by Jim Butcher
A burning cyclone of elation enveloped Isana and threatened to rip the consciousness from her mind. She closed her eyes against it, and only Ehren's support kept her from falling to her knees. The fire was too hot. It had to be turned aside, channeled away from her, before she went mad. She opened her eyes and forced herself to stand straight.
"Hail!" she cried. "Hail Gaius Octavian!"
Ehren gave her a glance, then took up the cry as well.
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
The legionares formed up around her were next.
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
It spread rapidly from there, from ruin to ruin, century to century, street to debris-choked street.
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
"Hail Gaius Octavian!"
Chapter 58
The crowbegotten crowd kept on screaming his name, and Tavi wanted to tear his hair out in pure frustration.
Arnos was getting away.
The Senator had vanished from his spot on the wall, and Tavi spotted him heading into the crowd, lifting the hood of his practical brown cape. That explained why he'd worn the simple traveling clothes instead of the expensive robes, then.
Tavi pointed at him and shouted at his men to pursue Arnos, and the roar of the crowd grew louder. No one set off in pursuit, though, and Arnos was headed into the thickest part of the crowd.
Tavi turned to Kitai and screamed her name.
There was no way she could have heard his call, not over the furor of the crowd, but her head snapped around toward him, her features set in concern.
Tavi flashed her hand signs for enemy and fleeing and pursue. Then he pointed at Arnos.
Kitai's eyes widened, and she turned her head, following the line indicated by Tavi's finger. Her eyes narrowed, and she shouted into the ears of the Marat near her. The barbarians rose and began bounding from one roof and ruined wall to the next, lithe and agile as hunting cats.
One of them landed in the circle of space the detachment of the Battlecrows had cleared for his mother and shouted something to Ehren. Then he rushed into the crowd.
Tavi signaled him with stay and defend, and trusted him to work out that he was to stay with Isana.
Ehren nodded and signed back understood, which happened to be a motion very like a Legion salute, and stepped closer to Isana, who looked distracted and preoccupied. Little wonder. Even up on the roof, the storm of emotion in the crowd below was grating against Tavi's senses. His mother must have been half-unconscious from it.
Tavi turned and looked at the wall, where Araris waited. He'd never actually made a leap of that distance before tonight, and his ability to jump so far had been strictly theoretical until he'd actually done it. He wondered if he'd be able to do it without a murderous maniac at his back to encourage him.
No help for it. He'd never get through the still-roaring crowd on the ground.
So he focused on his intentions, drew strength from the stone beneath him, speed from the night breeze, and hurtled back across the same space to the battlements.
He'd leapt too hard, and he slammed into a massive stone merlon before he could stop himself. His armor soaked up much of the impact, and he pushed away from the stone as Araris came to his side.
"Amos!" Tavi wheezed.
Araris nodded once, his eyes intent on the crowd below. "I see him."
"Go," Tavi said.
Araris broke into a run, moving down the battlements, and Tavi followed him, peering down at the crowd, until he saw the brown-cloaked hooded figure roughly pushing his way through them, heading for the far side of the ruined city.
Then Arnos stopped in his tracks and began backpedaling. Tavi looked past him, and saw a pair of Marat crouched on a wall ahead of Arnos, their dyed manes blowing in the wind.
"Here!" Tavi said. He turned to another ladder mounted on the wall, took a few rungs normally, then clamped his boots to the outside of the ladder and slid rapidly down it, until he hit the ground. He turned and hadn't gone two steps before Araris hit the ground behind him. The singulare sprinted past Tavi, drew his sword, and ran forward, striking at the stones of the ground as he went. Each strike sent out a shower of sparks, a flash of light, and Araris bellowed, "Make way!" as he went.
The crowd parted before him.
Tavi moved forward, taking his cue from the Marat, who had formed a slowly tightening ring around Arnos in a classic hunting technique. None of them, he noted, were actually attempting to apprehend the Senator. The Marat had a strong sense of the appropriate. Arnos was Tavi's enemy, foremost. Barring any practical considerations that might alter the situation, they would leave it to Tavi to deal with him.
