Master (Book 5) (51 page)

He made ready for the onslaught coming. He swung his right arm experimentally; he managed several strong strokes without twisting his torso and making his wound do little more than murmur in pain.
This is manageable. I can do this.

He took slow steps forward. Dark elves emerged from the increasingly swirling lines, throwing themselves at him. They were not as slowed by his sword's magical effect as they usually were, but they were slow enough. Praelior cut through them—and their armor—as though they were boots running over soft sod. He watched them fall into the mud, dark blood draining out on dark ground.

Cyrus heard a chorus of cheers from behind him; his army, watching their General take the field. The horde of the enemy was still swirling as far as his eye could see. There was not a single troll in view.

“What are you doing?” He heard Vara from his right and turned his head to look, turning it back just in time to slash through another small wave of dark elves. She was there in the fray, looking at him questioningly, silver armor slick with red—her own blood, or that of one of another member of Sanctuary.

“Fighting,” Cyrus managed to say loud enough for her to hear. “Do we have a cessation spell out?”

“No,” she said, “but the dead are not exactly rising.”

“Good.” Cyrus turned his attention to a dark elf that broke free of the line in front of him and slashed the beast’s head off. “Then we’ll be able to unleash some spells. We need to work our way out to the fallen cavalry.”

“Are you barmy?” Vara shouted. “We’re not even holding them back here, let alone in any position to start trying to drive them back!”

Cyrus blinked, taking three dark elves in turn, the last rushing him from the left and forcing him to turn slightly. It hurt, a knife of pain in his side that caused his sword stroke to miss slightly low. It still decapitated his foe, but it was not as clean as he would have preferred, an extra inch of shoulder taken off with all the extra effort that required.

Cyrus turned his eyes back toward the place where the cavalry had disappeared; long lines of them were still visible, halted in their charge and standing off at a distance from the battle. Cyrus thought that wise; whatever the dark elves had deployed—caltrops, probably, judging by the way the horses had fallen once they hit the line of battle—there was no attacking the dark elves on that side from horseback. Nor, he had to concede, was there room to maneuver over to the other flank, assuming the dark elves did not have caltrops ready to deploy on that side of their formation.
Which would be a poor assumption.

Cyrus saw an empty circle in the far section of the dark elven army, a break in their charge, their forward surge. He could see something moving around within it, keeping them at bay. He watched a lance go skyward for a moment before sweeping in a circle, and he knew who was at work within their army.
Longwell. He’s still alive. Gods be with him.

“We need to turn the tide,” Cyrus muttered. His sword was moving slowly but automatically; still, slow to him was fast to those without the weapon of a fallen god in their grasp, and he fended off every comer in his place just behind the front Sanctuary rank, slashing holes in any dark elf that dared to try and slip through to wreak havoc. The forward line was strong, healers keeping their charges hearty. The soldiers were covered in their own blood by this point, the flaws in their armor exposed and obvious by the bright red signs left behind, stains of wounds long since healed.

“You’ll have a hell of a time with that!” Vara shouted. “This is a holding action, General, and we are barely holding.”

Cyrus blinked. They were still coming, that constant horde, that forever and swarming army of the enemy. “Need to break them somehow.” He looked out ahead. “Spells, maybe.” He stared over the full battle, unfolding before him.
I’m the leader
, he thought.
I need to lead us through this.

The way Alaric would have.

He felt a sound building in his throat, a cry of rage and pain that had little to do with his wound. He raised his sword high and put one foot before the other. He pushed his way through the line in front of him and waded into the enemy fray, whipping Praelior around. He sent heads and swords and arms hurtling away, clearing a circle with his swing. He swung again and again, slashing his way through the dark elven army as though they were some foul undergrowth, something that sprung up from the ground in the wretched Realm of Life gone wild. He contained his motion to avoid twisting himself but swept as wildly as he could, catching a dark elf that came low under his swipe with a boot that sent him twenty feet through the air in a low arc.

Enemies. Foes
.
The death of Arkaria if left unchecked.
He swung and felt blood spatter across his face from the strength of his attacks. His armor was dripping with the signs of his fight, and he felt his lip curl with fury.
I cannot let them win.
I cannot let us fail.
He thought of Vara’s words, spoken before the battle, of how all Arkaria’s fate rested on this battle, and he swung his blade unyielding, splitting armor and helm, sword and shield, driving back his foes.

