Princeps' fury (43 page)

After Uvarton had come . . . Marsford, he thought, where the Vord had poisoned the wells, then Beros, where the Vord had brought up enough wind that, combined with the cold, the Legions had lost one in thirty men to frostbite, then Vadronus, where . . .

Where the Vord had driven them back again. And again. He’d slept in spare moments, half an hour, here and there, for the past . . . some number of days. He wasn’t sure. The First Lord had taken even less than that—which was why he had collapsed.

The door to Gaius’s room opened, and Sireos the healer emerged. As the personal physician to the First Lord, the thin, silver-templed Sireos was a familiar sight near the capital—which was less than a day’s hard ride on the causeway from there. Sireos exchanged nods with the guardsmen at the door and turned toward Ehren.

“Sir Ehren,” Sireos said. He had a long, mournful face and a very deep, very resonant voice. “Could I speak to you privately, please?”

He accompanied the physician to the end of the hallway and spoke in a quiet voice. “How is he?”

“Dying,” Sireos said in a level tone. “I was able to stabilize him, but he’s got to get regular food and regular rest, or he won’t last the week.”

“And if he does?” Ehren said.

“Weeks,” Sireos said. “Months, if he’s lucky. He’s using furycraft to ignore the pain and strengthen himself, or he would know exactly how bad his condition is.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Ehren asked.

Sireos gave him a steady look, then sighed. “I’ve been working on him for years—and never mind what he’s been able to do for himself. He’s every bit as skilled as I am at watercraft, even though his education as a physician is incomplete. His organs are simply breaking down. His lungs are the most obvious among the symptoms—he had pneumonia several years ago, and they’ve never been right since then. His spleen, his liver, his pancreas, one of his kidneys—they’re all breaking down as well.”

“The world can be a hard place. We all have to face it as best we can, son.” He put a hand on Ehren’s shoulder. “Good luck, Sir Ehren. I’ll be nearby.”

A muffled voice came from the First Lord’s room, and the guard opened the door. Gaius strode out, clean from his time in the healing tub, dressed in fresh clothing. He moved with brisk purpose, but Ehren fancied that he could see the frailty underneath the calm surface.

Boots treaded on the stairs, and Captain Miles of the Crown Legion appeared. He was a stocky man of medium height and build, his plain steel lorica dented and nicked with use, and he wore a similarly unadorned, functional, and well-used sword at his side. He sized up the situation in the hallway as he came to a halt, and saluted sharply to Gaius.

“Sire,” Miles said, “the defenses are prepared, and the Crown Legion stands ready to serve you.”

“Good to see you, Captain,” Gaius said, his eyes never leaving Ehren’s. He smiled, very slightly, to the young Cursor and inclined his head to such a slight degree that Ehren thought he might have imagined it.

Ehren bowed slightly to Gaius as the First Lord returned to his quarters with Captain Miles. Then he went to see to it that food was brought up to the room before Gaius changed his mind.

It was only after he was several steps down the stairs that he realized the import of Gaius’s words, and realized what was happening. Ever since Ceres, Gaius had been retreating from the Vord—and for the last several days, Aleran forces had barely put up any resistance at all. But the Crown Legion was Gaius’s single most trusted and capable force, and would certainly be present in any decisive confrontation with the enemy. If the First Lord had sent the Crown Legion ahead to prepare Alera Imperia, it meant that Gaius never intended to prevent the Vord from reaching the Realm’s capital.

Gaius wasn’t being driven back by the Vord.

He was luring them forward.

If the retreat had been such a terrible strain on Alera and her Legions, it had to be pushing the Vord’s resources, too. Savage and deadly as they might be, the Vord still had to eat, and they apparently needed their
croach
as food. By forcing them to stay on the move and in pursuit of the Aleran forces, Gaius was also keeping them ahead of their supply lines, advancing far faster than the
croach
could grow.

Meanwhile, the Crown Legion was preparing Alera Imperia herself for battle.

Gaius was drawing the Vord into the most vulnerable position he could arrange for them, tiring them with the campaign—only to prepare to turn upon them at the high point of his power, the heart of the Realm, Alera Imperia.

It was the gamble of a desperate man, Ehren thought. If Gaius won, he would crush the Vord strength in the Realm. If he lost, the center of Aleran commerce, travel, and government would fall with him.

Ehren hurried forward, to get the First Lord a solid meal.

CHAPTER 30

The taurga rolled east at their lumbering trot, crushing the miles beneath their cloven hooves.

