by Jim Butcher
"That is the way of some Alerans," Tavi replied. "It is not my way-nor the way of my lord, Gaius Sextus."
"Perhaps not, gadara" Nasaug said. "But words are nothing but air."
"Unless they are followed by action," Tavi countered. "I am here only because you gave me your word."
"I have shown you my word is good," Nasaug said.
"Then let me show you the same of mine," Tavi said.
"How?"
"What would you consider sufficient action?"
Nasaug let out a thoughtful, rumbling growl. "One whose word I trust over my own was once a guest of honor in your land. I am told that he is held prisoner in some stinking house of stone in Alera Imperia."
"You mean Varg," Tavi said. "Yes. He is held prisoner."
"Varg did not behave dishonorably."
"How do you know that?" Tavi asked.
Nasaug flexed one paw-hand, extending his claws. "He is Varg."
Tavi was silent for a moment, then nodded. "He did not behave with dishonor. Quite the opposite. He warned us of the coming of a foe called the Vord."
"And he rots in a prison because of it," Nasaug snarled, baring his fangs. "Your word may be good, Captain. Perhaps we can make an arrangement whereby I can leave your haunted land peacefully. But it will not happen without Varg."
Tavi glanced down at Ehren, who shot a nervous glance up at him.
"If I bring you Varg," Tavi said quietly, "will you be willing to withdraw your strength from Kalarus? To draw back to Mastings, build your ships, and depart this land?"
Nasaug glanced aside, at the grizzled old Cane beside him. Neither of them said anything or moved, but Tavi felt sure they had communicated with one another nonetheless. Nasaug turned back to Tavi and nodded, once. "Yes. But this agreement will have no bearing on how I wage war against you. Until I see Varg and speak to him, face-to-face, your Legions will pay in blood for every step of ground they wish to take."
"I understand," Tavi said quietly. "If it can be done, it will take some time."
Nasaug nodded. "Then until that time, gadara, we will seek one another's throats." His fangs shone again. "Go from this place." He raised his voice, and called, in Canish, "Do not touch him."
"Ehren," Tavi said quietly. "Mount up behind me."
He leaned down and gave the Cursor an arm up, and Ehren scrambled up onto the saddle behind Tavi. Tavi exchanged an Aleran-style nod with Nasaug, and then turned Acteon and rode calmly and quietly from the clearing. He passed Durias, who also nodded up at him, and then they moved steadily away.
Half an hour later, as they came out onto ground Tavi recognized, he let out a slow breath and pressed Acteon into a swifter pace over open plain.
"You came here alone?" Ehren demanded. "Are you insane?"
Tavi flashed a grin back at his friend. "You're welcome."
Ehren shook his head. "I really feel I should point out that there's no way you're going to get them to release Varg."
"But Gaius can," Tavi replied. "He'll see the sense of it at once."
"If you can reach him, maybe," Ehren replied. "What if you can't?"
Tavi opened his mouth to give Ehren a sharp-edged retort-and was cut off by a sudden blast of furious wind.
Acteon reared and skittered wildly to one side as a sudden gale threw up dirt and dust, blinding them all and deafening them with its roar. Acteon lunged and bucked, panicking, and Tavi lost his seat, crashing to the ground beside Ehren.
Tavi had to squeeze his eyes almost entirely shut, but he could just barely see the gleaming forms of Knights Aeris descending around them, along with an eight-harness air coach.
The coach landed, its bearers settling it to the ground, and one of them hurried to open the door.
Phrygiar Navaris emerged from the coach, slender in black, her face set in an odd little smile. Behind her, the rest of the Senator's singulares also appeared, to be followed, finally, by the Senator himself.
Arnos, still in his silk robes, walked calmly over to them, flanked by his bodyguards. He stood over Tavi for a moment, a chilly little smile of satisfaction on his face.
"And now we know how your supposedly gallant Legion managed to survive for so long against so many Canim," he said quietly. "You've been conspiring with them the whole while, Scipio."
