Authors: Robert J. Crane
“I don’t know that I’m blaming myself, but I do feel an odd sense of … responsibility?” Cyrus shook his head, but it did not free him of the thought. “My friend—his guild—they were captured on patrol for the Confederation, far from our borders and interests. Trolls did the deed, back to slaving again.” He shrugged. “In this, I am blameless. I can find no cause to put this one on myself. Yet there are other, nagging things that I have done that revisit me now. A long chain of events, of choices, the consequences of which make me look at myself in the mirror and ask, ‘Is this man a leader—?’”
She cut him off. “Yes.”
He blinked at her. “I didn’t finish.”
“You asked a question that was easily answered,” she said. “I answered it for you, so as to terminate your inward struggle.”
He made a sound that recalled to his mind the whicker of Windrider. “I don’t find the answer quite so easy. Bad choices should not inspire confidence in a leader.”
Cattrine stared at him shrewdly. “Today is the day of the Sanctuary election, is it not?”
“It is.”
“Shouldn’t you be … shaking hands and making promises you don’t intend to keep?” she asked with a sly smile.
“I don’t know,
Administrator
,” he said with a slyness of his own, “is that what it takes to be elected to high office?”
“Touché.” She grinned. “People look for decisiveness, yes, even when it sometimes comes in the form of bad action. Leadership means standing tall, being the guidepost for others, bearing the burdens no one else wants. I think—not as a member of Sanctuary, obviously—that whoever is chosen for Sanctuary’s Guildmaster—well, they better have damned broad shoulders if you’re going to put that much burden on them.” She ran a hand over a crinkled piece of parchment, straightening it to align with the corners of her desk. “It’s quite a weight, I would imagine.”
“I don’t think it’s just about bearing a burden,” Cyrus said, “otherwise we’d find an elephant and be done with it.”
“I know a creature that’s stronger than your elephant,” she waved her hand toward the window behind her, to the rocky hill that filled the view, “but he’s no leader.”
“Fortin?” Cyrus asked. “That’s true.”
“He wants a leader, though,” Cattrine said. “He’s seeking someone to follow, someone to believe in.”
Cyrus inched away from the fire, feeling a flush that came either from the heat or another source. “What do you think he’s looking for?”
“Someone stronger than him, but not just in a physical plane,” Cattrine said. “Someone to get him what he cannot get by himself. Someone who can … drive him to be better.” She held her silence for a moment, and the sound of street noise—of conversation, of friendly shouts, of men and women at work and bustling—reached Cyrus’s ears. The smell of the sweet wood smoke reminded Cyrus of the Sanctuary Council Chambers. “What was it about your former Guildmaster that made you follow him?”
“I believed in him,” Cyrus said, and it flowed up from a wellspring within, easy as if it were water coming to the surface. “He inspired with his words, wisdom flowed out of him like honey from a fresh comb; he had a somber energy, a fearsome countenance when provoked, and an absolute certainty in the rightness of his cause.” Cyrus bowed his head slightly. “He was everything a man wanted to be.”
“Many a man I’ve met wishes to be you,” she said.
Cyrus looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he rested a hand on the mantle, inching closer to the fireplace again. “I’ve been told I came back from Luukessia changed.”
“Most people very definitely change after a decapitation,” she said. “But their change is that their story ends. Yet yours goes on, and that is, I think, perhaps the least of the things that affected the man inside that armor,” she gestured toward his chestplate, “in that time. You feel guilt for things you didn’t truly cause. You made choices to counteract consequences of actions you couldn’t have foreseen.”
“I made some ill choices,” Cyrus said, holding it back, saying it lightly. “I erred, and countless people died.”
“Yet you did all you could to correct for them,” Cattrine said. “You can, of course, blame yourself. Luukessia did, naturally, change you. You cannot have seen what we saw at the end of my land—my home—and assume that you are the same carefree person you were before. But … to bring this ’round … you are a leader, Cyrus. People follow you because you are stronger than them, mentally and physically, because you project the aura of quiet charisma and you convey an absolute certainty even when I think you are not feeling it.” She stayed behind the desk, a gulf of miles between them. “And, speaking from experience,” this brought a smile to her lips, “your shoulders are agreeably broad.”
