Chapter 32
"And then we left the same way we came in, Maestro, and now we're here. We were not seen entering the Deeps or moving here, except at the guard post on the stairs." Tavi faced Killian, working hard to keep his expression and especially the tone of his voice steady and calm.
Killian, sitting in the chair beside Gaius's bed, drummed his fingers on his cane, slowly. "Let me see if I understand you correctly," the old teacher said. "You went out and found the Grey Tower. Then you entered through the seventh-floor window, by means of a grappling hook and rope thrown from the top of the aqueduct, shielding yourself from air furies with a salted cloak, and from earth furies by not touching the ground. You then searched for Antillar floor by floor and found him, freed him and extracted him, all without being seen."
"Yes, Maestro," Tavi said. He nudged Max with his hip.
"He didn't seem to leave much out," Max said. "Actually, the room they had me in was quite a bit nicer than any I've ever had to myself."
"Mmmm," Killian said, and his voice turned dry. "Gaius Secondus had a prison suite installed when he arrested the wife of Lord Rhodes, eight hundred years ago. She was charged with treason, but was never tried or convicted, despite interrogation sessions with the First Lord, three times a week for fifteen years."
Max barked a laugh. "That's a rather extreme way to go about keeping a mistress."
"It avoided a civil war," Killian replied. "For that matter, the records suggest that she actually was a traitor to the throne. Which makes the affair either more puzzling or more understandable. I'm not sure which."
Tavi exhaled slowly, relieved. Killian was pleased-and maybe more than pleased. The Maestro only turned raconteur of history when he was in a fine mood.
"Tavi," Killian said. "I'm curious as to what inspired you to attempt these methods."
Tavi glanced aside at Max. "Um. My final examination with you, sir. I had been doing some research."
"And this research was so conclusive that you bet the Realm on it?" he asked in a mild voice. "Do you understand the consequences if you had been captured or killed?"
"If I succeeded, all would be well. If I'd been arrested and Gaius didn't show up to support me, it would have exposed his condition. If I'd been killed, I wouldn't have to take my final history examination with Maestro Larus." He shrugged. "Two out of three positives aren't terrible odds, sir."
Killian let out a rather grim little laugh. "Not so long as you win." He shook his head. "I can't believe how reckless that was, Academ. But you pulled it off. You will probably find, in life, that successes and victories tend to overshadow the risks you took, while failure will amplify how idiotic they were."
"Yes, sir," Tavi said respectfully.
Killian's cane abruptly lashed out and struck Tavi in the thigh. His leg buckled, nerveless and limp for a second, and he fell heavily to the floor in a sudden flood of agony.
"If you ever," Killian said, his voice very quiet, "disobey another of my orders, I will kill you." The blind Maestro sat staring sightlessly down at Tavi. "Do you understand?"
Tavi let out a breathless gasp in the affirmative and clutched at his leg until the fire in it began to pass.
"We aren't playing games, boy," Killian went on. "So I want to make absolutely sure that you realize the consequences. Is there any part of that statement that you don't comprehend?"
"I understand, Maestro," Tavi said.
"Very well." The blind eyes turned toward Max. "Antillar, you are an idiot. But I am glad you have returned."
Max asked, warily, "Are you going to hit me, too?"
"Naturally not," Killian said. "You were injured tonight. Though I will hit you when the crisis is past if it makes you feel better."
"It doesn't," Max said.
Killian nodded. "Can you still perform the role?"
"Yes, sir," Max said, and Tavi thought his voice sounded a great deal more steady than his friend looked. "Give me a few hours to rest, and I'll be ready to go."
"Very good," Killian said. "Take the cot. We can't have you seen running back and forth to your room."
"Maestro?" Tavi asked. "Now that Max is here..."
Killian sighed. "Yes, Tavi. I will write up orders to begin a full-scale search for Steadholder Isana. Will that be satisfactory?"
"Perfectly, sir."
"Excellent. I have some more missives for you to deliver. After that, I want you to get some more rest. Report back to me after your history examination. Dismissed."
"Yes, sir," Tavi said. He took up the stack of letters and turned to walk toward the door, favoring his still-throbbing leg.
Just as he got there, Killian said, "Oh, Tavi?"
"Sir?"
"Who else entered the Grey Tower with you?"
Tavi suppressed a rush of surprise and adrenaline. "No one, sir. Why do you ask?"
Killian nodded. "You stated that 'we' exited the way 'we' came in. It implies that someone else was with you."
"Oh. Slip of the tongue, Maestro. I meant to say that I was alone."
"Yes," Killian murmured. "I'm sure you did."
Tavi said nothing to that, and the old Maestro stared at him with those unseeing eyes for a solid minute of silence.
Killian chuckled then, and lifted a hand, his voice mild and not at all amused. "As you wish. We can take this up again later." He flicked his hand in a curt dismissal.
Tavi hurried from the meditation chambers and set about delivering the letters. Before the morning's second bell tolled, he delivered his last letter, another missive to Ambassador Varg in the Black Hall.
Tavi approached the guard post and found the same pair who had been there the day before. There was something about their expressions and bearing that seemed odd, somehow, and Tavi stared around the entrance to the Canim embassy until it dawned on him what was out of place.
The Canim guards were not present. The Alerans stood as always, facing the Canim embassy, but their Canim mirrors were gone. Tavi slipped in and nodded to them, dropping the letter through the bars and into the basket waiting there. Then he turned to the Alerans on duty and asked, "Where are the guards?"
