Princeps' fury (44 page)

“Maximus,” Kitai said. “I am cold. Speak another word, and I will strangle you with your own tongue.”

Max laughed, and produced a coil of rope from his saddlebags.

The country that the Vord had emerged into from the tunnel they’d used to bypass the Shuaran defenses was composed of rolling, rocky hills sparsely covered in pine trees. Varg’s three Hunters had determined what Tavi was doing before half the day was gone, and had proceeded ahead of them, fanning out widely as outriders for their group. Though they wore their shapeless grey cloaks, they fairly bristled with weaponry, and each of the silent Canim wore a large, lumpy pack on his back filled with who knew what other instruments of mayhem.

Once they had taken the lead, Tavi simply followed the Hunters, who were sure to know the country better than he did. They turned off the main road and began traveling cross-country by midafternoon, leaving the plain and entering the first of the lightly forested hills Lararl’s maps had shown at the interior of the Shuaran plateau.

By sundown they found the Vord.

The Hunters had led them to the vague Canim equivalent of a steadholt. Like the buildings of the Narash fortifications, it looked like a solid block of stone, a rectangle perhaps three stories high—or perhaps two, given the greater height of Canim ceilings. They rode the taurga into it through a relatively narrow doorway, and found that the lower floor of the Canim steadholt was one enormous, cavernous hall, evidently used in the same way Alerans would a barn, if the scattered droppings were any indicator. No livestock were in sight, though their scent was still strong on the air.

One of the Hunters leapt down after tying his mount to a ring on the wall, and picked up an oddly lumpy pole nearly eight feet long. He began working with it, and Tavi realized that he was unrolling a net or mesh made of wire, which was wrapped around the pole. The Hunter unrolled the pole completely, and sank one end of it into a socket on the floor, and Tavi noticed that there were many such poles and wire fences around the hall.

“Clever,” he said.

Beside him, Max grunted. “What’s that?”

Tavi gestured at the Hunter, who was erecting a second wall around the tired taurg. “It lets them use this space to pen livestock when they need to, but when they don’t, they can clear it out for other uses. They can change the size of the pens, or set it up so that you can cut some animals out and leave the rest penned up. That’s handy.”

Durias just blinked at Tavi.

Max snorted. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told the centurion, “but our Princeps was brought up on a steadholt. Herding sheep, if you can believe that.”

Tavi nodded and kicked the taurg lightly in the back of the head. The beast tossed its head and bellowed, and while it was distracted, Tavi passed the reins back to Kitai, who quickly took up the slack again before the animal could realize that it was no longer being held under tight control. Tavi slid off the taurg’s back and to the ground, then went up the stairs with Varg and Anag.

They passed the second floor, evidently quarters for whoever had lived there. They were as silent and as empty as the lower floor had been. The stairs continued on up to the building’s roof.

Even that space was practical. Long stone troughs were filled with rich, dark earth. A great many vegetables could be planted there during what was sure to be a short summer, to take maximum advantage of the sunshine. A winch-and-pulley rig beside a large bucket at the roof’s edge indicated that irrigating the rooftop gardens would be taxing, but not impossible.

It wasn’t the same as an Aleran steadholt, but the practical, conservative thought behind its design was no different. Tavi felt oddly comfortable there.

Anag and Varg walked to the western edge of the roof and stood staring out for a time. Tavi followed, hopping up onto one of the stone planting troughs to put his head on a level with theirs.

Perhaps two miles to the west, as the ground rose gently, the green glow of growing
croach
was visible through the sparse trees.

Anag snarled in pure, quiet hate.

Varg glanced aside at Tavi. “How fast does it grow?”

“From what I read in Lararl’s study, it depends on several things—temperature, weather, how much plant cover is on the ground, as well as how large it already is.” Tavi shook his head. “Maybe other things we don’t know about. And the bloody wax spiders spread it when they want to cover a new area, too.”

“Not far,” Anag growled quietly. “It was not growing until the Vord emerged.”

“He’s right,” Tavi said. “A mile, two at the most. We’re near their hole. Though I’ll wager that we probably passed dozens of smaller patches today in the daylight, without seeing them. They set them up like outposts.”

“Because they don’t care,” Tavi said, smiling slightly. “We’re fewer than a dozen, after all. What threat could we be? We’re not in a position to hurt them from here—and if we approach closely enough to do something that might inconvenience them, we’ll have to cross the
croach
to do it. That will warn them in plenty of time to act.”

“Unlike Lararl,” Tavi said, “the Vord queen doesn’t have a trusted subordinate she can leave to secure vital rear areas—like the mouth of that tunnel. Without her to control them, the Vord aren’t nearly as effective—but as long as the tunnel back to the area they already control stays open, she can throw away as many unguided troops as your warriors can kill. She’ll always have more to draw upon. If the tunnel is shut, the Vord are cut off from reinforcements and supplies.”

