Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Read Free Page A

Their shared voices all offered up to the heavens, they banged their mailed feet against the floor as though trying to make the Sanctuary army flinch with their effort. Vara grasped her sword tighter and she felt the tension in the ranks behind her as others did the same, knowing that the charge was coming, and that it would be short and bloody. There was a rattle of swords and behind her the noise of tense breaths being drawn. Another smell reached her nose, flooded it, the scent and feeling of humidity, of mist in the air, and she saw it swirl around her feet, so dense that the stones of the floor disappeared beneath a thick layer of the wafting, whitish clouds.
    The mist gathered and swirled into the corner behind the dark elves, who continued their rage and bluster, making a fearsome racket that drowned out almost all else in her ears and made her head ache from the noise of it. A solid mass began to take shape behind the dark elves, who were oblivious to the sight of a perfect cloud forming in the corner. It grew in size and volume and turned darker, a storm gathering unto itself, until finally a hand swept out following the point of a sword, and Alaric Garaunt appeared behind them from within the depths of it. Vara saw three fall with the first attack as the Ghost’s ancient blade, Aterum, swung high and sloped a bloody line on the brown stones of the wall to his side as it descended.
    Vara could hear the collective intake of breath around her, the Sanctuary soldiers waiting, their line formed to contain the last dark elves. They watched as the screams and chaos consumed the dark elves and shattered their formation, as the elvews, so prepared for bloody sacrifice and shouting their willingness to die for the Sovereign only moments earlier, fell to pieces under the onslaught of one man behind them. It was short and bloody, covered in the swirl of fog and mist, and in the end it came down to a final dark elf, and Alaric held him out at the edge of his blade, the warrior trembling. There had been twenty or more of them in the corner before the Ghost had appeared, and the last seemed to realize this, his breath coming in shuddering gasps, his sword clenched in his fist, navy skin around his knuckles turned sky-blue from the strength of his grip.
    Alaric stared down his sword at the dark elf, who dropped his weapon with a clatter, and began to raise his hands. The Ghost stared down, his lone eye unflinching. Vara caught an almost imperceptible shudder down Alaric’s arm and the sword began to move, sliding through the belly of the dark elf, who gasped and looked up at Alaric with wide eyes.
    “You have sieged and invaded my home, slain my brothers and sisters.” Alaric’s voice was low and as filled with malice as Vara had ever heard it. “Let this be a warning to you and yours; there is no mercy for those who would do such things.” His palm reached out and the dark elf shuddered as a surge of power shot from Alaric’s gauntlet, the energy of the spell sending the dark elf into the wall at such a speed that Vara could hear the splatter of his flesh and blood even as she turned her head not to look.
    When she turned back, Alaric stood, red splotching the battered surface of his armor, looking coldly down at his hand as though it were something foreign to him. “Alaric?” Her voice was barely above a whisper but it stirred him as though drawing him from a trance. “We have been attacked from within; we must make preparations to protect ourselves. We must either shut down the portal or station a small army here to deal with additional assaults should they come. We need a messenger to go speak with Thad at the wall; we may have to reinforce the guard there if the dark elves are attacking.”
    The Ghost stared back at her, quiet, almost lifeless, before finally nodding his head underneath his massive helm. “Let it be done.” He looked through the crowd until his eye came to rest on Larana. “Go to Thad. See if the