Master (Book 5) (67 page)

With that, she started off again. I did not quite manage to speak the thought which was on my mind: I agree completely
.

Cyrus ran a hand over his face, blinking through a fatigue that had settled deep on him. He imagined the two of them standing together, talking, Cattrine and Vara. It gave him more than a moment’s discomfort.

We battled trolls, dark elves, watched a bombardment that was nearly the stuff of miracles fall upon our field of battle like some magic so grandiose I cannot conceive of a spell caster who could unleash it, and then we got a glimpse of Terian—yes, that Terian—staring at us from across the battlefield on the side of our foes.

And then, after all that, I went to deliver a private word of congratulations to our triumphant General, victor of the battle at Livlosdald, and found him in his tent bedding his dark elven … pick an unflattering term to describe her, as I’m running out.

It is not as though I am naïve about these sorts of things. I am fully aware that Cyrus Davidon is a man who is possessed of all the appetites that a man is possessed of. But knowing it and once again having it driven home—this time in the form of his dark elf’s caterwauling, matched with his own shouts of lust—are two quite different things.

I thought about tossing some cutting remark toward the tent as I passed, but I decided not to give her the satisfaction. How could I trust a man such as this, so weak and so prone to driving himself toward … her … to run this guild?

I wandered off into the night, seeking my solace. It is simply better that I be left alone
.

The tingle ran over Cyrus’s flesh as he imagined the moment, pictured her outside in the dark, staring at the tent, listening to the sounds. He made a shudder as he pictured that moment with their roles reversed. Revulsion washed over him, profound and heavy, and he hurried on to the next passage.

I felt bad for him in the swamp. He tried to explain his dark elven dalliance, tried to blame it on—goddess, everything. The dark of night, the unthinking mind, the blood flowing to the wrong portion of his anatomy—well, that last part appeared obvious on the night in question—but it didn’t take away from the fact that I felt bad for him.

He stood next to the grave of his father and realized there was nothing left. How heady a feeling. I am a bit familiar with it, since there is now a marker outside Termina that bears my mother’s name. It is one of countless names on said marker, but it is there. I found it once, on a recent visit. It stands there and declares to the world that Chirenya was lost in the defense of the city. Right there next to the soldiers. It’s a monument. It stands in place of her, because she is no longer here to stand.

His father’s grave was empty stones, fallen to time and weather. Then he faced me—after he’d caught me following behind them—and tried to explain away his mistakes. Unfortunately for him, they’ve left a rather large monument in my mind, and it is not an empty one. It is filled with the sounds I have collected in my memory on various nights over the last months. A catalog of all his so-called “mistakes.”

And there are so many.

Then we came to Gren, and he laid his fury upon them on the main street. They were duly impressed. I can’t say I wasn’t impressed, either. This was Cyrus Davidon in the heart of the battle. He runs on a fairly even keel, always thinking, pondering, considering. I wonder sometimes what goes on behind those eyes, especially during battle.

But then, every now and again, he lets loose of the leash, and I find myself wishing I didn’t know what goes on back there.

What he did on the main street was … understandable. Dramatic. He puffed himself up and scared them all off. Sent the trolls running.

What he did in the slave market, though …

Well, that’s another something.

They sent for me, for reasons I could not fathom at first. I was at the other end of town, tying up my own loose ends, supervising the freeing of more dirty, ragged slaves than I could rightly count, and then Nyad appears—have I told you that her choice of a last name drives me absolutely goblin-shit mad? It does. But that’s a story for another time. She appears, wild, clearly having fatigued herself with a sprint across the splattered waste that is troll town, outhouse to the balance of a race with the largest bowels in Arkaria, and she pants something about me needing to follow her.

I protest. She ignores it and reiterates her demand I accompany her. I tell her in a moment, cool irritation with her infantile spewing of breathless emotion and she splatters out the words, “CYRUS IS GOING TO KILL THEM ALL!” as though it were an unusual thing, the man in the black armor dealing death.

