Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) Read online

  Her mischief was contagious, and a genuine smile blossomed on his own face in response. He was about to make a clever reply, but he was interrupted by the squeak of the door as it opened fully. Vara turned, and they both stared at the shadowed figure that stood in the entry, three smaller, four-legged shapes standing up to hip-high on their master. Cyrus could hear them panting across the room as they stood there silhouetted against the iron clouds in the background behind them.

  The Northman’s leather armor squeaked as he stepped another foot into the foyer. “Lord Davidon,” Menlos Irontooth said tensely, “you’re needed at the wall, Guildmaster.”

  “What is it, Menlos?” Cyrus asked. Vara had detached herself from him at the first sign of company and was now standing just behind him, her shoulder almost brushing his.

  “Trolls, sir,” Menlos replied. Even though Menlos was cast in silhouette by the light that flooded in behind him, Cyrus could tell the Northman’s expression was grim. “There are trolls at the gates.”

  2.

  “Did I just see Carisse leave?” Menlos asked as he led the way across the grounds. The mighty stone wall that encircled Sanctuary stood out in the distance, the giant gates closed to visitors or guests. They’ve been like that for an awfully long time now, Cyrus thought, staring at them as he and Vara followed the Northman to the wall. Not at all like they were when I first came here, thrown wide and welcoming to all comers …

  “Yes,” Cyrus said, looking across the lawn for the ranger. Brown dirt had taken over where lush grass had once ruled the grounds, and it felt very much like a symbol of Sanctuary’s decline. “She decided she wanted to seek her fortunes elsewhere. Or perhaps she was just tired of associating with us.”

  Menlos grunted. “These people leaving, they lack the basic loyalty of a dog.” He reached down to scratch one of his wolves behind the ears. It panted appreciatively. Menlos’s armor continued to squeak as he walked, his short blade rattling in its scabbard. He had an earthy aroma to him that Cyrus could smell even some ten feet back, and the wolves had an even stronger scent even to them, although their fur was clean and luminous as though they’d been recently bathed.

  “Why are there trolls at our gates?” Vara asked as they all stumped along the brown dirt path. The wall was only a hundred feet away now. “And how many are there?”

  “Perhaps ten? Twelve?” Menlos said, shrugging, his armor making a noise as he did so, the boiled leather not as heavily worn as it might have been. Cyrus recalled vaguely that the hairy Northman had received it in the Trials of Purgatory some years back. It looked strong and near flawless, well taken care of and probably heartier than many of the weaker metals others wore for protection. “It was tough to tell, they were all bunched together.”

  “So not exactly an invading force, then,” Vara said, sounding slightly mollified.

  “Invading force?” Menlos’s eyebrow cocked, and he let out a mild guffaw. “No, not according to them.”

  “And here I was worried for a moment that they were here about that expedition we staged into Gren a couple years back,” Cyrus said as they reached the staircase and started to ascend the wall. Menlos’s leather boots made noise as he began his climb; Cyrus let Vara go ahead of him, and her metal boots clanked against the stone as she followed the Northman up. “Thought maybe revenge was on their minds.”

  “Hard to tell what’s really on their minds,” Menlos said, looking suspicious. “But as for their declared purpose … well, you need to hear it for yourself.”

  They reached the top of the wall and found the guard that was always on watch along the length of the barrier that ringed Sanctuary somewhat spare. We used to have more people to man this wall, Cyrus thought mournfully, looking in either direction along the length of the stone bulwark that guarded the guildhall from assaults across the long, green Plains of Perdamun that stretched out before him to the horizon. But then, we used to have more people to do just about everything …

  Scuddar In’shara was waiting, wearing scarlet robes and with the scarf he wore around his head pulled down to his chin to reveal that he had shorn his coal-black beard. He showed not a trace of humor as he looked at Cyrus, merely nodding to acknowledge his Guildmaster’s arrival. A bare second later, he bowed almost imperceptibly to Vara. “M’lord,” he said. “M’lady.”

  “Castellan,” Cyrus said, acknowledging Scuddar by his title. “I hear we have visitors.”

