Chapter 17

"Suddenly," Max said, "I feel very small. And as though I have been somewhat arrogant."

"Um," Crassus said. He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Yes."

Durias stared out at the sight below them, his craggy face bleak.

"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.

The Cane stared down at the battle below with dull, unfocused eyes.

"Varg," Tavi said.

The Cane did not respond.

"Varg," he said, louder.

There was no response.

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.

The big Cane's eyes were still dull. His fur was being plastered flat to his skull by the rain, making him seem, to Tavi, somehow smaller, more vulnerable, and more dangerous.

Varg inclined his head slightly to one side.

Tavi returned the gesture.

The Cane turned away, and they rejoined the troop. As the group of taurga took to the trail again, Varg rode slightly apart from everyone else.

"Shuar," Anag said, gesturing.

The road had led to the fortifications they had seen from the top of the bluffs. As a military camp, it would have to be enormous. With all the supporting folk needed to keep so many warriors in condition to fight, it had to be almost unimaginably large to hold them all-a city that easily outshone Alera Imperia in sheer scale and in grim splendor, all made of dark, bleak stone, with oddly shaped, too-narrow doors and windows. The Canim did not, it seemed, put much stock in building high towers. No building in sight was more elongated than a cube, though several of them were several stories tall. All told, it must have made for some truly cavernous architecture, with buildings capable of holding many more occupants than was customary in Alera.

Even this city, though, had been strained to its limits, Tavi could see. Dome-shaped tents stood in precise groups around the city's walls, stretching for thousands of yards over the open ground of the plateau, surrounded by simple earthworks patrolled lightly by warrior Canim in blue-and-black armor. Beyond them, cruder tents had been erected in a far-more-chaotic fashion. As they passed through them, Tavi could see evidence of tanners, smiths, and all manner of other tradesmen necessary to support such a gathering of troops. Members of the maker caste, the tradesmen had evidently overflowed whatever quarters had been intended for their use in the city proper. The cold and the rain kept most of the occupants of the tents inside them, but a few laborers-notably smiths-were still hard at work under flimsy canopies, and wide-eyed Canim children came rushing to the flaps of the tents to watch as the taurga came huffing and swaying through the tent city.

"They're cute," Max commented idly. "The little ones."

Durias snorted.

Tavi glanced over his shoulder at the former slave and arched an eyebrow. "Not cute?"

"They're adorable," Durias said. "But I once saw a slave owner who was being taken to his trial try to escape by taking one of them hostage. Little female, maybe five years old. He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, picked her up, and put his arm around her throat. Held her like you might a child you had half a mind to strangle. Had a knife in his other hand."

Kitai, riding in front of Tavi, turned all the way around in her saddle, comfortably balanced in the rhythm of the walking taurg, her expression intently interested. "What happened?"

"That little female puppy opened up her jaws and just about tore that bad man's hand off at the wrist," Durias said. "She did dislocate his shoulder in the process."

Tavi lifted his eyebrows. "Strong little things."

"They don't develop the same way our children do," Durias said, nodding. "By the time they can run, their muscles are functioning almost at an adult level."

"What happened to the slave owner?" Kitai asked. "Was he found guilty at the trial?"

"No," Durias said shortly. "The puppy's mother was there. So was her uncle. Once the child was out of reach of the knife..."

Tavi winced. Not that he mourned the loss of any man who would take a child prisoner-even the child of an avowed enemy invader-but he couldn't imagine that a slave owner, no matter how benevolent or law-abiding, could have expected to survive a trial in the hands of a government composed of ex-slaves. Such pressure could drive any man to desperate acts.

"Don't trouble yourself, Captain," Durias said, a few seconds later, as though he had read the thoughts behind Tavi's expression. "The man was a rapist and worse. We did all that we could to spare the lives of those who hadn't actually abused women or taken a slave's life themselves."

Tavi shook his head and chuckled wryly. "There's going to be a lot of things to be worked out once we get home, you know."

"Slavery must end, sir," Durias said. His tone was quiet and respectful, but the words were made of granite and steel. "From there, we are willing to abide as any other freeman. But not until all Alerans are free."

"That isn't going to be simple or easy," Tavi said.

"Worthy things often aren't, sir."

