Furies of Calderon (68 page)

Isana looked up to see the Cursor standing not far away, wearing her brother’s too-large clothes and a borrowed tunic of mail. She wore a sword at her hip, and her left arm had been splinted. Amara looked tired and sported a bruise on throat, abrasions on her chin, but she regarded the engineer calmly. “Coordinate with the Stead-holders. Make the attempt.”

The engineer swallowed and then inclined his head to her in a bow. “As you wish, Countess ” The man turned and hurried away Amara turned to face Isana, the slim girl’s expression quiet, calm. Then she glanced past Isana, to where the water witch still stood, wrapped in her blanket, her expression distant, and hissed a quiet curse. She reached for her sword.

“Wait,” Isana said, stepping close and putting a hand over Amara’s. “Don’t.”

“But she’s—”

“I know who she is,” Isana said. “She isn’t going to hurt anyone now. She saved my life—and a slaver put a discipline collar on her.”

“You can’t trust her,” Amara insisted. “She should be locked up.”

“But—”

“She’s a Knight herself. A mercenary. A murderer.” The Cursor’s voice snapped with anger. “By all rights I should kill her right now.”

“I will not allow that,” Isana said, lifting her chin Amara faced her quietly. “I’m not sure it’s your decision to make, holder.”

Just then, a tall, dark-skinned man with the look of a Parcian, his armor magnificent but stained with smoke and blood, stepped over to them. “Countess,” he said, calmly. “The horde is nearly here I’d like you to stand with me. See if you can spot their horde-master.”

Amara glared at Isana and turned to the Parcian “Do you think killing him will do us any good now, Pirellus?”

He smiled, a sudden flash of white teeth. “As I see it, it can hardly hurt. And in any case, I’d rather make sure that whatever animal is responsible for this,” he gestured around vaguely, “doesn’t go back home to brag about it.”

Isana withdrew a pair of steps, then calmly turned and led Odiana away from the pair. “Come on,” she murmured to the collared woman, though she knew that Odiana could not hear her. “They’re terrified and angry. They wouldn’t treat you fairly. Let’s find someplace for you to be out of sight until we can get through this.”

She hurried through the courtyard to one of the large warehouse buildings at the far side. Even as she opened the door and hurried in, a group of holders, bundled up in their homemade winter cloaks but wearing Legion steel, went tramping by in neat files, heading for the gates. Another file, led by Bernard and the engineer, speaking in hushed, intent tones, went past right behind them.

Isana opened the door and led Odiana into the warehouse. The interior was dark, and she could hear the scrabble of rats somewhere inside. A rangy grey tomcat rushed past her legs and into the darkness, intent on a meal. Crates and heavy sacks stood in neat, ordered rows, their contents clearly labeled. It was too dim to see clearly, so Isana looked about until she found a fury-lamp and willed it to life, lifting the clear globe in her hand and looking up and down the rows.

“There,” she said, and started to tug the woman forward, continuing to speak in a low, quiet tone, hoping that the deafened water-crafter would at least find some comfort in the intent of the words. “Bags of meal. It will be softer than the floor, and if you cover up, you might be able to get some sleep. You’ll be out of everyone’s way.”

She hadn’t taken a dozen steps when the door to the warehouse slammed behind her.

Isana whirled, holding the fury-lamp aloft, shadows dancing and spinning wildly in the room.

Kord, dressed in a dirty cloak, dropped the heavy bolt down over the reinforced door of the warehouse. He turned to Isana then, eyes gleaming, and smiled, his teeth as grimy and smudged as the Stead-holder’s chain about his neck.

“Now then,” he said, his voice quiet, almost purring. “Where were we?”

Chapter 39

Amara nodded to Pirellus. “But will they be able to raise the wall?”

Pirellus shrugged. “Again—it can’t hurt. The wall isn’t going to slow the Marat down as it stands in any case.”

Nearby, Bernard and the engineer had led nearly a hundred men and women, ranging in age from those below Legion age to a wizened old grandmother, who doddered along with the help of a cane and the arm of a brawny, serious-looking young man Amara recognized from Bernard-holt. “Are you sure it isn’t a terrible risk? We held it before,” Amara pointed out.

“Against Marat who had never seen a battle,” Pirellus said. “Half-trained, green troops. And we were nearly destroyed as it was. Don’t fool yourself. We got lucky. There are five times as many of them out there now. They’re experienced, and they won’t be operating in separate tribes.” His fingers drummed on the hilt of his dark blade. “And remember, those Knights are still out there.”

Amara shivered and abruptly looked behind her. “Exactly. Which is why, Mistress Isana, we should—” She broke off abruptly. “Where’d she go?”

Pirellus looked around behind him, then shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. There’s a very limited amount of trouble the woman can make in any case. That’s the advantage of certain death, Cursor—it’s difficult to become impressed by further risks.”