The way Alaric did on the bridge.

His legs felt heavy but he pushed on. Every breath came as a struggle, every swing of his sword felt like he wielded a lead weight. Dark elves fell before him like wheat before the thresher and he watched them fall with little emotion. There was no joy, no feeling, just the bare will to push on through a fatigue that was threatening to wrap him up and carry him off. It was unlike anything he’d felt in battle before. The skies were darkening, and he wondered if sunset was at hand.

“Cyrus!” the shout came from far, far behind him. He turned his head to look back and saw that he had carved his path out of the lines a little too well; they were well behind him now, a small bulge in his army that had surged out to follow him was being chipped away, only three warriors in leather armor at his back now, the dark elves closing in. He watched two more fall in the space of seconds, and he was left with one at his back.

“What’s your name?” Cyrus asked as the warrior placed their back to his. He kept his blade on its task automatically, slashing down the next wave of attackers before him.

“Grenene Eridas, sir.” the voice was a little higher than he expected, and it took a moment for him to realize that behind the armor was a woman. She kept her sword hard at work, fending off three dark elves but failing to kill any of them. Her blade was plain, dark steel, the sword of a line warrior without anything mystical to it.

The same sword the chaff in front of me carries.
Cyrus widened his arc of interest as much as he could, trying to cover her flanks as well as his own, but he faltered on his left. His killing strokes turned more defensive. “We need to work our way back to the line, Grenene. I need you to begin walking back while I cover you, all right?”

He heard a choked sound and turned to see her holding her throat, blood slivering down over a leather gorget. He watched four different blades pierce her chest piece, the overzealous enemy finishing her before his eyes, and he swung ’round in a wide sweep that not only killed three of the four of them but neatly cut the remains of Grenene Eridas in half in the process. He would have perhaps felt regret had she not already been truly dead, with her killers already moving into position to finish him.

Cyrus felt the first blade sink into him at the knee, piercing the chain mail between the joints of his armor. It was a sting, an asp laying a single tooth into him, but it made him jerk away in response, twisting his back and torso in reply.

The fiery tendrils of pain did not hesitate, screaming through his back and dropping him as though the blade had run all the way through his leg and out the other side. He lashed out blindly and had the satisfaction of seeing his attacker catch a sword across the mask; it split the leather and he caught sight of blue flesh flushed the color of sky, with white eyes as blind as an old human beggar’s meeting his from beneath the remains of the mask. Teeth showed in a terrible rictus, lips cut wide open in some sort of horrible scarring that exposed tooth and jaw. For a moment, Cyrus wondered if he had punched his blade through and opened up the dark elf’s face, but he had no time to wonder at it because the enemy attacked again.

Cyrus felt this attack at his hip, a sword driven low, breaking the chainmail and causing him to fold left. This drew a scream of pain, another flail of defense, and he took the leg from his attacker. His foe dropped to the ground, light blue flesh with white bone beneath. Cyrus imagined he saw maggots crawling out of the earth to devour his enemy, and he felt his breaths draw low.

Is this it?
he wondered. The world slowed around him, as though dipped in water. He felt it around his ears, the feeling of being drowned again, submerged, fighting against a current too strong for him by half. The pain was a constant, it was there and yet distant, as though it stretched from him out unto the whole world. It encompassed all, the pain, and there on his knees there was no escaping it, no matter how many times he railed against it with sword and armor.

Death comes for us all.

Just like it came for Alaric.

Cyrus stared at the endless hordes of dark elves before him. He could distantly remember Vara’s prophecy about the fall of Arkaria, could almost see it happening. He felt aware of the world, of everything. There was a single blade of grass in the burned and upturned dirt of the battlefield, and it looked like a sword planted in the soil. He wondered if it would grow more blades, blades enough to impale his enemies upon.

They were all around him now, moving like they were underwater, hampered by the flow of the currents against them.
This is the end
, he thought, and it was well that it was. His hand grew heavy on the hilt of his sword, and he wondered how much longer he could hold to it.

