Warlord (6 page)

Cyrus sat there, taking stock of the world around him. The air was still thick with the smell of smoke, and he could feel blood or sweat or both dripping down his skin inside his armor. It was hot, miserably so, and the sky was still dark with night, fires blazing all around him. Cyrus could not tell if it was the harsh heat of summer baking the Emerald Fields long after the sun had fled for the day, or simply all the fires still burning around him that was doing it, but it was as uncomfortable as sitting too close to a hearth.

The taste of blood still tainted his saliva, dripping off his tongue when he went to speak. “Did …” He blinked and looked around the square. Fortin sat on his knees a short distance away, a strange noise coming from the rock giant, something that almost sounded akin to … sobbing?

“Where … did they go?” Cyrus asked, the weight of all that had happened settling down on him. “Talikartin, I mean?”

“Cast the return spell and disappeared,” Vara said. “Some of the other survivors went as well, flashing into the night …”

Cyrus pushed himself up on unsteady legs. Vara tried to grasp him under the arm, but he waved her off and she relented, though he saw the tension in the way she held herself. He got to his feet and Andren stood up next to him. “Shouldn’t you be off … healing people?”

“I …” Andren’s mouth flapped open and shut, and he swiveled his head to look down the street. Without another word, he broke into a run off toward one of the main thoroughfares that led west, robes flapping behind him. Cyrus could see other Sanctuary members in that direction, shouting as they ducked into and out of buildings, carrying bundles—bodies—both large and small.

“Gods,” Vara whispered, and she sidled up to him, her armor clinking lightly against his. This time he did not brush her away, he let her lean against him as he did the same against her.

Fires raged, crackling all around them, punctuated by the rough, heaving sobs of the weeping rock giant as they stood there under the fiery night sky and watched the town of Emerald Fields burn.

“How many did we lose?” Cyrus asked as dawn broke over the eastern horizon. The ruined streets were teeming with life, with the refugees of Emerald Fields, with the Army of Sanctuary still pulling the living and the dead out of the wreckage, with a steady flow of arrivals from the homesteads further out coming to render aid or simply see the smoky remnants of their city. He stood in a rough circle of the Sanctuary officers, all downcast eyes and long faces. Joining them was Administrator Cattrine Tiernan, who had reappeared shortly after the end of the battle in the company of several hundred children and women whom she had helped hide in the woods.

“Two dozen warriors and rangers,” Odellan said, his winged helmet under his arm, his long, blond hair matted down with sweat and the night’s efforts. His golden skin was darkened with soot, and his normally pristine breastplate carried hints of black ash in the ornate art fashioned into the metal. “Crushed beyond any hope of resurrection or simply missing until the hour of resurrection passed.”

His words hung in the silence, and Cyrus turned his gaze to Administrator Tiernan, her brown hair in only a slightly better state than Odellan’s. She was wearing naught but a nightgown, a very simple cloth dressing that was stained with dirt from her flight out of the town. “Do you have … any idea?” Cyrus asked.

“About our losses?” She blinked, her eyes surprisingly clear, her face absent any emotion at all. He suspected she was beyond exhaustion; they all were, really, but no one had poured more of their efforts into Emerald Fields over this last year and more than she. “I know it would have been considerably more if you hadn’t driven them off when you did, but … no. No idea. No counting as yet, not even of the corpses.”

Cyrus swallowed, words feeling like they lodged in his throat.
It would have been much less if I hadn’t pissed off the titans about five years ago, apparently …

“You had a population in excess of one hundred thousand, yes?” This came from Curatio, whose complexion looked even more washed out in the pale dawn light. The sky held a purple tinge, and it reflected on his white skin, making him look like some sort of dark elven hybrid. “How many lived here in the town?”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Cattrine said, stirred back to life by the query. “Perhaps less than a quarter, and it looks as though the titans simply came over Rockridge, ignoring the mines, and came down into town. All the farms are north of here, and thus should be safe.”

“This entire area should have been safe,” Vara said, and on her scarlet cheeks there was the first brewing of anger. “The pass over the Heia Mountains—”

“Has always been ridiculously porous,” Cyrus said, catching a flash of anger in her eyes. “Don’t you remember? We went through a few years ago on a three-day march and ended up finding a few titans up there even then. That was before the war, when the King of the Elves had less to worry about.”

