Princeps Fury ca-5

by Jim Butcher

  Behind the first wave of Vord came an enormous line of Alerans.

  They weren’t alive, of course. Thanks to the windcrafting, Ehren could see that much. Their skin was mottled with postmortem bruising, and in some cases their bodies bore disfigurements or injuries that would have rendered any human immobile. The taken holders-and the vast majority of them were obviously holders, dressed in common clothing-walked without any expression whatever on their faces, their eyes focused on nothing.

  “Where are the vordknights?” Ehren murmured.

  “Staying out of sight, massing for an attack, most likely,” Gaius said. “They can’t have much fight left in them.”

  “They’ve been harassing us all the way here,” Ehren said.

  “Exactly,” Gaius said. “It takes an enormous amount of power for them to keep themselves aloft. They must eat like gargants to be able to sustain the muscle they’d need for that sort of activity-and even with the patches of croach that they planted in secret, ahead of their advance, we’ve yet to discover one more than an acre in size.” The First Lord shook his head. “Badly supplied infantry can fight on to some degree. But I think the vordknights are more like cavalry. Short cavalry of supplies, and they become ineffective far more rapidly. She’ll save them for a critical stroke.”

  “The queen, you mean?” asked Ehren.

  Gaius nodded. “She is the key to the entire battle.” He fell silent again as they watched the Vord swarm over the plains toward the capital.

  “So many of them,” Ehren breathed.

  For an instant, the First Lord’s eyes glittered with a wild, fey light. “Aren’t there, though.” He nodded and turned to one of the Legion trumpeters at hand. “Signal the first attack.”

  The courier nodded and raised his trumpet. Its call sounded clear over the quiet city, and in its wake the Legions roared.

  Thousands of Citizens stood among their ranks, called forth to fight for their land, to demonstrate the obligation that went with the privileges of their title. Among the Citizenry, earthcrafting was by far the most common talent, and now those Citizens unleashed their furies upon the Vord.

  Just ahead of the Vord ranks, the ground erupted, swelling into hillocks and blisters of stone that burst to disgorge furies of the earth. Gargants, wolves, serpents, great dogs, and nameless things-both beautiful and hideous-came bounding and slithering and charging out of the very soil of the land, to fall upon the first wave of the alien horde.

  The battle that ensued had a ghastly sort of beauty to it. The Aleran furies, like statuary come to frenzied life, slammed into the Vord. Furies of the earth, though not swift, were viciously strong and difficult to actually harm-and the Vord were packed in close to one another as they came for Alera Imperia. Ehren watched as a bear made of black-and-grey marble slammed its paws down with methodical precision, crushing a Vord at every blow. A gargant of flint and clay thundered into the Vord ranks without being noticeably slowed, leaving destruction in its wake. A great sandstone serpent wound swiftly around one Vord after another, crushing the howling creatures in its coils and slithering on. The earth furies broke Vord quadrupeds like toys, and shrugged off blow after blow in response.

  The behemoths, though, proved tougher than the Vord-lizards. Ehren saw one of them accept a pair of hammerblows from the great bear without flinching, and in response it simply bent and heaved the fury’s form up off the ground. The granite was riven and shattered, and a few seconds later, the “crack” of protesting stone reached the citadel. The behemoth smashed the bear-form down to the ground, where it crumbled into motionless rubble.

  Gaius winced.

  “Are you all right, sire?” Ehren asked at once.

  “Just feeling sympathy for whoever called out that bear fury,” the First Lord replied. “That sort of thing… leaves a mark.”

  Ehren turned his eyes back to the battle and watched for several moments more as the Vord reached the earth furies and simply enfolded them, pouring around them, all but ignoring their presence as dozens of their fellows were crushed. Earth furies could only focus on a task for as long as the one who compelled them, and as the earthcrafters who called them forth began to grow more weary, their furies began to move more slowly and with less purpose. Here and there, a behemoth would meet a fury-those battles ended only one way. The enormous Vord had to be possessed of absolutely awesome strength, to so deal with beings of living stone.

  “Enough,” Gaius said. “Sound the recover.”

