by Jim Butcher
Schultz grinned. "Yes, sir. You stay right there, sir." He paused. "You don't want this kept quiet, or you wouldn't be shouting at the whole wall, would you?"
Tavi felt himself grin in answer. "It's chilly out here, centurion. Bring us in under guard, if you would."
"Yes, sir!" Schultz said. "If you'll move about sixty paces to the east, sir, there's an opening. I'll have them meet you there, sir."
"Thank you, centurion, understood." Tavi turned his horse, and Ehren followed him along the wall. They could hear the mutters racing out along the wall ahead of them-excited soldiers whispering that Scipio had returned.
Tavi could feel the emotion that began pouring down from the wall. Excitement, interest, the tight, aching fear that came along with any action-and, that most vital of emotions to a commander: hope. As Tavi rode beneath the positions on the wall, soldiers stood forward, snapping to attention as if they were being reviewed and not keeping an eye on a potential spy.
The "opening" in the wall proved to be a blank section of stone like any other-except that, as Tavi approached, the stone of the wall itself melted like wax and flowed down and away, leaving an opening in the wall just wide enough to let a horse squeeze inside. Tavi rode through, his knees scraping stone on both sides, and recognized all six of the First Aleran's Knights Flora on the wall above the opening, bows in hand, ready to send deadly accurate arrows winging into anyone who might have tried to take advantage of the opening.
Almost before Ehren's horse was through, the engineers of the First Aleran, half a dozen weary-looking men on each side of the opening, sealed the wall again, coaxing the stone back up into position. Two of the Knights Flora above turned to keep an eye on Tavi and Ehren-as they should have, until their identities had been verified.
Tavi was content to stay right where he was for the moment, in the circle of firelight cast by Ehren's sputtering torch, where several hundred legionares could see him clearly. The chatter on the walls had risen in volume, almost drowning out the crow calls and bird cries echoing around the ruins.
Schultz appeared out of the darkness. The young centurion of the Battle-crow Cohort had been a raw recruit when at the battle of the Elinarch. Now he had scars and commendations enough to do him proud in any Legion in the Realm. The centurion bore a tin soldier's mug in either hand, and both of them were steaming in the cool night air. He offered the first to Tavi, and the second to Ehren, and Tavi took the mug of strong tea gratefully.
"There you go, Captain," Schultz said with a salute. "Alleged captain," he corrected himself.
Tavi grinned at him. "Bless you, man." He swallowed some of the hot brew, studying Schultz's manner and bearing, contrasting them against the weary fear that was pouring off of him. The man was putting on an act of carelessly brave indifference in front of the men of the Legion, but he was clearly worried-and with good reason. Tavi didn't see half as many men on the wall as the area covered demanded, which implied that the First Aleran had lost a lot of soldiers to injury and exhaustion. And the tea was too crowbegotten thick. No one took it that strong, no matter how tired they were. The Legion was short on water.
They were afraid. Fear could take the life from a Legion more quickly than any blade, and Tavi reacted at once to combat it as he sipped the tea and spoke within hearing of the men. "Mmm. Were you planning on using this stuff as mortar later?"
"Bricks," Schultz replied. "But that pansy Gregus watered it down."
"I don't want to know with what," Tavi shot back.
A chorus of quiet chuckles rippled up and down the wall.
Schultz grinned and glanced around. "Sir… if I might ask… why are you back, Captain?"
Tavi sipped more tea. He hadn't realized how achingly tired he was, until he felt some of the drink restoring a bit of life to his limbs. "Hmmm? Come on,
Schultz. You never get a straight answer from captains. You should know that by now." He swallowed more tea as the men laughed quietly again. "The Crown's found an even worse mess out there for us to be in, and our orders are to get there right away."
Schultz gestured at the ruins and battered men around them. "And leave all this?"
Instant sounds of feigned disappointment and disgust fell from the walls and the ruined structures in the immediate area.
Schultz had understood what Tavi was doing, and abetted him, releasing some of the pressure on the men. It had been good thinking for a man his age, after the day he'd had, and Tavi nodded his approval at him. "As you were, centurion. You'll have your marching orders soon enough."
