Night came, swirling with a thousand stars in the sky. Cyrus called for flame as often as he could, sucking down a skin full of water each time, making water when needed, taking a loaf of bread and eating as much as he could during the small breaks they were afforded, never more than five minutes or so at a time so as to give the small number of druids and wizards that remained a chance to refresh themselves.
It went on, the smell of death and fire, of roasted, rotted flesh all combined into one. The screams of the scourge dying rolled on, too, along with the lapping of the water against the pillars of the bridge in quieter moments and the crackle when the flame spells came down, roaring and raging against the enemy that came, unstoppably, before them.
“This may be the longest night of my life,” Cyrus muttered to himself as the fire roared to life again. He saw black eyes watching him through the inferno, waiting, pacing on the other side.
“Worse than Termina?” Terian asked, winded, to his right. “You know, I wasn’t there for that, and I have to say … I am not sorry I missed it.”
“You didn’t miss much,” Cyrus said. “The worst parts were when an Unter’adon nearly ripped my head off with a ball and chain-”
“He brought his wife to the fight?” Odellan asked quietly. Heads swiveled, and the elf shrugged. “I can joke, too. It just happens infrequently.”
“Let me guess,” Terian said. “The other bad part was when a dark knight nearly ripped you in half with a sword.”
“Aye,” Cyrus said as the wall of flame began to fade. “I had leapt into the midst of the army of dark elves because they had healers. They kept saving our enemies-I’d chop one down and he’d spring back up behind me a moment later. I took one out, but there was another. I ripped into the middle of their line, threw myself forward, killed him, but I got stabbed a few times in the process.” He raised Praelior and took the blade to the first scourge to charge off the line, severing the head and ripping the jaw off the next, causing it to make a guttural scream. “It was then that I was attacked by the dark knight.”
“Bad timing,” Terian muttered. “If he’d caught you fresh it would have been a hell of a fight. Maybe even one for the ages.”
“Maybe not,” Cyrus said. “His spells were doubtless strong; he might have just been the end of me with that one that rips the breath of life out of you.”
“Oh, yes,” Terian said and extended his hand to a scourge, let it glow slightly purple and a scream tore out of the scourge’s lips as it fell to the ground, dead. “That’s a good one. But you had a healer, didn’t you?”
“I was out of their range when the fight started,” Cyrus said. “Being behind the enemy lines and all.”
“Still,” Terian said, “as a dark knight, I expect to beat a warrior with a healer, not independently.” He stiffened as he cut another scourge to pieces mid-leap with his blade, which he brandished in front of him. It glowed in the dark, reflecting against him, revealing a solemnity Cyrus had rarely seen on the dark elf’s face. “It’s how I was trained.” He swung the blade back into motion.
“Did he teach you everything?” Cyrus asked, forced to parry an incoming scourge that went too low for him to effectively hit. “About how to fight?”
Terian did not respond for a long moment, and the sounds of his heavy exertions hung in the air between them instead. “No. Not nearly everything.”
The night dragged on as did the war for ground. When the first rays of the sun crept over the horizon, there was a gasp when Cyrus looked back; the green and verdant shores of Arkaria were well in sight, the jungle past the beach was visible, the trees swaying in the wind.
“Hours,” Odellan said next to him. “Few enough of them, too.”
Cyrus felt his teeth grit unintentionally. Damn it. He felt the strength in his arms return, the weariness fade, replaced by an anger that brewed deep inside. He looked back to the enemy. Breathing deep, furious breaths, he clutched Praelior tighter and ripped into the flesh of the first of them that came at him, shredding it and sending it mewling to the side of the bridge and over the edge with the fury of his attack; it took two others with it from sheer force. Cyrus let out a warcry, a soul-deep shout of rage that did not even slow the scourge as it advanced at him. There was a rumble after that, and he both heard and felt it, a shake in his legs from the motion, and it gave him pause.
The breeze cut over from the sea, just for a moment, shifting off the scourge’s stink of death. It felt warm, as though the chill of the night had dissipated. Cyrus’s eyes sharpened, his ears listened closer for the sound of thunder in the distance. No. Not thunder. He looked, and beyond the farthest reach of the enemy he could see it, a massive head and body, lengths above the height of a normal scourge. A cold chill came over him, the clutch of something unpredictable-unfelt-unexpected.
Fear.
Chapter 108
Vara
Day 223 of the Siege of Sanctuary
“Is this all you have?” she shouted over the crenellation of the wall, through the gap between it and the next, the teeth of the rampart. She threw an arm out and sent a blast of force at the nearest tower to her and watched it hit, blasting the supports out of the second level of it. She cast again, a quick incantation, and scored another hit as the siege machine crashed down upon the dark elves below it. Bodies fell in a wave all around it, like a stone dropping into the water sends out ripples.
She took a breath; the smell had worsened atop the wall, both from the unwashed bodies above and the dead in rot below. They keep pressing toward the mark, though, don’t they? And they surely did; the advance had not relented since Alaric had left two days earlier.
The sound was still an uproar, a hundred thousand enemies surrounding them yet, minus however many were dead around the walls. She let her hand clink against her armor, bracing herself against the battlements. “Come on, then,” she whispered, more to herself than them. “Is this all you have?”
“You just have to go and tempt the gods with that, don’t you?” She turned to see Andren slumped, much as she had seen him before, his flask in hand, taking a swig while shaking his head at her. “They’re vengeful, you know. Lightning and fire and all that. They’ll get you back for that.”
“I welcome them to try,” she said, looking back over the rampart. “Hmm. They’ve brought more of their armored trolls, it would appear.” Lightning streaked past her head from a spell. “And wizards, too.”
She chanced a look at Andren, who shook his head. “Lightning. I warned you.”
She breathed again deeply, twice, and dipped her head and hand over the wall. Another siege tower rolled forward and she aimed for it but pulled back as it burst into flame. Down the wall she saw Larana throw fire at another one then dodge behind a crenellation as a volley of arrows targeted her segment for bombardment.
“Don’t they know by now we can kill their siege towers?” Andren asked, looking slightly sideways, just for a second, around the battlement, before dodging back as an arrow shot past his head. For that, he took another drink.
“Certainly,” she replied and dodged out to fire twice at ladder-bearing enemies. The two in front were blasted clear and the ladder dipped, hitting the ground and causing the dark elves at the back to stumble. “But every one they push forward is another distraction for us.” She turned her head to look at the gates. “Soon enough they’ll have their battering ram back in service …” She let her voice trail off as she stared at the battering ram. It was unmoving, with only a few dark elves hiding behind it for cover. “That’s odd.”