They drew near the gates of the fortifications themselves-massive things that rose forty feet above the level of the plateau. The falling rain had begun to coat them in ice. Low-burning torches blazed at wide intervals on the walls, providing barely enough light for the Alerans to see. That could become a problem. The Canim had excellent night vision. The light they preferred to use, when they used any at all, was a dim, red form of illumination that was hardly enough for Aleran eyes to separate solid shapes from shadows. There was no reason to suppose that the interior of their fortress would be lit well enough to prevent the Alerans from looking extremely foolish-which was to say, helpless and weak.

And that, Tavi thought, would be a very bad message to send to the Shuaran nation.

A horn blew atop the gates, and Anag bellowed for the column to halt. He began exchanging what sounded like formal greetings with the guard atop the gate, introducing their company.

"Max," Tavi said. "Crassus. Once we get into the dark, we'll need to see our way. I think your swords should strike the proper tone."

Crassus nodded and Max grunted in the affirmative. A moment later, the huge gates swung open, wide enough to allow the column of taurga to enter three abreast.

Max and Crassus fell in on either side of Tavi, with Durias and Kitai bringing up the rear. As they passed into the blackness beneath the gates, into the tunnel that ran beneath walls a hundred feet thick, the two brothers drew their long blades and held them upright, at rest beside them. As they did so, bright tongues of flame suddenly rushed out from the hilts of the blades to their tips, golden white light that wreathed the steel and drove back the cavernous night beneath the Shuaran gates.

As the company rode out of the tunnel and into the city beyond it, they entered what looked like a large square or marketplace, where hundreds of Canim, makers and warriors alike, were hurrying past through the rain, purpose in their strides. As the light of the blazing swords began to cast harsh, long shadows against the buildings on the far side of the square, several dozen passersby stopped to stare at the troop and the Alerans as they entered the city.

Then an Aleran Legion trumpet abruptly rang out behind Tavi, sharp and silvery, crying out against the dark stones of Shuar. The opening bars of the Anthem of Eagles, the clarion call of the Princeps of Alera, shivered through the rain and the night, proud and cold and defiant. Tavi shot a quick, surprised glance over his shoulder, to see Durias lowering the trumpet, returning it to hang from its baldric at his side. The young centurion inclined his head to Tavi with a very small smile and winked.

If the glare of light had slowed foot traffic around them, the cry of the trumpet stopped it completely.

The square went deathly still and silent. Hundreds of dark Canim eyes stared intently at the visiting strangers.

Varg nudged his mount forward, glancing once at Tavi.

Without knowing precisely why, Tavi felt that the Cane wanted him to do the same. He guided his own taurg to stand beside Varg's.

"I am Varg of Narash," the grizzled Cane called out, his voice carrying throughout the city around them. "This is my gadara, Tavar of Alera. We ride to seek audience with Warmaster Lararl. Let any who would bar our way stand forward now."

Within seconds, a path leading to one of the exits on the far side of the square was entirely unoccupied.

"Huh," Max muttered. "Guess they know him here."

Varg let out a satisfied sound somewhere between a grunt and a growl, and made a polite, beckoning gesture to Tavi. The two of them started their mounts forward, followed closely by Max and Crassus, with their burning blades, then Durias and Kitai, and finally followed by Anag's troops, formed into a hasty honor guard.

Word apparently rushed ahead of them as they rode. Though the cavern-dark city was filled to overflowing with Canim, the street before Tavi and Varg was, without exception, perfectly empty.

It was an eerie ride. What would have been familiar crowd murmur in Alera Imperia was instead the continuous chorus of rumbling growls and snarls that comprised the Canim tongue. Though the light cast by the brothers' swords was bright, outside of that circle there were only dark shapes and thousands and thousands of gleaming red eyes-and the occasional glimpse of white fangs.

The atmosphere was not helped by the fact that Max and Crassus, at Tavi's suggestion, had slowly decreased the intensity of the flames surrounding their swords, until the Alerans' eyes had adjusted more adequately to the dim red luminescence the Canim favored for light. They still could not see well, but neither had they been entirely blinded as they entered the city, and avoiding moments of apparent weakness was critically important in any dealings with their predatory hosts.

