by Jim Butcher
“Did all that skulking around murdering people damage your hearing, Countess?” His eyes blazed. “Kalarus Brencis Minoris was my friend. And you killed him. So that is exactly how this is going to happen.”
“I won’t go into the details about how many deaths we can confidently lay at that young maniac’s feet, Sir Ceregus. There isn’t time.” Amara met his eyes. “Lives are at stake, and we need the Marat. That means Doroga needs to be a part of our planning. So if you don’t get out of my way, Sir Knight, I am going to move you. You will not find it a pleasant experience. Stand aside.”
Ceregus lifted his chin and sneered down at her. “Is that a thr—”
Amara called upon Cirrus, surged toward the young Knight with all the violent speed her fury could lend her, and slammed the heel of her left hand across the idiot’s jaw.
Rivus Ceregus went down like a poleaxed ox.
The legionares on sentry duty all stared in silence at the unconscious man, their eyes wide and stunned.
Doroga burst into a full-bellied laugh. He smothered it a second later and bowed his head as if pretending to unravel a loose thread from his tunic—but his shoulders quivered and jerked with his muffled amusement.
Amara would have been tempted to join him if her left wrist hadn’t felt as though she had broken it. Human hands weren’t meant to deliver blows with that kind of speed and force. She clenched the fingers of her right hand into a tight fist to channel the pain elsewhere, made a mental note to stop abusing her limbs like that, then turned a calm gaze on the sentries and nodded at the youngest. “You. Go into the command tent. Find a senior officer and ask whether or not the clan-head is welcome to attend.”
The legionare threw her a sketchy, hasty salute, and hurried into the tent. “You,” Amara said, nodding at another one. “Fetch the nearest healer for the idiot.”
“Y-yes, ma’am,” the legionare said. He hurried away, too.
“I apologize for the delay,” Amara said to Doroga. “I’m sure we’ll have things cleared up in a moment.”
“No hurry,” Doroga said, a wide grin on his ugly face.
Bernard emerged from the bustle of the camp, threading his way between several sets of smith’s apprentices, pairs of whom were carrying multiple suits of newly made Legion lorica on stout poles. Bernard nodded to Doroga and clasped forearms with the Marat, then turned to Amara.
His jaw hadn’t been pulverized to powder by Invidia’s blow, but it had apparently broken into half a dozen shards. The healers had only just been able to fuse the bones back together, including replacement teeth for the ones that had been knocked out, but there was still considerable swelling. It would take multiple sessions and simple time to repair his jaw entirely, and in the face of the battle at hand, the healers had neither to spare. When Bernard spoke, the words came from between clenched teeth, slightly misshapen. “Doroga. My lady. Have they started yet?”
“I’ve no idea,” Amara said. “One of Valerius’s dogs was in charge of the sentries and barred Doroga. We’re working things out.”
Bernard looked gravely down at the unconscious man. “My wife. The diplomat.”
“Don’t start,” Amara said.
Within a minute, the legionare returned from the command tent, nodding to Amara. “Countess, the Princeps sends his compliments and extends his gratitude to the clan-head for coming to us in our hour of need. He is by all means welcome to attend.”
She glanced at her husband and rolled her eyes. “Thank you, legionare. Doroga, if you please?”
Doroga joined Bernard in looking down at the unconscious man and scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “Maybe even if I didn’t.”
They proceeded inside and found Gaius Attis waiting for them. He was seated at a chair on a small platform overlooking a sand table configured to represent the Calderon Valley. A heavy blanket covered his legs, and he looked pale. Sir Ehren stood in attendance at his side and a bit behind him, and Placida Aria stood in a similar position opposite Ehren.
Gathered in the tent were most of the highest-ranking Citizens of the Realm, a group of tired, bloodied, travel-stained men and women with proud bearing and grim expressions. Every surviving High Lord was present, along with most of the High Ladies. The captains of the Legions were also there, along with representatives from the Senate—who, Amara felt sure, were there mostly in a ceremonial function. All things considered, the tent was quite crowded.