"Yes, sir," Schultz said, saluting. The sound of marching boots came nearer, and Schultz faded back as a party arrived, which proved to be Antillus Crassus, flanked by several Knights Terra, and followed by the blunt, stocky form of Valiar Marcus.
"Schultz?" Crassus demanded, his voice strained with anger. "Pulling me out of a command meeting? This had better be good. And who the crows authorized that light to be-"
Crassus came to a dead stop as he reached the edge of the torchlight, and his eyes widened as he recognized Tavi and Ehren. His mouth opened, as if for an exclamation, but then he clenched his lips shut with a visible effort of will and gave Tavi a terse nod instead. "Centurion. Has his identity been verified?"
"No, sir," Schultz replied. "Tribune Foss sends his compliments and asks me to tell you that he is too crowbegotten busy to wander around the camp on errands, sir."
"True enough, tonight." Crassus sighed.
Tavi dismounted and shifted his tea to his left hand, waiting quietly.
Crassus made sure that the Knights Flora were covering him, and then approached Tavi, offering his right hand. Tavi traded grips with the younger man.
"Your name?" Crassus asked.
Tavi's world froze for an instant.
Every detail came into crystal clarity-the scent of greasy woodsmoke from Ehren's torch, the clank of a legionare's armor against the stone battlements, the dim gleam of torchlight on battered armor. A patch of Crassus's hair had been burned down to stubble, close to his scalp, and the red stones in the hilt of the Cane-sized dagger on his belt twinkled in the scarlet light. The moon and the stars hung, for an instant, entirely suspended, and Tavi was left alone, in all the universe with a single fact for company:
He'd lived most of his life surrounded in a cloak of lies and half-truths.
After this moment, after this breath, everything would change.
"Most of my life," he said quietly, "I have been known as Tavi of Bernard-holt, in the Calderon Valley of Riva. Then I became Tavi Patronus Gaius, and Tavi ex Cursori. In the time you have known me, Crassus, my name was Rufus Scipio, Third Subtribune and later Captain of the First Aleran."
The hilltop, the ruin, was perfectly silent, perfectly still.
Tavi's voice flowed into that stillness, confident and steady, and he could hardly believe it was his own. "But my name," he said, raising his voice so that it rang from the battlecrafted walls and fallen stones, "is Gaius Octavian, son of Gaius Septimus, son of Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera."
And as that name fell onto the evening air, the sky bloomed into scarlet light.
Tavi wasn't sure what had happened, but the light was directly behind him, to the south, and it illuminated the entire southern sky as if he'd called the sun itself back from its nightly journey into darkness to herald his presence. It washed over the ruins, revealing the exhausted, startled, awestruck faces of le-gionares covered in grime and blood. It threw his shadow out before him, engulfing Valiar Marcus, and Crassus, and the Knights escorting them.
And it revealed, approaching through the ruins, a second and larger group of men, consisting of a number of armored legionares of the Senatorial Guard, Captain Nalus and his seniormost officers-and Senator Guntus Arnos, his singulars, and his hangers-on.
Crassus, who had been seeking the sound of truth with his watercrafting senses, went absolutely white with shock, his fingers tightening almost painfully on Tavi's. A beat later, the young Tribun
e dropped to one knee, and after a baffled second his Knights, the First Spear, then the whole of the First Aleran followed suit. The clank and clatter of arms and armor was like a roar of surf on a stony shoreline.
The Senator stood staring in slack-jawed shock. The hem of his Senatorial robes dropped from his numbed fingers, and landed in dirt made muddy with blood.
"I am Princeps Gaius Octavian," Tavi said, his voice loud and cold. "And I am here to bring a treasonous slive to account for his deeds."
As Tavi spoke, there was a rumble in the earth, so low-pitched that it shook his teeth, and the ground began to a tremble. Tavi's heart leapt, and he almost followed suit in fear of plummeting stonework, seeking shelter under a nearby archway that had somehow survived.
