Robert Crane - Crusader

She lay her head back against the wall behind her and caught a sudden waft of death far below. “How long will you be gone?”

He hesitated, an unusual thing for him to do. “As long as need be and not a moment more,” he answered finally. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and Ryin appeared, led by Aisling. She gave the dark elven woman a sneer, but it was halfhearted and she received only a coldly satisfied gaze in return. Alaric gave Ryin a nod. “Ladies,” Alaric said, “take care while I am away.” With that, the winds carried up around them, sweeping like a tornado around the ramparts, stirring Vara’s hair and rushing through the cracks in her armor to touch her skin while roaring in her ears. There was the taste of bitterness in her mouth as the wind settled, and Alaric was gone.

Chapter 107

Cyrus

The slog was hard, the salt air on his tongue along with the sweat that fell in drops with his exertion. The breeze kept him cool under the sun, but with every swing of Praelior he let another exhalation out, another muted curse at the things that came at him, black eyes, foul breath, no souls, and he took his fury out upon them. I’ve faced them for months, relentlessly, with all I had. This is the first time I can recall feeling so angry at them. He chanced a look back behind him; there was the faintest outline of land, far, far in the distance, barely visible even in the morning light. Hard to believe, that.

“You know,” Terian said conversationally, to his right, “I honestly thought that at some point, after as many of these things as we’ve killed, that they would eventually run out of them. But no, I guess thousands of years of dead kind of pile up, huh?”

“Less talking,” Longwell said, swinging his spear wide and sweeping five of the scourge over the edge of the bridge; he was to Cyrus’s far right, past Terian. Odellan and Scuddar were to his immediate left. I anchor the line in the middle. Another three came at him, all teeth. Where they aim their onslaught hardest. “More killing.”

There were black stains running along the stone they stood upon, the fresh evidence of the chaos they’d unleashed. It ran along the slight grade toward Arkaria, filling the carved lines in the bridge, the infinitesimally small gaps that didn’t seem like gaps at all to Cyrus, more like lines in the stone. Perfectly joined. No sign of mortar. The ancients must have been impressive indeed to have built this.

“Augh!” There was a cry to Cyrus’s left, and he saw Odellan fall, his arm in the mouth of one of the creatures. Cyrus slashed forward, tightening his distance to the elf. He felt Terian move a little closer to the center of the bridge to compensate.

“It’s all right,” Curatio called from behind them. “I’ve got him.” There was a moment that passed, as Cyrus cut the head from the scourge that had Odellan’s wrist, and he watched it fall away. “As much as they keep pushing you back,” the healer called, “be thankful that they don’t do much damage.”

“At this point I’m just thankful that we have ground left to give,” Odellan said, looking back behind them before unleashing a savage flurry on the next scourge to come forward at him in a lunge. “Thank you,” he said to Cyrus.

“Not a problem,” Cyrus replied, moving back to the center. He could sense Terian ease back to his lane of the bridge, as though they were moving in perfect synch. “Just like old times, huh?”

“I’m afraid that this is playing out much more like my defense of the Northbridge than your defense of the Grand Span,” Odellan said tensely as he brought his sword around and parried one of the scourge, letting it carry past him and into the waiting blades of the second line. Martaina and two warriors killed it quickly, before it had a chance to halt its forward momentum from the jump or turn on any of them.

“Aye,” Cyrus said. “And that’s not the best of signs for any of us, considering how it all turned out on the balance.”

“At least they can’t flank us,” Terian said. “Unless somehow they can crawl under the surface of the bridge.” His voice turned pensive. “Please tell me they can’t do that.”

“Let’s hope not,” Cyrus said, running Praelior across the face of a scourge and then taking the left shoulder off another before stomping it in the face, caving in its skull and killing it. He shot a look at the dark knight. “I know you’re not doing this for me, but I appreciate you being here nonetheless.”

“You’re welcome,” Terian said simply. “And you’re right.” He brought the red sword down in a long arc that caught a leaping scourge across the nose as it jumped, its momentum arrested and thrown off to the side with the power of Terian’s stroke. “I’m not doing this for you.”

“Then what are you doing it for?” Cyrus asked as he was forced to take another step back to parry a particularly aggressive and coordinated swiping attack from three scourge.

“I have my reasons,” Terian muttered, almost too low to be heard.

The sun rose higher in the sky as the day wore on. They gave ground steadily, and with every step and every furtive look back, Cyrus’s unease grew. The tension in his belly became intense, roiling, meshing with the acid in his stomach that allowed him to ignore the fact that he hadn’t eaten since the battle had begun earlier in the day. The horsemen were well out of sight now, the only remaining forces were the Sanctuary army- the last line of defense before these things hit Arkaria. And we’re failing. Slowly, but just as sure as if it were quick.

The sun began to set as Cyrus’s muscles grew weary. He watched as his comrades grew slower, their arms wearying, but carrying on. Others came up, here and there, to spell them for a bit. Cyrus waved them off each time, the relief strong but not strong enough. Not as strong as me. Not as determined. They lose ground quicker. He tried to push forward and a scourge leapt forward and smashed into him. He held, swinging his blade at the beast, putting it through its heart, and he took another step forward but was driven back by a scampering rush of two of them, coming at him like dogs, their claws clicking on the stone as they tried to bowl him over. He ended them both with quick sword thrusts, dodging the teeth as they came at him but losing two feet in the process.

Two feet might as well be a mile, because it adds up to one when you lose it enough times. The sun had set, and he could no longer see the outline of Arkaria’s shore, but he saw lights upon it in the distance, campfires from the Luukessian refugees. Driven from their homes into ours, and they may still die here. “Flame!” Cyrus called, and spells swept forward across the bridge, creating a scouring line as he took a deep breath, in and out. He watched Odellan slump, taking the moment’s respite. Scuddar seemed to stand stiffly straight, while Longwell leaned on his lance. Terian stood next to Cyrus, though, hands on his sword, blade planted down, as though he were drawing strength directly from the stone of the bridge.

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.