Warlord (28 page)

Now Cyrus found himself in a curious position. Talikartin wore thick metal boots, unlike the rest of the titans, but they only stretched to just below the knee, and Cyrus stood a tiny bit higher than that—

He rushed in and stabbed Talikartin in the knee like he’d done to so many other titans, not even worrying about simply going deep; he dragged his sword around as he ran in a circle like the titan’s calf and shin were some maypole that he was trying to wrap festively.

Well, I certainly brought out a different color
, he thought as he opened it up.

Talikartin staggered again, his balance utterly failing before he had a chance to recover it. He went down, falling to the ground on his back, rattling as he landed on something. Cyrus heard the shattering of bone but was under no illusion it was Talikartin’s. He saw plainly a piece of something’s rib cage jutting out from under the titan’s shoulder as he ran up the breastplate to the titan’s stunned face.

“EVERYBODY DOWN!” Another magically aided voice boomed out over the arena, this time obvious as Curatio’s. Cyrus swept low, jumping off Talikartin’s breastplate, halted by the force of the suggestion. He used the titan as cover as a flash of orange too bright to be the braziers in levels above filled the air.

Snakes of fire swept over Cyrus’s head, darting less than ten feet above where he crouched at the side of Talikartin. They swept lower as he cowered there, watching magic fiercer than any he’d ever seen before writhing as though it had life of its own above him. The flames coursed with energy, popping and cracking, showering him with something akin to sparks from a flint, and Cyrus needed only sweep his eyes around once to see corpses of titans caught aflame, burning around him as the sky on fire began to recede.

What the hell was that?

“AHHHHHH!” Talikartin’s howl prompted Cyrus to move. Cyrus sprang to his feet, stumbling away from the titan, who sat up now that the flames had receded, his face burnt to a crisp and his armor glowing from the heat of the magic that had just been used.

A flash of blue burst in front of Cyrus as wizard magic sent a teleportation orb to him. It hovered in front of him, winking into existence like some grand joke. Cyrus scanned the arena to find every titan contained therein either on fire and screaming or dead and aflame. Most of them were not taking it nearly as gracefully as Talikartin, at least those few still alive.

“Cyrus!” Vara screamed at him, and Cyrus spun around. She stood with Terian and Andren, blue orbs in front of them all, the healer crouched over the portion of Fortin that had landed near him. Cyrus watched as he grabbed the orb of teleportation in front of him and disappeared with half of Fortin’s corpse into the wizard spell.

Cyrus sent a last look toward the tunnel entrance as he sprinted toward Talikartin’s feet. He caught sight of Curatio there, hunched over, a half dozen defenders still around him. Cyrus waved a hand and saw them start to fall back, a wall of titans just behind them in the tunnel. He blinked and looked closer, and saw J’anda atop the shoulders of one. With a look back at Cyrus, the enchanter saluted, and then disappeared into the light of a spell of his own.

“I will kill you for this,” Talikartin said, and Cyrus turned his head to look at the titan even as he vaulted over Talikartin’s legs and came to rest on the upper body of Fortin. The rock giant’s red eyes stared up dully, black liquid pooling beneath him and streaming down his lips like magma. “For this insult.”

“You come at me, I come right back at you,” Cyrus promised, meeting the eyes of Talikartin. They were hazy, slightly burned, but not so badly that they would not heal naturally. It looked to Cyrus as if Talikartin’s scarred skin had spared him the worst of the burns inflicted on the others. “We can do this dance forever—or at least until one of us is dead.”

“It will be you,” Talikartin mouthed, cracked lips bloody as he forced his way to his knees. He grasped at his own breastplate and the sizzling sound of flesh burning against hot metal filled the air. “I will do whatever it takes to destroy you and yours utterly, completely. This war—is not over,” he said, and with a growl he raised a hand to strike at Cyrus.

Cyrus caught the glimpse of Vara and Terian disappearing in the flash of teleportation, and he knew that Curatio and the others had already left. For a split second he considered fighting back, on his own, in the arena of war in the middle of Kortran.

To the death.

To the end.

The way I was always meant to.

