Warlord (26 page)

“And my sword will make a mighty nice toothpick,” Cyrus quipped, staring at the Emperor of Kortran. He waved Praelior in the air. “Or possibly a letter opener, assuming you read?”

“Only a weakling taunts when he can hurt,” Talikartin said, easing closer to Cyrus, a hundred titans at his back.

“Only a gutless idiot would hold back from charging a clearly smaller, physically inferior enemy,” Cyrus shot right back. And before Talikartin’s face could do much more than twist in rage, Cyrus charged right at him. Everything seemed to explode into action at once, titans leaping forward as Cyrus sprinted toward the fight. “Get Razeel and Tali!” Cyrus shouted, and saw Vara following a few steps behind Terian, who was just at his back.

“If you think killing their leaders will make this lot calm down,” Vara shouted back over the bellowing roars of countless titans, “I have a fine lakeshore property to sell you in Saekaj Sovar!”

“Actually,” Terian said, “we do have the Great Sea, although parceling out lakeshore isn’t something we’ve looked at yet. Maybe when I get home … might be worth a look—”

A titan darted into Cyrus’s path, moving quickly and yet still slowed by the power of Praelior in his hand. A knotted face with mouth yawning open in front presented itself, and Cyrus dodged, maneuvering up over the creature’s shoulder. He struck its nose at he went by, ripping open a nostril and turning the howl of rage into one of pain. The titan had no time to respond, however, for Terian sailed by in Cyrus’s wake and chopped right into the side of its neck like he was swinging to fell a tree, his attack geysering a slow blast of blood out as they both moved on.

“You’re pretty good with that thing,” Cyrus said, consciously speaking faster, knowing Terian would catch it.

“Have you gotten used to slowing down your speech when talking to people without a godly weapon?” Terian asked, speaking just as quickly. “Because it feels like having a conversation under water sometimes, and I just want to reach in and drag the words out of their mouth so I can respond.”

“I actually use my sword to give me an extra margin for thought during troubling conversations,” Cyrus said, shrugging.

Terian’s eyes burned on him. “I always thought you were a little too witty at times, and others such a dunderhead.”

Cyrus dodged an overhand strike from a titan, catching it with Praelior on the titan’s wrist and cutting until he hit bone. Moving on, sneaking under the arm and around the back, he poked his blade above the titan’s buttock and kept running, withdrawing it and watching a small spurt of blood tell him he’d hit something important.

“That’s right, keep softening them up for me,” Terian called from behind him. Cyrus heard the satisfying sound of an axe hitting home, breaking bone and drawing a sharp grunt from a titan over the sound of howling, enraged voices that echoed in the arena under the mountain.

Cyrus looked back to reply and completely missed the titan reaching for him from out of his blind side. The grasping fingers wrapping around his midsection were a rude awakening to his distraction, and he snapped his head around as the titan pulled him toward a furiously open mouth. They were squeezing, but his armor was holding the mighty grip at bay, keeping it from crushing him like grape.

The mouth drew closer, and it didn’t take Praelior-enhanced time to think for Cyrus to realize that the titan meant to bite his head cleanly off.
Well, that would kill me
, he thought as his stomach dropped.
And I doubt they’d get my head back in any condition for a resurrection spell … and probably not within an hour, either …

A buzz of spellcraft shot past Cyrus struck the titan in the face, hurling his head back with a snap. He bellowed, but the force of the spell’s impact caused him to lose his balance, tipping over and landing on the arena floor with a hard clatter, rattling against the bones in the dirt.

The smell here was fierce, and Cyrus took the opportunity presented to jam his sword into the back of the giant creature’s hand. It drew a scream, and more importantly, caused the titan to relax his grip. Cyrus stabbed him again, then brought his legs up, using the Falcon’s Essence spell to create a foothold on air and propel himself up and away from the fallen giant, climbing the invisible steps the spell provided more quickly than any staircase he’d ever climbed.

He went higher than a titan’s head before pausing to take stock of the situation. The battle was well underway, titans storming around the arena and finding plenty of Sanctuary forces to occupy their attention. Cyrus watched Belkan deal a stabbing blow to a titan that was running past him, dropping his foe to the ground and pursuing with an attack to the exposed back of its neck. Belkan’s swordsmanship made up for his lack of speed, and it only took one hearty stab to render the titan dead.