Short of a miracle, there would be no chance whatsoever of escaping the fortress at night, Tavi realized. The simple lack of light would make it impossible, even if the sheer numbers of Canim hadn't made the entire idea laughable in the first place. To have enough light to see by, they'd have to light themselves up like a beacon, announcing to any Cane with eyes exactly where they were. And in daylight, of course, sneaking about was almost as unlikely. Which meant that they'd have to rely entirely upon furycraft, if it came to that-and surrounded by so much bleak stone, a woodcrafted veil would be out of the question, a windcrafted one frail and difficult to hold.

Best to avoid the need to escape, then.

If he could.

Anag took them down several steeply sloping streets that wound down the side of the plateau, all of them built with strong gates and battlements at regular intervals-the road through the pass that led up to the range of Shuar proper, until, near the base of the plateau, they stopped before the largest building they had seen so far, an enormous cube of black stone at least two hundred feet high.

After dismounting, they passed through several guard stations and past several higher-ranking officers. It took them the better part of two hours to work through the chain of command, but eventually they were shown to a chamber somewhere toward the center of the building. It was a large room, stretching out beneath a high dome overhead. Tavi was impressed by the sheer skill involved in engineering such a thing. The weight from above must have been enormous, yet the chamber's smooth dome arched gracefully, apparently unsupported by any pillar or buttress.

A red-coal fire burned in a pit in the center of the room. Beside it, a circular table no more than two feet high but nearly ten feet across sat, supporting the weight of a scale model of the fortress's defenses, complete with markers of blue stone for Canim troops, black stones for Vord, and colored green sand that, Tavi realized, represented the presence of the croach.

Several Shuarans, with their distinctive golden fur, were crouching on their haunches around the table, rumbling and growling at one another-except for one. That one, a rather small but burly specimen of his breed, his fur showing streaks of silver to mix with tawny gold, sat in silence, staring down at the pieces on the table, following the conversation around him with attentive twitches of his narrow ears.

Anag approached the table and inclined his head deeply to one side. "Warmaster."

The burly Cane lifted his eyes-odd, for a Cane's, since they were bright blue against the bloodred background-to the young officer and inclined his head slightly in response. The other Canim at the table immediately fell silent. "Pack second," rumbled the Warmaster. His voice was extremely deep, even for a Cane. "Where is your pack leader?"

"At Molvar, my lord," Anag replied, his tone neutral and polite. "Wounded."

"Unto death, one supposes?"

"I am uncertain, my lord," Anag responded. "Though if I may volunteer: I am no healer, my lord, but I have yet to hear of a warrior expiring from a clean, properly attended injury to the foot."

"For that to happen," the Warmaster replied, "he would need to be a warrior. Not the spawn of a forced mating of some jackal of a ritualist to a female barely more than a pup."

"As you say, my lord."

"Bring me better news next time, Anag."

"I will do my best, my lord."

The Cane rose to his feet and prowled over to them. He moved with a slight limp, though Tavi judged that only a fool would think him crippled, slow, or incapable. His armor, like Varg's, was ornate, battered, and heavily decorated with bloodred gemstones. Also like Varg's, most of the dark steel had been enameled in color, though in his case it was deep blue instead of Varg's crimson.

He inclined his head slightly-very slightly-to Varg, who matched the gesture with precise timing.

"Varg," the Warmaster rumbled.

"Lararl," Varg replied.

Lararl turned his attention to the others, eyes probing, his nose quivering. "We thought you long dead."

"Not before I kill you."

Lararl's eyes went back to Varg, and he bared his fangs in a slow, almost-leering smile. "I am pleased to see that the demons across the sea have not deprived me of the pleasure of showing your guts to the sky."

"Not yet," Tavi said. "But who knows? The night is young."

Lararl's ears quivered back and forth in a gesture of brief surprise, and his gaze shifted to Tavi. "You speak our tongue, little demon?"

"I speak it adequately. I understand it fairly well."

Lararl narrowed his eyes. "Interesting."

"Lararl, of Shuar," Varg growled. "Tavar of Alera. He is gadara to me, Lararl."

"As Varg is to me," Tavi added, guessing that it was the proper thing to say.

Lararl's ears quivered again, and he shook his head. "Tavar, is it? A demon gadara." He glanced back at the table and the model there. "Sometimes I think that the world is changing. That I am too old to change with it." He shook his head. "Varg, your word of peace for this night?"

