Princeps' fury (24 page)

They slept on the cold ground, bedrolls laid out close together for simple warmth. Though there were no wood-burning fires, as there would have been in a Legion camp, the Canim instead built fires in trenches that burned low, hot, and slow on some kind of thick bricks of springy moss. The fire trenches made the nights survivable, but just barely. Max and Crassus were both familiar with firecrafting techniques used along the Shieldwall for keeping oneself warm in the bitter cold, but they couldn’t be done when sleeping, and their nights were as miserable as everyone else’s.

The next day began with the bawling of hungry taurga waking everyone from their sleep. Max, who had begun bringing a stone to his bedroll with him specifically to hurl at the first taurg to begin bellowing near him, threw nothing more than a muttered oath, and the day got under way almost immediately. Canim camp procedure was elementary in the morning: feed the taurga and shovel their leavings out of the ring of stones and into the mound where they would be allowed to dry and used to supplement the fuel for the fire trenches. Then saddle the beasts and mount up. The warriors ate dried jerky from their own packs as they worked or as the morning’s ride began.

As on the other days they’d spent on the road, they rode at the swaying, swift pace of the taurga’s loping walk, following the road southwest, continuing farther inland, as they had for the previous three days, and stopping only once at midday, to feed and water the beasts. By the time evening approached, the wind had begun to rise, swift and cold, and pellets of stinging ice fell in irregular intervals with spats of chilling rain.

Kitai drew her beast up beside Tavi’s. The taurga slammed their heads together, bawling and huffing at one another until they had settled which of them had herd precedence over the other—though Tavi had no idea which of them was the superior once it was done. They behaved exactly as they had before the ruckus.

It took perhaps another half an hour for Tavi’s less acute senses to pick up on the scent. But once he did, the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and flashes of hideous memories flickered through his mind.

From the line of taurga ahead of him came a sudden bellowing, then one of the beasts broke out of the line. Tavi looked up to see Varg employing his goad, jabbing his taurg from the routine comfort of the company of its herdmates, driving it into a pace that was less a run than it was a continual series of bounding leaps that covered ground at an astounding rate.

One of the young warriors in the column ripped a balest from the holster on his taurg’s saddle, slapped a bolt home, and raised the weapon to his shoulder, but Anag flung his goad, sending it whirling end over end, and the club slammed into the warrior and sent him tumbling from the saddle before he could send a deadly missile into Varg’s back.

“Stand down!” Anag roared, his voice carrying down the entire column. “Stand down, you fool, or I’ll have your throat!” The young Cane glowered at Varg, then up and down the line. “Column halt! Dismount! Ready yourselves for inspection before we arrive at the fortifications!”

The command began to echo down the length of the column as it was relayed, but Anag did not dismount. Instead, he pulled his taurg out of line and rode back down the column until he drew even with Tavi. “Aleran,” he growled. “I think you should bring your people.”

Tavi frowned at Anag but nodded to him. He signaled to Kitai and the others with a hand, and they turned their mounts out of the column, to follow Anag. They rode in pursuit of Varg, though at a far more sedate pace.

The dark-furred Warmaster had ridden to the top of a low rise half a mile away and halted his mount. As they approached, Varg was nothing but a black shadow against a grey sky, an outline of silent menace atop the still-puffing form of the massive taurg.

The wind grew stronger, and less chilly as they neared the crest. The rain, less frozen, grew into a steady, stinging shower that would shortly make outdoor travel all but unbearable.

The rise upon which they stood thrust slightly out from the plateau, like the prow of some unimaginably large ship, offering a vista of the lands below that would have been spectacular if not for the dim veil of rain. Varg had not exaggerated when he said that their land was a fortress, and that the Shuarans knew how to defend it. Below them, the land dropped away into sheer cliffs and bluffs that fell hundreds, if not thousands, of feet to the plains below.

A few miles ahead of them, along the wall of the plateau, Tavi could dimly make out the dark slash of an opening in the rock, doubtless one of the passes Varg had named. Even from there, Tavi could see the shapes of stone fortifications built into it, over it, around it, through it—a citadel the size of a city in its own right, every bit as complex and grand, in its fashion, as Alera’s Shieldwall. More fortifications ran along the top of the plateau.

And they were filled with warrior Canim.

Tavi could see the banners, the blue-and-black steel of their armor, rank upon rank of them, manning the battlements, the parapets, the towers, the gates. Tavi remembered all too vividly the shock and terror of facing the assault of ten thousand warrior-caste Canim, during the desperate battle for the Elinarch. He remembered the terrifying precision of their onslaught, the speed, the aggression, the discipline that had carried them through one successful engagement after another.

