They arose early, before dawn, and were riding again minutes later, following the path south. The horse’s hoofprints left a deep impression in the thin snow that coated the ground, and Cyrus felt every one of them resonate through him. His mind was stirred, unclear, but the same thought kept bubbling to the surface over and over again. This is my fault. This is all my fault.
After another day and night, another perfunctory evening spent with Aisling, who either did not notice or did not care that Cyrus was vacant and unable to look at her with his eyes open whilst they were together on the bedroll, he still found himself able to go through at least the motions there. It was a curious thing: he couldn’t seem to think straight, couldn’t manage more than a few bites of bread until he was starving, but she moaned in pleasure at his touch and enjoyed his company for as long as it lasted, but it left him even more hollow, empty inside, and lost in thought.
On the third day they arose and dressed in silence once more. She did not seem to feel any need to bring conversation out of him, but let her body speak, and he drank in the sweaty stickiness of her, and he found he didn’t care. Something primal urged him on, gave him solace with her, allowed him to put aside all the thoughts that drew him down and silenced him during the day.
On the fourth day they reached lower ground and at a high point they looked out over the greener fields, where the snow had not fallen this far south, and saw a caravan ahead.
“That’s them,” Aisling said. “They’re moving at a decent speed, about a half day’s ride ahead. We can probably catch them by nightfall tomorrow if we hurry.”
“Let’s hurry, then,” Cyrus said, the void in him now filling with something else, a gut-deep thought of satisfaction at a confrontation that loomed large ahead of him like the mountains that filled the horizon. “I’ve got some talking to do when we get there. We’ll need to keep to cover so they don’t see our approach.” Cyrus’s voice hardened. “I don’t want Terian to know we’re coming.”
They spent another night alone under the stars, Windrider keeping silent vigil for their night’s watch, while beneath the blanket on the bedroll other things occurred that sent the horse shying away into a thicket beyond their camp. They rode the next day again in silence and Cyrus tried to focus his thoughts on keeping to the path, on avoiding being seen by the column ahead. They kept to the trees as often as possible, moving openly only when there was no high ground ahead that they might be seen from. When nightfall came they took a break. Cyrus laid the bedroll on the ground. Aisling came to him, and when they were done they rolled it up again by silent accord and continued the ride, heading onward toward campfires they could see just over the horizon.
The wind was more subtle here but still carried a bite that left Cyrus’s armor icy cold. The night had come down around them like a black shroud pulled over one’s eyes, and the chill left Cyrus with a sense like ice melting on his tongue. Howls of distant wolves in the mountains brought to Cyrus’s mind the image of lonely hunters, separated from their pack, and brought Terian to the forefront of his thoughts again. Soon.
They reached the camp around midnight. Sentries called out, two warriors of Sanctuary whom Cyrus knew in passing, and when he rode into the light, the shock on their faces was sweet to him. He admonished them to be quiet, gave over the reins to Windrider to one of them, and was pointed in the direction of a small figure when he asked his question. Cyrus crept along, not half so stealthily as Aisling, to one of the nearby fires, and found the sleeping figure he was looking for. When he reached down, it stirred, then sat up, eyes widening at the sight of him.
“Lord Davi-!” Mendicant began to cry, but Cyrus put a hand over the goblin’s mouth. After holding a single finger over his own to quiet the wizard, he took his hand away and Mendicant spoke unhampered. “Lord Cyrus,” he said, his voice a whisper. “You have returned to us.”
“You didn’t think a little thing like ten thousand of those beasts would be the death of me, did you?” Cyrus asked, not harshly but not kindly, either. “I need a small service of you.”
“Anything, m’lord,” Mendicant said. “All my spells are you at your command.”
“I only need one of them. Come with me.”
They made their way to the other side of the camp in the pervasive quiet. Cyrus heard a few bodies stir as he passed, and one of them made to cry out, but Aisling quieted him with a quick hand. Cyrus went on, Mendicant just behind him, until they reached a fire at the edge of the camp. Cyrus held up a hand to stay Mendicant, who stopped, and with a nod from Cyrus, began to cast a spell.
Cyrus walked forward, not bothering to be silent any longer. He could see Terian, asleep, clutching the long, red sword that Cyrus had given him, snug against his body, cradled as though it were a lover. It remained in its scabbard, something that no doubt carried none of the majesty of the one that his father had used-it had remained with his body on the bridge, after all. Cyrus looked at the blade as Terian held it and thought of the words again-It will drink the blood of my enemies. All of them. He drew Praelior, and let the sound of the steel against the scabbard awaken his target.
Terian’s eyes fluttered open, and Cyrus saw his hand tense around the hilt of the sword. After a moment of widening in shock, they returned to normal, and Terian lay there, staring up at his general, and nodded once in complete and utter disinterest. “Hello, Cyrus.”
“Hello, old friend.” Cyrus pointed his sword at Terian. “I trust you’ve had a satisfying few nights of sleep?”
“For the first time in a while, I would have thought,” Terian replied. “But not really. Been a little fitful, if we’re being honest.”
“‘If we’re being honest’?” Cyrus snorted. “That’d be a first, at least in recent memory. Honesty would break you, dark knight. Honesty would have meant that instead of playing a treacherous dog and trying to feed me to those rotted beasts, you’d challenge me in open combat and let the dice roll what they may.”
“I could have taken you in open combat,” Terian said. “There wouldn’t have been much challenge in that. The only challenge would have been your allies and guildmates, who wouldn’t have let me approach within a mile of you with sword in hand to ask for a duel.”
“You think not?” Cyrus asked, pushing the blade toward Terian’s throat, causing the dark knight to blanch not one bit. “You think they wouldn’t have let me cross swords with you in honest dispute?”
“No,” Terian said, “because they’d know you would die. You can’t match a dark knight, Cyrus, and no one but you is fool enough to trifle with magics when they have only a blade to do it with. Stab me five times and I’ll cast a spell that takes away my wounds and visits them upon you in return, restoring me and cursing you to a self-inflicted death. Anyone with sense would not let you face me in a duel. So it was treachery, a surprise, the quick and dirty, and off you went to die at hands other than my own-yet still I would be revenged.”
“This from a man who told me once that he despised those who weren’t what they appeared to be,” Cyrus said, and saw the flicker in Terian’s eyes. “Well, it would appear your boundless hypocrisy has come back to visit you. Get up.”
Terian shuffled his feet out of his blanket and stood before Cyrus, leaving his sword to lie on the ground. “Pick it up,” Cyrus said, nodding at the sword. “If you wanted to have a go at me, now you’ll get one-a legitimate one.”