Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (57 page)

He looked back and saw Terian’s eyes blinking furiously, water cascading down his helm and streaming off onto his pauldrons and down his breastplate. “I’m the damned Sovereign,” he muttered, “I bet the rulers of other nations don’t have to ride through typhoons on insane expeditions.”

“You’re so special,” Cyrus said.

“I’d rather be dry,” Terian replied. “And warm.”

The black clouds pulsated above them, lightning flashing through the apparent valleys in the clouds, illuminating the depths and striations in the heavy sky. Thunder cracked hard, rattling Cyrus’s helm harder than the downpour. They were passing larger buildings, wooden structures that had collapsed in on themselves, fresh green springing from beneath their ruins. Cyrus saw a tree fallen into the middle of an old pub, its roots an enormous circle, torn from the ground.

“Please tell me Yartraak didn’t do that with his spell,” Aisling said.

“He didn’t,” Larana said, riding quietly behind Cyrus. “The spell killed the people but left the town untouched. All this damage is four years of the bay’s relentless, pounding weather.”

“You seem very sure of that,” Vara said, turning her head at the fore to look back.

“I’m getting more sure by the minute,” Larana said and then lapsed into silence.

They rode on another ten minutes as the wind picked up harder, blowing twigs and leaves along with the torrential rains. Now Cyrus was wet and soaked, cold all the way to the bone. A piece of parchment blew across the road in front of him, twisting and dancing in the strength of the wind. He could hear Aisling trying to keep her teeth from chattering as she rode, her leather armor glistening. Even Vara seemed to shudder here and there, sitting straighter in her saddle than was usual for her.

When they reached the center of Aloakna, they found only more death. The remains of at least a hundred bodies were strewn about the area, just as clean of flesh as any of the others they had seen. Here, though, in the middle of a circular road, there was a monument of some sort formed something like a rectangle sticking out of a short cylindrical mount. Cyrus steered toward it, Windrider now being buffeted by the winds that had picked up in intensity to the point that Cyrus was beginning to fear he would be thrown from his mount.

“We need to get out of here!” Terian called, struggling to keep from falling over himself as another loud crack of thunder echoed through the empty streets of the dead city. “First time since my youth I can recall being eager to get back underground.”

“Just a minute!” Cyrus called back, trying to reach the monument. When he got closer, he stared at it; there were definitely words there, but inscrutable ones, written in a script he couldn’t make sense of. “Is that the language of the ancients?” He looked over the monument, plain and granite and completely unlike the portals that dotted the land or the interior of the Citadel.

“It’s dark elven,” Larana said, moving close enough to see for herself. Her cowl was whipping behind her, and the rains had washed the dirt from her face. Cyrus stared at her, realizing he had perhaps never seen her this clean. She looked even younger now, he thought as she concentrated on the monument. He frowned.
She looks …

“It’s a declaration of principles,” Terian said, leaning hard against the wind threatening to topple him, “for the free people of Aloakna By the Sea.” He strained, staring against the hard rain and buffeting winds. “It’s … I mean it’s properly insulting to the Sovereign, I can see why he might have been offended enough to come destroy this place himself, there are swipes against him couched in every line … ‘We pledge ourselves to always stand in the light, eschewing the darkness … ’”

“So very insulting,” Vara said. “Practically a suggestion that he go fornicate with his mother.”

“If you knew his ego,” Terian said, staring, “you’d realize that for him, it was probably so much worse.”

“There’s nothing of the ancients here?” Cyrus asked, hurrying Windrider in a quick loop around the monument. He stared at the other side, trying to make sense of it, wondering if it simply said the same thing as the reverse. Larana came around to join him, and after giving it a look, shook her head at him, wind whipping her hair around to cover her face, strands blocking her mouth and cheeks from view.

“Nothing but a lot of high-minded ideals that these people apparently died for,” Terian said, peeking around, the water on his helm beading and running off in small rivers.

Vara peered around as well, her own helm dripping furiously. “If there’s anything here, I don’t think we’re going to find it now. Not in this.” The sky flashed once more, momentarily illuminating the scene around them before it relapsed into a darkness like night. “If you intend to keep searching, we need to come back later.”

