by Jim Butcher
Anag stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “This is Lararl’s tower. Here, you do what he says.”
Tavi showed Anag his teeth as he folded his arms. “Apparently not.”
Anag growled and put his paw-hand to his sword.
Tavi sensed it when Maximus and Kitai, standing close behind him, tensed up. He did not move himself. He simply stared steadily at Anag.
Varg stepped forward in the precise instant that Anag’s anger began to waver. He stopped beside Tavi, and said, “Lararl has shamed himself enough without you adding to it, Anag.”
The younger Cane hesitated, his eyes flicking from Tavi to Varg.
Varg didn’t reach for his weapon. He strode forward to stand within range of Anag’s as-yet-undrawn blade without a flicker of apprehension. “You will go to Lararl,” Varg said. “You will tell him that we await him here.” Varg moved his arm then, slowly putting his hand to his weapon in a display made quietly deadly by the utter stillness in the rest of his body. “You will tell him that I am disinclined to be moved anywhere by any will but my own.”
Anag was still for a few seconds more, then leaned his head to one side in acknowledgment and vanished from the rooftop, taking the other guards with him.
Max let out an explosive breath. “Bloody crows, Tavi.”
Varg turned his head slightly to stare at Tavi. He had not, Tavi noted, taken his hand from his weapon. His voice came out in a deep, threatening basso growl. “Why?”
Tavi met Varg’s gaze as he answered. “Because circumstances have changed. Lararl needs us, or he would have left us to rot up here.”
Varg let out a rumbling growl, and Tavi found himself centering his balance, in case he needed to avoid a sudden strike-but the sound proved to be more pensive than angered, and Varg lowered his paw-hand from his sword’s hilt.
“Besides,” Tavi said, “Lararl abused your people’s sense of honor and obligation. I find myself unconcerned with protecting his pride.”
Varg made another thoughtful rumbling sound. “Have a care, Tavar. Lararl is not swift to forgive. And he never forgets.”
“I am not one of his subordinates,” Tavi replied.
Varg flicked his ears in acknowledgment. “No. You have declared your intention to replace him as a leader.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Tavi said, showing Varg his teeth in another smile, “that is precisely what I intend to do.”
* * *
Lararl came to the rooftop alone.
Anag and several other apprehensive-looking Canim stood by while Lararl shut the door in their faces and turned to Varg. “My guards may be going deaf,” the golden-furred Warmaster snarled. “Because only a fool or a madman would have spoken the words they brought to me.”
Varg faced Lararl without any kind of movement.
Lararl stepped forward to stand directly in front of Varg, and the two Canim put their hands to their swords in precisely the same instant.
Silence reigned on the rooftop for a full minute, the sounds of the battle below rising and falling with the breeze, like some enormous, gruesome surf pounding upon a seashore.
“Give me one reason,” Lararl snarled, “not to kill you here and now.”
“I will give you three,” Varg answered, and inclined the tip of his nose slightly toward the stone shelter the Alerans had crafted.
There was a vague sense of movement in the darkness within, then a slender-looking Cane clad in soft grey-and-black cloth glided silently out of the darkness. Immediately after, two more similarly clad, younger Canim flowed out behind the first, taking up a silent, passive stance on either side of the first.
Behind Tavi, Max hissed in a breath of surprise, and he did not need to look to see that Max’s hand had gone to the hilt of his sword. “Bloody crows. Hunters.”
Tavi suppressed his own startled reaction. He recognized the gear of the three Canim. The trio that had nearly gutted him during the war against Nasaug had been dressed identically.
Beside him, Kitai narrowed her eyes in suspicion, and Tavi felt the surge of surprise and… annoyance, he thought, as she spoke. “When did they slip in there?” She paused, and something faintly impressed entered her whisper. “How did they get up here at all?”
“They can’t have been in there more than half an hour,” Tavi murmured. “That was the last time one of us went inside to warm up.”
“I saw and heard nothing.” Kitai’s eyes glittered, and her teeth showed in a quick smile. “That was well done.”
