Captain's Fury (55 page)

Varg took it, and with a quick motion of his claws snipped the quill about two inches from its end. He held it up to the light and squinted at it.

Varg leaned down and thrust a claw into the open wound. Then, his motions delicate in one so large, he thrust the quill into the cut.

Ehren shuddered and drew in a sudden, deep breath. It hissed through the hollow quill, and then hissed again as he exhaled. His breathing slowed and steadied. He blinked his eyes several times, focusing slowly.

"It is dirty," Varg rumbled. "But there was no time to clean it before he would have died. Perhaps your sorceries can cleanse the wound, later." He took Ehren's hand and lifted his fingers to the protruding end of the quill. "Hold this in. If it comes out, you die."

Ehren, pain in his expression, stared up at the Cane and nodded.

"We must go back for them," Kitai whispered.

Tavi held up his hand and whispered back. "We've only got one sword among us, and they have hostages. If we go in again, they'll use Araris and Isana against us. Assuming they don't kill them out of hand."

Kitai bared her teeth in a silent snarl of frustration.

Tavi chewed on his lip, thinking furiously. Then he nodded and looked at Varg. "Ibrus said he had horses. They must be close. Take these two and find them."

"You can't go back alone," Kitai hissed.

Tavi met her eyes, and said, "We aren't going to be able to take them back by force. And whatever happens, we'll need the horses—who won't let Varg handle them. Ehren can't do it either. So go. Now."

Kitai scowled furiously at him, but then she rose and offered Ehren a hand up. Varg lifted his head, sniffed the air for a few seconds, and started off at a shambling lope. Kitai, staying close to Ehren, followed the Cane.

Tavi took off his belt, bent over at the waist, and wriggled out of his mail shirt, letting it fall to the ground. Though it would have provided him some protection in the event of a fight, it also would make noise when he moved. For the moment, stealth was at a premium.

He buckled his sword belt on again and stalked through the darkness back to Ibrus's house, creeping forward until he crouched beneath one of the broken windows outside of the entry hall. There were two small furylamps inside, casting a dim red-orange glow.

"Steadholder," Navaris murmured, as Tavi approached. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill both of you. Right here. Right now."

Tavi's stomach got a sick, sinking feeling. He put his hand on his sword. If it came to that, he would attack them before he stood by and let them kill his mother and his friend.

"Did you hear me, Steadholder?" Navaris said. "This isn't a rhetorical question. If there is some reason I should leave you alive, you should tell me."

"I know who he serves," Isana continued. "Invidia Aquitaine is, in fact, my patron, too. I doubt she'll thank Arnos for interfering in my work. I shudder to think of her reaction should he actually eliminate me."

More silence.

"I spent nearly a year campaigning for the abolition of slavery for Lady Aquitaine and the Dianic League," Isana replied. "And the last six months I've been visiting members of the League raising funds and supplies for the refugee camps. The wives of every Count, Lord, and High Lord from here to Riva have met with me, given me money—and know I was coming to the Elinarch. Are you
sure
he's willing to be implicated in my death?"

"You're lying," the cutter said.

"Can you afford to assume that?" Isana's tone turned frank. "Do you want to make that decision for him, Navaris?"

Tavi felt his mouth stretch into a grin.

"And the
singulare?
Navaris asked. "Why should I spare him?"

"Yes. It must be difficult for you in some ways. After all, you've won more duels than Araris Valerian ever fought. You've certainly killed many more armed foes than he ever did. Yet I should think that you've lived your whole life in his shadow. He has such a name, after all. No matter how many times you prove it, he'll still be the best in everyone's mind." She let that sink in for a moment before she said, "If you fight him and lose, well. That would prove it for certain."

Tavi edged up enough to be able just barely to see in the window. Isana sat on the floor between two corpses—Ibrus and his enforcer—and in front of Navaris, as composed as if she was having tea in the capital. Araris was still pinned under the rubble, and one of Arnos's
singulares
was standing over him, a sword to his throat.

Isana was focused intently on Navaris, and Tavi suddenly realized that it was because she was reading Navaris's reactions to her words, using her watercraft to judge exactly what to say to the cutter, to discern what would motivate her.

"Of course," Isana added, leaning forward slightly, "if you kill him here, you'll never have the chance to beat him. You'll never be able to prove beyond all doubt that you're the greatest sword in Alera. Whereas if you return him to your master alive, he'll most likely order you to dispose of him in any case."

Navaris stared down at Isana, frozen, her eyes remote.

"You're better than he is, Navaris," Isana said. "You pinned him against the hull of the
Mactis
like an insect, and if he hadn't run, it would be over. You know you'll beat him if you fight him. Why not give yourself a chance to wipe his name away and replace it with yours?" Isana frowned slightly, and Tavi heard a note of sympathy enter her voice, a bit of sadness touch her eyes. "What else do you have?"

Navaris's nostrils flared, and her right hand suddenly trembled, fluttering at the end of her wrist. Tension entered her lean frame, and her breathing sped up for several seconds.

Then she seemed to slump in place. Her eyelids lowered, half-closing. "Tandus," she murmured. "Armenius. Bind them. We'll bring them with us."

The huge man whose hammer had smashed the wall nodded and bent down over Araris, levering the
singulares
hands behind his back and binding them with a heavy leather cord.

The other swordsman shook his head. "We're not going after Scipio?"

