“I don’t foresee a time when I’ll stop making wry observations about the situation around me, no.” Vaste’s words were dry though loud enough to be heard behind her over the sound of her steps. The staircase further down was swarming with people, the members of Sanctuary turning out, the alarms still ringing in the air over the raised voices below. “Perhaps when I’m dead, which, hmm, maybe you’ll get your wish-”
“Don’t jest about that,” she snapped, turning to face him. “I may be thoroughly irritated at you a majority of the time, but don’t confuse that with genuinely wanting you dead. If I genuinely wanted you dead, I would have smote you down myself, long ago. We are in dire times, and if this alarm means what I think it does-”
“I believe there might have been a word of caring in that fusillade,” Vaste said, halting only for a moment before sliding past her on the staircase with surprising agility. “Buried deep, perhaps, but I caught a grain of it hidden in the depths of the vitriol. Could it be you are fond of me, Shelas’akur? That my wit amuses you-”
“You annoy me on a near-constant basis,” Vara said, now trailing behind Vaste’s wide strides as they came down the staircase. “But-”
“Oh, fear not,” Vaste said, “I’ve always known that you’re not quite the demon you pretend to be. However, if I’m not much mistaken, this sudden softening of your armored persona has less to do with this siege and perhaps more to do with a certain General’s absence-”
“Shut your slack-jawed mouth,” Vara hissed, and Vaste did not turn nor stop on the stairs to answer her. He did, indeed, shut his mouth, and they began to slow as the crowds clogged the stairwell, members rushing down to the foyer below. She resisted the temptation to hit the person in front of her with a hard shoulder check in order to send them all collapsing like dominos down the stairs. Dominos she could run over in a dash to get there faster. Resist.
“Apparently we need wider staircases,” came a voice from behind her, almost as acerbic as her own. She did not need to turn to know that the speaker was Erith Frostmoor. “Or smaller trolls.”
“As though I’m the problem here rather than the dark elves that won’t leave us be,” Vaste said, turning his head to give Erith a blank look. “You know, those hideous creatures that seem to have it in for the whole world, starting wars and unleashing aggression on everything and everybody-”
“Fine, fine,” Erith said, squeezing up against Vara in a way that made the paladin yearn to thrust an elbow into Erith’s nose to get her to back up and leave some space between them. “It’s not just you, then-it’s the disorganized way in which we’re all scrambling to get into defensive positions.”
“And the fact that we’re having to go to defensive positions to protect ourselves against the dark elven hordes,” Vaste said lightly. After a moment, he sighed jauntily. “Is this how everyone feels about the trolls all the time? Because I think I finally get it, you know, after having been the brunt of it for so long. Kill them!” He raised his voice. “Kill the aggressors!” He lowered his voice again. “You know, it feels good not to be one of ‘them,’ for once. You should have had your people make war against the entire civilized world years ago.”
“I hardly had anything to do with it,” Erith said with as much frost as her name indicated.
“Oh, now, do give yourself some credit. You probably at least inspired one or two soldiers to pleasure themselves at the latrines.”
Erith let out a hissing sound and Vara ignored it. The foyer was visible now, the stream of people that filled the stairwell breaking loose and running across the foyer floor. “At least it doesn’t look like they’ve teleported in an attack force this time,” Erith said, all trace of her irritation gone.
“Yet,” Vara and Vaste said in a chorus. The troll raised an eyebrow at her, and she gave him a scorching glare that affected him little to none.
“Such happy thoughts you two share,” Erith said. “Remind me not to come to either of you when next I experience a down day and need some optimism.”
“Were you really ever going to visit Vara for such a thing?” Vaste asked, vaulting over the edge of the steps about fifteen from the bottom as the spiral opened up. He didn’t wait for either of them to reply nor to reach the bottom; the healer ran for the door and was out onto the Sanctuary grounds before Vara even cleared the stairs. Taking the step Vaste had was not possible for someone of her height, certainly not without breaking a leg.
She was out the door moments later, having passed through the foyer, which was still guarded by a force headed by Belkan. The day was grey, the skies hanging, clouds overhead that muted the sun, wherever it might have been hiding. The green, well-trod grasses of the Sanctuary lawn were particularly dark today, the late summer having come to them. Only a month or so from harvest and the Sovereign begins his move. Of course.
She climbed the wall, the same place she had on the day when they broke the siege, and wondered how many towers there would be this time. Last time it had been a host of fifty thousand, a fairly thin line that came at them from one direction, head on. This time would surely be different; there would be at least another twenty-five thousand, perhaps even another fifty. They might attempt a direct assault again or attempt to encircle and direct their main attack at the walls rather than the gate.
When she took the last step off the ladder and stepped out of the stale air inside of the wall, she found herself overlooking the fields in front of the wall, all empty. The place where the battle had been done last time was open ground, though the smell of death still lingered as there had been only a small detail to deal with the fallen from the last battle, and they had been instructed to leave some of the bodies. Many corpses were still where they had fallen, left as a reminder for the next army that came along. The remains of the siege towers had been burned, though, and only blackened husks remained there.
Vara’s eyes came up to the horizon, and she peered toward the place where she knew the portal was, north of the wall several minutes walk. It was there, but beyond it there were shapes, assorted figures that looked no larger than ants on the hill. The grey clouds did them no favors, and only through her elven eyesight could she even see that they were there.
“I don’t see them,” Thad said, drawing her attention. The warrior was at the edge of the wall, staring over. “But I know they’re there, because the elves in my detail tell me so. How many would you estimate?”
Vara did not speak at first, not for a long, long moment, as she tried to count and failed. Part of the army that waited ahead was obscured, not visible at this great a distance. “Many,” she said at last. “More than last time. More than I can count at this range.” She felt the dryness in her mouth as she said it. “But more. Many more than before. At least double their number, visible from here.” She blinked, and stared at the horizon, her picture of the dark elf force incomplete. “More than we can see. And that means …” she tasted the dryness again, even as she said it, “likely more than we can easily handle.”
Chapter 55
Cyrus
The days had grown long, Cyrus noted, even as the jarring motion of the wagon carried them on. The third day after he had awakened, Curatio gave him lease to leave the wagon. They had stopped, finally, having reached the open plains that were the rendezvous point for their meeting with Actaluere’s northern armies.
“Don’t nod your head too much,” Curatio said as Cyrus stood, feeling somewhat weak as his head got light. He started to shake it to see if he could clear the feeling, but the healer grasped him by the face, capturing his chin and part of his cheeks between his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t shake it, either.”
“Why?” Cyrus asked. “Is it going to fall off?”