Warlord (53 page)

The sound of feet crashing into the clearing, louder than any others, made him turn his head to the side. He looked once, then did a double take and turned again to be sure he had seen what he thought he had.

It was exactly what he had feared.

A titan stood at the edge of the fight in full plate armor, covered from head to toe in the manner of Arkarian warriors. As Cyrus watched, awestruck in contemplation of trying to fight through even folded steel smithed at such a scale, the armored titan spoke in the familiar voice of Talikartin, but with an even rougher edge, the bucket-shaped helm’s dark eye slits focused right on him.

“Cyrus Davidon,” Talikartin said, “you let a creature of the earth do your fighting, issue your challenges for you? How cowardly you have become, to hide in the shadow of such things rather than fight your own battles—and scarcely worth the battle I came all this way just to have … with you.”

“You came all this way for me?” Cyrus asked, staring across the darkened forest at the armored titan, whose head was held high, eye slits shadowed. “Well, then what are you shuffling toward that rock giant for?” He waved. “Come on over here, Tali, and let’s finish this properly.”

Talikartin’s nose flared in fury, snorts echoing in the dark under the canopy and the night sky. “Do you think me a fool? How many times have you run from me now?”

“Only every time your army tries to rush in and crush us,” Cyrus said, swallowing his nerves. “If you came here for me … fight me.”

The battle around Fortin had ceased, and every eye in the forest was on the challenge being offered to Cyrus. “You negotiate like a merchant,” Talikartin scoffed. “Too long in that human capital and its profane markets has soured you, turned you into something weak and incapable of staring into the true face of combat, meeting it with your eyes and striking out at it.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get to choose where I grew up,” Cyrus said, stalling for time. He saw Vara edging around behind him, circling up a tree. “Neither did you, big boy, though I suspect if you’d grown up in Reikonos like me, you might have also had some civilizing influences on you, unlike the sort you run into out here in the savage wilds.” He waved a hand around. “Like for example, you might have learned—very merchant-like—that you don’t necessarily throw your best warrior stupidly into a contest with a creature four times their size without some guarantee of gain.”

“You truly are haggling,” Talikartin said in disgust.

“I don’t hear you making a counter-offer,” Cyrus said, narrowing his own eyes, “so listen to this: I beat you, your people get the hell out of this jungle and don’t come back.”

Talikartin bellowed out in laughter that seemed to shake the trees around him, laughter that was quickly echoed by the titans standing around listening to the discussion play out. “You wish to barter for the lives of these elves?”

“They’ve never been a threat to you,” Cyrus said, clenching Praelior tightly. “They’ve kept to their lands and—”

“You think we would countenance invaders?” Talikartin asked, still tall, still implacable, still refusing to bend to so much as look down at Cyrus through those eye-slits of his helm. “Tolerate this weak elven scum to sit in our lands unchallenged? How far you have fallen from the height of a warrior, how low you are in my estimation, how feeble in the beliefs that I was so sure bred true in you.”

“You don’t know me,” Cyrus said darkly.

“Indeed not,” Talikartin said. “You wish to bargain? Very well, I offer you this: Fight me, now, alone, without your healers or other spellcasters as aid, to the death, or I will slaughter without mercy or weakness every one of your guildmates I can lay hands on, tearing them to ribbon and mashing their little heads to paste beyond any hope of healing magic to repair them.”

“Here endeth the vendetta,” Cyrus whispered, looking up at the titan. “All right. Fine. I—”

“Don’t!” Vara slid into place next to him. “That thing is armored from heel to crown.”

“So am I,” Cyrus said, nodding at Talikartin.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vara said with a frown, “even Praelior is going to take time cutting through that—assuming it’s even possible.”

Cyrus eased in her closer to her. “We always knew it was going to come down to this—coming here, I mean. This was always a fight to the death.”

“Yes,” she said archly, “but I was supposed to die first.”

He frowned. “All these years, you told me that you were afraid you’d die last—”

“Well, yes, and that was why I didn’t want to be with you—”

“But now you are—”

“And you don’t even have the good grace not to go feeding into my greatest fears about our relationship, you inconsiderate arse—”

“ENOUGH!” Talikartin bellowed. “Enough bickering!”

