Amara woke to the sensation of something small brushing past her foot. She kicked her leg at whatever it was, and heard a faint scuttling sound on the floor. A mouse, or a rat. A steadholt was never free of them, regardless of how many cats or furies were employed to keep them at bay. She sat up blearily and rubbed at her face with her hands.
The great hall of the steadholt was full of wounded men. Someone had gotten the fires going at the twin hearths at either end of the hall, and guards stood by both doors. She rose and stretched, squinting around the hall until she located Bernard at one of the doors, speaking in low voices with Giraldi. She crossed the hall to him, skirting around several wounded on cots and sleeping palettes.
"Countess," Bernard said with a polite bow of his head. "You should be lying down."
"I'm fine," she replied. "How long was I out?"
"Two hours or so," Giraldi replied, touching a finger to the rim of his helmet in a vague gesture of respect. "Saw you in the courtyard. That wasn't bad work for a, uh…"
"A woman?" Amara asked archly.
Giraldi sniffed. "A civilian," he said loftily.
Bernard let out a low rumble of a laugh.
"The survivors?" Amara asked.
Bernard nodded toward the darker area in the middle of the hall where most of the cots and palettes lay. "Sleeping."
"The men?"
Bernard nodded toward the heavy tubs against one wall, upended now and drying. "The healers have the walking wounded back up to fighting shape, but without Harmonus we haven't been able to get the men who were intentionally crippled back up and moving. Too many bones to mend without more watercrafters. And some of the bad injuries…" Bernard shook his head.
"We lost more men?"
He nodded. "Four more died. There wasn't much we could do for them—and two of the three healers left were wounded as well. It cut down on what they could do to help the others. Too much work and not enough hands."
"Our Knights?"
"Resting," Bernard said, with another nod at the cots. "I want them recovered from this morning as soon as possible."
Giraldi snorted under his breath. "Tell the truth, Bernard. You just enjoy making the infantry stay on their feet and go without rest."
"True," Bernard said gravely. "But this time it was just a fortunate coincidence."
Amara felt herself smiling. "Centurion," she said, "I wonder if you would be willing to find me something to eat?"
"Of course, Your Excellency." Giraldi rapped his fist against the center of his breastplate and headed for the nearest hearth and the table of provisions there.
Bernard watched the centurion go. Amara folded her arms and leaned against the doorway, looking outside at the late-afternoon sunshine pouring down upon the grisly courtyard. The sight threatened to stir up a cyclone of fear and anger and guilt, and Amara had to close her eyes for a moment to remain in control of herself. "What are we going to do, Bernard?"
The big man frowned out at the courtyard, and after a moment, Amara opened her eyes and studied his features. Bernard looked weary, haunted, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy with guilt. "I'm not sure," he said at last. "We only got done securing the steadholt and caring for the wounded a few moments ago."
Amara looked past him, to the remains in the courtyard. The
legionares
had gathered up the fallen, and they lay against one of the steadholt's outer walls, covered in their capes. Crows flitted back and forth, some picking at the edges of the covered corpses, but most of them found plenty to interest them in the remains too scattered to be retrieved.
Amara put her hand on Bernard's arm. "They knew the risks," she said quietly.
"And they expected sound leadership," Bernard replied.
"No one could have foreseen this, Bernard. You can't blame yourself for what happened."
"I can," Bernard said quietly. "And so can Lord Riva and His Majesty. I should have been more cautious. Held off until reinforcements arrived."
"There was no time," Amara said. She squeezed his wrist. "Bernard, there
still
is no time, if Doroga is right. We have to decide on a course of action."
"Even if it is the wrong one?" Bernard asked. "Even if it means more men go to their deaths."
Amara took a deep breath and responded quietly, her voice soft, her words empty of rancor. "Yes," she said quietly. "Even if it means every last one of them dies. Even if it means you die. Even if it means I die. We are here to protect the Realm. There are tens of thousands of holders who live between here and Riva. If these vord can spread as swiftly as Doroga indicated, the lives of those holders are in our hands. What we do in the next few hours could save them."
