Crusader s-4 Read online

  Crusader

  ( Sanctuary - 4 )

  Robert J. Crane

  Robert J. Crane

  Crusader

  Prologue

  Fear consumes us, the diary read. It owns us, makes us its chattel and property, takes hold of our lives and enslaves us to it. There are only three ways to best fear. The first is to care nothing for anything, including your own life. The second is to confront it and thus build courage by facing your demons. The final is to believe so deeply in some cause that you are willing to walk through any fire, no matter how scorching, because of that belief. Unfortunately, all three of them are difficult for a coward such as myself, and of the three, one is of little appeal to anyone.

  The rains had left with almost as little warning and fanfare as they had arrived with, and Cyrus Davidon stared out the window, Alaric’s journal clutched in his hand, mulling over his path. The room smelled faintly of wet wood and mildew; no great shock since the rains had blown into the Council Chambers of Sanctuary next door. All around him rested broken tables, smashed bookshelves, even a shattered painting-though that was my work rather than that of … well …

  The only sound in earshot was the crackling of the fire and the popping of the torches. They gave the air a sort of sickly smell, sweet, of oil burning, perhaps. Cyrus realized for the first time that it could have been magic burning, for all he knew. They were magic torches, after all, lighting and unlighting as needed. He leaned his left hand against the chair, feeling the pain within, and as he shifted, the ring on his finger caught on the inside of his gauntlet. I’ve been sitting here like this for too long, he thought, putting the journal aside. The lettering was elegant on every page; not quite a surprise though close, as Cyrus could not recall having seen the Master of Sanctuary write much of anything for himself during the time Cyrus had been a member of the guild.

  The rains had stopped at some point after nightfall, Cyrus dimly realized. It was after midnight now, and the strain on his eyes had been considerable. Putting aside the book, he stood and heard the cracking of his joints. He sighed. I sound as though I’m about to fall apart. He chuckled ruefully at the thought. Soon, perhaps.

  He paused, pondering. What Alaric said in the journal-I’m afraid. Fear. How long ago did I master fear? When I was at the Society? He did the arithmetic in his head and found it unfavorable. How long ago did I stop feeling the pinch of fear? He thought about it for another moment but received no argument from himself. Then. I stopped truly fearing after …

  He let out a swift exhalation, as though he could purge the thought from himself, and tasted bitterness almost tangibly in his mouth. Alaric was right. There are few enough ways to truly purge fear from your life, and I believe he might have figured them all out. Not caring about anything is certainly a swift way to do it, and I did that for long enough to know. Confronting it is easier in conjunction with the third … he blinked. Believing in something enough to die for it, well … that’s the most difficult of them all.

  His eyes worked their way back to the book again. He’d read most of it during the night, much of it from times long, long before he had even met the man known as the Ghost of Sanctuary. There had been new insights, fascinating ones, things he hadn’t fully understood-until now. But what would it say about the time I spent in Luukessia? What was he doing in that time, what was he thinking? He found himself walking back to the chair unconsciously. Sitting back down, he picked up the journal of Alaric’s thoughts-and the other. Vara’s. He stared at the dull cover, the dark leather binding of it, ran his hands along the front as though he could feel it through his gauntlet.

  He sat them both on his lap and opened them, skimming through the pages of the first until he found what he was looking for: a date. He read for a few paragraphs and his jaw dropped. Ah. So that was it. He turned his attention to the other book, Vara’s journal, the handwriting only slightly less flowing, and opened it, jumping through the pages until he found the one that fit. It was wrinkled, the parchment rumpled as though it had been exposed to water.

  Damn you, Cyrus Davidon …

  He looked up, around the empty room and toward the darkness outside. “That’s a hell of a way to start a journal entry.” His eyes fell back to the page and he read on, trying to absorb it all, flicking back and forth from one journal to the other, reconciling what he knew of that year with what he didn’t, fitting the pieces of it together in his head. It all crept in, slowly, much like the darkness outside, and he did not want to stop reading, even when he heard a noise of something from within the walls, something quiet but certain, something very much alive … in a place that was not.