Lararl eyed the three Hunters for a moment, then turned his attention back to Varg.
“Since the battle with your enemy seems to have clouded your vision,” Varg said, “I will explain matters to you. It is possible for you to kill me. But you cannot be sure of stopping my Hunters from carrying word of such an act to Nasaug. Even if you do, Nasaug is my wisest student. He will very likely assume that you have killed me and react accordingly.
“If you can count, you will see that the Alerans are missing a member of their party. Doubtless, he has already returned to their Legions to report what you have done so far. It is my belief that they remain imprisoned largely as a matter of respect-which they have given, even when it has not been given to them.” Varg showed his teeth. “Finally, it is possible that I kill you, in which case your people are left without a Warmaster.
“Nothing you do with that weapon,” Varg concluded, “will help your people. It will leave them without a Warmaster-or it will create more enemies. Is that what you want for them, Lararl?”
The other Cane shivered, and Tavi could all but see the rage rolling off him.
Then Lararl let out an explosive snarl and turned to stalk several paces away.
Varg released the hilt of his weapon and glanced at Tavi.
Tavi raised his voice. “Your defenses are the most impressive I have ever seen, Warmaster,” he said to Lararl.
The Canim glanced back at Tavi, his eyes angry, wary.
“But impressive or not, they are still fortifications. You can’t move them, adjust them-and they are all positioned to prevent an enemy from entering your range at all. The highest wall in the world is useless if the enemy can march around it.” Tavi took a slow breath. If he’d guessed correctly, his next words would show it. If he hadn’t… well. At least he was armed. “How did the Vord bypass your defenses?”
Lararl’s eyes narrowed still farther. “I did not say the Vord had done so.”
“Those soldiers who arrived earlier were wounded by something,” Tavi said. “If they’d been fighting my people, they never would have escaped on taurga. If they’d been fighting Varg’s warriors, you would have sent someone to execute him or just let him rot on this rooftop. Instead, you sent Anag, whom we have reason to trust and respect. It was not a gesture of anger or retaliation.” Tavi nodded out toward the battle. “The enemy are many. Once behind your defenses, it would take only a fraction of the forces out there to devastate your range.”
Lararl said nothing. Tavi’s mouth felt dry.
“Warmaster,” Tavi said, “it seems clear to me that if you wish to protect your people, you need our help to do it.”
Lararl bared his fangs. They were impressive. Tavi forced himself to keep his expression steady and blank. Then the golden Cane looked away. His ears twitched, almost imperceptibly, in assent.
Tavi let out a slow breath. It was harder to keep the relief from his face than it had been to disguise his apprehension.
After a stilted pause, Lararl spoke, biting off the words savagely. “My forces are stationed at the entry points to the range. The Vord tunneled under them. A large force is now among the estates and markets of the makers. Killing.”
Varg rumbled, a sound of unmistakable hatred.
“More of them pour in by the hour,” Lararl continued. “It will not be long before we are outnumbered in the rear areas as well as at the fortifications. Then…” He spread his hands and closed them together, as if squeezing the juice from a fru
it.
“You need our help,” Tavi said quietly.
“Help?” Lararl said. An almost-hysterical edge of frustration entered his voice. “Help? What could you do?” He drew his sword and jabbed it at the horde spreading over the plains below. “What could anyone do against that? We will fight. But there can be no victory. This is the end.”
“That depends upon your definition of victory, Warmaster,” Tavi said quietly.
“Shuar cannot be held,” Lararl snarled.
“Is Shuar the land?” Tavi asked. “Is it the hills and stones and trees? Is Shuar the rivers, the walls, the towers?”
Lararl had turned to stare at Tavi intently.
“Or is it the people?” Tavi said quietly. “Your people, Warmaster.”
Lararl’s ears shivered in reaction, a portion of Canim body language Tavi had never seen.
“What,” Lararl growled, “do you mean?”
“It’s possible that your people could be saved, sir. Some of them, in any case.”
“How?”
Tavi spread his hands. “I’m not yet sure,” he said. “I need more information.”
“What information?”
