"Provisioning, maybe?" Belkan shrugged his broad shoulders, old pauldrons clanking as he did so. He walked toward a line of troops milling about underneath the last rocky chasm that surrounded the trail before it flattened out into rolling foothills out of the mountains. "Once they start moving, they"ll need a lot of food to feed that army."
"They can conjure bread now," Cyrus said, taking large strides forward. "And water. It shouldn"t be a concern to them."
Belkan snorted. "You see t.i.tans eating a lot of bread, do you? I picture them tearing into meat constantly."
"I don"t," Cyrus said, looking out past the foothills. The enemy camps were nowhere near as visible from here, but he could see the tops of some of the larger tents, like pointed mountain peaks in the distance. "Can you imagine how much meat that would take? How much grazing land? What sort of herds?"
"I saw a mountain goat from around those lands once," Belkan said quietly, staring out at the savanna with him. "They"re taller than you, hoof to back. I hear they keep them up in the high peaks, out to the west of Kortran."
"Well, that answers the meat part, I guess," Cyrus said, chewing his lower lip. "It"s not as if they spend any time sowing, that much is sure."
"That much is sure," Belkan agreed, and he turned his back to the savanna, looking inward at the camp and the army within.
"What"s on your mind, Belkan?" Cyrus asked.
Belkan shook his head. "Got a lot of people spread out all over the place, Davidon. I don"t like it."
"I"m not so fond of it myself," Cyrus said. "But we have to guard the portal nearest Emerald Fields, and keep those scouts watching the others near-"
Belkan spit again, and for the first time Cyrus realized there was dark tobacco in the stream of saliva. He shuddered a little bit, and Belkan clearly noticed, for he smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Your father didn"t truck with this habit of mine, either." His face darkened. "But he listened, dammit, and you should, too. No good is going to come of this."
"You think we should pull back?" Cyrus asked, looking out at the savanna again. "Leave this defense to the elves?"
"Pfft," Belkan said, "elves can"t win this." He shook his head. "I just don"t like being spread this thin, is all. Sanctuary doesn"t even have a good castellan in place right now because Thad and me are here with all these young and impressionable pieces of t.i.tan luncheon." He made a humming noise, but lower. "I didn"t like fighting the trolls, but this is-it"s worse."
"You"d know," Cyrus said, feeling that stir of discomfort come back. "Belkan ... we"re not going to walk away from this fight. You know that, right?"
"At my age, Cyrus," Belkan said, "you get a little tired of fighting sometimes. At this point, I"d just like to sit in my armory for a while and get things back in order. You seen the mess in there?"
"I have not," Cyrus said, reaching down to touch Praelior"s hilt. "Haven"t needed a sword in a while."
"Now you"ve got a spare, as well, I hear," Belkan said, clinking him on the spine where his reserve blade rested below his backplate. "I recall you walking in my armory with a bronze weapon you picked up off the ground in a dragon raid, and now you"re standing here with mystical rings under your gauntlets, sword of a dead G.o.d on your belt, and some mystical short thing hiding behind you in case you-I don"t know, decide to get really angry and need something for your other hand."
Cyrus felt a smile force itself out from beneath sullen lips. "I have been known to wield two every now again when things get a mite ... touchy."
"You"ve changed, lad," Belkan said, making it sound like a curse, "and not necessarily for the better. I"ll always remember you knee-high to me. Now you"re knee-high to a t.i.tan." He made a rough bark of a laugh. "You"re doubting yourself, aren"t you?"
"Hard not to when you"ve got enemies like this coming for you." He pointed at the most obvious tent in the distance, the pointed top bearing a flag, barely visible.
"Enemies are enemies. The bigger they are, the more they bleed before they die, that"s all."
"I think you got that expression wrong," Cyrus said.
"I like mine better," Belkan said, waving him off. He finally turned back around to look at the pa.s.s. "Whenever they"re ready ... they"re going to come rolling in like one of those hurricanes that works their way up the Bay of Lost Souls every now and again." He scowled and looked at Cyrus. "You ever been around for one of those?"
"No."
"It"s a h.e.l.l of a thing," Belkan said, staring off into the distance. "Rattles the windows like it"ll tear the latches. So much rain you swear the chimneys will drown the fires in it, but they don"t. Like Tempestus himself is leading the storm"s vanguard ash.o.r.e, and he"s got the angriest warriors in any realm with him to help make the stir." He shook his head, coming out of what looked a little like a trance while he spoke about it. "It"s not a cracking good time, and I suspect we"re going to see it from these t.i.tans once they get their supply lines in good order."
