Codex Alera 01 - Furies of Calderon

by Jim Butcher

  Bernard’s face slowly spread into a smile. “Thank you, sire. I’ll . . . do my best not to disappoint you.”

  “You won’t,” Gaius said. “We’ll need to keep in close touch at first.” The First Lord glanced aside at Amara and said, “I will have to appoint a special courier to be our go-between. I’ll see if I can find someone willing to come all the way out here.”

  Bernard flushed, and Amara felt her own face heating at the same time.

  “Thank you, sire,” Bernard said, more quietly.

  Gaius winked. He gestured, and Count Bernard stepped to his left side, to stand with Sir Frederic.

  Amara smiled and said, “Doroga, of the Gargant Clan of the Marat. Step forward.”

  The crowd parted for the giant of a man, and Doroga strode over to Gaius, decked in gewgaws and rich clothing, which holders and legionares had given to him. He put his fists on his hips and looked Gaius up and down, then declared, “You aren’t old enough to be a headman.”

  Gaius laughed, the sound rich and rolling. “I look young for my age.”

  Doroga nodded wisely. “Ah. Perhaps that is it.”

  “I am here to thank you, Headman Doroga, for what you did for my Realm.”

  “I didn’t do it for your Realm,” Doroga said. “I did it for the young warrior. And would do it again.” Doroga lifted a finger and poked it lightly at Gaius’s chest. “You be good to him. Or you and I will have words.”

  Amara stared at the barbarian, appalled, but Gaius oniy tilted his head to one side, his lips quivering with the effort to restrain laughter. Then he took a step back and bowed to Doroga, to a sudden murmur from the Legion and the holders. “I will do so. Name me a boon, and if it is within my power, I will grant it to you.”

  “I owe favors to enough people already,” Doroga sighed. “We done?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Good.” Doroga turned and let out a piercing whistle, and from around the hill came a sullen young Marat girl on an enormous black bull gargant. Doroga walked over to her, swung up onto the great beast’s back, and nodded to Gaius before turning to ride away.

  “Colorful,” Gaius commented.

  “I’m sorry, sire. I didn’t know that he would —”

  “Oh, no, Cursor. It’s perfectly all right. Who is next?”

  They ran through a number of legionares and holders who had performed bravely during the incident, including a stammering Pluvus Pentius, who had saved a handful of children from a wounded herdbane by clubbing it to death with his accounts ledger.

  “Isana of Bernardholt,” Amara called, finally. “Please step forward.”

  Isana came forward in a gown of dark grey, her dark hair pulled back into a severe braid, her chin lifted. She walked forward and stopped before Gaius for a long moment before performing a deep and graceful curtsy to him, without lowering her eyes. Amara saw something cold there, something defiant, and she blinked at the hold woman.

  Gaius remained silent for a long moment, studying Isana. Finally he said, in a very quiet voice, “I understand that your courage and bravery saved a great many lives.”

  “There was only one I was truly concerned with, sire.”

  Gaius drew in a slow breath and nodded. “The boy. Your —”

  “Nephew, sire.”

  “Nephew. Of course.” Gaius glanced aside, at Amara. “And I am told you have ownership of a slave who likewise performed above and beyond anything expected of him.”

  Isana inclined her head again.

  “I will purchase this slave from you.”

  Isana looked up at Gaius, her expression strained. “I’m sure he isn’t what you think, sire.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. In the meanwhile, Isana, please kneel.”

  Isana did, her expression puzzled. Gaius once more drew his blade. “I dub thee Steadholder Isana, with all the responsibilities and privileges therein.”

  There was a second’s silence, and then a shocked murmur from the crowd of holders and from the legions behind Gaius.

  Gaius murmured, “The first appointed female Steadholder. Isanaholt. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  Isana flushed. “It does, sire.”

  “And your brother is going to be busy with his new duties. Someone needs to assume control. I see no reason anyone could object to you. Rise, Steadholder.”

  Amara smiled, as Isana stepped aside. “Tavi of Bernardholt, please step forward.”

  There was an eager murmur from the crowd.

  But no one stepped forward.

  Amara frowned. “Tavi of Bernardholt. Please step forward.”

  Still, no one did. Gaius arched an eyebrow, and Amara shot a helpless look at Isana. Isana closed her eyes and sighed. “That boy.”

  Gaius said, “Are you sure he wanted this reward, Cursor?”

  “Yes, sire,” Amara said. “He told me he was trying to return some sheep, so that he could use them to help him save some money for a semester at the Academy. That’s why he stumbled onto things to begin with.”

  “I’m not offering him a semester. I’m offering him patronage. He should be here.”

  Isana blinked at Gaius. “Patronage? To the Academy? My Tavi?”