Cyrus threw a look around again as the next flash lit the sky and the town. It all looked like ruins, like the bones of a once-healthy city laid out for vultures the way the corpses of its people had been. He looked at one of the buildings that ringed the square and as the lightning faded, he saw a tall tower in its midst that reminded him of Sanctuary. He cocked his head and stared at it as the lightning flashed again, revealing it as an old chapel of some sort, decaying and falling. He was struck with a sense of horror, imagining Sanctuary decayed and falling, and he was seized with an urgent desire to return home.

“All right,” he said, his throat suddenly thick, as though he’d swallowed something too wide for his gullet. “We’ll go. We can come back some other time.”

“If the town’s still here,” Aisling muttered between claps of thunder.

“I’ll take your horses,” Larana said, beckoning Cyrus and Vara forward, “so you don’t have to walk them downstairs in this.”

“You think it’s this bad at Sanctuary already?” Cyrus asked, a burst of wind blowing water into his eyes as he blinked away while he dismounted, holding the reins up for Larana to take.

“Almost certainly,” the druid replied, taking the reins. The lightning flashed again, revealing a new assurance in her expression, her mousiness all gone. He stared up at her as the light faded then shook his head, catching a glimpse of something familiar in her face.
You give a girl a godly weapon, I suppose maybe she develops a little confidence …

“We’ll talk on the morrow,” Terian said, waving his hand before disappearing in a twinkle of light from his spell.

“We’ll talk … never, I hope,” Aisling said to Vara, riding close to the tall warrior and Bowe, who cast his druid spell and vanished in the ensuing gust, a barely noticeable stir in the heart of the storm. The healer, Dahveed, followed in his own return spell.

“The feeling is mutual,” Vara said as she cast her own return spell, disappearing in a twinkle of light.

“You should go,” Larana said, staring down at Cyrus as she drew the horses all tight together in preparation to cast her own spell.

“I know.” Cyrus gave one last look at the town of Aloakna in all its dead glory. The wind blew hard and rattled the timbers that stuck into the air. In the distance, he heard a building collapse, the distinctive sound of wood falling in, coming to the ground hard, and he sucked in a salty breath of sea air.

There’s nothing here
, he thought and looked at Larana once more. She nodded at him, and the lightning lit her calm face once again. He stared at her for only a second before averting his gaze, embarrassed to be caught staring so blatantly.

With nothing more left to do, Cyrus cast his own return spell and left the dead city behind him to rattle, like bones, in the winds of the storm.

“What idiot left the balcony doors open in a bloody gale?” Vara asked in clear annoyance as Cyrus reappeared in the Tower of the Guildmaster, the rain slapping hard against the stone floor, blowing in from all directions.

“If I recall correctly,” Cyrus said coolly, the doors rattling hard against their bindings in the furious wind, “we both left at the same time, neither of us much paying attention to the state of the weather as we did so.”

“Well, that was all down to your daft mission to soak us to the bone to little profit,” she said, her ponytail absolutely drenched. She reached back and squeezed it, and water sluiced out of her hair. She had to speak loudly in order to be heard over the chaos outside, the storm’s rising fury.

“I thought there’d be something there,” Cyrus said, watching the rain blow in from outside, rolling across the uneven stone floor, finding the cracks, turning the grey stone a darker slate shade. A distant part of him wanted to close the doors, to lock them against the fury of the typhoon. But the floor in the tower was already well soaked, and the spread of the water could do little more at this point. Little droplets blew in and found his face, but he hardly noticed them against what was already there from his time out in the storm in Aloakna. “I guess I was wrong.”

“I suppose you were,” Vara said, more grudging and less gloating. A wind howled particularly hard, drawing Cyrus’s attention to the hearth, the flames within billowing at the fury of the gust. He looked back at Vara as the balcony doors rattled hard once more against the ropes that lashed them in place. “In truth,” she said, standing very still and speaking loud over the chaos around them, “I had hoped we would find something there.”

“So I wasn’t the only one, then,” Cyrus said, smiling wanly, “in spite of your protestations that it was a fool’s errand?”