And yes, before you ask, I sprinted across town faster than the elven princess could keep up. Apparently she used the important word, the one that would get me moving, somewhere in there. I maintain that it was ‘kill,’ but an impartial observer may come up with another, more likely candidate.

I brushed past Larana, staring at Cyrus in mute helplessness, to get close enough to him to speak. “Cyrus … don’t,” I said, imploring him. I have seen him vengeful before; his career puts him in a position to lose friends at a rate a blacksmith or farmer or waterman is unlikely to know. “You are better than simple vengeance.” I almost felt the voice of Alaric urging me as I said it, repeating back what the Ghost of Sanctuary had told me in the days I desired to strike down Archenous Derregnault, the bastard.

I watched him pull back from the abyss, watched it unfold before my very eyes. I watched him calmly bury what was left of Cass Ward, putting his frustration into every thrust of the shovel.

And I felt bad for him. Truly, I did. In that moment, I felt a sense of being alone more acutely than I ever have, and it bothered me most because … I felt it solely because I knew he was experiencing the exact same thing
.

Wistful. He imagined the look on her face as she wrote about Gren, imagined her detailing her fears about being alone, about losing control to the vengeful. He remembered her as she had been in Enterra, when she’d seen his mercy. The look on her face had been … he blinked a tear away.

I didn’t know how badly he was hurt until he agreed to go to the back of the lines. That was when I suspected, but truly, I had no idea even still. Then he staggered forward in his foolish charge, and I watched him go, unable to stop or support him. I tried to use logic to keep myself back as others followed him. I was still … if not bitter over the Guildmaster election, at least twinged with annoyance. It was not exactly a shocking result, but it stung nonetheless, all protestations and pledges of loyalty to the contrary. I am a sharp blade, and I cut wherever I go. Cyrus is a … I don’t know. Perhaps he’s a loaf of sweetbread, desired by all, and something I wish to eat when—

Never mind.

He went into the heart of the battle, bleeding from the wound that infernal bitch opened in his back. I have known many women—they comprise probably half the people I know—and yet I had always seemed to associate backstabbing with men up until that day. No more.

Even seeing her as treacherous, I could not fully imagine that she could devastate him so. Manipulate him for her own gain? Certainly. Enrich her own purse through him in exchange for the relief of his needs? A tale as old as time itself. Curatio could probably tell it.

But stabbing him in the back with a black lace dagger and letting him bleed to death while he tried in vain to do his duty?

No.

Oh, no.

I did not see that coming, not even from a woman who I have run out of terrible names for. Well, I suppose I have one left, but I would rather save it for a less auspicious occasion and less polite company.

If there was one thing I would not have been able to predict even more than who would lay him low, it was who would save him when death was assured.

Terian Lepos.

I didn’t entirely trust him, of course, but I was grateful for the help. It’s not as though I was blind to it, after all; I was there on the field of battle when he raised his axe to Cyrus’s aid.

But I wasn’t there when he’d turned his weapon against Cyrus, and part of me still found that unforgivable for some reason. Silly, I suppose, but I felt it nonetheless.

I saw Cyrus when they stripped him of his armor. His mouth gaped open, his dark hair hung in wet strings. I watched, watched as they did their work upon him. I saw the scar in his back and remembered the one in my own. In roughly the same place, no less. I thought it odd, at the time, and still do … but at that moment, I saw another way—annoying as it might have been—that Cyrus Davidon was like myself
.

A single, long chuckle from Vaste broke Cyrus’s concentration. He stared at the troll, but Vaste had not moved. His head was deeply in the book, on the pages before him.
Learning the answers to some burning questions he’s had for a long time, I’d wager
… Cyrus turned his attention back to the diary in his hand, and read on.

I was sure he was dead, and I was as vengeful as Cyrus Davidon had ever been. I came at Yartraak with everything I had, sword aflame with fury so righteous it burned the air itself, strength given to me by my armor. I watched Cyrus flung through the air by the swing of a god, and was fully intent on slicing that grey-skinned devil apart.

Or die trying. I was far enough gone that I found that an acceptable alternative, oddly.