Anag nodded. “Then we must fight through her guard, and all those nearby Vord,
and
any others she can call to her once we reach the edge of the
croach
and alert them of our presence. We are few. Can it be done?”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Tavi said, “let’s not find out.”

They waited for three hours, until night was fully on the land. While the Hunters kept watch, the others took what rest they could, until the evening was mature, and the half-frozen rain that had fallen every other evening had begun to speckle the night. Then the group set out on foot through the sleet and darkness toward the glowing beacon of the
croach
.

“I’m going to catch a cold,” Max muttered. “These cloaks soak up water like towels.”

“That’s because they
are
towels, Max,” Tavi answered in a low voice. “The Vord sense the heat of our bodies at night. These cloaks are going to hold cold water, help hide us from them.”

They reached the edge of the
croach
, and Tavi shivered. The tall, dark forms of the Canim were just as threatening as the eerie landscape. The
croach
looked just as it had before, a coating like the drippings from an unimaginable number of candles, covering ground and stones and trees with a faintly luminous green sheathing. It spread out before them, nightmarishly beautiful, unsettling, and alien.

Nothing moved within—but that meant little. The Vord could hide dozens of their number virtually in plain sight upon the
croach
, and have them go as undetected as anything hidden by a windcrafter’s veil.

Tavi signaled Kitai with a motion of his hand, and the two of them moved up to the edge of the
croach
. Tavi crouched close to the ground to examine it, frowning. He beckoned Kitai, who ghosted over to his side, her green eyes shadowed inside her damp cloak, watching the spectral-lit forest steadily.

“Look,” Tavi whispered. “The
croach
. It’s thicker here than it was in the Wax Forest.”

She bent down and examined it quickly before returning to watching the forest before them. “You’re right. But why?”

Tavi pursed his lips, and frowned. “The Vord here have modeled themselves after the Canim. Each one is larger, and much heavier, but not quite as big as a Cane. The
croach
is growing thicker, maybe so that it won’t break under the weight of the Vord—just under that of a Cane.” He looked up at Kitai. “That’s one of the things the
croach
is designed for. It’s a kind of watchman. The Vord can alter their forms. They must alter the
croach
to be able to better serve their needs.”

Kitai regarded him steadily. Then she nodded, and said, “Then let us test it.”

Before Tavi could protest, she had prowled out onto the surface of the
croach
.

Tavi held his breath.

Kitai’s feet did not break the surface, though it sank slightly beneath her weight, and slowly restored itself to its original shape after she had passed. She took a dozen steps, body crouched, her bright eyes watching the forest, and returned to Tavi’s side.

“Your turn,” she whispered.

Tavi eyed her. But then he rose and tested the surface of the
croach
beneath his shoes, glad that he had opted for the lighter pair rather than his heavy, hob-nailed infantry boots. The surface of the
croach
had a bit of give to it, and almost seemed to push up against his feet as he stepped away from it, something like a furycrafted causeway did, if far more weakly. Tavi signaled Max and Durias to come forward, and the two men did. Max, like Tavi, had worn lighter riding boots, but Durias had nothing but his infantry footwear. He grimaced and began taking them off, and stepped out onto the
croach
in his bare feet a moment later.

“Well,” Durias murmured, looking around warily. “At least it’s warm.”

“So far so good,” Tavi murmured. “Time to test the Canim’s new shoes.”

Varg was the first to approach. As the largest of the Canim, he would be the most likely to break the surface of the
croach
and attract the presence of the wax spiders who maintained and repaired it. The big Cane approached with exaggerated steps, a peculiar tilt to his ears that Tavi had never quite seen before on one of the wolf-warriors. Broad discs, almost like dishes, really, of green-black Vord chitin were secured to each of his feet.

“These . . .” he switched to Aleran for the word, “shoes.” He shook his head. “I cannot move well in them.”

“They’ll distribute your weight,” Tavi told him. “I hope enough that you can walk the
croach
without breaking it.”

“Who taught you the use of these things, Tavar?”

“Some of my people use something like them to move more easily over deep snow,” Tavi replied. “Though the original design was made of wood and leather. I thought the chitin was more logical.”

“Perhaps if it does break the
croach
, it will not sense the presence of Vord hide as an outside attacker,” Varg growled.

“Worth a try,” Tavi said. He waited a beat, then added. “Anytime now.”

Varg eyed him without amusement. Then he swept his red-eyed gaze around the nearby forest and took a slow, cautious step onto the
croach
.

The shoes worked. They held him up.

Varg growled, a satisfied sound, and gestured once at the other Canim. Anag and the three Hunters prowled forward onto the glowing
croach
, almost comically cautious about where they placed their chitin-shod feet.

Tavi nodded at them once. Then he turned to Kitai, who flashed him a feral grin and started through the forest in deliberate silence, as scout and pathfinder.

The rest of them followed her, into the glowing green night, and toward the architect and epicenter of that eerie new world.