Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (47 page)

The spray of green blood obscured the look on Grunt’s face, which started with horror and surprise at the eyes and spread down to the mouth, his jaw dropping, though that was obscured behind the blood as it geysered into the air between them.

Cyrus felt a smile of his own spread across his face as the sword completed its cut and he watched the blade nick the other vein in the troll’s throat, Grunt’s eyes disappearing behind the spray of swampy green, near-black blood.

Cyrus tried to regain his footing as he flew. His toe skidded against stone for a second and then lost its grasp. He was tilting now, spinning away from the spectacle of Grunt dropping his sword to grope for his slit throat with both hands, the fear obvious in his eyes.

As Cyrus tilted away from the force of the troll’s blow, he realized at last why he had not been able to touch back down upon the stone parapet.

He was no longer upon the parapet; he was now flying over the bailey, dropping precipitously, some thirty feet toward the ground below—

His whispered attempt at Falcon’s Essence, muttered in haste and fear, found no purchase, and there was no soft stop to his fall this time. Cyrus landed hard, on his right leg, and the bone broke cleanly, screaming agony running all up the side and middle like someone had stabbed him properly in the thigh and knee. He felt hard points all pressed through the muscle and bone, as though they were being twisted, as though fire were being applied to every surface within and without, and it was all he could do to hold in the scream.

He had the presence of mind after a few seconds to try a healing spell, but when that failed he lost his head once more, clenching his eyes shut and crying aloud in his own head. He did manage to keep his mouth shut, but only just. The smell of mud and manure was thick in the air around him, and the ground was sticky and soft. He had landed in the wet dirt, and it was all around him; he could practically taste it.

When he opened his eyes once more, it was barely, and through tears, biting his lip to keep from letting a single noise out. The ground shook as something landed next to him, missing him by a bare foot, and he realized it was Grunt, landing face first, his body breaking his neck as he impacted the ground, up against the stone wall leading up to the parapets, his legs dangling above him, supported by the wall. It was as though he’d attempted to stand on his head but failed miserably, and now his neck was at a sickening angle, blood still spurting out at regular but slowing intervals.

Cyrus felt Rodanthar in his hand and raised the sword, slamming it into the troll’s neck hard enough to sever the damned thing, the blade clanging against the stone on the other side. Grunt’s body fell like a tree whose trunk had just been chopped, his immense torso and dangling legs thumping down and burying the head beneath it.

“Looks like you didn’t win in the end, you treacherous shit,” Cyrus muttered, pained, his leg still begging to be healed. He spat blood at the troll’s carcass and then rolled to his back, scooting against the wall, wondering if any of the Amarath’s Raiders survivors down here had seen his fall.

Cyrus could hear cautious movement ahead; there were at least a few of the Raiders about. His greaves were resisting his attempts to drag himself against the wall, warring against the mud that was pulling against them. Finally he won, the mud making a slurping sound as he freed himself enough to get to the wall.

He tried to cast another healing spell the moment he was against the wall, but it failed.
Grunt’s cessation spell should have ended the moment he died … which means someone else is casting it now, possibly more than one someone. I can’t imagine Amarath’s Raiders would like to see us return to bombarding them from on high with fire …

The sound of swordplay going on above him was like a focusing point for Cyrus, drawing him out of the pain of his broken leg. He blinked his eyes several times, though it did nothing for the pain, in an attempt to wake himself out of the agony-induced stupor he was feeling. He looked to his right and saw a rack emptied of swords, but it still held a few bows and quivers filled with arrows—arms for the defense of the keep in case of invaders.

Cyrus swept his gaze around the bailey; there was motion ahead. He was hidden from view behind a wagon, but there was definitely movement going on beyond. He could see one of the staircases on the far wall opposite him, carving its way up in the stone. Three armored figures ran up it quickly, clearly on their way to reinforce their troll allies above him.

Shit
, Cyrus thought.
No magic means we’re at a disadvantage. It means they can’t heal, but … Amarath’s Raiders has to be at least our equal in fighting, and they’ve certainly got plenty of mystical equipment, and they’ve got the numbers
…

A troll body flew over him, landing atop the wagon in front of Cyrus, at least six points of dark green blood spreading in a slow ooze through his dark leather armor. The troll wheezed, but did not try to get up, and over the next ten seconds his breathing faltered and then stopped entirely.

