Codex Alera 06 - First Lord's Fury (45 page)

The entrance to the black tent flew open again, and a burly Cane in a pale leather mantle strode out, his fangs bared, his ears laid back. “Marok,” the Cane snarled. “You will cease this trafficking with the enemy!”

“Nhar,” Marok said. “Go back in the tent.”

Nhar surged toward Marok, seething. “You cannot do this! You cannot so bind us to these creatures! You cannot so dishonor the lives of the fallen!”

Marok eyed the other ritualist for a moment, and said, “What were their names, Nhar?”

The other Cane drew up short. “What?”

“Their names,” Marok said in that same, gentle voice. “Surely you know the names of these makers whose lives you defend so passionately.”

Nhar stood there, gnashing his teeth. “You,” he sputtered. “You.”

“Ahmark and Chag,” Master Marok said. And without warning one of his hands lashed out and delivered a backhanded blow to the end of Nhar’s muzzle. The other Cane recoiled in sheer surprise as much as pain, and fell to the ground. The blood in the pouch at his side sloshed back and forth, some of it splashing out.

“Go back into the tent, Nhar,” Marok said gently.

Nhar snarled and plunged one hand into the blood pouch.

Marok moved even more quickly. One of the knives sprang off his belt into his hand and whipped across his own left forearm.

Nhar screamed something, and a cloud of blue-grey mist formed in front of him, coalescing into some kind of solid shape in response. But before it could fully form, Marok flicked several drops of his own blood onto the other Cane. Then the old master closed his eyes and made a calm, beckoning gesture.

Nhar convulsed. At first Tavi thought that the Cane was vomiting, but as more and more substance poured out of Nhar’s mouth, it only took a few seconds for Tavi to realize what was really happening.

Nhar’s belly and guts had just been ejected from his body, as if an unseen hand had reached down his throat and pulled them out.

Nhar made a number of hideous sounds, but within seconds he was silent and still.

Marok eyed the tent, and said, “Brothers, would anyone else care to dispute my arbitration?”

A Cane’s hand appeared from the black tent—but only long enough to pull the entrance flap closed again.

Varg let out a chuckling growl.

Marok reached into his own pouch and drew out a roll of fine cloth. He wrapped it around his arm with the ease of long, long practice, tearing it off with his teeth when he’d used enough. He then offered the roll of cloth to Tavi.

Tavi inclined his head to the master ritualist and accepted the cloth. When Varg nodded to him, he bent his arm and began to wind the cloth over it, though he did not do it nearly so smoothly as Marok.

Varg capped the vial and offered it back to Marok with another bow. Marok accepted the vial, and said, “This will continue when you are recovered, Tavar. I will keep the accounting. It will be accurate.”

“It was an honor to meet you, sir,” Tavi replied.

They exchanged parting bows, and Tavi and Varg continued their rounds of the camp. He stumbled twice, before Varg said, “You will return to your tent now.”

“I’m fine.”

Varg snorted. “You will return to your tent now, or I will take you there. Your mate expressed to me in very clear terms her strong desire to see you back safely.”

Tavi smiled tiredly. “I do feel a bit less than myself, I suppose. Will this end our trouble with the ritualists?”

“No,” Varg said. “They will embrace some new idiocy tomorrow. Or next week. Or next moon. But there is no escaping that.”

“But for today, we’re quit of them?”

Varg flicked his ears in assent. “Marok will keep them off-balance for months after today.”

Tavi nodded. “I’m sorry. About the makers who died. I wish I hadn’t had to do that.”

“I wish that, too,” Varg said. He looked at Tavi. “I respect you, Tavar. But my people are more important to me than you are. I have used you to help remove a deadly threat to them—Khral and his idiocy. Should you become a threat to them, I will deal with you.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Tavi said. “I will see you in the morning.”

Varg growled assent. “Aye. And may all of our enemies be in front of us.”

Tavi lay on his cot in the command tent while the Tribune Medica of the First Aleran, Foss, argued with everyone.

“I don’t care if he can eat sand and crap gold!” Foss snarled, his black beard bristling. “He’s a crowbegotten
Cane
, and he’s bloodied up the captain!”

