Captain's Fury (63 page)

She stared at the valley below them in numb shock, as more jolts and tremors rattled the mountain beneath her. How many thousands—tens of thousands,
hundreds
of thousands of people had just died? How many families, sleeping in their beds, had just been reduced to ashes? How many children had just been burned alive? How many homes, how many stories, how many beloved faces and names had just been incinerated like so much useless garbage?

Amara knelt there beside her husband and witnessed the death of Kalare— of its city, its people, its lands, and its lord.

A vast cloud of steam rose as the watery valley surrendered to the embrace of the fire-mountain, and their view of that steam vanished as dust from the rockslides and tremors rose up around them, creating a thick shroud that blotted away the stars.

There was still light, though. Light from the blazing mountain and from the burning corpse of the city of Kalare painted everything in a surreal, scarlet twilight.

Only after their view of the valley had been obscured did Gaius Sextus turn away. His gaze slid past Bernard and found Amara. He walked over to her with slow, heavy steps, and faced her, his expression a mask, his eyes showing nothing.

"Had I waited for Kalarus to loose it, Countess," he said quietly, "it would have been worse. Refugees fleeing the front lines would have been forced into the city and doubled the numbers there. Our own
legionares
would have been there. Died there." He sought her eyes, and spoke very quietly. "It would have been worse."

Amara stared at the weary First Lord.

She pushed herself slowly to her feet.

She reached up and found the slender chain around her neck. She wore two ornaments upon it. The first was Bernard's Legion ring, worn there in secret testimony to their marriage.

The second was a simple silver bull, the most common coin in the Realm, marked with Gaius's profile on one side. It was the symbol and badge of office of a Cursor of the Realm.

Chapter 49

The Senator's thugs, Isana thought, lacked refinement. She had expected to be bound, of course, but they could at least have found a
clean
cloth with which to hood her.

She blinked and considered that thought for a moment. It sounded, to Isana, remarkably like what someone like Lady Aquitaine would have been thinking, in her position. Until the battle of Second Calderon, Isana's largest practical worry had been the organization of the kitchen at her brother's stead-holt. Had she really become so jaded to the dangers of Aleran politics since then that she felt herself qualified to criticize the nuances of her own abduction?

She couldn't help it. She found herself shaking with quiet laughter.

Araris stirred, and she felt the motion as they sat, backs together, leaning gently against one another. "What is it?" he murmured.

"Whatever they were holding," Araris corrected. "A failed assault sounds different. And there are too many wounded."

Isana had been trying hard not to think about the moans and screams of wounded men, coming from not far away. "It's different, then?"

"In an assault," Araris said, "you're fighting on the enemy's ground. Pushing forward. When men fall, it's harder to get them to the rear. And once the retreat is on, a lot more men fall. More of them get left behind, taken prisoner or killed. A defense is different. It's your ground. You've got men standing by to carry the wounded back to your healers and fresh men to step into the places of the fallen, covering their retreat. You wind up with a lot more wounded."

"You said the right thing to Navaris," he said. "Making her question whether or not she should make the decision for Arnos. It bought us a little time. But she brought us into the Legion's camp in a covered wagon, and in hoods. Then they dumped us directly into this tent, which is guarded. And I'm fairly certain that we're among the men of the First Guard. Nalus is Captain of the Second Senatorial, and he'd bloody well want to know all about any hooded prisoners in his own camp."

"You're a Citizen of the Realm, Isana. His hirelings assaulted and kidnapped you on his orders. Ehren's a bloody Cursor of the Crown. If he survived, he's going to be able to make a terrible stink, legally speaking. Arnos's best chance to survive it—"

"—will be to make sure there are no witnesses to corroborate Ehren's version of things."

"Probably." Araris said. "Besides, if he doesn't kill us, I'll take him."

The matter-of-fact tone to his quiet voice was chilling. Isana found herself leaning slightly harder against him. "What do we do?" she asked. "Escape?"

"Realistically speaking, we've no chance, even if we get loose. Well just provide them a wonderful excuse to kill us and make apologies later. Heat of battle, confusion, such a tragedy."

