by Jim Butcher
“Too bad he ran out of whiskey on the way home,” Demos commented judiciously. “He fights better when he’s drunk.”
The ongoing gale had churned up a thickening curtain of ice crystals, and Marcus couldn’t see the front of the ship. More vord continued to land, singly and in pairs, and everyone he could see was rushing to hack them down as quickly as possible, anxious to keep the weight of numbers in the Alerans’ favor. Another vord landed on the port side, and Demos glided forward to dispatch it before it could be joined by others.
Marcus found himself faced with a foe on the starboard side, but reacted too slowly to force it off the ship and found himself fighting simply to remain alive. His sword matched the scythes of the vordknight, turning one blow after another, and his experience offset the creature’s power and fearless aggression, allowing him to stay just outside the critical distances that would allow it to close and cut him to bits.
But he knew that he couldn’t keep it up for long. His foe was both stronger and faster than he, and it would only be a matter of seconds before he found himself unable to deny the vord an opportunity for a lethal onslaught. Terror gave him strength enough for the moment, but if the fight didn’t change in the next few seconds, he was a dead man.
Marcus’s hand found the ship’s rail behind him, and he retreated a few steps along it, the vord pursuing. His open hand hit a smooth shape, and he drew a heavy belaying pin from its rack on the rail and flung it at the vordknight’s head.
The vord’s scythes snapped up to block the missile an instant too late, and it struck the creature between its eyes. The vordknight staggered, and before it could recover, Marcus charged the foe, barreling it off the aft deck and falling six feet to the main deck, all of his armored weight coming down atop the vord. There was a loud popping sound, and vord blood flew out in a nauseating burst. The vordknight collapsed beneath Marcus like an emptied wineskin.
Marcus was shocked silent for an instant by the pain of the fall—and then howled in triumph as he realized that he was still alive. He came to his feet painfully, blinking gore from his eyes, and just as he’d reached them, a warning voice screamed, “Fidelias, behind you!”
Fidelias whirled, half-blinded with vord blood, his blade lifted to a defensive guard to find himself faced with . . .
Maestro Magnus.
There were no vord in sight.
Fidelias stared at Magnus for a second that seemed an eternity. He watched as the other man’s eyes hardened and narrowed. He watched as he saw his own acknowledgment of the truth reflected in the old Cursor’s eyes.
He’d just given himself away.
He stood there like that, staring at Magnus, as the gale winds began to ebb. The cloud of icy spray died away to the sounds of the defiant jeers of the Slive’s crew. The vord were retreating, but he and Marcus stood frozen.
“I admired you,” Magnus said quietly. “We all admired you. And you betrayed us.”
Fidelias lowered his sword, slowly. He stared down at it. “How did you know?”
“Accretion of evidence,” Magnus replied. “There are a limited number of individuals, by talent, training, and nature, who could accomplish the things you have. Given what you’ve done, how you’ve operated, I knew you had to be a Cursor. I made a list. But there aren’t many of us old Cursori Callidus left alive, after Kalarus’s Bloodcrows were through with us. It was a very short list.”
Fidelias nodded. It had only been a matter of time before he was discovered. He’d known that for quite a while.
“You are a traitor,” Magnus said quietly.
Fidelias nodded.
“You killed Cursor Serai. One of our own.”
“Yes.”
“How many?” Magnus asked, his voice shaking with rage. “How many have you murdered? How many deaths can be laid at your feet?”
Fidelias took a deep breath, and said quietly, “I stopped counting back when I still worked for Sextus.”
Fidelias wasn’t sure when Octavian and the others arrived, but when he looked up, the Princeps was standing beside Magnus, his retinue behind him. His eyes were hard, green stones.
“I watched you murder men not five feet from me on the wall at Garrison,” Octavian said quietly. “I watched you try to hang Araris. I watched you stab my uncle and throw him off the wall. You killed people I’d known my whole life in the Calderon Valley. Neighbors. Friends.”
Fidelias heard the strangled tone in his voice as something distant and unconnected to his thoughts. “I did those things,” he said. “I did them all.”