  Again, the trumpet blast rang over the city, and at once the earth furies began to recede into the stone. Down on the walls, Ehren saw exhausted earthcrafters dropping down to sit with their backs against the battlements, while Legion runners brought them water-and while medics hauled away no few Citizens who had collapsed, presumably of exhaustion or because their furies had been ravaged by the behemoths.

  Thousands of the enemy had been slain-but they poured forward, unaffected and unslowed, on the last several hundred yards of their approach to the city walls, through the rough wooden buildings and shanties that surrounded them.

  “Fire it,” Gaius said calmly.

  At another signal, flame bloomed up in a hundred places at once, and a wind sighed down from above and began to blow more and more strongly. Within a minute, fire had leapt up to raging proportions within the wooden outlying buildings, and completely engulfed the leading elements of the Vord advance. Smoke and heat and flame made it impossible to see what was happening within, but Ehren could vividly imagine the damage that the inferno was wreaking among the Vord.

  The horde suddenly stopped in its tracks-by the tens of thousands, they simply ceased moving forward at the precise same instant. A moment later, the closer elements of the enemy force withdrew slightly from the flames.

  And waited.

  “Mmm,” Gaius said, nodding. “The queen is nearby, to so control them. Let’s see if she’ll send her captured crafters to deal with the problem.”

  Meanwhile, the rest of the horde continued to advance behind the front ranks, spreading out to the sides, slowly filling in along the outer edges of the ring of flame. It took only moments for their easternmost elements to reach the banks of the Gaul, the river that flowed past the capital. Then the Vord focused on expanding their lines to the west. The enormous black force was slowly engulfing the city.

  After a quarter of an hour had passed, Gaius murmured, “Apparently not.” He turned to a nearby Knight, and murmured, “Inform Lord Aquitaine of the disposition of the enemy.”

  The man saluted and took to the air at once, flying toward the north side of the city, on the far side of the horde.

  Ehren swallowed. “What are we going to do, sire?”

  “The same thing they are, Cursor,” Gaius said calmly. “We wait.”

  * * *

  It took the rest of the day and the first three hours of night for the outbuildings to burn down. Smoke hung in a haze over the city below them, and if that wasn’t enough, fog had begun to roll up off the river. The citadel almost seemed to float among clouds-clouds lit hellishly from below by the burning buildings of the capital. The crows wheeled overhead all the while, chuckling and croaking to one another in the darkness.

  Gaius had retired to the antechamber, where Sireos did what he could to fortify the dying First Lord. At Ehren’s insistence, he’d eaten another meal and was dozing on a couch when horn calls blared up from the unseen city below, ghostly in the mist.

  The First Lord snapped awake at once-and from his seat nearby, Ehren saw Gaius’s face contort with pain. Then the old man closed his eyes, took in a determined breath, and pushed himself up off the couch to stride toward the balcony. Ehren rose at once to follow him.

  Gaius listened to the horn calls for a moment and nodded to himself. “They’re coming through. Here is where we force their hand, Cursor.” He pointed at the trumpeter without looking back at the man, and said, “Sound the attack.”

  The clarion call of the charge, universal among th
e Legions, rang in Ehren’s ears, and was answered by hundreds of horns in the city below.

  Gaius raised his hand and cried out, and the chilly northern wind rose to an abrupt gale that threatened to throw Ehren from his feet. The wind roared down over the city, and carried away the pall of smoke and fog-while fanning what was left of the fires to vicious life.

  Ehren paced the balcony at Gaius’s side, and saw that the Vord had surrounded nearly half the circumference of the city-and were surging forward in a unified attack.

  Once more, earth furies rose to battle, among the fires and ruined buildings, disdaining the heat. In addition to that, spheres of white-hot fire began to erupt among them, some of them large enough to engulf a behemoth and the Vord-lizards all around it. Knights Aeris erupted into the skies all around the city, and teams of the men streaked along over the outlying buildings, using their windstreams to fan fires and to topple ruined buildings upon the foe.

