"Understood, milord." Giraldi nodded and saluted again, then spun around to draw his baton from his belt and began bawling orders to his men. Janus turned to his subordinate, his voice much quieter than Giraldi's, but he moved with the same quality of purpose and command.
Amara stood back, watching Bernard thoughtfully. When she met him, he had been a Steadholder—not even a full Citizen himself. But even then, he had the kind of presence that demanded obedience and loyalty. He had always been decisive, fair, and strong. But she had never seen him in this setting, in his new role as Count Calderon, commanding officers and soldiers of Alera's Legion with the quiet confidence of experience and knowledge. She had known that he served in the Legions, of course, since every male of Alera was required to do so for at least one tour lasting two to four years.
It surprised her. She had regarded Gaius's decision to appoint Bernard the new Count of Calderon as a political gambit, mostly intended to demonstrate the First Lord's authority. Perhaps Gaius, though, had seen Bernard's potential more clearly than she. He was obviously comfortable in his role, and worked with the intent focus of a man determined to discharge his duties to the best of his ability.
She could see the reactions of his men to it—Giraldi, a grizzled old salt of a
legionare
, respected Bernard immensely, as did all of the men of his century. Winning the respect of long-term, professional soldiers was never easy, but he had done it. And amazingly enough, he enjoyed the same quiet respect with Captain Janus, who clearly regarded Bernard as someone competent at his job and willing to work as hard and face exactly the same situations he asked of his men.
Most importantly, she thought, it was evident to everyone who knew him what Bernard was: a decent man.
Amara felt a warm current of fierce pride flow through her. In spare moments of .thought, it still seemed an amazing stroke of luck to her that she had found a man of both kindness and strength who clearly desired her company.
You must leave him, of course.
Serai's gentle, inflexible words killed the rush of warmth, turning it into a sinking in the pit of her stomach. She could not refute them. Bernard's duties to the Realm were a clear necessity. Alera required every strong furycrafter it could get to survive in a hostile world, and its Citizens and nobility represented the prime of that strength. Custom demanded that Citizens and nobility alike seek out spouses with as much strength as possible. Duty and law required the nobility to take spouses who could provide strongly gifted children. Bernard's strength as a crafter was formidable, and with more than one fury, to boot. He was a strong crafter and a good man. He would be a fine husband. A strong father. He would make some woman very, very happy when he
wed
her.
But that woman could not be Amara.
She shook her head, forcing that line of thinking from her thoughts. She was here to stop the vord. She owed it to the men of Bernard's column to focus all of her thought on her current goals. Whatever happened, she would not allow her personal worries to distract her from doing everything in her power to protect the lives of the
legionares
under Bernard's command, and to destroy what would be a most deadly threat to the Realm.
She watched Bernard kneel on the ground, his palm flat to the earth. He closed his eyes and murmured, "Brutus."
The ground near him quivered gently, then the earth rippled and broke like the still surface of a pool at the passing of a stone. From that ripple, an enormous hound, bigger than some ponies and made entirely of stone and earth rose up from the ground and pushed his broad stone head against Bernard's outstretched hand. Bernard smiled and thumped the hound lightly on the ear. Then Brutus settled down and sat attentively, its green eyes—real emeralds—focused on Bernard.
The Count murmured something else, and Brutus opened his jaws in what looked like a bark. The sound that
came horn
the earth fury was akin to that of a large rockslide. The fury immediately sank back into the earth, while Bernard stayed there, hunkered down, his hand still on the earth.
Amara approached him quietly and paused several steps away.
"Countess?" Bernard rumbled after a moment. He sounded somewhat distracted.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
There was another low shudder in the earth, this one sharp and brief. Amara felt it ripple out beneath her boots. "Trying to see if anyone is moving around out there. On a good day, I could spot something three or four miles out."
"Really? So far?"
"I've lived here long enough," Bernard said. "I know this valley. That's what makes it possible." He grunted, frowning for a moment. "That isn't right."
"What isn't?"
"There's something…" Bernard suddenly lurched to his feet, his face gone white, and bellowed, "Captain! Frederic!"