"No idea," one of them said. "Haven't seen them all morning."
"That's odd," Tavi said.
"Tell me about it," the guard said. "This place is odd enough without adding anything else to it."
Tavi nodded to the men and hurried out of the palace, back to the Academy to return to the room he shared with Max.
On the way, he suddenly found himself trembling, and his breathing started coming swiftly, though he was only walking. His belly twisted around inside him.
Aunt Isana, taken and missing. And if he'd been faster, or more clever, or if he had slept a little more lightly to hear her messenger arrive, she almost certainly would not have been abducted. Assuming she had been abducted. Assuming she hadn't simply been taken elsewhere to be killed.
Tears blurred his vision, and his steps faltered for a second. His mind had run out of things to occupy it, he thought dully. As long as he'd been in motion, hunting Kitai, entering the Grey Tower, rescuing Max, and lying to Maestro Killian, he had been focused on the task at hand. Now, though, he had a temporary respite from those duties, and all the feelings he had forced down rose up into his thoughts, inevitable as the tides.
Tavi slammed open the door to his room, swung it shut, and leaned his back against it, eyes lifted to the ceiling. The tears wouldn't stop. He should have been able to control himself, but he couldn't. Perhaps he was simply too strained, too tired.
In the unlit room, Tavi heard movement, and then a moment later Kitai asked softly, "Aleran? Are you unwell?"
Tavi swept his sleeve over his eyes and looked at Kitai, who stood before him with a puzzled expression. "I... I'm worried."
"About what?"
He folded his arms over his stomach. "I can't tell you."
Kitai's pale eyebrows shot up. "Why not?"
"Security," he replied.
She looked at him blankly.
"Dangerous secrets," he clarified. "If Gaius's enemies learned them, it could get a lot of people hurt or killed."
"Ahhh," Kitai said. "But I am not Gaius's enemy. So it is all right to tell me."
"No, Kitai," Tavi began. "You don't get it. It..." He blinked for a second and thought it over. Kitai obviously was not a threat to Gaius. In fact, of everyone in Alera Imperia, she was probably the only person (other than Tavi himself) who he could be sure was not an enemy of the Crown. Obviously, Kitai would have no political leanings, no power or authority at stake, no conflicts of interest. She was a stranger to the Realm, and because of that, Kitai was immune to the influence of political and personal pressures.
And he wanted to talk to someone, very much. If only to get the twisting knot of serpents out of his belly.
"If I tell you," he said, "will you promise me never to speak of it with anyone but me?"
She frowned a little, her eyes intent on his face, then nodded. "Very well."
Tavi breathed out very slowly. Then he let himself slide down the length of the door to sit on the floor. Kitai settled cross-legged in front of him, her expression a mixture of interest, concern, and puzzlement.
Tavi told her all that had happened to him in recent days. She sat patiently through it, stopping him only to ask questions about words or people she didn't know.
"And now," Tavi finished, "Aunt Isana is in danger. It may already be too late to help her. And what's worse is that I'm almost certain that she wanted to reach the First Lord because there was some kind of trouble back in Calderon."
"You have friends there," Kitai said quietly. "And family."
Tavi nodded. "But I don't know what to do. That bothers me."
Kitai leaned her chin against the heel of one of her hands and studied him, frowning faintly. "Why?"
"Because I'm worried that there's something I'm missing," he said. "Something else I could be doing that would help. What if there's a way to solve this whole situation, and I'm just not smart enough to think of it?"
"What if a stone falls from the sky and kills you where you sit, Aleran?" Kitai said.
Tavi blinked. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"That not all things are in your control. That worrying about those things will not change them."
Tavi frowned and looked down. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe."
"Aleran?"
"Yes?"
Kitai chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. "You say this creature, Varg, has been acting strangely?"
"Looks that way," Tavi said.
"Is it possible that he does so because he is involved in what is happening to your headman?"
Tavi frowned. "What do you mean?"
Kitai shrugged. "Only that of all the things you describe, Varg is the one with no stomach to match his hands."
Tavi blinked. "What?"
She grimaced. "It is a Horse Clan saying. It does not translate well. It means that Varg has no reason to act as he has. So the question you must ask is why does he do this?"
Tavi frowned, mind racing. "Because maybe he does have a reason to do all these things. Maybe we just can't see it from where we're standing."
"Then what might that reason be?" Kitai asked.
"I don't know," Tavi said. "Do you?"
"No," Kitai said, undisturbed. "Perhaps you should ask Varg."
"He isn't exactly the type to engage in friendly conversation," Tavi said.
"Then watch him. His actions will speak."
Tavi sighed. "I'll have to speak to Maestro Killian about it. I don't think he can spare me to follow Varg around. And in any case, it isn't important to me."
"Your aunt is," Kitai said.
Aunt Isana. Tavi suddenly ached from head to foot, and his anxiety threatened to overwhelm him once more. He felt so helpless. And he hated the feeling with a burning passion of a lifetime of experience. His throat seized up again, and he closed his eyes. "I just want her to be safe. I want to help her. That's all." He bowed his head.
Kitai moved quietly. She prowled over to sit down beside him, her back against the door. She shifted, pressed her side to his, and settled down, relaxing, saying nothing but providing the solid warmth of her presence in a silent statement of support.
"I lost my mother," Kitai said after a time. "I would not wish that pain on anyone, Aleran. I know that Isana has been a mother to you."
"Yes. She has."
"You once saved my father's life. I am still in your debt for that. I will help you if I am able."