Tavi caught up with Arnos as the panting Senator shoved through a group of camp followers, knocking an old peddler over, and seized a woman by the arms. He shook her, snarling something at her Tavi could not make out over the noise.
"Guntus Arnos!" Tavi bellowed.
Arnos's head snapped around. He bared his teeth, his eyes desperate, and hauled the woman around, putting her body between his own and Tavi's, holding her by the hair. He drew a dagger in his other hand and held it to the woman's throat.
"This wasn't the plan!" Arnos shouted.
Araris took a few steps to the left, and Tavi to the right. Tavi had drawn his sword again at some point. He realized, with a little shock of recognition, that the woman was the First Spear's companion. The noise of the legionares and civilians around them became confused and began to dwindle.
"It's over, Arnos!" Tavi said. "Put the knife down!"
"I won't," Arnos spat. "I won't. It isn't going to end like this."
"Yes," Tavi replied. "It is. Let the woman go."
"Madness!" Arnos cried, shaking the woman's head through his grip on her hair. "Madness! You can't let this go on! You can-"
Suddenly both Arnos and the woman jerked, and the steel head of a Canim balest bolt erupted from her chest.
The woman's face went white, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her knees gave way, and she melted slowly to the ground, her arms spread to her sides, her open mouth to the sky.
Arnos stood in place behind her, and the dagger fell from his fingers. He looked down at the blood flooding from the hole in his chest, where the bolt that had spitted them both emerged. He screamed, a sound full of protest and terror. It was a breathless scream, one with no strength, and his hands scrabbled at his chest, as if he thought he could brush the wound away if only he acted quickly enough.
Tavi walked over to him, Araris at his back.
Arnos was letting out desperate little grunting coughs, and blood bubbled from his lips as he did. His hands kept moving, but his fingers seemed to have gone limp, and he was only slapping uselessly at his lifeblood as it spilled from the massive wound the Canim projectile had left in his chest.
Tavi flashed signals to the Marat. Archer. That way. Find.
The barbarians loped into the ruins, eyes bright. Their night vision would give the unseen assassin nowhere to hide.
"Healer!" Tavi bellowed. "Now!"
Amos turned a look of pathetic gratitude on Tavi, reaching out with his useless hands to grasp at the young man.
Tavi slapped Arnos's hands away with one motion and dealt him a contemptuous blow to the face with the back of his hand with the next. Amos fell to the ground and landed on his side, shaking his head. He tried to speak, but blood strangled whatever he'd been going to say.
"For the woman. Not for you." Tavi squatted next to Arnos, and said, "I'm doing you a kindness you probably don't deserve, Senator. This is a better death than the Canim would give you."
Arnos's head jerked, and his eyes went out of focus. He made a few thrashing movements, his expression twisting, knotting, becoming absolutely agonized. Tavi didn't want to feel the man's terror and pain and confusion, but he still did. Logically, his actions had merited far more than what he had received-but he was still human, still Tavi's countryman, and someone who, in a
perfect world, Tavi would have protected from his own ambition.
Arnos died there in a pool of his own blood, frightened and friendless and broken.
Tavi wouldn't lose any time mourning the fool-but he regretted the needless deaths of so many Alerans. Even the Senator's.
Things like that shouldn't happen to anyone.
Tavi pulled Arnos's cloak over his face and head, and asked Araris, "How is she?"
"Not good," Araris said. He'd torn off his cape, folded it into a pad, and had it pressed hard against her back. "Pulse is thready. I think she's got a hole in her lung, and she might be bleeding into it. We don't dare move her, and-" Araris froze for a second, then leaned forward, his nostrils flared.
"What is it?"
"I think… I think this bolt was poisoned."