In seconds, booted feet pounded on the stones of the courtyard, and Frederic came sprinting toward them from outside the walls, where the column's gargants, with Doroga's, waited for the steadholt to be searched for hidden dangers before entering. Seconds later, Captain Janus leapt from the steadholt's wall directly to the courtyard, absorbing the shock of the fall with furycrafted strength, and jogged over without delay or excitement.
"Captain," Bernard said. "There's been a chamber crafted into the steadholt's foundation, then sealed off."
Janus's eyes widened. "A bolt-hole?"
"It must be," Bernard said. "The steadholt's furies are trying to keep it sealed, and it's too much stone for me to move alone as long as they're set against me."
Janus nodded once, stripping his gloves off. He knelt on the ground, pressed his hands to the stones of the courtyard and closed his eyes.
"Frederic," Bernard said, his voice sharp, controlled, "when I nod, I want you to open a way to that chamber, large enough for a man to walk through. The Captain and I will hold off the steadholt furies for you."
Frederic swallowed. "That's a lot of rock, sir. I'm not sure I can."
"You're a Knight of the Realm now, Frederic," Bernard said, his voice crackling with authority. "Don't wonder about it. Do it."
Frederic swallowed and nodded, a sheen of sweat beading his upper lip.
Bernard turned to Amara. "Countess, I need you to be ready to move," he said.
Amara frowned. "To do what? I don't know what you mean by bolt-hole."
"It's something that's happened on steadholts under attack before," Bernard said. "Someone crafted an open chamber into the foundation of the steadholt, then closed the stone around it."
"Why would anyone do—" Amara frowned. "They sealed their children in," she breathed, suddenly understanding. "To protect them from whatever was attacking the steadholt."
Bernard nodded grimly. "And the chamber isn't large enough to hold very much air. The three of us will open a way to the chamber and hold it open, but we won't be able to do it for very long. Take some of the men down and pull out whoever you can as quickly as you can."
"Very well."
He touched her arm. "Amara," he said. "I can't tell how long they've been there sealed in there. It could be an hour. It could be a day. But I can't feel anything moving around."
She got a sickly, twisting feeling in the pit of her stomach. "We might be too late."
Bernard grimaced and squeezed her arm. Then he went to Janus's side and knelt, placing his own hands on the ground near the Captain's.
"Centurion!" Amara called. "I need ten men to assist possible survivors of the steadholt!"
"Aye, milady," Giraldi answered. In short order, ten men stood ready near Amara—and ten more, weapons drawn, stood next to them. "Just in case they
aren't
holders, my lady," Giraldi growled under his breath. "Doesn't hurt to be careful."
She grimaced and nodded. "Very well. Do you really think they could be the enemy?"
Giraldi shook his head, and said, "Sealed up in rock, for furies know how long? I doubt it will matter even if it is the vord." He took a deep breath, and said, "No need for you to go down when they open it, Countess."
"Yes," Amara said. "There is."
Giraldi frowned but said nothing else.
Bernard and Justin spoke quietly to one another for a few moments. Then Bernard said, his voice strained, "Almost there. Get ready. We won't be able to hold it open long."
"We're ready," Amara said.
Bernard nodded, and said, "Now, Frederic."
The ground trembled again, then there was a grating, groaning sound. Directly before Frederic's feet, the stones of the courtyard suddenly quivered and sank downward, as if the ground beneath them had turned to soupy mud. Amara stepped over to the opening hole, and took in the rather unsettling sight of stone running like water, flowing down to form itself into a steeply sloping ramp leading down into the earth.
"There," Bernard grated. "Hurry."
"Sir," Frederic said. He spoke in an anguished groan. "I can't hold it open for long."
"Hold it as long as you can," Bernard growled, his own face red and beginning to sweat.
"Centurion," Amara snapped, and she started down the ramp. Giraldi bawled out orders, and the sound of heavy boots on stone followed hard on Amara's heels.
The ramp went down nearly twenty feet into the earth and ended at a low opening into a small, egg-shaped room. The air smelled stale, thick, and too wet. There were shapes in the dimness of the room—limp bundles of cloth. Amara went to the nearest and knelt—a child, scarcely old enough to walk.