Tavi leaned against her a little, unable to give a voice to the gratitude he felt. After a moment, he felt warm fingertips on his face and opened his eyes to stare into Kitai's from hardly a handbreadth away. He froze, not daring to move.
The Marat girl stroked her fingers over his cheek, the line of his jaw, and tucked errant, dark hairs into place behind his ears. "I have decided that I do not like it when you hurt," she said quietly, her eyes never leaving his. "You are weary, Aleran. You have enemies enough without tearing open your own wounds over things you could not have prevented. You should rest while you have a chance."
"I'm too tired to sleep," Tavi said.
Kitai stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "Mad. Every one of you."
Tavi tried to smile. "Even me?"
"Especially you, Aleran." She smiled back a little, luminous eyes bright and close.
Tavi felt himself relaxing a little, leaning more toward her, enjoying the simple warmth of her presence. "Kitai," he asked. "Why are you here?"
She was quiet for a moment, before she said, "I came here to warn you."
"Warn me?"
She nodded. "The creature from the Valley of Silence. The one we awoke during the Trial. Do you remember?"
Tavi shivered. "Yes."
"It survived," she said. "The croach died. The Keepers died. But it left the Valley. It had your pack. It had your scent."
Tavi shivered.
"It came here," Kitai said quietly. "I lost its trail in a storm two days before I came here. But it had run straight for you the entire way. I have been looking for it for months, but it has not appeared."
Tavi thought about it for a moment. Then he said, "Well something like that could hardly have gone unnoticed in the capital," he said. "A giant, hideous bug would tend to stand out."
"Perhaps it also died," Kitai said. "Like the Keepers."
Tavi scratched at his chin. "But the Black Cat has been stealing for months," he said. "You've been here for months. If you'd only come to warn me, you could have done it and been gone. Which means there must be another reason you stayed."
Something flickered in her deep green eyes. "I told you. I am here to watch." Something in her voice lent the word quiet emphasis. "To learn of you and your kind."
"Why?" Tavi asked.
"It is the way of our people," Kitai said. "After it is known that..." Her voice trailed off, and she looked away.
Tavi frowned. Something told him that she would not take well to him pressing the question, and he did not want to say anything to make her move away. Just for a moment, he wanted nothing more than to sit there with her, close, talking.
"What have you learned?" he asked her instead.
Her eyes came back to his, and when they met, Tavi shivered. "Many things," she said quietly. "That this is a place of learning where very few learn anything of value. That you, who have courage and intelligence, are held in contempt by most of your kind here because you have no sorcery."
"It isn't really sorcery," Tavi began.
Kitai, never changing expression, put her fingertips lightly over Tavi's lips, and continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I have seen you protect others, though they consider you to be weaker than they. I have seen a very few decent people, like the boy we took from the tower." She paused for a moment in consideration. "I have seen women trade pleasure for coin to feed their children, and others do the same so that they could ignore their children while making themselves foolish with wines and powders. I have seen men who labor as long as the sun is up go home to wives who hold them in contempt for never being there. I have seen men beat and use those whom they should protect, even their own children. I have seen your kind place others of their own in slavery. I have seen them fighting to be free of the same. I have seen men of the law betray it, men who hate the law be kind. I have seen gentle defenders, sadistic healers, creators of beauty scorned while craftsmen of destruction are worshiped."
Kitai shook her head slowly. "Your kind, Aleran, are the most vicious and gentle, most savage and noble, most treacherous and loyal, most terrifying and fascinating creatures I have ever seen." Her fingers brushed over his cheek again. "And you are unique among them."
Tavi was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "No wonder you think us mad."
"I think your kind could be great," she said quietly. "Something of true worth. Something The One would be proud to look down upon. It is within you to be so. But there is so much hunger for power. Treachery. False masks. And intentional mistakes."
Tavi frowned faintly. "Intentional mistakes?"
Kitai nodded. "When one says something, but it is not. The speaker is mistaken, but it is as though he intends to be incorrect."
Tavi thought about it for a second and then understood. "You mean lies."
Kitai blinked at him in faint confusion. "What lies? Where does it lie?"
"No, no," Tavi said. "It is a word. Lies. When you say what is not true, intentionally, to make another think it is true."
"Lies means to... recline. For sleep. Sometimes implies mating."
"It also means to speak what is not so," Tavi said.
Kitai blinked slowly. "Why would you use the same word for these things? That is ridiculous."
"We have a lot of words like that," Tavi said. "They can mean more than one thing."
"That is stupid," Kitai said. "It is difficult enough to communicate without making it more complicated with words that mean more than one thing."
"That's true," Tavi said quietly. "Call it a falsehood instead. I think any Aleran would understand that."
"You mean all Alerans do this?" Kitai asked. "Speak that which is not correct? Speak falsehood."
"Most of us."
Kitai let out a faintly disgusted little breath. "Tears of The One, why? Is the world not dangerous enough?"
"Your people do not tell li-uh, falsehoods?" Tavi asked.
"Why would we?"
"Well," Tavi said, "sometimes Alerans tell a falsehood to protect someone else's feelings."
Kitai shook her head. "Saying something is not so does not cause it to be not so," she said.
Tavi smiled faintly. "True. I suppose we hope that it won't happen like that."
Kitai's eyes narrowed. "So your people tell falsehoods even to themselves." She shook her head. "Madness." She traced light, warm fingers over the curve of his ear.
"Kitai," Tavi asked, very quietly. "Do you remember when we were coming up the rope in the Valley of Silence?"