“I haven’t had enough yet.” Cyrus leaned in and gave Vara a kiss, short, but filled with meaning. He saw the regret in her eyes, the fear, and he tried to smile. “Don’t get involved in this one,” he said.

“I will try not to,” she said, looking as troubled as he’d ever seen her.

“Talikartin the Guardian,” Cyrus said, turning back to look at the titan, “I accept your challenge.”

“Good,” Talikartin whispered, and finally, at last, he looked at Cyrus. His helm moved just enough to give Cyrus a full view of the eye-slits beneath, like windows into the soul of the titan he was about to do battle with.

And it was enough to drive the cold of winter into Cyrus’s very soul.

As he stood there, staring at his considerably larger opponent, it was not the armor, nor the disparity in height, nor even the challenge of strength that caused Cyrus to hesitate, to feel that ephemeral sense of fear that he thought he had long ago banished from his life, at least for himself. None of that weighed in his considerations at all, in fact.

It was the glowing red eyes that sent the twist into his stomach and the hint of weakness into his knees, for Cyrus knew at once that they were eyes he had seen in a thousand dreams over his many years, eyes that had looked into his very soul and handed him a mission to collect the pieces to put together the very sword he held in his hands.

The eyes of the God of War himself—Bellarum.

“My Lord Bellarum,” Cyrus said, mouth suddenly dry. “You’re … here. You …” A thought tumbled loose. “
You
taught the titans magic?”

Talikartin the Guardian smiled a viler smile than Cyrus had seen from him before, visible underneath the helm’s gap. “I gave them no spells of teleportation to go to the north, nor healing magics to give them silly regard for fixing weakness; no, I gave them the power to strike out, to build my kingdom in the south and to go north by the pass if they could.”

Cyrus blinked, feeling like the jungle was closing in around him, the air reaching out to strangle him in his armor as he stared, helplessly, at the red eyes that had followed him through a thousand dreams, and had reached out to him in one vision in particular that had changed the course of his life. He held Praelior weakly in his fingers, afraid to clench his hand around it for fear it might strike out at him with the anger of the one who had as good as put it in that hand. “Why?” he asked, voice cracking.

The red eyes narrowed, and the voice of Talikartin changed into a deeper timbre, that strange tone taking over. “I wanted to give you room to grow, to build a kingdom for me in the north while the titans did the same here.” He made a scoffing noise. “You were handed those plains and what have you done with them? Nothing.” He sneered. “You’ve grown weak, Cyrus. And weakness must be purged.”

“I’m not …” Cyrus felt staggered, as though the titan had already punched him squarely in the jaw. “I’m the strongest warrior in Arkaria.”

“On the contrary,” Talikartin said, thumping his chestplate.

“You’ve taken him over?” Cyrus stared at the God of War in the titan’s form. “He’s your … avatar?” A nod followed, and the sense that battle could resume at any moment hung about them. “Why? Why bring an avatar to Arkaria?”

Bellarum laughed. “You of all people should know why, Cyrus. Did I not work that sword into your hand and place Mortus into your path, knowing that he wanted nothing more than to kill the woman you fawned over?” A discordant guffaw sounded like a blade jabbed into Cyrus’s ears. “Did I not set Yartraak in motion on his grand plan to destroy the lands that you loved?” He glared down at Cyrus with amusement. “Oh, yes. My hand has been guiding the events of your life to my purpose—that to which you swore your loyalty!” The voice of the God of War caused a pain soul-deep in Cyrus. “I have done more for you than you even know, and you have turned away from my path. You were my loyal servant. I saw potential in you, strength in you. I groomed you for greatness … and you embraced mediocrity.” He pointed into the stunned crowd of fighters that encircled them, singling out Terian. “You might as well be wearing
that
armor.”

“Hey!” Terian said. “It’s … well, it’s comfortable. A little loose around the—”

“SILENCE!” Bellarum shouted into the night, and the command was obeyed by sheer force of the volume it carried. “Now,” the God of War said from his earthly form, “Cyrus … the time has come for me to beat the weakness out of you.” He smiled. “I know your armor protects you against most attacks, so this may take some time, but we will get all the pesky disease of compassion … of the heart … that your former Guildmaster seeded in you, I will have you strong … or I will have you dead.” The eyes burned. “And at this point, I have lost all care which it will be.”

