Captain's Fury

Chapter 47

Troops surged from concealed positions beside the road, a dozen Canim and twice as many men in the worn gear of the Free Aleran Legion. One moment, no one was in sight, and the next a formidable array of weapons was pointed directly at Tavi's chest.

"Well," Tavi said, his tone impatient, as he reined his nag to a halt. "It's about bloody time."

One of the men had begun to speak, but he blinked and simply stared at Tavi, evidently surprised to be so addressed. Tavi studied him for a moment and decided that he was the most advantageous point of attack. If he didn't manage a successful verbal assault with the first pickets around Mastings, it might take him hours or days of waiting to get to Nasaug, and he doubted his mother and Araris would have that long.

"You," Tavi said, pointing at the man, then indicating the wooden baton thrust through his belt. "Centurion, I take it?"

"Yes," said the young man. "Yes, I'm-"

"Don't you people watch the back door as closely as the front? Bloody sloppy."

The man's face turned red. "Now, see here. You are intruders on a Free Aleran causeway, and as such I am placing you under arrest in accordance with general order-"

"I don't have time to listen to you cite phrase and paragraph, centurion,'

Tavi said, his tone striking a fine balance of impatience and authority, all of it absent of malice. "Lead me to Nasaug at once."

One of the Canim, a warrior Cane decked in the dark red-black steel plate of his caste, narrowed his blood-colored eyes and growled in Canish to one of his companions, a raider. "Spit him on your spear. We'll see how much talking he does then."

Tavi turned and stared hard at the Cane who had spoken. Their battered group was not calculated to impress, and consisted of one mounted but unar-mored man on a horse who had seen better days, and one rickety wagon drawn by a pair of shaggy mules, driven by a Marat girl, and carrying an unclad Cane and a wounded traveler. They could hardly have passed as bandits, much less anyone of importance enough to demand an audience with the Canim's leader, and if Tavi allowed the warrior Cane to treat them as petty vagrants, they would doubtless be tossed into a cell to languish through being passed from one officer to the next, up the chain of command, and the entire enterprise of the last several weeks could come to nothing.

Varg could probably establish his credentials in fairly short order, but Tavi's instincts warned him not to ask the Cane to do so. Varg had agreed to follow and support him until they reached Nasaug-but only so long as Tavi behaved in a fashion appropriate to a leader. Among the Canim warrior caste, leaders did not detail matters of personal precedence to their subordinates. They established such guidelines themselves. It was how one became a leader in the first place.

Tavi had to establish himself, by himself, at once-and when it came to dealing with a Cane, actions undeniably spoke far more than words.

So, without another word, Tavi swung down from his horse and stalked over to the Cane, staring hard at his eyes. Tavi stopped about six feet from the warrior, and said, in the wolf-warrior's own snarling tongue, "Say that again, please. I didn't hear you."

The Free Aleran soldiers stared. Every single Cane in sight turned his head toward Tavi, ears swiveled entirely forward.

The warrior Cane lowered his chin, and a warning growl bubbled in his chest.

Tavi let out a bark of harsh laughter, showing his own teeth in response. "Is that supposed to frighten me?"

The warrior Cane rested one hand on the hilt of his sword. "Do you want your blood to stay where it is sochar-lar?"

Tavi lifted both eyebrows at the unfamiliar word, and glanced at Varg.

"Monkey," Varg supplied, in Aleran. "And male-child."

"He called me monkey boy?" Tavi asked.

Varg nodded.

Tavi nodded his thanks and turned back to the warrior Cane. "Take me to Nasaug," Tavi told him. "Now."

The Cane lifted his lips from his teeth. "Drop your sword and pray that I choose to be merciful, monkey boy."

"Will it take long for you to talk me to death?" Tavi asked. "I can't help but wonder why you, a warrior, are out here leading a group of makers and monkeys, guarding a back road. Badly. Are you too useless for an actual fight?"

The Cane let out a snarl and moved, sword sweeping from its sheath as he leapt at Tavi.