Amara spotted Lady Veradis standing beside her father, the silver-haired Lord Cereus.
“Amara,” Veradis said, and hurried over, her expression concerned. “What happened?”
“Oh, I bumped my hand into something obstinate,” Amara replied.
Veradis took her by the left arm and lifted Amara’s hand in tandem with her own eyebrow. “This is broken.”
“In a good cause. I’ll have someone see to it when we’re finished.”
Veradis made a clucking sound with her mouth, and said, “Oh, you’re impossible. Just give it to me.”
“There’s no need to—”
Veradis lifted her left hand and quite calmly snapped her stiffened fingers and thumb together, as if in the motion of a closing mouth, then cradled Amara’s wrist gently and murmured something to herself. The pain eased over the next several seconds, and Amara let out a breath of relief.
“That’s him, huh?” Doroga asked Bernard.
“Yes.”
Doroga shook his head, studying Gaius Attis. Then he said, “Be right back.”
The broad-shouldered barbarian calmly approached the Princeps. As he got close, both Ehren and Lady Placida seemed to grow tenser. Lady Placida slid half a step forward, to place herself between Doroga and Attis.
“Take it easy, woman,” Doroga drawled. “Just want to talk to the man.”
“Your weapon, sir,” Aria said stiffly.
Doroga blinked, then seemed to remember his cudgel. He offered it to Lady Placida by its handle, and released it as soon as she had it. The cudgel fell with a heavy thump, and Lady Placida grunted. She had to make a visible effort of furycraft to lift the weapon again and set it calmly aside.
Doroga nodded, then stepped up onto the platform to stand over Attis, staring down at him, his hands on his hips.
“You would be the Clan-Head Doroga?” Attis asked politely.
“Yes,” Doroga said. “You are the man whose people convinced Atsurak to lead thousands of my people to a bloody death.”
Attis stared at Doroga, then swept his gaze around the room. Finally, he looked down at his own blanket-covered lap and smiled, rather bitterly. “It wasn’t difficult.”
The buzz of conversation in the room simply stopped. Everyone stared at Attis, Amara included. Oh, certainly, everyone had known who was behind the events preceding Second Calderon, but there was what everyone knew, then what they could prove. Lord and Lady Aquitaine had gotten away with it without leaving any concrete proof to connect them to the Marat invasion. No one had spoken of it openly—such a charge, made without proof, would have been instant and undeniable reason for the Aquitaines to call the speaker to the juris macto.
And yet, Attis had just admitted to his part in the plot, in front of the most powerful Citizens of the Realm.
Doroga grunted, nodding, evidently unaware of what he had just done. “Lot of people died. Yours and mine.”
“Yes,” Attis said.
“If there was time,” Doroga said, “you and I might have an argument about that.”
“Time is something of which I am in short supply,” Attis replied.
Doroga nodded. “It is done. Dealing with the vord is more important. But I will have your promise not to do any such thing in the future.”
Attis looked bemused. “Yes. You have it.”
Doroga nodded and extended his hand. Attis reached out, and the two traded grips of one another’s forearms.
“Thank you for your help today,” Attis said. “You saved the lives of many of my people.”
“That is what good neighbors
do,” Doroga said. “Maybe no one ever taught you Alerans about that.”
“Entirely possible,” Attis said, a smile still touching his lips. “I must ask you if any more of your people might be willing to help us.”
Doroga grunted. “I have called. We will see who answers. But I and my Clanmates are here. We will stand with you.”
The Princeps nodded. “I welcome you.”
“Be a fool not to,” Doroga said. “After this is done, you and I will talk about balancing scales.”
“I would be pleased to discuss it,” Attis said.
Doroga grunted, faint surprise plain on his features. “Right. Good.”
“We should begin, I think,” the Princeps said.
Doroga folded his arms on his chest, nodded to Attis, and ambled back over to Amara and Bernard.