  “More than a few,” Scuddar said in his rich baritone. He led them to the crenellations in the wall, and they peered between the teeth and down some thirty feet to the torn ground outside the gate where a party of green-skinned, wide-bodied trolls waited patiently, their breathing so loud that Cyrus could hear it even at this distance. Beyond them, standing off a ways, was a green-cloaked elven wizard who watched the knot of trolls with wide, worried eyes from atop a brown and white horse.

  “Hail,” Cyrus called down to them, dropping his hand to rest on the hilt of his sword, Praelior, hanging on the right side of his belt. A surge of strength from the weapon’s enchantments ran through him, filling him with the confidence that Carisse Sevoux’s departure had stolen away.

  Each of the waiting trolls looked to be somewhere in the neighborhood of ten feet tall, taller even than him. They all glanced up at the sound of his voice, and he counted thirteen faces staring up at him, some with black facial hair growing out of their chins and jawlines, others without a hint of it to obscure their complexions, which ranged from bright green to a sickly yellow that reminded Cyrus of a rancid lemon.

  Several of the faces wore suspicious expressions, but Cyrus picked out the leader of the group quickly enough, standing at the fore draped in old, rusty, iron armor that exposed the flesh around the troll’s smallish breastplate. Dark green nipples were visible on either side of the breastplate, which was strapped rather tightly around his figure. It looked like something a smaller-framed dark elf might wear, but it had been repurposed to protect this troll’s heart. He also wore pants stitched together from goats’ skins and had ten brass earrings the size of Cyrus’s hands sticking out of each ear. His lower teeth protruded from his underbite. “Hellllo,” the troll leader drawled, looking up.

  “Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?” Cyrus asked, looking down at the curious assemblage before the gates.

  The troll leader cocked his head, puzzling at what Cyrus had said. After a moment he grunted, seeming to get it. “I am Zarnn.” He turned slowly to wave a hand at the motley collection of trolls behind him. “These my … fellow travelers.”

  “Where are you traveling?” Cyrus asked, sparing a glance for the elven wizard who was still ahorse, standing off nervously from the trolls, apparently hoping he could avoid any association with them.

  “To here,” Zarnn said slowly, as though it were obvious.

  “All right,” Cyrus said, trading a look with Vara. She rolled her eyes. He turned back to shout down at Zarnn once more. “Now that you’re here … what do you intend to do?”

  Zarnn paused as though to think about it. “Join Sanctuary,” he decided, and there was much head-nodding behind him among the other trolls.

  “The bloody hell you say.” Menlos Irontooth did not bother to keep his voice down. “They’re here to join? Like we don’t have enough problems as it is …”

  Cyrus tried to hold back his surprise, peering over the crenellations at the group below. “I’m sorry … you’re here to … become part of Sanctuary?”

  Zarnn looked around at the walls and the flat lands around him. “This … Sanctuary, yes?” His voice was rumbling as he missed words, struggling to string his thoughts into speech in his non-native language, but he had a hint of innocence to him that Cyrus found unsettling. He’s no Vaste, that’s for sure.

  “I heard that there were trolls at the gates,” came a voice from behind Cyrus, causing him to turn. “I hope you’ve locked the doors and hidden the keys.” Vaste stormed up the steps, his white staff in hand, his deep blac
k robes rippling behind him as he strode across the wall to stand next to Cyrus. He peered down. “Good gods. It’s like a little piece of Gren washed up on our doorstep.”

  “How did you hear that there were trolls at the gates?” Menlos asked, his eyes bulging. “I didn’t carry the message past the foyer.”

  “Don’t worry, my smelly northern friend,” Vaste said, looking down at the trolls, “the dead carried your words the rest of the way.” Menlos stood frozen for a moment before he looked left, then right, self-consciously, and his nostrils flared quietly as he sniffed himself.

  “You there!” Vaste called down. Zarnn looked up at him with a childlike expression on his bearded face. “What are you doing here?”

  “They say they’re here to join,” Cyrus said before Zarnn could answer.

  “Impossible,” Vaste said, shaking his head. “Everyone knows there are no trolls in Sanctuary.”

  “Aren’t … aren’t you a troll?” Menlos asked, more tentative now.

