"Right," Cyrus said, nodding slowly. "Not a good chance." He gave her a sidelong look. "Go back around and bring the army here. No point in coming at their front."
She gave him a raised eyebrow as if she wanted to argue. "You just going to sit here by yourself until we get back?"
"Well, I"m d.a.m.ned sure not going to charge out into the middle of them to try and silently kill them myself," Cyrus said, "though I appreciate your a.s.sessment of either my skill or my insanity."
"Be right back," she promised almost noiselessly, and she whispered off through the brush. He did hear the chainmail coif rattle just slightly as she did so, confirming in his mind his earlier guess. But hopefully not loud enough for a t.i.tan to hear it over this gusting wind.
He sat there on the edge of the t.i.tan camp, waiting, watching. The lone waking t.i.tan on the ground began to pace every few minutes, walking back and forth under the tower, letting out a mighty yawn at one point. His footsteps did not quite shake the ground, but Cyrus felt them where he waited, the blades of gra.s.s twitching just slightly at the force of the steps.
Cyrus felt an internal pressure, like something squeezing him, compelling him forward. I could kill those things, couldn"t I? They can"t all be as strong as Talikartin. I"ve killed them before. Go at their knees, drop them down, open their throats ... not a quiet business, though, unfortunately. That"s a mark in the favor of waiting.
It was almost like an itch under his scalp, the desire to charge forth and unleash havoc. He drew slow breaths, calm in and chaos out, until the desire pa.s.sed. Soon enough, he heard motion, not nearly so quiet as Martaina, and out of the gra.s.s came Vara at the head of the army. Cyrus moved his gaze back to the t.i.tans, but they continued their rounds seemingly unaware of the small force just behind them.
"I need Falcon"s Essence," Cyrus said, low, and let the word be pa.s.sed rather than shouting it out like he normally would, "Vara too, and all of group A." He looked at the even smaller sliver of his army that comprised group A, and after a moment, they all began to float, though he felt his feet leave the ground before the others. "We go at the count of five, so ready yourselves." He turned to face the camp, and held a hand aloft, all his fingers extended. One by one, he lowered them as he counted off. 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1- And he led the quiet charge into the camp of the t.i.tans, almost soundlessly as they raced in to kill their foes in the still night.
After all the long waiting, Cyrus found the rush of true wind against his face invigorating. He did not spare the speed of Praelior, not this time, and circled the encampment in a rush, slitting the throats of two of the t.i.tans swiftly before the rest of his army caught up with him. The noise he unleashed in doing so was not quiet, a choking, gasping, gurking noise that caused the sentry under the platform to spin to see what was happening.
Cyrus was already on the move upward, though, trying to ignore the t.i.tan below as best he could. The others will handle it, he thought, ignoring the instinct to rush back down. Instead he circled in a hard spiral up the tower, running on imaginary stairs. He paced his climb perfectly, ensuring that he came even with t.i.tan"s platform around the creature"s back.
A small cry of surprise split the night, causing Cyrus"s target to jump in reaction. It did not cause Cyrus so much as a moment"s hesitation, however, and he plunged Praelior into the t.i.tan"s knotted flesh under the back plate the creature wore to protect its vital organs. It looked rather like a finger-sized dagger plunging into a creature that size, but the t.i.tan grunted in pain as Cyrus ripped the blade back out of the leathery skin and continued upward just a little further.
The t.i.tan jerked in pain at his attack, as though he"d been stung by an insect instead of a full-sized sword. This is the problem with t.i.tans and dragons, it just takes so many hits to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds when they"re not lying there waiting for their throats to get cut.
Cyrus watched the t.i.tan spin his head toward him, jerking as he saw the black-armored warrior right in front of his nose. Before he could cry out in shock, Cyrus buried Praelior directly in the joint of his jaw, drawing a m.u.f.fled grunt of pain and a reactionary swipe at Cyrus, who dodged the blow easily by stepping backward.
The t.i.tan"s eyes alighted on Cyrus, fury gleaming within them. "Rogh rawr!" the t.i.tan said, clutching his jaw with one hand as he leaned forward to attack Cyrus again. Cyrus merely took another step back and let gravity take its course.