Tavi hadn't expected quite that strong a reaction, but he'd been ready to move since the moment he'd dismounted. He borrowed speed from the wind and slowed everything that happened, drawing his sword to meet the Cane's, pulling strength from the earth and twisting the whole of his body, hips and shoulders and legs, to strike against the Cane's weapon with all the force he could summon.

The Aleran gladius rang against the bloodsteel of the Cane's sword, and shattered it in a scream of tortured metal. The Cane staggered, thrown off-balance, and Tavi bulled forward, low, sword sweeping in a cut aimed at the back of the Cane's armored leg.

The Cane jerked his leg clear of the blow that could have severed tendons and rendered him immobile, and Tavi rammed his shoulder into the Cane's belly with all the power of his body and furycraft, actually lifting the huge wolf-warrior clear of the ground, before slamming him to the earth on his back. The Cane's breath exploded from his lungs in a croaking snarl, and before he could recover, Tavi had seized one broad ear in an iron grip and set the tip of his sword against the Cane's throat.

"I am Rufus Scipio," Tavi said calmly. "Captain of the First Aleran Legion. Defender of the Elinarch. I have faced the massed ranks of your army alone and unarmed. I killed the Bloodspeaker Sari by my own hand. And," he added, "I beat Nasaug at Indus. I have come to speak to Nasaug, and you will take me to him."

The warrior Cane stared at him for several seconds. Then his eyes flicked to one side, and he tilted his head slightly, baring his throat. Tavi released his grip on the Cane's ear, and returned the gesture, more shallowly. The Cane's ears twitched in what Tavi had come to recognize as a motion of surprise.

Tavi lowered the sword and backed away without letting his guard down. Then he sheathed the weapon and nodded to the Cane. "Get up. Let's move."

The Cane growled as he pushed himself up but tilted his head to one side again and gestured to the other Canim there. He turned to the Aleran centurion, and said, in mangled Aleran, "I leave the post in your care, centurion."

The centurion looked from the Cane to Tavi, his face full of questions, but he saluted the Cane, Aleran style, and began giving orders to the other men there. The Cane growled to his countrymen, and the Canim fell into a loose formation around Tavi, who mounted his horse again and pulled it up next to the wagon.

"How is he?" he asked Varg quietly, looking down on Ehren's ashen face.

"Sleeping," Varg replied. The Cane held steady the quill that still protruded from the slit in Ehren's neck, allowing him to breathe.

"Aleran," Kitai said, a note of reprimand in her voice. "If I must drive the wagon, it would be courteous of you to let me handle the fighting."

Varg's ears flicked in amusement.

"Next time," Tavi told her. He glanced at Varg and arched an eyebrow in silent question.

"Your grammar is terrible," Varg said. He glanced up at the warrior Cane, as he signaled his men, and their group and its new escort started down the road. "But you make yourself understood, gadara. Calling him 'useless' may have been more than was necessary to goad him."

Tavi grunted. "It is an insult word to your kind?"

Varg snorted again. "Rear-area duties such as this are often assigned to overly aggressive young warriors, to temper them. They often resent it."

Tavi nodded in understanding. "I'm just glad I didn't have to kill anyone to get through."

"Why?" Varg asked.

Tavi glanced back at the Cane. The question had been delivered in a neutral, almost casual tone, but Tavi sensed that there was more to it than that, in Varg's mind.

"Because it would be a waste of a life that could be better spent elsewhere," he said.

Varg looked at him steadily. "And perhaps because your people do not all enjoy killing for its own sake."

Tavi thought of Navaris's flat, reptilian eyes and suppressed a shiver. "Perhaps."

Varg's chest rumbled in a low, pensive growl. "You begin to understand us, I think, gadara. And perhaps I begin to understand you."

"That," Kitai said in an acerbic tone, "would be remarkable."

They reached Mastings in the midst of the afternoon.