Cyrus jerked his head to the right.
If they come for me, I’ll have a hell of a time trying to fend them off flat on my back.
He tried the healing spell again with no result and then locked his gaze on one of the bows on the rack.
Better than nothing.

With agonized slowness, Cyrus dragged himself along the wall to the weapons rack as the sounds of battle rang out overhead. Vara’s cry of war washed over him at one point, followed by another body being thrown from the parapet, but he did not see whose; he heard only a man’s scream end with the hard thump of a body against the muddy bailey courtyard.

Cyrus crawled to the rack and fumbled for the bow, grasping it in his metal gauntlets with weak and fumbling fingers. “Godsdammit,” he muttered through gritted teeth, holding off the pain from overwhelming him only by hard effort. It was like it was creeping up his body, threatening to drag him into the fetal position; he wanted only to curl up into a ball and make it go away.
But it’s not going away, not until this is over, and this is not going to be over until I help kill every last one of these bastards.

Once he had the bow, he needed to crawl only a few feet to reach a full quiver, and once he was there he braced his leg hard, anguish seeming to pump through his very veins as he did so. He thumped the weapon rack with his helm, causing it to rattle, but then the pain mercifully subsided, and he left the damned leg alone. He leaned his head back and readjusted his helm, blinking again to shake off the stupor of the pain, to drag his attention forward.

He was clear of the wagon now, and to his right he could see the slow-burning drawbridge, firelight visible through the timbers as it burned. Smoke pooled above him in the arch of the keep’s portcullis under the parapet, gradually drifting out into the sky as though it were running toward the courtyard like water.

Cyrus took a hard breath and slipped off his gauntlets, blinking as he looked across the courtyard. There were three of Amarath’s Raiders down here, staring up at the fight upon the parapets, their faces drawn. They were watching intently and apparently displeased, for their lips were tense and turned down, their jaws were tight, and their hands clenched their swords.

They were facing to Cyrus’s right, so intent on the parapets that they had apparently not noticed him slowly dragging himself out from behind the wagon to the weapons rack.
Should be aware of everything going on around you, General
, he thought, staring hatefully at Archenous. He plunged his hands into the mud and then rubbed them against one another, trying to eliminate the sweat that felt as though it had puddled on his palms and fingers. He could feel the grit of the dirt as he rubbed it between his digits and pushed it into his palms.

Cyrus took a steadying breath and lifted the longbow sideways across his lap, for it was too tall to shoot upright while sitting.
Just like being back in the Society again, practicing for all occasions.
He drew back the string, the arrow between his fingers.
How long has it been since I’ve practiced this particular method of shooting?
He looked straight ahead, blinked once more to focus himself, and pointed at the guard on the right.
If I kill Archenous before Vara can, she’ll tear me a brand new arse.

He let fly the arrow. To his annoyance, it did not quite hit where he aimed; it struck low and to the left, burying itself in the neck of the guard on the left rather than squarely in the middle of his face where Cyrus had aimed.

“Shit,” he muttered and nocked another arrow. Archenous spun in surprise, clearly caught off guard that one of his protectors had been suddenly felled. The other guard jerked to look as well, and as soon as he had settled into that position, Cyrus let fly his next arrow, correcting for what had happened last time.

This time he hit closer to his mark. The guard was sweeping back around to look for the origin of the arrow that had killed his fellow, and he found it, albeit a little too late, as Cyrus’s arrow found his right eye first. The arrow sunk in halfway to the fletchings and the guard did not finish his whirl. He slipped and fell, straight to his back, making a strange gurking noise as Cyrus hurriedly put another arrow on the bow and drew it back.

Archenous Derregnault stared at Cyrus across the courtyard, his head cocked, his dark face twisted in something between rage and confusion. “You?” he asked.

“Still me,” Cyrus said, drawing a steady breath and trying not to let the bow shake as he did so, “but probably not for very much longer.” He muttered the healing spell under his breath once more and was rewarded with not a damned thing.

