Captain's Fury
Chapter 27~28
Chapter 27
"Bloody crows," snarled Antillar Maximus. "Right now, the captain's taking it easy, sleeping in his bunk in a nice, comfortable cell back at the fort at the Eli-narch, while we're getting soaked to the skin."
Valiar Marcus stepped down from the block that let him peer over the First Aleran's palisade and view the enemy position at the ford of the river Aepon. The Canim had employed the talents of the Free Aleran Legions. Their earthcrafters weren't the equals of a Legion engineering corps, and the positions they'd erected weren't made of the multilayered stone of a battlecrafted siege wall, but the heavy earthworks they had raised on the far side of the shallow ford were massive enough to provide a formidable defensive position.
"Bet he's eating hot breakfast cakes right now," Maximus continued. The young Tribune glowered up at the steady rain. "Maybe a morning cup of tea. Probably borrowed one of Cyril's books. Cyril's the sort to have a lot of books."
Antillus Crassus stepped down from his own block and glowered at Max. "I'm certain you never complained this much to Captain Scipio."
"Yes he did," Marcus murmured. "Just never in front of anyone. Except me."
Crassus gave Maximus a very direct look. "Tribune, I hereby order you to stop whining."
"That never worked for Scipio," Marcus noted.
"It's a sacred right," Max said. He chinned himself up on the palisade briefly, then dropped back to the ground again. "Looks like they're getting ready to change the guard."
"Signal the engineers," Crassus said.
Marcus turned and flashed a hand signal at the nearest Marat horseman- in this case, horsewoman, he supposed. She nodded, turned, and galloped to the top of the low hill behind them, and repeated the gesture in broader strokes.
"It isn't going to buy us much time, hitting them during their shift change," Max said.
"It doesn't need to," Marcus replied. "They're expecting a shooting match. A few seconds will make the difference." He turned and nodded to the file leaders of the Prime Cohort. They saluted, and murmured orders went down the ranks. The veterans drew their swords in slithering whispers of steel.
Crassus turned and beckoned a runner. The young man hurried over. "Please inform the Honorable Senator that our initial assault is about to begin."
The runner saluted and pelted away.
Marcus stepped up onto the block again and watched the river.
At first, he couldn't see it happening. The change was too slight. His ears, though, picked up on a change in the constant, almost-silent murmur of the water sliding between the banks. The pitch rose, and Marcus leaned forward, watching intently.
The ford was about three feet deep under normal circumstances-slightly deeper, given the steady rain they'd had during the past week. It was not too deep for infantry to ford, but it was more than deep and swift enough to take a man from his feet if he wasn't careful. Trying to cross the ford in the face of the enemy's defenses would be a slow and bloody business, where the balests and bows of the combined Canim and ex-slave forces would be able to take a terrible toll. It would be possible to grind resistance down, eventually, but a conventional assault would require a hefty price in blood.
Which was, Marcus reflected, probably why Amos had given the First Aleran the dubious distinction of leading the attack.
Marcus wasn't sure if the captain would have run the battle the same way, but he was certain that he would have approved of Crassus's immediate response to such a bloody scenario-to change the scenario.
"Sir," Marcus growled.
Crassus drew his blade and nodded to Maximus. The big Antillan gave his half brother a grin, and, with a murmur to the Knights Pisces, drew his sword. They immediately readied their own weapons.
Marcus kept his eyes on the river, struggling to see through the almost-lightless evening and the steady rain. The reeds the scouts had placed earlier that day had been stripped to pure, white wood that would be more easily seen in the dark, but even so, Marcus began to wonder whether or not it would do him any good.
Then he saw a gleam of fresh white on the river. And a second. A moment later, a third.
"That's it," he hissed. "Three rods. The river is running less than a foot deep."
"Now," Crassus snapped.
Marcus jerked hard on the rope beside him, stepped down from the block, drew back his leg, and kicked at the palisade. Though it seemed a standard Legion defensive wall from the other side, the engineers had altered a two-hundred-foot section of the fence, and when Marcus kicked down the section immediately in front of him, the others fell as well in a sudden wave, crashing to the earth on the far side.
Cries went up in the other camp, but they were immediately drowned out as Crassus lifted his sword, let out a howling battle cry, and the knights and veterans around him responded in kind. Crassus dropped his blade forward, and the Prime Cohort and Knights Pisces surged forward, with Marcus, Crassus, and Maximus in the first rank.
The First Aleran hit the now-shallow water of the ford and surged toward the opposite bank. Arrows began to fly from the earthworks. In the dark and confusion and splashing water, Marcus knew that only a very skilled or very lucky shot from any Aleran bow would have a chance of downing one of the heavily armored legionares. Most arrows skimmed off of the steel helmets, or slammed harmlessly into the steel-lined wooden shields of the Legion.
Some didn't.
Marcus heard a scream on his right, and felt, more than saw, the sudden drag in the integrity of the cohort's formation as someone else went down and slowed the advance of those behind him. An arrow struck sparks from Maximus's helmet, and another flickered past Marcus's ear with an eerie, fluttering hiss.
They were halfway across before the Canim sharpshooters went to work.
The flat, metallic twang of the odd bows was not loud, but they were near enough now to hear it. Each twang was followed almost instantly by the heavy sound of impact-a thud accompanied by the shriek of torn steel. Marcus saw from the corner of his eye as another file leader went down-as did the two men in tight formation behind him. Men screamed, and the advance grew more sluggish.
"Now, Max," Crassus shouted. The acting captain of the Legion lifted his blade, and it was suddenly wreathed in brilliant flame, a beacon and a signal to every man in the Legion-not to mention to everyone in the enemy lines as well.
At the same time, Maximus stretched out a hand toward the waters remaining between the First Aleran and the shore. He cried out, and a sudden swirl of wind went rushing down the river, spinning and twisting into a miniature waterspout that threw up great, shimmering sheets of water, obscuring the flaming sword and its wielder from easy observation.
"Forward!" Crassus cried. The fire on the blade pulsed and shimmered. "Forward! For Alera!"
As he finished his cry, Crassus unleashed the firecrafting he'd been preparing.
Rage poured through Marcus, more sudden, hotter, and more violent than any he had felt in years. Every other thought was scorched away by the fire of his anger, and he found himself letting out another cry of eagerness to meet the enemy in battle.
The hesitation of the advancing force vanished entirely, as nearly eight hundred throats erupted in a simultaneous bellow of raw hostility. The First Aleran picked up speed, building to a furious charge as they crossed Maximus's windcrafted water screen. Driven by that anger, they thrust themselves into the teeth of the enemy, utterly ignoring the missiles that continued streaking toward them, claiming lives.
The First Aleran took its hits as it emerged from the river, and accepted them as a necessary price to come to grips with their foe. They surged up the earthworks, spearheaded by the First Aleran's Knights Terra. They struck the mixed earth-and-stone defenses with their great hammers, triggering a minor landslide-one that could be climbed, up and over the defensive walls. Marcus, Maximus, and Crassus were the first to set foot on the improvised ramp, advancing up to the makeshift battlements.
There, they met the enemy.
Marcus had been ready to face the Canim again, but the former slaves were another matter entirely. As he gained the wall, a boy of no more than fifteen summers raised a bow, fumbling at an arrow. Marcus had no time to think. His arm lashed out, and the young soldier fell back, blood rushing from his opened throat.
Marcus stared at the boy for a shocked second, a single thundering heartbeat that suddenly stretched, elongated, drawing the rest of the world into a deceptively dreamy languor. The rage still burned in him, but for that instant, it existed outside of himself, a part of the background that was neither more nor less important than the sounds of battle.
The boy's neck was marred by collar scars. Old ones. If he truly had been fifteen years of age, then he must have gained his scars when he was scarcely old enough to walk-and Marcus had few illusions about what sorts of uses a slaver would find for a helpless child.
Arnos had named the "Free Alerans" traitors-but crows, Marcus wasn't sure that he would not have done precisely the same thing had he been in their place. The lot of a slave in the southern portions of the Realm was a dismal one, and the tolerance of every man, Citizen or not, had its limits.
Then there was a furious, lupine roar, and the frozen instant ended. Marcus ducked the swing of a curved Canim sword and found himself facing eight feet and several hundred pounds of furious, steel-armored warrior-caste Cane.