"They're children," she snapped to Giraldi.
"Move it," Giraldi barked. "Move it, boys, you heard the Countess."
Legionares
stomped into the chamber, seized the still forms in it at random, and hurried out again. Amara left the chamber last, and just as she did, the smooth stone floor suddenly bulged upward just as the ceiling swelled downward. Amara shot a look over her shoulder, and was uncomfortably reminded of the hungry maw of a direwolf as the bedrock flowed and moved like a living thing. The opening to the room contracted, and the walls on either side of the ramp suddenly got narrower. "Hurry!" she shouted to the men ahead of her.
"I can't!" Frederic groaned.
Legionares
sprinted up the ramp, but the stone was collapsing inward again too quickly. Scarcely noticing the weight of the limp child she carried, Amara cried out to Cirrus, and her fury came howling down into the slot in the stone like a hurricane. Vicious, dangerous winds abruptly swept down the ramp beneath and behind them, and then rushed up toward the surface like a maddened gargant. The winds threw Amara into the back of the
legionare
in front of her before it caught the man and his charge up, and sent them both into the next man in line, until in all a half dozen
legionares
flew wildly up the ramp and out of the grasp of the closing stone.
The ground grated again, a harsh, hateful sound, and the stone closed seamlessly back into its original shape, catching the end of Amara's braid as it did. The braid snared her as strongly as any rope, and the winds propelling her swung her feet out and up into the air as her hair was seized by the rock. She thumped back down to the stone flat on her back, and got the wind knocked out of her in a rush of breathless, stunned pain.
"Watercrafter!" bellowed Giraldi. "Healers!"
Someone took the child gently from Amara's arms, and she became vaguely aware of the infantry's watercrafter and several grizzled soldiers with healer's bags draped over one shoulder rushing over to them.
"Easy, easy," Bernard said from somewhere nearby. He sounded winded. Amara felt his hand on her shoulder.
"Are they all right?" she gasped. "The children?"
"They're looking at them," Bernard said gently. His hands touched her head briefly, then ran back around the back of her head, gently probing. "You hit your head?"
Amara shook her head. "No. My braid caught in the rock."
She heard him let out a slow breath of relief, then felt him feeling his way along the length of the braid. When he got to the end of it, he said, "It's only an inch or two. It's right at the tie."
"Fine," Amara said.
She heard the rasp of Bernard's dagger being drawn from his belt. He applied the honed edge of the knife to the end of her braid and cut it loose from the rock.
Amara sighed as the pressure on her scalp eased. "Help me sit up," she said.
Bernard gave her his hand and pulled her to sit on the courtyard. Amara tried to get her breath back,
and
began methodically to work the now-loose braid out before it started tangling in knots.
"Sir?" Janus said. "Looks like we got here in time."
Bernard closed his eyes. "Thank the great furies. Who do we have here?"
"Children," Janus reported. "None of them over the age of eight or nine, and two infants. Four boys, five girls—and a young lady. They're unconscious but breathing, and their pulses are strong."
"A young lady?" Amara asked. "The steadholt's caretaker?"
Bernard squinted up at the sun and nodded. "It would make sense." He got up and paced over to the recumbent forms of the children and of one young
woman. Amara rose
, paused while her balance swayed a little, then followed him over.
Bernard grimaced. "It's Heddy. Aric's wife."
Amara stared down at a frail-looking young woman with pale blond hair and fair skin, only lightly weathered by sun and wind. "Sealed them in," she murmured. "And set their furies to make sure they stayed that way. Why would they do such a thing?"
"To make it impossible for anyone to get to them but the people who put them there," Bernard rumbled.
"But why?"
Bernard shrugged. "Maybe the holders figured that if they weren't around to get their children out, they didn't want whoever was attacking them to have the chance."
"Even if they died?"
"There are worse things than death," Doroga said. His rumbling basso startled Amara into a twitch of reflexive tension. The huge Marat headman had moved up behind them more silently than an Amaranth grass lion. "Some of them much worse."