Cyrus looked up the hill beyond her, peering into the rocks as if he could see movement. There was none. “And my failures?”
“You keep trying to make them right, do you not?” She raised her hands to either side of her, to indicate the room in which they stood. For the first time, Cyrus noticed a wall hanging, a tapestry with the crest of the Kingdom of Actaluere. It hung in the between two others, ones he had seen in both Syloreas and Galbadien, the old kingdoms of Luukessia. “This building in which we stand is proof of your commitment in that regard. It would not be here if you had not taken the people of my land under your wing and protected them, stewarded them with gold and effort.” She shrugged. “I would follow you. I
do
follow you, though not in war, obviously.”
Cyrus looked back to the hills out her window. “Where is Fortin?”
She blinked. “Up the hill.” She pointed and Cyrus moved closer to see what she saw. His eyes fell on a wooden structure of some sort. “The Syloreans have begun mining on his land, aided by a group of dwarves that you rescued from Gren.” He looked at her in surprise. “Your guild runs without you, it would appear; a group of slaves without homes, who had skills we were very much in need of—they were brought here by Vara and some of the others. I assumed you knew.” Cyrus shook his head. “They’ve been quite helpful thus far. More workers for the fields, farmers with expertise but no land, tradesmen with homes lost in the war … the Emerald Fields offer a fresh start for all who come.”
Cyrus took in a low, steady breath. “I should feel pleased at the good work we’ve done.” He pricked his own emotions and found that there was, somewhere within, just such a feeling. “I suppose it’s harder for me to see most of the time, given how ill things have gone in Arkaria of late.”
“Take heed of the good,” Cattrine said. “You do much of it. You and your people.”
Cyrus gave her a slow nod. “All right, then.” He steeled himself and then marched for the door, the floorboards of her office squeaking behind him.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He paused at the door. “I’m going to go convince a rock giant to follow me the way he followed the man who came before.” Cyrus looked back.
There was a quiet, muted shock on Cattrine’s face, but she hid it well. “I see. And how are you going to go about this feat?”
“I’m going to beat him into pebbles,” Cyrus said, yanking the door open. “Send one of your healers up the hill in about ten minutes, please.” He shot her a dazzling smile as he shut the door behind him. It was made all the better by the stricken look on her face, and he barely noticed the squeaks of protest from the stairs as he walked with certainty to the ground, and then out of the town to the hills.
Cyrus’s ascent up the hill was quick and energetic, legs filled with a spring and determination that he had lacked for the last weeks. He charged, happily and willingly, as though the craving for battle he had felt for so many a year were upon him again. The wind hit him in the face, slapping his cheeks, tugging his hair from under the metal binding of the helm that encased it. The smell that came out of that southern wind was fresh and clean, the scent of wilderness untamed.
Cyrus felt the anticipation tingle across his flesh, the unanswered call to battle stirring that pit in his stomach. The call to war had driven him for years, a fearless, careless and reckless desire to do harm. He had lost that feeling in Luukessia and replaced it with something else entirely.
Something Alaric taught me.
But here, in this hillside charge, the faint stirrings of it were back, albeit in a different condition. Now it was mere anticipation, the desire to charge headlong into a problem to get it over with.
He reached a crest, a small hillside overlook, and glanced back only for a moment. The view of Emerald Fields was stunning, and he made pause to remind himself to enjoy it further when he came back down. The town had sprung up within the valley in less than a year and already looked big enough to swallow up most of the towns of the Plains of Perdamun, towns that had been there for hundreds of years.
The footing was slippery and the gravelly hill gave up stones with every step. Cyrus turned his attention back to where he was going, felt a chill that had little to do with the weather cool his flesh. No, this was pure anticipation; a fight was coming, one that would tax him, would roil his blood in his veins, stir him back to life again. No war of thousands; this was a battle of one against one, his mind against his foe’s, his sword against the rock claw of his opponent.
This is my sort of fight.
Cyrus caught sight of motion to his left. The overlook ran a few hundred feet to the side of the hill, a flat plateau of ground that was trodden and worn from constant transit. Cyrus saw where the traffic came from now: a mine cut into the side of the hill. Men stood about it jawing, their laughter catching him by surprise, as peculiar a sound to him as a babe crying. Men and dwarves, he took a moment to realize, some only waist-high to others, their beards nearly as long as they were tall.