"You have it."

Lararl nodded. "And you mine. Will you vouch for Tavar and his pack?" Varg looked at Tavi. "Will you give your word that you and your people will abide peacefully here tonight, so long as no harm is offered to you?"

"Of course," Tavi said. "Provided we receive the same word in return."

"He will," Varg told Lararl.

The golden-furred Warmaster nodded. "And will you vouch for my word to him?"

Varg looked at Tavi. "I will. Lararl keeps his word."

Tavi nodded. "Done, then."

Lararl nodded to the other Canim in the room. "Leave us."

His officers filed out rapidly and quietly. Anag was the last out the door, and he shut it behind him.

Lararl crossed to the coal fire and crouched beside it, holding out his hands. "Sit, sit."

They did so. Tavi was grateful for the fire's warmth. The interior of Lararl's command tower was quite literally as cold as a cavern.

"There is much work for me to do," Lararl said. "What would you have of me?"

"First, your protection," Varg said. "I am here with nearly one hundred thousand of my people."

Lararl froze for a second, blue eyes locked on Varg. "Where?"

"Molvar," Varg replied. "We arrived five days ago."

Lararl sat in silence for several seconds. "And what protection do you ask of me?"

"My intention when I came here was to ask only for room enough to debark until our ships could be repaired to a condition suitable to return to Narash. Now..."

Lararl nodded. "No longer. Narash is no more. None of them are anymore, Varg. It's all..." His hand lashed out behind him and struck at the table, cracking its surface and scattering green sand. "All that hideous offal. And those things. Those Vord."

"You're sure?" Varg asked.

"Yes."

"How did it happen?" Tavi asked quietly.

"It started in Narash," Lararl replied. "The ritualists and their sects among the makers rose up against the Warmasters, with these Vord as their allies. But soon it became clear that ritualists from the other ranges were eagerly smuggling more Vord into their lands to help with their own uprisings. Soon, Warmasters in every range were putting down one rebellion after another."

Tavi could see where this was leading. "And once the Vord had a solid foothold everywhere, they turned on the ritualists."

Lararl nodded. "The stupid taurga. Now, they are all but extinct. Within days, every range was in flames. Battlepacks roamed over every portion of the countryside. There was no communication, no order. Some fought longer than others, held on longer than others-your own line, Varg, longer than any, even though the poison began in their own range. But in the end, it didn't matter. They fell. One by one, they all fell."

Tavi shivered and held his hands closer to the coals.

After a silent minute, Varg said, "Then I must ask you for sanctuary for the makers under my charge. And pledge my warriors to aid in your defense."

Lararl grunted. His eyes flicked to Tavi. "And you, Tavar?"

"I would like to ask your permission to spend a few days here, resupplying my ships and repairing damage. Then I intend to sail back to my home and, with any luck, never bother you again."

Lararl grunted, stood, and walked to the door. They all watched him.

He paused at the door.

"Varg. There is not enough food in my range to feed my own people, much less yours."

Varg's lips peeled away from his fangs.

"There may not be many ritualists left," Lararl continued. "But they are mine, now. Your people are going to die, Varg. At least I can make their deaths have meaning. At least I can give their blood to the ritualists to use to defend Shuar."

"Lararl," Varg snarled, rising. "Do not do this."

"My people are dying," Lararl spat. "My duty is to them. Not to you. Were our positions reversed, you would do the same, and you know it."

Tavi rose. "And what of us? What of my people?"

Lararl turned and gave Tavi a look that was pure, cold, bloodthirsty hate.

"Demon," he snarled. "Do you think we are so foolish that we do not know that the Vord came to Canea upon one of your ships? Do you think us so stupid that we have not puzzled out that it is you who unleashed this terror upon us, to destroy our people?"

"That is not true!" Tavi snarled.

"Aleran demon," Lararl spat, "you have no honor. Every word from your lips is a lie. I have a range to defend, and no time to waste on your deceit. But your people's blood will serve as well as Varg's people's." He slammed open the doors. "Guards!"

A great many warrior Canim appeared in the doorway.

Lararl turned to face them. "You will go with these guards, or you will die, here and now. Choose."