Tavi leaned down and sniffed himself. There was a faintly corrupt odor from the wound in the front of the domestic's body, underlying a sharper, almost lemony scent. "That's heartfire," he said. "Master Killian taught us to recognize it. It speeds up the victim's heart until it bursts. Blinds them, too. I don't know what the other scent is."
"Rancid garic oil," Araris said.
"I've only read about that. Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure."
"Crows," Tavi said. "She's the First Spear's woman."
Araris shook his head. "Bad bloody luck."
"This way!" called Kitai from behind them. A moment later, she arrived leading a score of Marat and a trio of weary-looking healers, including Tribune Foss.
The bearish Tribune immediately examined the wound and listened as Tavi explained about the poison. Then he and the other healers loaded the woman onto a stretcher as gently as they could and carried her away, while the Marat took position around Tavi.
Tavi watched them go and rubbed at his forehead with one hand. "Get me two horses. Tie the late Senator over one of them."
"You can't ride out to the Canim," Araris said. "They aren't dealing in good faith. Look what they just did to Arnos."
Tavi shook his head and rose. He held out one hand, and said, "Arnos was about this tall."
"Yes," Araris said.
"And the woman was bent back, with the top of her head level with his."
"Yes."
"Arnos's wound was in the center of his chest. Hers was in the same spot, but more to the right, because of where she was standing." Tavi extended a finger in a straight line. "The bolt was traveling horizontally and fast enough to pierce them both. Which means it was fired from fairly short range, from inside the walls."
Araris followed the line of reasoning. "You don't think the Canim did this."
Kitai came to stand beside Tavi. "He thinks Alerans are far more capable than the Canim are when it comes to treachery and back-shooting," she said quietly. "He's right."
Tavi found her warm hand with his, and squeezed tight. She returned it, gripping hard.
"Which leaves us with a question for which we have no answer," Tavi said.
Araris nodded. "If not the Canim," he murmured, "then who did it?"
Chapter 59
Valiar Marcus stood upon the southern battlements with his men, watching as the Princeps rode forth from the ruins. A second horse, trailing on a rope, carried Senator Arnos's corpse draped upon its back. The sun was rising, the lands around them steadily growing brighter.
The balest had gone the same way as the jars of poison. It had been tricky for a few moments, when the Marat had come looking for the hidden archer, but his woodcrafted veil had served him well, and he eluded them.
The whole thing had gone to the crows, as such plans often did. Marcus had been forced to change position when the Senator bolted. He'd been sure the man would run to Lady Aquitaine, given a chance, but he'd fled even before the duel was over, and Marcus had been forced to shadow him.
Fortunately, it had hardly been difficult to remain unobserved in the frenzy around the duel, and he'd been able to use the reactions of the hunting Marat as a guide to the Senator. The doubled opportunity he'd finally found had been a stroke of fortune he had acted upon instinctively and instantly. Such moments could not be predicted and never lasted. The tiniest hesitation, and they were gone.
He had heard that "Davia," career Legion domestic, had died in the healing tub, as the poison on the bolt set her heart to racing, spreading the deadly taint of the garic oil through the whole of her body, until her life had simply failed.
That was a pity, Marcus thought. The woman was undeniably capable. She could have been a tremendous asset to the Realm, handled properly, and the loss of such potential to the Crown was regrettable. On the other hand, she was stubborn. He doubted she would have cooperated quickly or easily. He was certain he would not have survived the fallout, regardless of what she chose to do. Still. The skills of the powerful bloodlines of Alera were vital to the long-term survival of the Realm, and-
He felt himself smile a little. For a moment there, he'd been thinking like a Cursor.
"What do you think, First Spear?" asked Tribune Kellus. The annoying young officer had survived the battle and had naturally wandered away from his command again to come chew the fat with Marcus.
"Sir?" Marcus asked politely.
Kellus nodded at the Canim army outside, surrounding the ruins. "Think the captain can get us out of this?"
"Difficult to say, sir," Marcus replied.
"I hope so," Kellus muttered.
Marcus drew in a breath and silently counted to three. "Yes, sir."
