Cursor's Fury (14 page)
Captain Cyril had a blocky, largely immobile face, tanned to leather by his time in the field, and even a small smile sent creases across his features. “Send him up.”
Tavi turned to the ladder, and Magnus touched his arm. “Lad,” he murmured, almost too low to be heard. “Remember your duty. But don’t play him false.”
Tavi frowned, then nodded to Magnus and scaled the ladder to join the captain on the platform. He reached the top, came to attention, and saluted.
“At ease,” Cyril said easily, beckoning with one hand as he turned back to
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the field. Tavi stepped up to stand beside him. Neither said anything for several moments, and Tavi waited for the captain to break the silence.
“Not many novice subtribunes would stand up to their commanding officer like that,” Cyril finally murmured. “That takes a certain amount of courage.”
“Not really, sir,” Tavi said. “He couldn’t come against me without revealing what he’d done.”
Cyril grunted. “There are ways he can get around it. Not to hurt your career, perhaps, but he can make your duties unpleasant.”
“Yes,” Tavi said, simply.
Cyril smiled again. “A Stoic, I see.”
“I’m not afraid of work, sir. It will pass.”
“True enough.” The captain turned speculative eyes on Tavi. “I looked into your records,” he said. “You aren’t much of a furycrafter.”
A flash of irritation mixed with pain rolled through Tavi’s chest. “I’ve just got my Legion basics, “ Tavi said—which was true, as far as the false records provided by the Cursors were concerned. “A little metal. I can handle a sword. Not like the greats, but I can hold my own.”
The captain nodded. “Sometimes men go out of their way to conceal their talents, for whatever reason. Some don’t want the responsibility. Some don’t want to stand out. Others will embarrass an illegitimate parent should they do too much. Like your friend, Maximus.”
Tavi smiled tightly. “That’s not me, Captain.”
Cyril studied Tavi for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I don’t have those kinds of gifts, either. Pity,” he said, and turned back to the field. “I was hoping I might round up a few more Knights.”
Tavi arched an eyebrow. “Knights? Don’t we have a full complement, sir?”
Cyril’s armor rasped as he shrugged a shoulder. “We have Knights, but you know what a valuable commodity that kind of talent can be. Every High Lord in the Realm wants all the Knights he can beg, buy, borrow, or steal. Especially given the tensions lately. Our Knights are largely, ah . . . how to phrase this.”
“Fish, sir?” Tavi suggested. “Knights Pisces?”
The captain snorted. “Close enough. Though I would have said young and clumsy. We’ve only got one Knight Ignus, and he’s currently being treated for burn wounds.” Cyril shook his head. “A batch of a dozen or so Terra and Flora aren’t bad, but they’ve got a lot of work to do, and there aren’t nearly enough of them. We’ve got no Knights Ferrous at all. And all the rest, sixty of them, are Knights Aeris.”
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Tavi lifted his eyebrows. “Most Legions would kill to have that many Knights Aeris, sir.”
“Yes.” Cyril sighed. “If they could fly.”
“They can’t?” Tavi asked. “I thought that was what you had to be able to do to
be
one of those, sir.”
“Oh, they can get into the air, for the most part. Getting
down
again in one piece has proven something of a problem. If Tribune Fantus and young Antillus hadn’t been there to lessen the impacts, and Lady Antillus hadn’t come down with her son, we’d have had fatalities already.”
Tavi frowned, then said, “Perhaps Maximus could help them out? Instructing them, I mean.”
The captain broke out into a single bark of laughter. “It would be inappropriate. And I need him where he is. But even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t let him anywhere near the Knights Pisces. Have you seen him?”
Tavi frowned for a moment and thought about it. “No, sir.”
“He doesn’t fly so much as make these great, bounding hops. He can land on his feet sometimes. Other times, he hits something. We pulled him out of a peat bog once. I can’t tell you how many times he’s broken his legs.”
Tavi frowned. “That . . . hardly sounds like Max, sir.”
“I would imagine he doesn’t talk about it much. He never got it down, but I didn’t think he’d ever give up trying. Then I saw him ride in here. Damn shame. But it happens like that sometimes.”
“Yes, sir,” Tavi said, unsure what to say.
“Scipio,” the captain went on. “I haven’t asked you for your oath to the Legion yet.”
“No, sir. I figured that’s what this was about.”
“It is,” Cyril said. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m no fool, lad. A lot of men are here for their own reasons. And some are here for someone else’s reasons.”