The t.i.tan swiped too hard, reached just a little too far, clutching into the night with extended fingers and nothing else. He hit the small wood beam that circled the platform as a guard rail and kept going, the strength of his momentum carrying him over the edge. He tried to scream out in fear as he fell over, but it came out m.u.f.fled once more as he struggled to open his mouth.
The t.i.tan fell to the earth with a significant thump, landing on his shoulders and head and then sagging, moaning in the night, arms flung wide and his eyes shut.
"Ahh!" another t.i.tan below shouted, though not too loudly. Cyrus ran down swiftly, pa.s.sing Vara as she halted her own upward momentum and turned to join him, the rest of group A in tow.
"I"d tell you to slow b.l.o.o.d.y down," she said as he darted past, "but it would seem you"re doing all the work, and I don"t mind that at all."
"Just like-"
"Do not say-" she warned, the rest of her reply lost to the wind as he left her behind.
Cyrus rushed back to ground level to find one of the t.i.tans that had been sleeping was now quite awake, though bleeding heavily from a botched attempt to cut his throat. He studied the creature, watched the bluish blood pumping out from beneath its left hand, and he shook his head. "Wrong side of the throat to start on, people," he said at a normal volume. He cast eyes behind him and saw a few of his finest warriors pulling the t.i.tan that had been on guard to the ground. It had only a hand up in the air, and a faltering one at that, coming under the attack of half a hundred blades.
That situation in hand, Cyrus threw himself toward the t.i.tan bleeding from the neck, darting in a zigzag pattern toward the creature. It followed him with dull eyes under a heavy brow, peering at him with a hint of fear. You know death when you see it, don"t you?
The t.i.tan made to swing a fist at him, but its motions were slow and clumsy, and the first swipe missed wide of Cyrus, and indeed wide of where he had been during his entire run. The t.i.tan"s bleary eyes failed to track him, and so he moved in and cut the artery with a quick motion, moving around a thumb to do so. When he finished, he jabbed Praelior into the voice box and gave it a swift slice before throwing himself backward to avoid reprisal.
None came, and the t.i.tan made only one further attempt to speak, a gagging sound, ululating deep in the throat, before it slid slowly sideways to the earth and relaxed into death"s grip.
Cyrus surveyed the raw chaos of the watch post with reluctant pride. "Any deaths?" he asked, back to speaking normally.
"Not on our side," Vara said from a few feet off. She looked to have been doing some surveying of her own, and her breastplate"s silver was still immaculate, bearing none of the glistening red that glinted on his in the firelight. She inclined her head toward the t.i.tan that had fallen off the platform. "I think that one"s still alive, though they"re working on it now."
"Indeed," Cyrus said, watching the group that had carved up the other sentry falling upon his. They had him surrounded. A few climbed atop him like tiniest children on an adult, and were stabbing furiously at any square of flesh they could find. Cyrus cringed at the image, trying to shake the thought of it out of his mind.
Vara"s gaze mirrored his own, and she puckered her lips. "It is a bit odd to see, isn"t it? Like a rebellion of infants slaughtering the grown-ups?"
"I was thinking the same and finding it highly disturbing," Cyrus said, focusing on her. "We need to pull down the watch post and add it to the fire."
"Don"t you think the other posts will notice that?" she asked, nodding at the large wooden structure. "It"s rather large."
"Probably," Cyrus said, taking a few climbing strides up as he looked out over the savanna. To the east and west, he could see more watch fires. The ones closest to them, in the north, were already glowing brighter. "But it"s what I told the others to do. The purpose of this isn"t just to p.i.s.s off the t.i.tans, it"s to destroy the mechanism by which they"re enforcing their dominance here. Let them haul tons of lumber out to rebuild all we take; we"ll just come and do it again if they don"t guard carefully."
"But your very plan hinges on them becoming so upset as to increase their guard," Vara said. "Wasn"t that the purpose of all this? To draw them out the front door?"
"If the dragons can fulfill their end of the bargain, yes," Cyrus said, staring out over the ocean of darkness across the savanna, the gra.s.s gently swaying below him.
She stepped up to his side. The sounds of dying t.i.tans far below had faded into the night, and now he could hear his army working at disa.s.sembling the tower-quietly chopping at the ropes that held it all together. "What if the dragons don"t intervene?" Her voice was quiet, hushed. "What if Ehrgraz can"t get them to do what you hope he will?"
