Master (Book 5) (61 page)

“No,” Alaric said, with a slow nod. “I am not, much as I also have wished that I could have been; you grew to the man you are without a father, shaped by the horrors of war and arms. You did it alone, carved yourself into a fighter in a place that had broken all others.”

“I didn’t … do it alone.” Cyrus felt his voice fall to a whisper. He looked into Alaric’s eye. “But I’m alone now.”

“Are you?” Alaric said, and he stood, slowly. Cyrus looked up, the eyes of a child upon an adult, and he saw nothing but light and benevolence shining down upon him. “Are you, truly?”

“Yes,” Cyrus said, and his voice sounded small.

“Though you are not my son, you are my legacy, Cyrus Davidon,” Alaric said, and he seemed somehow distant, even though he stood right there. A trickle of blood ran from his lips, and Cyrus caught a glimpse of a horrible pallor upon his face, which had seemed so healthy and ruddy only a moment before. “That which I left behind to guide Sanctuary.” His head straightened atop his shoulders, and he seemed to look beyond Cyrus, hovering above him.

Cyrus felt himself rise opposite Alaric, felt himself lift into the air above the knight. Alaric flickered, just for a moment, reality intruding, dark cave walls, a grip around his neck, a grey-skinned beast with red eyes—

“You are my legacy, Cyrus Davidon,” Alaric said, but his voice was distant, and he was gone, replaced by the red-eyed fury of a god who wanted him dead, “but you are not the only one I left behind—”

“Turn and face me, you dead-skinned, rat-eyed, fecking arsehole.”

Cyrus snapped back to waking, dangling in the grasp of Yartraak. He saw what lurked over the beast’s shoulder; a blond-haired fury, cheeks lit crimson, mouth a thin line of vengeful anger, her armor shining silver in the bare torchlight and the furious flame crackling up and down her sword.

Cyrus could feel the blood coursing down his upper lip, could taste it as he opened his mouth and it dribbled in, even as he heard more of it rushing in his ears. His flesh was cold, the aches and pains settled about him. He saw a glow upon her hand and the agony faded more than a bit.

“Shelas’akur,” Yartraak whispered. Cyrus noted the presence of soldiers here, dark elves ringing them with others closing from behind him. These wore the clothing of civilians—some fat, some thin, all dressed like they had the finest of finery available to them.

“Fitting you would call me that,” Vara said, looking like pure, mauling death, ready to turn itself loose, “since I am about to drive the last hope out of you.”

“You talk entirely too big for a mortal your size,” Yartraak said, rasping.

“You’re not so big yourself anymore,” Vara shot right back. Cyrus felt his feet dangling and adjusted them; his toes barely touched the ground, but they did touch.

“You are surrounded by my forces,” Yartraak said. “My armies. You are in the heart of my darkness.”

Cyrus reached for his blade, still jutting from the God of Darkness’s back. He tried not to be obvious about it, but it mattered little; it was beyond his grasp, and the Lord of the Dark still had him firmly by the neck.
One good twist and I’m dead … but maybe if he’s forgotten about me …
he felt the fingers grip his throat
.
Nope. He hasn’t forgotten
.

Cyrus’s eyes found Vara’s, saw the hint of panic from her, only visible because he knew her well enough to see the subtle flicker of her eyes.

Dammit … the bastard is using me to keep her at bay.

“Is she worth dying for?” Yartraak asked, and Cyrus felt his feet leave the ground again. He turned his horned head just enough to look at Cyrus. “Well?” He loosened his grip, ever so slightly, and Cyrus felt himself cough. “Is she?”

“That and more,” Cyrus rasped around the fingers wrapped around his neck. He could feel the toes of his boots touching the ground, just brushing it.
Just a little more …

Yartraak smiled hideously. He turned his gaze back on Vara, still standing fearlessly before him, her fiery blade in one hand. “And what do you say, Lady Vara? Is he worth dying for?”

The fury barely flickered, like a breeze blowing across a candle’s flame, but for any who knew her as Cyrus did, it was as obvious as if the fire had gone out. “Perhaps,” she said simply.

“Perhaps?” Yartraak let out a rumbling laugh. “Perhaps?” He looked at Cyrus and laughed in his face, that oily smell. “Is this love? She answers, ‘perhaps’!”