  FIVE YEARS EARLIER

  Chapter 1

  Vara

  Damn you, Cyrus Davidon, Vara thought as the sounds of battle rang through the halls of Sanctuary. You were not meant to be gone this long. Her sword felt heavy in her hand as she ran down the stairs from the tower, a horn blaring all around with shouts of “ALARUM! RAIDERS!” loud enough to roust even the near-dead. Her plate metal boots slapped against each step, ringing out in a clatter and clang that would have reverberated through the entirety of Sanctuary on a normal day; now they were well drowned out by all else that was going on.

  Six months he’s been gone. Six long months. With every step down the stairs she felt the hard metal through the leather footcovers she wore underneath her boots. When the day comes that I see him again, I’m going to let our General know exactly how poor his sense of timing is. There was a smell wafting up the stairs, a scent of blood and fire, and not of the smokeless flames produced by Sanctuary’s torches, but of real fire, of battle and death.

  She jumped the last flight of stairs, vaulting over the few others who were storming down, to find the foyer awash in chaos. There was battle, and fire, and blood all; armor and swords, axes and arrows, all winging their way over the sweeping stone architecture of the usually peaceful halls of Sanctuary. The room was packed with dark elves in the blackened steel armor of the Sovereign’s forces, warring with the motley and unmatched army of Sanctuary. She saw Sanctuary rangers, human, elven and dark elven, wearing cloaks of green and brown, warriors in armor of flat steel and dull hues, some with surcoats of red, blue and white; all of them clashing with dark elves in their dim armor, like the forces of light arrayed against the legions of dark.

  And dark appears to be winning.

  She watched as a dwarf clad in silver mail was cut down by a cleaving attack from a dark elf, who let out a shriek of triumph as his foe dropped to the ground, dead. Vara took it all in, a tingle running through her. She felt it slipping through her, six months of rage, pent-up anger and frustration. There was a taste of morning breath in her mouth, the bitter, acrid flavor of waking still there, and it only felt more appropriate when coupled with the anger surging through her now.

  Damn you, Cyrus Davidon.

  She channeled her fury into a yell that rang out over the battle. She leapt, not a small leap but a great, ungainly leap of twenty feet, using the mystical strength granted her by armor and sword. She brought her blade down on the dark elf who had slain the dwarf. He stared at her flight, wide-eyed, as she landed upon him and pierced him through his armor. She left a great rent in it, cutting through it as though it were nothing more than old, tattered parchment.

  The melee lay open before her, half the heads in the room on her, watching. The clash of swords, the clang of blades, the sight of hundreds of bodies pressed against each other, and yet something familiar prickled at her mind even as she rushed forward, sword in motion to deal with the next dark elf, and the next. There was an aura of low-hanging fog, of something passing beneath her feet as she brought down a sword and split the metal helm and skull of a dark elf while whirling to land a hard-edged s
lash against another enemy.

  Something moved out of the corner of her eye-several somethings, actually, as this was a full-fledged battle-but this one more pronounced. It was big and green, with black robes and a sash around the shoulders that bore the markings of a healer. The troll, Vaste, brought his staff down on the neck of a dark elven warrior whose blade was only inches from Vara’s side. The warrior’s skull cracked, a sickening noise of bones and wetness echoing in her ears as the body hit the floor and was trampled under the troll’s feet as he moved on to his next opponent.

  “That’s okay, don’t thank me or anything,” Vaste said under his breath. “After all, why bother to be grateful to me for saving your life?”

  Had she not been an elf, and possessed of the exceptional hearing that was a hallmark of her race, she might not have heard him. “I’ll thank you later, should we both survive this. As it is, you may have done nothing more,” she laid her blade across the throat of another dark elf, “than buy me a temporary reprieve; we seem to be somewhat outnumbered.”

