Warlord (51 page)

Vara blew out an exasperated breath. “Right. Yes. Well, of course we could invite her as well, but my point, if I might make it, is that you and I, on a day to day basis, are somewhat alone outside of the members of this guild as our family.”

“True,” Cyrus said. He had been feeling that exact sensation most acutely since the death of Andren, something he felt keenly in moments of quiet like he’d had on this night.
On every day since it happened, really.

“I feel like we have circled each other for long enough,” Vara said, and he could tell she had very specific points in mind that she had perhaps practiced rehearsing for this very moment. “For years. Enough to know each other well—as well as can be expected, especially over these last months, when we found that truly, we are quite compatible—”

“I love you, too.”

She gave him a faux dangerous look at the interruption. “Do you want to marry me or not?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Cyrus said with a smirk that dared the danger even further. He took a breath and let it out. “Of course I want to marry you.” She relaxed slightly in clear relief and slid a little further up. “You didn’t think I was going to say no, did you?”

“Well, you could have been a little less dramatic about it,” she said accusingly as she sat on his leg and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Said the woman who crouched naked between my legs and proposed marriage. Not very subtle, dear—”

A thundering knock came at the door, and both of them stiffened in surprise. Vara slid from his grasp easily and he watched her go, sliding into the bed and covering herself before he allowed himself to shout, “Enter!”

The door opened and shut quickly, and the sound of leather boots on the steps was short as the messenger climbed the stairs and presented herself in mere seconds.

“Cora?” Cyrus asked, standing, small droplets of water that Vara had left behind on his armor showering off at his quick motion. “What are you doin—”

“There is no time,” Cora said, breathless from the climb, holding her side. She looked directly at Cyrus, and the urgency in her voice told him what had happened even before she finished speaking. “The titans. They’re coming.

“Now.”

The alarm was sounding, ringing through the towers and halls as Cyrus descended with Cora at his side, his call taken up by already vigilant listeners at every level who had perhaps seen Cora tear by on her way to get him. Vara was surely not far behind, but he had left her to dress in order to get the jump on this crisis. He silenced Cora as she began to explain, allowing her to tell him nothing until the officers were assembled. They surged into the Council Chambers and waited, the doors open, and Cyrus called out to each officer as they passed on the stairwell, the room slowly filling up as they came in.

“Sit there,” Cyrus told Cora, pointing her to Andren’s seat without thought. He cringed as she took it, irritated at himself for his thoughtless direction.

“Where are the titans now?” Vara asked as she breezed in with Erith and Vaste, the last of the officers that they had been waiting for. Her wet hair was laid over her shoulder, water still dripping down her breastplate. The torches flickered at her speedy entry, striding to her place at Cyrus’s left, none of the coyness she had exhibited to him only five minutes earlier present anywhere in her bearing. She was paladin now and officer, not lover or would-be wife, and he smiled faintly at the beautiful contradiction he saw there.

“They are approaching Amti in force,” Cora said, her usual calm clearly disrupted. “One of our small groups of hunters went missing on a ranging. They have been gone for days.”

“The titans got them, then,” Vaste said.

“They have been coming deeper into the jungle all the time,” Cora said, “since their failure at the pass.”

“So nothing from the dragons, then?” Erith asked, utterly crestfallen.

“No,” Cora said, shaking her head. “The titans are still fully attending to their northern interests, presumably building up their supply lines for a northern push … and I would imagine having Amti at their backs, able to strike at their stores, is something of a slight inconvenience.”

“Not slight enough to ignore, though,” Longwell said, doing a little head-shaking of his own. “This is about to be it for you lot. Best get to evacuating.”

“We will not leave,” Cora said stiffly.

“If you stay, you die,” Longwell said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “Trust me, I know it’s hard. I’ve had these very discussions with Administrator Tiernan in the Emerald Fields; if you value the lives of your people, you’ll move out of the way of the damned near unquenchable enemy, because their thirst for violence is like nothing I’ve ever seen, even from implacable death.”

“We will not abandon our homes,” Cora said.

“It was nice knowing you, then,” Longwell said sarcastically, adding a short salute.

“Can we defend them?” Cyrus asked, just throwing the question out.

“No,” Longwell said before he finished.

