First Lord's Fury

CHAPTER 17

Tavi stood at the prow of the Slive and stared ahead of the fleet as it raced across the long strip of ice laid out upon the north side of the Shieldwall. The ride was not a gentle one. Extra ropes and handholds had been added all over the ship, and Tavi only stayed standing by virtue of holding on to one supporting rope with each hand.

He had grown used to the sound of the runners screaming as they glided over the ice, a sort of endless squeal-hiss that went on and on and on. The ship juddered and shook as it raced before the unnaturally steady northwestern wind, sails rigged to catch it to best advantage. The Slive creaked and groaned with every shudder and thump. Those of her crew not terrified for dear life were frantically running up and down the ship, making constant efforts of woodcrafting to keep her timbers from shivering apart under the strain.

“There it is,” Tavi called back, pointing ahead to where a Legion javelin with a green cloth tied across its butt had been thrust into the ice. Crassus and his windcrafters had been racing ahead of the fleet, ensuring that the frozen path the Icemen had created for them remained smooth and safe.

Well. Relatively safe. The pace of the ships was faster than any travel Tavi had ever heard of, short of actual flight. They had covered the full day’s marching distance of a Legion on a causeway in the first three hours. At that speed, a patch of bare earth within the ice could catch a ship’s keel, and sheer momentum would send it tumbling end over end down the length of the vessel. The Tiberius actually had struck such a bare spot, where the ice hadn’t had time to harden properly.

Tavi had watched in helpless horror from a hundred yards away as the vessel wavered, its wing-runners snapping off, and began to tumble, its masts snapping like twigs, its planks splintering into clouds of shattered wood—its crew being tumbled before and among the juggernaut mass of the doomed ship.

Three other ships had foundered as well, overbalanced by the wind, or by mismanagement of their sails, or by simple foul luck. Like the Tiberius, they had come to pieces. Tavi thought himself a bit cowardly for feeling relieved that at least he hadn’t actually seen it happening with his own eyes: When an ice-sailing ship went down at full speed, no one survived the wreckage. Canim and men were simply crushed and broken like limp, wet dolls.

Now the fliers were marking any spots that might cause another such accident. It was a simple precaution that had already guided them around two more potentially lethal patches of ground. Any idiot could have thought of it ahead of time, but Tavi hadn’t—and the lives of the crews of four ships, Canim and Aleran alike, now hung over him.

“The way remains smooth!” Tavi called, noting the next green-flagged javelin beyond the first. “Keep the pace!”

“Giving orders to keep doing what they’re already doing,” drawled Maximus from a few feet down the handrail. “Well, they say never issue an order you know won’t be obeyed, I suppose.”

Tavi gave Max an irritated glance and turned back to face forward. “You want something?”

“How’s your stomach?” Max asked.

Tavi clenched his teeth and stared out over the land ahead of them. “Fine. It’s fine. It’s that slow rolling that really does me in, I think.” The ship struck a depression in the ice, and the entire vessel sank, then rose sharply into the air, its runners actually clearing the ice for a fraction of a second. Tavi’s heels flew up, and only his hold on the safety ropes kept him from being slammed violently to the deck or off the ship completely.

His stomach gurgled and twisted in knots. One fine thing about being up in the prow was that the ship’s sails hid him from view of the stern. He’d already lost what little breakfast he’d had over the rail with no one the wiser. And, with the Slive running out in front of the two columns of ships sailing in neat lines behind them, the reputation of the invincibility of the House of Gaius was neatly preserved.

“See?” Tavi choked out a moment later. “Little bumps like that pose no problem.”

Max grinned easily. “Demos sent me up to tell you that he suggests we stop for a meal in the next hour or so. His woodcrafters are getting tired.”

“We don’t have time,” Tavi said.

“There will still be plenty of time to break our ships into tiny bits of kindling before we get to Phrygia,” Max said. “No sense in doing everything the first day.”