Marcus was a competent swordsman, and he knew that his own earth-crafter's strength gave him significant advantages against most opponents. Against one of the Canim of the warrior caste, though, he had no advantage of strength, and he might well be the Cane's inferior at bladework. He had not become an old soldier, though, by fighting for pride, and as the Cane advanced and swung again, Marcus shed the blow at an oblique angle along his lifted shield, shoved forward, inside his opponent's guard, and drove his gladius into the Cane's knee.
The Cane howled and lurched. Maximus had seen Marcus press in for the ugly little disabling attack, and before the Cane could recover and hew into Marcus, the young Tribune's sword licked out and back in a single motion, and gore erupted from the Cane's throat.
Marcus got his balance again and menaced a foe that was pressing an attack on Maximus's flank, and they drove forward into a half-panicked group of Free Alerans. Marcus was glad that they didn't put up too much of a fight. He slammed one man to the ground with his shield, dealt out a couple of nonlethal cuts with his blade, then the foe was running. Marcus pressed close behind them, down off the fortifications and onto the ground on the far side, and the men of the Prime Cohort pressed in with him.
There, they met a hastily assembled counterattack from the Canim. The wolf-warriors had gathered thirty or forty of their number-shocking, really, given how little time they'd had to prepare, and indicative of considerable military discipline-and they charged the Aleran forces with blood-maddened howls.
Marcus bellowed, "Shield high, blade low!"
"Shield high, blade low!" the cohort roared back, quoting the doctrine that they'd devised as one of the only viable tactics against the immense foe. The Canim hit the line, but their descending weapons were met by a raised curtain of Legion shields, and the soldiers in the front row concentrated on nothing but dishing out disabling blows to the feet, knees, legs, and groins of their attackers.
The Canim had comparatively little experience in fighting a foe so much smaller than their selves, and the low-line attacks had repeatedly proved to be difficult for them to defend against.
Canim smashed at the Legion's shieldwall. One legionare's shield took a blow squarely, rather than at a proper angle for a deflection. Lined with steel or not, the shield splintered under the terrible force of the warrior Canes blade, and the sword that had done it removed the legionare's arm at the shoulder. The man went down, screaming.
Beside Marcus, Crassus caught the blow of an immense cudgel on his shield, and even with his fury-strengthened equipment and fury-assisted strength, he grunted with pain and faltered, his shield arm dropping limply to his side.
Marcus cut across the young officer's front, deflecting the Cane's next blow, rather than attempting to match strength with strength, and thrust up at an angle into the Cane's lower abdomen. The Cane fell back with a howl of pain, and Marcus bellowed two of his veterans into position to shield Crassus.
The press of combat abruptly loosened, relaxing, and Marcus realized that the Prime Cohort, followed closely by the rest of the First Aleran, had cleared the earthworks. Braying Canim horns began to blow, and the enemy moved into a general retreat, falling back from their positions and vanishing into the rain and the dark.
Crassus unstrapped his shield from his left arm, his face pale. Marcus turned and glanced at the young officer's arm. "Shoulder's out of its socket," he said. "Need to get you to a healer, sir."
"Let them have the men who are bleeding, first. I'm not feeling it right now, anyway." He wiped his blade clean on the mantle of a fallen Cane, sheathed it, and looked around soberly. "Have the engineers put the river back on its course and recall them. Deploy the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Cohorts to a perimeter. Second through Fifth to erect a palisade. The rest in formation as a reserve."
Marcus saluted. "Sir."
"Wait," Maximus said. He stepped closer to Crassus and lowered his voice. "They're off-balance, Crassus. We need to press the attack, now, while we have the advantage."
"The objective was to take the ford," Crassus said. "We've done it."
"This is an opportunity," Max said. "We've got to press it. We might not get another chance like this to hit them when they aren't ready."
"I know," Crassus said. "It's almost too good to be true."
Marcus glanced up sharply at Crassus, and frowned.
Max scowled at Crassus. "You're giving the Canim too much credit, this time."
"Stop and think about this, Max," Crassus said. "It might hurt, but try to pretend you're a Canim for a minute. When else are you going to get a chance to launch an attack against an Aleran Legion isolated from the other two with it, on open ground, and in the dark, no less?"
Max glanced at Marcus. "First Spear? What do you think?"
Marcus grunted. "This is a textbook target of opportunity, sir. If you don't order the pursuit after a rout like this, the Senator isn't going to like it."
"But do you think this is a trap?" Maximus pressed.
"It would take a bloody brilliant soldier to manage it," Marcus replied.
"And Nasaug is," Crassus said. He glanced at Maximus, then out at the dark, his brow furrowing in thought for a moment. "You don't plan for what you think the enemy is going to do," he said, finally. "You plan for what he is capable of doing. I'm not sending the Legion out there blind."
Maximus shook his head. "I'm not eager to wrestle Canim in the dark, but if you don't order an advance, Amos is going to have your balls."
Crassus shrugged. "Let him try to collect them, then. We secure the ford, first. Get the men moving, First Spear."
Marcus saluted Crassus and turned to the nearest runner, doling out a list of instructions.
"Meantime, send the Marat on ahead," Crassus said. "They can see in the dark and can outrun the Canim. If they don't find the enemy in force out there, we'll send out the cavalry and keep the Canim on the run."
"I hope you know what you're doing," Max said.
"If we stay put, and I'm right, we save ourselves a lot of blood. If we stay put, and I'm wrong, we've still taken this position, and there are only two more between here and Mastings."
"Scipio would have advanced," Max said. "I'm sure of it."
Crassus rubbed at his injured shoulder, his expression undisturbed. "I'm not Scipio," he said. "And you have your orders."
Maximus glowered at Crassus for a moment, then slammed his fist to his chest and went to his horse. He mounted, then let out an explosive sneeze. The tall Antillan scowled up at the falling rain and nudged his horse into motion, passing near Marcus.
"Lying in bed with a book," he growled to Marcus. "And with the Ambassador, too, I'll wager."
Maximus nudged his horse into a trot, and a moment later, half an ala of Marat cavalry thundered through the captured earthworks and into the country beyond.
Marcus oversaw the positioning of the remainder of the Legion, with some of the men in advance positions, others erecting the mobile palisade wall behind them, and the rest standing in ranks in the center of their position, ready to march or fight should the need arise.
Once that was done, Marcus returned to find Crassus speaking to one of the senior officers of the First Senatorial Guard. The man was evidently angry, because he gestured extensively as he spoke. Crassus stared at the man with no expression on his face and spoke a single word in reply.
The Guard officer spat something in a harsh tone and strode away.
Marcus approached Crassus calmly. "Trouble, sir?"
Crassus shook his head. "The Senator's man. You were right."
The First Spear nodded. "Let's get you to the healers, sir."
"It can wait," Crassus said. "Apparently we've captured some more balests, and I want to make sure they are properly secured before-"
"With respect," Marcus said, "no, sir, it can't wait. Just because you can't feel the pain doesn't mean you aren't doing more damage to your shoulder. We're going to the healers, sir. Now."
Crassus arched an eyebrow in a gesture nearly identical to the captain's. Marcus supposed that he had learned it from Scipio. Then Crassus glanced down at his shoulder and gave Marcus a rueful smile. "If I was anyone else, I'd be ordering me to go to the healers, wouldn't I?"
"Yes, sir," Marcus said.
Crassus sighed, nodded, and the two of them turned to walk toward where Foss had set up his tents and healing tubs.
"Marcus," Crassus said quietly. "I haven't thanked you."
"For what, sir?"
"Your support. Your advice. I couldn't have taken over the Legion without your help."
"Comes with the job, sir," Marcus said.
Crassus shook his head. "It doesn't. You're always the one willing to go one step farther. You're the first one up in the morning and the last one to sleep at night. You push us all to do better. You keep discipline among the men without resorting to intimidation or humiliation. If you hadn't already won an honor name in the House of the Valiant, your service over the last few years would merit a place in the House of the Faithful."
Marcus fell silent and glanced away from the young man. They had reached the healers' tents. Several wounded men lay on stretchers on the ground, bandaged while they waited their turns in the healing tubs. Several other men lay senseless on bedrolls nearby, fresh pink skin showing where their wounds had been watercrafted closed, exhausting them in the process.
