Cursor's Fury (89 page)

Marcus stared at the silver coin, the token of a Cursor’s allegiance to the Crown. Then he picked it up and put it in his pocket. “How old was Septimus when he started crafting?”

Marcus watched him go. Then he drew out the old silver coin and held it up to let the distant fires shine on its surface. “Five,” he mused.

“How long have we known one another, Aleran?” Kitai asked. “Five years this autumn,” Tavi said. Kitai walked beside Tavi as he left the hospital—the first building Tavi had
_p. 437
ordered the Legion’s engineers to reconstruct. A clean, dry place to nurse the injured and sick had been badly needed, given the numbers of wounded and the exhaustion of Foss and his healers, particularly during the final hours of the battle, when the healers had barely been able to so much as stabilize the dying, much less return them to action.

Tavi had spent his evening visiting the wounded. Whenever he’d been able to find a few moments, he would visit a few more of his men, asking about them, giving them whatever encouragement he could. It was exhausting, to see one mangled legionare after another, every one of them wounded while obeying orders he had given.

He brought Kitai with him whenever he visited—in fact, he brought her nearly everywhere he went, including staff meetings. He introduced her as Ambassador Kitai, and offered no other explanation whatsoever for her presence, his entire manner suggesting that she belonged there and that anyone with questions or comments about her had best keep them to himself. He wanted the men to get used to seeing her, to speaking her, until they got the idea that she was not a threat. It was a method adapted from his uncle’s lessons in shepherding, Tavi had thought, amused. It was the same way he would train sheep to accept the presence of a new shepherd or dog.

She had discarded her beggar’s outfit to wear one of Tavi’s uniform tunics, leather riding breeches, and high riding boots. She had shorn her long hair Legion style, and what remained was her natural color, silver-white.

She nodded as they walked. “Five years. In that time,” she said, “have I ever attempted to deceive you?”

Tavi put a finger on the fine, white scar he had on one cheek. “The first night I met you, you gave me that with one of those stone knives. And I thought you were a boy.”

Tavi nodded. “Until the First Lord can put down Kalarus’s forces, we’ll have to be here to contain them and harass them—hopefully to keep as many of them as possible pinned down here, not helping Kalarus, while avoiding another pitched battle.”

_p. 438
“You will need many scouts, then. Forces for small group action.”

Tavi grimaced and nodded. “Yes. Which isn’t going to be fun.”

“Why not?”

“Because of their speed, for one thing,” Tavi said. “It’s too easy for scouts to be seen or tracked, then run down—especially at night. But there just aren’t enough horses to mount them all. If I can’t find some way around it, we’re going to lose a lot of good people. ”

Kitai tilted her head. “Are you to remain the captain, then?”

“For now,” Tavi said, nodding. “Foss says that Cyril’s going to lose his left leg. Crown law forbids any Legion officer who cannot march and fight beside his men. But I’m almost certain he’s going to be added to the Legion as an attaché from the Crown or made into a regional Consul Strategica.”

Kitai arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“That he’ll give me orders and advice, in how and where to move. But I’ll be the one making the calls in action.”

“Ah,” Kitai said. “A war-master and a camp-master, is what my people call it. One makes decisions outside of battle. The other inside.”

“Sounds about right,” Tavi said.

Kitai frowned, and said, “But are you not subject to the same law? You cannot march with the men. Not using the furycraft of your people’s roads.”

“You . . . you aren’t . . . “ She frowned. “Bitter. Sad. Always, when you spoke of your own lack of sorcery, it caused you pain.”

“I know,” Tavi said, and he was somewhat surprised to hear himself say it calmly, without the familiar little ache of frustration and sadness at the unfairness of it all. “I suppose now, it isn’t as important to me. I know what I can do now, even without furycrafting. I’ve spent my whole life waiting for it to happen. But if it never happens, so be it. I can’t sit around holding my breath. It’s time let it go. To get on with living.”

Kitai looked at him steadily, then she leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

Tavi smiled. “What was that for?”

“For forging your own wisdom,” she said, and smiled. “There may yet be hope for you,
chala
.”

_p. 439
Tavi snorted as they approached the second stone building the engineers had constructed—a command center. They had built it out of the heaviest stone they could draw from the earth, and set most of the building so far into the ground that its lowest chambers, including its command room, were actually below the level of the river. Tavi hadn’t wanted that building to get priority, but Magnus and the rest of his officers had quietly ignored his authority and done it anyway. It would take more than one of the Canim’s vicious bolts of lightning to threaten the building, the engineers had assured him.