"How long do you figure?" Cyrus caught a scathing look from Belkan. "Come on. You"ve lived through more wars than most of us can name. Give me your best guess."
"A week," Belkan said, puckering his lips before letting out another spit. "Maybe a month. Then that storm"s gonna come tearing right up this pa.s.s, because these big idiots," he waved a hand out to the savanna, "they don"t know any better. If they were smart they"d use Falcon"s Essence and come over the peaks on us-"
"Oh, G.o.ds," Cyrus said.
"I already posted sentries against that," Belkan said with a grim smile. "My point is, though ... it won"t be long, and we"ll be-I"d say up to our necks in them, but ... really, it"s more like in over our heads, isn"t it?"
"Over our heads sounds right," Cyrus said, and he finally broke from looking at the savanna as a late afternoon breeze came whipping through the pa.s.s behind him. It gave him a surprising chill even though it was mild, almost warm. "It sounds like exactly where we stand, in fact."
A week pa.s.sed with sight of nothing but t.i.tan tents and t.i.tan patrols, moving occasionally up into the foothills before marching back to their camps. Cyrus got little rest, sleep being elusive even in the tent that he was sharing with Vara. She watched him with careful eyes when he thought deeply, as though she were afraid to break silence for fear of him losing the one idea that would save them all. At other times they spoke and acted normally, as though they were in the Tower of the Guildmaster and all was right with the world.
Cyrus often took to walking during the sleepless night watches himself, patrolling among the soldiers on the last hilltop and then wandering back into the camp, sparing a few kind words for the sentries that were up on the peaks above them, and then making his way back to the tents in the night when he realized that the attack was not coming, not yet, not on this watch.
It was on one of these patrols that he found Thad watching in roughly the same spot where he had had his conversation with Belkan only a few days earlier. The warrior was looking for himself, focused on the night fires in the t.i.tan camp over the foothills. The sky was alight with the burning flames, though not a single fire was visible from where they were. Cyrus had seen them, though, from the other stations, and they were so numerous as to make him worry anew.
"Guildmaster," Thad said as Cyrus stood there with him. "General. I always think of you that way, first."
"It"s what I"ve been known as for longer," Cyrus said in quiet acknowledgment. A peal of laughter from somewhere behind him reminded him that there were still others taking comfort in this camp, doing their jobs and finding some measure of relaxation when their day was through. Cyrus looked at the red-armored warrior. "How are you doing, Thad?"
"I"m fairly well, considering we"re standing at the edge of the world I knew," Thad said, nodding at the pa.s.s walls a hundred feet to their left and right, sheer rock forming a canyon. "I only ever heard tell of the southern lands, you know. Wasn"t sure I really believed half the things I"d heard about creatures so large they defy the mind to come up with a scale for them."
"It"s a bit of an adjustment," Cyrus agreed, crossing his arms over his breastplate. "Takes the eye some time for the mind to digest a morsel this big."
"Aye," Thad said. They paused for a moment. "I took in what you said before, about marriage. You were right. It"s gotten easier, especially with all we"ve got going on down here at the moment."
"Good," Cyrus said, suddenly stiff, unsure of what he should say after his conversation with Martaina about her impending nuptials. It caused a sudden tightness in his stomach. "I"m glad you, uh ... that it was helpful for you."
They stood there for a while, just staring out into the blessed quiet, until Thad broke the silence. "I"ve got a question for you."
Cyrus stared out across the empty, rolling foothills beyond, and realized it was not possible for him to stiffen his muscles any further. "All right," he said, wondering exactly how much discomfort the impending inquiry would cause him.
"That was your father"s armor, wasn"t it?" Thad nodded at Cyrus"s black metal encas.e.m.e.nt.
Cyrus stood there, frowning. "This is what you"ve been thinking about? My armor? Now? Here? With this going on?" He swept a hand out to indicate the savanna beyond the hills. "And with, uh-your personal, uh ..."
"Well, I-yes, I mean-uh ..."
"It was my father"s armor, yes," Cyrus said, bemused by the query. That could have been so much worse.
"Well, that wasn"t really my question," Thad said, feet shifting on the dirty trail, the grains of sand crunching beneath his boots.
"Okay," Cyrus said slowly. Uh oh. "What is your actual question?"
"My armor"s from the Gatekeeper," Thad said, looking down, "in Purgatory, you know? He gave us mystical steel back when we first started to conquer the place-"
"I was there, I know this." Where the h.e.l.l is he going with this?