“The war is over,” Vara said sharply.

“And the losses were great, as well you know,” Curatio said, rather limply. “Garrisoning the pass—”

“Is now a priority,” came a sharp voice as Nyad edged her way into the circle. Her crimson robes looked fresh, and she carried a staff high, her face flushed with some emotion Cyrus couldn’t quite pin down at first blush. “I just got back from Pharesia.”

Cyrus glanced at Vara, expecting her to say something, but she held her tongue, much to his surprise. “I take it you have something to tell us?”
I didn’t even realize she’d gone; but then again, you could just about move an army in here right now and I wouldn’t have any idea about it unless they were titan-sized …

“My father wants to hire Sanctuary to garrison the Heia Pass until such time as he can maneuver troops from the northern expanse near Nalikh’akur to here,” Nyad said, more straight-backed than Cyrus could recall seeing her. She looked at Vara. “The King wishes to know if the Lady of Nalikh’akur has any objection to moving troops out of her holdfast?”

“None,” Vara said swiftly, and Cyrus caught something … strange … pass between her and Cattrine Tiernan without a word spoken. “Bring them down here. Sanctuary will even provide the wizards if it’ll spare them the march.”

Cyrus paused. “That was … fast.”

“And not voted on,” Ryin said with a hint of ire. His face was just as soot-blackened as the rest of theirs.

“All in favor?” Cyrus asked with a certain weariness.

“Aye,” came the chorus, just as weary.

“Aye as well,” Ryin said, looking a little put out. “But we could have voted first, that’s all I’m trying to say.”

“We could also string you up by that high beam there,” Vaste said, pointing his staff toward a piece of wood that extended out of a broken structure, “by your feet, so you were just a few feet above the ground, and then we could take turns thumping you with this,” he brandished the white staff, “or something suitably blunt, until you stopped being so gods-damned contentious all the time. It could take a while, I’ll be the first to admit, but I think we’ll all agree it’s worth it once it’s done—and perhaps during every single satisfying whack of the wood against your thick gourd—”

“That’s about enough of that,” Cyrus said, waving a hand to cut him off. “We’ll garrison the pass, help King Danay move his soldiers down to reinforce us, and—” He paused as a dark elven man in a white robe approached, his hands pushed inside his heavy sleeves. Cyrus squinted, trying to recognize the fellow, but he was utterly unfamiliar. “Yes? I’m sorry, we’re in the middle of an officer meeting at present—”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” he said, and his face was long as he pushed back his hood. Cyrus heard a squeal of surprise and turned to see Erith smiling broadly at the dark elf. “I only came to speak to Administrator Tiernan.”

“Dahveed Thalless,” Cattrine said with subtle bow. “What brings you to Emerald Fields on …” Her gaze ran over the smoking wreckage around them; the fires had mostly burned out or been put out by this point. “Well, now?”

“I come with the condolences of the Sovereign,” the healer said, bowing deeply. His accent was unusual. “As one of your chief trading partners—” Cyrus stiffened at that, “—he directs me to offer you skilled carpenters as well as whatever other aid you might need from the Sovereignty.”

“Terian—wait—what?” Cyrus shook his head. He rubbed at his forehead with a bare hand and it came back smudged with dried blood and ash. “You trade with—” Cyrus stared at Cattrine, who looked back at him flatly. “You hate him.” He spun to look at Curatio, who was standing, quite still, just across the circle. “I’m not—am I losing my mind? She hated him, didn’t she?”

“Many things have changed since our days in Luukessia, Guildmaster,” Cattrine said, still without a hint of emotion. “The Sovereign of Saekaj and Sovar bought a considerable amount of our first harvest of the season only a few months back.”

Cyrus turned to say something to Vara, but her ears were red enough at the tips that he stopped himself before he did.
She knows something of this.
His eyes narrowed and flitted to Curatio.
So does he.
He turned to look at Vaste and found the troll already shrugging with a plainly feigned innocence. “We’ll discuss this later,” Cyrus said and quickly dropped the subject.