If he scrambled for cover, though, it wouldn't make a terribly regal impression upon those watching. Tavi elected to roll with the situation. He had no idea what was happening, but bloody crows, it certainly added something to the delivery.
He pointed a finger at the stunned senator. "Guntus Arnos! For conspiring with enemies of the Crown in plots that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of serving legionares, for the assault upon and the subsequent abduction of the rightful First Lady of Alera by subordinates under your direct command, and for ordering the murder of Aleran freemen, holders, and their families, I call you a traitor to your lord, your Realm, and your people!"
Arnos's mouth twitched, and incoherent gobbling noises came from it.
"I call you to account, traitor!" Tavi thundered, and a nearby wall gave way beneath the shuddering earth and fell. "I call you to the juris macto! And may the crows feast on the unjust!"
Chapter 52
"If you kill me now," Araris said quietly to Navaris, "no one will ever know."
The sword-slender woman stared at Araris with dead eyes.
Then she shrugged.
"I'll get over it."
Isana felt the cutter's decision the instant she'd made it, and a blossom of mad, unholy glee flared out from Navaris as she turned to Araris and lifted her sword.
"No!" Isana cried, struggling against the ropes.
Without warning, the earth suddenly shook.
Navaris staggered, reaching out to seize the tent's central pole to keep from falling. The tent sagged to one side, and its flap fell open, revealing a lurid twilight outside. The earth continued to rumble, and Isana could hear stone falling on stone. Somewhere in the background, a strident male voice thundered in furious speech.
Navaris stared around in angry surprise and shuffled to the tent's opening over the still-trembling ground, eyes roaming back and forth.
Isana felt a sense of bafflement from Araris that must have matched the incredulity on her own face, and just then there was a sharply whistled birdcall from outside.
A voice lifted up in what Isana recognized as a Marat war cry, and the tent was suddenly ripped away around them. Isana had to twist her head down against one shoulder to avoid a trailing rope. The tent flew off, and Isana had time to see a pair of leggy Marat coursers, bearing their barbarian riders, gallop off, dragging the tent behind them.
The sky was lit with red light, which seemed to cast shadows that were somehow subtly wrong for a sunset, until Isana realized that was because they were. The ruddy light of sunset poured in from the west. This light came from almost directly to the south.
Kitai appeared from the shadows behind a dilapidated stone building. The Marat girl was dressed just as she had been when Isana saw her last, though she bore a heavily recurved Marat bow in her hands, complete with an arrow tipped with razor-sharp, glossy black stone.
Navaris saw her, too. The cutter took a smooth step to Isana's side and rested her sword against the Steadholder's throat.
"Kitai," Isana breathed.
"Good evening," Kitai said pleasantly. She peered at the sky to the south, then turned to Navaris. "What do you make of that?"
Navaris jerked her head to one side in a gesture of suspicion and fixed Kitai with a steady stare.
"I didn't think you knew. I don't know what it is, either," Kitai said. She shook her head and then tipped one end of her bow at Isana. "Walk away from them both, Phrygiar Navaris, or you will die."
Navaris's mouth twitched up into a little smirk.
"Yes," Kitai admitted. "You could probably stop my arrow. But can you stop twenty?"
She twisted up her lips and gave another trilling birdcall, and the shadows boiled over with leather-armored Marat warriors rising from concealment. Every single barbarian bore a bow like Kitai's, and every one of them had a stone-tipped arrow nocked to it.
"Stone-headed arrows, Navaris," Kitai said, her voice steady and empty of malice. "From every direction. No way to see them all. No metal for you to sense."
Navaris's expression went blank. Her eyes flicked around, taking stock of her situation.
"Walk away," Kitai repeated.
Twenty Marat warriors drew their bows at the same time. The creak of the weapons' curved staves and straining strings sounded like an old barn in bad weather.
Navaris never flinched. "If you shoot, I will kill her before I die."
"Yes," Kitai said in a patient tone. "Which is why I have not shot you. Yet. Walk away."
"If I step away from her, what is to prevent you from killing me?"
"Your death doesn't belong to me," Kitai said. "We flipped a coin. I lost."
Navaris lifted her eyebrows.