  “No,” Vaste said, not bothering to look away from the crenellations and the trolls beneath, “I’m a gnome, keep it straight.”

  “Explains why you vex me so,” Vara muttered under her breath, so quietly that Cyrus doubted very much if Vaste even heard her.

  “We … here to join Sanctuary,” Zarnn called up in answer somewhere in the midst of the crosstalk.

  “Told you,” Cyrus said.

  “You tell me a lot of things,” Vaste said, frowning. “I’ll let you in on a little secret—I don’t listen to you most of the time. Maybe if you spoke less, I would. I mean, really, it would require something on the order of three whole minutes per day to catch everything you throw at me verbally, and who has that sort of time?” Without waiting for Cyrus to reply, he angled his head to speak to the trolls below. “Why would you possibly want to join Sanctuary right now? Don’t you realize we don’t like trolls around here?”

  A stark silence fell over the wall as everyone seemed to pause to take in everything that was happening. Guards up and down the path along the top stared, watching the exchanges with obvious interest. Probably the most interesting thing to happen on duty in months, Cyrus thought.

  “You … troll,” Zarnn said, calling back up to them. “You in Sanctuary.”

  “I’m not a troll,” Vaste replied neatly, “I’m an elf.”

  “Don’t you dare—” Vara started, her ire rising.

  “Fine,” Vaste said, not even looking back at her, “I’m a—” He glanced sideways and caught Scuddar standing down the line, arms folded over his robes, “I’m a man of the desert!” Vaste pulled his robes up over the back of his head, yanking the hem a good foot off the ground as he tried to recreate the cloth coif that was a hallmark of the dwellers in the Inculta Desert.

  Zarnn stared up at Vaste and a small rumble of conversation made its way through his party. “You troll,” Zarnn finally decided. “You in Sanctuary. We trolls. We want to be in Sanctuary, too.”

  “I said there are no trolls in Sanctuary!” Vaste shouted back. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Cyrus stood there dumbly, wondering how this could possibly end, and not sure what to say even absent Vaste’s distraction. Troll applicants? Here? Now?

  Why?

  “You liar, yes,” Zarnn said after another moment’s deliberation below with his party.

  “Well, then why would you want to join a guild of liars?” Vaste asked, dropping the backs of his robes off the top of his head. “I mean, really. That should settle it for you right there.”

  “Because … strength,” Zarnn said without consulting his group. “And gold.”

  A prickling of understanding ran over Cyrus. “We, uh … there’s not much gold around here anymore,” he called down to Zarnn. “We don’t tend to run expeditions lately, and we haven’t taken a mercenary contract in a very long time. You’d be better off joining a company if you’re to hire out for coin, or applying to one of the Big Three guilds—Amarath’s Raiders, Endeavor, or Burnt Offerings if you’re looking to adventure for reward.” Because Sanctuary is presently out of the business of adventure, he did not say, but he caught Vara looking at him in askance even so. And there’s not much strength around here anymore, either.

  Zarnn seemed unsure of what to say to that, and Cyrus watched him turn back to his party, and they spoke together for a moment before Zarnn turned back. “We looking for … home.”

  “Gren is that way—” Vaste started.

  “Vaste,” Cyrus said, putting his hand on the troll’s arm, pulling it down from where he’d been pointing to the northwest. “We don’t … we don’t turn away people who are looking for—”

  “If we’re smart, we damned sure do,” Vaste said, his eyes hard.

  “Weren’t you the one who once told me I didn’t know anything about trolls?” Cyrus asked.

  “And you still don’t, which is why I’m turning them away for you.”

  “I’m with Vaste,” Menlos said, arms still folded before him. “Send ’em back to the swamps. Better not to invite this kind of trouble into our walls.”

  “Stop making me rethink my hard line,” Vaste said, eye twitching in annoyance.

  “Turning them away isn’t what Alaric would have done,” Vara said quietly, her voice soft and regretful.

  Vaste shot Cyrus a scathing look. “Don’t you have some insecure reply to that?”

  “She’s right,” Cyrus said. “This isn’t … Sanctuary is supposed to be a haven for those seeking a path.”