Tavi had to admit, that it had been extremely helpful all around to have a solid location for organizing the Legion. The rest of the Legion had laid their tents around the command building and hospital in standard order, and though the fallen and injured were sorely missed, a sense of normality, of continuity had returned to the First Aleran. He solved problems as they arose, though most days he felt like some kind of madman beating out random brush fires with a blanket before sprinting for the next source of smoke.

If he’d known that they were going to build an apartment, complete with private bath, into the command building, he’d have told them not to do it. But they’d simply walked him there at the end of the tour. He had a small sitting room, a bathing room, and a bedroom that would have been of distinctly modest size in any setting other than a Legion camp. As it was, he could have fit a standard tent into it without trouble, and his bed was wide enough to sprawl carelessly on, a distinct difference from the standard Legion-issue folding cot and bedroll.

Guards stood outside the command building, and saluted as Tavi came walking up with Kitai beside him. He nodded to the men, both of them Battle-crows. “Milias, Jonus. Carry on.”

The young cohort had taken the duty for guarding the captain’s quarters upon themselves with quiet determination, and the men on duty were always careful that their uniforms were immaculate, and that the crow sigil the cohort had taken as their own was obvious upon their breastplates and, in more stylized detail, upon their helmets and shields. The burned standard had been duplicated many times, always with the black crow and not the Crown’s eagle, and one such standard hung on the door to the command building.

He passed inside and headed for the rear area on the first floor—his apartment. It was plainly, sensibly furnished with sturdy, functional furniture. He had dropped off several things there earlier in the day, but this would be the first time he had stayed the night. “So what is this idea?”

_p. 440
“To me,” Kitai said, “it seems that you have a problem. Your scouts are not swift enough to evade the foe if discovered. Nor can they see in the dark, while your foe can.”

“It happens,” Kitai said, “that my mother’s sister is just such a person. In fact, I believe she knows some few others who share those qualities.”

Tavi’s eyebrows shot up. Kitai’s aunt was Hashat, leader of the Horse Clan of Marat, and likely the second most influential of the Marat clan-heads.

“Bring a Marat force
here
?” he asked.

“Evidence suggests it may be possible for them to survive,” she said, her tone dry.

Tavi snorted. “I thought Doroga needed Hashat to keep things in order at home.”

“Perhaps,” Kitai said. “But you would not require the whole of the clan. A herd or two of riders would be adequate for your needs. That much strength could be spared, if needed to ensure the stability of your mad Realm, Aleran. The order of Alera means as much to the Marat as our stability means to you.”

It would do that,
Tavi thought. But then a notion struck him, and he arched a brow and tilted his head at Kitai, grinning. “You’re just doing this so you get to ride around on horses more often.”

Kitai gave him a haughty glance. “I
wanted
a horse. But I got you, Aleran. I must make the best of it.”

Tavi went to her, pushed her against a wall with a certain amount of careless strength, then pinned her there with his body and kissed her. The Marat girl’s breath sped up, and she melted into the kiss, hands lifting to touch, body moving in slow, sinuous tension against his.

Tavi let out a low growl as the kiss made him burn for her. He lifted the
_p. 441
hem of the tunic and slid his hands over the soft, feverish skin of her waist and lower back. “Shall we try the bath?”

She broke the kiss long enough to say, “Here. Now. Bath later.” Then she took the front of his tunic in both hands, her canted green eyes intense and feral, and started pulling him to the bedroom.

Tavi paused in the doorway and let out a groan. “Wait.”

The look in Kitai’s eyes made Tavi think of a hungry lioness about to pounce, and her hips swayed toward his, but she stopped, waiting.

He sat there feeling an odd, fluttery sensation in his belly, and his scalp felt as if something with many sharp little legs was running over it. He felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.

He had
made
it go out.

He had
crafted
it out.

He had
furycrafted.

“Kitai. I did that.
Me
!”

She only stared at him.

“Light, off!” Tavi said. It flickered out, and he immediately said, “Light, on!”
_p. 442
And it was so. “Bloody crows!” Tavi swore, laughter bubbling through his voice. “Off! On! Off! On! Off! Did you
see
it, Kitai?”

“All this time,” she said. “You moping around. Sad about it. Sure it was so awful. For
this
?”