Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera 5)

Two more spiders, she realized, were busy repairing a trail of damage in the croach inside the building-footprints. Human footprints. They led from the doors to the dead scouts.

The Vord were without pity but also without rancor. None of the other bodies showed signs of torment. They were simply... devoured.

Alerans had done this, she realized.

Alerans had done this.

Amara saw in her mind's eye the Alerans surrounding the Vord queen at the battle of Ceres and shivered again-this time with raw rage.

She felt her husband's presence next to her, the brush of his body against hers as he looked at the inside of the barn as well. She felt it when the same realization reached him, when his body tensed suddenly and one of his knuckles made the softest of creaks beneath his gloves as his hand tightened into a furious fist.

She touched his wrist, willing her rage into frozen stillness, and the two turned to begin making their torturously slow way across the croach again, and out of the steadholt. They took off the croach shoes and ghosted back into the countryside. Without a word, Amara stepped back and let her husband take the lead.

Whoever had tortured the scouts had done so within hours of when Amara had found the bodies. Whoever the culprits had been, they were obviously tied in some fashion to the Vord, to the Alerans who had been helping them-the source of the Vord's furycraft. They were therefore a lead to the heart of Bernard and Amara's mission, and in all probability, they had left a trail.

Bernard took the lead. He would find them.

It took the best part of two days of almost unceasing, agonizingly cautious movement to catch up to the traitors who had tortured the scouts. Their trail led back to Ceres.

The Vord had taken the city.

Croach was growing within the walls. As the sun set, it threw up a sullen green light upon the grey-white stones of the city, making them look eerily translucent, like jade illuminated from within. From outside the walls, the city was eerily still and silent. No watchmen called. No bells tolled. No clip-clop of horses' hooves rattled from the stones. There were no voices, no singing from the wine houses, no mothers calling their children in as the sky settled from twilight to night.

One could hear, very faintly, the murmuring of the city's fountains, still flowing despite the Vord presence. And, every so often, the eerie, warbling call of one of the Vord echoed up from one of the streets or rooftops within.

Amara shivered.

She got close enough to Bernard to be seen clearly and signed to him. Quarry. Where?

Bernard pointed at what had been the High Lord's citadel in the middle of the city and added the sign Maybe.

Amara grimaced. She'd been thinking the same thing herself. The citadel would be the most secure place in Ceres. If she were an Aleran among a horde of Vord, she would want the thickest walls and strongest defenses around her when she slept. Agreed. Proceed?

Bernard signaled agreement. Begin where?

A good point. They could do without walking in through the front gates, relying purely upon their furycrafted veils to protect them from detection. Amara, like most Cursors, knew about a dozen different ways to enter all of the High Lords' cities unobtrusively. It was a far easier matter in a large city than in smaller towns, really.

She signaled Bernard to follow her and started for the slavers' tunnels that ran under the west wall of the city.

The tunnels had been sealed prior to the Vord attack, of course, but as she had fully expected, they had been opened by panicked inhabitants of the city as they fled. The tunnel entries all showed the rough, outward-flung ripples of stone moved aside in haste by earthcrafters of mediocre talent, and were wide enough, just barely, for an adult carrying a heavy pack to slip through. Best of all, none of the three entrances within easy reach showed any sign of the Vord, either upon the ground outside or within the tunnels themselves. The only marks were the tracks of booted feet.

It was a good sign. The bulk of the Vord forces had pursued the First Lord and the Legions as they fled to the north. It meant that the city was probably only lightly occupied, rather than being a seething hive. They might be able to move with more speed once they were within.

Amara slipped into the dark mouth of the nearest tunnel. Furylamps were still burning inside, though they were of poor quality and spaced widely.

She drew close to her husband, once within, and crafted a globe of still air about their heads and shoulders that would not allow their words to escape into the close confines of the tunnels. "Lucky," she breathed, her voice a whisper, harsh from disuse. "We still have light enough to move by."

Her husband drew her a little closer to his chest and made a low rumble in his throat. "I'd think it was too convenient if I hadn't lived the past week."

"They can't be strong everywhere," Amara replied. "If there were that many of them, they wouldn't have needed to pursue the First Lord so closely."

Bernard frowned at that and nodded slowly. "He's still a threat to them." He glanced around at the tunnel, his eyes wary but more confident. "What is this place?"

"The slavers in Ceres had a problem," Amara said. "A ready market, opposed by organizations of fanatic abolitionists, who would attempt to disrupt shipments of slaves and murder slavers as creatively as possible. The slavers created these tunnels as secure means in and out of the city."

"Somehow," Bernard said, a hint of a smile on his lips, "I think that whatever happens, that problem has been permanently solved."

Amara found herself tittering on the edge of a half-hysterical giggle. "Yes, I suppose so."

Bernard nodded down the tunnel. "Smells foul, though. Where does it lead?"

"The auction house, in the western city square. It's less than five hundred yards from the citadel."

"Excellent," Bernard said. His eyes went back to hers. "How are you?"

Amara thought it was the simple humanity of the question, in the face of the horror they had seen, that made her chest pang so sharply. She was tired. She ached in every limb and every joint. She was hungry, shaky, and terrified on such a steadily ongoing basis that it had begun to lose its bite and fade into numb indifference. The reminder of a kinder, gentler world, of the times they had shared speaking quietly, or sleeping beside one another, or making love, flared up in a hideously bright, dangerous fire inside her.

She looked away from him and spoke with a shaking voice. "I... I can't. Not yet. We still have work to do."

His hands rose to her upper arms and squeezed gently. His voice came out warm, quiet, steady. "It's all right, love. Let's be about it. We need to consider-get down!"