“Maybe,” Mendicant said.

Every face in the chambers turned to the goblin. “How?” Longwell asked. “We can’t get a force onto the savanna; even J’anda’s little gambit to bring titans into the dragon shrine nearly got wiped out by—”

“We can teleport directly to Amti,” Mendicant said nervously, his eyes dancing around the table’s top. “They have druids that can bring a couple spellcasters in at a time with return spells by putting ourselves in closest physical proximity to them—”

“Uncomfortably close, some of us might say,” Vaste said with a cocked eyebrow.

Mendicant continued. “We set up a simple chain, bringing in a few spellcasters at a time to Amti, letting them anchor their souls, and then having them cast their teleport spell to bring them back to the great seal in the foyer. They take a couple more spellcasters, until all our spellcasters are bound in Amti—”

“That’s insane,” Ryin said, leaning forward, eyes wide. “If Amti falls, the quickest route out is a wizard teleport spell spread over a wide area, and the widest radius teleport spell is the one that returns you to your point of binding. If you execute this particular plan, all our spellcasters will be bound in a place being torn apart by the titans. They’ll be trapped; unable to escape, save for the druids and wizards who can cast their own teleportation elsewhere.”

“It’s not without risks, certainly,” Mendicant said with a shrug, “but the question was ‘Can we defend them’? The answer is ‘yes.’”

Cyrus cast Vara a look and was met with a somewhat stricken one in return. “He is right,” she said. “On all counts. This is perhaps the most dangerous strategy we have ever embraced. There will be no effective retreat from this.”

“And defending a people that are mad and choosing to stay there,” Longwell said.

“We’ve fought gods,” Vaste said dismissively. “Did we have a possibility of escape when we fought Mortus, trapped in his realm? Or Yartraak, when we were stuck in Saekaj?”

“These are long odds,” Longwell said cautiously. “I’m not above nasty battle, but if we’re already counting dear our losses, this idea will cost us more. Sure and certain.”

“Can we even defend them when we get there?” Cyrus mused. “The whole of the army of the titans in the Gradsden Savanna, probably pouring toward Amti even now?” A faint desperation clawed at his thoughts.

“It would be the sort of battle an adherent of Bellarum would charge into with sword held high, I would think,” J’anda said, his eyes sparkling faintly.

“It is the sort of battle that a paladin would go into believing that even the hopeless causes should be fought for,” Mendicant said, looking at Vara. “Am I wrong?”

“You are not wrong,” Vara said, giving the goblin a nod. “Not at all.”

And so it comes down to this
, Cyrus thought, his mind aswirl.
Two choices before me, to stay and let them die, or to fight and lead us to almost certain death …

The bloodthirsty warrior would fight for the sake of it, and the paladin would fight to protect the people. Two paths, and both lead the same direction.

Who am I?
The question whispered through his mind unbidden.

Either way, the answer was the same.

“This is to be utterly voluntary,” Cyrus said, and he could feel the blood draining out of his face. “Pass the word that no one need come unless they are prepared to die in the south, with no hope of revival.” He looked at Mendicant. “Even with your plan, how long will it take to get our army down there in its entirety?”

“Days,” Mendicant said. “Accounting for magical regeneration, the sheer number of spells we’d have to cast, and—and you’d have nearly no magical support during the period we’re bringing people in, which would leave the army—”

“Vulnerable,” Cyrus whispered.

“Fighting titans without healers or aid of magic?” Vara asked, her own eyes wide. “That’s putting it a bit mildly.”

“No one but volunteers,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “If I find out any person coming on this has been coerced in any way—”

“You’ll what?” Vaste asked. “Kill the responsible parties? Assuming the titans don’t do the job for you—or on you—”

“I’m going,” Cyrus said, and he stood.

And every other officer in the room stood a second later.

“So that’s how it’s to be, then?” Cyrus asked, looking at each of them in awe, from J’anda, who nodded, his staff standing taller than he in his grasp, to Ryin, who held a look of flickering hesitation that turned into resolve before Cyrus’s eyes, to Mendicant, holding himself high as he could, and Erith, whose shoulders were hunched in calm resolution. Longwell stood nearly at attention, his own lance threatening to put a gouge in the ceiling, and Vaste snatched his staff up and passed it between hands nervously.

