Warlord (3 page)

“A prudent gesture,” came the voice of Curatio as he slid into place next to J’anda. The healer looked more than a little disheveled, his face almost as pale as his white robes. For as long as Cyrus had known him, Curatio had looked nearly ageless, for he indeed was.
But now
, Cyrus thought as he looked the elder elf up and down,
he looks like he was dragged from deepest sleep and set upon a by a pack of angry rock giants
.

“Are you quite all right, Curatio?” Vara asked with more than a touch of concern. “You don’t look—”

“I’m fine, thank you,” the healer said brusquely. He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it. “I apparently did not wake immediately upon the sounding of the alarm.”
He’s another one that hasn’t been right for a while
, Cyrus thought. “Do we have any idea what has prompted this middle of the night awakening?”

“No army at the walls,” Cyrus said, nodding to the empty space that stretched stories below to the foyer. “Maybe a battle down there at the portal?”

Vara listened carefully, and Curatio did the same, tipping an ear toward the shaft running through the middle of the tower. “No sound of swords clanging,” she said, shaking her head. “Just shouting. A great lot of bloody, indiscernible shouting.”

“It bodes ill,” Curatio pronounced, and Cyrus could not find it in himself to disagree. Cyrus looked with concern over the edge of the great drop. “Alarms called in the night, no sign of an army or battle …” His voice trailed off, and Cyrus felt his thoughts swirl as he considered possibilities, none of them making any sense.

No battle, no invaders. No threats—the dark elves declared peace and Terian is at the head of their government … could he have changed his mind about burying the old grudge?
Cyrus looked down again as the slow shuffle of the spiral continued, and he did all within his power to keep from trying to strong-arm his way past Vaste and down the stairs.

He looked over at Vara and smiled in what he tried to make a reassuring way. “It’ll be all right,” he said, easily as much for himself as anyone else present.

“I know,” she said, returning his smile, but lightly, as she did everything. She leaned forward and gave him another soft kiss on the lips.

“Well,” Curatio said, “that was … very nearly sickening.”

“Thank you!” Vaste bellowed, drawing every eye in the spiral for two whole floors. He lowered his voice. “I tried to tell them exactly that earlier, and I don’t think they believed me.”

“Or perhaps we simply were hoping you would eventually jump, thus sparing us all your rancid troll wit, which is nearly as sour as your breath,” Vara said.

“You should talk.” Vaste waved a hand in front of his nose as he looked up at her. “You kiss him with that mouth? Did you swallow a—”

Vara flushed red as a ripple of reaction ran through the spiral below them. Cyrus noticed it in the form of a hush that fell, whispers straining to reach across the gap as his eyes found Ryin, who was listening intently to someone ahead of him in the line. When the druid heard what was said, his head rocked back and he blinked three times in rapid succession. “Ryin!” Cyrus called, drawing the man’s gaze toward him as the rumor raced up the spiral. “What is it?”

“I could have told you,” Vara said, voice a quiet whisper behind him. He turned to look her in the eyes, again, but found the mirth that had been present only moments before had fled as surely as the desert dwellers of the Inculta disappeared at sunrise. There was a tentativeness behind her eyes, a hesitance that caused him to quiver as her ears reddened at the tips, with her blond hair now drawn back in its severe ponytail, as it always was when she was ready for battle.

“What is it?” Cyrus asked, swallowing heavily. A sense of nervous anticipation flowed through him freely, and he placed his hand upon Praelior as much for the feeling it provided as for a place to rest it.

“The Emerald Fields,” Vara said, her voice with a quiver of its own. Cyrus’s stomach dropped as though someone had shoved it over the edge of the stairwell. “The titans of Kortran have come through the Heia Pass … and they’re attacking the town as we speak.”

The flash of a teleportation spell faded into dark night, and the smell of flames and smoke reached Cyrus’s nose before his eyes regained their sight. The orange glow on the horizon was the first sign of the trouble ahead, and Cyrus found himself giving orders before his mind had caught up with his balance. It was a hot night in the middle of summer, the moisture thick in the air as if a hard rain were imminent. “Keep a tight formation! We don’t know how many we’re dealing with, or what we’ll find when we get there.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgment before beginning his run, pushing out in front of his army of some three hundred. Flashes behind him told him that more were on their way in, and he trusted them to follow close behind him.