"That isn't true," Tavi snarled. "And you know it."
Arnos swept his hand around at the circle of Knights Aeris. "I know no such thing. You were seen meeting with one of the Canim officers, and I have better than a dozen witnesses who will attest to it. Furthermore, you were engaging in parley with the enemy against my express orders to avoid giving any impression of weakness or lack of resolve on our part."
Arnos lifted his chin, staring down at Tavi. "It gives me no pleasure to do this, Rufus Scipio. But I place you under arrest for refusing to follow a direct order of your superior officer in time of war. You will be taken to the nearest stockade and held there until such time as a military tribunal can be assembled for your trial."
Tavi just stared at Arnos, shocked by what he was hearing, cursing himself for being careless. He'd warned Max that Arnos would have had watchers in place by that evening. He should have been smart enough to realize that Arnos already had him under surveillance-probably by several of his Knights Aeris, hidden behind crafted veils.
He'd taken a chance and gotten burned.
He'd failed.
"Navaris," Arnos said. "Take the prisoner into custody." An unmistakable glitter of malice danced across his eyes. "Find someplace to lock him away until we can find time to try him for treason."
Chapter 16
Valiar Marcus glared at the young mother who had approached them from the group of prisoners. She had spotted his distinctive centurion's helmet with its scarlet crest, or the baton he carried in his hand as a symbol of his rank, and she walked over to him, trailing a young legionare. The plainly dressed woman had evidently overwhelmed the young man via sheer force of personality, and he gave Marcus a half-shamed, half-pleading look as he hurried to keep up with her.
"Centurion," she said. She made part of a curtsey, likely the best she could do while carrying her young daughter on one hip. The child was silent, her blue eyes very wide. "No one will speak to us. No one will tell us when we may return to our homes."
Marcus kept the glare going for a few moments, but it was a forlorn hope. The young mother was not going to be dissuaded. "Ma'am," Marcus said, "I'm going to have to ask you to return to your place with the other prisoners."
"I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers," she said quietly.
"Yes, ma'am, you are," Marcus said. "It's safest for you there."
The woman clenched her jaw in frustration. "I don't understand what else you need from us, centurion. None of us are armed or bore arms against the Legions. None of us know anything that you didn't find out hours ago. There's no reason for us to be sitting here, even if that nice young man is being so painstaking in asking about our Citizenship…"
Her voice trailed off, and her face set in a pensive frown-then in a sudden, sick mask of fear.
Marcus felt his knuckles tightening on the baton in frustration, and only a whisper of cracking wood let him realize that he had inadvertently summoned fury-born strength to his limbs. He'd seen that look on other women, in other places, and he hated it. "Ma'am," Marcus said quietly. He pointed at the prisoners with his baton. "Go sit down. Now."
She stared blankly at him for a moment. Then she took a swift breath, and said, "My name is Estellis." Her arms tightened on her child. "This is my daughter, Estara."
Marcus turned his face away sharply at the words. Crows take it. He didn't want to know the woman, or her name-or, great furies help him, the name of her child. Their death warrant had already been signed. And it was his fault it had been. Their blood was going to be on his hands-perhaps literally. He did not want to know their names.
Some part of him could feel nothing but contempt for his own dismay. It had been his sug
gestion, after all, that the Senator order the captain to kill another Aleran. He had assumed that Arnos would seize upon the opportunity to do so as soon as prisoners were taken from the Legion of rebel slaves. He had assumed that the order would descend upon, at most, one- or twoscore of enemy soldiers. It would have been a point of principle that he did not think the captain would have been willing to compromise.
Marcus forced himself to turn his face back to Estellis and her daughter Estara, and to look past them at the hundreds of freemen of Othos. Dozens of families. Women. Children. Elderly. How could Arnos have considered such a monstrous course?
Because you told him to do it, fool.
The young woman… Estellis stared at him, her face pale. She did not allow herself to weep-doubtless for the sake of her daughter, who clung sleepily to her side-but her eyes shone with the effort. "S-sir…" she said quietly. "The children are hungry."