Chapter 18

The Shuaran guards offered them no violence or disrespect. They simply escorted Varg and the Alerans to the roof of Lararl's dark granite tower, closed the heavy metal door, and locked it, sliding home large bolts that would make it impossible to open.

Then they left them there, on the flat, open expanse of the cubic building's roof. It was nearly the size of a cohort's training field, and overlooked every other structure in the fortified city. Tavi did not need to look to know that there would be no way to climb down, no other building close enough to leap onto. There was no need for bars, locks, or guards. One would need to be able to fly to escape this prison cell.

Max stared at the closed door for a moment, then said, "They can't possibly be serious."

Crassus nodded. "It does seem a tad ingenuous. A trap?"

"They're trapping us into taking advantage of an opening that will give us a chance to warn our people and possibly escape?" Tavi asked. "That's clever of them." He shook his head and looked at Varg. "They don't know what Alerans are capable of doing, do they?"

Varg twitched one shoulder in a shrug. "Shuarans are stubborn, proud, narrow-minded. As they must be to survive this range. They have never been to your shores. They regard our reports of Aleran demons as tall tales. They do not believe you are capable of anything beyond what our ritualists can do. Our ritualists cannot fly. Therefore, you cannot either."

"I think it is nice that Alerans are not the only arrogant fools on Carna," Kitai said.

Tavi gave her an arch look. "It's a small piece of fortune that isn't going to last," he said. "Anag and some of the other Shuarans saw our Knights Aeris come back in from holding off that storm. He'll tell Lararl sooner or later. They'll realize that this is a mistake and take steps." Tavi turned to Crassus. "How long will it take you to get there and back?"

Crassus squinted up through the chilling rain at the overcast sky, evidently thinking out loud. "Depends on the weather. I can't see in this soup. I'll have to follow the road to find my way back. That means flying low. That's hard work, and slower. Also means I'll have to veil or risk getting a balest bolt shot through me." He nodded. "I can be back to Molvar by midmorning, and have our Knights Aeris back here by sundown tomorrow. Faster, if the weather clears."

"If one of our people is missing, Lararl might take it badly," Kitai pointed out.

"I took being imprisoned and sentenced to death badly," Tavi said. "It's going around."

Kitai flashed a swift, fierce grin at him.

Tavi winked at her, and turned to Crassus. "Whatever happens, we've got to open up some options. Tamper with the weather if you need to-but do not begin action against the Shuarans unless you absolutely must. Tell Magnus and the First Spear that as well."

"Understood, Your Highness."

Tavi turned to Varg. "Warmaster," he said formally, in Canish, "is there any word you wish passed on to your people?"

Varg showed a flash of teeth for a bare instant, then looked away, saying nothing.

"You anticipated this contingency," Tavi concluded aloud. He looked at Crassus. "Go now."

Crassus nodded, saluted sharply, clapped a hand against his brother's shoulder, and frowned in concentration. He vanished from sight behind a windcrafted veil, and a moment later a miniature gale rose, whipping droplets of falling rain into a painful, stinging mist. Then the winds faded as the young heir of Antillus took to the skies.

Max stood silently looking up into the rain for a long moment after his brother had departed, his expression blank. Perhaps it was the rain. Tavi's ability to sense others' emotions was nowhere near as reliable as he would like it to be, but he could clearly feel the conflicting welter of worry and affection and sadness and pride and seething jealousy that poured off his friend.

Max looked down to find Tavi watching him. He averted his eyes, and Tavi felt Max close down on his emotions, walling them away from observation.

"Wish I could do that," Max said.

Tavi nodded. "Me too." He put a hand on Max's shoulder. "Max, I need your help here. The rain's getting heavier and the night's getting colder. If we don't get some shelter, we could freeze to death."

Max closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Right. I'm on it."

"Durias," Tavi said. "Would you assist him, please?"

The burly centurion nodded. "Yes sir, Captain."

Kitai walked over to Tavi. "You. Armor. Off."

Tavi had been wearing the Legion lorica for so long that he had virtually forgotten it was there, but Kitai was right. The temperature was dropping fast. Once it was cold enough, any flesh that touched the armor would freeze to it-and besides, wearing it under those weather conditions was rather like putting on a coat made of icicles.