  The Vord advance was slowed-not because they had begun to waver, but simply because the Alerans were killing them faster than they could run forward. Ehren stared at the naked destruction in awe and terror. The ground itself was being rent by the fires unleashed by the Citizens of Alera, gouging out chunks of earth as easily as one might scoop butter from its container. The Vord shrieked and writhed and died, and Ehren could hear their cries even from atop the balcony.

  The First Lord was staring hard around the city, though, his eyes searching. “Bloody crows,” he muttered beneath his breath. “Bloody crows take that arrogant slive. Where is he?”

  “Who, sire?”

  “Aquitaine,” Gaius growled. “This is the moment to strike them, when they are all focused forward on the walls. He had plenty of time to move into position. Where is he?”

  No sooner had Gaius said the words than the mighty Gaul suddenly convulsed. The great river, shining silver beneath an almost-full moon, rose from its banks and flowed abruptly toward the rear of the Vord positions, the water cutting smoothly across the plain outside the city, spreading in the midst of the Vord ranks, driving some forward and others back.

  Then, impossibly, trumpets sounded from the suddenly empty riverbed, and with a sea-crash roar of furious voices, the full strength of five Legions came charging out of the trench where the river had flowed. They smashed into the flanks and rear of the enemy horde, their flank secured by the new course of the river, and began driving hard into the Vord lines.

  “Bloody crows!” Ehren all but screamed.

  Even the First Lord arched his eyebrows at the sight. “He must have used his watercrafters to convince the river to flow over and around his troops. Windcrafting to keep the air in the bubble fresh. Earthcrafting to solidify the silt so they could march on it.” Gaius shook his head. “Impressive.”

  The city’s defenders roared in defiance. As the endurance of the Citizenry below began to flag, the Vord began to reach the outer wall and legionares went to work with sword and shield upon the battlements. The enemy immediately began changing its formation, its westernmost elements turning to come in and support the threatened eastern half against Aquitaine’s Legions-but Alera Imperia was a large city, and they would have to travel miles to be of any assistance to their fellows.

  The whole while, Aquitainus Attis and the Legions under his command would be cutting the Vord to bloody ribbons.

  Ehren focused on the battle, hope surging in his heart, as the scarlet star of fire that marked the blade of the High Lord of Aquitaine flickered and flashed. Through the magnification of Gaius’s windcrafting, Ehren could see Aquitaine himself in the front ranks of his Legion, surrounded by heavily armored bodyguards. As Ehren watched, the High Lord braced a pair of behemoths.

  With a flick of his hand, a tiny sphere of fire erupted upon the face of one of the huge beasts, and, while it roared in pain, Aquitaine dodged the thundering downswing of the second. In several dancelike steps, he struck an arm and a leg from the second behemoth, sending it crashing down, and in the course of returning to the ranks he slew the burned, screaming beast before it could recover from the pain. His men howled in a frenzy of rage and encouragement, and the entire force continued on inexorably, like a single, vast scythe cutting down wheat.

  Then the Vord queen struck back.

  The taken Alerans turned as one to charge Aquitaine’s lines. Even as they approached, fire and earth and wind erupted toward them, slaughtering the first several dozen to draw near.

  But the hundred who came after them let out eerie screams, raised their hands, and turned fire and earth and wind back upon the Legion lines. Men died screaming in blasts of fire, or were hauled into the earth by hideous shapes, never to be seen again. Wind cast dust and ashes into their faces in thick clouds, and their formations began to falter. More and more taken Alerans arrived, and the furycrafted pressure against Aquitaine’s force doubled and doubled again, as each new taken seemed to feed upon the energies being unleashed, adding its own to the struggle.

  “Knights Aeris to their aid,” Gaius said calmly. “Focus on the enemy crafters and take them with blades alone.”

  Another courier screamed skyward, and within a moment several cohorts of Knights Aeris rose from the city and streaked toward the battle. It took them only seconds to land among the taken and attack, wielding steel alone. Aquitaine’s Legions realized what was happening as the pressure on them began to ease, and they surged forward in a desperate effort to reach the Knights Aeris before they were engulfed by the oncoming horde.