The Princeps’ right hand closed into a fist. The pop of his knuckles was like the crackling of ice.
Fidelias nodded slowly. “You knew I could lie to a truthfinder. You needed to elicit the reaction under pressure. This was a trap all along.”
“I told you I wanted to test a theory,” the Princeps said, his words clipped. “And when Magnus reported his suspicions to me, including word of your covert activities with Sha, it forced me to take action.”
The Princeps looked away, squinting out into the distance.
Fidelias said nothing. The silence was profound.
When the Princeps spoke, it was in a near whisper, thick with anger and grief. “I thought I would be proving your innocence.”
The words sent a pain through Fidelias’s guts as sharp and real as any sword’s thrust.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself ?” the Princeps asked.
Fidelias closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and drew in a slow breath. “I made my choices. I knew the consequences.”
Octavian stared at him in cold silence, and Fidelias suddenly realized that the posts he’d seen on the deck of the Slive were not replacements for broken spars.
Gaius Octavian turned his back and began to walk away, rigid with anger and pain. Each strike of his boots on the deck was distinct, final. He did not look back when he said, “Crucify him.”
CHAPTER 24
Tavi watched as Magnus and the execution detail left the ship. It included each of the Knights Ferrous on board and a pair of Demos’s most combat-capable sailors. They took Fidelias ex Cursori and the spars for the crucifixion with them.
“Tough to believe,” Max said quietly. “I mean . . . Valiar Marcus.”
“People lie, kid,” Demos said. “Especially about who they are.”
“I know, I know,” Max said quietly. “I’m just . . . just surprised, that’s all. He was always so solid.”
“All in your head,” Demos said calmly. “He was what he was. You’re the one who made him solid.”
Max glanced at Tavi. “Sir, are you sure you . . . ?”
Tavi grimaced, and said, “Max, he betrayed my grandfather after swearing to serve him. He gave his own student, back at the Academy, to the Aquitaines to be tortured. He is the only surviving member of the senior Cursori who could possibly have provided details about the organization to Kalarus’s Bloodcrows. I personally witnessed him kill half a dozen legionares defending the battlements at Second Calderon, and the plan he helped execute killed hundreds more. Any one of those crimes merits execution. In time of war, they merit summary execution.”
Max frowned and did not look at Tavi. “Do we know if he’s done anything since he assumed the identity of Valiar Marcus?”
“It doesn’t matter what he’s done since, Max,” Tavi replied, keeping his voice level, completely neutral. “He is guilty of treason. There are a host of crimes a First Lord can choose to be lenient about. There is one he absolutely cannot.”
“But . . .”
Crassus cut in, overriding his brother’s protest. “He’s right, Max. You know he’s right.”
Demos folded his arms and nodded at Max. “Be glad the fellow did some good before he got caught. It doesn’t give the dead back to their families. The man chose to kill. He crossed a line. He knew his own life might be forfeit because of it.” He nodded in the guard detail’s general direction. “Fidelias knows that. He k
nows that Octavian doesn’t have any choice in the matter. He’s made his peace with it.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Max asked.
Demos shrugged. “When Magnus spotted him, Fidelias didn’t kill the old man. He could have, easily, and for all he knew, it might have kept his secret. He could have tried to run before the battle was over. He didn’t.”
Tavi listened to it all without paying much attention. Marcus, a traitor. Marcus, who had saved his life only days ago, at considerable risk to his own. Marcus, who had done his best to murder members of Tavi’s family.
Not Marcus, he told himself. Fidelias. There was no Marcus. There never was a Marcus.
There were too many lies. They were starting to make his head hurt. The sun seemed too bright.
“As soon as the execution detail is back on board, please get under way, Captain,” Tavi said. “I’ll be in my cabin.” He turned before anyone could acknowledge him and walked back to his cabin with his head bowed. The curtains were already drawn, leaving the space fairly dark, and he sank down onto his bunk, shaking with postbattle adrenaline.