“Citizens, Senators, Captains,” Attis said, raising his voice. “If you would give me your attention, please. We will discuss the defense of the Valley. Our host, the rather farsighted Count Calderon, will describe his defensive structures to you.”
Bernard looked at Amara and gestured in irritation at his jaw.
“Ah,” she said. “Your Highness, my husband has injured his jaw and will have difficulty speaking. With your permission, I will brief everyone about our defenses.”
“By all means,” said the Princeps.
Amara stepped forward and up onto the platform with the sand table. Everyone gathered around to look. “As you can see,” Amara said, “the Calderon Valley is divided into three separate sections by the new walls. We are currently just behind the westernmost wall. It is by far the longest and the lowest, running approximately five miles, from the escarpments to the shores of the Sea of Ice and standing at an average height of ten feet. The second wall is approximately twenty miles from here. It is just over three miles long and runs from this salient of the escarpments to the sea. It is of standard construction at twenty feet, with gates flanked by towers every half mile. The final defensive wall is situated here, at the far end of the valley, protecting the town of Garrison and the refugee camps of those who have already arrived.”
“I’m curious,” interrupted Senator Valerius, “how a Count of the Realm managed to fund all of this construction—and then to conceal its presence, as well.”
“With a great deal of support, sir,” Amara replied calmly. “The sections of wall within sight of the causeway were raised only a few days ago. The rest went unobserved thanks to the generous use of camouflage to hide them from the view of fliers and the fact that few visitors to the Valley stray far from the causeway.”
“It seems odd to me,” Valerius said. “That’s all. Such a project must have cost you hundreds of thousands of golden eagles.”
Amara eyed Valerius calmly. “Is there anything else, sir?”
“I find myself reluctant to trust your word, Countess—or the word of the Count who built these unauthorized and illegal fortifications—”
“Oh bloody crows, man!” Antillus Raucus abruptly snarled. “What the crows does it matter where they came from as long as we have them at hand when we need them?”
“I merely point out that this is a legal matter that can hardly be ignored once the current crisis is abated. If we are to entrust the security of the Realm to the loyalties of this . . . questionable pair of individuals . . .”
Lord Placida didn’t speak. He simply turned to Valerius, grabbed the man’s tunic, and with a grunt flung him out of the tent to sprawl in the mud outside. The motion was so sudden that Valerius’s bodyguards were caught frozen. Placida turned to face them with narrowed eyes, then pointed at the door.
They went.
“Ass,” muttered Raucus.
“Thank you, Placida,” the Princeps murmured in a dry voice. “Countess, please continue.”
Amara smiled at Lord Placida, nodded to the Princeps, and returned to her narrative. “We have been studying the potential defenses of the Valley for some time,” she said. “This is the plan we believe will best accomplish the goals the Princeps has specified . . .”
CHAPTER 31
Gaius Octavian’s host came down upon the vord-occupied city of Riva like a thunderstorm.
Though I’m not sure anyone’s ever done it quite this literally, Fidelias mused.
As the Legions and their Canim allies swept down from the hills above Riva, the low-hanging clouds and curtains of rain seemed to cling to the banners of Aleran troops and Canim warriors alike, bound by a myriad of misty, intangible scarlet threads that stretched out into the air all around. The leashed clouds engulfed the entire force, concealing their numbers and identity from outside observation—courtesy of the Canim ritualists, led by their new commander, Master Marok.
Within the cloud, Crassus and the fliers of the Knights Pisces hovered over the heads of the marching forces. The Knights Aeris had gathered up the swirling energy of a dozen thunderbolts from a storm that had come through before first light. The strokes of lightning rumbled and crackled back and forth between the Knights, blue-white beasts caged in a circle of windcrafting. Their growling thunder rolled out ahead of the advancing host, concealing the sound of marching troops and cavalry alike.
“This all looks quite stylishly ominous,” Fidelias commented to the Princeps. “And appearances can be quite important. But I can’t help but wonder why we’re doing this, Your Highness.”