The first punch was fast, faster than Cyrus remembered either Yartraak or Mortus being. It came with a speed that Cyrus recalled of wagons racing through the streets of Reikonos when he was a child, the wheels threatening to roll unceasingly over any child or man that got in the way. So too was this punch, a metal-encased hand as big as Cyrus’s entire chest, thrown at his midsection and dodged only just in time.

Cyrus landed face first in a patch of grass. The scent of greenery invading his sinuses forcefully, the tickle of the blades ironic at a moment when he feared death itself was coming for him in the form of his angry god. He rolled as hard as he could to the side, already knowing that a killing attack would follow. It did, only a moment later, a fist slamming into the ground with merciless force where he had lain only seconds earlier, shaking the earth and rattling him in his armor, down to his very teeth.

“You are running from your fate like a coward!” Bellarum’s voice echoed angrily in the night. “Stand and take your punishment like a man of war!”

Cyrus rolled once more, narrowly avoiding another hit, his head swimming.
Is this really happening?

Is Bellarum really attacking … me?

The world shook at the landing of another punch, and Cyrus rattled once more.

Yes.

This is happening.

Cyrus lurched to his feet as Bellarum’s titan shell took a step back and surveyed him with unmistakable anger. The eyes showed a seething rage, furious at being thwarted even slightly in front of an audience. Bellarum balled Talikartin’s fists and shifted on his mighty feet, and Cyrus knew he would be much more sure before the next attack came.

“If it is as you said,” Cyrus looked up at the red eyes, “and you placed Mortus and Yartraak against me to get them killed … why are you so damned displeased with me now? I have an army. I have done what you want—”

“You have failed!” Bellarum swung a shorter punch this time as he stepped forward, and there was no avoiding it. Cyrus clung tight to Praelior and pointed it outward in exactly the manner that had once cost Mortus a few fingers.

The blow struck and Cyrus felt it, the force running through his armor and sending him flying into a tree. When he hit, the breath was knocked from him for a moment and he fell to his knees on the roots, some ten feet above the jungle floor. He put down a hand to steady himself as he pushed up and found his opponent once more, standing, resolute, looking him in the eye, almost level with him.

Blood ran down the titan’s hand, but a faint glow faded as Cyrus watched it, the healing spell subtle where Bellarum held his hand out of sight, but the glow unmistakable in the forest dark. “You hypocrite,” Cyrus said, and the jungle around him came to life.

Vara was the first to spring, lunging in a leap at Bellarum, but she was knocked from the air by a titan who roared in disapproval. Terian came forth next, shouting his anger in the night, axe held high, but he was blocked by six titans suddenly in his path. Other titans sprang forward to defend the circle around Cyrus and Bellarum, and others fought them—J’anda’s pets, trying to force their way through the line, a wrestling match at the edge of the battle as the fight carried on around them, unable to penetrate through to where the God of War stalked his prey.

“Your people were loyal and true,” Bellarum said, “and they would have followed you in doing my will.”

“No,” Cyrus said, steadying himself as he watched the chaos unfolding around him. “Not all of them.”

“Those who will not serve,” Bellarum said, eyes flashing, “will die.”

“I will not just die—”

The strike hit Cyrus unawares, from a titan that had crept up behind him. It was hardly a punch like the world ending sort that Bellarum was throwing about, but it knocked him firmly off the root on which he’d been standing, sending him headfirst to the floor of the jungle. A smaller root caught him in the lips, and he tasted blood, pouring down his chin. He started to get to his feet, Praelior clutched in front of him, but—

Bellarum’s titan foot descended onto his fingers, bending the joints of his armor back just far enough to cause Cyrus immense pain. The titan’s ground down upon his fingers with all their weight, and then skidded hard against the ground—

Yanking Praelior out of his grasp.

The Champion’s Sword slid across the jungle floor and came to rest in the shadow of a root some ten feet away. Without the aid of its power, it might as well have been a mile away, for now he stared into the red eyes of a furious, smiling, satisfied god and knew that he was powerless.