“Well, knowing you as I do, I expect some foolishness now and then,” she said, walking calmly over to him as the sky outside flashed once more, and the torches blazed and burned, stirred by the wind that once more shook the tower with its fury. “I married you knowing you were occasionally a fool, after all.” She blinked against the gust that ran through just then as she stared up at him. “You try, in spite of everything. It’s why you long to lead a party to war in the Bandit Lands, to go conquer Zanbellish even though you know it’s bound to be fraught with peril. It’s a reason I love you.” She leaned up and kissed him on the lips.

He felt the warmth of her kiss, the salt air from the sea still in traces upon them as she opened her mouth to him. The storm without seemed to mirror the one within him as the very tower quivered in its fury. He kissed her more deeply, ignoring the sound of nature’s primal anger, and lost himself in her for a moment, forgetting all about Goliath and Malpravus and all else as his fingers found his wife’s wet hair and ran through the blond locks as he shed his gauntlet—

“Ooh, isn’t this cozy?”

Cyrus broke from Vara’s embrace to find Menlos Irontooth rising the last steps to the top of the stairs, looking around, taking in the Tower of the Guildmaster. The Northman had an appraising look on his face, but he was dry as could be and when a hard gust brought in a rain he blinked at the intensity of it. Cyrus watched the three wolves follow their master up the stairs.

“Menlos, what are you doing here?” Cyrus asked, flexing his hand. “News from the wall?”

“I haven’t been out in this,” Menlos said, shaking his head and pointing at the dark skies beyond the balcony. Movement at the stairs drew Cyrus’s gaze back; this time, Erith Frostmoor was rising up them, looking a little tired, as though she were forcing herself up the last steps only through great effort.

“What’s going on?” Vara asked, voice heavy with concern. She was coiled tightly beneath her armor, watching the two officers of Sanctuary as they stood, Menlos still examining the tower, Erith staring at her feet as though she had news of the worst sort to deliver.

“You haven’t heard?” Menlos asked.

“Heard what?” Vara asked.

Menlos glanced around once more then gestured his hand toward the fire. “Heard … anything?”

Cyrus stared at the hearth, the flames blazing hot and high, and a sudden chill ran down his back, unrelated the weather or the soaking. He cast his eyes around the room swiftly, saw the torches burning high, and then the doors rattled hard once again, in the wind—

“No …” Cyrus muttered, “not the wind …” The gust’s timing was wrong, it came after the rattle, the balcony doors struggling to burst free of their bindings, trying to warn the occupants of Sanctuary in the manner that they always did when they were—

“Dear boy,” Malpravus said, his head appearing at the top of the stairs as he strode up into the Tower of the Guildmaster as though he owned it himself. The necromancer’s cowl was draped behind his head, and he looked like a thin shadow rising up the stairs into this place where he so definitely did not belong. Cyrus’s mind screamed its alarm at the mere sight of him, his muscles tense at the invasion of his home, and it only worsened, turning to rage as Rhane Ermoc followed a pace behind, grinning as his master spoke, Praelior held ready in his hand. “I must say …” Malpravus grinned, standing tall in the Tower of the Guildmaster, casting his shadow as the hearths violently spat fire all around them at the intrusion, “… it is so very good to see you again.”

“Let us not be hasty in our action,” Malpravus said, holding up a hand as Cyrus grasped for Rodanthar’s hilt, “for it would be a shame if your new bride were to have her soul ripped out irreparably before your very eyes.” He twisted his thin fingers in front of him, and they glowed with dark light. “I can do it, but I would be loathe to harm you in such a manner, dear boy. Please don’t force me to.”

“How did you get here?” Cyrus asked, his fingers dangling above Rodanthar’s hilt, seemingly a mile away. There was a bitter taste in his mouth, the shock at seeing Malpravus here, in this place, almost as immediate and powerful as a punch to the jaw from a rock giant.

“Oh, that was simple,” Malpravus said, “I had my good friend Erith open your portal to me and my friends.” He smiled, beckoning Erith forward, and she came to stand next to him, still staring at her feet. “Even now, my army is swarming into your keep, paying their respects to your noble defenders.” He raised a thin eyebrow and then looked back at Erith. “Did you know I’ve had her watching you for all these years?”

“I had no idea she was a lying traitor, no,” Cyrus said. Erith blanched but said nothing.