Lady Aquitaine, in her washerwoman guise, was there, serving as an attendant to the wounded, carrying them water and monitoring their injuries. She glanced up at Marcus, smiled very slightly, and returned to her tasks.
"Fidelar Marcus just doesn't roll off the tongue as well though, does it?" Crassus continued. "All the same, I thought you should know that I am aware of all the extra work you do. Thank you."
Marcus tried not to spit out the bitter taste in his mouth. "You're welcome, sir."
Chapter 28
The rain, Amara decided, was a mixed blessing. While the moderate, steady downpour helped to hide their trail and cut down on visibility, reducing their chances of being seen, after three days it had begun to gall. Here at the southernmost reaches of the Realm, rainfall such as this was not unusual this time of year, but Amara had never had to contend with such a relentless downpour.
The nights were uncomfortable, especially because there was no dry wood to be had for a fire. Bernard told Amara that he could have used his crafting to shape the trees into a more effective shelter, or to open a dry hole in a rock shelf, but that he didn't dare risk it, for fear enemy woodsmen might recognize it.
Despite that, Amara's husband was as resourceful as ever about practical matters. He always managed to find some means by which to keep at least some of the water away from them, but none of them were resting very well. If the rain didn't let up soon and allow them something other than a cold meal of traveling biscuits, they were going to run out of them and be forced to eat only whatever Bernard could forage or hunt as they traveled. Amara was not looking forward to raw rabbit.
She glowered up at the sky and wished that she had more practice with crafting the weather instead of flying.
"I know precisely how you feel," Gaius murmured, limping steadily along. "I can't stop thinking about how nice a warm fire and a hot cup of tea would be."
Amara smiled. "Is it that obvious?"
"We're all thinking the same thing," Gaius replied. He squinted up at the clouds. "This is mostly my fault, you know."
Amara glanced aside at him. "Why do you say that?"
"Because it was my mistake. The wind that brought us here was from the far north, cold and dry. I bade it fly south with us, and it met the warm, humid skies over the sea. Rain is the result."
Amara shook her head. "Not a terrible mistake. The rain has probably helped us a great deal."
Gaius smiled, teeth gleaming. "Just between the two of us? I've had all the help I can stand."
Amara laughed, and her eye alighted upon the nearest tree trunk. Perhaps seven feet up, the bark had been roughly gouged and scored to the inner skin with thick, crude furrows.
"Bernard?" Amara called quietly.
"I saw them," he said.
"What are they?"
"Territorial markings," Bernard replied.
"Territorial markings...? Of what?"
"A predator," Bernard said. "Maybe some kind of hunting cat. Maybe one of those big lizards." He stopped and held up a hand, his head tilted slightly to one side.
"They're called garim," Gaius supplied quietly. "They make marvelous cloaks when-"
The underbrush ten feet to the First Lord's left erupted in sudden motion, and something massive and leathery and low shot across the forest floor, its head turning sideways, its jaws gaping to snap at Gaius's legs.
It was an enormous lizard-a garim.
The First Lord saw it coming, and he reacted with admirable speed. He managed to turn and thrust his heavy walking staff into the beast's jaws. The garim snapped them shut, neatly clipping off the end of the staff. Then it spat the wood aside and pressed in on Gaius.
Gaius's maneuver, though, had given Amara precious seconds to act. The Cursor called upon Cirrus, borrowing of the wind fury's swiftness, and the world slowed down to a lazy, syrup-thick dance.
Amara's hand dipped to her belt, and her fingers found the hilt of the knife there. She drew, even as she turned toward the menacing garim, shifting her weight with maddening slowness, and flung the knife at what, to her own perceptions, was almost normal speed.
The knife tumbled precisely one and a half times, struck the creature's scaled hide, and sank several inches into the garim's flank, just behind its forward leg.
The garim reacted more slowly than any animal she had ever seen would have, and Amara had taken most of a step before it suddenly wrenched itself to one side, falling into a slow tumble as it snapped its jaws at the knife, tearing it free.
Amara drew her sword and flung herself at the beast, gripping the short weapon in both hands. The extra speed lent her by her fury would allow her to deal out a powerful blow-and she would need it to cut through its hide if the lack of penetration from her knife throw was any indication.
The steps between her and the garim drifted by slowly, and she had time to appreciate another mixed blessing: Though the gift of speed granted by her fury made her swift enough to intervene on the First Lord's behalf, it also left her with entirely too much time to realize the danger in her course of action.
The beast was much larger than she had thought at first. Though it stood very low to the ground, no more than two feet at the highest point of its back, the garim was built broad and flat, with powerful legs that spread out widely from an overly broad body made from gristle and sinew. It probably weighed at least twice what Amara did, and quite possibly more. Its feet were tipped with heavy claws, its head was solid and blocky, distended with the size of the muscles that powered its vicious jaws. It had eyes like beads of black glass, small and vicious and stupid, and its tail, stretching out in length nearly equal to its body, thrashed about with entirely too much power and speed. Its hide was dark grey-green, and rippled with stripes of darker coloration, giving it ideal camouflage in the rain-drenched forest, and the scales looked tough and thick.
If the garim seized her, it would remove her limbs every bit as easily as it had snapped through Gaius's walking staff. She could evade it easily, of course, if she had been on her own-but she wasn't. The creature had deliberately rushed Gaius, and if she did not force it to deal with her, it would only return to its attack on the First Lord. She had to fight, which meant that she had to deal out a decisive, crippling stroke on the first blow or risk being overwhelmed by the beast's power and speed.
She would have aimed for the throat, had this been a thanadent, or a grass lion, or one of the Marat's herdbanes. The garim's neck, though, was covered in great folds of heavily scaled skin, and she doubted her ability to strike through it.
Unlike the garim, which could snap through her neck without any particular effort.
Amara was terrified.
The eyes, she decided. A small target, true, but Cirrus's speed would help with that. A true enough strike had the potential to kill the beast-and even if she only wounded it, that might disable the garim badly enough to prevent it from pursuing Gaius. Though if it came to that, she supposed, killing Amara, dragging her body off into the forest, and devouring her might prevent the garim from pursuing Gaius as well.
Looking at it from that perspective, Amara thought, she couldn't lose.
The garim's broad, vicious head swiveled toward her, and its wide mouth opened, revealing what seemed like hundreds of curved, vicious teeth.
Amara screamed and thrust the blade down, putting all the speed and power she could muster into the blow. The tip of her sword struck just above the garim's beady eye, pierced a thin layer of skin, and scraped along the thick bone of its skull. Her forward momentum carried her on, over the low-slung garim, and she realized with a sick sensation of panic that she was about to fall.
Amara tried to turn the fall into a diving roll, so that she would be able to come up on her feet and running-but halfway through, something struck her in the shoulder and sent her into an uncontrolled tumble. She hit the ground hard, first on one knee, then slammed into the ground with one shoulder, and fetched up against a tree with stunning force. She dropped to the ground, the world rolling back into normal motion again, as she lost concentration on maintaining the link with Cirrus.
The wounded garim lashed its heavily muscled tail, with which it had just struck her, and doubled back on itself with sinuous, liquid speed. It rushed her, fangs bared. Amara fumbled dazedly for her sword, knowing, even as she did, that the weapon would be of little use. She thrust out as the garim closed on her, and the sword skittered off the hide of its chest. She screamed.
And then a length of wood came out of nowhere and landed with crushing force on the creature's muzzle, slamming its jaws closed and into the ground. Its head rebounded from the earth, and the wood landed again, and again, the blows precisely timed and savage.
The First Lord of Alera flung himself onto the garim, slipping his damaged staff across the beast's throat, and with a snarl of effort and a wrench of his entire body, twisted away, taking the garim with him, rolling the lizard belly-up.
"His underside!" Gaius cried. "Countess, where the scales are thin!"
Amara seized her sword, lurched to her knees, and struck down, through the garim's exposed throat, just beneath where Gaius's staff still held back the creature's head. To her surprise, the sword swept cleanly through the finer, smoother scales there, and blood rushed out in a scarlet fountain.
The garim thrashed wildly, but the First Lord had the creature pinned. Though it flung him back and forth, it could not escape Gaius's hold. Amara struck again and again, until the garim's thrashing slowed, and the First Lord rolled clear of the dying animal.
"My lord!" Amara gasped.
"I'm all right," Gaius panted. "The Count."