“Is the captain in any danger?” Crassus asked, his voice calm.

“Not at the moment,” Foss said. “But you can’t expect me to stand around and say nothing while those heathen dogs bleed our bloody First Lord to be!”

“Sure he can,” Max growled. “Back off, Foss. Captain knows what he’s doing.”

“Of course! We’re charging headlong into a fight where we’re outnumbered a bloody thousand to one, and he’s bleeding himself before the fighting! Presumably to save the enemy the bother!”

“Necessary,” Tavi said tiredly. “Leave it alone, Foss.”

“Yes, sir,” Foss responded, scowling. “Maybe you can answer me a question, then. Like why the crows the First Spear of the Legion is staying in a guarded tent, walking around in a civilian tunic, and not speaking to anyone.”

Tavi inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Why do you think, Foss?”

“Grapevine says he took sick. His heart gave out on him in that last fight. He’s near sixty, seems likely. Except that if that had been the case, I would know, because I would have been the man treating him.”

Tavi sat up on his elbows carefully, and met Foss’s eyes. “Listen to me very carefully, Tribune,” he said. “You
were
the man who treated him. It
is
his heart. He’s still recovering and won’t be himself for a few days. You took him off active duty. The guard is there to make sure the stubborn old goat gets enough rest and that he doesn’t relapse.”

The ire faded from Foss’s expression, replaced by incomprehension followed by deep concern. “But . . .”

“Did you
hear
me, Tribune?” Tavi asked.

Foss saluted at once. “Yes, sir.”

Tavi nodded and sank back down onto the bunk. “I can’t explain it to you, Tribune. Not yet. I need you to trust me. Please.”

Foss’s face sobered even more. He frowned, and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you,” Tavi said quietly. “Are you finished with me?”

Foss nodded and seemed to gather himself, focusing on his job. His voice reclaimed its confidence and strength as he did. “I cleaned the wound and closed it. You’ll need to drink plenty of water and get plenty of food. Red meat is best. Get a good night’s rest. And I’d rather see you on a wagon than a horse tomorrow.”

“We’ll see,” Tavi said.

“Sir,” Foss said, “this time you need to trust me.”

Tavi eyed him and found himself smiling. He waved a hand. “All right, all right. If it will stop you from nagging. Done.”

Foss grunted in satisfaction, saluted, and departed the tent.

“Crassus,” Tavi said, “we’re near enemy territory. Make sure the earth furies have been positioned to spot any takers. And get those Canim pickets out as far as you can. Their night vision is invaluable right now.”

“I know,” Crassus said. “I know, Captain. Get some rest. We’ll make sure we survive until morning.”

Tavi started to give Crassus another string of warnings and instructions but forced himself to close his mouth. He was tired enough to make it remarkably easy. He and Max and the rest of the Legion would do their jobs properly even without Tavi telling them all how to do it. After all, what was the point in all that training and discipline if they didn’t get the chance to display their capability once in a while?

He sighed, and said, “Fine, fine. I can take the hint. Make sure I’m awake by first light.”

Max and Crassus both saluted and departed the tent.

Tavi sat up enough to drain the large mug of cold water from the stand beside the cot, but the thought of eating the meal beside it was revolting. He settled back down again and closed his eyes. A moment’s concentration, and he drew together a windcrafting to ensure private conversation. Steady rain drummed on the tent’s canvas roof. “How much of this is the loss of blood?” he asked the empty tent. “And how much of it is the result of holding that weathercrafting?”

One moment the tent was empty, and in the next Alera stood over the sand table at its center post. She chuckled warmly. “It took Sextus more than a year to be able to recognize my presence. How is it that you have learned the trick of it so quickly?”

“I’ve spent most of my life without any furycraft to help me,” Tavi said. “Perhaps that’s had something to do with it.”

“Almost certainly,” Alera said. “Very few of your people realize how much furycraft happens without their knowledge.”

“Really?” Tavi asked.