Tavi looked out over the practice field and remained silent, unsure what to say.
“I’ll only ask you this one question. Can you swear your loyalty to this Legion, to these men, and mean it beyond any doubt, any question?”
“Sir . . .” Tavi began.
“It’s important,” the captain said. “We all need to know that we can rely upon one another. That we will serve the Crown and the Realm regardless of the hazard or difficulty. That we will not leave a brother behind, nor hesitate to give our lives for one another. Otherwise, this is no Legion. Just a mob of men
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with weapons.” He faced Tavi, and said, “Can you look me in the eyes and swear that, young man?”
Tavi looked up and met Cyril’s eyes. “I am here to serve the Crown, sir. Yes.”
“Then I have your oath?”
“You do.”
The captain stared at Tavi for a moment, then nodded once, sharply, and offered his hand. Tavi blinked for a second and traded grips with Cyril. “I work my people hard, Subtribune. But I suspect we’ll get along. Dismissed.”
Tavi saluted, and the captain returned it. Tavi turned to the ladder, but paused when a wave of shouts rose up from below. He looked up to see a small mob of recruits in their brown tunics rushing for the infirmary, bearing an injured man. Blood stained them, and the grass behind them as they passed.
“Help!” one of them shouted, voice high with panic. “Healer!”
They grew closer, and Tavi could see more blood, pale flesh, and a sopping, bloody cloth pressed against the throat of a limp man whose skin was a shade of grey. A healer appeared from one of the large tents, and Tavi saw the man’s expression flash with alarm. He started barking orders at once.
The recruits shifted their grip on him to let the healer get close, and the injured man’s head lolled limply toward Tavi, eyes glassy and sightless.
Tavi’s heart stopped in his chest.
It was Max.
Chapter 7
Amara frowned down from her seat in the gallery of one of the large lecture halls of the Collegia Tactica, one of the great prides of the city of Ceres and the largest military academy in Alera. She was one of only a handful of women present in the hall, among perhaps five hundred men, most of them wearing Legion tunics and armor. The gallery above the floor seats had been filled to overflowing with curious young nobles and other students of the Collegia, and she sat between a
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pair of young men who seemed uncertain of how to address a young woman who bore a faint dueling scar on one cheek and a sword upon her hip.
The hall’s presentation platform was the size of a small theater stage, and was also crowded with people. A half circle of chairs lined the back of the platform. Several older men sat in the chairs, most of them experienced military commanders, retired and now serving as Maestros for the Collegia. In the next to last chair sat Centurion Giraldi, arguably the most heavily decorated noncommissioned officer in Alera, now that he bore not simply one but double scarlet stripes of the Order of the Lion down the outside seams of his uniform trousers. The grizzled, stocky old soldier had walked with a limp ever since sustaining injuries in battle with the monstrous creatures called the “vord.” Giraldi’s grey hair was cut in a legionare’s short brush, his armor bore the nicks and dents of a lifetime of battle, and he looked intensely uncomfortable sitting before such a large audience.
Beside Giraldi sat Senator Guntus Arnos, Consul General of the Collegia. He was a short man, barely more than five feet tall, dressed in the formal, deep blue robes of the Senate. His grey hair was oiled and drawn back into a tail, his hands were steepled in front of his face, and he wore an expression of sober, somber judgment. He probably practiced it in front of a mirror, Amara thought.
Bernard wore his colors of green and brown, his sturdy and sensible tunic a marked contrast to Senator Arnos’s rich robes. He stood at the podium at the platform’s center, facing those present in the hall with a demeanor of calm, competent composure.
“In short,” he said, “I believe that these vord are far and away the deadliest threat this Realm has ever known.” His voice carried clearly through the hall thanks to the windcraftings built into the place to make sure speakers could be clearly heard. The windcrafted acoustics were necessary. The hall was filled with a continual low buzz of whispers and quiet speech.
“That single vord queen entered my holdings,” Bernard continued. “Within a month, the vord had become a force that destroyed two-thirds of my command, including a half century of Knights, and the entire population of a frontier steadholt. Their use of tactical judgment, as Centurion Giraldi and I have enumerated it to you today, proves that these creatures are more than mere beasts. They are an intelligent, coordinated threat to all of mankind. If we do not exercise the highest levels of caution, immediately stamping out an infestation, that threat may well grow too swiftly to be stopped.” Bernard exhaled, and Amara could see a bit of relief on her husband’s face, though few
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others would have. Bernard was glad to be finished. “At this time, I will open the floor to questions.”