Amara rose, looked around wildly, and realized that there was something else about the deadly lizards she had not known.
They ran in packs.
One garim hung thrashing fifteen feet above the forest floor in a willow tree, where dozens of the slender branches had seemingly reached down and wrapped around it. Another thrashed and contorted wildly on the forest floor, bounding up as high as five or six feet above the ground. A woodsman's axe protruded from the dying garim's head, where a powerful blow had sunk the weapon to its eye in the lizard's skull.
And the bloodied Count of Calderon himself was locked in combat with a third garim-unarmed. Like the First Lord, he had managed to gain a position on the beast's back, but he had locked his arms around the creature's throat. Amara could see that blood covered one side of his face, his throat, and half of his upper torso, but he was conscious, his face locked into a rictus snarl.
The garim thrashed wildly, rolling over several times, and its tail whipped about with savage energy, hammering Bernard on his legs and lower back. He let out a howl of rage and pain.
Amara cried out and rushed toward her husband, sword in hand.
Bernard's head turned to one side, and he released the garim with one arm, seizing its tail. The beast rolled wildly, twisting free of Bernard's grip, and scrambled at the forest floor with its powerful legs, to rise and sink its teeth into Amara's husband.
Bernard, though, had found his feet first, and hauled at the garim's tail before it could regain its balance. It scrambled toward him as best it could, and Bernard shuffled away from the jaws, still hauling hard on the tail.
At first, Amara thought he was simply trying to buy time-but by the second circle, the garim began to pick up speed. The beast was the largest of any Amara had seen, and must have weighed five hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce, but the Count of Calderon whirled it up off the ground as if it were a child's toy.
Pivoting in a great circle, Bernard roared in rage and triumph, and slammed the garim's skull against the thick trunk of a tree. It broke with a wet, hollow thunk, like the sound of a melon being smashed open, and the lizard fell to the earth, abruptly and totally limp.
The garim trapped in the willow snarled and tore its way free of the grasp-ing limbs and fell to the ground behind Bernard. Amara cried out in a wordless warning.
He looked up at her, and then his head whipped around. He flung out his hand, and cried, "Brutus!"
The earth beneath the garim suddenly shuddered and erupted into motion. The shape of a hound the size of a small horse rose from the earth, its shoulders and chest made of flint and loam, its eyes of glittering green gems, its jaws of granite. Bernard's earth fury seized the garim in its stony maw, and the lizard hissed and thrashed wildly as Brutus lifted the lizard entirely off the ground. The great hound continued rising from the ground, like a dog emerging from the waters of a lake, and shook the garim as a terrier would a rat. Amara thought she heard the lizard's neck snap, but Brutus was not satisfied until he had slammed the garim against two trees, and repeatedly hammered it into the ground. By the time the earth fury was finished, the garim was a bloody mass of pulped flesh and shattered bone.
Amara slowed and came to a halt a few feet away from her husband. Bernard watched until Brutus was finished, then nodded, and said, "Thank you." The stone hound champed its jaws twice, shook its head, sending pebbles and bits of mud flying, and sank down into the earth again, turning circles like a dog about to lie down as it went.
Bernard sagged and dropped to one knee.
Amara rushed to his side. "Bernard!"
"It's nothing, I'm fine," Bernard slurred, still breathing heavily. "Gaius?"
"He's alive," Amara said. "Let me see your head."
"Looks worse than it is," Bernard said. "Scalp wounds bleed a lot. Flesh wound."
"I know that," Amara said, "but you've got a lump the size of an egg to go with the cut. Concussions are not flesh wounds."
Bernard reached up and caught her hand. He met her eyes, and said in a quiet, firm tone, "See to the First Lord, Countess."
She stiffened with anger. "Bernard."
"I have a duty to my lord. So do you."
"I also have a duty to my husband," she whispered back.
Bernard released her hand, and growled, "See to Gaius." His tone became gentler, and very tired. "You know I'm right."
She put a hand to her face for a moment, took a deep breath, then touched his head gently. Then she turned and went back to the First Lord.
Gaius lay on the ground with his eyes closed. He opened them as Amara approached, and said, "I haven't done that in a while."
"Sire?"
"Hunted garim. Not since I was about seventeen." He exhaled heavily. "It was considerably less strenuous back then."
His voice was tight with pain, the way it had been at the beginning of their journey. "You're hurt."
"It's my leg," he said quietly. "The good one." He nodded at the still-twitching garim. "I'm afraid this fellow managed to trap it between his hide and a stone. I'm fairly sure it's broken."
Amara bent to examine the First Lord's leg. It was swollen, and his foot rested at an utterly inappropriate angle to the rest of the leg. It had been a twisting break, not a clean snap of the bone. Amara knew that they could be very ugly. "I can't see any bone poking out," she said quietly. "You aren't bleeding. How bad is it?"
"It's only pain," Gaius said, but his voice trembled as he did. "I see that Bernard gave rather a good accounting of himself."
Amara would need to set the leg as soon as possible. They would have to splint it as well. "He killed three of them."
"For killing men, metalcrafters stand supreme," Gaius murmured. "But beasts don't fight like men. Primal. Savage. For them, nothing replaces raw strength. And I think one really couldn't fault my choice in companions on this particular journey." He shook his head and blinked his eyes several times. "I'm babbling. Please excuse me. The mind tends to wander a bit when one is my age-or in excruciating pain."
"We'll do what we can, sire," Amara said.
"The pain won't kill me. Bernard is bleeding. See to him. I believe I'll faint now, if it isn't too inconven..."
The First Lord fell silent, and Amara bent to him for a panicked instant. He continued breathing steadily, though, and his pulse was strong. She bit her lip in sympathy, and was just as glad that he had lost consciousness. His injury had to be pure torment.
She took off her cloak, damp as it was, rolled it up, and used it to support his broken leg. Then she rose and went back to Bernard. He had taken off his pack and was fumbling through it rather dazedly. Amara took it from his hands and removed the box of bandages, ointments, and healing salves he carried in it. She cleaned his wound as best she could, but it kept bleeding, as such injuries tended to.
"This will need stitches to close properly," she said quietly. "That means we'll need boiling water. A fire."
"Dangerous," Bernard mumbled. "Too easy to spot."
"We've little choice," she replied. "He's unconscious. His leg is broken.
We have to warm him up, then set the leg. Can you have Brutus make a shelter for us?"
He looked at her dully for a moment, and then back at Gaius. "Dangerous."
She put her hands on either side of his face. "Bernard, you've been hit in the head. You're having trouble speaking clearly, much less thinking clearly. I need you to trust me. This is necessary."
He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes. Then he nodded. He opened his eyes again and peered blearily around them, through the rain. Then he nodded at a hillock, and muttered under his breath. "Garim had a den there. Brutus is widening it. Shoring it up. Drag wood in first thing. Let it start to dry. Then we'll move Gaius in."
"Very well," Amara said. She covered his wound with a pad of folded cloth and wound a bandage around his head to hold it closed as best it could until she could see to the injury more thoroughly. "Bernard. It's his good leg that's broken."
Bernard frowned for a moment, then said, "Crows. He won't be able to walk."
"No," Amara said.
"That's bad," he said.
"Yes."
"But there is good news," he said.
She frowned at him.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled. "Smell that?"
Amara frowned and sniffed at the air. There was an overripe smell to it, a vegetable reek.
"Only one thing smells like that," Bernard said. "Swamps. We made it. Once we get in there, don't have to worry about our back trail."
"No," Amara murmured. "Only disease. Injury. Lack of food. And more of those garim."
Bernard grunted. "Well," he mused, "we never did get that honeymoon."
Amara blinked at him for a moment, then burst out in a laugh that surprised her with its depth and strength.
He gave her a weary grin, and for a moment his eyes shone with warmth. "That's better. Love it when you smile." Then he took a deep breath and pushed himself slowly to his feet. He touched the bandages and hissed in discomfort.
"Don't do that," Amara said absently. She rose, wincing at a flare of pain in her back. She had almost forgotten the blow from the garim's tail and the tumble afterward. Her muscles and bones, however, had not. "He can't walk," she said quietly. "What are we going to do?"
"We'll handle it, Countess. One thing at a time."
She touched her face, and then the bandages. "I love you very much, you know."
He lifted her fingers from his head and kissed them gently, eyes sparkling. "Who could blame you?"
