Behind them rode the cavalry. First came the mounted alae of the Legions, eight hundred horses and their riders, then the Canim cavalry. Composed almost entirely of Shuaran Canim riding the odd-looking Canean creature called a “taurg,” they each massed two or three times the weight of a
legionare
on a horse. The horned, hunchbacked taurga, each considerably larger than a healthy ox, kept pace with the column without difficulty, the muscles in their heavy haunches flexing like cables of steel. The taurga didn’t look tired. The taurga looked impatient and short-tempered and as though they were giving serious consideration to eating their riders or fellow herd members. Possibly both. Tavi had ridden a taurg for weeks in Canea, and in his judgment it would not be out of character for the war beasts.
He sighed and looked aside and up at Maximus, who was riding a particularly ugly, mottled taurg of his own. “Crows, Max. I thought you’d killed and eaten that thing.”
Max grinned. “Steaks and New Boots, Captain? I hate this critter like no other on Carna. Which is why I decided he could be miserable carrying me all this way in the rain instead of inflicting it on some perfectly decent horse.”
Tavi wrinkled up his nose. “It stinks, Max. Especially in the rain.”
“I have always found the odor of wet Aleran to be slightly unsavory,” Kitai said, from where she rode on Tavi’s right.
Tavi and Max both gave her an indignant look. “Hey,” Max said, “we don’t smell when we’re wet.”
Kitai arched an eyebrow at them. “Well, of course you don’t smell
yourselves
.” She lifted a hand and waved it daintily at the air by her nose, an affectation of gesture that Tavi thought she must have studied from some refined lady Citizen. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.” She nudged her horse several paces to one side and let out a sigh of relief.
“She’s joking,” Max said. He frowned and looked at Tavi. “She’s joking.”
“Um,” Tavi said, “almost certainly.”
Kitai gave them an oblique look and said nothing.
There was a muffled roar of wind as Crassus came soaring down out of the rainy skies. He hit the water-slickened surface of the causeway with his shoulders parallel to the road, his legs spread solidly. A sheet of water sprayed up from his boots as he slid along the causeway for twenty yards before slowing to a couple of skipping steps, then came to a halt in front of Tavi’s horse. He threw Tavi a crisp salute and began running alongside the horse. “Captain. Looks like we’d better get used to the idea of getting rained on. There’s a fairly rocky patch about half a mile ahead. It won’t be comfortable, but I don’t think anyone will get sucked into the mud there.”
Tavi grunted and peered up at the weeping sky. He sighed. “All right. There’s no sense in pushing through in the dark. Thank you, Crassus. We’ll make camp there. Please spread the word to the Tribunes. Maximus, please inform the Warmaster that we’ll halt in half a mile.”
The Antillan brothers both saluted, then left to follow their orders.
Tavi eyed Kitai, who continued to ride facing straight ahead, not looking at him. Her expression was unreadable. “You
were
joking, weren’t you?”
She lifted her chin, sniffed, and said nothing.
For the first time in history, Alerans and Canim pitched a camp together.
Tavi and Varg walked about the camp together as their respective country-men labored to set up the camp’s defenses after a hard day’s marching, in the rain, with night coming on rapidly.
“Should be interesting tonight,” Varg rumbled.
“I thought that the Free Aleran Legion had done this sort of thing many times,” Tavi said.
Varg growled in the negative. “Nasaug was already pushing the letter of the codes by training makers to fight. Bringing
demons
into a warrior camp? He would have been forced to kill some of his own officers to keep his place.” Varg squinted at a team of Aleran engineers who were using earthcrafting to soften the stone so that they could drive the posts of the palisade into it.
Tavi watched them for a moment, considering. “There was more to it than that.”
Varg inclined his head slightly. “Can’t just tell a soul it is free, Tavar. Freedom must be done for oneself. Important that the slaves created their own freedom. Nasaug gave them advisors. They did everything else on their own.”
Tavi glanced up at Varg. “Are you going to be forced to kill some of your officers tonight?”
Varg was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Possible. But I think unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Because their opposition would be based upon tradition. Tradition needs a world to exist. And the world has been destroyed, Aleran. My world. Yours, too. Even if we could defeat the vord tomorrow, nothing would change that.”