The Canim, Tavi saw at once, had turned the city into a veritable fortress, with multiple ranks of earthworks and palisades surrounding a solidly crafted curtain wall, leading up to full thirty-foot siege walls around the town itself. The outermost wall was lined with both Free Aleran and Canim troops, and at the gate they were challenged by another warrior Cane. The leader of their escort went forward to speak with the sentry, and Tavi paused, looking around.

The conversation between the two Canim became animated, but no louder. The Cane at the gate beckoned an older Aleran man over, and the three of them met in a quiet conference. The man glanced at Tavi and frowned, and Aleran sentries on the wall began to gather in, overlooking the group at the gate.

"We've attracted attention," Kitai noted under her breath.

"That was the idea," Tavi replied.

Ten minutes later, no one had come to speak to them, but a runner had been dispatched toward the city, and a rider had left the gates, riding hard toward the north.

Another half hour passed before a group of horsemen emerged from Mast-ings and made their way through the extra defensive walls until they finally reached the outermost wall. As they did, Tavi squinted at the outer wall, then at all the positions on the inner wall, where thousands of uniformed figures stood on guard.

"Kitai," Tavi breathed quietly. "Look at the guards on the second wall, and farther in, and tell me what you see."

Kitai frowned at them for a silent moment, and then spoke suddenly. "They aren't moving. At all."

"They're scarecrows," Tavi said quietly. "Imitations. Only the guards on the outer wall are real."

"Why?" Kitai breathed.

"To put the Legions off their guard," Tavi said quietly- "The scouts would never have gotten this close to the city, to see through it. They'd report back that the city was heavily occupied, and the Legions would count on twenty thousand troops at least being behind the city walls. Under observation. Safely located. Then Nasaug could bring the actual troops in unexpectedly.'

"Nasaug is not planning on fighting a siege, as we thought," Kitai said.

"No. He met us in the field, probably before we could dig in." Tavi shook his head. "Crows, he's good."

Varg growled thoughtfully. "You beat him at ludus?"

Tavi glanced back over his shoulder at Varg. "During a truce to allow him to recover the bodies of his warriors. His game on the skyboard isn't as strong as it could be, and he underestimated me."

"Understandable," Kitai noted. She glanced at Varg. "I was also unimpressed with the Aleran on our first meeting."

Varg glanced at Kitai, and his jaws parted briefly in amusement, his ears quivering in a motion Tavi had never seen in a Cane before.

They fell silent as a group of mounted horsemen approached from the gates of Mastings, riding swiftly. The horses pulled up to a halt only a few feet away from them, and the officer who led the group, presumably a Tribune, judging by his more modern and well-fitting armor, flung himself from his horse, his face already scarlet with rage.

"What have we here?" he demanded. "Some of the scum at last?" He whirled on a man in a centurion's crested helmet and stabbed an accusing finger at the ground directly before Tavi. "Centurion. I want the gallows constructed right here."

Tavi narrowed his eyes, and he traded a glance with Kitai.

The centurion banged his fist to his chest and began giving orders to the Free Aleran riders. The legionares began hurrying about at once, and someone returned with rough lumber within a moment.

Their Cane escort let out a rumbling growl in his throat, watching the angry Tribune with narrowed eyes, but he did not move or speak. Tavi waited a moment before it occurred to him that he was in the same situation with the young warrior Cane as he was with Varg. He'd declared himself the Cane's superior, and any responsibility for acting in a dispute belonged to him.

He nudged his horse forward a few steps, and said, "Excuse me, Tribune. Might I ask what you think you're doing?"

The red-faced Tribune whirled on Tavi in a fury, one hand on his sword. "Centurion!" he bellowed.

"Sir?"

"The next time the condemned speak, you will carry out their executions at once!"

"Sir!"

Tavi met the Tribune's hard eyes for a long moment, but he didn't speak. He glanced aside at Kitai. The Marat girl's expression didn't change, but she shifted position on the driver's bench of the wagon, and reached back to adjust the unconscious Ehren's clothing. Tavi never saw any indication of it, but he was sure she had palmed one of the many knives Ehren habitually secreted about his person.

From the set of his ears, Varg took note of it. He glanced up at the young Cane, whose ears suddenly flattened to his skull.