“You cannot think you stand a chance against me,” the God of Darkness hissed. “I have already destroyed your—”

“Shut your gap-toothed mouth!” I slashed him across the arm and pounded upon him with a fury of blows. I opened his flesh in more places than could be counted by most peasants without resorting to their toes and blasted him back with spellcraft. I leapt into the light and was—more than a little—surprised to find Cyrus waiting for me there, battered, but still holding his weapon.

Then he was struck again, the idiot, this time intentionally—why, Goddess, why must his bravery occasionally outweigh that intelligence I claim he does not have? It’s as though he’s acting stupid to spite me. Once more, the fool was blasted out of the room, except this time, thanks to the presence of two torches, it was clear he was still completely held together.

“What the—” Yartraak said.

I blasted him in the bloody back with a spell. Just pounded him. Did not wait for him to turn around, simply sent him flying through the doors behind Cyrus.

No, it was not at all paladin-like, but—and I presume that the elven paladin masters would agree with me, were they asked very specifically about my case—when battling a god, the rules go right out the nearest bloody window.

I followed them out at my leisure—oh, who’s kidding whom, I ran like mad, through another room, over a bridge, out a gate—and found that Cyrus had now lost his weapon. You know, the one thing that allows him to move faster, strike harder, stand up to the gods—yes, he drove it into Yatraak’s back and failed to retrieve it, the fool. Made me reconsider his intelligence yet again.

I caught up with them on a major avenue outside the palace. Soldiers were assembling. Cyrus was dangling loosely from the Sovereign’s grasp. And I spat out some fiery challenge, ready to have it out with the bastard once and for all. Of course the coward used him as hostage; I’d been driving him back all along. I could smell the fear on him, it hung like the darkness when he had a chance to gather it about him.

The battle went on, mad, swirling, my blade against Yartraak with only a minimal amount of help from the supposed hero in the black armor. Oh, he certainly fought against those army fellows that charged in, but I was battling something ancient and evil. And then, when he finally inserts himself back into the fight, he does so to grab hold of his sword and get flung to the ground.

I saw him drop, and … my heart dropped with him.

And then he flung his sword at me.

I could feel it the minute it touched my hand. Through my gauntlet, the power flowed. I was righteous before, but this made me invincible, and I could see the look on that bastard’s face as he realized it, too. He tried a goad, and it failed. I swiped his head clean from his body. He said something to Cyrus before his face had the good grace to realize it was dead, but by that point … I was good and done. I did my best Cyrus Davidon impression and sent the locals fleeing. Watched them run down the street as though they were trolls and I was … well, him.

And then?

We loosed the Goddess of Life from her chains, set Terian about the business of freeing Reikonos from the dark elven hordes, I had one last opportunity to call the dark elven harlot a slattern (as opposed to the other word, which I will not use), and then …

… and then …

Cyrus Davidon did something countless crusaders have pledged to do over the years and steadfastly done not a damned thing about.

He freed the last slaves of Arkaria
.

Her admiration was worth the price every resurrection spell had ever exacted on him. He stared down, looked the pages, looked at the ink, spotted with age and exposure to the elements. He felt elements of his own—water, fresh from his eyes, added unto the ravages of time, and he hurried to read the last bit. He’d read it already, but it was his favorite passage.

The day that J’anda Aimant returned to us will be a day I cannot ever forget, for more reasons than one. The party stretched into the night, of course; since the day I joined Sanctuary, they have been a joyful lot. They celebrate at the slightest inclination, and adding that wine-sodden (though now quite sober) idiot Andren to the mix has increased our proclivities in that direction.

I, of course, have a very low threshold for the amount of merrymaking I can withstand. Oh, it all starts out to the good—there’s a freeing sort of spirit on the event, a happy chatter that precedes such an occasion. But it inevitably sinks into idiocy, into maudlin sentiment, and these are things I cannot abide. These and leather clogs.

I had safely made my escape, retreated to my haven in the tower, when the knock sounded upon my door. Naturally, I was not expecting anyone, because … well, I never expect anyone, especially during festivities of any kind. Who enjoys being in the company of a misanthrope during a celebration, after all?