But as his eyes met the dead ones of Fortin with a glance, Cyrus stooped and wrapped his arms around the dead rock giant, seizing the blue light of the teleportation spell. He felt the world of war disappear around him, as though burned away by some magic, and found himself hugging tight to half the corpse of a rock giant on the floor of his quarters, and he let himself take a peaceful breath at last.

“I would say that was a rather successful sortie.” Vara’s voice surprised him, and he pushed up to all fours to find her standing before him in the Tower of the Guildmaster.

Cyrus just shook his head, looking down at the dead rock giant.
I’ll need a healer for him. Need to get the rest of him back to Andren
. He sighed, exhausted. “I don’t think I would call it that at all.”

“We killed Emperor Razeel,” Vara said. Dawn was breaking over the horizon, the sun coming up in the eastern sky, an orb of red setting the world afire.
Soon it’ll burn, all right
, Cyrus thought.

“
You
killed him,” Cyrus agreed, but reluctantly; not for the credit, but for the rest of the thought that followed.

“Yet you seem … dispirited.” She cocked her head at him, curious at his despondent reaction, surely.

“We failed,” Cyrus said after a moment’s pause, and let that sink in. “If we’d killed Talikartin, maybe—but we didn’t.” He knocked off his own helm and let it rattle across the floor.

“What are you saying?” Vara asked, coming a knee next to him. The sweat dripped down her face along with the blood, and he knew if he sought out a mirror, his countenance would be just the same.

“This isn’t over,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Not even close. Not by a long, long ways.”

“You went all the way to Kortran and struck at their temple?” Ehrgraz’s voice was harsh and furious, smoke pouring out of his nose. “You are a special sort of fool, Cyrus Davidon, and when I say that, it carries some weight, for my own people are the most complacent group of fools on Arkaria who sit and wait for death to come for them. You are not that sort of fool, no, you are the sort that seeks death out all on his own—”

“I didn’t wait around for them to come out and meet us,” Cyrus said. It was a few days after the battle, and the hot summer winds still swept around the Plains of Perdamun as Cyrus stood upon the wall looking into the furious yellow eyes of Ehrgraz, who had swept in on the morning wind. Cyrus had a suspicion based on the dragon’s somewhat controlled demeanor early on, that he had already heard of the attack on Kortran, calmed himself and was now becoming enraged once more at the further hearing of it. “I—”

“You were supposed to draw them out of the front gate,” Ehrgraz spat, sending sparks out from behind a forked tongue.

“Well, I did that,” Cyrus said, arms folded in front of him. “And you didn’t say not to attack Kortran, I might add.”

“I assumed you would not be foolish enough to dig your own grave,” Ehrgraz said. “Apparently, I was in error.”

The warm wind stirred Cyrus’s hair across his forehead, and he glanced around. Vaste was not present this time, thankfully, nor anyone else save for Vara, who stood back at the other end of the parapet, listening but not involved in the conversation. “You got what you wanted. The titans are currently filling the Gradsden Savanna from one side to the other.”

“Is that so?” Ehrgraz asked, eyes flashing.

As though you don’t know.
“We’ve tried to send scouting parties to the portals in the intervening days.”

“How many attempts?” Ehrgraz interrupted.

“Two,” Cyrus said coolly. “They barely made it back alive. The portals are watched. This has been confirmed by the elves of Amti—”

“Let me also confirm it for you,” Ehrgraz said. “They have increasing garrisons standing guard around every portal in the area, and archers waiting to bring down anyone such as yourselves who can’t fly high enough to avoid their gaze and their arrows.”

Cyrus did not blink, but only through careful practice holding things in. “I suppose that strikes our next plan, which was to conduct a long-range attack back into Kortran—”

“Back?”
Ehrgraz’s wings spread out in what looked like some combination of shock and outrage, his jaw flapping open. “Why in the name of the demons of old would you go back? Have you not done enough to try to kill yourself?”

“I figured if we killed Talikartin—”

“If!” Ehrgraz huffed. “Yes, indeed, if you had! I, for one, am amazed you succeeded in killing Razeel, and it seems that only his own incompetence allowed you to do it.” He shifted his gaze to Vara. “Personally, I would have ripped your head off first, were I him, but I suppose I view you as dangerous rather than dinner.”

“You know a surprising amount about what happens in Kortran,” Cyrus said carefully.