She shivered, her eyes steady on his, and nodded.
"Something happened between us. Didn't it." Tavi didn't realize he had lifted a hand to Kitai's face until he felt the warm, smooth skin of her cheek under his fingertips. "Your eyes changed. That means something to you."
She was silent for a long moment, and, to his astonishment, tears welled up in her eyes. Her mouth trembled, but she did not speak, settling instead for a slow, barely perceptible nod.
"What happened?" he asked gently.
She swallowed and shook her head.
Tavi felt a sudden intuition and followed it. "That's what you mean when you say that you came to Watch," he said. "If it had been a gargant, you'd be Watching gargants. If it had been a horse, you'd be Watching horses."
Tears fell from her green eyes, but her breathing stayed steady, and she did not look away.
Tavi ran his fingers lightly over her pale hair. It was almost impossibly fine and soft. "Your people's clans. Herdbane, Wolf, Horse, Gargant. They... join with them somehow."
"Yes, Aleran," she said quietly. "Our chala. Our totems."
"Then... that means that I am your chala."
She shuddered, hard, and a small sound escaped her throat. And then she sagged against him, her head falling against one side of his chest.
Tavi put his arm around her shoulders without thinking about it, and held her. He felt faintly surprised by the sensation. He'd never had a girl pressed up against him like this. She was warm, and soft, and the scent of her hair and skin was dizzying. He felt his heart and breath speed, his body reacting to her nearness. But beneath that was another level of sensation entirely. It felt profoundly and inexplicably right, to feel her against him, beneath his arm. His arm tightened a little and at the same time Kitai moved a little closer, leaned against him a little harder. She shook with silent tears.
Tavi began to speak, but something told him not to. So he waited instead, and held her.
"I wanted a horse, Aleran," she whispered, in a broken little voice. "I had everything planned. I would ride with my mother's sister Hashat. Wander over the horizon for no reason but to see what is there. I would race the winds and challenge the thunder of the summer storms with the sound of my Clanmates running over the plains."
Tavi waited. At some point, he had found her left hand with his, and their fingers clasped with another tiny shock of sensation that was simply and perfectly right.
"And then you came," she said quietly. "Challenged Skagara before my people at the horto. Braved the Valley of Silence. Defeated me in the Trial. Came back for me at risk to your own life when you could have left me to die. And you had such beautiful eyes." She lifted her tear-stained face, her eyes seeking out Tavi's once more. "I did not mean this to happen. I did not choose it."
Tavi met her gaze. The pulse in her throat beat in time with his own heart. They breathed in and out together. "And now," Tavi said quietly, "here you are. Trying to learn more about me. Everything is strange to you."
She nodded slowly. "This has never happened to one of my people," she whispered. "Never."
And then Tavi understood her pain, her heartache, her fear. "You have no Clanmates," he said softly. "No Clan among your people."
More tears fell from her eyes, and her voice was low, quiet, steady. "I am alone."
Tavi met her eyes steadily and could all but taste the anguish far beneath the calm surface of her words. The girl still trembled, and his thoughts and emotions were flying so fast and thick that he could not possibly have arrested any one of them long enough for consideration. But he knew that Kitai was brave, and beautiful, and intelligent, and that her presence was something fundamentally good. He realized that he hated to see her hurting.
Tavi leaned forward, cupping her face with one hand. Both of them trembled, and he hardly dared move for fear of shattering that shivering moment. For a little time, he did not know how long, there was nothing but the two of them, the drowning depths of her green eyes, the warmth of her skin pressed against his side, smooth under his fingertips, her own fever-hot fingers trailing over his face and throat, and through his hair.
Time passed. He didn't care how much. Her eyes made time into something unimportant, something that fit itself to their needs and not the other way around. The moment lasted until it was finished, and only then was time allowed to resume its course.
He looked into Kitai's eyes, their faces almost touching, and said, his voice low, steady, and certain, "You are not alone."
Chapter 33
Amara stared down at the outlaw's cave through the magnifying field of denser air Cirrus created between her outstretched hands. "You were right," she murmured to Bernard. She beckoned him with her head, and held her hands out so that he could lean down and peer over her shoulder. "There, you see, spreading out from the cave mouth. Is that the croach?"
The ground for two hundred yards in every direction from the cave mouth was coated with some kind of thick, viscous-looking substance that glistened wetly in the light from the setting sun. It had engulfed the heavy brush in front of the cave entrance, turning it into a semitranslucent blob the size of a small house. The trees near the cave, evergreens mostly, had been similarly engulfed, with only their topmost branches free of the gummy coating. All in all, it gave the hillside around the cave a pustuled, diseased look, especially with the ancient mass of the mountain called Garados looming over it in the background.
"That's the stuff from the Wax Forest, all right," Bernard said quietly. "This cave has always been trouble. Outlaws would lay up there, because it was close enough to Garados that none of the locals would be willing to go near it."
"The mountain is dangerous?" Amara asked.
"Doesn't like people," Bernard said. "I've got Brutus softening our steps so that the old rock won't notice us. As long as we don't get any closer, the mountain shouldn't give us any trouble."
Amara nodded, and exclaimed, "There, do you see that? Movement."
Bernard peered through her upheld hands. "Wax spiders," he reported.
He swallowed. "A lot of them. They're crawling all over the edges of the croach."
Doroga's heavy steps approached and paused close beside them. "Hngh," he grunted. "They are spreading the croach. Like butter. Grows out by itself but I figure they are trying to make it grow faster."