Oh, certainly, Tavi had managed to contain the Canim invasion—but he had no illusions about how he had done so. When he had beaten Nasaug’s troops in the field, he had pitted his
legionares
against the Canim raiders, the equivalent of their militia. He had used his cavalry and the furycraft of his Knights to disrupt their communications and their supply lines. He had harried and danced with them, struck at them where they were weakest, and never left his forces standing still long enough to be hammered down by the foe.

Had he done so, they would have been crushed in short order—by the warrior caste. Despite their successes, the First Aleran had never been able to claim anything more than a marginal victory in any conflict with Nasaug’s ten thousand elite.

If Tavi was not mistaken in his estimate, Warmaster Lararl of the Range of Shuar had something like a quarter of a million of them.

And
they
weren’t what had frightened him.

The plains at the base of the plateau, all of them,
all
of them, for as far as the eye could see . . . glowed softly green.

They were covered in the
croach
.

And the
croach
was covered in Vord.

There was no way for him to count them. Simply no way. There were too many. It was like staring down at an uprooted anthill. Black forms moved everywhere, seething over the landscape below, rushing and flowing in organized channels that reminded Tavi uncomfortably of a network of veins pulsing with dark blood. They spread from horizon to horizon, all moving forward, an inexorable pressure being exerted upon the massive Shuaran fortifications.

The Canim fought. They had already piled chitinous black corpses into miniature mountains, but still the Vord came on.

And the world behind them was nothing but dark, alien shadows and eerie green light.

Varg stared down on the land below with an expression and posture Tavi had never seen on any Cane. His ears had simply slumped, falling limply in slightly different directions. The dark fur not covered by his armor almost seemed to go flat against his skin. He stared for long, silent moments before he finally said, in a whisper, “Tarsh in command of Molvar. Molvar, the mighty fortress. Built to defend Shuar against my people.”

“Almost two years ago,” Anag said. He looked from the battle back to the rest of them. “Narash was only the first to fall, Warmaster. The other ranges are gone. They’re all gone.”

“Gone?” Varg said.

Anag looked back down to the battle, his manner weary. “Only Shuar remains.”

CHAPTER 17

“Now we know why Sarl decided to abandon Canea and invade Alera,” Tavi murmured, thinking aloud. “He must have seen it beginning and guessed where it would lead.”

Kitai turned her green eyes toward Tavi and stared at him intently.

So did everyone else.

Bloody crows,
Tavi thought.
They’re all looking at me.

Tavi surveyed the massive struggle raging below once more, careful to keep his face calm and relaxed, nodded once as if it had told him something, though he had no idea at all—yet—what that might be, and turned to Anag. “I’d say that we have matters to discuss with your Warmaster. Let’s waste no time.”

Anag inclined his head slightly to one side and immediately turned his taurg and began riding back to rejoin his column.

Tavi and the others set out after him, but when Tavi noticed that Varg had not moved, Tavi drew his mount up short. He gestured for the others to keep going, and rode back to Varg’s side.

Tavi glanced after the others. The freezing rain had come on thicker, and combined with the dark they were out of sight, as was the battle below. He and the Cane were alone.

For the first time since mounting the beast, Tavi took his taurg prod from where it hung on its saddle hook. It weighed as much as a smith’s hammer, at the end of a three-foot handle to boot. He debated reaching down through the taurg to the earth below for strength but decided against it. He had enough raw muscle, barely, to control the heavy tool.

Tavi whirled it once and slammed it as hard as he could into Varg’s chest.

The ball of the prod thudded against the Cane’s armored chest, and sent Varg sprawling back, nearly knocking him out of the taurg’s saddle entirely. The taurga immediately bellowed at one another, butting heads and ramming shoulders for half a minute before they backed away, settling down again.

Varg stared at Tavi in shock, then bared his fangs and reached for his sword.

Tavi smiled at him, showing teeth, and put the prod back on its hook. “I have work to do. I have a duty to my people back at Molvar.” He turned his mount back toward the column, adding, over his shoulder, “So do you.”

Tavi wasn’t sure how Varg was going to react to what he had just done. Physical violence among the Canim was . . . not what it was among Alerans. And while it was commonly employed as a disciplinary measure, it was also seen as something of an insult; it was how one dealt with an unruly puppy, not how one treated a respected subordinate. Certainly, that kind of action was not how one treated an equal. Then again, their concept of
gadara
, respected enemy, put an entirely different light on that kind of interaction. Enemies were
supposed
to hit you.

All the same. It was entirely possible that he had just effectively offered Varg a challenge. Such things, among the Canim of Varg’s status, were not confined to first blood.

Varg’s mount came hurrying out of the chilling rain behind Tavi, and fell into pace beside his own beast. After the mounts settled, Tavi glanced aside, to find Varg watching him.