Tavi glanced back at him wryly. He took a deep breath, thinking, and nodded. “Very well. At his discretion, Demos will signal the fleet to heave to for a rest.” He squinted ahead against the glare of daylight on ice and snow. “How far have we come?”

Max held up his hands and crafted a farseeing before his eyes, peering at a Shieldwall tower they were passing. A number was carved into its stone side, over the entry door for the troops stationed there. “Five hundred and thirty-six miles. In seven hours.” He shook his head, and said, his voice wistful. “That’s the next best thing to flying.”

Tavi glanced back at Max, thoughtfully. “Better, really. We’re moving more troops than every flier in Alera could carry. Think of what it could mean.”

“What?” Max said. “Moving troops around faster?”

“Or food,” Tavi said. “Or supplies. Or trade goods.”

Max lifted both eyebrows, then lowered them, frowning. “You could move freight from one end of the Wall to the other in a few days. Even on causeways, it’s a six-week trip to Phrygia from Antillus. You have to go all the way down to Alera Imperia, then…” His voice trailed off, and he coughed. “Um. Sorry.”

Tavi shook his head, forcing a small smile onto his mouth. “It’s all right. No use pretending it didn’t happen. My grandfather knew what he was doing. I probably would have done the same.”

“Taurg crap,” Max said scornfully. “No. Your grandfather killed hundreds of thousands of his own people, Tavi.”

Tavi felt a hot surge of anger in his chest, and he glowered at Max.

Max faced him, one eyebrow raised. “What?” he asked in a reasonable tone. “You gonna fight me every time I tell you the truth? I’m not scared of you, Calderon.”

Tavi gritted his teeth and looked away. “He died for the Realm, Max.”

“Took a good many people with him when he went, too,” Max replied. “I’m not saying he didn’t do what needed doing. I’m not saying he was a bad First Lord. I’m just saying that you aren’t much like him.” He shrugged. “I’m thinking that your solutions wouldn’t look much like his did.”

Tavi frowned. “How so?”

Max gestured at the front of the ship. “Old Sextus never would have had his ship up front, where disaster could hit it if our fliers got sloppy or unlucky. He’d…” Max scrunched up his eyes thoughtfully. “He’d have positioned two or three of either his worst captains or his best up here. His worst to get rid of the deadweight if another ship went down, his best because they’d be the ones most likely to challenge his authority.”

Tavi grunted. “No good. I need all my captains. And Demos is the best captain in my fleet.”

“Don’t let Varg hear you say that,” Max said. “And speaking of taking pointless risks…”

Tavi rolled his eyes. “I had to. If the ritualists had been given time to whip the Canim into a frenzy over the two makers we killed, Varg wouldn’t have dared to leave them back at Antillus for fear he’d lose control. By changing the issue to a question of Varg’s personal honor, it brought the whole thing to a screaming halt. Varg is the dead makers’ champion now, not the ritualists. He’s still in control.”

“So when he kills you, it will be orderly,” Max said.

“It won’t come to an actual duel,” Tavi said confidently. “Neither one of us wants that. We’re only doing it to force the ritualists to hold back, rather than urging other Canim to take action and maybe remove Varg from power. But if Varg can pull the ritualists’ fangs, a duel won’t be necessary. We’ll resolve it before it comes to bloodshed.” After a hesitation, he added, “Probably.”

Max snorted. “What if he doesn’t? He brought the ritualists with him, you know.”

Tavi shrugged. “I doubt they all want me dead, Max. And they’ve got experience fighting the vord. He’d be a fool to leave them behind. He’ll handle them.”

“All right. But what if he doesn’t?”

Tavi stared out at the path ahead of them for a silent moment, and said, “Then… I’ll have to kill him. If I can.”

They hung on to the safety lines while the Slive bucked and shimmied over the ice. After a moment, Max put a hand on Tavi’s shoulder, then made his way carefully aft, to relay the heave-to command to Captain Demos.