"Why would they do that?" Amara murmured.
Doroga shrugged. "It is what they do. If they get their way, it will be everywhere."
Amara felt a cold little chill run down her spine.
"They won't," Bernard said. "There's no sign of any of our people, taken or otherwise. I don't see any of their warriors, either."
"They are there," Doroga said, his rumbling voice confident. "They get in there in the croach, you can't see them. Blend right in."
Bernard put his hand on Amara's shoulder and stood, inhaling slowly. "I'm of a mind to go ahead with our plan," he told her. "We'll wait for dark and hit them hard. Get close enough to make sure the vord are in there, and finish them. Countess?"
Amara released Cirrus and lowered her hands. "We can hardly stand about and wait for them to come after us," she said. She glanced back at Bernard. "But these are your lands, Count. I'll support your decision."
"What is there to decide?" Doroga asked. "This is simple. Kill them. Or die."
Bernard's teeth showed. "I prefer hunting to being hunted," he said. "Doroga, I'm going to go circle that cave a good ways out. See if I can find out if they've got any other surprises hidden in there waiting for us. Want to come along?"
"Why not," Doroga said. "Walker is foraging. Better than standing around watching him root things up."
"Countess," Bernard said, "if you're willing, I'd like to see what you can spot from the air before we lose the light."
"Of course," she said.
"Three hours," Bernard said after a moment. "I'm telling Giraldi to be ready to hit them in three hours, just after full dark. If we don't find any surprises waiting, that's when we'll take the fight to them."
Amara inhaled and exhaled deeply, then rose with a forced calm and poise she did not feel, and called Cirrus to carry her up and into the air. She was still weary from an excess of windcrafting, but she had enough endurance for a short flight over the proposed battlefield. It would take her only a few moments.
And once it was done, the remaining hours before they moved would feel like an eternity.
Once Amara returned from her uneventful (and unenlightening) flight over the vord nest, she had settled down with her back to a tree to rest. When she woke, she was lying on her side, half-curled, her head pillowed on Bernard's cloak. She recognized the scent without needing to open her eyes, and she lay there for a moment, breathing slowly in and out. But around her, Giraldi's veterans were stirring, and weapons and armor made quiet sounds of metal clicking on metal and rasping against leather as they secured their arms and gear and prepared to fight. No one spoke, except for short, hushed phrases of affirmation as they checked one another's gear and tightened buckles.
Amara sat up slowly, then rose to her feet. She stretched, wincing. The mail hadn't been made to fit her, though it was tolerably close to functional, but her muscles weren't used to the weight of the armor, and they twitched and clenched painfully at odd moments and places as she put the strain on them again. She looked for the man closest to the vord nest and walked toward him.
"Countess," rumbled Bernard. There was a weak half-moon in the sky, occasionally veiled by clouds, and there was barely enough light for her to recognize his profile as he stared at the vord nest. His eyes glittered in the shadows over his face, steady and unblinking.
The vord nest, by night, looked eerie and beautiful. Green light flowed up from the croach, a faint, spectral color that created shapes and swirls of color while not managing to give much in the way of illumination. The green werelight pulsed slowly, as though in time to some vast heartbeat, making shadows shift and roil in slow waves around it.
"It's beautiful," Amara said quietly.
"Yes," he said. "Until you think about what it means. I want it gone."
"Absolutely," she said quietly. She stepped up beside him and stared at the nest for a while, until she shivered and turned to Bernard. "Thank you," she said, and held out his rolled cloak.
Bernard turned to her to accept it, and she heard the smile in his voice. "Anytime." He slung the cloak around his shoulders and clasped it again, leaving his left arm clear for shooting. "Or maybe not anytime," he said then. His voice was thoughtful. "You've changed your mind. About us."
Amara suddenly went very still and was glad that the darkness hid her expression. She could keep her voice steady. She could tell that much of a lie. She couldn't have looked him in the face as she did it. "We both have duties to the Realm," she said quietly. "I was blighted when I was a child."
Bernard was silent for a very long time. Then he said, "I didn't know."
"Do you see why it must be?" she asked him.
More silence.
"I could never give you children, Bernard," she said. "That alone would be enough to force you to seek another wife, under the law. Or lose your Citizenship."
"I never sought it to begin with," Bernard said. "For you, I could do without it."
"Bernard," she said, frustration on the edges of her voice, "we have few enough decent men among the Citizenry. Especially among the nobles. The Realm needs you where you are."
"To the crows with the Realm," Bernard said. "I have lived as a freeman before. I can do it again."
Amara inhaled, and said, very gently, "I have oaths, too, Bernard. Ones that I still believe in. That I will not disavow. My loyalty is to the Crown, and I cannot and will not set aside my duties. Or take upon myself others that could conflict with them."
"You think I am in conflict with the Crown?" Bernard asked quietly.
"I think that you deserve someone who can be your wife," Amara said. "Who can be the mother of your children. Who will stand at your side no matter what happens." She swallowed. "I can't be those things to you. Not while my oaths are to Gaius."
They both stood there for a time. Then Bernard shook his head. "Countess, I intend to fight you about this. Tooth and nail. In fact, I intend to wed you before the year is out. But for the time being, both of us have more pressing business, and it's time we focused on it."
"But-"
"I want you to get with Giraldi and make sure every man has his lamps," Bernard said. "And after that, get into position with Doroga."
"Bernard," Amara said.