Tavi suppressed a grimace. If it came to a fight, they'd have no chance, not even if the young warrior and his entire patrol joined in. There were simply too many of the Free Aleran legionares about, and in any normal Aleran Legion, the orders of a Tribune would draw immediate support from every legionare and centurion in sight.

Another rider came galloping up from the city, kicking his horse the entire way, and when the beast arrived it was in a near frenzy. It screamed and reared, hooves lashing, and the rider dropped off, threw off his helmet, and drew his gladius from his belt.

Tavi recognized him immediately, though the last time he had seen Durias, his features hadn't been mottled with rage.

Something was happening here, something more than merely tension during a time of war. There was far too much emotion in the reaction of the Free Alerans, and such things didn't occur for no reason. It didn't bode well for their situation. Men in such an excited state of mind were capable of anything.

Tavi tensed, readying himself to borrow the wind and draw his sword before anyone could stop him-but Durias stalked over to the hard-eyed Tribune, and without a word, fetched him a blow to the face with the back of his empty hand.

The Tribune reeled. Durias lifted his sword and shoved it hard against the Tribune's armored chest, forcing the man to the ground.

"Stand up," Durias snarled, "and I will strike off your useless head, Manus."

The Tribune looked up in a fury. "Centurion. I will have your head for thi-"

Durias leaned back and kicked Tribune Manus in the mouth with the heel of one foot. The man's head snapped back in a sudden spray of broken teeth, and he flopped to the ground, unconscious.

Durias glared at him, then at the nearby centurion. "In his cups again?"

The centurion's mouth twisted in distaste, and he nodded.

"Then get him something harder," Durias said. "If he's too drunk to walk, he'll be too drunk to do something this stupid. Now put the crowbegotten lumber back and get those horses back to the stables."

The centurion nodded and immediately began giving orders that were more or less the precise opposite of those he had just uttered. The legionares collected the unconscious Tribune and carried him off.

The blocky Durias, who looked even blockier dressed in armor than he had in a scout's field clothes, turned and walked over to Tavi, putting his sword away as he came. He nodded to Tavi as he approached. "Captain."

"Durias," Tavi said. "Nice to see you again, all things considered."

The Free Aleran centurion twitched his mouth into a faint smile. "I wish I could say the same. We need to get you away from here."

"Not until I speak to Nasaug," Tavi said.

Durias narrowed his eyes, glancing from Tavi to the wagon and its passengers and back. "You're kidding."

"This doesn't seem the appropriate place for levity," Tavi said. "I need to see him."

"You need to be elsewhere," Durias insisted. "Fortunately, in this case the two aren't exclusive. Nasaug's in the field."

Tavi grimaced as Durias confirmed his guess regarding Nasaug's plans. "I see. Lead the way, then."

"Aye." Durias went back to his horse and swung up without bothering to use the stirrups, hauling himself up purely by the muscles in his chest and arms. He nodded to their Cane escort, and said, "Thank you, Sarsh. I'll take them from here."

The Cane tilted his head casually to one side, and growled, "Watch the one on the horse. He's quicker than he looks."

Durias nodded, frowning, and said, "This way."

They followed Durias away from Mastings and toward the north. Once they were well away from the city walls, Tavi urged his horse up alongside the Free Aleran's. "That was quite a reception committee," he said quietly. "What brought that on?"

Durias glanced aside at Tavi, his expression unreadable. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Not to me," Tavi said. "I've been away awhile."

Durias exhaled through his teeth. "Of course you'd say that," he murmured, almost to himself. He glanced back at the wagon. "That's Varg?"

"I'll speak to Nasaug about that," Tavi said quietly.

Durias shrugged. "Fair enough. Then I'll let Nasaug answer your questions as well."

Tavi grunted, but nodded. "One thing more. One of my men is hurt. He needs a healer before we go any farther."

"He can't have one," Durias snapped. He took a deep, steadying breath. "That is, there are none at the city in any case. They're all in the field, and we're already heading their way."