Amara laughed again.
"Bloody crows," snarled Antillar Maximus. "Right now, the captain's taking it easy, sleeping in his bunk in a nice, comfortable cell back at the fort at the Eli-narch, while we're getting soaked to the skin."
Valiar Marcus stepped down from the block that let him peer over the First Aleran's palisade and view the enemy position at the ford of the river Aepon. The Canim had employed the talents of the Free Aleran Legions. Their earthcrafters weren't the equals of a Legion engineering corps, and the positions they'd erected weren't made of the multilayered stone of a battlecrafted siege wall, but the heavy earthworks they had raised on the far side of the shallow ford were massive enough to provide a formidable defensive position.
"Bet he's eating hot breakfast cakes right now," Maximus continued. The young Tribune glowered up at the steady rain. "Maybe a morning cup of tea. Probably borrowed one of Cyril's books. Cyril's the sort to have a lot of books."
Antillus Crassus stepped down from his own block and glowered at Max. "I'm certain you never complained this much to Captain Scipio."
"Yes he did," Marcus murmured. "Just never in front of anyone. Except me."
Crassus gave Maximus a very direct look. "Tribune, I hereby order you to stop whining."
"That never worked for Scipio," Marcus noted.
"It's a sacred right," Max said. He chinned himself up on the palisade briefly, then dropped back to the ground again. "Looks like they're getting ready to change the guard."
"Signal the engineers," Crassus said.
Marcus turned and flashed a hand signal at the nearest Marat horseman- in this case, horsewoman, he supposed. She nodded, turned, and galloped to the top of the low hill behind them, and repeated the gesture in broader strokes.
"It isn't going to buy us much time, hitting them during their shift change," Max said.
"It doesn't need to," Marcus replied. "They're expecting a shooting match. A few seconds will make the difference." He turned and nodded to the file leaders of the Prime Cohort. They saluted, and murmured orders went down the ranks. The veterans drew their swords in slithering whispers of steel.
Crassus turned and beckoned a runner. The young man hurried over. "Please inform the Honorable Senator that our initial assault is about to begin."
The runner saluted and pelted away.
Marcus stepped up onto the block again and watched the river.
At first, he couldn't see it happening. The change was too slight. His ears, though, picked up on a change in the constant, almost-silent murmur of the water sliding between the banks. The pitch rose, and Marcus leaned forward, watching intently.
The ford was about three feet deep under normal circumstances-slightly deeper, given the steady rain they'd had during the past week. It was not too deep for infantry to ford, but it was more than deep and swift enough to take a man from his feet if he wasn't careful. Trying to cross the ford in the face of the enemy's defenses would be a slow and bloody business, where the balests and bows of the combined Canim and ex-slave forces would be able to take a terrible toll. It would be possible to grind resistance down, eventually, but a conventional assault would require a hefty price in blood.
Which was, Marcus reflected, probably why Amos had given the First Aleran the dubious distinction of leading the attack.
Marcus wasn't sure if the captain would have run the battle the same way, but he was certain that he would have approved of Crassus's immediate response to such a bloody scenario-to change the scenario.
"Sir," Marcus growled.
Crassus drew his blade and nodded to Maximus. The big Antillan gave his half brother a grin, and, with a murmur to the Knights Pisces, drew his sword. They immediately readied their own weapons.
Marcus kept his eyes on the river, struggling to see through the almost-lightless evening and the steady rain. The reeds the scouts had placed earlier that day had been stripped to pure, white wood that would be more easily seen in the dark, but even so, Marcus began to wonder whether or not it would do him any good.
Then he saw a gleam of fresh white on the river. And a second. A moment later, a third.
"That's it," he hissed. "Three rods. The river is running less than a foot deep."
"Now," Crassus snapped.
Marcus jerked hard on the rope beside him, stepped down from the block, drew back his leg, and kicked at the palisade. Though it seemed a standard Legion defensive wall from the other side, the engineers had altered a two-hundred-foot section of the fence, and when Marcus kicked down the section immediately in front of him, the others fell as well in a sudden wave, crashing to the earth on the far side.
Cries went up in the other camp, but they were immediately drowned out as Crassus lifted his sword, let out a howling battle cry, and the knights and veterans around him responded in kind. Crassus dropped his blade forward, and the Prime Cohort and Knights Pisces surged forward, with Marcus, Crassus, and Maximus in the first rank.
The First Aleran hit the now-shallow water of the ford and surged toward the opposite bank. Arrows began to fly from the earthworks. In the dark and confusion and splashing water, Marcus knew that only a very skilled or very lucky shot from any Aleran bow would have a chance of downing one of the heavily armored legionares. Most arrows skimmed off of the steel helmets, or slammed harmlessly into the steel-lined wooden shields of the Legion.
Some didn't.
Marcus heard a scream on his right, and felt, more than saw, the sudden drag in the integrity of the cohort's formation as someone else went down and slowed the advance of those behind him. An arrow struck sparks from Maximus's helmet, and another flickered past Marcus's ear with an eerie, fluttering hiss.
They were halfway across before the Canim sharpshooters went to work.
The flat, metallic twang of the odd bows was not loud, but they were near enough now to hear it. Each twang was followed almost instantly by the heavy sound of impact-a thud accompanied by the shriek of torn steel. Marcus saw from the corner of his eye as another file leader went down-as did the two men in tight formation behind him. Men screamed, and the advance grew more sluggish.
"Now, Max," Crassus shouted. The acting captain of the Legion lifted his blade, and it was suddenly wreathed in brilliant flame, a beacon and a signal to every man in the Legion-not to mention to everyone in the enemy lines as well.
At the same time, Maximus stretched out a hand toward the waters remaining between the First Aleran and the shore. He cried out, and a sudden swirl of wind went rushing down the river, spinning and twisting into a miniature waterspout that threw up great, shimmering sheets of water, obscuring the flaming sword and its wielder from easy observation.
"Forward!" Crassus cried. The fire on the blade pulsed and shimmered. "Forward! For Alera!"
As he finished his cry, Crassus unleashed the firecrafting he'd been preparing.
Rage poured through Marcus, more sudden, hotter, and more violent than any he had felt in years. Every other thought was scorched away by the fire of his anger, and he found himself letting out another cry of eagerness to meet the enemy in battle.
The hesitation of the advancing force vanished entirely, as nearly eight hundred throats erupted in a simultaneous bellow of raw hostility. The First Aleran picked up speed, building to a furious charge as they crossed Maximus's windcrafted water screen. Driven by that anger, they thrust themselves into the teeth of the enemy, utterly ignoring the missiles that continued streaking toward them, claiming lives.
The First Aleran took its hits as it emerged from the river, and accepted them as a necessary price to come to grips with their foe. They surged up the earthworks, spearheaded by the First Aleran's Knights Terra. They struck the mixed earth-and-stone defenses with their great hammers, triggering a minor landslide-one that could be climbed, up and over the defensive walls. Marcus, Maximus, and Crassus were the first to set foot on the improvised ramp, advancing up to the makeshift battlements.
There, they met the enemy.
Marcus had been ready to face the Canim again, but the former slaves were another matter entirely. As he gained the wall, a boy of no more than fifteen summers raised a bow, fumbling at an arrow. Marcus had no time to think. His arm lashed out, and the young soldier fell back, blood rushing from his opened throat.
Marcus stared at the boy for a shocked second, a single thundering heartbeat that suddenly stretched, elongated, drawing the rest of the world into a deceptively dreamy languor. The rage still burned in him, but for that instant, it existed outside of himself, a part of the background that was neither more nor less important than the sounds of battle.
The boy's neck was marred by collar scars. Old ones. If he truly had been fifteen years of age, then he must have gained his scars when he was scarcely old enough to walk-and Marcus had few illusions about what sorts of uses a slaver would find for a helpless child.
Arnos had named the "Free Alerans" traitors-but crows, Marcus wasn't sure that he would not have done precisely the same thing had he been in their place. The lot of a slave in the southern portions of the Realm was a dismal one, and the tolerance of every man, Citizen or not, had its limits.
Then there was a furious, lupine roar, and the frozen instant ended. Marcus ducked the swing of a curved Canim sword and found himself facing eight feet and several hundred pounds of furious, steel-armored warrior-caste Cane.
