by Jim Butcher
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.
“Aleran,” she said quietly. “True power has nothing to do with furies.” She pressed her thumb firmly to the center of his forehead. “Strong, stupid enemies are easily defeated. Intelligent foes are always dangerous. You have grown in strength. Do not permit yourself to grow in stupidity.” Her hand moved to caress his cheek. “You are one of the most dangerous men I know.”
Tavi studied her seriously. “Do you really think that?”
She nodded once. “I am frightened, Aleran. The Vord frighten me. What they might do to my people terrifies me.”
He stared into her eyes. “What are you saying?”
“Fear is an enemy. Respect it. But do not let it conquer you before the fight has begun.”
Tavi turned his eyes to the sand tables again. “I’m afraid,” he said, after a moment. “Afraid that I’ll fail to stop them. That people depending on me to protect them will die.”
She nodded slowly. “I understand it,” Kitai said. “Before, there was always someone else, someone above you, who could intervene. Who could shield you. Your mother and your uncle. Maestro Killian. Gaius Sextus.”
“Here,” Tavi said, “it’s just me. There’s no one else to rely on.”
“And no one else to blame,” Kitai said.
Tavi bowed his head for a moment. “I feel . . . too small for this, somehow.”
“You would be a fool to feel any other way,” Kitai said. She twined her fingers in his. “There are many things at which I am skilled. I ride well. I climb well. I steal well. I fight and dance and love well. My instincts are second to none.” She picked up one of the stacks of paper and glanced over it. “But this . . . no. Making sense of a hundred little pieces of information. It is not for me.
“That is your gift, Aleran.” She offered him the stack of papers. “Knowledge is your weapon.” Her eyes glittered. “Kill them with it.”
Tavi took a deep breath and accepted the papers in silence.
“Maraul,” he blurted, three hours later.
Kitai looked up from where she had sat down with several handfuls of white and black stones, after carrying word back to the roof. She had been playing some kind of game involving scratches marked on the stone with one of her knives, and where the stones sat upon intersections of the lines. She looked at him levelly for a moment, then rolled her eyes, and said, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Maraul,” Tavi said again. “It was right in front of me. That’s the point to focus on. Why did they hold out for a year against the Vord when their neighbors fell in three or four months? What was different?”
Kitai tilted her head. “Their armies were more capable? They seem to have the respect of the Narashans.”
Tavi shook his head. “By the time they were attacked, the Vord had spread to three other ranges. Superior-quality troops can make up for a world of difference in numbers, but even the best troops get tired, wounded, disorganized. The Vord would have worn them down.”
“Better tactical positioning?” Kitai offered.
Tavi shook his head and gestured at the appropriate sand table. “It’s a swamp. There are few natural defensive points, and even those are fairly weak.”
“What was it, then?”
“Exactly,” Tavi said. “What?” He seized the stack of documents next to the model-Maraul table and began reading.
It took him another two hours to turn up a reasonable theory—and even that had only been possible because of the report, precise in its detail, from one of Lararl’s Hunters to the Warmaster. Shuaran Hunters, it seemed, had been tasked to observe the fighting in Maraul, to gather intelligence on both their neighbors and the invaders. Somehow that knowledge made Tavi feel a bit more comfortable than he had been before.
The doors to the room swung open, and Lararl entered, with Anag trailing in his wake. The burly, golden-haired Cane strode directly over to Tavi. “Well?”
“Did you post the extra guards?” Tavi asked.
Lararl narrowed his eyes, but his ears flicked in assent. “Every doorway in the tower. No Vord skulker is going to get within a hundred feet of you.”
Tavi nodded. “I think I’ve got an idea of what we need to do.”
There was a moment of silence.
&nb
sp; “Perhaps,” Lararl growled, “you would share your thoughts.”
“It is annoying when he does that,” Kitai said, “is it not?”
Anag’s ears quivered in amusement, but the young Cane said nothing.
“Before I explain,” Tavi said, “perhaps Varg should be here, too.”
Lararl grunted, and glanced at Anag.