"Or kill them," Bernard added.
"Would you have us do nothing?" Amara asked. "It would be like cutting their throats ourselves."
Bernard looked at her for a moment, then closed his eyes. "You're right, of course," he rumbled. "We move on them. We fight."
Amara nodded. "Good."
"But I can't fight what I haven't found," he said. "We don't know where they are. These things laid a trap for us once. We'd be fools to go charging out blind to find them. I'd be throwing more lives away."
Amara frowned. "I agree."
Bernard nodded. "So that's the question. We want to find them and hit them. What should our next step be?"
"That part is simple," she said. "We gather whatever knowledge we can." Amara looked around the great hall. "Where is Doroga?"
"Outside," Bernard said. "He refused to leave Walker out there by himself."
Amara frowned. "He's the only person we have who has some experience with the vord. We can't afford to risk him like that."
Bernard half smiled. "I'm not sure he isn't safer than we are, out there. Walker seems unimpressed by the vord."
Amara nodded. "All right. Let's go talk to him."
Bernard nodded once and beckoned Giraldi. The centurion came back over to the doorway bearing a wide-mouthed tin cup in one hand. He took his position at the doorway again and offered the steaming cup to Amara. It proved to be full of the thick, meaty, pungent soup commonly known as "
legionare's
, blood." Amara nodded her thanks and took the cup with her as she and Bernard walked outside to speak to Doroga.
The Marat headman was in the same corner he'd defended during the attack. Blood and ichor had dried on his pale skin, and it lent him an even more savage mien than usual. Walker stood quietly, lifting his left front leg, while Doroga examined the pads of the beast's foot.
"Doroga," Amara said.
The Marat grunted a greeting without looking up.
"What are you doing?" Bernard asked.
"Feet," the Marat rumbled. "Always got to help him take care of his feet. Feet are important when you are as big as Walker." He looked up at them, squinting against the sunlight. "When do we go after them?"
Bernard's face flickered into a white-toothed grin. "Who says we're going after them?"
Doroga snorted.
"That depends," Amara told Doroga. "We need to know as much as we can about them before we decide. What more can you tell us about the vord?"
Doroga finished with that paw. He looked at Amara for a moment, then moved to Walker's rear foot. Doroga thumped on Walker's leg with the flat of one hand. The gargant lifted the leg obligingly, and Doroga began examining that foot. "They take everyone they can. They destroy everyone they can't. They spread fast. Kill them swiftly or die."
"We know that already," Amara said.
"Good," Doroga answered. "Let's go."
"There's more
to
talk about," Amara insisted.
Doroga looked blankly up at her.
"For instance," Amara said. "I found a weakness in them—those lumps on their backs. Striking into them seemed to release some kind of greenish fluid, as well as disorient and kill them."
Doroga nodded. "Saw that. Been thinking about it. I think they drown."
Amara arched an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"Drown," Doroga said. He frowned in thought, looking up, as though searching for a word. "They choke. Smother. Thrash around in a panic, then die. Like a fish out of water."
"They're fish?" Bernard asked, his tone skeptical.
"No," Doroga said. "But maybe they breathe something other than air, like fish. Got to have what they breathe or they die. That green stuff in the lumps on their backs."
Amara pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Why do you say that?"
"Because it smells the same as what is under the
croach
. Maybe they get it there."
"Tavi told me about the
croach
," Bernard mused. "That coating that gave the Wax Forest its name. They had the stuff spread out all over that valley."
Doroga gave a grunt and nodded. "It was also spread over the nest my people destroyed."
Amara frowned in thought. "Then perhaps this
croach
isn't simply something like… like beeswax," she said. "Not just something they use to build. Doroga, Tavi told me that these things, the wax spiders, defended the
croach
when it was ruptured. Is that true?"
Doroga nodded. "We call them the Keepers of Silence. And yes. Only the lightest of my people could walk on the
croach
without breaking it."
"That might make sense," Amara said. "If the
croach
. contained what they needed to survive…" She shook her head. "How long was the Wax Forest in that valley?"