“Perhaps …” Vara said, drawing Yartraak’s attention back to her and halting as though there were more to add, “… but it’s not going to come to that.”

Cyrus saw the flash in the god’s eye just before the spell flared from Vara’s palm. He had a split second to realize she’d cast it without words—could she do that before?—and he was swept out of the God of Darkness’s grasp. His back hit the ground hard, and he scrambled to his feet as a dark elven soldier came at him with a blade in hand.

Cyrus dodged, grabbing the blade with his gauntlet. Even bereft of Praelior, he was faster than most, instincts tuned in years of combat, forged in the fires of more wars than he could count. He gripped the blade tight and drove it back, snapping it up so that the hilt smashed the wielder in the face. It came free of the soldier’s grip, and Cyrus reversed his hold on it, bring it around into the neck of the threat he saw coming out of the corner of his eye. Another soldier of the dark elves, one of a hundred around them, and he caught it across the throat with all the grace one could expect of a razor that opened one’s neck.

Cyrus swirled in motion, feeling the lack of Praelior keenly, the speed it gave. He fought in a mad swirl, his blows less effective as the soldiers closed in on him. He saw Vara fending off Yartraak behind him, her hands moving so fast that they were a blur, and it reminded him of the time he’d stood with her beneath a dragon and watched her carve the scales apart, her sword strokes as delicate as a painter’s brushstrokes.

There was only some of that here, her sword a frenzy of motion. She dodged the spells cast her way by Yartraak as he drove her toward the gate. Cyrus hurried backward, fending off the attacks of the guards, the warriors as he worked to press himself toward Yartraak. He saw bows pointed at him, fearful to shoot out of concern for hitting their Sovereign, and he exploited it, never daring to move more than a few inches to either side. He could see the hilt of Praelior when he glanced, still hanging out of Yartraak’s back as though it were buried in a stone.

I need it.

Cyrus watched Vara’s movements slow, watched the God of Darkness hound her relentlessly. She could not help but give ground; he was stronger, there was no doubt. Faster, too, though only by a slight edge. She met his strikes with glancing blows, bleeding him a drop at a time. His thin arms were black with ichor of the sort Cyrus had seen drip from Mortus, a hundred tiny cuts causing him to drip.

He was shorter than Cyrus now, this much was apparent. The guard had ceased to advance on him with furious sword thrusts; he was less than two feet from Yartraak’s back and hurrying backward, alternating his gaze fore and backward, trying not to unexpectedly run into the Sovereign should he halt.

The black cave walls hung above them like a sickly night sky, craggy and cleft, glowing faintly translucent as though some living light grew upon them. The walls of the Grand Palace were just there, twenty feet behind Vara, and Cyrus felt a clenching of his gut at what was likely to be waiting beyond; guards, guards beyond counting, sure to ambush her if they were within feet of the gate. The thought of her falling, struck down by spears and swords, flashed heavy in his head. He had a hundred at his back, and suddenly he did not care.

Cyrus lunged at Yartraak’s retreating back, both hands outreached, and felt his fingers tighten around the hilt of Praelior. The world slowed at his caress, and he tightened his fingers around the pommel. He forced his hand up the hilt without giving up his grip and yanked, ripping the sword free of the God of Darkness’s back—

A howl echoed through the cavern, bouncing off the walls like a wolf had let out a scream to its pack. Cyrus fell as Praelior gave way, lost his footing from his wild jump and toppled, his back hitting the hard ground of cavern. He saw Yartraak’s back arch as he bent in that unnatural way, shouting from the pain. He whirled upon Cyrus and stared down with furious eyes, moving with a speed that was frighteningly fast, angry with the pain, drunk on it, spiteful and ready to rain down his vengeance upon Cyrus for the last time.
I can't stop him
, Cyrus realized.
Not from here. I can buy myself perhaps a few seconds and that is all-

You are not alone.

Cyrus looked upon the face of Sovereign of Saekaj Sovar in all its inarticulate fury, and he tossed Praelior, the weapon that might have given him a few seconds of life, between the grey, skinny legs of the God of Darkness.

He watched the weapon fly as Yartraak registered surprise with those red eyes; of all the things he might have anticipated, Cyrus knew that this was not one. Praelior sailed with Cyrus’s throw, aided by the strength it had given him while it was in his hand, sailed in a low arc—

And fell into the open right hand of a very enraged elven paladin.