The Princeps stopped as a group of Canim, with what must have been two or three former Aleran slaves, came out of the enemy ranks to meet him. They faced off about ten feet from one another, then two of the slaves, an armored legionare and a black-haired woman in a grey dress, came forward to examine the body. The woman looked at his face and nodded, and then the enemy contingent withdrew-except for a single Cane, an enormous, scarred, black-furred brute, who remained facing the Princeps.
The Princeps dismounted, and walked up to face the Cane-who towered over him by a good three feet.
The Cane drew a heavy sword from his belt.
The Princeps mirrored him.
The Cane reversed his grip on the weapon. The Princeps did the same. Then, moving slowly, almost ritually, they exchanged weapons, and stepped away from one another. The Cane slipped the Legion gladius through his belt as a man might a dagger. The Princeps had to slide the massive Canim weapon through a loop attached to his horse's saddle.
The Princeps mounted, and the two faced one another for a moment, probably talking. Then the Princeps tilted his head slightly to one side. The Cane casually lifted one fist to its chest in an Aleran salute, and tilted his head more deeply to one side. Then he turned and strode away.
Horns blared, and within a minute the Canim army was on the move.
And they followed the enormous Cane back to Mastings, away from the ruins on the hilltop.
Legionares stared; and then, as the Princeps rode back to the walls, still bearing Arnos's body, the entire hilltop erupted into cheering, the blowing of horns, the beating of drums.
"He did it," Kellus shouted, pounding on Marcus's back. "Bloody crows and great furies, he did it!"
Marcus endured the buffeting without complaining or knocking a few teeth from the young officer's mouth-but just barely. "Yes, sir," he agreed. "He seems to have formed a habit."
The jubilation continued as the Princeps rode back up the hill, and Marcus excused himself, leaving his senior centurion in charge of the cohort. He didn't have much time. The Princeps would call for a council immediately.
Marcus made his way to the healers' tents and found most of them asleep, simply stretched out on the ground, too exhausted to walk back to their bedrolls. He looked around until he found Foss and shook the Tribune's shoulder.
"I should kill you," Foss said blearily. He opened his eyes, blinked them a few times, and said, "Oh. Marcus."
"I'd like to see her," Marcus said quietly.
&nbs
p; "Her?" Foss mumbled. Then he winced, and said, "Oh, right. I… I'm sorry, Marcus. We did everything we could for her, but…"
"It happens," he replied wearily. "I just want to… say good-bye."
"Sure," Foss said, his usual gruff tone gentle. He jerked his head at some hanging curtains at the rear of the tent. "Back there."
Marcus made his way back to the curtains and parted them. Six bodies lay behind them, covered in bloody shrouds. He began lifting shrouds, revealing dead, pale faces with grey lips. Five were fallen legionares. One was an elderly woman.
None of them was Lady Aquitaine.
Marcus's blood ran cold.
He strode back out to Foss, cuffed the man's shoulder to wake him up, and said, "Where?"
"Back there," Foss protested, waving at the curtains. "She was the last we worked on. She's right back there."
"No," Marcus snarled. "She isn't."
Foss blinked at him. Then he rose, groaning, and shambled back to look for himself.
"Huh," he said, after looking around. "I don't understand it. She was right there." He nodded at an empty space at the end of the row of bodies. "Seven of them."
"Now there are six," Marcus said.
"Seven minus one, yeah," Foss said testily. "Look, we've been asleep for a while, Marcus. Sometimes family or friends come for domestics or followers who are killed rather than sending them to a mass Legion grave. You know that."
Marcus shook his head. The surge of fear had faded rather rapidly, as his exhaustion finally caught up with him. He knew he should be stealing a fast horse and running for his life, but he was just too tired.
Besides, he'd do it again in a heartbeat. And he was finished with running.
He exchanged a few more words with Foss, and then marched out of the healers' tent and toward the command tent. In the end, what difference did it make if he died for this choice or one of the many others that could come back to haunt him?