“Everything you have regarding the war with the Vord, in every range. All of it.”
Varg was also staring hard at Tavi. “What do you expect to learn?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“For what reason?” Varg demanded.
“Because among the enemy is at least one queen. The Vord queens are able to sense the thoughts of others if they can get close enough. Your Hunters have proven that it is possible to approach closely to Lararl’s command by means of stealth. It is entirely possible, even likely, that the queens have been gathering information directly from the thoughts of the Shuaran officers-possibly even from your own thoughts, Warmaster Lararl.”
Lararl growled in his throat, the sound pensive. “You know this enemy.”
“I would not presume to say that,” Tavi said. “But I know them better than you. And, for now, whatever secrets your intelligence on them might reveal is best kept safe by being locked in one location.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “I believe that it may be possible to help you and your people, Warmaster. If you will extend me a measure of trust.”
Lararl stared steadily at Tavi, but remained silent.
“It is obvious that simple force of arms is insufficient. We must outthink them, outmaneuver them.” Tavi glanced at Varg and inclined his head slightly to one side. “As I did to Sarl in Alera.”
Lararl’s gaze moved to Varg. “Well?”
Varg nodded slowly to Tavi, the Aleran gesture peculiar on the Cane. “Lararl. You have said yourself that you have no way to defeat the foe. Were this range mine and these people my own, I would listen to him.” He looked over at his Shuaran counterpart. “Tavar took a force of barely more than seven thousand and fought Sarl and fifty thousand conscripts, plus Nasaug’s ten thousand warriors, to a two-year stalemate. Give him what he wants.”
Lararl was silent for a moment more. Trumpets blew in the city, and a mounted force of several hundred Canim warriors rode their taurga toward the eastern gates of the city-an advance party for the larger infantry force that had to be preparing to march to the Shuaran interior.
The golden Cane shuddered again. Then he flicked his ears in a sharp gesture of assent, spun to face Tavi fully, and beckoned him with a curt gesture of his hand as he strode toward the door leading back into the tower. “Demon-” He paused and growled deep in his chest, baring his fangs. “Tavar. Come with me.”
“Crows,” Max breathed under his breath. The big Antillan took his hand from his sword. “How did you know about the Vord?”
“I guessed.”
“You guessed?” Max hissed. He shook his head. “You take too many chances, Calderon.”
“It was necessary,” Tavi said. “Besides, I was right.”
“One of these days, you’re going to be wrong.”
“Not today,” Tavi said. “Stay here so that Crassus can make contact.”
Max frowned at Tavi worriedly. Then he saluted. “Be careful.”
Tavi put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Then he turned and strode down into the darkness of the tower, following Lararl.
CHAPTER 25
Tavi wasn’t sure how long he’d been working in Lararl’s cavernous hall when the door opened and a guard, his eyes narrowed against the relative brightness of the torches Tavi had requested, admitted Kitai.
Tavi looked up from his place among half a dozen Cane-sized sand tables. They were meant to be used by a Cane squatting in a comfortable crouch, but were an awkward height for an Aleran-too tall to sit beside them, too short to be practical while standing. His back hurt. He straightened, wincing, as Kitai shut the door behind her.
“Crassus is here,” Kitai said without preamble. “He was attacked by the Vord on his way back to the port. He had to circle wide of them on the way back. He’s injured.”
Tavi chewed on his lower lip. “How bad is it?”
“Maximus is seeing to him, but he’s exhausted.” Kitai walked closer and gave Tavi a calm kiss on the cheek. As she did, she whispered, “The rest of the Legion’s Knights Aeris are at hand, unseen. Crassus says that the Shuarans have several thousand of Varg’s people held prisoner in a camp not far from here.”
Tavi smiled and kissed her cheek in return. “Tell them to stand by,” he breathed in reply. “And to say nothing to Varg.”
Kitai gave a slight nod and turned her eyes to the sand tables, examining each of them. Sheaves of paper lay stacked beside them, held down with simple weights made of polished black stone. “What is this?”