He had only been there for a few moments when the door opened, and Kitai entered. She walked across the little room, her steps brisk, and Tavi felt the gentle pressure of an aircrafting come up around them, to make their conversation a private one.
“Why are you being an idiot?” she demanded.
Tavi opened his eyes and looked at her. She stood over him with her legs planted in a wide, confident stance “Chala, do the Marat have a word for ‘diplomacy’?”
Her green eyes began to look almost luminous as her anger grew. Tavi could feel the heat of it pressing against him, simmering inside him. “This is not a time for humor.”
Tavi narrowed his eyes at her. “You disagree with what is happening to M—To Fidelias.”
“I do not know Fidelias,” she replied. “I know Marcus. He does not deserve this.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, he is guilty of treason, and the law is clear.”
“Law,” Kitai said, and spat on the deck as if the word had carried a bad taste. “He has fought loyally for you for years.”
“He has lied to me for years,” Tavi replied, and considerable heat burned in his own reply. “He has betrayed the trust of the Realm. He has murdered innocents, Citizens and loyal freemen.”
“And risked his life countless times on the field with us,” Kitai snapped back.
Tavi found himself hurtling up off the bed, his voice rising unbidden to a bellowing roar so loud that it made him see stars. “HE TRIED TO MURDER MY FAMILY!”
They both stood there for a moment, Tavi breathing heavily. Kitai looked him up and down, then slowly arched an eyebrow. “Of course. Your judgment is clearly unbiased, Your Highness.”
Tavi opened his mouth to reply, then forced himself to stop. He sat back down on the bunk, still breathing heavily. He stayed that way for a full minute. Then he looked back up at Kitai, and said, “Yes. He hurt me personally. But he did that to a lot of people. Even if the law didn’t mandate an execution, it would be a form of justice to allow him to be sentenced by those he had wronged.”
“No,” Kitai said. “It would be a needlessly bureaucratic form of revenge.” She paused, and added, with a faint wisp of wry humor, “Which, now that I think on it, is a functional description of Aleran law in any case.”
Tavi rubbed at his forehead with one hand. “It had to be this way. If he had run, I could have let him go. But he didn’t.”
“So you will waste him.”
Tavi frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“He knew what would happen to him if he stayed,” Kitai said. “Therefore, he wanted the outcome.”
“He wanted to die?”
Kitai frowned pensively. “I think . . . he wanted balance. Order. He knew that the things he has done were wrong. Submitting himself to sentencing, to justice was . . .” She shook her head. “I cannot remember the Aleran word.”
“Redemption,” Tavi said thoughtfully. “He wanted to confess. He knew he would not be forgiven for his crimes, but by choosing to act as he did . . .”
“He gained a sense of order,” Kitai said. “Of peace. He creates a solid Realm in his thoughts and pays a just penalty for the things he has done.” Kitai reached into a pocket and tossed him something underhand.
Tavi caught it. It was a triangle of chitin as long as his smallest finger—the tip of a vordknight’s scythe.
“Things have changed, my Aleran. The vord are here, and they will kill us all. It is madness to labor on their behalf.” She moved forward and put a hand on his arm. “And he has saved your life, chala. For that, I am in his debt.”
“Crows.” Tavi sighed and sagged back down, staring at the deck.
Kitai moved quietly to sit down on the bunk beside him. She put her wrist to his forehead. Her skin felt pleasantly cool.
“You have a fever, chala,” she said quietly. “You’ve been holding the weathercrafting too long.”
Tavi gritted his teeth. “Have to. Won’t be much longer. We should reach Phrygia by morning.”
“You told me that Sextus did this,” she said. “Pushed himself to do what he saw as his duty—even though it cost him his health, even though it put the Realm at risk of losing its First Lord.” She slid her hand down his arm to twine her fingers with his. “You said it was shortsighted of him. You said it was foolish.”
“He did it for weeks on end,” Tavi said.
“But not continually,” she countered. “Only at night, during his meditations.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tavi said. “If the ice melts, there’s no getting it back with spring coming on. I just have to hold it for a few more hours.”