"Go," Kitai said. She raised her voice, presumably addressing the Marat present. "Neither I nor any of mine will harm you or seek to prevent you from leaving."
Navaris considered that for a second. One eyelid twitched several times, and Isana felt dizzy from the variety and disorienting intensity of the emotions flooding from the cutter. Navaris experienced terror, contempt, joy, hunger, lust, and howling satisfaction all at the same instant, all jumbled up inside her thoughts. Isana could sense the barrier of will that generally kept that hurricane of violent emotion in check.
The barrier quivered like the earth beneath their feet, but it did not break. The formless, colorless mass of will suddenly blanketed the strong emotions, and they vanished into the void that was Phrygiar Navaris. The woman lowered her blade, nodded her head once, and walked with quick, quiet steps from the circle of Marat archers as the red light began to fade from the sky.
Kitai moved directly to Isana's side and knelt down beside her. The Marat woman's eyes never wavered from Navaris's departing form. Once she was gone, Kitai drew a knife, and muttered, "Crazy bitch."
She cut Isana and Araris free of their bonds, and rose. "Hurry," she said. "There's no time."
Araris managed to stagger to his feet, but Isana simply couldn't. Her limbs and back knotted themselves tight when she tried it, and to her embarrassment she found herself unable to stand.
"Help her," Kitai snapped, and Isana found herself being lifted by a pair of brawny young barbarian riders, one of them under each arm. Kitai made an impatient sound and started through the ruins. Araris hobbled after her, and Isana's bearers more or less dragged her along with her tingle-numbed toes dragging the ground, passing too close to the nearest hospital area. The pain and fear of the wounded slammed against her like a frost-coated leather lash.
Isana struggled to brace herself against it, focusing on her surroundings until they had passed the hospital. The red light in the sky had faded almost completely, and was now only a dim band of sullen red on the southern horizon.
"Kitai," Isana said. "Where are we? How did you get here?"
"The ruins outside Mastings," Kitai replied shortly. "My mother-sister's kinsmen lowered a rope for me in the dark. I was sent to find you."
"Why?"
"To prevent Arnos from using you as hostages against Octavian, obviously."
"Kitai!" Isana breathed.
Kitai shrugged. "They all know by now, Isana. Right now, my Aleran is declaring himself and challenging Arnos to the juris macto."
"What?" Araris demande
d. Horror pulsed off of him in a nauseating cloud.
"The juris macto," Kitai said seriously. "It means 'trial of the fist.' Though it isn't a literal fistfight. I still do not understand why your people insist on naming things by calling them something else. It is insane."
"I know what the juris macto is."
"Araris," Isana asked, her voice shaking. "What's wrong?"
"He's the challenger," Araris spat. "What is he thinking?"
"I don't understand," she said. "Can't you stand for him? Champion him?"
"No!" Araris half shouted. "He's the challenger. He can't have a champion. He has to engage in it personally, or the law won't recognize its outcome as valid."
"Tavi can't have a champion?" Isana felt the bottom of her stomach fall out. "But Amos can." She went cold. "Great furies. Navaris will be his champion."
Araris spat to one side. "That's what she does."
"I told him he should have let me handle it," Kitai said. "But after escaping one prison and stealing Varg from another, suddenly Aleran law is important again."
Feeling had begun to return to Isana's legs and feet, and she shrugged her supporters away, walking on her own. "Is he likely to be hurt, Araris?"
"Hurt?" Araris shook his head grimly. "It's to the death."
Isana stopped in her tracks and stared at Araris. "Can he beat her?"
Araris clenched his fists, frustration and worry pouring off him like heat from a bonfire.
"Araris," she pled quietly.
The singulare said nothing, and Isana knew why.
She would have known if he lied to her.
Kitai led Isana and Araris to the First Aleran's command tent, which was by tradition the captain's quarters. It looked like it had been set up in great haste, several of its ropes hanging rather loosely. Inside was nothing more than a furylamp, a camp stool, and a bedroll.
"I think I know what you want to tell him," Kitai said quietly. "I think you know he won't listen."