Crows take Arnos, Marcus thought viciously. Crows take him and eat him whole.
There was still some hope. Antillus Crassus was taking his time about verifying each prisoner's lack of Citizenship. Marcus might not have noticed it if he hadn't been working with the young man for the past two years, but it smelled like the young Tribune was stalling.
Crassus wouldn't be doing that on his own initiative. He was dutiful nearly to the point of insanity, and always worked with quiet, industrious efficiency.
So, unless he had suddenly decided to start dragging his feet, he was still attending to his duty.
So. The captain was up to something.
Marcus did not know what he intended. Legally speaking, he had only two options-but the young man had a talent for discovering previously unnoticed avenues of action. Perhaps he could do it again.
Please let him do it again.
Marcus was already steeped in blood. Much more, and he would drown.
He kept his expression colder and harder than stone. If the prisoners went into a panic, great furies only knew what might happen. "Ma'am," he said. He began to repeat his order, but instead he found himself meeting the gaze of little Estara. His breath left him in a long, slow exhalation. "Estellis," he said quietly. "I assure you that my captain is doing everything he can to get you back to your homes as soon as possible. But until that time, you are on the front lines of a war, around men who have seen hard battle today. For your own safety, you need to return to the others." He considered the little girl again, and said, "I'll see what can be done about food."
The young woman stared at him, straining, Marcus knew, to discern if he was telling her the truth, or simply lying to her and sending her back to await slaughter, like some foolishly wayward cow. She needn't have bothered. Even if she'd had an enormous amount of talent and practice at the watercrafter's art of truthfinding, he could have told her that the sky was green with perfect conviction.
"I… very well, centurion." She dipped into another awkward curtsey. "Thank you."
"Legionare," Marcus growled.
The young legionare came to attention. "Sir."
"Please escort Mistress Estellis and her daughter back to the others." He nodded to her. "Ma'am."
The woman gave Marcus one last, uncertain glance as she turned, then walked with the young legionare back to where the prisoners sat.
A veteran legionare-though to be fair, any of the fish who'd come this far with the First Aleran deserved to be called veterans-named Bortus leaned slightly toward Marcus. "Centurion? What are we going to do with these people?"
"Keep your teeth together, Bortus. When I know, you'll know." Marcus watched Estellis and Estara sit down again and grimaced.
Whatever he was going to do, the captain had best hurry.
Chapter 17
Tavi sat silently in Arnos's wind coach, cursing his own stupidity. He should have known better than to proceed upon such a potentially incriminating rendezvous when he might have been under aerial surveillance.
Of course, there had been little enough he could have done, under the circumstances. His own Knights Aeris, weary from the exertions of the morning's battle, had not been at hand, and they were really the only way he might have reasonably known about being observed from high above. Even if they had been at hand, of course, he had moved away from any potential support to meet with Nasaug. He began to berate himself instead for his inexcusably bad judgment in doing so-but the potential to reach some other outcome than outright war with the Canim had demanded that he take the risk.
Perhaps it was neither stupidity nor poor judgment, but simply an unfavorable conjunction of opportunity, chance, and human will that allowed for no particularly desirable outcome-from his point of view, at least. It had certainly been a fortunate enough morning for Arnos.
It could have been worse. Ehren had not been recognized as anyone other than a local freeman-had Arnos known he was a Cursor of the Crown and accorded the rank and privileges of a Knight as a result, Tavi suspected that he would not have been allowed to live to bear testimony about what had happened. Instead, he had been bound, tossed on the luggage rack atop the coach, and was to be dropped with the condemned prisoners back at Othos.
Assuming Ehren came out of the situation alive, he should prove to be a major lever in any tribunal examining Arnos's charge of treason. All Tavi needed to do was claim he was engaged in a prisoner exchange for a critically placed agent of the Crown-which had the considerable merit of being entirely true.