Amara frowned at him. “But with this help—”

“Doomed,” Pirellus said, flatly. “We’d need three times that many troops to hold, Cursor. What these holders are doing is admirable, but unless one of their messengers got through to Riva…” He shook his head. “Without reinforcements, without more
Knights
, we’re just killing time until sunrise. See if you can spot the horde-master, and I’ll try to help them sort out the wounded and get more men back on their feet.”

She started to speak to him, but Pirellus spun on his heel and walked back to the other courtyard. His knee was swollen and purpling, but he did not allow himself to limp. Another talent she envied in metal-crafters. Amara grimaced and wished she could will away the pain of her broken arm so easily.

Or the fear that still weakened her knees.

She shivered and turned to walk toward the gates, purposefully. The barricade had been hastily removed, as the earth-crafters had begun to set up for their attempt on the walls. A squad of twenty
legionares
stood outside the broken gates in formation, on guard, lest any Marat should try to slip through undetected. The possibility seemed unlikely. Even as Amara walked beneath the walls and out into the open plain beyond, stepping around the grim and silent young men, she could see the Marat horde in the slowly growing light, like some vast field of living snow, marching steadily closer, in no great hurry.

Amara walked out away from the walls by several yards, keeping her steps light and careful. She tried not to look down at the ground. The blackened remains of the Marat who had perished in the first firestorm lay underfoot and all around, grotesque and stinking. Crows flapped and squabbled everywhere, mercifully covering most of the dead. If she looked, Amara knew, she would be able to see the gaping sockets of the corpses whose eyes had already been eaten away, usually along with parts of the nose and the soft, fleshy lips, but she didn’t. The air smelled of snow and blood, of burned flesh and faintly of carrion. Even through the screen Cirrus provided her sense of smell, she could smell it.

Her knees trembled harder, and she grew short of breath. She had to stop and close her eyes for a moment, before lifting them to the oncoming horde again. She lifted her unwounded arm and bade Cirrus make her vision more clear.

The fury bent the air before her, and almost at once she could see the oncoming horde as though she stood close enough to it to hear their footsteps.

Almost at once, she could see what Pirellus had meant. Though the fleeing elements of the Marat horde had rejoined it half an hour before and been absorbed into the oncoming mass, she could see the difference in the warriors now moving toward Garrison, without needing to engage them to understand part of Pirellus’s fears. They were older men, heavier with muscle and simple years, but they walked with more of both confidence and caution, ferocity tempered with wisdom.

She shivered.

Women, too, walked among the horde, bearing weapons, wearing the mien of experienced soldiers, which Amara had no doubt that they were. As near as Aleran intelligence could determine, the Marat engaged in almost constant struggles against one another—small-scale conflicts that lasted only briefly and seemed to result in few lasting hostilities, almost ritual combat. Deadly enough, though. She focused on the horde grimly. The dead behind the walls of Garrison proved that.

As she watched them come on, Amara was struck by a sudden sense that she had not felt in a long time, not since, as a small child, she had first been allowed out onto the open sea with her father in his fishing boat. A sense of being
outside
, a sense of standing balanced at the precipice of a world wholly alien to her own. She glanced at the walls behind her, eyes twinging as they refocused. There stood the border of the mighty Realm of Alera, a land that had withstood its enemies for a thousand years, overcome a hostile world to build a prosperous nation.

And she stood outside it, all but naked, despite her armor. The sheer size and scope of the rolling plains that lay beyond this last bastion of Aleran strength made her feel suddenly small.

The voice that came to her whispered in the rustle of the lonely wind, low, indistinct. “Never be intimidated by size itself. I taught you better than that.”

Amara stiffened, dropping the vision-crafting before her hand, glancing around. “Fidelias?”

“You always hold your legs stiffly when you’re afraid, Amara. You never learned to hide it. Oh, and I can hear you,” the voice responded. “One of my men is crafting my voice to you, and listening for your replies.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Amara whispered, heated. She glanced at the
legionares
too close behind her and stepped forward, away from them, so that they couldn’t overhear. She lifted her hand again, focusing on the oncoming horde, searching through their ranks for one who might be their leader.

“Useless,” Fidelias commented. “You can’t hold the walls. And even if you do, we’ll break the gate again.”

“Which part of ‘I have nothing to say to you’ did you not understand?” She paused a moment and then added as viciously as she knew how, “Traitor.”

“Then listen,” Fidelias said. “I know you don’t agree with me, but I want you to think about this. Gaius is going to fall. You know it. If he doesn’t fall cleanly, he’ll crush thousands on his way down. He might even weaken the Realm to the point that it can be destroyed.”

“How can you
dare
speak to me of the safety of the Realm? Because of you, her sons and daughters lie dead behind that wall.”

“We kill people,” Fidelias said. “It’s what we do. I have dead of my own to bury, thanks to you. If you like, I’ll tell you about the families of the men you made fall to their deaths. At least the dead inside had a chance to fight for their lives. The ones you murdered didn’t. Don’t be too liberal with that particular brush, apprentice.”

Amara abruptly remembered the men screaming, falling. She remembered the terror on their faces, though she hadn’t taken much note of it at the time.