"The ruins?" Tavi guessed.

"Just keep up." Durias nudged his horse into a trot for a few steps, drawing ahead of Tavi.

They traveled for three hours that way, Durias leading them, though Tavi became aware that the countryside on either side of the track they followed was far from empty. Once in a while, he managed to catch vague, flickering glimpses out of the corner of his eyes; movement in a stand of tall grass, or a slightly too-solid shadow among the trees. They were being watched, presumably by Durias's scouts, concealing themselves behind woodcraftings of varying skill.

The track began to show much heavier signs of use as they went. When they rounded a final hilltop and came into view of the ruins on their hill, and the battleground Nasaug had chosen to once more pit his forces against the Legions of Alera, Tavi drew up short for a second, unconsciously stopping his horse. He wished like the crows that Max had been nearby to provide a vision crafting for him, so that he might see the besieged hilltop in greater detail, but a few things were obvious, even from there.

The Legions had been hard-pressed, and their outer palisade wall shattered. They'd taken serious losses while doing so. Tavi could see the gleaming armor of fallen legionares lying in rough groups and singly, as often as not mixed with the dark-furred forms of fallen Canim. Presumably, they'd died while buying time for the engineering cohort to reinforce the walls of the ruins, which now stood at a conspicuously uniform, formidable height.

A sea of Canim surrounded the hilltop, and even a glance showed Tavi that Nasaug had trained his conscripts into disciplined troops and equipped them with uniform weaponry-even with their own armor, if lighter than that of the warrior Canim or Aleran legionares.

Worse, the Canim had brought forth their ritualists again. Streamers of violet fire fell upon the hilltop in what was almost a regular cadence, slamming onto the walls and blasting great gouges from the stones, or from the earth when they struck the ground-and presumably from any Aleran unfortunate enough to be beneath one. Sharp, crackling reports resounded from the hilltop in a steady, hollow-sounding thunder.

"Bloody crows," Tavi whispered.

Kitai stared at the hilltop, her expression closed, but he could feel the sudden surge of fear and anger in her.

Durias looked over his shoulder, and said, harshly, "Keep moving."

They pressed on, passing through several checkpoints, where the Canim sentries seemed to have been expecting them. They waved Durias through without speech, though Tavi could feel their bloody eyes tracking his movements.

As they approached what Tavi recognized as the command area of the Canim force, they came upon a nightmare made flesh.

At the base of a small hillock, the Canim were piling bodies.

There were so many corpses that at first Tavi thought that they had been stacking bags of grain, or sand. Hundreds of dead Alerans lay in the oncoming sunset. The smell was something hideous, and both Tavi's and Durias's horses began to shy away from the stench, nervous at the smell of death. Tavi had to dismount, and moved to the horse's head, holding the bridle and murmuring quietly to soothe the beast.

Tavi wanted to look away from the bodies, but he couldn't. Most of them were legionares. Many of them wore the slightly differently styled armor of the Senatorial Guard, but many others wore the achingly familiar armor of the First Aleran.

And still others were dressed in the clothing of common holders.

Tavi stared. Among the dead were the elderly. Women. Children. Their clothing was stained with blood, their bodies mangled by brutally violent attacks. If he didn't retch his guts out on the ground, it was only because he'd had so much practice holding them in over the past two years.

It took him a moment longer, but he realized that the Canim were… putting the bodies through some kind of process. A pair of ritualists in their pale mantles stood at two separate tables-no, they were more like wide, shallow, elevated basins, tilted at a sharp angle. As Tavi watched, two other Canim, older laborers of the maker caste, by their simple clothing and greying fur, gently picked up the body of a holder woman. They carried it to one of the tables and laid it down on the basin, with her head positioned at the basin's lower end.

The ritualist murmured something, a musical-sounding, even meditative growl-and then reached down with a curved knife and cut the dead woman's throat on both sides.

Blood trickled from the corpse. It drained down the shallow basin, where it gathered and flowed down through a hole at the bottom of the basin, out of a small spigot. There, it poured into a wide-mouthed stone jar.