Thad nodded at the scuffs dotting his breastplate, nicks in the red where the steel showed beneath it. "I"ve had mine for going on four years now, you"ve had yours for as long as I"ve known you, and to my knowledge you"ve never repainted it."
Cyrus blinked a few times, trying to figure out where the warrior was taking him with these inquiries. "... And?"
"So it"s beyond mystical, isn"t it?" Thad asked, sounding like a little bit of life had been poured back into him.
Cyrus looked at his black armor. It looked dusty, that was certain, but it always seemed slightly dull, even after he"d just polished it. He frowned as he stared down; he certainly hadn"t ever painted it, and it wasn"t dented or dinged to speak of, it merely looked worn, like it had been through considerable daily wear for longer than he had worn it. "Maybe," Cyrus said, wondering for the first time if the warrior might have a point.
"I mean, you got hit by Mortus and Yartraak," Thad went on, "and it doesn"t even have a ding to show for it." There was a lively quality to the warrior"s voice, like a child in excitement. "So here"s what I was thinking-"
"That wasn"t it?"
"-is...what happened to your father"s sword?" Thad finished, with a smile on his face. "Hmm?"
The frown deepened on Cyrus"s face. "I don"t ..." He tried to reach back in his memory, trying to picture a house. He could see the fire in the hearth, could recall a rug of some animal skin that lay before it. He remembered his father"s rough hands, pushing upon his head, and arms like steel when they wrestled, his father laughing heartily as Cyrus had done everything he could to break the grip. He remembered a man in black armor, clad in it up to the helm- "Do you remember it?" Thad asked, as though he could read Cyrus"s very thoughts.
"I don"t," Cyrus said, puckering his lips, twisting them as he tried to think. "I remember-there was a black scabbard?" He tried to picture it, but it was as fleeting as smoke on a strong wind, he could imagine his father in the armor, standing by a wooden door. When he tried to focus harder, his father"s image turned to his own, looking into one of Sanctuary"s mirrors. "I barely remember him in his own armor anymore. My mind keeps replacing him with me. The sword itself..." He tried to picture it, but it was like trying to grasp water with his fingertips.
"Was he tall like you?" Thad asked, sounding a little hopeful.
"I think so, but you"d have to ask Belkan," Cyrus said, resolving to do much the same the next time he saw the armorer. "On both counts. He was the one who made sure my father"s armor got to me at the Society."
"When did they give it to you?" Thad asked.
"Not until I was big enough for it," Cyrus said. "Sixteen? Maybe seventeen? It wasn"t as though I had a place to store it until I left, anyway, so I slept in it."
"Aye," Thad said, and now he seemed strangely aloof. "That I recall. I suppose you would have had to."
"Yeah, I-" Cyrus stopped as a strange, ululating yell came howling down from somewhere above. It was taken up by the watch on the hilltop, and he froze, staring out at the savanna, trying to see the top of the tents. They had been mere shadows against a darker sky before, but now his eyes failed him, and he saw nothing but the orange horizon where the fires still burned. "They must be moving."
The shouts confirmed it a moment later. "t.i.tans on the march! t.i.tans on the march to the pa.s.s!" The call was taken up and carried into the night, and all through the camp, a sleeping army began to awaken.
"I guess this is it," Thad said sadly.
"This is it," Cyrus agreed, and instead of the thrill of battle he"d felt in the arena of the t.i.tans, he felt a clawing dread. Not fear, and certainly not fear for himself, but rather a tired acknowledgment that battle was coming, and that it would be long and hard. Cyrus drew himself up to his full height and adjusted his armor. "Thad, get the army ready." And as the red-armored warrior ran off to do as ordered, Cyrus began to marshal himself to do much the same, to prepare for another fight that he was unsure his army would be able to win.
The t.i.tans began their a.s.sault with a roaring charge toward the gap of the pa.s.s in the canyon south of the camp. It was the kind of formation Cyrus relied on, a tight spot in which to fight, barely big enough to bring their armies in walking a few side-by-side. Like a bridge, it"s a narrowing of the way, and until these idiots figure out how to use Falcon"s Essence to change their whole world, I"ll take their ignorance and use it to my advantage, Cyrus thought.
The night was lit with thousands of torches. The smoke was not the sweet scent found in the Sanctuary fires, but an oily one. Above, on the cliff faces some three hundred feet up, Cyrus could see the archers in position, Martaina leading them on either side. Cyrus doubted their efficacy in this particular battle, but he could hardly see another use for them, and they were out of danger unless the t.i.tans began throwing spells or rocks up at the cliff edges. Perhaps they"ll distract, perhaps Martaina herself will get a couple kills, but for the most part, archery is flinging toothpicks at these creatures.