Odellan shot past Cyrus just below, circling a titan as though he were a fly, striking swiftly, a dozen cuts already opened on the raging titan’s rough face. Blood streamed down into its eyes and it swung blindly, hitting one of its fellows and leveling them as Nyad peppered the falling titan with multiple fire spells to the face. Cyrus caught a glimpse of skin dissolving, black smoke pouring off its face as its hair caught fire and traveled up until it reached the creature’s helm. Its flailing hands knocked aside the metal cap, and it spun wildly, trying and failing to get away from the fire that was scorching it. Cyrus saw that it was dead without knowing it quite yet. It fell a moment later, its fight ended.

Cyrus focused his attention on Talikartin, picking him out ahead. The titan war leader was swinging wildly at Terian, who circled without landing a blow in the seconds Cyrus watched. He started forward to join the fray, but lightning passed underneath him and caught a titan full in the face as it leapt up to attack him. The blast caused it to draw its hands down to react to the sudden pain, and its attack fell far short. When Cyrus flicked a look to the origin of the lightning, he saw Larana dart away, casting a massive fire spell that she hurled into a knot of three titans. It became a swirling inferno, a tornado of fire that seemed to draw all three of them in as surely as if they were falling into a crevasse at its center.

Cyrus sprang toward Talikartin, who was watching Terian carefully, the two of them trying to gain the measure of each other. He was committed when a familiar cry from his right tore his attention away.

Vara
.

He swung around to see the paladin in the hands of Emperor Razeel, clutched tightly in his grip, her sword knocked away. The Emperor squeezed her and the sound of her armor creaking reached even Cyrus’s ears. The battle seemed to pause as everyone drew a breath, and Cyrus felt rage and acute terror rip through him with the force of a sword blow.

“I see I have your attention,” Razeel said with a fearsome grin. He brandished Vara as though he were holding a trophy, and she hammered uselessly at his fist. “We see now what you prize above all, hollow man. You are nothing but armor and a sword, no true believer in war.” Razeel’s knuckles went white as he squeezed Vara tighter. “I wonder if you will still care so much for her in pieces?”

And before Cyrus could move, Razeel thrust Vara up to his mouth and clamped his teeth down on her arm. Vara shrieked in pain as the Emperor of the titans found the joint of her armor, and the world around Cyrus seemed to hold completely still as fear and fury raged impotently inside him.

Razeel laughed through clenched teeth, and the sound of Vara’s armor straining under the power of his bite filled the air in the arena. The smell of death and gore was heavy in this place of sacrifice. Time slowed to a stop as Cyrus watched helplessly from a distance.

Vara, for her part, cut off her scream as soon as she realized she was doing it, and Cyrus locked eyes with her across the wide gulf of sand and bone between them. The braziers lit in the viewing area cast the whole arena in a burning orange light. When Cyrus looked into Vara’s eyes, he saw—

He saw—

Fury?

Her lips moved almost imperceptibly as Razeel clenched down tighter, and Cyrus remembered that while Vara did not have Praelior to give her exceptional speed, she did possess armor with more than a little enchantment of its own, rather than a sword to give her aid—

Vara’s force blast spell sprung forth from the hand trapped in Razeel’s mouth. When not trapped, Cyrus had seen her use of the spell bowl over countless men, growing in power from a merely stunning force when he had first seen it to something now approaching lethality. He knew, for his part, that he would not have cared to be on the receiving end of it ever, but especially not at this point in her evolution as a spellcaster.

Unleashed inside the mouth of the Emperor Razeel, the force she let loose was trapped with nowhere to go. Cyrus watched the Emperor’s eyes widen just a hint as he felt the first impact inside his mouth—

-and then his head exploded in a blast of blood, bone and tissue that reminded Cyrus of a fountain erupting after long disuse, disgusting ichor spraying up and out in every direction.

A silence fell over the arena as Vara dropped out of Razeel’s now-lifeless grip. She hit the ground and rolled, springing to her feet as the white light of her healing spell danced over her, her armor stained with the evidence of her kill. She swept her sword back into her hand and dodged the Emperor’s corpse as he toppled like a felled tree, the rattle of his armor against the bones on the arena floor a thunderous sound, echoing into the silence. “Idiot!” Vara said, a curse spoken in relief and anger.