“That’s how it is, oh fearless guildmaster,” Vaste said.

Cyrus turned his eyes to Vara, who stood at his side—and he at hers. “We await your command,” she said with a nod.

“If this be our end,” Cyrus said, “then let’s make it one so grand and glorious that the titans whisper our names in fear for twenty generations.” He favored them with one last look and his gaze settled on Cora, who stood now at last, in the middle of it all, the calm, watching eye as the storm passed around her. He saw something there, some approval perhaps, but it was buried under layers and years and came out in the form of the faintest nod. “Let’s go to war.”

Cyrus’s speech to the assembled guild was blessedly short, at least in his eyes, and well received, to no one’s surprise but his. His preparation after that lasted only seconds and extended to telling Mendicant to travel to Emerald Fields and Saekaj to carry word of their actions to both their allies. With that, he clutched tightly to J’anda, freshly returned from binding in Amti with the aid of one of their druids, and he and Vara were carried back to the jungle with the enchanter sandwiched between them.

“She smells lovely,” J’anda said, nodding his head over his shoulder at Vara as they separated in room entirely composed of wood. “You, though … you smell like fire.”

“I expect that’s an omen of some sort,” Cyrus said, looking around swiftly as more bursts of light came into being around them, the officers of Sanctuary arriving a few at a time either under their own power or clutching to spellcasters.

“It’s not that I dislike you,” Longwell was telling Ryin as the dragoon pulled himself awkwardly back from holding tight to the druid on one side while Calene Raverle let go of Ryin’s back, “it’s just a bit uncomfortable being as I don’t feel like we’re that … uh … close.”

“Officers,” Cyrus said, snapping them all to. The door opened on the far end of the room and Martaina entered, her bow in hand, her hair looking longer than he remembered and her eyes as dark as he’d ever seen them. The lack of sleep was apparent, and her cloak hung tight behind her as she entered. “Lady Ranger,” he said.

She gave him a look of pure annoyance. “Don’t be a jackass,” she said. “You’ve known me for years, don’t act all formal now, it’s not the moment for it.” She addressed them all quickly, her haggard appearance trickling down into her manner. “They’re on the horizon, and they’re making a very direct line for Amti. There’s rather a lot of them—”

“How many?” Longwell asked.

“Thousands,” Martaina said tightly. “Tens of, perhaps. Enough that our little traps and preparations won’t but barely slow them.”

“You set up traps?” Cyrus asked.

She favored him with a tired look. “I didn’t have that many rangers to train here, so I looked down other avenues to cement my worth. There are small spike pits throughout the jungle, and some log traps made of vine and rope. Not enough to cause significant damage to these numbers; they were meant as a discouragement for casual wanderers.”

“You know what I find is a discouragement to casual wanderers in whatever area I choose to be in?” Vaste asked.

“Casual nudity from a bellicose and frighteningly ugly troll?” Vara suggested.

“I’m going to show you my arse later,” Vaste said. “Just for that. And you will look upon it and go, ‘My, what a firm and supple arse. Perhaps I should have been nicer to Vaste for all these years, seeing as it’s such a damned fine apple of an—’”

Cyrus rolled his eyes and kicked the troll lightly in the rump, knocking him off balance. “Enough of that. We’ve got a sizable battle laid out before us.”

Vaste recovered, straightening his robes. “Of all the regrets you’re going to take to your grave, not seeing this magnificent troll arse is going to work its way right to the top, I assure you.”

“Oh, Vaste,” Cyrus said, squeezing past him, “you’ve shown me your ass more times than I can count.” He gestured to Martaina. “Show me what you’ve got.”

He followed her wordlessly up the spiral inside of the tree. The walk seemed infinitely long and was made all the worse by the silence both in front of him from Martaina and behind him from the few officers and others following behind him. Every step on the grain of the wood sounded hollow, like he was being led to his doom, and it was curious, he thought, that he felt no dread at the prospect.

They came out atop the trees, hidden among branches and boughs that were tied off and arranged in such a way to allow this place to be used as a watch post over the canopy of the jungle. Cyrus followed Martaina’s careful steps out onto the branches, and looked where she pointed, in the far distance, and saw immediately.