Anag vanished, heading for the stairs to the tower’s roof. He returned with Varg within moments. The big, black-furred Cane exchanged a Canim-style nod with Lararl, then Tavi, and walked over to stand over the sand table representing Maraul.
Tavi began speaking without preamble. “Our experience with the Vord has taught us that their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness—centralized leadership.”
“These queens you spoke of,” Lararl rumbled.
Tavi nodded. “The queens command the Vord around them absolutely—they’ll take actions that will result in death without hesitation if she commands it.”
Varg let out a low growl. “But they do not think on their own.”
“Not very well, at any rate,” Tavi confirmed. “Without a queen to lead them, the Vord are little more than animals.
“They operate in a specific manner. The queen who escaped Alera came here and established a colony, somewhere out of sight. She produced two more queens, who would then have departed in order to establish their own colonies, and so on.”
“Tripling the number of Vord and queens each time,” Lararl said.
“Maybe not,” Tavi said. He began picking up the black and white stones from the map of Maraul. “Here is where concentrations of Vord massed for the attack,” he said, laying them out again, in more or less separate lines opposing one another at the edge of the range. “According to your reports, Warmaster, the Vord attacked Maraul here, first.” He moved one black stone at the northernmost end of the line forward. “Then here.” He moved adjacent stones on either side of the center. “Then here, twenty miles farther on each time.” He moved the next two stones in succession. “And so on. Each time they advanced, they rippled forward in this same pattern.”
Varg narrowed his eyes and studied the map, his tail lashing. “Orders,” he said. “That explains the delay. The queen’s orders were being relayed up and down their lines.”
Tavi nodded calmly. “It took me a while to realize it. In Alera, orders are relayed by furycraft. Separate Legions can move in concord, almost simultaneously. Not as flawlessly as the Vord move, but much faster than word carried by a mounted rider.”
“But the Vord in Maraul did not move in unison,” Lararl said.
“Exactly. They’re moving by some form of relayed command, not by the guidance of dozens of queens working together over distances.” Tavi tapped the centermost stone with his finger. “Word had to be taken to each successive element along the lines. The queen had to trigger the attack.”
Varg growled in interest. “Theories are air and wasted effort until proven. What other evidence supports this theory?”
“Maraul’s major counterattack targeted the northernmost element of the enemy lines,” Lararl replied. He paced over to the table and crouched at Tavi’s side, openly interested. “Look at the region. It makes no sense to focus a major attack there. There is nothing of strategic value anywhere nearby, and no way to defend it efficiently had it ever been taken.” He glanced up at Tavi. “The queen?”
Tavi nodded. “I think that someone in Maraul deduced the queen’s existence. I think they waited for her northernmost element to advance again, and hit her with everything they had.” Tavi moved several white stones into the northern edge of the Vord lines. He swept up the black stone and dropped it back out at the edge of the range. “They crushed the elements in the north of the Vord line, taking heavy losses. But after that, they spent almost three weeks pushing the rest of the Vord back—the only time it’s been done, as far as your records show, Warmaster.”
Tavi took up the other black stones, and a pair of the whites, until they were in their original positions again, the forces of Maraul reduced, but in control of the map.
“Three weeks later, the Vord advanced again, with heavier forces.” He gestured at the sand table. “They repeated the same pattern, the same battle, over the next year—periods of fierce fighting at the enemy’s origination point, followed by rapid assaults from Maraul’s warriors that drove the Vord back.”
Lararl growled quietly. “Until the Vord ground them away.”
Tavi nodded.
“Warmaster,” Tavi said, turning to Lararl, “according to your scouts’ reports, the Vord fought in undisciplined wave assaults when they attacked Maraul—and yet the horde at the fortifications moves in an extremely ordered fashion.”
“True,” Lararl said, tilting his head slightly to one side.
“My theory,” Tavi said slowly, “is that, for whatever reason, they were short of queens. I think maybe they only had the original and the two daughter-queens she produced.”
“Sterile?” Lararl growled.
Tavi shrugged. “They’re operating at a disadvantage for no reason, otherwise.”