It would be pleasant to be able to throw that into Arnos's teeth, but Tavi refrained, lest Ehren accidentally tumble from the coach during flight. So he regarded the Senator's detached expression of feline smugness with a blank face, and said nothing. Instead, he sat, missing the presence of his sword far more acutely than he ever had before he'd begun feeling his way through metal-crafting. It currently resided across the lap of Phrygiar Navaris, who sat beside Amos and stared at Tavi, her serpentine eyes never seeming to blink. The archer sat on Arnos's other side, and the largest of the two men in his retinue of singu-lares sat on either side of him.
"This is probably for the best, Scipio," Arnos said. "It was going to happen, one way or another. This way has the advantage of being relatively civilized."
Tavi didn't bother to answer. The galling thing was that to a certain extent, Arnos was probably correct. Tavi wondered if Gaius had known just how ruthless the man was going to be when it came to removing any possible challenge to his authority. Arnos had been willing to see hundreds of innocent people die to remove Tavi. He certainly wouldn't have hesitated to strike out at anyone who supported Tavi against him.
Tavi narrowed his eyes in thought.
There might be one who he would be slow to oppose.
In fact, this entire situation did not have to be a disaster. What was it old Killian had told the Cursors-in-training so often?
Every problem was an opportunity, from the proper point of view.
Arnos tilted his head and studied Tavi through narrowed eyes. "What was that thought that just went by your eyes, Scipio? I don't think I liked the look of it."
Tavi smiled at him. Then he said, "Senator. Men like you need never seek out their enemies. You create them left and right by virtue of drawing breath."
Arnos made a clucking sound in his throat. "You can't possibly think I am intimidated by your contacts. We all have powerful friends here."
"I don't think you can see far enough to realize what you should fear," Tavi replied. "Crowbegotten shame, really. You have gifts. You could do a lot of people a lot of good, if you so chose."
The Senator's eyes went flat. "If I so chose, Scipio," he said quietly, "I could have Navaris spill out your entrails here and now."
Tavi shook his head and nodded at the coach's window. "If you'll look beneath you, Senator, I'm fairly sure that you'll see a picket line of riders below us-close enough to be within sight of one another, and relay signals back to the camp. I ordered them not to accompany me to my meeting, which means that they followed me just far enough back to stay
out of sight. They saw your men take me, I'm quite sure. Individually, they aren't faster than a wind coach, but working together, in good light, on a clear day like this one, they can send word even faster. Odds are excellent that the camp already knows you've arrested me."
The Senator narrowed his eyes. Then he turned aside and muttered something to the archer. She, in turn, opened a window on the roar of the wind-stream outside. She flagged down one of the accompanying Knights Aeris. They had a brief exchange of hand signals. The Knight vanished from the window and appeared again a moment later, flickering an affirmative signal at the archer.
Amos pressed his lips together and waited for the archer to shut the window again.
"Kill me if you like, Senator," Tavi said, before Amos could speak. "But you might find yourself faced with quite a few awkward questions." He leaned forward. "And I am not some freeman whose death might be easily ignored."
Navaris's hand dropped to the hilt of Tavi's gladius, and her lips split in a snarl.
Amos seized Navaris's sword wrist in one hand, his eyes locked on Tavi's. "Now, now, good lady. Let us not lose our tempers. It has been a trying day for all of us." He smiled a little. "Granted, only one of us is to be tried for treason."
"We'll see," Tavi said.
"We will most certainly see you tried and hung, Scipio," Arnos said. This time, there was no posturing in his voice, no overt grandstanding in his manner-almost no inflection on his words. "Even if events conspire to clear you, in the long run, your role in history is ended. Your Legion will be led by another. You will play no role in this campaign. You will gain no power, no renown during the most vital series of battles for five hundred years while others rise to power instead. Your reputation will be tainted regardless of the outcome of the tribunal: After the shadow of treason has fallen upon you, you won't be trusted to command a squad in a civic legion, and we both know it."