"Then this strategy is even more important," Cyrus said quietly, meeting her eyes in the dark, barely able to see the glistening blue save for by the power of a spell, "because if we don"t get the help we need, we"re going to have divide and conquer them." He looked south, where he knew, somewhere far ahead, was Fortress Returron, and beyond that, somewhere in the dark, Kortran. "And with these t.i.tans ... it"s a h.e.l.l of a lot to divide and conquer."
After they were done with the tower, the army moved on once again, swiftly and silently through the tall gra.s.s. They walked for a further three hours, maintaining a fast pace, with stops every twenty minutes for a short break and to allow Vara and Martaina to listen carefully to the wind. Each time they were rewarded with a quiet that indicated no guard patrols were moving, which was as Cyrus expected.
"The t.i.tans haven"t gotten used to having the Eagle Eye spell at their disposal," Cyrus said after they had reached a point just below a hill that he"d noted on his map after his flight and confirmed with Cora through a few messages carried by her druid. "Either that or they don"t have enough spellcasters to spread it around."
"If I were planning a war, I don"t think I"d care to hinge it upon that belief," Vara said. When Cyrus looked at her blankly, she went on. "On them having few spellcasters, I mean. I"d a.s.sume ignorance first, and that they can adapt at any time."
"That"s always how I plan," Cyrus said. They sat between tall blades of gra.s.s, the small army spread out around them, huddled in silence as they ate conjured bread and jerky brought in their small packs. "I a.s.sume the worst."
Vara made a face. "That explains the first several years of our acquaintance."
"It was certainly a hostile series of encounters," Cyrus said with a smile.
Vara started to make a reply and then stopped, and he could sense her ears twitching. "Small footsteps-one of the army groups, but they"re coming out of the west."
Cyrus directed his eyes toward the gra.s.s to the west and stood, putting his hand on Praelior. Soon enough, he heard it, too, and waited, until a familiar, bucket-shaped helm peeked through the gra.s.s. Terian grinned, his mouth and chin exposed to the world. "We should really have set up a sign and countersign; who knows what loathsome characters could have come strolling into your camp-Malpravus? Goliath?"
"You," Vara said, but it lacked much sharpness.
"Terian," Cyrus said with a slight smile pulling at one side of his mouth. Terian strolled into their makeshift camp, an army of dark elves trailing in his wake, a slightly larger group than the one Cyrus had with him. Though they were armored poorly compared to Sanctuary"s group, they seemed heavy on spellcasters. Cyrus took it all in, and when Terian got close, he nodded at a thick cl.u.s.ter of enchanters that moved together, their robes looking particularly fresh. "I didn"t think nations were allowed to have this many spellcasters at their disposal under League law."
Terian"s lips puckered and he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "Well, Saekaj"s Leagues are in a slightly different place than the rest of Arkaria"s, in that they answer to the Sovereign."
Cyrus took that in, but Vara beat him to the follow-up punch. "You"re saying that the other Leagues don"t answer to their nation"s authorities?"
"Nope," Terian said with a shake of the head. "They answer to the G.o.ds." He made an almost apologetic shrug. "Which, I mean, technically, answering to the Sovereign-well, it used to be the same thing ..."
"That"s interesting," Cyrus said and meant it. He watched the slow mingling of the Sanctuary group with the dark elven forces, an uncomfortable melding at first, the sides looking slightly standoffish or shy. "I have to admit, Terian ... it"s a relief to see you." He caught the curious look from the white knight. "I mean, I saw your fires on the horizon when your people took out the watch towers we"d a.s.signed, but a part of me didn"t dare to hope you"d actually be here until now."
Terian let out a low guffaw. "Hope? I imagine it"s not an emotion you"re used to a.s.sociating with me at this point."
"But once, yes," Cyrus said, and he smiled ever so slightly, "and lately, again."
Terian planted a hand on Cyrus"s shoulder, reaching up to do so. "We"ll keep working on that." He looked around, his new helm snug upon his head, the axe on his back sticking far up into the air as though he were bearing a pole to hold a standard behind him. "Where"s the rest of your army? Things are looking a little spare around here."
"Well, they didn"t have quite the short jaunt that we did," Cyrus said, turning his head to look to the east. "We sent some to another portal closer to their targets, and of course we had some help out of Amti-"
"Which has arrived," came a quiet voice from only a few paces behind Cyrus. He turned and saw Gareth, nearly blending in with the gra.s.s. Cora appeared at his side, her spell of invisibility dropping like water sloshing off her. Cyrus saw other elves, cloaked in what looked gra.s.s cloth, their movement in the still night the only thing to give them away.