Marcus was a competent swordsman, and he knew that his own earth-crafter's strength gave him significant advantages against most opponents. Against one of the Canim of the warrior caste, though, he had no advantage of strength, and he might well be the Cane's inferior at bladework. He had not become an old soldier, though, by fighting for pride, and as the Cane advanced and swung again, Marcus shed the blow at an oblique angle along his lifted shield, shoved forward, inside his opponent's guard, and drove his gladius into the Cane's knee.
The Cane howled and lurched. Maximus had seen Marcus press in for the ugly little disabling attack, and before the Cane could recover and hew into Marcus, the young Tribune's sword licked out and back in a single motion, and gore erupted from the Cane's throat.
Marcus got his balance again and menaced a foe that was pressing an attack on Maximus's flank, and they drove forward into a half-panicked group of Free Alerans. Marcus was glad that they didn't put up too much of a fight. He slammed one man to the ground with his shield, dealt out a couple of nonlethal cuts with his blade, then the foe was running. Marcus pressed close behind them, down off the fortifications and onto the ground on the far side, and the men of the Prime Cohort pressed in with him.
There, they met a hastily assembled counterattack from the Canim. The wolf-warriors had gathered thirty or forty of their number-shocking, really, given how little time they'd had to prepare, and indicative of considerable military discipline-and they charged the Aleran forces with blood-maddened howls.
Marcus bellowed, "Shield high, blade low!"
"Shield high, blade low!" the cohort roared back, quoting the doctrine that they'd devised as one of the only viable tactics against the immense foe. The Canim hit the line, but their descending weapons were met by a raised curtain of Legion shields, and the soldiers in the front row concentrated on nothing but dishing out disabling blows to the feet, knees, legs, and groins of their attackers.
The Canim had comparatively little experience in fighting a foe so much smaller than their selves, and the low-line attacks had repeatedly proved to be difficult for them to defend against.
Canim smashed at the Legion's shieldwall. One legionare's shield took a blow squarely, rather than at a proper angle for a deflection. Lined with steel or not, the shield splintered under the terrible force of the warrior Canes blade, and the sword that had done it removed the legionare's arm at the shoulder. The man went down, screaming.
Beside Marcus, Crassus caught the blow of an immense cudgel on his shield, and even with his fury-strengthened equipment and fury-assisted strength, he grunted with pain and faltered, his shield arm dropping limply to his side.
Marcus cut across the young officer's front, deflecting the Cane's next blow, rather than attempting to match strength with strength, and thrust up at an angle into the Cane's lower abdomen. The Cane fell back with a howl of pain, and Marcus bellowed two of his veterans into position to shield Crassus.
The press of combat abruptly loosened, relaxing, and Marcus realized that the Prime Cohort, followed closely by the rest of the First Aleran, had cleared the earthworks. Braying Canim horns began to blow, and the enemy moved into a general retreat, falling back from their positions and vanishing into the rain and the dark.
Crassus unstrapped his shield from his left arm, his face pale. Marcus turned and glanced at the young officer's arm. "Shoulder's out of its socket," he said. "Need to get you to a healer, sir."
"Let them have the men who are bleeding, first. I'm not feeling it right now, anyway." He wiped his blade clean on the mantle of a fallen Cane, sheathed it, and looked around soberly. "Have the engineers put the river back on its course and recall them. Deploy the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Cohorts to a perimeter. Second through Fifth to erect a palisade. The rest in formation as a reserve."
Marcus saluted. "Sir."
"Wait," Maximus said. He stepped closer to Crassus and lowered his voice. "They're off-balance, Crassus. We need to press the attack, now, while we have the advantage."
"The objective was to take the ford," Crassus said. "We've done it."
"This is an opportunity," Max said. "We've got to press it. We might not get another chance like this to hit them when they aren't ready."
"I know," Crassus said. "It's almost too good to be true."
Marcus glanced up sharply at Crassus, and frowned.
Max scowled at Crassus. "You're giving the Canim too much credit, this time."
"Stop and think about this, Max," Crassus said. "It might hurt, but try to pretend you're a Canim for a minute. When else are you going to get a chance to launch an attack against an Aleran Legion isolated from the other two with it, on open ground, and in the dark, no less?"
Max glanced at Marcus. "First Spear? What do you think?"
Marcus grunted. "This is a textbook target of opportunity, sir. If you don't order the pursuit after a rout like this, the Senator isn't going to like it."
"But do you think this is a trap?" Maximus pressed.
"It would take a bloody brilliant soldier to manage it," Marcus replied.
"And Nasaug is," Crassus said. He glanced at Maximus, then out at the dark, his brow furrowing in thought for a moment. "You don't plan for what you think the enemy is going to do," he said, finally. "You plan for what he is capable of doing. I'm not sending the Legion out there blind."
Maximus shook his head. "I'm not eager to wrestle Canim in the dark, but if you don't order an advance, Amos is going to have your balls."
Crassus shrugged. "Let him try to collect them, then. We secure the ford, first. Get the men moving, First Spear."
Marcus saluted Crassus and turned to the nearest runner, doling out a list of instructions.
"Meantime, send the Marat on ahead," Crassus said. "They can see in the dark and can outrun the Canim. If they don't find the enemy in force out there, we'll send out the cavalry and keep the Canim on the run."
"I hope you know what you're doing," Max said.
"If we stay put, and I'm right, we save ourselves a lot of blood. If we stay put, and I'm wrong, we've still taken this position, and there are only two more between here and Mastings."
"Scipio would have advanced," Max said. "I'm sure of it."
Crassus rubbed at his injured shoulder, his expression undisturbed. "I'm not Scipio," he said. "And you have your orders."
Maximus glowered at Crassus for a moment, then slammed his fist to his chest and went to his horse. He mounted, then let out an explosive sneeze. The tall Antillan scowled up at the falling rain and nudged his horse into motion, passing near Marcus.
"Lying in bed with a book," he growled to Marcus. "And with the Ambassador, too, I'll wager."
Maximus nudged his horse into a trot, and a moment later, half an ala of Marat cavalry thundered through the captured earthworks and into the country beyond.
Marcus oversaw the positioning of the remainder of the Legion, with some of the men in advance positions, others erecting the mobile palisade wall behind them, and the rest standing in ranks in the center of their position, ready to march or fight should the need arise.
Once that was done, Marcus returned to find Crassus speaking to one of the senior officers of the First Senatorial Guard. The man was evidently angry, because he gestured extensively as he spoke. Crassus stared at the man with no expression on his face and spoke a single word in reply.
The Guard officer spat something in a harsh tone and strode away.
Marcus approached Crassus calmly. "Trouble, sir?"
Crassus shook his head. "The Senator's man. You were right."
The First Spear nodded. "Let's get you to the healers, sir."
"It can wait," Crassus said. "Apparently we've captured some more balests, and I want to make sure they are properly secured before-"
"With respect," Marcus said, "no, sir, it can't wait. Just because you can't feel the pain doesn't mean you aren't doing more damage to your shoulder. We're going to the healers, sir. Now."
Crassus arched an eyebrow in a gesture nearly identical to the captain's. Marcus supposed that he had learned it from Scipio. Then Crassus glanced down at his shoulder and gave Marcus a rueful smile. "If I was anyone else, I'd be ordering me to go to the healers, wouldn't I?"
"Yes, sir," Marcus said.
Crassus sighed, nodded, and the two of them turned to walk toward where Foss had set up his tents and healing tubs.
"Marcus," Crassus said quietly. "I haven't thanked you."
"For what, sir?"
"Your support. Your advice. I couldn't have taken over the Legion without your help."
"Comes with the job, sir," Marcus said.
Crassus shook his head. "It doesn't. You're always the one willing to go one step farther. You're the first one up in the morning and the last one to sleep at night. You push us all to do better. You keep discipline among the men without resorting to intimidation or humiliation. If you hadn't already won an honor name in the House of the Valiant, your service over the last few years would merit a place in the House of the Faithful."
Marcus fell silent and glanced away from the young man. They had reached the healers' tents. Several wounded men lay on stretchers on the ground, bandaged while they waited their turns in the healing tubs. Several other men lay senseless on bedrolls nearby, fresh pink skin showing where their wounds had been watercrafted closed, exhausting them in the process.
Lady Aquitaine, in her washerwoman guise, was there, serving as an attendant to the wounded, carrying them water and monitoring their injuries. She glanced up at Marcus, smiled very slightly, and returned to her tasks.