Tavi felt distinctly vulnerable as he shed the steel casing, and he doubted that Max and Durias liked it any better. The two men knelt at the center of the tower, bare hands flat to the dark stone, their eyes closed. Within a moment, there was a trembling vibration in the soles of Tavi's boots, then a smooth, round half dome of stone, like a partial bubble made of solid granite, rose out of the top of the tower.

Max and Durias sat back on their heels once it was done. Then Durias rose, considered the eight-foot dome for a moment, and with casual precision drove his fist through an inch of solid rock. He ran his fingertips horizontally over the surface and did it again. Then he moved down the dome and went through the same process, until he had broken out a rough doorway leading to the dome's interior.

Max bowed and rolled his hand in an elegant flourish. "Your summer palace awaits."

They gathered their things and hurried out of the rain. It was not nearly the improvement Tavi had hoped for. They were out of the wet, but the inside of what was in essence a small cave was not precisely warm. At least, not until Max frowned ferociously in concentration, the tip of his tongue between his lips, and laid his fingertips on one wall of the dome. His hands shimmered with heat-not the savage white flame of a battlecrafted fire, but something infinitely more gentle, hardly visible, and within a moment or two the dome was as warm as a baker's kitchen.

Kitai let out a purring sound and stretched out full length upon the floor. "I like you."

Max smiled wearily at her and slumped down. "Should keep us for a while. If we can hang a cloak over the doorway, longer."

"I'll see to it," Durias said, taking off his own plain green cloak. "We should get some sleep."

"Kitai," Tavi said.

"No," she said. "I'll do it."

Max looked back and forth between them. "Do what?"

"Stand first watch," Kitai said.

Durias glanced back at them. "Do you think we need to do that? I know we're prisoners, but Lararl did give us his word that he wouldn't harm us tonight. When the Canim give their word, they mean it."

"It seems to me that Varg has Hunters that he sometimes employs when he needs to get around portions of his codes of behavior and honor that somehow conflict with his interests," Tavi said. "So far, Varg seems to have used them in order to protect the spirit of those codes, if not their letter. But it occurs to me that it would be a very small step for a Warmaster to employ his Hunters to get around the spirit while preserving the letter, if you see what I mean."

Durias frowned. "You don't think it's possible that you're judging Lararl wrongly?"

"Of course it's possible," Tavi said. "But it isn't probable. He gave us his oath of peace tonight, then stuck us on a roof in these conditions and left us here without shelter, food, or water. He's keeping the letter of his word. But not the spirit of it. So we're standing watch."

"I am standing watch," Kitai said. "Your lips are still blue."

Tavi frowned and glanced at Max's dim form. "Are they?"

"Can't tell," Max said. "Too dark in here."

"There, you see?" Kitai said. "I am the only one qualified to judge."

She pushed Durias's cloak aside and slipped out of the shelter.

The rest of them had been Legion long enough to know what to do next.

They were asleep in seconds.

Tavi woke later. The rock of the tower was hard and uncomfortable under his back, but not painfully so-he hadn't been sleeping longer than two or three hours. The stone was cool, but true to Max's word, the air inside the little shelter was still toasty warm. Tavi had passed worse nights in the field with the Legion.

The cloak over the dome's doorway moved aside, and Kitai appeared in the door. She padded silently to Tavi's side, knelt, and kissed him. Then she gave him a sleepy-eyed smile and stretched out on the floor. "Your turn."

Tavi gathered up his cloak, dry after several hours in the warmth inside the shelter, and threw it on over his shoulders before heading out into the cold and the mild sleet atop the tower. He drew the hood over his head and looked around the top of the blocky building, identifying Varg's silent form, crouched at the westernmost edge of the building. Tavi padded quietly across the wet, cold stone to stop several feet away from Varg, where he could still see the enormous Cane in his peripheral vision, and stared out over the sight below them.

Lararl's command building overlooked the fortifications below, where the battle against the Vord was raging. As far as Tavi could tell, it was going at precisely the same furious pitch as it had hours before. Still the Shuarans, in their blue-and-black armor, fought to hold the battlements, and still the Vord came on in a gleaming black tide.

From above, though, it was possible to make out far more detail.