A single dark elf broke from the crowd surrounding him, deep blue armor spiked upon every surface. It was fitting, Cyrus thought, that death should come in this form, for the dark knight did look more like death than almost anyone Cyrus had ever seen.

“Terian,” he whispered, and looked upon the dark elf’s face, grim, his helm’s faceplate up so that he could look Cyrus in the eye.

“Cyrus,” Terian said, and he hefted the axe—didn’t he have a red sword, Cyrus wondered?—high above his head. It was a blued steel and looked fearsome to Cyrus’s eyes, the weapon that would surely kill him.

Cyrus watched as it descended and could not seem to do so much as lift his sword to see it stopped. It came fast, like—

“Today, Terian?” Cyrus managed to get out as the axe fell.

The axe stopped mid-descent, whipping sideways with a shocking speed, splitting the head from an unwitting dark elven soldier as Terian whirled into a spinning attack. “Gods damn you, Cyrus Davidon!” he said, whirling into his own formation with a speed that made Cyrus’s eyes struggle to keep up. “No, not today.”

“I’m not sure … there’ll be another,” Cyrus managed to get out. His head was woozy, spinning, and the pain—

Oh, the pain.

The dark knight spun, countering attacks and splitting limbs from bodies with stunning alacrity. “Why did you have to get yourself beaten in battle for the first time ever today, of all days?”

“Aisling …” Cyrus said, trying to struggle back to his feet. He could see the dark elves surging in around him and whipped his blade around, a sword clanging off his back armor with enough force to send a shock of pain through him. “She … got me.”

“She was the spy,” Terian said as he swept low with his weapon, chopping several foes off at the knees. “Son of a bitch. I should have seen it.”

“She was the … traitor,” Cyrus said. His lids were heavy, and he coughed, drawing more pain, blood bubbling down his chin. He tried to rise but failed. A heavy thud hit the earth behind him. He could not turn to see his death coming.

“You bloody fool,” Vara’s voice split the air around him. “What did she do to you?”

He could see her, armor glinting, moving behind him, but he could not turn. Cyrus had a palm down against the earth, sinking in, trying to hold himself upright but losing the battle. “Knife … black lace.” He coughed harder and watched dark strings of liquid splatter on the ground, crimson highlights on the blood-stained soil. “You can say … you told me so … both of you.” He looked up to see Terian driving his axe through the helm of a dark elf, exposing a bloodless skull that grinned at him.

“I told you so,” Vara and Terian chorused. Cyrus caught the shared look between the two of them, the fury on Vara’s end and amusement twisting Terian’s lips in the gap of his helm. They did not pause for more than a half-second; they moved again in a whirl.

“We’re going to get overwhelmed,” Terian said, calling over the clangor of battle. “Cyrus, on your feet!”

Cyrus tried to rise and failed. “Can’t.” He looked at Terian and coughed again. His mouth was all blood. “Just … go.”

“Idiot,” Vara said.

“He is rather a dunce, isn’t he?” Terian followed. “Any chance of help?”

Vara paused. “Perhaps some,” she said, and then Cyrus heard the thunder, felt the shake of the ground through his palm and knees.

He turned his head and saw the wrath coming. It was as though a battering ram were slewing its way from the Sanctuary lines on his right, carving a path unchallenged through the dark elves as cleanly as if an elephant were leading the charge. It was no elephant, though, he knew as he saw the red eyes, and it stopped only inches from him, the near-purple blood of dark elves smeared across the craggy, rock-hewn legs.

“Fortin, get him out of here,” Vara said crisply. “He’s been poisoned by that dark elven slattern.”

“Poison is a coward’s weapon,” Fortin pronounced and brought a hand down upon a charging dark elf so hard that it crushed his head and upper torso as though it were a melon. “I should like to show these cowards what I think of them.”

Cyrus started to reply to that, but he saw movement against the ground. A dark elven body was lying there, where Terian had chopped its head cleanly off. It stirred, hands moving in some sort of bizarre puppetry. It rose to its knees, then to its feet, a weapon still clutched in its hands. Another rose beside it, a torso cloven in half, ribs exposed. Cyrus could see others rising, a few corpses here and there, sprinkled throughout the field of battle, and it made him feel oddly colder than he had even a moment before.