"Countess," he interrupted, "these are my lands. These men are in my command. If you will not serve with them, then you have my leave to go. But if you stay, I expect to be obeyed. Clear?"
"Perfectly, Your Excellency," Amara replied. She wasn't sure if she was more annoyed or amused at his tone, but her emotions were far too turbulent to allow herself to react other than professionally. She inclined her head to Bernard and turned to walk back toward the legionares and to find Giraldi. She confirmed that each legionare carried two furylamps with him, and after that she found her way to the rear of the column, where the pungent scent of Walker, Doroga's gargant, provided almost as good a guide as the feeble light.
"Amara," Doroga said. He stood in the dark, leaning against Walker's flank.
"Are you ready?" Amara asked him.
"Mmm. Got him loaded up easy enough. You sure about this?"
"No," she said. "But then, what is sure in this life?"
Doroga smiled, his teeth a sudden white gleam. "Death," he said.
"That's encouraging," she said, her voice dry. "Thank you."
"Welcome," he said. "You afraid to die?"
"Aren't you?" she asked.
The Marat headman's head tilted thoughtfully. "Once I would have been. Now... I am not sure. What comes after, no one knows. But we believe that it is not the end. And wherever that path leads, there are those who went before me. They will keep me company." He folded his massive arms over his chest. "My mate, Kitai's mother. And after our battle last night, many of my people. Friends. Family. Sometimes, I think it will be nice to see them again." He looked up at the weak moon. "But Kitai is here. So I think I will stay for as long as I can. She might need her father, and it would be irresponsible to leave her alone."
"I think I will also try not to die," Amara told him. "Though... my family is waiting there, too."
"Then it is good you ride with me tonight," Doroga said. He turned, seized a heavy braided mounting cord, and swarmed easily up it onto Walker's back. He leaned over, tossing the line down to Amara and extending his hand to help her up, grinning. "No matter what happens, we have something to look forward to."
Amara let out a quiet chuckle and climbed up to settle behind Doroga on the woven saddle-mat stretched over Walker's broad back. The gargant shifted his weight from side to side, restless. Liquid sloshed in the wooden barrels attached to either side of the gargant's saddle.
Doroga nudged Walker forward, and the beast lumbered with slow, silent paces toward the area where the legionares were forming into their ranks. Amara watched as Giraldi prowled up and down their lines, baton in hand, giving each man an inspection in the wan moonlight. There was none of the centurion's usual bluster and sarcasm. His eyes were intent, his expression hard, and he pointed out flaws on two different legionares with a hard rap of the baton. The men themselves did not speak, jostle, or silently roll their eyes as the centurion passed. Every face was intent, focused on the task at hand. They were afraid, of course-only fools wouldn't be, and the veteran legionares were not fools. But they were professional soldiers, Aleran legionares, the product of a thousand years and more of tradition, and fear was one enemy to whom they would never surrender or lose.
Giraldi glanced up at her as the gargant lumbered quietly by and touched his baton to his chest in salute. Amara returned it with a nod, and the gargant went by to stop near Bernard and his remaining Knights-half a dozen each of earth and wood, none of them as gifted as Janus or Bernard, but each of them a solid soldier of several terms in the Legions, Shields had been abandoned entirely, the woodcrafters bearing thick bows while the earthcrafters bore heavy mauls and sledgehammers-except for the young Sir Frederic, who had opted to carry his spade into battle instead.
Bernard glanced up at Amara and Doroga. "Ready?"
Doroga nodded.
"Centurion?" Bernard asked the shadows behind him.
"Ready, my lord," came Giraldi's quiet reply.
"Move out," Bernard said, and rolled his hand through a short circle in the air that ended with him pointing at the nest.
The gargant's broad back swayed as the beast began walking forward, at no visible signal from Doroga. Amara heard a few soft creaks of worn leather boots and one rattle of what must have been a shield's rim against a band of steel armor, but beyond that the legionares and Knights moved in total silence. Glancing around, she could barely see the front rank of the legionares behind them, though they were no more than a dozen steps away. Shadows bent and blurred around them, the results of layers of subtle woodcraftings.
Amara's heart started pounding harder as they drew closer to the spectral green light of the croach. "Is this what your people did?" she asked Doroga in a whisper.
"More yelling," Doroga said.
"What if they come early?" she whispered.
"Won't," Doroga said. "Not until the Keepers warn them."
"But if they do-"
"We make them pay to kill us."
Amara's mouth felt dry. She tried to swallow, but her throat didn't feel as though it could move. So she fell silent and waited as they walked in tense, ready silence.
Bernard and his Knights reached the forward edge of the croach. He paused there, giving the legionares behind a chance to settle into their formation, then took a deep breath. He lifted his bow even as he knelt, a broad-bladed hunting arrow lying across the straining wood. He lined up the edge of the arrow with the surface of the croach, then released the arrow. The great bow thrummed. The arrow swept across the ground and, thirty or forty yards in, started cutting a long, fine incision in the surface of the croach. The waxy substance split, bursting like a boil, and luminous green fluid bubbled up out of the yards-long wound.
The vord nest erupted into violent motion, an alien wailing, whistling chorus rising into the night sky. Wax spiders, creatures as big as a medium-sized dog, burst up out of the croach. Their bodies were made of some kind of pale, partially translucent substance that blended in with the croach. Plates overlapped one another to armor their bodies while chitinous, many-jointed legs propelled them into leaps and jumps that covered twenty yards at a bound. The spiders emitted wailing shrieks and keening whistles, rushing for the long cut in the croach. Amara flinched in shock. She would never have believed that so many of them could have been so close, virtually under her nose, but invisible. There were dozens of them, moving over the croach, and as she watched the dozens became scores, then hundreds.