Varg flicked his ears in assent. “The attack on the fortifications is disciplined. Therefore, a queen must be present.”
“There must also be one with the flanking force in our rear,” Lararl said. He looked at Tavi. “Could a single queen control the entire horde before my walls?”
Tavi spread his hands. “Evidence suggests that she could—but that her ability to control it does indeed have a limited range—somewhere under twenty miles, perhaps even less.”
Lararl nodded. “Then we must kill these queens.”
“And do what?” Tavi asked him, in a calm voice. “Kill millions more of the Vord in less than three weeks? Because that’s how long it would take the original queen to produce a new daughter, if the battles in Maraul were any indication.”
Lararl drummed his claws on the stone edge of the sand table. It was a peculiar sound, an almost insectile series of clicks, and Tavi suppressed a shiver.
“What would you have us do, then?” Lararl asked.
“Run,” Tavi said simply. “Get as many of your people away from the Vord as you can.”
“And go where? All of Canea is overrun.”
“To Alera,” Tavi said calmly.
Lararl let out a barking cough, a bitter sound. “You would have my folk abandon their home to become slaves in the demon lands?”
“I’ve got enough problems relating to slavery already,” Tavi replied drily. “No.” He took a deep breath. “I would have your people and Varg’s stand with us against the Vord.”
The room became deadly silent.
“They aren’t going to stop with Canea,” Tavi said. The quiet words fell like lead weights, simple and heavy. “We must stand together—or die separately.”
The silence stretched.
Lararl turned his head to Varg.
The black-furred Cane stared at the sand table for a moment. Then he looked up at Lararl. “It would be an interesting fight, would it not?”
The golden-furred Cane turned his gaze to Tavi, his eyes narrowed. “He is truly gadara to you?”
Varg flicked his ears in assent. “We have shed blood together and exchanged blades.”
Lararl’s ears quivered upright in startled surprise.
“His word is good,” Varg said.
“And you must understand that we’re going to have to trust one another,” Tavi said. “Information has to be limited. If I’m wrong about the queens, or if there are other Vord who can see into minds, they could counter us easily. We’ve got to have the initiative, or none of us are going to live out the week.”
Varg and Lararl digested that for a quiet moment. Then Varg twitched his ears in consent.
“You have many ships,” Lararl said slowly. “But not enough for all of Shuar.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Lararl glanced at Varg, who flattened his ears in a gesture th
at was roughly the equivalent of an Aleran shrug. “Aleran sorcery is far more useful than that of the ritualists, in my experience. They do more than kill with it.”
Lararl grunted, then gestured at the sand map of Shuar. “If I divert enough warriors to crush the queen in our interior and safeguard my people, the Vord at the fortifications will surely overwhelm the defenses.”
“We aren’t going to send your warriors against the queen,” Tavi said.
Varg growled. “Your Legions and my forces do not have sufficient supplies to carry out such a campaign, Tavar.”
“We aren’t going to send them out to kill the queen, either,” Tavi said. “We’re going to do it ourselves.”
“Oh,” Kitai said abruptly, her eyes glittering with sudden understanding. “Interesting.”
“Ourselves?” Varg asked.
Tavi nodded. “My people here, and yours, together with any Hunters you can find, are going to hunt and kill the queen. Once that is done, and the Vord lose cohesion, all the civilians in Shuar”—Tavi turned to stare hard at Lararl—“every one of them,” he said with emphasis, “should have a fighting chance to reach the coast.”
Lararl returned Tavi’s stare. Then he tilted his head fractionally to one side. “Yes. All of them.”
Varg looked back and forth between the other two, and growled thoughtfully. “The queen is in the midst of her horde, Tavar. She will be difficult to reach.”
“Let me worry about that, too,” Tavi said.
Lararl let out a brief, exasperated growl. “If only you know the details of the operation, how can we cooperate effectively?”
Varg gestured with one paw-hand. “Agreed. Your plan would limit us just as it does the Vord.”
Tavi bared his teeth in a smile. “Ah. But we have something the Vord do not have.”
Varg tilted his head to one side. “What is that?”