Tavi could only stare at it in mute astonishment, unable to quite believe what he was seeing. The laborers fetched another corpse for the second basin. As Tavi watched, the first ritualist beckoned a nearby Cane, a young male not more than six feet tall, and far more wiry than an adult. The young Cane gathered up the stone jar, replacing it with another one from a row of similar vessels nearby. Then he turned and loped rapidly away, toward the sorcery-blasted hilltop.

A moment later, the ritualist nodded to another set of workers-only these were half a dozen or so Alerans, also wearing the clothing of holders. They gently removed the woman's body, wrapped it in sackcloth, and carried it to an open wagon, typical of those used as an improvised hearse on the battlefield, where they laid it down beside several other similarly wrapped figures.

Tavi looked up to find Durias watching him from where he stood at his own mount's head. The centurion's face was bleak, but Tavi could read nothing from it, nor sense any of the young man's emotions through his own shock, revulsion, and growing anger.

"What is this?" Tavi demanded. His voice came out confident and cold, though he hadn't meant it to be.

The muscles in Durias's jaws flexed a few times. Then he said, "Wait here." He led his horse away.

Tavi watched him go, then averted his eyes from the basins and the stacked corpses. He walked his weary mount back to the wagon to give it the company of the mules drawing it.

"Varg?" Tavi asked quietly.

Varg watched the ritualists with a rigidly neutral body posture. "Blood into jars," he rumbled.

"This is where their power comes from," Tavi said softly. "Isn't it?"

Varg flicked his ears in assent, as bodies continued to be drained and runners continued to carry the filled jars toward the battle lines.

"This is how they used power against us at the Elinarch," Tavi snarled. "They killed our people after they landed and used their blood against the Legion."

"Take no particular offense, Aleran," Varg rumbled. "They are not choosy about which blood they take, so long as it is from a reasoning being. The ritualists have killed more of my people than the whole of your race. The sorceries they used to assault your shores, block your skies, redden your stars would have required millions upon millions of lives."

"And you allow them to exist?" Tavi spat.

"They serve a purpose," Varg replied. "They have the power to bless bloodlines. Increase fertility in our females. Increase the bounty of crops, and to lessen the ravages of storms, droughts, plagues."

"And you are willing to sacrifice your peoples lives for them to do it?"

"My people are willing to make a gift of their blood upon death," Varg growled. "Though there are times when a particularly powerful ritualist forgets that his power should be used to serve his people. Not the other way around."

"There are women there," Tavi said, his mouth tight. "Children. I thought better of Nasaug."

"And I," growled Nasaug, from behind Tavi, "thought better of you."

Tavi turned around, hand on his sword, eyes narrowed.

Nasaug stood ten feet away, in full armor-armor stained with several shining new nicks and dents and spattered with drying blood. The dark-furred Cane's lips were lifted from his teeth in open hostility, and a naked sword was in one of his hands. Durias stood at Nasaug's right hand, his teeth similarly bared.

Some distant part of Tavi's mind shouted that he should be calm and cautious. He could barely hear it over the outrage and horror, and he met Nasaug's eyes squarely. "Tell your men to get their hands off of my people."

"Or what?" Nasaug said, his eyes narrowing to slits.

"Or I'll bloody well make them do it," Tavi replied.

"You are about to die, Aleran," Nasaug said.

Tavi drew his sword. "You'll find me harder to kill than defenseless old holders and children, dog."

Nasaug surged forward-not a leap, but a controlled, blindingly swift rush, his sword gripped in two hands. Tavi lifted his sword, shifting his weight, preparing to slide the enormously powerful blow aside, summoning strength from the earth.

Until Varg hit Nasaug in the chest like a hurled spear.

Nasaug, though huge and armored, was still outweighed by the larger and more heavily scarred Varg. Both Canim went down in an explosion of deafening snarls, and a bestial struggle ensued. Varg knocked the sword from Nasaug's grip, but the smaller Cane sank his fangs into Varg's shoulder, drawing blood. Varg roared, driving a blow at Nasaug's nose, slamming his head aside, his teeth ripping great gashes in Varg's flesh.

