“But these … creatures,” he pronounced with disgust, “they keep coming. We met them in a village in a pass. They came at us, and the battle was good at first; I was up to my knees in their dead by the end of the first hour, as it should be. The second hour, I was up to my chest in a pile of my own dead, and still they came. They do not bend with the chaos, they do not ebb with loss; they are implacable, unstoppable, insatiable in their desire to destroy all around them, and they gave me a taste of fear, I am not ashamed to say.” The King of Syloreas stopped, and looked at Cyrus, shaking his head. “My first taste in a long, long while. I have never, not in battles where my men were outnumbered ten to one, not even on the day I found myself alone in a pack of wolves, ever felt so afraid and surrounded by the odds arrayed against me.”
The King of Syloreas swallowed hard. “I confess I thought myself a coward after that. Retreat against poor odds is acceptable; sometimes a strategic retreat is the only way you can win a war later, or preserve a Kingdom to fight through another day. But when I ran from that village, I did not do it strategically or in the name of preserving anything but my own arse against a foe that seemed unstoppable, a scourge that looked to take everything, and fill the land from end to end with my dead and theirs until I could see no more ground.”
Cyrus listened and watched the King as he shook his head once more in amazement, or consternation at his own story, and walked away from Cyrus still shaking his head.
The next days were long and hard on the horses. Cyrus, for his part, had been riding on horseback so heavily for the last few months that it seemed almost as though he would live the rest of his life there. It was almost as if he had known no other life but this, save for a brief spell in the castle of Vernadam, when he slept in a bed and received all the blessings of civilization, and all the affections a woman could give.
By the time the second week of their ride had rolled around, the days were long again for riding, and Cyrus found his mind weary. Sleep did not come easily at night, and his restless slumber was punctuated by evenings when he thought of Cattrine, of their encounter at Enrant Monge, and he tossed and turned in his bedroll near the fire, unable to find any relief.
His eyes wandered frequently during the ride, as the fatigue conspired to wear him down. Aisling always seemed to be about, though she kept her distance from him. He found himself looking for her, especially when he rode near the back of the group. He watched her on her horse, his eyes drinking in the curves of her body, and he let his mind drift, thinking of her and Cattrine and Vara, interchanging the three of them in his mind and memory, imagining himself in bed in his quarters at Vernadam with Aisling, her blue skin pressed against him. Then it was Vara, her blond hair glistening in the light cast by the fire in the hearth, scars on her back and legs reminding him that it was in fact Cattrine that had been there with him, satiating his hunger, not Vara or Aisling.
He tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind, but neither the water he splashed on his face nor the rest he tried to take at night could keep them at bay for long. He spent long days thinking, not of what waited for him ahead nor of his companion travelers (save for when they spoke to him, which was more than they had in the last few months when he had a constant black cloud around him) but of Vara and her betrayal, and of Cattrine and her betrayal, and of Aisling, and the three of them, and all the things that he and Cattrine had done, all the little pleasures, of how he wanted to feel them again.
They journeyed across flat lands, plains, through forests that grew more lush and leafy as they went north. Summer was beginning to set in hard upon them, the sun beating down and warming the land. A week of vicious heat after leaving Enrant Monge became milder as they went on, easing into beautiful traveling weather.
Cyrus could see mountains in the distance after three weeks, foothills just ahead that made him remember Fertiss and the halls of the dwarven capital back in Arkaria. He could see snow-capped peaks, something that looked singularly out of place after the heat they had experienced only scant weeks earlier. The plains became greener as they went, nursed by flowing streams that came from the mountains. The land was verdant, reminding Cyrus of everything that Vernadam had been when they arrived, and even, vaguely, of the Plains of Perdamun, where he was certain it was now hot, hotter than what they had experienced at Enrant Monge or after it as they headed north.
The foothills became steeper as the mountains drew closer. Women remained the only thing on Cyrus’s mind, and in rapid succession they came and went in his head, Aisling, Vara, Cattrine. He wondered why Aisling would fit into his thoughts, and realized that she was one of the only women on the expedition with him, and the only one he truly knew other than in passing. At last he realized with a shock one night while staring at her as she sat at another fire, her back to him, that she was the only woman with them that he found remotely attractive. She had made suggestions to him in the past, things that made him warm in the night when he recalled the words. Now she said nothing to him, as though he were not even there.
I feel like a teenage boy, he admitted to himself one night by the fire, long after the others had gone to sleep, and he had tossed in his bedroll for hours. Just as confused and alone as I did back at the Society, unsure of anything, and even more conflicted. He shook his head, as though he could somehow jar loose contemplations of either Vara or Cattrine, both of whom dominated his thoughts. I am a warrior. I need battle, I need the clarity of it. To go this long without combat is a drain, and I obsess over these … lustful, useless thoughts.
“You may be setting some sort of record for sleeplessness.” The dry voice of Terian came from behind him and he turned to see the dark elf, sitting once more with his sword across his lap, a rag polishing the edge of the blade. “I remain amazed that you don’t fall unconscious on your horse each day as we ride.”
“And you?” Cyrus asked. “Do you linger, sleepless each night as I do? You must, if you see how little rest I get.”
“Aye,” Terian said. “I suspect I get a bit more sleep than you do, but perhaps not by much.”
“And what’s on your mind that keeps you from rest?” Cyrus asked, trying to turn aside the dark knight’s inevitable inquiry before it was made. “What halts the repose of the great Terian Lepos, isolates him from the nocturnal peace he craves?”
“Perhaps I worry about you,” Terian said with a wicked smile. “After all, the wheel has turned for you, my friend. After Harrow’s Crossing you seemed to be at an apex of happiness, such a contrast to the horror that was your glum state of mind on our journey leading up to that point. Then, with one little revelation, all your happiness was swept into the gutter like all the other rubbish and you were in the darkness of Yartraak’s despair again. One could almost feel sorry for you.” He shrugged. “If one didn’t know better, one might think that you were beginning to get as jaded as I am, as you’ve started to stare at our roguish ranger somewhat hungrily,” he nodded his head in the direction of Aisling’s bedroll, and Cyrus saw a shock of her white hair sticking out of the top of it. “You have the look of a man on a diet of barley corn who hungers desperately for meat. Or are you merely switching your affections once more?”
“I am …” Cyrus let his voice trail off, “… not certain of much of anything, but I doubt I have any genuine affection left in me at this point.”
“So rampant lust, then?” Terian said coolly. “I understand that all too well. I hope to find a soothing balm for that at the whorehouse in Scylax.” He rubbed the pommel of his sword. “I’m told they have quite a good one, at least according to a couple of the Syloreans I spoke with.”