Master (Book 5) (32 page)

The day dawned dingy and grey, and Cyrus felt his bones settle, cracking and popping as he stood in the early morning dim. The cool air had seeped into his armor through the myriad gaps and caused the sheen of sweat that he’d worked up over the course of the day before to turn into a stiff, sticky solution that kept his underclothes bound to him. He sighed before moving in an attempt to peel them free of the most uncomfortable places.

They set out an hour after dawn, a company grumbling and irritable at the provisions available.
They’ve grown accustomed to the feasts that Larana can provide; even the ones who were with us in Luukessia don’t care for the taste of conjured bread and water now.
Once upon a time, it was life itself to them.

Most of them carried packs on their backs, Cyrus knew, and within those packs were wheels of cheese and apples and dried meats. Still, there were few enough of those things that Cyrus watched at lunch as the bread was apportioned out once more, and nearly everyone took a helping. He watched Nyad make her way between small groups of soldiers and wondered how much magical energy she was expending.
Could be a concern; after all, what better time to attack an army than when their spell casters are unable to help repel an attack?

He chewed the hard jerky he had brought with him, supplemented with small bites of a wheel of cheese, which helped make the conjured bread more palatable. He took a sip of water from the dried bladder he carried on his belt. The water he’d brought with him from Sanctuary had been gone within hours the day before; this was conjured by Nyad, who filled the skins and cups as she went about feeding the army.

The afternoon turned warmer. The clouds that had blanketed the sky had disappeared, replaced with a blue and unbroken vista. The sun shone down, and the chill of fall Cyrus had felt in the morning was gone with the clouds. They walked in a rough formation through the day, and the grumbling was now audible in between the gaps of silence.

The road narrowed during the day until it had become barely wide enough for four men to walk abreast. They walked into the night, failing to find a campsite until just before the last light had disappeared. Once more there were no fires. Over the sounds of camp and the insects, Cyrus heard a deeper call of coyotes or wolves in the distance, and the sound reminded him of the ghouls of the Waking Woods.

On the third day, Cyrus awoke before dawn to someone shaking his shoulder. He blinked his eyes once, then twice, seeing lines in the face that was nearly down upon his own. It took a moment to shake off the sleep enough to recognize it. “Belkan?” he asked, his gauntleted hand rubbing at his eyes.

“None other,” the crusty old armorer said. He made a sucking sound with his mouth, and it took Cyrus a moment to realize he was trying to get something from between his teeth. He opened his lips and Cyrus saw a tongue moving around within the armorer’s gaping maw. “Ahh,” he said, presumably knocking loose whatever bit had been vexing him. “Come on.”

“Come on where?” Cyrus asked, listening to the pop of his back as he sat up.

“Come with me, lad,” Belkan said, now standing. He made no noise as he stood, which to Cyrus sounded odd in the wake of his own bones making such a racket.

“Belkan, it’s the middle of the night,” Cyrus said, looking up in the sky to realize it was literally true. There was no sign at all of illumination in the sky in any direction, just the soft glow of the stars overhead in the gaps where there were no clouds. “I have an army to march forward on the morrow, an invasion to oversee—”

“And you’ll do all those things just fine and admirably with a mite less sleep,” Belkan said, his low, grinding voice taking on a gruffer quality. “I have something I wish to show you. Come with me.”

I must be mad. This is surely what madness feels like
. He stifled a yawn. “Can you give me any indication of why I’d wander into the swamp with you?”

“Certainly,” Belkan said, his leg armor clinking quietly as he shifted his weight. “I once promised you that I would take you here.”

“Here?” Cyrus said, looking around. “I don’t seem to recall you ever saying you’d take me to the swamp—” He blinked and felt a chill. “Here. This is it, isn’t it? This is where—”

“Yes,” Belkan said, nodding. He turned his craggy head just a little to the left. “Or more precisely, about three miles through the swamp in that direction.” He pointed west, off the road. “There’s a trail not far from here. We go now, we can be back just before the army moves.”

“All right,” Cyrus said, getting up off the ground. He had no bedroll because he had no horse to carry it, and its absence was sorely felt. “Let’s go.”