  “Whoa, no,” Menlos shook his head. “We’re not talking about gnomes or goblins that can’t find work in Reikonos. We’re talking trolls here. Trolls. Slavers. Kidnappers. Twice the size of a normal person, and four times the threat of a strong warrior.”

  “Which makes them something on the order of fifty-two strong warriors we’d be taking on as applicants,” Cyrus said, looking down at the thirteen of them waiting. “When was the last time we had fifty-two of anyone apply to us in a single day? Or even thirteen?”

  “Oh, I hear the seeds of my defeat planted in your words, and they sound like … nuts,” Vaste said, taking a ragged breath. “As in, ‘You’ve gone—’”

  “I caught the implication,” Cyrus said. “Though I would have thought you’d say I’d gone soft, perhaps.”

  “And risk your rather brazen wife tossing out some suggestive witticism about your insatiable manliness my way? No. No. I’d rather insult your sanity, it’s safer.”

  Vara gave the healer a look half as mischievous as the one she’d favored Cyrus with before Menlos had interrupted them in the foyer. “If you’d like—”

  “Open the gates, then,” Vaste said, coming back from the edge of the wall, sounding utterly resigned, as though he’d lost a fight and received a hard shellacking in the bargain. “Mark this moment in your mind, though, if they go treacherous or dangerous or merely lecherous with the local farm animals—I warned you and you ignored it.”

  “Those poor animals,” Menlos said in a low whisper then whistled, drawing his wolves to him immediately.

  “Come on,” Cyrus said, already heading for the stairs. “Let’s go meet our new applicants.”

  He descended the stairs under the cloudy skies, the faint glow of daylight making its way through patches of the clouds above like lamps shining through mist. Vara fell in beside him. “You were right,” she said softly. “This is the proper course for Sanctuary. This is who we are.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Cyrus said. “I forget a lot of things, but this … I couldn’t forget this.”

  His boots hit the soft earth as the squeal of the gate hinges and chain of the portcullis being drawn open reached his ears. He stood in the middle of the dirt pathway, watching as the trolls made their way inside the walls and the wizard on the horse followed at a distance. He barely made it inside before the gates began to squeak shut again, pushed closed by the warriors manning them.

  The trolls strolled into the open grass-and-dirt space b
ehind the wall, looking around in amazement at the distance to the guildhall. It was not a small area, the space between the walls and the keep; there was plenty of room for a small town to take root between them, and Cyrus had often considered that very idea. At least I considered it back when the guild was growing, when we were ascendant. I haven’t had to think about that possibility in … quite some time.

  “Welcome to Sanctuary,” Cyrus said to Zarnn as he and his party came to a halt in front of Cyrus. Green faces looked down at him from a few feet above, the towering trolls putting his height to shame. “We’ll need to ask you some questions and have you put down your names on our parchment as we begin the process of having you apply to Sanctuary.”

  “All right,” Zarnn said, nodding once after gauging the response of his fellows behind him. “Good.”

  Cyrus and Vara exchanged a look. “Good,” Cyrus repeated, unsure what else to say.

  “No, not good at all,” Vaste said under his breath. “It’s only good until the shrieking, and the terror, and the murdering—”

  “Vaste will show you into the hall and start asking you some questions.” Cyrus smirked, sure that a look of horror was spreading across the healer’s face. “If you’ll follow him …”

  Cyrus stepped aside and the trolls sauntered forward toward Vaste, whose head was hung in obvious disappointment.

  “Right,” Vaste said, bringing his eyes up. “First thing I’m going to tell you about Sanctuary is that trolls get worked like dogs here, having to do all the unpleasant tasks. Also, there are no goats, so if that’s going to be a problem, best just leave now.” He waited a second, and when there was no response from his audience, he let out a small sigh and started toward the doors to the keep. “Fine. Follow me.”

  “This isn’t a mistake, is it?” Cyrus asked Vara as they watched the trolls following the smaller Vaste away. There was some grunting among them, and Cyrus saw Vaste look toward the heavens, as though expecting a lightning bolt to streak down and kill him. “Is Vaste right?”