The Vord had changed from those Tavi had seen and heard described before. Previously, he had encountered only the many-legged Keepers, bizarre, spiderlike creatures who haunted the green-glowing croach, the strange growth that covered the land wherever the Vord went. They were about as big as medium-sized dogs, weighing perhaps thirty or forty pounds each, had a venomous bite, and were frighteningly swift and nimble.

But he had also read his uncle's reports concerning the Vord warrior-creatures, enormous things each the size of a bull, hunched and crablike in their thick shells, with huge pincer-claws and buzzing wings that could launch them skyward.

These were different.

All of the Vord attacking the fortifications were covered in the same slippery-looking black chitin, with the same eerie angularity to it, the same oddly shaped limbs-but the similarities went no further than that.

Some of the Vord went upon two legs, monstrosities more than ten feet tall, and impossibly wide. They moved with slow, ponderous steps, lifting stones that must have weighed well over a hundred pounds, and hurled them at the fortifications like an idle boy flinging rocks into a pond. Some of them went mostly on all fours, their lower limbs freakishly oversized and overdeveloped. They were able to make tremendous leaps of forty and fifty and sixty feet at a time, like huge, hideous frogs, or fiendishly oversized crickets, attacking by slamming their spine-covered bodies violently into their foes.

The majority of the Vord in the assault had powerful shoulders and heavy arms, ending not in grasping hands but in vicious, scythelike hooks. The head was elongated, apparently eyeless, though it sported a nightmarishly oversized mouthful of curving black fangs-a bizarre fusion of wolf and mantis.

Tavi realized with a start that the Vord had somehow taken inspiration from the foe that they faced.

They had made themselves more like the Canim.

Tavi's gaze went to the fortress's defenders. The Shuaran warriors favored axes over the curving swords commonly carried by Varg's Narashans, and they used the weapons against the armored chitin of the Vord with crushing effect. The Shuarans worked methodically, in teams of two and three warriors, as the Vord tried to breach the walls. One or two warriors would pin a single Vord with spears fitted with heavy crosspieces, while a third, wielding an axe, would close in for a killing stroke.

Here and there among the defenders, Tavi spotted the figure of a black-robed ritualist, wearing the usual hooded mantle. These ritualists, however, did not sport the usual garment of pale leather Tavi had become accustomed to. Instead, theirs were made of gleaming black scales of chitin. The ritualists, Tavi realized, wore mantles made from the flesh of their foes.

Which meant that the pale leather of the mantles Sarl and the Narashan ritualists had been wearing was made of...

Tavi shuddered.

As he watched, one of the ritualists thrust a clawed paw-hand into a leather basket-pouch at his side, and withdrew it soaked in dark crimson blood. He flung the blood out over the edge of the battlements he defended just as a number of Vord scaled the top simultaneously, threatening to create a breach in the defenses. Tavi couldn't hear the Cane from his position, but he saw the ritualist lift his muzzle to the night sky, jaws parted in a primal howl.

There was a flicker in the air as the droplets of blood flew, green-gold sparkles, and suddenly a cloud of sickly green gas billowed forth from the empty air. The gas rolled out in an instant, engulfing the threatening Vord-who simply dissolved, convulsing in agony, their bodies liquefying with terrifying abruptness as the green cloud touched them. The ritualist lifted the bloodstained paw-hand and slammed it down, as if smashing a book down upon an insect, and the green cloud descended over the edge of the battlements just as abruptly.

Tavi had seen some of his own men slain by an identical ritual-working during his two-year battle with the Narashans. He had no qualms with watching the Vord be slain, but he was just as glad that he did not see the carnage that the ritualist had just visited upon whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to be below that section of the wall.

The Shuarans were professionals. Their tactics were calculating, brutal, and efficient. They were not battling the Vord, so much as simply butchering them as they attained the walls. From what Tavi could see, forty, perhaps even fifty Vord fell for every single casualty suffered by the Shuaran warriors.

Even so, he thought, the Vord stretched to the horizon.

They could afford to pay that price.

Tavi did not think that the Shuarans could.

"Tell me what you see, Aleran," Varg rumbled quietly.

Tavi glanced over at the grizzled Warmaster. Varg had unrolled the heavy cloak carried by all Narashan warriors. He crouched on his haunches, the cloak completely covering him, the sleet and rain sheeting down it to the surface of the tower. His hood covered all but the last inch or two of his muzzle.