Archenous’s face wavered, as his gaze moved to the parapets for a beat. A troll roared and a dark elf in armor was hurled into the stone tower behind the Amarath’s Raiders’ Guildmaster, who stepped aside to let his man fall beside him. “Just as well for you,” he said. “I would have taken great glee in impaling you.”

“As he’s not a woman you professed to love,” Vara called from somewhere above, “I doubt you’d get him to turn his back on you long enough to impale him—which is the only way you’d manage it.” A troll fell off the edge of the bailey, Longwell’s lance in his face, and slammed into the ground on the opposite side of the drawbridge from Cyrus.

“I was always better than you, Vara,” Archenous replied, his face darkening further, the scar standing out like a pale line as he watched the parapets. His gaze was moving, shifting as she apparently made her way toward the stairs at a leisurely pace.

“You were never better than me, Archenous,” Vara said, and he saw her now, her shining armor slick with red, blue, and green blood as she descended the stairs, Longwell behind her, his spare sword in his hand, and Zarnn a couple paces behind them. “It’s why you grew to hate me so much.”

“I grew to hate you because you thought you were better than me—than everyone,” Archenous said, his hair whipping behind him as he stood framed by the massive door to the inner keep. “It was the same for Trayance Parloure—”

“Do not say his name,” Vara snapped as she came to the bottom of the steps and froze there, the entire bailey courtyard between them. “You are not worthy to so much as whisper it, you revolting turncoat. You destroyed an entire guild for your pathetic jealousies—”

“I built one of the big three guilds—” Archenous began.

“YOU STOLE IT!” Vara screamed at him, her sword in hand. “You threw away everything you had—loyalties, friends, love—and stole everything you hold now.” She pointed her blade at him. “Do not speak to me of what you built, for I am about to tear it away from you the way you tore everything from me.”

“Any minute now, my people will arrive,” Archenous said, shaking his head, a soft smile on his lips, “and then you’ll see what happens when you go against one of the foremost guilds in the land, Vara—you were better off small with Sanctuary. It’s how you started, and it’s how you’ll die, after all, when the rest of my army gets here—”

The drawbridge exploded into shards of wood and Cyrus cringed away, splinters clinking off his armor as he held up an arm to shield his eyes. When he looked back, an imposing, rocky figure stood framed in the smoking entry, a shadow against the glow of the fire consuming the remains of the drawbridge.

“Knock, knock,” Fortin proclaimed, stepping through the smoke to enter the keep.

Cyrus whipped around in time to see Archenous Derregnault’s face fall, his eyes as large as a gnome’s head. He paled three shades and then straightened, as if determined not to show his disappointment.

“Sorry I’m late,” Terian Lepos said, his armor glinting as he stepped in behind Fortin, J’anda’s purple staff and Vaste’s spear both glowing behind him as they entered. Larana followed, along with a host of others; Zarnn’s trolls, Mendicant, Menlos Irontooth and his wolves, some dark elven troops in their distinctive armor. Behind them, he could hear the snort of horses and knew that the Luukessians had arrived in Isselhelm as well. “I had to stop and smear some Amarath’s Raiders trash at the portal with my army,” the Sovereign of Saekaj said casually.

Archenous fidgeted and backed into the tower door. He looked around at what he faced and then forced a smile. “It would appear that someone has cast a cessation spell over our little battlefield.”

“That was me,” Vara said, smiling with grim satisfaction as she walked across the bailey toward him, slowly, with final certainty. “You will not run away from me this time, Archenous.” She raised her voice. “No one interferes in this battle, do you hear me? This is to be between he and I, to the death.”

“The ice princess is going to crush this plaything as though it were a—what are those tiny creatures that play with other tiny creatures?” Fortin asked.

“Cats and mice?” J’anda asked.

“Rock giants and gnomes?” Vaste asked.

“Goblins and—” Mendicant started

“Well, from now on,” Fortin said, apparently annoyed by the responses he’d gotten, “it will be ice princesses and dark knight scum-things, that shall be the saying.” He looked at them all crossly. “You will say this from now on, when the situation is appropriate.” He waited. “GO ON. SAY IT.”