The two Canim struggled, rolling and twisting, exchanging blows and rakes of their claws and slashes of their fangs. Though Varg was larger and stronger, Nasaug was armored, and ruthlessly made use of the advantage his greater protection afforded him.

Nasaug managed to slam his armored forearm into Varg's throat, then his jaws opened and his fangs flashed as he snapped forward.

Varg was too swift. The larger Cane fell back, claws hooked in Nasaug's armor, then whirled the smaller Cane off the ground and down onto it in a vicious slam that shook dust from the earth for twenty feet in every direction.

Nasaug tried to roll away but, stunned by the impact, was too slow, and Varg was on his back, jaws on the back of his neck, body pinning the smaller Cane down.

Nasaug let out a howl of anguish and fury, then fell silent.

For a moment, Tavi thought that Varg had killed him. Then he realized that Nasaug still breathed. He simply lay there, unmoving, not struggling, and there was a quality of exhausted frustration in the snarls that continued bubbling from his throat.

Tavi looked up and met Durias's gaze. Then he put his sword away and took a step toward the two Canim.

Varg released Nasaug's throat, and Tavi heard the big Cane growl, almost too quietly to be heard, "Gadara-lar."

Nasaug shuddered. Then one of his ears twitched in assent. "Gadara-sar."

"Honor," Varg said.

"Honor," the smaller Cane echoed.

Varg rose slowly from Nasaug. The Canim commander turned to face Varg, and each of them bared their throats to one another, Nasaug more deeply.

"Lax"Tavi said quietly. "It means boy."

The two Canim turned their heads to face him.

"Sar," Tavi said. "It means sire. He's your son."

"Obviously," Varg growled.

"Andgadara," Tavi said. "It doesn't mean 'enemy.'"

"The people of the snows," Varg said, "you call them the Icemen. They have twenty-four words to name snow. Alerans have one. In the same way, Canim have eleven words to name enemy."

Tavi nodded slowly. "Can you tell me what gadara means? Describe it?"

Varg gave Tavi a very Aleran-looking shrug. "It means that you are a foe that is equal. Honorable. Trusted."

"A trusted enemy?" Tavi asked. "And you name your son as such?"

"Enemies are far more faithful than friends, Aleran, and more dependable than allies. One can respect an enemy far more easily than a friend. It is considered a mark of respect," Varg said.

Nasaug, meanwhile, had dropped to his haunches in a relaxed crouch, still panting to regain his breath. Struggling in the armor had wearied him far more than it had his unarmored sire. "Aleran," he said. "Why did you turn an honorable war into a slaughter of makers and females?"

"I didn't," Tavi replied. "I've been gone more than six weeks, bringing Varg to you, as we agreed." He frowned. "Your people didn't kill those holders?"

Nasaug spat. "No. Cavalry from your Legions have been striking steadholts for weeks now." He jerked his muzzle at the draining tables. "So I have allowed the bloodspeakers to drain the blood of the dead and so avenge them."

Tavi lifted a hand to his face for a moment. "These riders," he said. "Alerans?"

"Aye."

"Not Marat?"

"The white-hairs. No."

Tavi exhaled slowly. "Then it hasn't been the First Aleran. Arnos must have ordered the Guard's cavalry to do it."

"That matters little to the dead," Durias said quietly. "Or to their families. Manus's wife and children were killed two days ago. That's why he reacted as he did, Captain."

"Why would Arnos do such a thing?" Kitai asked quietly.

Tavi shook his head. "To ensure that there would be no peaceful conclusion to this campaign, maybe. Or…" He glanced at Durias. "Has the Free Aleran Legion engaged the Crown forces yet?"

"No," Durias said quietly. "We've been holding off as long as possible."

Tavi spat a bitter taste from his mouth. "That's why, then," he said. "This campaign has been about ambition from the start. Arnos wants to be sure you have reason to fight. Then he gets the credit for defeating an invader and putting down a slave revolt as well."