Tavi turned to the tables and raked his fingers back through his hair. “The Canim ranges,” he replied. He pointed at one of the stacks of paper with a toe. “And reports taken from each.”
Kitai frowned at the tables and pages. “You’ve read all of these?”
Tavi waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. “I’m not as familiar with their script as I’d like to be.”
Kitai sniffed. “It’s just as senseless as Aleran writing.”
“Yes,” Tavi said, “but I’ve had years to practice Aleran.”
She smiled slightly. “What have you learned?”
Tavi shook his head. “Plenty. I’m just not sure what to make of it all.” He pointed at the first table, where a number of small black stones and white stones marked Vord and Canim forces, respectively. They were scattered everywhere over the table. “Narash. Varg’s range. They were the first to be attacked. The reports from there are the most confused and conflicting.”
Kitai glanced up sharply at him. “It was intentional.”
Tavi nodded. “I think the Vord established several different nests, keeping as quiet as they could for as long as they could, then attacked simultaneously, causing as much havoc and confusion as possible. From what I can tell, most of the Narashan commanders initially thought they were being attacked by their neighbors. By the time they realized the truth, it was too late.”
He gestured at the next tables in succession. “Kadan, Rengal, Irgat… They all fell within the next year.”
He blew out a breath to keep from shuddering. Each Canim nation had been home to a populace nearly as great as Alera’s, though settled into a much smaller geographical region. Despite their armies, the dark power of their ritualists, the savagely protective nature of the Canim with regard to their territories, each of them had fallen as steadily and surely as a field of wheat before a farmer’s scythe.
Tavi nodded to the next table. “Maraul. They held out for nearly a year. But by then they were cut off from Shuar, surrounded. Then…” Tavi shrugged. “Shuar was the only range left.”
“What are you looking for?” Kitai asked.
Tavi shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. I’ve been looking for patterns. Trying to see how they think, how they operate.”
“The Vord?” Kitai asked. “Or the Canim?�
��
Tavi shot her a quick smile. “Yes,” he replied. The smile faded. “Though at the moment, I’d be thrilled at the prospect of having the Canim as a long-term worry.”
Kitai regarded him with calm, serious eyes. “Crassus says that there are as many as eighty or ninety thousand Vord already in central Shuar.”
Tavi frowned at the news. Eighty or ninety thousand. Fighting that many Vord on open ground would be little more than suicide for the Aleran Legions. Their only chance would be to fight beside Nasaug’s troops-and that was hardly a proposition that his men would enjoy. Two years of war had made for plenty of hard feelings on both sides.
For just a moment, staring at the sand tables, at the enormous number of black stones, and the relatively few white ones opposing them, Tavi felt at a complete loss. Only a few years ago, he had been nothing but a shepherd. No, not even that. His uncle had been the shepherd. Tavi had been an apprentice shepherd.
Oh, of course, now he had a title: His Royal Highness, Gaius Octavian, Princeps of the Realm, heir apparent to the Crown of Alera.
With that and a sharp knife, he could slice bread.
How was he supposed to deal with this situation? How was he supposed to make the choices before him-choices that would send Alerans and Canim alike to their deaths? Was he merely arrogant, to think that he was the best person to decide? Or was he quietly, calmly insane?
Kitai’s slim, warm hand slid over the back of his neck, and he looked up into her eyes.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he told her in a near whisper.
Her stare grew intent. “You must,” she said, just as quietly. “The Vord will not stop here.”
“I know,” Tavi said. “But… I can’t even manifest a fury, Kitai. How am I supposed to stop what we’ve seen out there?”
“Aleran. When has the lack of a manifest fury stopped you before?”
“This is different,” Tavi said quietly. “It’s bigger. It’s more complex. If the Vord aren’t stopped…” He shook his head. “It’s the end. Of everything. The Canim. My people. Yours. Nothing will be left.”
He felt Kitai’s hand touch his chin and lift his head, turning him quite firmly toward her. She leaned into him, pulling him down, and kissed his mouth. It was a long, slow, heavy kiss, and when she finally drew her mouth from his, her eyes were huge, their green darkened to mere rings of emerald.
