over it.
Cattrine.
He imagined her in Caenalys, tied to a stake.
I’ve been a fool.
He rose unexpectedly.

“Going somewhere?” Curatio asked, watching him shrewdly.

“Can our army continue to hold the center without me?” Cyrus asked.

“It could.” Curatio looked around the flames.

“I have to go to Caenalys,” Cyrus said. “I have to …” He felt his cheeks flush. “I have stop Hoygraf from killing Cattrine.”

“Hmmm,” Curatio said, nodding slowly. “Caenalys is a long ride from here. A far distance.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cyrus said. He hesitated. “How far would you go to fix a mistake, Curatio?”

The elf raised an eyebrow, but his seriousness never wavered. “All the way to the end, of course.”

Cyrus frowned. “The end of what?”

“The end of the world,” Curatio said, “or the end of me, whichever came first. When the cost is high enough, could you pledge any less?”

“No,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Take over command for me, will you? I have to leave.”

“Right now?” Curatio asked. “Tonight?”

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Tiernan rode hours ago, with a good portion of his army. I’ll need to catch him.”

Curatio frowned. “With much of Actaluere’s army gone, we will give ground faster. But you already know that, don’t you?”

“I do.” Cyrus said, feeling for Praelior’s hilt. “I’ll rejoin you as quickly as I can, and perhaps I’ll be able to send back the rest of Actaluere’s army when I do.”

“That would be good,” Curatio said. “As I suspect we’ll need them before the end.”

“The end of what?” Cyrus said with dry amusement. “The end of you or the end of the world?”

Curatio’s smile was there but it was thin. “I’m beginning to think that they may just be one and the same.”

Vara

Day 198 of the Siege of Sanctuary

The Council Chambers were quiet, again, the hearth crackling through the silence. Vara sat at her seat at the table, along with Vaste, who wore a black robe this day, Ryin, Erith, Thad—who was present in his capacity as castellan—and Alaric at the head of the table. Grimness was all that was present; even Vaste seemed to be starved of his usual aura of mischief. He leaned back in his chair, staring out the window behind Alaric. There was a smell of defeat in the air, bitter, and it choked Vara, filled her throat with bile and anger.

“Shall we go through it again?” Ryin asked.

“Has something dramatically changed?” Vaste replied, still staring out the window, emotionless.

“We’ve been besieged at our very walls eight times in the last thirty days,” Ryin said.

“Being neither deaf nor stupid, I not only counted when each of those attempts were made,” Vaste said, “but I also heard it moments ago when Thad mentioned that number.” The troll’s arms were folded across his chest. “I remain unimpressed as they have yet to breach the gates and we have four weeks worth of rotting dark elven carcasses piling up outside our walls. The smell of those is the most fearsome of our worries thus far.”

“When will it end?” Ryin asked, and this time no one answered. After he waited a spell, the druid turned around the table. “Can we finally discuss it?”

“If by ‘it,’ you mean the delightful fashions that will be on display in Reikonos when spring rolls around, then yes, and the sooner we start discussing those lovely and cheery frocks, the better,” Vaste answered. “If you mean what I suspect you mean, then no.”

“I have no appetite for discussion of frocks—” Vara began.

“Big surprise, there,” Vaste said.

She looked daggers at him. “But perhaps there is some merit to considering what the druid is suggesting.”

Ryin gave her a wary eye. “I love that you call me ‘the druid’ instead of using my actual name. I do have one, by the way.”

Vara let out a small exhalation. “Very well. Perhaps we should consider what the odious pile of troll dung is suggesting.”

“My defecation is not so preposterous as he,” Vaste said, “and it smells sweeter, too, like freshly baked cinnamon bread.”

“Is it really that difficult,” Ryin said, with barely constrained desperation, “to consider evacuating Sanctuary for neutral territory—”

Alaric’s hand slammed into the table and the whole thing jumped slightly, causing everyone sitting at it to jump in fright—all save for Thad, who merely continued to watch the whole proceeding without blanching. “We will not abandon Sanctuary.”

Vaste looked at the Ghost, his eyebrows raised. “And I thought I was reacting poorly to this entire line of discussion.”

“You are,” Ryin said, wide-eyed, his entire focus on Alaric, “but I believe our esteemed Guildmaster just aced you quite easily.”

“Our walls have held against everything that the dark elves have thrown at us,” Alaric said, his face dark, “and we have yet to lose more than a few unfortunate souls in these assaults. I see no reason to consider discussing alarmist measures.”

“Alarmist?” Ryin asked. “We’re surrounded by the foremost army in the world. They’re battering on our door with increasing frequency, aiming to take our keep and burn it to the ground. I’m not ready to retreat either, but it might be useful to have a contingency plan in place should we need to evacuate—”

“There will be no evacuation,” Alaric said menacingly, and Vara heard a darker edge to his voice than she had ever known before. “We remain secure with our portal closed, and we will continue to turn back any advances. Let them stay out there, rallied around us. That will keep them from mustering any sort of a counterstroke against Reikonos or the elves, and give the others time to perhaps find their courage and begin to take the war to the Sovereign.”

Vara heard him and felt a tingle of despair. She looked to Erith and saw the healer match her own expression.
No one is going to rise against the Sovereign; they’ve felt the taste of defeat against him, and it is a heavy sauce to flavor the stew. The dwarves and the gnomes will not intervene, and we will sit here as the years tick by, waiting for the Sovereign to lose interest—which he won’t.

“And when the century rolls past,” Ryin said calmly, “and some of us are dead of old age or from battle—”

“Or from eating conjured bread and water every day for our entire lives,” Vaste interrupted. “And never meeting that special woman who appreciates you for the brilliant, witty, especially handsome green man that you are?” He flicked a look around the table. “That last one is probably just for me.”