“This is like a waking nightmare,” Vara said at his side as they headed toward the town in the distance. The clank of her silver armor was subtle compared to the shouts and screams that came from ahead, the cries in the night of battle and terror. “How many people did we have stationed here?”

“Maybe five hundred at the portal,” Thad said, causing Cyrus to turn his head to look at the warrior in blood-red armor. He already had his sword drawn, a plain-looking weapon of mystical steel that had been procured from one of their endless trips to the Realm of Purgatory.
It’ll be enough to cut a crease in titan skin, that’s certain.
“We pulled half the garrison last year at Administrator Tiernan’s request.”

“And they’d have been in poor position to deal with anything out of the south,” Cyrus said, his long legs making less stride than they could have. He held himself under control to keep from outpacing his army. “They were meant to defend the portal against invaders, not the town against an army out of the south.” He pursed his lips into a tight line, his fearful anticipation growing with each step closer to the flames of war that beat in the near distance. His jog was not enough for him, not nearly. He longed to run, to lope along the worn and dusty road from the portal to the town, to use every bit of the speed that Praelior granted him to charge headlong into battle.

“I know your mind,” Vara whispered at his ear. “But even you, with that sword, would find difficulty against an army of titans.”

Cyrus nodded his acknowledgment, unable to find sufficient words to express the muddled rage seething under the surface.
Titans are twenty feet tall and with all the proportionate strength that entails; a stray hand could cripple me with one good blow, and they’re not slow creatures, either.
“I’ll maintain discipline,” Cyrus said at last.

“I did not worry about it,” she said, “I merely wished to reassure you at following your better instincts. I know it is difficult. I, too, long to run ahead in order to inflict my singular rage upon these creatures, but without magical support, even we would be at a great disadvantage.”

Cyrus breathed a hard breath, and it seemed to stick in his lungs like he’d taken in a bone that had lodged in his chest. The night sky was dark overhead but light in front of them, flames dancing into the night and giving the smoky clouds hanging ominously over the town a subtle glow. It brought to mind another battle he’d fought. “Does this remind you of—”

“Santir, yes,” Vara said quietly. She was breathing a little louder now, not panting by any means, but he could hear her exertions. “On the night of the Termina battle.”

The mere memory caused Cyrus to swallow heavily. “I hope we’re not walking into anything as bad as that … massacre.”

They crested a small rise and the town came into view. At least a quarter of it was burning, flames billowing into the air in the northwest side of the main street. Houses farther off the avenue were catching as well, a stiff wind coming out of the east and carrying the fire between the wooden structures that made up the town. Large, shadowed figures loomed over the buildings and smaller ones ran to and fro in great numbers, their screams all blending together as the survivors attempted to flee.

“Son of a bitch,” Martaina Proelius breathed, and Cyrus started slightly to find the elven ranger at his shoulder. She had her bow in hand and looked prepared to draw and fire it, even from here.

“Hold,” Cyrus said and put up a hand that caught the glow of the fires and turned his skin a sickly shade of yellow. He spun and looked over the army behind him, straining to raise himself up slightly. They filled the ground behind him all the way to the portal, already numbering several thousand. A flash near the portal forced him to avert his eyes for a few seconds, and when he turned back he saw a few hundred on horseback, plainly teleported directly from the stables. “Thad, keep the cavalry out of the fight in town. The last thing we need is to have them riding down our own people in tight confines. Send them around on the northern reaches through the fields, see if they can rally survivors. Have them gather anyone they find and escort them back to the portal for evacuation to Sanctuary.”

“Aye, sir,” Thad said, saluting sharply with the hand he did not carry his sword in. “Anything else?”

“Where’s Odellan?” Cyrus called, and his eyes alighted on the familiar winged helm of the elf somewhere in the second formation that had teleported in. “Never mind. I’m sure he’s got his own group under control—just repeat my orders to him as he passes.”