Octavian waited for a crash of thunder to roll by before he answered. “There just aren’t many ways to disguise the identity of a force on the move,” he called back, his voice confident. “And I want our full strength to come as a surprise to the vord.”
“I see,” Fidelias said. “For a moment I thought that you’d effectively blinded and deafened us all for the sake of making a memorable entrance.”
The Princeps grinned, showing Fidelias his teeth. “We have eyes outside the mist—Varg’s Hunters and the Knights Flora of both Legions.”
“You’re still creating an information delay. They’ll have to come running in here to tell you anything. If a large force arrives unexpectedly, that could be fatal.”
The Princeps shrugged. “There won’t be any such force,” he said with a confidence so perfectly familiar that Fidelias was almost violently reminded of Sextus.
Fidelias lowered his voice. “You can be sure of that?”
The Princeps looked at him for a moment, pensive, and nodded. “Yes.”
“Then why not bypass Riva completely?”
“First, because we need to be tested in an actual battle,” he replied. “We’ve never coordinated in offensive operations before, at least not on this scale. It’s important that we know what we can do against these particular vord forms.”
“And second?”
The Princeps gave Fidelias a bland look that had something granite-hard lurking under the surface. “It’s not their city. Is it.” He looked out at the mist, as though focusing on whatever was beyond. “Besides, Riva could conceal legions of vord behind her walls. Better to find out now and deal with them rather than waiting for them to come marching up our spines when we reach Calderon.”
There was the sound of approaching hoofbeats, and Kitai appeared out of the mist. She pulled in on the Princeps’ right side and matched her mount’s pace to his, her green eyes intent. “The gates were not destroyed when the city was taken,” she said. “They are currently closed and guarded. There are vord on the battlements and in the sky above the city.”
“There’s a problem,” Fidelias said. “We don’t have siege equipment.”
The Princeps shook his head. “We won’t need it.” He drew a deep breath, as if bracing himself for something unpleasant, and said, “I’m going to take them down.”
Fidelias found himself lifting both eyebrows. The siege gates of the great cities of Alera were more than simple steel and stone. They were wound through and through with furycraftings of every kind imaginable, and more craftings were laid upon them every year, so that they built one upon another like
layers of paint. It was done that way for the specific purpose of making the gates almost entirely resistant to the influence of hostile furycraft. A High Lord of the Realm would be daunted by such an obstacle.
“You think you’re strong enough to manage that, sir?”
The Princeps nodded once. “Yes, I do.”
Fidelias studied Octavian’s confident profile. “Be wary of hubris, Your Highness.”
“It’s only hubris if I can’t do it,” he replied. “Besides, I need to be tested, too. If I’m to step into my grandfather’s shoes, I can’t keep on concealing my abilities forever. I need to prove myself.”
Kitai snorted quietly. “About bloody time,” she said. “Does this mean I’m free to be more obvious as well, Aleran?”
“I don’t see why not,” said the Princeps.
Fidelias lifted his eyebrows. “Your Highness? I knew she could manage minor furycraftings, lights and such, but . . .”
“But?” He smiled faintly.
“But she’s a Marat, sir. Marat don’t use furies.”
The Princeps feigned an astonished expression. “She is? Are you sure?”
Fidelias gave him a sour look.
The Princeps let out a warm laugh. “You may have noted that our dear Ambassador has very little regard for the proprieties.”
“Not when they’re ridiculous,” Kitai sniffed.
The two sentences came out one after the other, so close together that they might have been uttered by actors following a script or spoken by the same person. Fidelias peered at their identically colored eyes as if for the first time, feeling somewhat stupid. “The way Marat operate in tandem with their clan animals. It’s more than just their custom, isn’t it?”
“There’s a bond,” the Princeps said, nodding. “I scarcely understand it myself—and she honestly gives me no help whatsoever when I try.”
“That is because knowledge given freely to another is not really knowledge at all, Aleran,” Kitai replied. “It is rumor. One must learn for oneself.”
“And this bond . . . it allows her to furycraft as you do,” Fidelias said.
“Apparently,” the Princeps said.