The sky had begun to weep in a light trickle, no sounds of thunder. It spattered on Cyrus"s pauldrons and onto his cheeks, where the rough beard growth had taken root over the last few days without a razor or washing water at hand. Could have had Vara do it with her sword, I suppose. He looked at her and found himself smiling at the notion. She stood in a line a few down from him, and, sensing his amus.e.m.e.nt, turned her head to catch him. She c.o.c.ked her own, giving him a quizzical look. "What?" she asked mildly.
"I"ll tell you later," he promised.
"Yes, and I"m sure that"ll be so very amusing, should we survive this momentous occasion," Vaste said, very loudly.
"Oh, Vaste," Cyrus said, "when will you stop doubting my brilliant leadership and just-"
"Leap foolishly into everything you suggest?" Vaste asked. "Listen. I"m always with you, even in the stupid moments. Like this one. But to think we"ll just drive the t.i.tans back without consequence is shockingly naive, I would say."
"A rather mild retort for you," Vara said, staring into the distance. "Usually your insults are ... well, insulting."
"I usually have more to work with," Vaste said. "Here, I"m fighting against the blinding terror of facing creatures over twice my size at every moment."
"Stand back," Cyrus said. "Let me take the punishment for you."
"That hasn"t worked with Vara," Vaste said, drawing an irritable look from the paladin, "and I doubt it will work with beings that can step over you and come smash me."
"One can hope, though," Cyrus said. "That it would work, I mean. I don"t hope you"ll get smashed."
"I feel much better now that you cleared that up."
"Perhaps now would be a moment for one of your inspirational speeches," Vara said, whispering down the line to him.
"I think not," Cyrus said. "Vaste always interrupts those until they lose all meaning." He eyed the troll.
"What, are you not so subtly asking me to shut up?" Vaste asked. "Because I"m not sure that"s physically possible-"
"Vaste," Vara said sweetly, "dear troll. If you interrupt my beloved"s speech this time, I will regale you with tales of Cyrus"s s.e.xual prowess in exquisite detail from now until the end of my days. If you are fortunate, that will be a short time. I am, however, capable of outliving you, and thus you may have your twilight years to look forward to, interspersed with phrases such as, "firm b.u.t.tocks," "enormous, python-like-""
"I will shut up now," Vaste said. "And possibly forevermore."
"That was easy," Cyrus said with a frown. Vara nodded her head at him, and he took a few steps forward before raising his voice. The bulk of the officers stood before him-Curatio, J"anda, Thad, Erith, Andren, Nyad, Vaste and Vara. Longwell remained at the Emerald Fields with a small army of a thousand, while Mendicant and Odellan were maintaining the defense of Sanctuary in addition to running the scouting parties posted at half the portals in southern Arkaria.
"Friends," Cyrus said, calling out into the night, the rain still spattering his shoulders lightly, "I stand with you now at the southern edge of the wild. Beyond us sits the grimmest threat that Arkaria has known these many years-t.i.tans with magic. A warlike people with a fury and now the force of spellcraft to back it. Well, they may be capable, but they are not terribly bright, much like the trolls." He watched Vaste"s yellow eyes pop open a little wider, and a scowl settled on his face, but he did not speak. "And much like those terrible, dull creatures, we will take the dignity from these beasts as well.
"For they are not a threat to be taken lightly," Cyrus went on, noting a small vein popping out in Vaste"s forehead. Probably thinking how wonderful a pun "lightly" would make. "And we do not take them as such; they are the gravest threat we have seen, and we will hold this pa.s.s against their predations, making it understood that they are not welcome here in the north. This is our land, and we, the creatures they would subjugate like rabbits, will not take another helping of their fury. We will return it with more of our own. Their height will not avail them any more than it did the troll menace, and soon enough, we will all be sitting around a fire, talking of the days when we drove these wretches before us." Cyrus paused and heard a small roar of approbation, before stepping back to the line.
"I don"t feel that was one of your best," Curatio said, frowning.
"See, I think my added commentary keeps him sharp," Vaste said. "This was all just one big attempt to link the t.i.tans to my people, which is truly stupid, because we all know the t.i.tans are dumber than the trolls."
"Who said you could speak?" Vara asked. "Have I told you about the time that Cyrus-"
"Aghhhhhh!" Vaste shouted, covering his ears.