"Fidelar Marcus just doesn't roll off the tongue as well though, does it?" Crassus continued. "All the same, I thought you should know that I am aware of all the extra work you do. Thank you."
Marcus tried not to spit out the bitter taste in his mouth. "You're welcome, sir."
Chapter 28
The rain, Amara decided, was a mixed blessing. While the moderate, steady downpour helped to hide their trail and cut down on visibility, reducing their chances of being seen, after three days it had begun to gall. Here at the southernmost reaches of the Realm, rainfall such as this was not unusual this time of year, but Amara had never had to contend with such a relentless downpour.
The nights were uncomfortable, especially because there was no dry wood to be had for a fire. Bernard told Amara that he could have used his crafting to shape the trees into a more effective shelter, or to open a dry hole in a rock shelf, but that he didn't dare risk it, for fear enemy woodsmen might recognize it.
Despite that, Amara's husband was as resourceful as ever about practical matters. He always managed to find some means by which to keep at least some of the water away from them, but none of them were resting very well. If the rain didn't let up soon and allow them something other than a cold meal of traveling biscuits, they were going to run out of them and be forced to eat only whatever Bernard could forage or hunt as they traveled. Amara was not looking forward to raw rabbit.
She glowered up at the sky and wished that she had more practice with crafting the weather instead of flying.
"I know precisely how you feel," Gaius murmured, limping steadily along. "I can't stop thinking about how nice a warm fire and a hot cup of tea would be."
Amara smiled. "Is it that obvious?"
"We're all thinking the same thing," Gaius replied. He squinted up at the clouds. "This is mostly my fault, you know."
Amara glanced aside at him. "Why do you say that?"
"Because it was my mistake. The wind that brought us here was from the far north, cold and dry. I bade it fly south with us, and it met the warm, humid skies over the sea. Rain is the result."
Amara shook her head. "Not a terrible mistake. The rain has probably helped us a great deal."
Gaius smiled, teeth gleaming. "Just between the two of us? I've had all the help I can stand."
Amara laughed, and her eye alighted upon the nearest tree trunk. Perhaps seven feet up, the bark had been roughly gouged and scored to the inner skin with thick, crude furrows.
"Bernard?" Amara called quietly.
"I saw them," he said.
"What are they?"
"Territorial markings," Bernard replied.
"Territorial markings...? Of what?"
"A predator," Bernard said. "Maybe some kind of hunting cat. Maybe one of those big lizards." He stopped and held up a hand, his head tilted slightly to one side.
"They're called garim," Gaius supplied quietly. "They make marvelous cloaks when-"
The underbrush ten feet to the First Lord's left erupted in sudden motion, and something massive and leathery and low shot across the forest floor, its head turning sideways, its jaws gaping to snap at Gaius's legs.
It was an enormous lizard-a garim.
The First Lord saw it coming, and he reacted with admirable speed. He managed to turn and thrust his heavy walking staff into the beast's jaws. The garim snapped them shut, neatly clipping off the end of the staff. Then it spat the wood aside and pressed in on Gaius.
Gaius's maneuver, though, had given Amara precious seconds to act. The Cursor called upon Cirrus, borrowing of the wind fury's swiftness, and the world slowed down to a lazy, syrup-thick dance.
Amara's hand dipped to her belt, and her fingers found the hilt of the knife there. She drew, even as she turned toward the menacing garim, shifting her weight with maddening slowness, and flung the knife at what, to her own perceptions, was almost normal speed.
The knife tumbled precisely one and a half times, struck the creature's scaled hide, and sank several inches into the garim's flank, just behind its forward leg.
The garim reacted more slowly than any animal she had ever seen would have, and Amara had taken most of a step before it suddenly wrenched itself to one side, falling into a slow tumble as it snapped its jaws at the knife, tearing it free.
Amara drew her sword and flung herself at the beast, gripping the short weapon in both hands. The extra speed lent her by her fury would allow her to deal out a powerful blow-and she would need it to cut through its hide if the lack of penetration from her knife throw was any indication.
The steps between her and the garim drifted by slowly, and she had time to appreciate another mixed blessing: Though the gift of speed granted by her fury made her swift enough to intervene on the First Lord's behalf, it also left her with entirely too much time to realize the danger in her course of action.
The beast was much larger than she had thought at first. Though it stood very low to the ground, no more than two feet at the highest point of its back, the garim was built broad and flat, with powerful legs that spread out widely from an overly broad body made from gristle and sinew. It probably weighed at least twice what Amara did, and quite possibly more. Its feet were tipped with heavy claws, its head was solid and blocky, distended with the size of the muscles that powered its vicious jaws. It had eyes like beads of black glass, small and vicious and stupid, and its tail, stretching out in length nearly equal to its body, thrashed about with entirely too much power and speed. Its hide was dark grey-green, and rippled with stripes of darker coloration, giving it ideal camouflage in the rain-drenched forest, and the scales looked tough and thick.
If the garim seized her, it would remove her limbs every bit as easily as it had snapped through Gaius's walking staff. She could evade it easily, of course, if she had been on her own-but she wasn't. The creature had deliberately rushed Gaius, and if she did not force it to deal with her, it would only return to its attack on the First Lord. She had to fight, which meant that she had to deal out a decisive, crippling stroke on the first blow or risk being overwhelmed by the beast's power and speed.
She would have aimed for the throat, had this been a thanadent, or a grass lion, or one of the Marat's herdbanes. The garim's neck, though, was covered in great folds of heavily scaled skin, and she doubted her ability to strike through it.
Unlike the garim, which could snap through her neck without any particular effort.
Amara was terrified.
The eyes, she decided. A small target, true, but Cirrus's speed would help with that. A true enough strike had the potential to kill the beast-and even if she only wounded it, that might disable the garim badly enough to prevent it from pursuing Gaius. Though if it came to that, she supposed, killing Amara, dragging her body off into the forest, and devouring her might prevent the garim from pursuing Gaius as well.
Looking at it from that perspective, Amara thought, she couldn't lose.
The garim's broad, vicious head swiveled toward her, and its wide mouth opened, revealing what seemed like hundreds of curved, vicious teeth.
Amara screamed and thrust the blade down, putting all the speed and power she could muster into the blow. The tip of her sword struck just above the garim's beady eye, pierced a thin layer of skin, and scraped along the thick bone of its skull. Her forward momentum carried her on, over the low-slung garim, and she realized with a sick sensation of panic that she was about to fall.
Amara tried to turn the fall into a diving roll, so that she would be able to come up on her feet and running-but halfway through, something struck her in the shoulder and sent her into an uncontrolled tumble. She hit the ground hard, first on one knee, then slammed into the ground with one shoulder, and fetched up against a tree with stunning force. She dropped to the ground, the world rolling back into normal motion again, as she lost concentration on maintaining the link with Cirrus.
The wounded garim lashed its heavily muscled tail, with which it had just struck her, and doubled back on itself with sinuous, liquid speed. It rushed her, fangs bared. Amara fumbled dazedly for her sword, knowing, even as she did, that the weapon would be of little use. She thrust out as the garim closed on her, and the sword skittered off the hide of its chest. She screamed.
And then a length of wood came out of nowhere and landed with crushing force on the creature's muzzle, slamming its jaws closed and into the ground. Its head rebounded from the earth, and the wood landed again, and again, the blows precisely timed and savage.
The First Lord of Alera flung himself onto the garim, slipping his damaged staff across the beast's throat, and with a snarl of effort and a wrench of his entire body, twisted away, taking the garim with him, rolling the lizard belly-up.
"His underside!" Gaius cried. "Countess, where the scales are thin!"
Amara seized her sword, lurched to her knees, and struck down, through the garim's exposed throat, just beneath where Gaius's staff still held back the creature's head. To her surprise, the sword swept cleanly through the finer, smoother scales there, and blood rushed out in a scarlet fountain.
The garim thrashed wildly, but the First Lord had the creature pinned. Though it flung him back and forth, it could not escape Gaius's hold. Amara struck again and again, until the garim's thrashing slowed, and the First Lord rolled clear of the dying animal.
"My lord!" Amara gasped.
"I'm all right," Gaius panted. "The Count."
Amara rose, looked around wildly, and realized that there was something else about the deadly lizards she had not known.