  It was then that the vordknights pounced.

  They suddenly burst up from the ground on the far side of the redirected river, where they must have slipped into position once the sun was down. They were barely a half mile from the battle, and they swept down upon the Knights Aeris of Alera like a swarm of bees. The Knights found themselves suddenly beset on all sides, and did what any of them with any sense would do-they called their furies and prepared to take to the air.

  Until the taken began throwing salt at them.

  Windcrafters screamed in agony as the salt crystals ripped holes through their furies, dispersing and weakening them. Several made it off the ground and managed to escape-but most didn’t. Though the Legions tried to push forward to shelter the exposed Knights Aeris, they had lost too much of their momentum to reach them in time. In seconds, the masters of Alera’s skies were all but drowned in armored bodies and hacking limbs.

  And then the true death blow fell.

  Crows by the tens of thousands suddenly plummeted into the capital’s streets, buildings, and rooftops. Several of the creatures even fell to the stones of the balcony upon which Ehren stood. The crows, upon landing, fluttered in bizarre spasms, then went still.

  Ehren and the others stared around the balcony and out at the city, perplexed.

  “Great furies,” Ehren breathed. “What was that about?”

  Gaius’s pensive frown suddenly froze in place. His eyes widened slightly, and he said, “No. Cursor, ware!”

  The bodies of the crows erupted with Vord takers.

  They weren’t impressive things to look at. Each was about the size of a scorpion, and vaguely resembled one, except for dozens of flailing tendrils sprouting from all parts of its body. They were swift, though, as quick as startled mice, and half a dozen of the things scuttled toward those upon the balcony in a blur of green-black chitin.

  Ehren spun and stomped a foot down upon one of the takers, and slapped a second from the back of his thigh. One of the couriers stomped at another one, missed, and lost his balance. Three takers swarmed up his body, and, as he cried out in surprise and revulsion, one of them plunged into his mouth.

  The man screamed once, and then fell backward in convulsions, his eyes rolling back into his head. Another cry died as it was born-and then his eyes went flat, and swiveled toward the First Lord. He came to his feet and lurched at Gaius.

  Ehren flung himself in between the First Lord and the taken courier. He seized the man’s tunic, and with a panick
ed effort of his entire body the young Cursor threw the doomed courier over the balcony railing.

  There was a bright flash of light, a crackling snap, and the sharp smell of ozone. By the time Ehren was finished blinking the spots from his eyes, he realized that several takers lay curled up and dead on the balcony floor. The First Lord stood over them, his right hand out, flickers of lightning dancing between his spread fingers.

  “Crows,” Gaius said simply, glancing up at the nearly empty sky. “I didn’t spare them a second glance.”

  Screams began to echo up through the city. Not a minute later, a house or a garden one tier below the citadel level caught fire.

  Outside the city, the Vord’s collared crafters came onto the field. They drove forward toward Aquitaine’s forces, and the redirected river began to waver and writhe like a vast, living serpent.

  A scream of agony echoed through the halls of the Citadel, behind them.

  “Never a second glance,” Gaius said, sighing quietly. Then he raised his voice to a tone of firm command. “Clear the balcony.”

  Everyone there withdrew, except for Ehren. Gaius went to the balcony’s edge and stared down at Aquitaine’s desperate Legions. The High Lord had already realized his predicament, and his men were executing a fighting retreat, struggling to get away from the Vord before they were cut off, drowned, or overwhelmed.

  Gaius bowed his head for a moment, then looked up again, and calmly took a pair of folded, sealed envelopes from his jacket. He passed them to Ehren.

  Ehren blinked and looked down at it. “Sire?”

  “The first is for my grandson,” Gaius said simply. “The second, for Aquitaine. There’s a tunnel concealed behind my desk in my mediation chamber in the deeps. It exits two miles north of the city, on the road to the Redhill Heights. I want you to take the messages and Sireos and go.”

  “Sire,” Ehren said, “no, I couldn’t… We should all go. We can retreat toward Aquitaine or Riva and prepare a better-”

  “No, Ehren,” Gaius said quietly.