"If he wished to anger us," Nasaug said, "then he has succeeded. There will be no quiet end to this struggle, Aleran."

Tavi frowned. "I lived up to my end of the agreement."

"I agreed that if you freed Varg, we would talk. I have talked, and you may go in peace, gadara. But I will not allow those who murder makers and females to walk away unpunished." He jerked his muzzle at the besieged ruins. "They will not last the night."

Tavi clenched his jaw. Nasaug was no fool, and he could clearly see that the Legions were already in desperate straits. They'd been taken off guard, and the ongoing sorceries seemed more than able to pulverize what little shelter they had, given enough time.

And blood.

Tavi racked his brain desperately. There had to be some way out of this mess, some way to save the First Aleran, some way to…

"And what then?" Tavi heard himself ask quietly.

Nasaug tilted his head to one side.

"After you've killed them," he continued, struggling to keep up with a sudden flood of possibilities. "They'll be replaced by more Legions-and you'll be long gone. But the Free Alerans won't. And you can bet that whatever force comes next will have orders to wipe them out. They'll be the ones to pay for what you do to the men on that hill."

Durias lifted his chin defiantly-but there was something in his eyes that was not at all certain.

"For that matter," Tavi said, "how do you expect to get across the sea? When your fleet came, they used a storm the ritualists summoned to travel swiftly, and they came in large numbers to get through the leviathans. You won't be sailing nearly so swiftly on the way back. How many more ships will you lose? How much weaker will your army be when you finally return to your home?"

Nasaug growled in his throat. "We are willing to face those dangers, Aleran."

"What if you didn't have to?" Tavi asked.

Varg's ears flicked in amusement. "Perhaps you noticed," he growled to Nasaug, "that our young gadara is clever."

Nasaug snapped his jaws pensively. "What do you propose?"

"I'm going to give you the man responsible for those deaths," Tavi said. "I'm going to punish those who carried out his orders. I'm going to see to it that the Free Alerans are not treated as criminals for what they have done-and after that, I'm going to make sure your fleet gets safely over the sea and back to your home."

"And in exchange for all of this?" Nasaug asked, his tone clearly skeptical.

Tavi gestured at the ocean of Canim surrounding the hill. "You surrender."

Nasaug lifted his lips from his teeth. "What?"

"You surrender," Tavi repeated.

"Even if this was possible, I will never surrender to Alerans or their Legions," Nasaug said. "Too many of them are no better than animals."

"You won't be surrendering to Aleran Legions," Tavi replied. "You'll be surrendering to me, personally-a gadara."

Nasaug tilted his head, his ears swiveling forward in concentration. He traded a long look with Varg, then tilted his head to one side. He drew a heavy leather sash from his belt and tossed it to the larger Cane.

Durias's mouth fell open, and he stared at the exchange in pure surprise.

Varg donned the sash, belting it on with practiced movements. "Aleran," he said. "Let us assume that I agree to this proposal. What will you need to make it happen?"

Tavi's heart began to pound in excitement, and he felt a grin try to stretch his lips. He was careful to keep his teeth covered, lest he give the Canim the wrong idea.

"First," he said, "I'll need you to take my wounded man to a healer. I'll need his help."

Varg nodded, and said to Durias, "See to it at once."

Durias glanced at Nasaug, but even as he did his fist was banging out a salute on his chest, and he hurried away.

Varg nodded and turned back to Tavi. "And?"

"Any eyewitnesses to any of the attacks," Tavi said. "I'll need to speak to them."

Varg glanced at Nasaug, who nodded. "It can be done, sar."

Tavi pointed at the besieged ruins. "The attack needs to stop, at least temporarily."

Varg narrowed his eyes but nodded once. "Is midnight time enough for this plan?"

"It should be," Tavi said.

In fact, it should be plenty of time, Tavi thought. By the time midnight got there, he would almost certainly have fulfilled his word to the Cane.

And if he hadn't, he'd be too dead for his failure to bother him overmuch.