Bernard and his Knights Flora bent their bows and went to work. Arrows hissed unerringly into the wax spiders as they scuttled and leaped across the croach, these mounted with stiletto-shaped heads for piercing through armor. Launched from the heavy bows only a woodcrafter could bend, they proved deadly. Arrows flew home over and over again, ripping through the spiders, leaving them thrashing and dying, and they did not realize that they were being attacked at all for better than a minute.
Some of the nearer spiders spun to face the Aleran troops, eyes whirling with more luminous light and began bobbing up and down, letting out more whistling shrieks. Others picked up the call, and in seconds the whole horde of them had turned from the wounded croach and began rushing at their attackers.
"Now!" Bernard roared. The bowmen fell back, still shooting, arrows striking wax spiders out of the air even as they flew toward the Alerans. Half of Giraldi's infantry advanced onto the surface of the croach, grounded their shields hard on the waxy substance, and stood fast as the wave of wax spiders rolled into their shieldwall.
The legionares worked together, their usual spears discarded in favor of their short, heavy blades that hacked down upon the spiders without mercy or hesitation. One man faltered as three spiders overwhelmed him. Venomous fangs sank into his neck, and he staggered, creating a dangerous breach in the line of shields. Giraldi bellowed orders, and fellow legionares in the ranks behind the first seized the wounded man and hauled him back, then stepped into his place in the line. The slaughter went on for perhaps half a minute, then there was a brief hesitation in the wax spiders' advance.
"Second rank!" bellowed Giraldi. As one, the legionares in the shieldwall pivoted, allowing the second rank of fresh soldiers to advance, ground their shields a pace beyond the first, and ply their blades with deadly effect. Endless seconds later, another break in pressure allowed the third rank to advance in their turn, then the fourth, each one allowing more rested legionares to advance against the tide of wax spiders.
Their heavy boots broke through the surface of the croach so that the viscous fluid within oozed and splashed around every step, and made for poor footing-but they had drilled, maneuvered and fought in mud before, and Giraldi's veterans held their line and steadily advanced toward the cave, while Bernard's archers warded their flanks, arrows striking down the spiders that attempted to rush from the sides.
"Just about halfway there," Doroga rumbled. "They'll come soon. Then we-"
From the mouth of the cave there came another shriek, this one somehow deeper, more strident and commanding than the others. For a second there was silence, then motion. The spiders began bounding away from the Alerans, retreating, and as they did the vord warriors boiled forth from the cave's mouth.
They rushed the Aleran line, dark plates of armor rattling and snapping, vicious mandibles spread wide.
"Doroga!" Bernard bellowed. "Giraldi, fall back!"
The Marat headman barked something at Walker, and the gargant hauled himself around and began to lumber back the way they had come, following the channel crushed through the croach. As he did, Amara leaned over the barrels mounted on Walker's saddle and struck away the plates that covered large tap holes at their bases. Lamp oil mixed with the hardest liquor Giraldi's veterans could find flooded out in a steady stream as Walker retreated, leaving two wide streams that spread out through the channel of broken croach. Giraldi's veterans broke into a flat-out run, racing toward the edge of the croach, and the vord followed in eager pursuit.
As the first legionares came to the end of the croach, Giraldi snapped another order. The men whirled, snapping into their lines again, this time on either side of the channel, shieldwalls aligned to funnel the vord warriors between them. The vord, reckless and aggressive, flooded directly toward the Alerans, their course guided by the shieldwalls, which channeled them directly into Doroga, Walker, and the crushing strength of Bernard's Knights Terra.
Walker let out a fighting bellow, rising up onto his rear legs to slash one vord from the air as it tried to take wing, and the gargant's crushing strength was more than a match for the vord's armor. It fell broken to the ground, while Amara clutched desperately on to Doroga's waist to keep from falling off the beast's back entirely.
The Knights Terra held the gargant's flanks, and ripples of earth, furycrafted by the Knights, lashed out at the vord as they closed, shattering the momentum of their charge and exposing them to well-timed blows from the savage hammers that crushed vord armor plates like eggshells.
And all of it was nothing but a prelude to the true attack.
"Giraldi!" Bernard cried.
"Fire!" the centurion bellowed. "Fire, fire, fire!"
Along the whole of the Legion shieldwall, furylamps blazed into full and blinding brilliance.
And as one, the legionares hurled the lamps down into the viscous liquid of the broken croach mixed with lamp oil and alcohol.
Flames spread with astonishing speed, the individual fires in nearly a hundred places rapidly meeting, melding, feeding one another. Within seconds, the fire blazed up and began to consume the entrapped vord warriors.
Now the legionares had to fight in earnest, as desperate vord tried to batter their way out of the trap. Men screamed. Black smoke and hideous stench filled the air. Giraldi bellowed orders, hardly audible over the frenzied rattling and clicking of the armored vord.
And the lines held. The vord at the rear of the trap managed to reverse their direction, streaming back toward the cave.
"Countess!" Bernard cried.
Amara reached out for Cirrus and felt the sudden, eager presence of her wind fury. She took a deep breath, focused her concentration, and shouted, "Ready!"
"Down, down, down!" Giraldi barked.