"The Vord aren't using any taken," Tavi said quietly.

Varg grunted and nodded to Tavi's left. "Down there."

Tavi looked that way, to the first street above the active battlements. He spotted a number of young Canim there, adolescents and children mostly, spread out every ten or twenty feet. All of them bore short clubs and crouched beneath their cloaks against the rain, just as Varg was doing.

"Sentries," Tavi surmised. "To keep the takers from getting into the city."

"Takers smell bad," Varg said. "Make odd noise when they move. Young ones have the sharpest senses. And the takers are only a threat if one is not aware of them. Lararl has the young ones positioned all over the city." The Cane turned to look at Tavi, eyes gleaming within the depths of his hood. "But you know that is not what I mean."

"No." Tavi returned his eyes to the battle. "The Vord aren't using aerial troops. They could have created half a dozen breaches by now if they were, and forced Lararl to fall back to his next line. Instead, they're just throwing away tens of thousands of their soldiers. They're up to something."

Varg turned his gaze back to the fight. "When we were both young, I tried to teach Lararl to play ludus. He refused. He said that to learn war, one studies war. That games and books are a waste of time."

Tavi shook his head. "Will he truly attack your people?"

Varg nodded.

"With a foe like this out to destroy us all, he would truly put others of his own kind to death. It seems foolish to me," Tavi said.

Varg shrugged. "Shuar could barely produce enough food to sustain itself in the best of years. They imported food from other ranges. From Lararl's perspective, my people are doomed to death by slow starvation in any case. It is a dishonorable way to die. Far preferable for their lives to be spent in a useful purpose."

"Were I Lararl, I would reach for every possible weapon I could find against a threat like that."

"Were you Lararl, the one whose decisions defended your people's children, you would use the weapons you knew you could trust to destroy the enemy. You would be forced to choose who would live and who would die, Aleran. And given a choice between sacrificing the lives of your own people and the lives of neighboring enemies who were also in danger, you would protect your people, just as I would protect mine-and Lararl protects his." Varg shook his head. "He fears that he will fail his people's trust in him. It makes him almost blind. He cannot see even that much."

Tavi sighed. "Even though he's just told you he intends to murder all of your people, including your own son, and even though he's broken the spirit of his word of peace to us by putting us up here in this weather, you defend him."

Varg's chest rumbled in a warning growl. "No," the Cane said. "I understand him. There is a difference."

Tavi nodded, and was silent for a time, watching the battle below. Then he said, "What will he do next?"

Varg's ears twitched slightly, this way and that, as he pondered. "Lararl knows that when Sarl fled, he took ten thousand warriors with him. He will think Nasaug has no more than ten thousand under his command at Molvar. And so he will send thirty thousand to assault them in order to force a surrender."

"Will they?" Tavi asked.

"Ten thousand warriors against thirty thousand, in hostile territory? Only a fool would throw away his warriors' lives in such a hopeless battle." Varg showed his teeth. "But Lararl does not know that Nasaug has trained our makers into something very like warriors themselves. His thirty thousand will meet something more like sixty thousand. And Nasaug will hand them their tails."

"And then what?" Tavi asked.

Varg tilted his head slightly, staring at Tavi.

"After that, what will your people do?" Tavi asked. "Fortify Molvar? Hold it? Wait for the Vord to break through Lararl's defenses and besiege them? Then fight until they are pushed into the sea?"

Varg turned back to the fight. "What would you have me do?"

"Return to Alera with me," Tavi said.

Varg snorted, eyes glittering. "You just spent years convincing us to leave."

Tavi gestured at the land below and said, quietly, "That was before I saw this."

"And the sight made you wish to help us, Aleran?"

"If it helps, let's just say that I consider you and your people to be dead already. And you know as well as I do that it will only be a matter of time before the Vord arrive in Alera. I simply wish to spend your deaths more profitably for my own people."

Varg's ears twitched in amusement, and his mouth dropped open for a bare second.

"My people at Molvar are in danger as well," Tavi said. "It makes sense for us to assist one another until we are out of the current crisis."

"You propose an alliance," Varg mused.

"I do."

The Cane was silent for long moments more. Then he nodded once, and said, "Done."

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***