  “We’re not, actually,” Vaste said, his hand glowing and pointed into the distance. Vara turned and watched as a healing spell settled on a human ranger whose face was slick with blood pouring from a gouge in his throat. Skin closed up, leaving only the spilt blood as a mark of the death that had nearly visited the man. He shouted his thanks and plunged twin blades into a dark elf whose back was turned. “It’s just that most of our force is arrayed on the wall against the army that has us surrounded.”

  “Did it not occur to anyone that the Sovereign of the Dark Elves would simply teleport a force into our midst?” She caught the blade of one of the dark elven attackers on hers and turned it aside, spinning him about while she plunged her sword into the back of his neck.

  “I don’t know. Did it occur to you?”

  She narrowed her eyes, but she was turned from him, dealing with two dark elven warriors that came at her with axes. “Fair point.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that?” She couldn’t see the troll’s face, but she heard the smile in his reply.

  “I said focus on the battle, you malodorous pile of rubbish.” She struck down the first of her foes with an offhand attack, keeping his body between her and the second as the dark elf sunk to his knees. “Where is Fortin? He could turn the tide of this contest in mere seconds.”

  “Visiting his estate in the Elven Kingdom, I believe,” Vaste’s voice had a sudden strain to it and she turned to find him holding back three dark elven warriors who were pressing their advantage and driving him toward the doors to the Great Hall, where another battle appeared to be taking place. “He does so love to commune with the rocks and boulders; who would have known that a rock giant had a sensitive side? Certainly not me, but then again I rather enjoy his ‘batter your enemies with superior strength until their skulls become a fine paste’ approach.”

  “Aye,” she said, moving to help Vaste but finding herself cut off by three strong dark elven warriors. “We could use a bit of that right now.” She found herself boxed in, the one on the left driving her back while the one in the center pushed at her with an oblong blade that hosted a right angle at the tip. She watched Vaste block attacks with his staff, the focusing crystal on the tip of it glowing a ghostly white. “Do our forces outside even know that we’ve got enemies in the damned foyer?”

  “I would have to guess that this is a coordinated attack.” Vaste’s words came out in great, shuddering gasps as he exerted himself, striking a killing blow against one of the dark elves menacing him. “They’re probably making an assault on the wall even now.”

  “Bloody hell.” Vara saw the white, toothy grin of her center assailant as he thrust his great sword at her and she dodged, countering with an abrupt lunge, her sword at full extension. Her movement caused her to avoid strikes from the dark elves on her left and right, and she let her attack carry her through, striking the dark elf in the mouth with her blade. She felt it slide in, watched his grin dissolve in blood and broken teeth, then pulled her sword left, jerking it free and striking against the neck of her foe to the side. She pirouetted and brought it across the throat of the one to her right. With athletic ease she jumped over the bodies of both of them as they fell and moved toward Vaste, who had acquired another attacker.

  “Oh, good,” the troll said as she struck down the first of his assailants from behind, without warning, causing two of the others to pivot to face her. “I was beginning to worry that perhaps I just wasn’t that important to you.”

  “You truly aren’t.” She crossed swords with the next that came at her. The clash of her mystical blade against her opponent’s cut steel, chipping his sword.

  “At least until you need a healing spell,” Vaste said. “You ungrateful tart. I bet if I was a warrior wearing black armor, you’d feel differently.”

  He said it lightly, with just the hint of a barb, but when it reached Vara’s ears, it curdled and she felt heat rush through her veins, setting her blood afire. She struck down the next two enemies with reckless disregard for her own safety, catching a wound to the shoulder that slid through the joint of her armor. She ignored it, felt the searing pain of it and set it aside, letting the thought of the warrior in black burn her internally. Six months, you arrogant bastard, and not so much as a scrap of news; I hope Terian caught you right in your pompous, overmuscled arse with a blade-

  She felt a pain that was nowhere near her shoulder, a pain so acute and stunning that she hated herself for feeling it. Guilt washed over her, halting her uncharitable thought midway through, leaving her with only the same familiar mantra that had been rolling through her mind for the last six months: Damn you, Cyrus Davidon. Damn you for your arrogance, for your idiotic nobility, your lack of consideration-and for leaving, most of all. Damn you for all of it. She buried her blade in another foe, then another.