Bernard shrugged. "Had been there as long as anyone could remember when I came to Calderon."
Doroga nodded agreement. "My grandfather had been down into it when he was a boy."
"But these spiders, or Keepers—they never appeared anywhere else?" Amara asked.
"Never," Doroga said with certainty. "They were only in the valley."
Amara looked over at one of the dead vord. "Then they couldn't leave it. These things have been swift and aggressive. Something must have kept them locked into place before. They had to stay where the
croach
was to survive."
"If that's true," Bernard said, "then why are they spreading now? They were stationary for years."
Doroga put Walker's foot back down and said, quietly, "Something changed."
"But what?" Amara asked.
"Something woke up," Doroga said. "Tavi and my wh—and Kitai awoke something that lived in the center of the
croach
. It pursued them when they fled. I threw a rock at it."
"The way Tavi told it," Bernard said, "the rock was the size of a pony."
Doroga shrugged. "I threw it at the creature that pursued them. It struck the creature. Wounded it. The creature fled. The Keepers went with it. Protected it."
"Had you seen it before?" Amara asked.
"Never," Doroga said.
"Can you describe it?"
Doroga mused in thought for a moment. Then he nodded toward one of the fallen vord. "Like these. But not like these. Longer. Thinner. Strange-looking. Like it was not finished becoming what it would be."
Bernard said, "Doroga, your people had run this race for many years. How could Tavi and Kitai have wakened this creature?"
Doroga said, without expression, "Maybe you have not noticed. Tavi does things big."
Bernard arched an eyebrow. "How so?"
"He saw how the Keepers see the heat of a body. Saw how they respond to damage on the
croach
. So he set it on fire."
Bernard blinked. "Tavi… set the Wax Forest on
fire
?"
"Left out that part, did he," Doroga said.
"Yes he did," Bernard said.
"The creature bit Kitai. Poisoned her. Tavi was climbing out. But he went back down for her when he could have left her there. They had been sent to recover a mushroom that grew only there. Powerful remedy to poison and disease. They each had one. Tavi gave his to Kitai to save her from the poison. Even when he knew it would cost him the race. His life." Doroga shook his head. "He saved her. And that, Bernard, is why I killed Atsurak in the battle. Because the boy saved my Kitai. It was bravely done."
"Tavi did that?" Bernard said quietly.
"Left out that part, did he," Doroga asked.
"He… he has a way of coloring things when he describes them," Bernard said. "He didn't speak of his own role in things quite so dramatically."
"Doroga," Amara asked. "If Tavi gave up the race to save your daughter, how did he win the trial?"
Doroga shrugged. "Kitai gave him her mushroom to honor his courage. His sacrifice. It cost her something she wanted very much."
"Left out that part, did you," Bernard said, smiling.
Amara frowned and closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. "I believe I know what is happening." She opened her eyes to find both men staring at her. "I think that Tavi and Kitai woke up the vord queen. My guess is that it had been sleeping, or dormant for some reason. That somehow, whatever they did allowed it to wake up."
Doroga nodded slowly. "Maybe. First queen wakes. Spawns two new, lesser queens. They split up and found new nests."
"Which means they would need to cover new areas with the
croach
," Amara said. "If they truly need it to survive."
"We can find them," Bernard said, voice tight with excitement. "Brutus knew the feel of the Wax Forest. He can find something similar here."
Doroga grunted. "So can Walker. His nose better than mine. We can find them and give battle."
"We don't have to do that," Amara said. "All we really need to do is destroy the
croach
. If our guess is right, that will smother them all, sooner or later."
"If you're right," Bernard said, "then they will fight like mad to protect it."
Amara nodded. "Then we need to know what we're likely to face there. These wax spiders. What kind of threat are they?"
"Poison bite," Doroga said. "About the size of a small wolf. Bad enough, but nothing like these things." He nudged the shattered, flattened shell of a crushed vord with his foot.
"Do you think an armored
legionare
would be able to handle one?" Amara asked.