"His name isn't Scipio," Navaris said quietly. "It's Tavi of Calderon." She moved abruptly, striking Isana on the cheek with the back of one hand with stunning force, knocking Tavi's mother to the floor.

Tavi's fist clenched on his sword, but he controlled the sudden surge of rage and remained still and hidden in the deep shadows cast by the little furylamps.

"And we won't have to go after him," Navaris murmured quietly. "He'll be coming after us."

Chapter 44

The plan was working perfectly, and that made Amara nervous.

An evening and morning practicing under Gaius's tutelage had drastically expanded Amara's ability to craft a veil. It was not so much a matter of learning something new as it was of being presented with techniques she was already familiar with in new ways. Gaius seemed to have an instinctive knack for picking out the strengths and weaknesses of her crafting, and showed her how to apply the stronger aspects of her personal talents in a new way.

By the time the sun was high, Amara was holding a veil nearly ten feet across, with only a little more effort than it took to fly.

"Excellent," Gaius said, smiling. "I believe Maestro Vircani must have been your windcrafting instructor."

"Yes," Amara said, smiling. She had never imagined herself managing a veil so large with such comparative ease. "Yes, he was. He thought very little of my work, too. Except for the flying."

"Small-minded old goat," Gaius murmured, suppressing another cough. "He was of the school of thought that held that any furycrafting concept worth employing was already being employed, and therefore there was no need to teach multiple approaches to any given task since the one that he knew was already good enough."

"I just never thought thinking of light as a windstream," Amara said. "Only bending it, like for a farseeing. I can concentrate on windstreams all day."

"Furycrafting is as much about imagination as concentration," Gaius murmured. "Bear that in mind when you try anything new in your crafting, Countess. Imagination. Different ways of visualizing your goal. It wouldn't startle me in the least to see you manage quite a respectable level of weather crafting, should you wish it."

Amara blinked at him. "Really?"

"Certainly."

Bernard murmured, "A breeze to blow away some of these bugs might be nice." He squinted through the grass at the patrolled area. "I'm still not sure we shouldn't do this at night."

"Of course we should do it at night," Amara said. "And that's when they'll expect anyone to try to sneak through their pickets. They'll have more men on duty, and they'll be more alert—whereas if we move through during the day, the men will be less cautious and more likely to be distracted.'

Bernard took up Gaius's stretcher and nodded at Amara. Then he half closed his eyes, and the ground beneath her feet quivered for a moment, a pulse of movement that she could barely detect. A moment later, it repeated, at the pace of a sleeping man's heartbeat.

Amara murmured to Cirrus and felt the light around them change subtly as she brought up the veil. Everything outside the veil blurred, colors twisting and overlapping, shapes softening to mere blobs of color. It was one of the things that made a windcrafter's veil different from one crafted with wood furies. The woodcrafted veil hid and concealed, as long as there were shadows and vegetable shapes to manipulate. The air veil needed no such condition—but it did limit the amount of light that could pass through it, making the world outside the veil look like something seen through poor glass, or murky seawater.

"There," Amara said quietly- "Bernard?"

"Ready," he said.

And they started toward the enemy positions, with Amara in the lead. It took them most of the afternoon to reach the edges of the swamp, where the ground began to rise. Amara almost wanted to hold her breath as they approached the first concealed position. They passed by it, close enough to smell the smoke from a campfire—and to smell the aroma of freshly baked bread. Amara's stomach practically leapt from beneath her belt, and even Gaius looked a little wistful.

It wasn't for another several steps that Amara saw the dogs, great rangy beasts, outside the camp. They were sprawled in the sunshine, asleep, and likely to stay that way under the gentle, slow pulse of Bernard's earthcrafting.

And then they were past the outpost, with their foe none the wiser.

The second watch post was much the same. They walked slowly, steadily by the tree supporting the observation blinds, and no one seemed to detect them. They kept up the same slow, careful pace for several hundred more blessedly dry, firm-grounded yards, uphill all the way.

It couldn't be that simple, could it? Amara had imagined dozens of ways for their efforts to go disastrously awry, but none of them had come to pass. Something had to go wrong. Something always went wrong. Yet nothing had, and it made her nervous.

A fresh breeze hit them, clean air that smelled of pine, and Amara felt like singing.

And then hunting horns began blowing behind them.

She and Bernard whirled to look back at the swamps, and Bernard cursed. "One of their patrols must have swept by and found our trail. They'll be coming."

Amara felt obliquely reassured by the sudden dour turn of events. Certainly, it meant that a great many madmen were shortly to be pelting after them, determined to wipe them out—but at least she was in a familiar element.

"Very well. Our options?"

"Limited," Gaius said, and coughed some more.

"I can't erase our trail and still carry the stretcher," Bernard said. "We should run for the mountains. Dark's coming on. If we're still free by then, it should give us enough time to get Gaius close enough."

Amara nodded. "Then we run."

She turned and began jogging forward, up the hill, disdaining the wind-crafted veil. The enemy already knew they were here. The veil would just be a drain of energy that could better be used to keep moving. Bernard kept up with her, even bearing Gaius's stretcher, though he breathed heavily as they ran.

The land rose steadily, the willows and fronds of the swamps dying away, replaced by fir and pine. The hunting horns kept sounding behind them, and Amara thought she could hear them coming steadily closer.