“It wasn’t a night,” Erith said. “It wasn’t even a minute. Though I can see why you might have thought so; judgment is the first thing to go when drunk-”
“Aye,” Partus agreed sadly, “which is why I was in your bed to begin with-”
“ENOUGH!” Alaric said, loud enough to draw the attention of all in the chamber.
There was a squeak at the door and it opened; Andren slid in as Vara stared at the healer, perplexed. Vaste followed a moment later and shut the door behind him, his staff in hand, and the troll stared at the table and those around it.
There was the sound of a chair sliding back and Partus was on his feet, his hammer unslung. “My gods, it’s a troll.”
Vaste blinked at the dwarven interloper who had been sitting with his back to the door and was now standing, weapon in hand. “Well spotted. What gave it away-that I’m seven feet tall or the green skin and big teeth?”
Partus hesitated, keeping his eyes on Vaste. He turned his head to speak to Alaric out of the corner of his mouth. “Did you always have a troll, Alaric? They’re savages, you know.”
Vaste’s heavy frame swelled with a deep breath and then a long sigh followed. “Yes, I know, uncivilized I may be, standing here without a weapon drawn while you’re clearly about to challenge me to a duel, but what can I say? I abhor civilized society. I’d rather just sneak up behind you when you’re unable to defend yourself and mash you into a fine paste with my bare hands.”
Partus pointed his hammer at Vaste. “You’ll find me a greater challenge than you think if you mean to attack me when I’m not expecting it.”
“I doubt I’ll find you much at all, unless I’m crawling around on my hands and knees,” Vaste said, and promptly walked past Partus to his seat, turning his hammer aside and toward the hearth with a gentle push of his staff. “Thanks to the rest of you for speaking up for me when he called me a savage, by the way.”
“It was unworthy of answer,” Alaric said, at the head of the table, his helm still on. His eye was piercing through the slight gloom that inhabited the room; not because of the darkness, Vara realized, but because of her mood. He should have come back as well, not this miniaturized jackass. “Andren,” Alaric said, turning to the healer, who was in Nyad’s usual seat next to Vara, “thank you for joining us.”
“Aye,” Andren said, then twitched as though he were reaching for something near his belt, hesitated, and thought the better of it. “Can’t pretend I know what this is all about, though.”
“I am taking things into consideration,” Alaric said. “Mendicant, finish your report, if you please? Cyrus requests aid, I believe you said?”
“In most strenuous terms, sir,” the goblin said. “We need assistance, desperately, to be able to finish this fight and destroy the portal. These things, this scourge, they are beyond number.”
“As you may be able to tell,” Alaric said quietly, “we have some minor problems of our own; the dark elves have left an army in place around Sanctuary to cut us off from the outside world while they attempt to starve us out and break us.”
“How’s it all going so far?” Partus asked snidely.
“Poorly on the starving us out,” Vaste answered him with a grin, “even more poorly on the breaking us. Spirits are high. We’re planning a dance recital for next week.”
“How exciting,” Partus said without enthusiasm.
“While I do not believe we could spare the army Cyrus has called for,” Alaric said, “I believe sending a messenger-or two, as the case may be-would be both wise and prudent. Thus I am considering sending you,” he nodded to Andren, “and Mendicant, to deliver the message to Cyrus that help will not be arriving.”
“Well, won’t that be a fun message to deliver,” Andren muttered.
Mendicant straightened in his chair, and spoke, slowly. “I do not believe sending only two people to deliver that message would be wise.”
Alaric frowned. “Why not?”
“Because to get to Cyrus and the rest of the army,” Ryin said, “the messengers would have to travel through the Kingdom of Actaluere by themselves.”
“I thought you said that Actaluere was now allied with our army’s cause?” Erith asked, frowning. “Why would they deny our messengers free passage?”
“They wouldn’t,” Ryin said, speaking over Mendicant, “but you said Milos Tiernan was at the front with the army?” Mendicant nodded. “Did he leave Hoygraf in place along the route?” The goblin nodded again. “There’s your trouble; we ran afoul of this Baron Hoygraf on the journey in.”
“You didn’t think to mention this?” Vara asked, her irritation rising.
“We’ve been a little busy with our own problems here,” Ryin said calmly. “Far too busy for me to mention the prosaic details of our trip, especially unrelated as they were to the crisis we were experiencing as I left Luukessia.”
“So you presume that this … Hoygraf,” Alaric tested the word, as though he were tasting it and found he disliked it immensely, “would interrupt their passage out of some grudge?”
Mendicant’s gaze shot immediately to Ryin, who kept calm-and yet Vara saw the hint of unease within him. “Yes,” Ayend said, “if he caught a hint that we had messengers passing through-which he would-they would not make through his territory alive, even though the King of Actaluere is now allied with us.”
“What the hell did Cyrus do to him?” Vaste said, low, almost too low to be heard.
“As I heard it,” Partus said with a wide grin, ignoring the look of frozen horror on Ryin Ayend’s face, “he stormed the man’s castle, sacked the place, stabbed the man through the guts and left him to die-which he did not, by the way-then stole the man’s wife and proceeded to cuckold him.” Partus let a hearty guffaw. “I like your General. He’s got style.”
Vara felt the ice pump through her veins, freezing her expression at some bizarre in-between of shock and horror.
“So,” Erith said into the quiet around the table, where every face was split between looking at Vara or looking away to spare her shame, “he took the man’s wife and made her his lover? That does carry something of a sting.” She cast a sidelong glare at Ryin. “I suppose you thought we were too busy for you to mention that Cyrus was taking a taste of the local flavor? And a Baroness, no less.”
“Well,” Mendicant said, his voice coming back to him now in the quiet horror that no one else would speak into, “they had some sort of falling out, you see. The Baroness went back to her husband.” Vara felt the cold ratchet down a few notches. “Cyrus is sleeping with Aisling now.”
There was a dead calm, a quiet so unnatural as to border on the surreal. Vara felt no motion in her face at all, nothing in her head but a screaming void, an interminable desire to cry out but her mouth, strangely enough, stayed well shut, fortunately. She caught Ryin’s face covered out of the corner of her eye and saw Vaste bow his head. Erith tried to give her a smile of support but it was wasted. All that was there was what she saw, the screaming void in her head the loudest silence she’d ever known.
It was into that silence that Andren spoke at last. “Well done, Cyrus,” the healer said, his face a smile of grudging admiration. He looked at Vara and his grin faded. “Uh … I mean … how dare he not spend these last months pining for a woman who rejected him so harshly that he fled the continent afterward.” Andren turned to Alaric, faux outrage on the healer’s bearded face. “I thought you sent him there to fight, not f-”
“Enough.” Alaric was quiet this time, exhaustion seeping through every syllable. “This is no time for levity; our brethren are cut off from us, we remain surrounded. I have no time for petty concerns of who is sleeping with whom, outside of how it affects our lines of communication.” He bowed his head, helm still blocking the view of his eyes. “They will have to remain without assistance and without warning. I see no way to return a messenger to them.”
“If J’anda were still here,” Vaste said, “he would be able to. But none of our remaining enchanters are nearly skilled enough to pull off the illusory treachery it would take to cross that territory, nor would any of our rangers be a particularly good risk.”