"Cora," Terian said warmly.
"G.o.ds," Cora whispered, taking a step toward. "Terian, is that you?"
"It is I," Terian said, and she took halting steps forward until she embraced him, wrapping her arms around the armor. "I suppose I"m not as easy to recognize as I used to be."
"You look very distinctive," Cora said, pulling back and taking him in with a glance, "but, you are correct ... you no longer look like the old Terian." She tapped his pauldron, now smooth, though weathered. "It would appear you found an impressive chrysalis for your transformation."
"I had one given to me," Terian said with a muted smile, "at a cost most dear."
"General," came another voice from behind Cyrus. He turned once more to find Odellan approaching, footsteps as silent as Gareth"s, though his armor was covered in scarlet liquid, the blood tracing lines in the intricate designs. His helm was slightly off center as well, the wings pointed just a touch to the right.
"Odellan," Cyrus said, acknowledging him. "I take it you were successful?"
"We destroyed our target," Odellan said, easing into the small circle forming. He looked at Gareth and Cora, and gave each a nod before taking in Terian with a careful, considered look. "Isn"t that the armor of ...?"
"Did you succeed in your mission?" Cyrus asked Cora and received a nod in return.
"It was a bit of a strain," Gareth said, voice a little rough. Cyrus glanced around and saw Martaina standing a ways off with Andren, her eyes on Gareth.
"I suppose you"re used to hunting smaller game," Cyrus said, turning his attention back to the ranger of Amti.
Gareth made a rough snorting sound that was near-silent. "Have you seen the beasts of these savannas and the jungle?" When Cyrus shook his head, Gareth went on. "The predatory cats we hunt are one and half times the size of a t.i.tan. They can swallow you whole." He looked toward the hill just south of them, the one that stood between them and Fortress Returron. "Our only advantage there is that they"re solitary creatures." He looked back at the a.s.semblage. "t.i.tans hunt in packs."
Another few minutes pa.s.sed in quiet conversation, and another few army groups trickled in, their leaders making their way to the circle of officers and leaders for the expedition. Cyrus listened to the conversation, Vara standing still next to him, only the occasional look pa.s.sing between them. The arrival of Samwen Longwell, his spear tip b.l.o.o.d.y and crusted in dirt along with Curatio, white robes covered in red splotches, signaled the end of the waiting. Cyrus looked to the sky and saw no hint of dawn, which gave him a very slight relief.
"Looks like it"s time to begin," he said, tracing his way to the center of the circle without hesitation. When he got there, he paused, reflecting. I"m in the middle of leading an expedition that includes all the forces that Amti and Saekaj can spare, with their respective leadership here, listening to me.
And five years ago I was sleeping alone in a horse barn, in a bed barely big enough for me, with Andren and Narstron not ten feet away, broke, utterly desperate, and with not a follower to my name other than those two. Now I speak to the leaders of nations and command larger armies than anyone else. He caught a glimpse of Vara watching him, and she quietly gave him a smile of encouragement, as though she could read what he was thinking.
Oh, how the wheel does turn. And swiftly, at that.
"You"ve all seen the plans," Cyrus said, "so I won"t belabor the point. The tasks are a.s.signed, and I know you all well enough to be sure you know your parts." He saw a nod from Terian and got a more subtle one from Gareth. "When we go over this hill, everyone needs to take their positions slowly and quietly. You are all in charge of your own divisions, and they must move perfectly in synchronization for this plan to come out a success. If even one of our groups should move out of turn, or go before the attack is called, we risk the safety of this entire combined army." He took a deep breath. "We have only a few precious hours until dawn, and we have another stop to make after this. Let"s get going." With a sharp nod, he dismissed them and strode forward out of the camp, his force falling into line behind him without need of a word being spoken, the Guildmaster of Sanctuary on march with his army.