“I still don’t understand,” Kitai murmured, close to Tavi’s ear. She rode behind him on his taurg, her arms around his waist. Even carrying the two of them, their taurg was less burdened than any of those bearing one of the Canim, and led the group in fine spirits—which was to say, it tried to toss them off every mile or so. “Why do we keep traveling east when we know the queen we must destroy is to the south?”

Tavi grinned and called back to her, “The best part about this plan is that I don’t have to explain anything to anybody.”

She slipped a hand under his armor and pinched him hard on the flank. “Don’t make me hurt you, Aleran.”

Tavi laughed. “All right, all right.” He glanced back down the line of taurga. “The Shuaran warriors are engaging the Vord to the south of us. We’re going to ride around the main area of engagement, come in from the side.”

“And encounter less resistance from the Vord,” Kitai said.

“Or interference from the Shuarans,” Tavi said. “It isn’t as though we can expect every officer in the field to know that a group of Narashan Canim and Alerans—”

“And a Marat,” Kitai said.

“And a Marat,” Tavi conceded, “are traveling on a special, secret mission with Lararl’s approval, even with Anag here to explain things. Simpler and faster if we avoid them.”

She frowned. “Tell me something.”

“Hmm?”

“Has it ever struck you as strange that the Vord never seem to notice you and me when we are near them? How they simply accept our presence unless we directly oppose them?”

“When we went down after the Blessing of Night, you mean,” Tavi said, his own tone growing more sober. “We had no way of knowing what was going to happen.”

“No,” Kitai said. “But it does not change the fact that the first queen stirred after
we
stole the Blessing from the center of the Wax Forest. That it emerged and tried to kill us that very night.”

“Until your father threw a big rock at it.”

Kitai let out a low laugh. “I remember.”

“In any case, it isn’t as though they
all
ignore us. The queen I fought under the Citadel certainly saw me, and was more than willing to fight.” Tavi chewed on his lip. “Though the lower-intelligence Vord, the wax spiders and takers and so on, haven’t ever attacked me unless I attacked them first. It’s almost as though they think we’re other Vord, somehow, until we start getting rowdy.”

“An advantage we could use.”

“Possibly,” Tavi said, nodding.

She rode in silence for a time, then said, the words rushed together, “I’m frightened,
chala
.”

Tavi blinked and stared over his shoulder.

She shrugged. “What fool would not be? What if I lose you? What if you lose me?” She swallowed. “Death is real. It could take either of us, or both. I cannot think of living without you. Or of you without me.”

She shifted her position, and he felt her lay her head against his back. Her hair tickled the back of his neck. “My mad Aleran. Making promises he cannot keep.”

Tavi sighed. “Whatever happens,” he told her, “we’ll be together.
That
much I can promise.”

Her arms tightened again, enough to make him strain a little to draw in his next breath. “I will hold you to that, Aleran.”

Tavi turned to her, awkward on the broad saddle, but enough to kiss her. She returned the kiss fiercely.

Until the taurg bellowed, bucked, and threw them both twenty feet through the air and into an enormous puddle of shockingly cold sludge almost two feet deep. Then the enormous riding beast bellowed in victory and went charging off the road, tossing its horns and bucking all the way.

The shock of the water was so cold that Tavi had trouble catching his breath as he struggled up out of it and onto his feet. He turned to find Kitai still in the muck, her green eyes narrowed as she regarded him.

“I am stuck,” she informed him. “I blame you.”

The other riders caught up to them, their taurga thundering to a halt, bellowing protests along the way. Max and Durias, each on his own beast, stopped closest to them. Durias’s expression was dutifully neutral, but his eyes shone. Max was grinning.

“My lord,” he said, sweeping a particularly florid bow from his saddle, flourishing one hand as he did. “Are we to take our leisure here for a time, then?”

Tavi gave Maximus a steady glare. Then he turned, slogged through the mud to Kitai, put his hands under her arms, and hauled strongly to pull her free of the mud. She popped out abruptly, his feet slipped out from under him, and they both fell back into the freezing mud, Kitai atop him.

“We could put up curtains for privacy if you like, my lord,” Durias said soberly.

The Canim, atop their own mounts, remained a few yards off and none of them were looking in Tavi’s direction—but they all sat with their mouths open, teeth showing, their grins requiring no translation.

Tavi sighed. “Just throw us a line, Max. And catch that bloody taurg before he runs into the ocean.”

“You hear that, Steaks?” Max said to his own taurg. “It wasn’t the Princeps’ fault. Your bloody friend way over there was rebellious. Just you watch and see what happens when royal displeasure falls on uppity insurrectionists.”