  “The finest center of learning in all of Carna,” Gaius said. “He can study there. Grow. Learn all that he needs to lead a successful life.”

  Isana said, “He doesn’t need the Academy for that.”

  “Yet that is his wish, Steadholder Isana. And that is his reward. He will be Tavi Patronus Gaius and be trained at the Academy.”

  Isana nodded and said, “Yes, sire,” but her expression was worried.

  Bernard frowned, looking around for a moment. Then pointed and said, “Sire. There he is.”

  Everyone turned to look to the north of Bernardholt.

  After a moment’s silence, Gaius asked, “That is this Fade, with him?”

  Amara nodded. “Yes, sire.”

  Gaius frowned. “I see. Cursor, why wasn’t the boy here?”

  “He, um. He seems to be rather independently minded, sire.”

  “I see. And why is he doing that, instead of accepting his reward.”

  Amara fought to keep a smile off of her lips. “Sire. He’s a shepherd’s apprentice. I suppose he’s doing that because it’s what he set out to do.”

  And so the First Lord of Alera, surrounded by subjects, Citizens, and Knights of the Realm watched in silence while Tavi drove home Dodger’s little flock of ewes and lambs, the shaggy-haired Fade loping along behind him.

  Read on for an exciting excerpt from Book Two of the Codex Alera

  ACADEM’S FURY

  by Jim Butcher

  Now available from Ace Books

  Wind howled over the rolling, sparsely wooded hills of the lands in the care of the Marat, the One-and-Many People. Hard, coarse flecks of snow fled before it, and though the One rode high in the sky, the overcast hid his face.

  Kitai began to feel cold for the first time since spring. She turned to squint behind her, shielding her eyes from the sleet with one hand. She wore a brief cloth about her hips, a belt to hold her knife and hunting pouch, and nothing else. Wind threw her thick white hair around her face, its color blending with the driving snow. “Hurry up!” she called.

  There was a deep-chested snort, and a massive form paced into sight. Walker the gargant was an enormous beast, even of its kind, and its shoulders stood nearly the height of two men above the earth. His shaggy winter coat had already come in thick and black, and he paid no notice to the snow. His claws, each larger than an Aleran saber, dug into the frozen earth without difficulty or hurry.

  Kitai’s father, Doroga, sat upon the gargant’s back, swaying casually upon the woven saddlecloth. “We must hurry, since the valley is running from us. I see. Maybe we should have stayed downwind.”

  “You are not as amusing as you think you are,” Kitai said, glowering at her father’s teasing. Doroga smiled, the expression emphasizing the lines in his b
road, square features. He took hold of Walker’s saddle rope and swung down to the ground with a grace that belied his sheer size. He slapped his hand against the gargant’s front leg, and Walker settled down amicably, placidly chewing cud.

  Kitai turned and walked forward, into the wind, and though he made no sound, she knew her father followed close behind her.

  A few moments later, they reached the edge of a cliff that dropped abruptly into open space.

  “Look,” she said.

  Doroga stepped up beside her, absently slipping one vast arm around her shoulders. She watched as her father peered down, waiting for a lull in the wind to let him see the place the Alerans called the Wax Forest.

  Kitai closed her eyes, remembering the place. The dead trees were coated in the croach, a thick, gelatinous substance layered over and over itself so that it looked like the One had coated it all in the wax of many candles. Here and there, birds and animals had been sealed into the croach, where, still alive, they lay unmoving until they softened and dissolved like meat boiled over a low fire.

  Kitai shivered at the memory, then forced herself to stillness again, biting her lip. She glanced up at her father, but he pretended not to have noticed, staring down.

  The valley below had never in her people’s memory taken on snow. The entire place had been warm to the touch, even in winter, as though the croach itself was some kind of massive beast, the heat of its body filling the air around it.

  Now the Wax Forest stood covered in ice and rot. The old, dead trees were coated in something that looked like brown and sickly tar. And in the center of the Forest, the hollow mound lay collapsed and dissolved into corruption, the stench strong enough to carry even to Kitai and her father.

  Doroga was still for a moment before he said, “We should go down. Find out what happened.”

  “I have,” Kitai said.

  Her father frowned. “That was foolish to do alone.”

  “Of the three of us here, which has gone down and come back alive again the most often?”

  Doroga grunted out a laugh, glancing down at her with warmth and affection in his dark eyes. “Maybe you are not mistaken.” The smile faded, and the wind and sleet hid the valley again. “What did you find?”

  “Dead keepers,” she replied. “Dead croach. Not warm. Not moving. The keepers were empty husks. The croach breaks into ash at a touch.” She licked her lips. “And something else.”

  “What?”

  “Tracks,” she said in a quiet voice. “Leading away from the far side. Leading west.”