He altered his path, heading toward the mine, looking for another sign of a hole in the hill where his quarry would be waiting. It was not immediately obvious, though, and so he directed his steps toward the mine. As he approached, burning with purpose, the men stopped their conversations mid-word. He knew he was a sight, his black armor rolling in from the northerly approach like a storm cloud on a clear day. They must have known him; it seemed of late that everyone did.
“Lord Davidon,” one of the dwarves said as he approached. The dwarf was of a height with his kind, chest-high to a human man. His beard was threaded with obvious care, a braid and locks that matched the twisted arrangement atop his small head. He looked to be of middle age, and his eyes were kind. Cyrus had nearly forgotten what kind eyes looked like. “What may these humble servants of yours do … uh … for you?” The dwarf reddened as he threw himself to the ground, his dark, dirt-encrusted skin a contrast against the pale gravel of the hillside. Ten other dwarves—the whole lot of them—hit the ground in a bow following this one. The men of Luukessia—Syloreans, he knew by the beards and the rough look of them—watched on with amusement, but there was no danger of them bowing, he knew.
“Rise, sir dwarf,” Cyrus said, and the dwarf came to his feet. “All of you, rise. There is no need to be formal. What is your name?”
“Keearyn,” the dwarf said, bowing his head. “You have saved my life and that of my family, rendered us free from the chains bound upon us by the trolls. We are miners all, and I am ever at your service.”
“I seek the dwelling place of the rock giant,” Cyrus said, staring down at Keearyn the miner. The dwarf met his gaze, those kind eyes smiling at merely being recognized. “I have business with him. Could you direct me to where I might find him, please?”
“Och, the manners,” Keearyn said. “It is a measure of your greatness that you could be so kind to someone who you need not show a whit of it to.”
Cyrus felt an eyebrow raise involuntarily, and his response was delayed. “That’s … nice of you to notice. Still … I seek the rock giant. Would you be so kind as to—”
“I will show you to his dwelling meself,” Keearyn said, bowing repeatedly. He hurried to Cyrus’s right, across the plateau, a run that strained the miner’s legs. Cyrus kept up with a mid-length stride, walking all the while.
“You saved my kin, you know,” Keearyn said, turning his head back to speak. His long braids swayed in the wind coming down the hills.
“You mentioned that,” Cyrus said. “Where did the trolls capture you?”
“The trolls didn’t capture me,” Keearyn said. “’Twas the dark elves. My band of miners came into the port of Aloakna after an expedition to the southern lands to aid the elves of Amti in extracting their minerals.”
“The dark elves sacked Aloakna,” Cyrus mused. “Were you there when it happened?”
“Aye,” Keearyn said with a downturned brow. “We were brought back to Saekaj, taken down into that dark hell of a city. I am well acquainted with the underground, having lived and worked in mines my entire life. The beauty of the earth is a gift from Rotan, our god, but what the dark elves have done in that place defiles the good deity’s works. It is a shallow hole, filled with desperation and poverty. Our homeland, Fertiss, is also built in the ground, but I assure you, it is a wondrous land of beauty and care. Saekaj is a black pit of despair from which their own people cannot even gain life and sustenance.”
“I see you feel strongly about your captors,” Cyrus said dryly.
“The day I was taken from that city in the ground was the happiest day of my recent life,” Keearyn said, looking back at Cyrus. “And that is even with the consideration that I came to Gren, which is an open-sky hell of its own.”
“What is it about Saekaj that is so bad?” Cyrus asked, the gravel crunching under his boots, tiny pebbles crushed under his weight.
“There is no hope in that place,” Keearyn said as they started up a slope. Cyrus could see another overlook above, a hundred feet along a steep embankment. “They have a prison called the Depths, a farm where they grow mushrooms and roots. It is, without doubt, the cruelest captivity I have ever suffered.”
“Been in many prisons?” Cyrus asked.
“Only the ones I have seen since my capture,” Keearyn said with a shudder. “But I’ve been in more than a few caves, and these were … an utter despoilment of the earth. A desecration, a sacrilege.”