He followed the old man to the edge of the encampment where he was challenged by the guards manning the perimeter. A few quick words and they passed, and it was only then that Cyrus realized that Larana had fallen in quietly behind him.

They stole out of camp in silence, the sounds of snoring and quiet murmuring disappearing down the trail behind them. After a mile, they turned onto a barely marked side path that Cyrus would never have noticed. Belkan seemed keenly aware of it, giving no hint he’d even been looking.

The path was scraggly, twisted trees jutting out into the middle of it. It led through mire and mud more than a few times. Their progress slowed, and when Cyrus lost his footing once, he swore loudly. He looked back to see Larana watching him, her face indecipherable. “Sorry,” he said. She gave him the barest hint of a nod, as though she accepted his contrition. With a wave of her hand, he felt his vision lighten, and he could see far more easily.
Sometimes, I forget she’s a druid with real spells and everything.
She’s just too good at cooking and serving and blending in to the background.

The sky gave no hint of light, but he had the spell to guide his feet. He followed the steps of Belkan in front of him, making his way through the lowlands and the hummocks, trees scattered amongst the lesser vegetation and high grass. He felt the brush of a thousand leaves and blades against his armor and heard the swish that heralded their passing. Through it all he kept on, following the old armorer. He could hear Larana just behind him, keeping close.

They walked for some time, past Cyrus’s ability to calculate it. No hint of light pervaded the sky when they came upon another hummock, this one higher than the rest. It rolled out of the water in front of him, the smooth slope of the rounded hill raising it out of the murk. Cyrus felt the slosh of water that had accidentally run over the tops of his boots and sighed at the feel of it chilling his skin.

He stepped up onto the hummock and felt the aura of the place change around him. There was a darkness here, a palpable sense of something heavy, like a pressure on his mind, against his chest. “You feel that, do you?” Belkan asked, looking back at him then glancing behind him.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, and followed Belkan’s eyes to Larana, who stood quietly just behind him. “It’s like … like a gloom that goes beyond the night.”

“The shaman that died here cast a curse darker than almost anything I’ve ever seen, save one,” Belkan said. He straightened, adjusting his plate armor, pulling at his belt. “Left a gruesome mess, and then that business a few years later took place here as well, gave the entire area a sense of utter desperation.” He let out a noise that was somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “Here we are, though.”

“Where?” Cyrus asked and cast his gaze around the clearing.

Belkan stepped aside and gestured to reveal a simple rock cairn. Time and weather had worn it to the point that it looked like nothing more than a mound of stones. Cyrus took a step closer and stared as though he could see something in the gaps between the rocks. There were many, and they varied from the size of a melon to no bigger than his fist.

“We built it in haste, of course,” Belkan said. “After a battle. Didn’t have time to dig into the dirt for a proper grave, and by the time we got back here a few years later, after the war was done and Gren had fallen, the swamps had done their worst and there wasn’t anything left to bury.”

Cyrus stood over the stone monument, trying to see into its depths, wondering if there was anything left of his father down there—

“Nothing remains,” Belkan said quietly, reading the question in Cyrus’s thoughts. Cyrus tilted his head to look at the armorer. “You’re wearing all that he left behind.” He paused. “Well, you’re wearing it, and you
are
it.”

Cyrus cleared his throat, felt it scratch as he tried to compel speech from it. “I guess I expected … I don’t know. Something.” There was a curious pressure down there, a lump that had settled around his Adam’s apple. “A grand headstone, maybe? A giant sign to mark his passing here?” He laughed, but it was a rueful and mirthless sound. “I don’t know what I expected. Something that showed that he was even here.”

“He was here, lad,” Belkan said. “Be assured of that. The trolls certainly knew he was, when he fought them.”

“I don’t really remember him,” Cyrus said, staring at the mound. “I guess I just figured he’d leave more behind than an empty grave.” He shook his head. “Stupid to expect, I suppose, when all I remember of what he left me before was an empty house.”

“That’s not fair to him,” Belkan said darkly.

“Life isn’t fair,” Cyrus said and turned away, giving the crumbled grave one last glance. “Let’s be on our way back. I have an army to move.”