  Something caused her to shudder. The thin fog that had seemed to creep into the room was gaining in volume, rolling over the floor and swirling into the center of the foyer. Behind her, she could still hear the wail of the horns, the slamming of doors and the roaring of fires bursting out of the hearth across the room, warning the residents of Sanctuary of the attack in their midst. All of that seemed to calm, along with the swell of the battle as the mist rolled to the center of the room, rising from the floor into a man-sized pillar, gaining definition and swelling into a figure.

  Worn, battered armor appeared out of the cloud along with a helm that covered all but the mouth of the man within it. A sword of darkened metal swept out of the fog, cutting neatly through seven different assailants who surrounded the mist. The cloud dissipated and flowed to the other side of the room, near the hearth, gathering behind a cluster of dark elven warriors. It sprang into a pillar once more and out came a sword, stroking neatly across the bodies of the foes arrayed about it, then dispersed once more and moved to a spot near the lounge, where it became a tornado of mist and exploded, puffs of the smoky air evaporating to leave behind Alaric Garaunt, the Guildmaster of Sanctuary. He sprang forth from the smoke, his mouth contorted in fury and the sound of his yell rained upon the foes that he struck down a moment later.

  Pieces of Alaric’s quarries flew across the floor, rolling in among the bodies and the blood that was already slickening the stone. Vara cut her way through a dark elf and found herself standing in the doorway to the Great Hall, looking within at the place where the guild dined. More than a dozen dark elves had funneled into the Great Hall and were battling with Sanctuary defenders scattered among the tables. There was a smell of hearty stew mingled with baked bread, at odds with the crimson-covered surfaces and the bodies that lay amidst the upturned tables. The clash of blades and the screams of fury and pain warred with the simple, homey scent of the meal being prepared within.

  Vara’s eyes flew over shattered tables and broken chairs to see Larana, the mistress of the kitchens, hovering in the air, feet at least a head above Vara’s own height, her druidic magic issuing
forth from her hands. Blasts of coarse flame shot forth to consume the dark elves who were moving forward to attack her, a wave of heat from the fire washing over Vara even at this distance. Her hand came up out of instinct, as if to protect her from it. When she lowered it again, a passel of flaming corpses lay about the Great Hall, thick, black smoke gathering above at the high ceiling.

  She paused to watch the normally mild, quiet druid, eyes aflame, float toward her remaining enemies, driving them back toward Vara, who braced and attacked as the dark elves ran into her in ones and twos, turning from Larana with panic in their eyes, the flames driving them to focus more on what they were retreating from than what they were running to. Vara stepped into them, sword moving horizontally in a slash that killed three of the first four with one stroke and sent the other to the ground, crying in low guttural noises that choked the air.

  Vara stopped, turning to look back to the melee still proceeding in the foyer. Larana’s eyes met hers, the druid’s gaze a bright, verdant green that reminded Vara somehow of life-and the end of it. “They’ll be needing help mopping up in the foyer,” Vara said, and Larana nodded, drifting gently a foot off the ground before she flew forward, past Vara and into the battle.

  There was a shift, Vara could tell, as she charged back into the fight in the foyer, blade in hand. Where before there had been wall-to-wall melee, now only a few dark elves remained, backed into a corner to the left of the doors that led outside. The moans of the injured filled her ears. She ignored it all as she shouldered her way through the crowd toward the dark elves standing off in a line. They were backed into the corner, staring down the members of Sanctuary who stood opposite them. Larana hovered menacingly nearby, and Vara could see other spellcasters, waiting to break the uneasy peace. Warriors of Sanctuary had crowded to the front, and a small distance, the length of a sword or two, was all that separated the dark elves from being overrun by the larger numbers.