Tavi frowned. “Do you really think that?”
Varg flicked his ears in the affirmative. “We are in uncharted waters, Tavar. And the storm has not yet abated. If we are still alive when it is over, we will find ourselves on unknown shores.”
Tavi sighed. “Yes. And then what?”
Varg shrugged. “We are enemies, Tavar. What do enemies do?”
Tavi thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “I only know what they did in the old world.”
Varg stopped in his tracks. He eyed Tavi for several seconds, then shook his ears and began walking again. “Wasted breath to talk about it now.”
Tavi nodded. “Survive today. Then face tomorrow.”
Varg flicked his ears in agreement. They had crossed into the Canim side of the camp as they spoke. Varg came to a halt outside a large, black tent. There was an odd smell of incense in the air, and the stench of rotting meat. From inside the tent, a deep-bellied drum kept a slow, reverberating cadence. Deep voices chanted in the snarling tongue of the wolf-warriors.
Varg stopped outside the tent and drew his sword in a long, slow rasp of steel on brass. Then he hurled it point down into the earth before the tent. It sank into the ground with a thump, and the bubbling whisper of its quivering went on for several seconds.
The chanting voices inside the tent stopped.
“I am here regarding the matter of the dead makers at Antillus,” Varg called.
There was a low murmur of voices. Then a dozen of them spoke in ragged concert. “Their blood cries out for justice.”
“Agreed,” said Varg in a very hard voice. “What wisdom have the bloodspeakers to give such justice a shape?”
Another swift and murmured conference followed. Then they answered together again. “Blood for blood, life for life, death for death.”
Varg flicked his tail impatiently. “And if I do not do this?”
This time they all answered at once. “Call to the makers, call to the warriors, call for strength to lead us.”
“Then let Master Khral come forth to see it done!”
There was a long silence from the tent.
Tavi arched an eyebrow and glanced at Varg. The big Cane looked intent.
“Master Khral speaks for the bloodspeakers, and for the makers! So he has assured me for many months! Let him come forth!”
Again, silence.
“Then let one of honor and experience come forth to witness it! Let Master Marok come forth!”
Almost before Varg was finished speaking, the opening of the tent parted, and a tall, weathered old Cane emerged. He wore a mantle constructed from sections of vord chitin, and a misshapen warrior-form’s chitinous skull served as his hood. More plates of chitin armored his torso and legs. His fur was, like Varg’s, midnight black, though both of his forearms were so heavily laden with layer upon layer of scars that almost no fur grew there at all. He wore a sling bag across his chest. The band had been woven from what looked like the legs of many wax spiders. The bag, too, was a black chitin skull from some vord form Tavi had never seen—but instead of carrying blood, it held multiple scrolls and what might have been some sort of flute carved from bone. The old Cane also had a pair of daggers stored side by side on his belt. Their bone handles looked old and worn.
“Master Marok,” Varg rumbled. He bared his throat very slightly, the Canim version of a bow. Marok returned the gesture only a shade more deeply, acknowledging Varg’s leadership without quite recognizing his superiority.
“Varg,” Marok replied. “Has no one killed you yet?”
“You are welcome to try your luck,” Varg replied. “The bloodspeakers allowed
you
to speak for them?”
“They’re all afraid that if one of them steps up to the head of the pack, Khral will have them killed when he returns.”
“Khral,” Varg said, amusement in his voice.
“Or someone.” Marok eyed Tavi. “This is the demon Tavar?”
Varg’s ears flicked affirmation. “
Gadara
, this is Marok. I respect him.”
Tavi lifted his eyebrows and gave Marok a Canim bow, which was returned in precisely equal measure. The old Cane watched him through narrowed eyes.
“You killed two of my people,” Marok said.
“I’ve killed more than that,” Tavi replied. “But if you mean the two false messengers who attacked me in my tent, then yes. I killed one, and a soldier under my command killed another.”
“The tent was the Tavar’s,” Varg said. “He did not seek the makers out for murder. They trespassed upon his range.”