“All right,” Belkan said, and Cyrus could hear the hints of some defiant reply itching to burst out, but the old soldier kept whatever it was to himself. “This way, then.” He surged past Cyrus with a will, his legs carrying him with strength and fury that was obvious in his movement.

“Don’t think ill of him,” Larana said, voice near a whisper. “You know as well as anyone else that this is what warriors do—go to war for years at a time.” She lifted a thin finger and pointed at Belkan’s back, almost as an afterthought. “It’s what he did as well. And it’s what you did last year.” She turned, wordlessly, and followed her father back down the trail, the sound of branches moving before them carrying off down the slope of the hummock.

Cyrus stood there a moment longer, then knelt, for just a moment, at the foot of the stones. He stared into them in the darkness one final time, and this time he would have sworn he saw something—just a hint of substance, really—in the cracks between them.

Cyrus followed behind Belkan and Larana at a distance, a dark mood swirling around him. The gravesite had been unexpected, a surprise when he’d sussed out what Belkan had woken him for. He’d felt a thrill of something in the dark of the night when he’d realized where they were, and it had been unexpectedly dashed by the reality of the grave.

What were you expecting?
he asked himself as he kept walking. He could hear the faint crunch of Larana’s steps less than a hundred feet ahead of him, heard Belkan splash into a low channel of swamp water just in front of her.
Him to jump out of the grave to greet you with a great bear hug and an “I’m proud of you, son”?
He gritted his teeth together as he missed a step and felt his ankle give slightly in pain. He held it in, though, and kept from cursing out loud or making any sound to indicate the slight trough in the path he was following.

He’s dead. He’s been dead for as long as you can remember. Like Belkan said, you’re wearing his only legacy. You just don’t want to feel like you’re alone—

We are none of us alone.

Cyrus froze as the sound of a soft curse hit his ears from directly behind along with the sound of a missed step and the clank of armor. He whirled and saw a hint of gleaming in the darkness. His heart raced and his hand fell to Praelior’s grip, then he felt himself relax as he realized who was following him.

“I always thought you were a creature of extreme grace,” he said, calling into the darkness. “But I guess even you make missteps like the rest of us.”

“Yes,” Vara said, emerging from the brush whisper-quiet. “Even I have been known to set my foot in a dip in the path unexpectedly, especially when the clomping bear I’m following behind gives no indication that there is a rut the size of a mountain pass in the trail.”

Cyrus smiled. “I hit it myself, but I used it as an exercise in self-discipline to keep myself from crying out or giving a hint of the pain.”

“I suppose that comes in handy in the Society of Arms, where they give you nothing but a sword and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors of war.”

“It doesn’t beat having a healing spell at hand,” Cyrus agreed, still feeling that faint smile upon his lips, “but it’s what I’ve got.” He stood there for a moment as she drew up to within arm’s reach. “You were following me?”

“Yes, well,” she said, and he caught the slight hint of blush on her cheeks, “forgive me for being more than a little inquisitive about where the General of Sanctuary, leader of our assault, was sneaking off to in the middle of the night.” She let her face fall into a more prim expression. “You should be more circumspect about your personal security.”

“Surprised you didn’t just assume I was sneaking off to a rendezvous with my dark elven harlot,” Cyrus said.

She blinked. “I’m a little surprised you would refer to her in such terms.”

“I was mimicking you,” Cyrus said, turning away. “I don’t hold the low opinion of her that you do.”

“Clearly,” Vara said, falling into step behind him. He could hear the footfalls now that she made no effort to hide them. “Or at least one would hope.”

“You’re acting a bit strange lately,” Cyrus said, pushing aside a branch with his gauntlet.

“Just lately?” she asked with a hint of levity.

“You’ve been mercurial,” Cyrus said, listening to the soft whistle of a bird in the distance.

“That is no great stretch.”

“Even for you, I mean,” Cyrus said. There was only the faintest hint of light on the horizon as they broke into an open space. Cyrus stared onto the long body of water that stretched to his east and looked at the sky. With the aid of the spell upon his eyes, he could see the faint hints of coloration that marked the place where—eventually—the sun would rise.