“That’s not gonna be something you can heal with a spell,” Terian said dryly, breaking the spigot of silence wide open and unleashing a torrent of titan fury.

The titans moved in a complete lack of battle order, a frenzy unleashed by the rage of seeing their leader killed. Cyrus tore his gaze from Terian and Talikartin to Vara, who now had the attention of every single titan in the room. “Shit!” Cyrus breathed and broke into a dead run toward her, trying to beat the flood of titans heading her way.

Cyrus stabbed blindly as he scrambled to reach her, flying over the shoulders of countless enemies. He aimed for the neck but did not watch to see if he hit, paying more attention to his running than his swordplay. Vara, for her part, was already somewhere in the swarm below, bereft of a Falcon’s Essence spell. He could no longer see her under the crashing wave of titan backplates and helms, he could only try and carve his way through the onslaught to her.

She just killed the Emperor of Kortran.

She’ll be fine.

I dearly hope.

Please … let her be fine.

He swung hard on the exposed back of a titan neck, breaking a vertebra but failing to end the beast. The titan, did, however, stumble hard to his side, knocking over a wave of titans pushing against him. Cyrus counted it as a victory, albeit a small one, and then jabbed his sword more carefully on his next attack against the back of a titan’s head, planting his blade between the spinal joints and causing the titan to drop with barely a grunt, tripping those following behind as the beast was rolled over like a spinning log underfoot.

There were at least eight titans between Cyrus and Vara, in his estimation, and the sweat was stinging his eyes as he made to close that gap. He caught a flash of crimson robes beneath him and saw Scuddar In’shara standing off with one of the titans, drawing it away and engaging it in single combat with his scimitar. It looked like a ridiculous mismatch, but the man of the desert was holding his own easily, his blade spinning as he moved, dancing out of the way of attacks and inflicting more than a fair amount of damage of his own, parrying every strike of the titan and drawing more blood with each exchange. The titan’s arms were red to the elbows, and it roared at Scuddar as it came on once again, this time losing a finger in its attack.

Cyrus had no more time to watch, however mesmerizing Scuddar’s fighting style might have been. He charged forward, watching as arrows flew beneath him, spanging off the helm of the titan immediately beneath him. He saw Gareth atop the shoulder of another titan for just a second, drawing and shooting as it did a double take at his appearance. The elf leapt as the titan moved to deal with the ranger’s menace, and the titan ended up smacking himself on the shoulder hard enough to cause him to cry out. Gareth, for his part, had leapt to the shoulder of the next titan in line, his flawless balance keeping him upright as he drew again and fired.
Without a Falcon’s Essence spell?

That elf is crazy.

Cyrus ran on, encouraged by the realization that there was, at least, some help. He reached the front of the line, nearing panic, and had his sword in the wrong hand to even strike a blow at the last titan as he breezed past, running on air. Instead, he caught the nape of the helm, the flowing bit of steel that protected against attacks to the back of the wearer’s head. He slapped its edge as he went by, knocking the helm forward. The front, normally designed to rest on the titan’s forehead, fell down to cover his eyes as Cyrus ran past, not stopping to deal a deathblow.

He paused as he looked down at the spectacle below. A wave of emotion hit him as large as the titan advance, relief of a sort that was as unexpected as any titan ambush.

Vara was attacking the knee of a titan below, the one he’d blinded, holding back the advance on this front. The titan stumbled, all those behind him halted as they butted against his back. Cyrus moved with fleet feet, avoiding the inevitable fall of the creature. It was still blinded by his handiwork as it came down to its knees, and Vara leapt to finish it with a practiced cut across the throat.

Others were coming to the side, though, and this was the most surprising sight of all, Cyrus thought. Fortin held that line, somehow having cut through under the ranks of the titans to Vara’s side, with another standing just behind him. Andren stood in the rock giant’s shadow, a short sword in his hand and a wary look on his face. When he saw Cyrus he waved quickly with the sword, beckoning him down.

“Looks like you’ve got it under control here,” Cyrus said as they backed closer to the arena wall. The tier above them was empty in the Emperor’s box, and Razeel’s corpse was off to the side, still headless.
Terian was right; no healer can fix that.