Cyrus waited under the last cover of gra.s.s, an even hundred yards separating him from the outer wall of Fortress Returron, the immense structure looking like a forest transplanted out of the south beyond Kortran, the trees the size of the ones around the Iliarad"ouran woods. They had clearly been harvested, had the boughs skinned off, been smoothed slightly, and driven hard into the ground to make a great wall around the fort. Stationed at six equidistant points around the wall were towers of the sort that had been built out on the savanna. Cyrus counted two t.i.tans per tower, on watch and in varying states of sloth. The two nearest him were laughing, and to his left, almost near the back gate to the south, the two atop that tower appeared to be sleeping on their feet.
"Druids," Cyrus said, "you know what to do." He felt his feet lift off the ground a moment later. He had held there a moment to give the others time to get into position and make ready. Now he floated up and looked to the south. The watch tower fires were burning brighter against the sky than they had appeared to when last he checked. So, we"re ready, then, so long as the ones to the west are burning ... and I have to a.s.sume they are.
"Forward," he hissed and sprang forward out of the gra.s.s at a dead run, heading straight for the wall ahead, not daring to use Falcon"s Essence to rise, not yet.
Cyrus ran, pumping his legs and letting the strength of Praelior take him ahead of the others. The longer the army is exposed on this run, after all, the more likely the t.i.tans see us and start to sound the alarm ... and we can"t have that.
When he reached the wall, with all its rough-cut timber, bark still patchy and present, he started to run upward in a spiral once again, just below the tower. I hope the others caught the sight of my motion ... they should if they were watching at all, and they"ll be moving on all six now ...
He reached the topmost section of the spiral and came up behind both the t.i.tans. One of them, the one nearest him, had his head down, peering at the ground. He started to speak, and Cyrus sprang forward and rammed Praelior into the exposed base of the t.i.tan"s spine.
The t.i.tan did not even cry out; he had no chance to. Instead, his weight took over and he slid off the point of Cyrus"s blade, toppling against the wooden rail and slumping to his knees, limp as a boned fish.
The other t.i.tan looked left to watch his companion"s fall, somehow missing Cyrus"s dark, shadowed movement in the corner of his eye. Cyrus, for his part, did not fail to take advantage. He moved in haste and shot forward to jab Praelior into the t.i.tan"s exposed temple. It prompted a sharp cry as the pain started to hit home, but before the t.i.tan could fully react, Cyrus stabbed once more, and deeper this time, running his blade along the front of the skull in a hard line, dragging his sword down just above the nose.
The t.i.tan jerked, spasmed, and lurched backward. He hit the rail with his lower back and made a sc.r.a.ping noise as the metal armor met wood. Then the t.i.tan went over backwards, unbalanced, and Cyrus watched him land on his head and shoulders, his neck breaking at an unnatural angle.
"Showoff," Vara whispered as she joined him atop the tower. Others from his group were moving up now to stand with them. There was movement on the tower directly opposite theirs, and Cyrus squinted but could not discern what was happening, merely that one of the t.i.tans was already on the ground and another seemed to be swinging wildly at something he could not see. "Terian," Vara said, nodding in that direction. "He"s making mincemeat of them with that axe of his."
"Good," Cyrus said. He let his eyes trace over to the nearest tower to his left, where the t.i.tans still stood, but they faced inward now, toward the interior of the fortress, and a small figure stood between them. He peered over and realized it was Cora, plainly in view of her enemies. "She"s charming them," he realized as the t.i.tans moved to climb down the ladder into the fortress.
Cyrus made a quick sweep of the fortress with his gaze, confirming everything he"d suspected about it from a distance atop Ehrgraz. Two enormous barracks were built across the southern wall on either side of the gates, big enough to quarter a few thousand t.i.tans each, he guessed. The building against the northeast wall had the flat, bulky look of a storehouse, without much in the way of windows. Burning that will put a crimp in the t.i.tan supply lines. He shifted his gaze to the northwest corner, and there he found a smaller building. In the middle of the fortress was muddy, open ground. Parade grounds, he thought. And that smaller building must be the command post-and possibly the officer quarters, he thought as he let his eyes dance to the building connected to the command post.
"Well, what do you think?" Vara asked, her gaze darting about to each of the towers where fighting was still-quietly-going on.
"I think I had the right of it from my first impression," Cyrus said, nodding as much to confirm for himself as for Vara. "The plan is sound."
"Well, good," she said, "because it"s about to be executed."
"So are the t.i.tans," Cyrus said grimly, and with a last look over the Fortress Returron, he charged over the walls, and saw the rest of the army, at the six points around the fortress, mirror his motion as he led them into war.