“Were we fighting on open ground in a great melee, that would be of greater concern,” Alaric answered. “But we fight behind the walls of Sanctuary, which cannot be breached by magical means, and which we can hold nearly indefinitely against traditional methods of siege, as we have already proven.” The Guildmaster drummed his fingers against the table. “We need only keep careful watch in the foyer and on the wall, so that any catapults, trebuchets, or siege towers are destroyed before they come close enough, and we will be fine.”
“And if they breach the wall?” Vara asked.
“They will not.”
“Your confidence is unfounded,” Vara said, and she felt her blood go up. “They have magics, the same as ours, and they can be detrimental to rock and stone-”
“Which will be nullified by the enchantments that surround the wall,” Alaric said with calm, his hand now at rest. “Should they heave a great exploding fireball at us, it will disappear before it hits anything.”
There was a silence for a beat. “Well, that seems like the sort of thing each of us should be wearing on our persons,” Vaste said. “All the time, you know, in case you’re standing at a privy somewhere and a mean-spirited wizard hurls a lightning bolt at you.”
Heads turned to him slowly. “Happened to you often, has it?” Ryin asked.
“Really, when you’re handling your delicate parts, being struck by a lightning spell even once is quite enough to be getting along with.”
“It is not the sort of enchantment that is easily carried with you,” Alaric said. “It is rather more permanent, in much the same way as the alarm spell protects the grounds. It also has the ability to stop curative magics as well, which would be detrimental if you were, for example, stabbed by a blade and then someone tried to heal you.” The Ghost shrugged, a motion that was, like the man himself, subtle.
“So what do we do?” Erith asked.
“We wait,” Alaric said.
“But if you’re that firmly convinced that Sanctuary is unbreachable,” Ryin said, leaning forward with a passion that was not uncommon in the druid, “shouldn’t we send another army into Luukessia to aid Cyrus? Isn’t our duty to them?”
“Perhaps I have overstated my position,” Alaric said. “I do not believe that they will be able to breach the wall or overwhelm us through an assault on our foyer at present with the numbers we have to guard the wall and our sanctum. To send another army to Luukessia, along with the number of spellcasters and leadership it would take to make any significant difference over there would leave us in a weakened condition here. Our defense would be tenable but also inflexible. The less force we have available, the greater my concern. As it is, we may be able to begin offensive moves against the dark elves should we find ourselves able to confront their smaller armies and do so piecemeal. Sending away another two thousand, which would be the minimum in order to be of any sort of assistance to Cyrus, would leave our cupboard rather bare.” He shook his head. “In the event that they were to break our internal defenses or open the gates, that is not enough to mount a firm defense without resorting to …” He drew quiet for a moment. “… measures that do not bear thinking about.”
“Ooh,” Vaste said with a childlike delight. “Tantalizing! Another mystery with no hope for resolution at any time soon.”
Alaric favored the troll with a carefully measured gaze. “There is more to this place than stone and brick, my friend, and there is more to our guild than a simple roster of warriors, rangers, enchanters, healers, wizards, druids, paladins and that lone dark knight.”
“We do have that rock giant,” Vaste said. “Did we ever get him back?”
Alaric sighed. “I sent a druid after him; he should be back by tomorrow. But over-reliance on Fortin is a folly of its own sort. He can be killed; he is not invincible after all.”
“Neither are we,” Vara said. “Our defense should bear that in mind.”
“Which is why I am not sending away another two thousand of our number,” Alaric said with a deep sigh, “much as I might wish to aid our comrades. No, I am afraid they will have to make do with what they have, and we will re-evaluate should things turn worse.” Alaric raised his hand to his cheek and leaned against it, his dark, weathered gauntlets pressing his tanned flesh white where the fingers lay. “And I have a feeling, given what our friends are up against, that even with our illustrious General at the fore, things will indeed get worse.”
Chapter 47
Martaina
The walk was long and painful, even with J’anda to help her shoulder some of Cattrine’s dead weight. Though she didn’t wish to say it, she could plainly tell the enchanter was not nearly as strong as she, not nearly so capable of feats of strength, and so she suffered under as much of the woman’s burden as she could carry. At least she is only a healthy woman, not excessively weighty, as some are. Though now I wish she were Aisling; the woman is a twi, and would surely be much easier to carry than the Baroness, who was certainly well-fed if not well-treated …
The birds were chirping in the trees above her; they had hurried on, avoiding the slope that had required them to slide down before entering the camp. They took a half-mile detour that had them on the road, watching for any sort of traffic. Not far, by Martaina’s estimate, was the place where Cyrus’s body had been found. Hopefully Aisling got his head back to them and in time …
They came upon the very bend, the place where it had happened. There was nothing there but a bloody mess to mark the passage of events, nothing to show but the disturbed dirt that was as readable to her as any book was to a priest-perhaps moreso, depending on the dialect of the ground. She could see footprints, the places where the Sanctuary warriors had trod, dragging something with them back toward camp. There were other tracks, too, fresher ones, smaller, more dainty, leading out of the woods. “Aisling brought the head back here,” she said. “From here, I think they dragged his body back to camp. Though,” she conceded, “with or without the head, I cannot say.”
J’anda made no reply. The enchanter was thin, dangerously so. Between her and me, we would be able to carry him along easier than J’anda and I laboring under just her weight. To the enchanter, who was shouldering as much of the burden as his lean frame allowed, she said nothing.
The camp was in motion when they arrived, armored men moving about, the shine of the late afternoon sun catching on their armor, which was dull and unpolished after the long marches and recent idleness. She could smell the camp scent again. There was a quiet in the air, too. It was not as a meadow at midday to her ears (which was still quite loud) but neither was it as active as the camp had been before. The weight of the leather on her shoulders was nothing compared to the numbness setting in on her right arm where the Baroness had been perched for the last twenty minutes. Her mouth was dry and she craved water, but had feared to set Cattrine down not only for the woman’s own health but because she wondered if she would be able to get her up and moving again should she stop.
“Ahoy!” The call took her by surprise, even as she walked past the sentries, one of whom was Odellan, whom she noticed late.
“Ahoy?” J’anda called back, struggling under the Baroness’s weight, “have you gone nautical?”
“What?” Odellan said, approaching them. He reached out and took up Cattrine’s weight, picking her up. She was wrapped in J’anda’s outer robes, and the dark elf looked odd with only his tunic and pants underneath, both simple cloth and as close to the opposite of his rich red garb as possible. Odellan lifted the Baroness, cradling her in his arms. “I served on a galley on the River Perda early in my career.”
“Oh, good,” J’anda said, “for a moment I thought perhaps a career in piracy was in the offing.”