“Aye.”

“Army of Sanctuary, on me!” Cyrus called and started forward again at a slightly faster pace. He came down the small hill toward the town, looking hard at the first of the titans ahead of him. He could judge the height by the size of the buildings it moved near. The beast was easily taller than a two-story building and tore through a thatched-roof hut with a fearsome roar. This one had gotten away from his comrades that were filling the streets of the town, dark, shadowed towers in the streets of this small city.

Cyrus waited for the sound of the army’s motion to betray him to the titan he stalked, but the creature was far too busy tearing the roof off the building ahead of it. It rummaged about in the house like a man through small chest, a stray hand destroying the wooden side of the structure. It made a low, horrible chortling noise and drew a massive fist out with something that looked like a small doll clutched inside it. With a sickening sense of disgust, Cyrus realized it was a person, a human being, though a hard squeeze by the beast ended that life without so much as an audible squeal. The titan threw the body over its shoulder without a care, and then turned back to the house as a cry from within the building echoed in the night.

Cyrus held back no longer, letting his blade carry him forward on legs now stronger and faster than any stallion’s. He reached the squatting titan and leapt into the air, landing with a hard clank upon a shoulder, causing the creature to look up in utter bewilderment. Its face was rough and ugly, like a rotted fruit, the eyes under its dome-shaped helm, tangerine with the reflection of the fires burning beyond. A smell wafted from it, sweat and body odor of an intensity Cyrus could remember only from a Society of Arms barracks after a long week of military exercises. The smell almost made him gag, but he sublimated his disgust and threw it into a thrust of his sword instead, driving Praelior into a gaping eye and following behind it with all his force.

The titan screamed as the blade pierced him. Cyrus pushed into the socket with fury, driving his hand into the orb as gelatinous blood came rushing out. He buried his hand up to the wrist, not considering that he was attaching his fate to the creature’s, but as the first shocks of movement surged through the titan’s massive frame, Cyrus realized his error.

Should have gone for the neck,
he thought as the beast jerked to its feet. A hand came up to swat at him, and it hit his armor with harsh force, striking him as if he were a bothersome fly. The rattle of rough flesh against his metal armor echoed through Cyrus’s bones like the quaking of the earth in his dream and drove him slightly deeper into the eyeball, burying him almost to the shoulder.
Shit
.

As the striking hand withdrew, Cyrus pulled hard against the entrapping eyeball, ripping free of it only with great effort and all his Praelior-enhanced strength. The soft tissue resisted and tugged at the edges of his gauntlets and vambraces, and the shrieking of the giant beast raged around him like a thunderstorm. He maintained his footing as he withdrew thanks only to the balance granted him by his sword. It was a precarious place to stand; Cyrus knew it and meant to remove himself from the perch as quickly as possible.

The titan stood up on wobbly legs, raising a hand to deliver another smack. It was hardly likely to injure someone who had only months earlier been knocked about by a god, but Cyrus had certainly felt the first blow, even if it had caused him no harm. He watched the titan turn its face away from him, exposing a neck that had no gorget upon it. Cyrus struck swiftly, opening the vein that flowed in exactly the same place as it would have on a human. His reward was a geyser of dark-tinted liquid that looked almost black in the firelight. Cyrus did not bother to dodge away from his portion, receiving the spray upon his black armor.

The titan’s steps became unsteady, and one of its hands rose in panic. Cyrus leapt from atop the shoulder and felt the shock run from his feet up through his knees and legs as he landed. It hurt, and he counted himself fortunate indeed to feel the breath of a healing spell only a moment later, though nothing had been obviously broken in his sudden descent.

He cleared out of the shadow of the titan as a fire spell struck the beast’s already scarred-looking face in the side that still contained an eyeball. The creature fell, probably more from the wound Cyrus had inflicted rather than the spell. It landed on its knees and then folded at the midsection, crashing into the house that it had been rifling through upon his approach. Cyrus cringed, looking away, letting the anger rage over him at his failure to protect the occupants within. The wooden planks that made up the walls were broken and scattered, all support lost when the titan had landed upon it, knocking it entirely flat.