Marok growled. “The code calls for a blood answer when an outsider kills one of us, regardless of the circumstances.”
“An outsider,” Varg growled. “He is
gadara.
”
Marok stopped to eye Varg thoughtfully. In a much quieter, quite calm voice, he muttered, “That might work. If we can make it stick.”
Tavi took his cue from Marok and lowered his voice as well. “Varg. If Lararl had done what I did, what would be the proper reply?”
Varg growled. “My people on his range? Simple defense of his territory. They would be in the wrong, not Lararl. Though I would consider it clumsy and wasteful, under the circumstances, since Lararl could quite likely have rendered them helpless without killing either of them.”
Tavi grimaced. “That wasn’t what I wanted. There were only two of us. Each of us was trying to dispose of his opponent so that he could help the other. I would much rather have had them alive and answering questions about who sent them.”
Marok grunted. He looked at Varg. “You believe him?”
“
Gadara
, Marok.”
The old Cane tilted his head slightly to the side in acknowledgment. “Khral’s pack of scavengers are going to raise a whirlwind of howls if you give one of the demons status as a member of the people. Naming him
gadara
is a warrior concern, and your rightful prerogative. Establishing a demon as one of our people under the codes is another matter entirely.”
Varg growled. “Without this demon, there would be no people for the codes to guide.”
“A fact that does not escape me,” Marok replied. “But it does not alter the codes.”
“Then there must be a blood answer,” Varg said.
“Yes.”
Varg flicked his ears in thoughtful agreement and turned to Tavi. “Would you be willing to trade two Aleran lives for those you took?”
“Never,” Tavi said quietly.
Marok made a rumble of approval in his chest.
“The poor dead fools,” Varg growled. “This was a blade well sunk. Give Khral credit for that much.”
“Blood,” Tavi said abruptly.
The two Canim eyed him.
“What if I pay a blood price for the two dead makers? Their weight of blood?”
Marok narrowed his eyes again. “Interesting.”
Varg grunted. “A Cane has twice the weight in blood of an Aleran,
gadara
. We could bleed you to a husk, and you would have paid back only a quarter.”
“What if it were done slowly?” Tavi replied. “A little at a time? And the blood entrusted to, say, Master Marok here, to use for the protection and benefit of the families of the two dead makers?”
“Interesting,” Marok said again.
Varg mused for a moment. “I can think of nothing in the codes to hold against it.”
“Nothing in the codes,” Marok said. “But it sets a dangerous precedent. Others might use it to kill as well and escape the consequences in this fashion.”
Tavi showed his teeth. “Not if the party who has been wronged does the bloodletting.”
Marok huffed out a harsh bark of Canim-style laughter.
Varg’s jaws lolled open in a smile. “Aye. That would stand up to usage.” He tilted his head and eyed Tavi. “You would trust me with the blade,
gadara
?”
“If anything happened to me, your people would be finished,” Tavi said soberly. “We would kill them all. Or the vord would kill them all. And there would never again be such an opportunity for us to build mutual respect.”
Varg watched Marok as Tavi spoke. Then he spread one paw-hand open, as though he had just proved something to the older Cane.
Marok nodded slowly. “As the observer sent by the bloodspeakers, I will consider this payment an offering of honor and restitution—and I will see to it that the makers know that it has been concluded according to the codes. Wait here.”
Marok went back into the black tent. When he returned, he held what would be a rather small vial, for a Cane, made of some kind of ivory. To Tavi, it looked nearly the size of a canteen. Marok handed the container to Varg.
Varg took it with another, deeper bow, this time reversing the roles of accorded respect with Marok. The old Cane said, “From the left arm.”
Tavi steeled himself as he pushed the arm of his tunic up past his elbow and extended it to Varg.
The Warmaster drew his dagger, an Aleran
gladius
that had once belonged to Tavi. Varg carried it for use when he needed a keen-edged knife. Moving with quick, sure motions, he laid a long, shallow cut across Tavi’s forearm, along a diagonal. Tavi gritted his teeth but made no other reaction to the pain of the injury. He lowered his arm to his side, and Varg bent to place the vial beneath his fingertips, catching the blood as it spilled. It slowly began to fill.