Amara saw everything moving very, very slowly. All along the lines, legionares abruptly drew back a pace and dropped to one knee, then to their sides, their curving tower shields closing over them like coffin lids. Desperate vord staggered and thrashed their way to their deaths, while those who had managed to retreat drove directly for the cave.
Amara drew Cirrus into her thoughts and sent it, with every ounce of her will, to fly toward the fleeing vord.
A hurricane of violent wind swept down from the air at Amara's command. It caught up the blazing liquid and hurled it in a sudden, blinding storm of blossoming flame. Fire engulfed the air itself, fed wildly by the wind, and the heat burned away the croach wherever it touched, melting it like the wax it resembled. Croach-covered trees burst into individual infernos, and still the frantic fire, driven by Amara's wind, rolled forward.
It engulfed the last of the vord who had attacked fifty feet short of the mouth of the cave-and then kept right on going, fires spreading and whirling madly, burning away the croach wherever it touched it.
Amara's concentration and will faltered in a sudden, nauseating spasm of fatigue, and she slumped hard against Doroga's back. Without the gale winds to feed and push them, the fires began to die down into individual blazes. There was no sign whatsoever of any croach anywhere upon the surface-only blackened earth and burning trees.
They'd done it.
Amara closed her eyes in exhaustion. She didn't feel herself listing to one side until she actually began to fall, and Doroga had to turn and catch her with one heavily muscled arm before she pitched off Walker's back and to the ground.
Things were blurry for a few moments, then she heard Bernard giving orders. She forced herself to lift her head and look around until she spotted Bernard.
"Bernard," she called weakly. The Count looked up from where he knelt, supporting a wounded soldier while a healer removed a broken shard of vord mandible from the man's leg. "The queen," Amara called. "Did we kill the queen?"
"Can't say yet," he replied. "Not until we check the cave, but it's a death trap. Has a high ceiling, but it isn't deep. It wouldn't surprise me if the firestorm cooked everything inside."
"We should hurry," she said, while Doroga slowly turned Walker around to face away from the cave. "Finish it before it has the chance to recover. We have to kill the queen or it's all for nothing."
"Understood. But I've got men dying here, and no watercrafter. We see to them first."
"Hey," Doroga growled. "You two. The queen is not in the cave."
"What?" Amara lifted her head blearily. "What do you mean?"
Doroga nodded grimly toward the crest of the hill behind them, back toward Aricholt.
The taken holders were there in a silent group, a simple crowd of people of all ages and both sexes who stood there in the weak moonlight and stared down at the Aleran forces with empty eyes.
Beside them stood Felix's century, together with what looked like every single legionare they'd been compelled to leave behind at Aricholt.
And all of them had been taken.
At the head of the silent host, something crouched low, and Amara had no doubts whatsoever as to what she was looking at. It was man-sized, more or less, and little more than an oddly shaped shadow. If it hadn't been for the luminous glow of its eyes, Amara would have thought that the vord queen was only an illusion of bad light and heavy shadows.
But it was real. It took a slow, steady pace down the slope of the hill, moving weirdly, as if walking on four legs when it was meant for two, and at precisely the same instant the entire taken host stepped forward as well.
"Furies," Amara breathed, almost too tired to be terrified at what she saw. Even as they had sprung their trap on the vord, the vord had been circling behind them to strike at the weaker target. Back at Aricholt, even a few taken had proved to be deadly-and now they outnumbered the legionares still left to face them.
"Bernard," she said quietly. "How many wounded?"
"Two dozen," he said tiredly.
The taken poured down the hill, in no great hurry, led by the glowing-eyed shadow at their forefront. Something like hissing, moaning laughter echoed through the night, dancing among the popping sparks of the burning trees.
"There are too many of them," Amara said quietly. "Too many. Can we run?"
"Not with this many wounded," Bernard said. "And even if we could move them, we've got our backs pinned to Garados. We'd have to retreat over his slopes, and no one could conceal that much movement from the mountain."
Amara nodded and drew in a deep breath. "Then we have to fight."
"Yes," Bernard said. "Giraldi?"
The centurion appeared. He had blood on his leg, and there was a savage dent in the overlapping plates guarding one shoulder, but he struck his fist to his breastplate sharply. "Yes, my lord."
"Get everyone moving," he said quietly. "We'll fall back to the cave. We can fight in shifts there. Maybe hold out for a while."
Giraldi looked at Bernard for a moment, and there was no expression on his face but for troubled eyes. Then he nodded, saluted again, turned, and started giving quiet orders.
Amara closed her eyes wearily. Some part of her wondered if it might not be better to just go to sleep and let events take their course. She was so very tired. She tried to find some reason to keep herself moving forward, to keep pushing away despair.
Duty, she thought. She had a duty to do her utmost to protect the nobles, legionares, and holders of the Realm. That duty did not permit simple surrender to death. But it felt hollow. More than anything, she wanted to be someplace warm and safe-but duty was a cold and barren shelter for a wounded spirit.
She looked up again and saw Bernard helping a wounded man rise and hobble along to the cave while leaning on the haft of his spear. He helped the man get started, encouraging him, and turned to the next man in need of help while he organized their retreat-however temporarily it might extend their lives.
He was reason enough.
Doroga abruptly started laughing.
"What is so amusing?" she asked him quietly.
"Good thing we talked before this," Doroga rumbled, eyes merry. "Otherwise, I might have forgotten that no matter what happens, we got something to look forward to." He was still laughing to himself under his breath as he turned Walker to bring up the rear of the Aleran column.
Amara turned her head as they rode and watched the vord queen and the taken slowly closing in behind them.