“And you know surprisingly little about it considering what you attempted.” The dragon made a low rumbling noise in his throat. “Did you lose anyone in the effort?”

“A few,” Cyrus admitted. “Probably two dozen, all told, mostly to titan attacks that smeared them into a state where they couldn’t be healed or resurrected.” At this, he felt the plucking of regret within him. “Not as many as we killed of theirs.” He paused, trying to find a clever approach for his next question and giving up when the route was not apparent. “If you know so much about what happened in Kortran, why don’t you know who is teaching them magic?”

“Why would you assume that I learned what I know about the events in Kortran from the titans?” Ehrgraz asked, looking far too satisfied for Cyrus’s liking.

“Because the titans were the only other ones there,” Cyrus said, annoyed.

“And how do I know all I know about you, Cyrus Davidon?” Ehrgraz’s eyes flashed. “You think I get that information from my spies in Kortran? I don’t.”

Still another person who suggests that we have spies in Sanctuary. It shouldn’t surprise me, given the size of our guild, that there might be a leak or two
. He hardened his face. “For all your rustle and rattle about spies and wisdom and foolishness, I have yet to hear a suggestion from you about how best to proceed.”

“Nor will you,” Ehrgraz said, drawing his wings in close to his body once more, “so long as you continue to consider idiotic plans like launching some foolhardy long raid into Kortran.” He paused. “What would your aim be? What end, other than yours, obviously? You say to kill Talikartin, but you have failed in this task repeatedly. What would be different this time?”

Cyrus bit back the angry answer that bubbled up from within. “This time … I’d intend to make it so he wouldn’t see us coming.”

“Ohhh,” Ehrgraz said, seemingly amused. “Now this is a fascinating thing. Do you mean to suggest he was supposed to see you before?”

“I meant to punch him in the nose before,” Cyrus said, “to bloody him good and have him know it.” He blinked away from those yellow eyes. “Next time … I just want him dead, and I don’t care if he knows it’s coming before or during. He’s too dangerous to live unchecked.”

“Now we enter interesting territory,” Ehrgraz said, “wherein the Guildmaster of Sanctuary considers assassination a valid option.” He made a sound like a chuckle, but rougher, and his wings spread once more.

“Do you see a better option?” Cyrus asked, his cheeks burning with a slight shame.

“You don’t know what I see,” Ehrgraz said with something akin to a shrug of his massive, scaled wings. “But I will say this much—the cause is perhaps not as hopeless now as it was when I arrived, and for that I am heartened.”

“Because I’m willing to murder this titan, suddenly things are better?” Cyrus asked, frowning at Ehrgraz. “How does that make any kind of sense?”

“Because perhaps you are not the fool I thought you were when I came here today,” Ehrgraz said, lifting into the air with a powerful sweep of his wings. “I find hope in that, personally.” He looked at Cyrus with careful eyes. “We will speak again ere too long.” And with a sweep of his wings, he flew into the sky and was gone in a matter of seconds.

The Council Chamber was still and silent, the quiet hanging oppressively in the air above them. Cyrus sat in his seat and dared to move only his eyes in surveying all those around him. It was the full complement of officers, along with Cattrine once more. She still looked tired, though perhaps less so than she had when he’d seen her before.

The one who looked most tired was Curatio. Since the arena, the healer had shut himself up in his quarters for long stretches of time, and even when he emerged he seemed changed, wearier, his complexion faded and his posture stooped.

“I liked killing the titans,” Longwell said, rattling his lance slightly as he adjusted it where it leaned. “I make no bones about it. I wouldn’t mind killing more.” The resentment practically dripped off his features, and Cyrus made a mental note to speak with the dragoon later about his gradually darkening demeanor. “I only wish we could have hung in the fight longer before we had to run.”

“That was a very near thing,” Odellan said, his winged helm catching the sunlight on the table and causing Cyrus to blink away. It seemed perfectly positioned to hit his eyes, and he moved just an inch to his left to find relief, the green spots in his vision fading. “I wouldn’t care to have to run that particular expedition again, personally, for I would fear that a repeat engagement would not find the luck on our side as it was last time.”

“Luck nothing,” Erith snorted. “I heard about what happened in the arena.” She nodded at Curatio across the table. “If you hadn’t had a badass heretic on our side, you’d have been trapped with no hope of escape.”