“Certainly. How would they? Watercrafters, for example, gain a sensitivity to others that becomes a part of their very being. They have few, if any, memories of what it was like to exist
without
that sense. Nearly everyone in Alera has their senses expanded in some way, to some degree. If they suddenly lost access to their furies, for whatever reason, I expect that they would feel quite disoriented. I should think it would be something like losing an eye.”

Tavi winced at the image. “I notice,” he said, “that you haven’t answered my question.”

Alera smiled. “Haven’t I?”

Tavi eyed her for a moment. Then he said, “You’re saying that I’m crafting without realizing it?”

“Without feeling it,” Alera corrected. “You make clear to me what it is you wish to accomplish, and I set about ordering it, within my limitations. But the effort for it still comes from you, as with any other furycrafting. It’s a steady and gradual process, one you don’t feel happening. You only become aware of it when physical symptoms begin to trouble you.” She sighed. “It killed Sextus; not as much because he pushed too hard—though he did—as because it made him dismiss the symptoms of his poisoning, incorrectly, as part of this process.”

Tavi sat up and studied Alera more closely. She held her hands in front of her, folded inside the opposite sleeve of her misty “gown.” More of the gown was gathered over her head in a hood. Her eyes looked sunken. For the first time since Tavi had seen the great fury manifest, she did not look like a young woman.

“The weathercrafting,” he said. “It was a strain on you as well. It’s hastening your . . . your dissolution, isn’t it?”

“It was a strain upon all of Alera, young Gaius,” she replied, her voice quiet. “You upset natural order on a scale that is rarely seen—in concert with the eruptions of two fire-mountains, to boot. You and your people will feel the aftereffects of these few days for centuries to come.”

“I sincerely hope so,” Tavi said.

The great fury glanced at him and smiled, briefly. “Ah, there it is. I sometimes think that if one cut open the scions of the House of Gaius, they would find well-chilled pragmatism flowing in their veins instead of blood.”

“I have provided abundant evidence to the contrary, today, I believe.”

“Have you?” she replied.

“And again,” he said, “you have avoided answering my question.”

Her smile widened, briefly. “Have I?”

“Infuriating habit,” he said. “My grandfather must have learned it from you.”

“He picked that one up very quickly,” she acknowledged. “Sextus was strongly devoted to the idea of being as mysterious as possible when it came to his capabilities of furycraft. He would have looked at his staff and shrugged when they wondered how such a thing as an unthinkably late freeze and a steady breeze for several thousand miles’ worth of travel would be possible.”

“When in fact, anyone with a High Lord’s talent could manage it,” Tavi murmured. “If he had, as his partner, someone such as you, who could direct his power to precisely when and where it needed to be to have the greatest effect, however widely dispersed those places might be.”

“I suspect the scions of Gaius did not wish the notion to become widespread,” she said, “for fear that all of those folk with a High Lord’s talent would immediately set about creating such partners of their own.”

“Could such a thing be done?” Tavi asked, curiously.

“Almost certainly—to one degree or another. It is also nearly certain that they would not be able to create a . . . shall we say, a balanced being.”

“Someone like you,” Tavi mused, “only mad?”

“I suspect the results of such an effort would make the current definitions of madness somewhat obsolete.”

Tavi shivered. “The potential for conflict on that scale . . . It’s . . . unimaginable.”

“The House of Gaius is many things,” Alera said. “But never stupid.”

Tavi sighed and settled back down on the cot again. He rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Where is the main body of the vord now?”

“Closing on the mouth of the Calderon Valley,” Alera replied.

“Aquitaine is still trying to draw them all there?”

“It would appear so.”

“Playing the anvil to our hammer,” Tavi mused. “With all those civilians at stake, behind his lines. I’m not sure if he’s brilliant or a bloody fool.”

“His foolishness has been limited to a fairly narrow spectrum, all in all,” Alera replied. “His tactical ability in the field has been sound. If he can force the vord Queen to oversee the assault on Calderon, he effectively pins her in place for you. My suspicion is that he expects you to lead a team of Citizens to find and neutralize the Queen.”

“Of course. That’s how he would do it,” Tavi mused. “But he doesn’t know about Varg and his warriors.”

“Indeed not. And I think it possible that the vord do not, either. The path ahead of us is empty of anything but token enemy forces.”