She stood with a blade in each hand, and Cyrus watched as flames rippled from the crossguard to the tip of his sword, the furious heart of its user poured out onto the weapon itself.

“Your hope—” Yartraak said.

Vara did not even wait until he finished. She came low with her own sword, striking his right wrist before he could get it high enough to issue a spell to stop her. It hacked loose the three-fingered, clawed hand, the strength given her by Praelior enhancing her already righteous anger, and she followed a second later with the blade once wielded by the God of Courage and smote Yartraak’s head clean from his shoulders. “Do not speak to me of hope,” she said when his body wavered before her, quivering on dead legs as it started to fall, “for you have none left.”

Cyrus lay there as the army that had chased him stood in absolute silence. Yartraak’s corpse fell to a knee, and something thumped, landing beside him. He turned stunned eyes upon it, and saw the face of the God of Darkness, come to rest on its side.

“He will … betray you, you know …” Yartraak said, red eyes already glazing over, the light fading from them. Cyrus stared, mesmerized, unable to take his gaze from the dying face. “You have … his favor … now … but … the moment your interests diverge … he will … kill you.” That came out a whisper, the eyes growing duller. “It’s what he … does …”

The lips ceased their movement, and Cyrus jarred himself out of his trance to get to his feet. He looked at the crowd of soldiers standing awestruck before him, paralyzed, the civilians behind them even more deadened by the spectacle that greeted their eyes at the gates of their Grand Palace.

Cyrus looked back and saw her, then, the fury that had saved him. Vara stood, both blades extended at her side, avenging angel with holy wrath wrought down the metal in the form of scourging fire. She was a spectacle unto herself, death, swift and blazing, the firelight gleaming on her armor, shining in her hair, and her eyes a burning blue like the sky itself was channeled through her with all its glory and grandeur.

“Get the hell out of here,” she said to the guards before her, voice low and full of terrible menace. “I am your destroyer, the end of your wretched lives, the fiery death of your god and the burning fear which should consume your every nightmare. Flee from me, give me my due with your screams … or I will take it from you in the form of your lives.”

Cyrus felt as though he should take a step back but instead held his ground, though he swallowed hard. He eyed the dark elven soldiers and civilians standing in the road outside the Sovereign’s palace. The first clatter of a spear hitting the ground surprised him, but the next twenty happened so quickly that he did not have time to place them in their proper context. By the time the screams started, he was certain he was near-dead and witnessing something quite otherworldly.

They fled, every witness and watcher, throwing weapons aside, cravenly shoving their way past women and children, disappearing into the wide avenue beyond as though death itself were nipping behind them. The cries echoed off the walls, and Cyrus turned back to see guards fleeing out of the gate behind them, running wide around Vara, hewing close to the walls that circled them, closing off access to the houses on either side. They screamed, these men in full armor, they cried like children, and they, too, ran down the road as though pursued.

He looked back at her, caught the fury in the eyes once more, and shook his head. “That was …” He blew a breath through his lips. “Damn. That was something.”

She looked at him coolly. “You may be able to scare a horde of angry trolls with the aid of a wizard and a listing of your deeds, but I can well guarantee that these bastard dark elves will be talking about the night the elven woman with the flaming swords made them surrender their courage and run screaming for years to come.”

He nodded his head in concession. “I doubt I’ll be forgetting it any time soon, either.” He extended a hand. “Can I … have my sword back now?” She looked at him, inscrutable, and then the blade of his weapon extinguished before she turned it around to offer him the hilt. “Thanks,” he said, taking up Praelior once more, staring into the destroyed facade of the Grand Palace. “I suppose we should get back to the army, help them clean up what’s left of the mess.”

“But of course,” she said, matter-of-factly. “There is also the small matter of freeing Vidara.” She started toward the gate, pausing just outside it to glance around the corner; seeing nothing there, she entered the palace courtyard on her way to the bridge that crossed the moat.

“She’s in the throne room,” Cyrus said, hurrying to keep up with her. He walked alongside her, still feeling some aches running through his body. “And … by the way … thank you.”

She glanced at him sideways for only a moment. “Worry not, Lord Davidon, epic hero … I shan’t soon let you forget the night you were forced to surrender your sword to me so that I could save your life.”