“Is there anything we can do for you immediately?” the healer, Dahveed Thalless asked. He spoke with a slow cadence, and his eyes found Erith mid-sentence and offered a smile of his own, something reassuring and laced with a kindness that Cyrus did not immediately associate with dark elves, save perhaps J’anda.

“We have need of strong hands,” Cattrine said. “To help clear the rubble and build anew, to help harvest more lumber in the east, and …” Her voice drifted off, and for a moment Cyrus was certain she would fall over on her feet, she looked so dazed and tired.

“We will send help immediately,” Dahveed said with a bow. “We have many eager to work from Sovar, and with our first seed planted above Saekaj and Sovar for the season, plenty of hands to send in aid. The first will begin to arrive in hours.” With that, he bowed once more, met Cyrus’s eyes for only a second, offering an enigmatic smile, and then moved away from the circle. Cyrus watched him walking back to a curious-looking man who seemed like some sort of druid, perhaps. His long hair was pulled back in a queue that hung to his belt, and he sat on air, a Falcon’s Essence spell keeping him aloft. Dahveed spoke to him in low tones for a moment, and the man nodded, then disappeared in the light of a return spell.

“You look like you wish to say something, Lord Davidon.” Cattrine’s voice nudged him out of his observation of the dark elven healer.

“I have nothing to add of note,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “You’ll need help, as much as you can get, and our army is hardly of great use in rebuilding. At destroying, perhaps, but not rebuilding.” He let his gaze drift to Erith, who broke away from the circle of officers and moved toward Dahveed, leaving them behind without so much as a word. She, too, looked tired from the night’s exertions, from their efforts at bringing back the dead and healing the wounded. She fell into conversation with the dark elven man so easily that Cyrus knew there was some long association there. “All I have left are only questions I’m too tired to ask at present, and that you’re not obligated to answer in any case,” Cyrus finished.

“Yes,” Cattrine said. Her voice expressed weariness and choked desperation, but she was strong enough and skilled enough at hiding it that she smothered it before even another breath of it came out. “We will need help. Again.”

As for Cyrus, he looked over the town all around, the smoking wreckage, at the hell he had once more indirectly inflicted on these people, and as he caught Vara’s eye he knew she saw the truth in his.

When will these days of war finally end?

Days passed under sunny and cloudless skies. Cyrus spent the majority of them in the central tower of Sanctuary, in and out of Council meetings, and few enough actually out in the world, either at the Heia Pass or in the Emerald Fields aiding the reconstruction. He had been at the site twice in the last week, enough to satisfy himself that he had no skill to contribute, and once to the garrison in the pass to inspect the preparations. That was dull work, and when Martaina made her report to tell him that nothing had come through since the titans almost a fortnight ago, it was enough for him to gladly make his retreat back to the Tower of the Guildmaster.

Now he stood in the middle of the breezy space, all four balconies open to the gusts from the Plains of Perdamun, and looked out onto the grasslands below. There were still tents within the curtain wall, the last of the Emerald Fields refugees who had been evacuated after the attack seemingly content to shelter on the Sanctuary grounds. There were children, there were the aged and infirm, those who would not or could not fight. Whole divisions of the Luukessian cavalrymen were sweeping the southern end of the Elven Kingdom even now, making certain that not so much as a single titan remained north of the mountainous divide between the southern lands of their residence and the north, which desired them not.

“You sulk, still,” Vara said as the door to the tower opened. The elf ascended up through the narrow slit that held the stairs. He did not turn to greet her, merely cocked his head in response to her observation, letting the wind stir his hair as he stood with gauntlets clenched behind him.

“There’s little else to do,” Cyrus said, looking north and catching movement at the portal in the distance. A single figure, ahorse, rode south toward the Sanctuary gates, a traveling cloak billowing grandly behind them. It was blue, the color of the Torrid Sea off the shores before the tideturn where the currents grew rough, and it caught his eye as it moved against the dark green grasses of the plain.

“There is much to do, Guildmaster,” she said, coming to stand just behind his shoulder. “Always so much to do, as well you know.”

“There’s little I want to do, then,” Cyrus said, turning his head to regard her with his careful stare.
Surely she knows what I want to do, truly.