They ran in packs.
One garim hung thrashing fifteen feet above the forest floor in a willow tree, where dozens of the slender branches had seemingly reached down and wrapped around it. Another thrashed and contorted wildly on the forest floor, bounding up as high as five or six feet above the ground. A woodsman's axe protruded from the dying garim's head, where a powerful blow had sunk the weapon to its eye in the lizard's skull.
And the bloodied Count of Calderon himself was locked in combat with a third garim-unarmed. Like the First Lord, he had managed to gain a position on the beast's back, but he had locked his arms around the creature's throat. Amara could see that blood covered one side of his face, his throat, and half of his upper torso, but he was conscious, his face locked into a rictus snarl.
The garim thrashed wildly, rolling over several times, and its tail whipped about with savage energy, hammering Bernard on his legs and lower back. He let out a howl of rage and pain.
Amara cried out and rushed toward her husband, sword in hand.
Bernard's head turned to one side, and he released the garim with one arm, seizing its tail. The beast rolled wildly, twisting free of Bernard's grip, and scrambled at the forest floor with its powerful legs, to rise and sink its teeth into Amara's husband.
Bernard, though, had found his feet first, and hauled at the garim's tail before it could regain its balance. It scrambled toward him as best it could, and Bernard shuffled away from the jaws, still hauling hard on the tail.
At first, Amara thought he was simply trying to buy time-but by the second circle, the garim began to pick up speed. The beast was the largest of any Amara had seen, and must have weighed five hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce, but the Count of Calderon whirled it up off the ground as if it were a child's toy.
Pivoting in a great circle, Bernard roared in rage and triumph, and slammed the garim's skull against the thick trunk of a tree. It broke with a wet, hollow thunk, like the sound of a melon being smashed open, and the lizard fell to the earth, abruptly and totally limp.
The garim trapped in the willow snarled and tore its way free of the grasp-ing limbs and fell to the ground behind Bernard. Amara cried out in a wordless warning.
He looked up at her, and then his head whipped around. He flung out his hand, and cried, "Brutus!"
The earth beneath the garim suddenly shuddered and erupted into motion. The shape of a hound the size of a small horse rose from the earth, its shoulders and chest made of flint and loam, its eyes of glittering green gems, its jaws of granite. Bernard's earth fury seized the garim in its stony maw, and the lizard hissed and thrashed wildly as Brutus lifted the lizard entirely off the ground. The great hound continued rising from the ground, like a dog emerging from the waters of a lake, and shook the garim as a terrier would a rat. Amara thought she heard the lizard's neck snap, but Brutus was not satisfied until he had slammed the garim against two trees, and repeatedly hammered it into the ground. By the time the earth fury was finished, the garim was a bloody mass of pulped flesh and shattered bone.
Amara slowed and came to a halt a few feet away from her husband. Bernard watched until Brutus was finished, then nodded, and said, "Thank you." The stone hound champed its jaws twice, shook its head, sending pebbles and bits of mud flying, and sank down into the earth again, turning circles like a dog about to lie down as it went.
Bernard sagged and dropped to one knee.
Amara rushed to his side. "Bernard!"
"It's nothing, I'm fine," Bernard slurred, still breathing heavily. "Gaius?"
"He's alive," Amara said. "Let me see your head."
"Looks worse than it is," Bernard said. "Scalp wounds bleed a lot. Flesh wound."
"I know that," Amara said, "but you've got a lump the size of an egg to go with the cut. Concussions are not flesh wounds."
Bernard reached up and caught her hand. He met her eyes, and said in a quiet, firm tone, "See to the First Lord, Countess."
She stiffened with anger. "Bernard."
"I have a duty to my lord. So do you."
"I also have a duty to my husband," she whispered back.
Bernard released her hand, and growled, "See to Gaius." His tone became gentler, and very tired. "You know I'm right."
She put a hand to her face for a moment, took a deep breath, then touched his head gently. Then she turned and went back to the First Lord.
Gaius lay on the ground with his eyes closed. He opened them as Amara approached, and said, "I haven't done that in a while."
"Sire?"
"Hunted garim. Not since I was about seventeen." He exhaled heavily. "It was considerably less strenuous back then."
His voice was tight with pain, the way it had been at the beginning of their journey. "You're hurt."
"It's my leg," he said quietly. "The good one." He nodded at the still-twitching garim. "I'm afraid this fellow managed to trap it between his hide and a stone. I'm fairly sure it's broken."
Amara bent to examine the First Lord's leg. It was swollen, and his foot rested at an utterly inappropriate angle to the rest of the leg. It had been a twisting break, not a clean snap of the bone. Amara knew that they could be very ugly. "I can't see any bone poking out," she said quietly. "You aren't bleeding. How bad is it?"
"It's only pain," Gaius said, but his voice trembled as he did. "I see that Bernard gave rather a good accounting of himself."
Amara would need to set the leg as soon as possible. They would have to splint it as well. "He killed three of them."
"For killing men, metalcrafters stand supreme," Gaius murmured. "But beasts don't fight like men. Primal. Savage. For them, nothing replaces raw strength. And I think one really couldn't fault my choice in companions on this particular journey." He shook his head and blinked his eyes several times. "I'm babbling. Please excuse me. The mind tends to wander a bit when one is my age-or in excruciating pain."
"We'll do what we can, sire," Amara said.
"The pain won't kill me. Bernard is bleeding. See to him. I believe I'll faint now, if it isn't too inconven..."
The First Lord fell silent, and Amara bent to him for a panicked instant. He continued breathing steadily, though, and his pulse was strong. She bit her lip in sympathy, and was just as glad that he had lost consciousness. His injury had to be pure torment.
She took off her cloak, damp as it was, rolled it up, and used it to support his broken leg. Then she rose and went back to Bernard. He had taken off his pack and was fumbling through it rather dazedly. Amara took it from his hands and removed the box of bandages, ointments, and healing salves he carried in it. She cleaned his wound as best she could, but it kept bleeding, as such injuries tended to.
"This will need stitches to close properly," she said quietly. "That means we'll need boiling water. A fire."
"Dangerous," Bernard mumbled. "Too easy to spot."
"We've little choice," she replied. "He's unconscious. His leg is broken.
We have to warm him up, then set the leg. Can you have Brutus make a shelter for us?"
He looked at her dully for a moment, and then back at Gaius. "Dangerous."
She put her hands on either side of his face. "Bernard, you've been hit in the head. You're having trouble speaking clearly, much less thinking clearly. I need you to trust me. This is necessary."
He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes. Then he nodded. He opened his eyes again and peered blearily around them, through the rain. Then he nodded at a hillock, and muttered under his breath. "Garim had a den there. Brutus is widening it. Shoring it up. Drag wood in first thing. Let it start to dry. Then we'll move Gaius in."
"Very well," Amara said. She covered his wound with a pad of folded cloth and wound a bandage around his head to hold it closed as best it could until she could see to the injury more thoroughly. "Bernard. It's his good leg that's broken."
Bernard frowned for a moment, then said, "Crows. He won't be able to walk."
"No," Amara said.
"That's bad," he said.
"Yes."
"But there is good news," he said.
She frowned at him.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled. "Smell that?"
Amara frowned and sniffed at the air. There was an overripe smell to it, a vegetable reek.
"Only one thing smells like that," Bernard said. "Swamps. We made it. Once we get in there, don't have to worry about our back trail."
"No," Amara murmured. "Only disease. Injury. Lack of food. And more of those garim."
Bernard grunted. "Well," he mused, "we never did get that honeymoon."
Amara blinked at him for a moment, then burst out in a laugh that surprised her with its depth and strength.
He gave her a weary grin, and for a moment his eyes shone with warmth. "That's better. Love it when you smile." Then he took a deep breath and pushed himself slowly to his feet. He touched the bandages and hissed in discomfort.
"Don't do that," Amara said absently. She rose, wincing at a flare of pain in her back. She had almost forgotten the blow from the garim's tail and the tumble afterward. Her muscles and bones, however, had not. "He can't walk," she said quietly. "What are we going to do?"
"We'll handle it, Countess. One thing at a time."
She touched her face, and then the bandages. "I love you very much, you know."
He lifted her fingers from his head and kissed them gently, eyes sparkling. "Who could blame you?"
Amara laughed again.