Isana had no doubt to whom the
singulare
referred. "We are secret prisoners in the camp of what might as well be an enemy Legion, which is itself surrounded by an army of Canim. He is alone. He might not even know where we are. I believe he'll try, of course, but…"

At that, Araris burst into a low, rich laugh, loud enough to be heard outside the tent. It was, Isana realized, the first time she'd heard him make such a sound, and her own heart reacted with a senselessly juvenile little burst of happiness to hear it.

"Quiet in there!" barked a man's voice, one of the Senator's thugs, or some random
legionare
pressed into duty as a sentry.

Araris swallowed his laughter and leaned his head back. Isana felt his head touch hers and leaned into the contact, closing her eyes.

"I've been with him for two years," Araris whispered. "You know his heart, Isana. You helped shape it. You've seen him while we traveled—but you don't see what he's become, and you don't know where it came from the way I do."

"Septimus," Isana whispered.

"You don't know how many times he got us out of trouble like this." Araris paused for a moment. "Well. Perhaps not quite this much all at once. But then, it was never a matter of scale."

"You believe in him," Isana breathed.

"Great furies help me," Araris said. "It's almost insane. But yes." He was quiet for a moment more. Then he said, "I love you very much, you know."

"If it's possible," Araris said. "I mean… if we both live through this. And if… if things work out to where… I know it probably won't ever be a real possibility, but…"

Isana shivered. "Yes?"

"If. One day. If everything… Would you…" He took a deep breath. "Would you marry me?"

She'd known the direction of his thoughts, from the wildly unsettled sense of his emotions, but she hadn't anticipated her reaction to them.

She laughed. Again. She laughed herself breathless, laboring to keep it quiet.

"Here?" she demanded finally, half-smothered in laughter. "You ask me
here"? Now
? Like
this?"

His back had gone completely stiff. "Well," he managed to say after a moment. "Yes. It's…" His voice sobered abruptly. "It's all I have."

She fumbled with her bound, half-numb fingers until she found his. They managed to intertwine some of them, more or less at random.

He suddenly sagged. "Oh," he breathed. "Oh. Oh, good." He shook his head, stroking one of her fingers with one of his. "For a moment there, I was worried."

The absurdity of
that
statement, all things considered, hit them both at the same time.

They were still laughing together when the tent flap rustled, and Phrygiar Navaris ripped off their hoods, a naked sword in her hand.

Chapter 50

"This one," Tavi said quietly, picking up one of the long blades Durias had brought out for his inspection. He snapped it up to a guard position, whirled it about in a loose circling motion of his wrist, and nodded. He could feel it in the steel, the way it settled in his hand, the subtle vibration of the blade as it ceased motion. The weapon was an old one but of excellent manufacture, its blade notched with battle scars in the torchlight, but still strong, flexible, and true. "What about Ehren?"

"I'll take you to him," Durias said. "This way, please, Captain."

Tavi followed the centurion through the darkened Canim camp and was surprised at how much similarity it bore to an Aleran battle camp—though admittedly, the various stations were spread out over a considerably wider area. Perhaps the Canim measured their camp in strides, the way
legionares
did.

The healer's shelters were crowded, but the sounds coming from them were nothing like those of an Aleran healing tent. Instead of the cries and moans of the wounded, there was nothing but a daunting chorus of snarling and growling in every pitch one could imagine, and it made Tavi glad to be unable to see inside.

Most of the wounded Canim who emerged from the tents were walking under their own power. Those who weren't were almost invariably missing limbs. Somewhere in the background, the mourning howls of individual Canim for their fallen brethren rose into the night sky, haunting and savage and beautiful.

"A year ago," Durias said quietly, "I thought I'd get used to that. Still makes the hairs on my neck stand up."

"Not sure which surprises me more," he said. "To hear a Legion captain call them 'people' instead of 'animals' or to lump himself into a group with a bunch of slaves who have taken up arms."

"You walk, talk, breathe, eat, sleep. Same as me."

Durias snorted. "Since when has that been reason to regard someone else as an equal?"

Tavi showed Durias his teeth, more in the Canim gesture than the Aleran. "You wear armor, carry a sword—and I'm in your camp."