She frowned, clearly unhappy, but did not gainsay him.
“You think I’m wasting Fidelias’s life.”
“No,” Kitai said. “He is there because he wanted to be there. You are wasting his death.”
He frowned at her for a moment, then her meaning sunk in. “Ah,” he said.
“He should be given the choice,” Kitai said. “If nothing else, you owe him that.”
Tavi leaned over and kissed her hair gently. “I think,” he said, “you may be right.”
Tavi walked carefully over the ice to the execution party. They were gathering up their tools and preparing to return to the ship. As he approached, they saluted.
“Leave us,” Tavi said. The men saluted again and hurried to return to the ship.
There were a number of allowable variants for crucifixion, ranging from the practical to the downright sadistic. Which one was used was mostly determined by how much anguish the authorities felt the offender had earned. Many were designed to contain and circumvent specific furycrafting talents.
For Fidelias, they had used steel wire.
He hung upon the crossed spars, his feet dangling two feet above the ground. His arms had been bound to the outthrust arms of the cross with dozens of circles of steel wire. More wire bound his waist to the trunk of the cross. That much steel would virtually neutralize his woodcrafting. Being suspended from the earth would prevent him from employing earthcrafting. He was dressed only in his tunic. His armor, weapons, and helmet had been taken from him.
Fidelias was obviously in pain, his face pale. His eyes and cheeks looked sunken, and the grey in his hair and stubbled face was more prominent than at any other time Tavi had seen him.
He looked old.
And weary.
Tavi stopped in front of the cross and stared up at him for a moment.
Fidelias met his eyes. After a time, he said, “You should go. You should catch up to the fleet before the next stop.”
“I will,” Tavi said quietly. “After you answer one question.”
The old Cursor sighed. “What question?”
“How do you want to be remembered?”
Fidelias let out a dry, croaking laugh. “What the crows does it matter what I want? I know what I
will be remembered for.”
“Answer the question, Cursor.”
Fidelias was silent for a moment, his eyes closed. The wind gusted around them, cold and uncaring.
“I never wanted a civil war. I never wanted anyone to die.”
“I believe you,” Tavi said quietly. “Answer the question.”
Fidelias’s head remained bowed. “I would like to be remembered as a man who tried to serve the Realm to the best of his ability. Who dedicated his life to Alera, even if not to her lord.”
Tavi nodded slowly. Then he drew his sword.
Fidelias did not look up.
Tavi stepped around to the back of the crossed poles and struck three times.
Fidelias abruptly dropped to the ground, cut free from the coils of wire by Tavi’s blade. Tavi took a step and stood over Fidelias, staring down at him.
“Get up,” he said quietly. “You are condemned to die, Fidelias ex Cursori. But we are at war. Therefore, when you die, you will do so usefully. If you truly are a servant of the Realm, I have a better death for you than this one.”
Fidelias stared up at him for a moment, and his features twisted into something like pain. Then he nodded in a single jerky spasm.
Tavi extended his hand, and Fidelias took it.
CHAPTER 25
The fleet reached Phrygia in the false light of predawn, when the eastern sky had just begun to turn from black to blue. Starlight and moonlight on the snow made it easy to see, and Antillus Crassus and a handful of Knights Pisces had flown ahead to bring official word of the fleet to Phrygius Cyricus, Lord Phrygius’s second son and seneschal of the city while his father was in the field.
“Times are changing,” Fidelias said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever outrun the wall’s grapevine without flying.”
“What makes you say that?” Tavi asked him.
The Cursor gestured up at the wall, where a surprisingly sparse number of faces looked out from the battlements. “If they’d gotten wind of something like this, the whole city would have turned out.”
Tavi glanced back behind him, at the seemingly endless river of masts and sails gliding over the ice. It had been an impressive sight when he’d first taken it in, even to someone who had sailed with a veritable armada over the deeps. To the folk and legionares of Phrygia, most of whom had never seen a tall ship, much less the open sea, it must be awe-inspiring, scarcely believable.