Codex Alera 01 - Furies of Calderon

by Jim Butcher

  “Now see here,” Pluvus said. “I don’t know who you people are, but assaulting a soldier on duty is a Realm offense.” He drew a sheaf of papers from his tunic and peered at them, flipping through several pages. Then he turned and looked around him. “Yes, here it is, a Realm offense. Centurion? Arrest both of them and see them to the holding cells —”

  “Excuse me,” Bernard interrupted. “But there’s a more important matter at hand, sir. I am Steadholder Bernard, and it is vital that I speak to Count Gram at once.”

  Pluvus blinked up at them. “Excuse me?”

  Bernard repeated himself.

  Pluvus frowned. “Highly irregular.” He consulted his pages again. “No, I don’t think the Count is receiving petitions today. He holds a regular court every week, and all such matters are to be presented to him then, and in writing at least three days ahead of time.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Bernard blurted. “It’s vital to the safety of this valley that we speak to him at once. You are his truthfinder, aren’t you? Surely you can tell that we’re being honest with you.”

  Pluvus froze, peering up at Amara over the pages. He looked from her to Bernard and back. “Are you challenging my authority here, farmer? I assure you that I am fully qualified and can—”

  Amara flashed Bernard a warning glance. “Sir, please. We just need to see Gram.”

  Pluvus drew himself up stiffly, his lips pressed together. “Impossible,” he stated flatly. “Court is two days hence, but we have not received a written petition to be filed for that date. Therefore you will have to submit your petition to me in, let’s see, no more than six days’ time, in order to be received by the Count at next week’s court—and that is a matter entirely separate from an assault upon a legionare— and a Citizen, at that! Centurion! Take them into custody.”

  An older soldier with several younger legionares behind him stepped forward toward Bernard. “Sir, under the authority vested in me by my rank and at the order of my commanding officer, I place you under arrest. Please surrender your weapons and cease and desist any current furycraftings and accompany me to the holding cells where you will be incarcerated and your case brought before the Count.”

  Bernard growled and set his jaw. “Fine,” he said, and flexed his fists. “Have it your way. Maybe a few more broken heads will get me to see Gram that much faster.”

  The legionares came toward Bernard, but the centurion hesitated, frowning. “Steadholder,” he said, carefully. “This shouldn’t have to get ugly.”

  Pluvus rolled his eyes. “Centurion, arrest this man and his companion. You have no idea how much paperwork I have to do already. My time is precious.”

  “Bernard,” Amara said, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Wait.”

  Bernard faced the oncoming soldiers, his brow darkening, and the ground let out a faint tremble. The soldiers stopped in their tracks, their expressions nervous. “Come on,” the big Steadholder growled. “I haven’t got all day.”

  “Get out of my way!” thundered a voice from within the gates. Amara blinked, startled at the tone.

  A man in a rumpled and wine-stained shirt thrust his way through the crowd watching the altercation. He wasn’t tall, but had a barrel for a chest and a jaw that looked heavy and hard enough to break stones upon, covered by a curling beard of fiery red. His hair, shorn short, was of a similar color, though patchy with batches of grey that made his scalp look like a battleground, with troops in scarlet struggling to hold terrain against a grey-clad foe. His eyes were deep under heavy brows, bloodshot, and angry. He walked barefoot in the snow, and steam curled up from his footprints.

  “What in the name of all the furies is going on here?” he demanded voice booming. “Bernard! Flame and thunder, man, what the crows do you think you’re doing to my garrison!”

  “Oh!” said Pluvus, his pages fluttering nervously. “Sir. I didn’t know you were out of bed yet. That is, sir, I didn’t know that you’d be up today. I was just taking care of this for you.”

  The man came to a swaying halt and planted his fists on his hips. He glared at Pluvus and then at Bernard. “Harger woke me out of a perfectly good stupor for this,” he snapped. “So it had better be good.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure, that is,” Pluvus waved a hand at the centurion. “Arrest them. Go on now. You heard the Count.”

  “I didn’t say to arrest anyone,” growled Count Gram, testily. He squinted at Bernard and then at Amara, his gaze sharp, penetrating, for all his bawling and staggering. “Did you get yourself another woman, Bernard? Crows it’s about time. I’ve always said there’s nothing wrong with you that a good romp or two wouldn’t take care of.”

  Amara felt her cheeks flush with warmth. “No, sir,” she said. “It’s not that. The Steadholder helped to see me safely here so that I could warn you.”

  “Highly irregular,” Pluvus stuttered to Gram, pages fluttering.

  Gram irritably took the pages from Pluvus’s hand and said, “Quit waving these under my nose.” There was a bright flash of light and heat, and then fine, black ashes drifted away on the cool wind. Pluvus let out a little yelp of distress.

  “Now then,” Gram said, dusting his hands. “Warn me. Warn me about what?”

  “The Marat,” Bernard said. “They’re on the move, sir. I think they’re coming here.”

  Gram grunted. He jerked his chin at Amara. “And who are you?”

  “Cursor Amara, sir.” Amara felt herself lift her chin and met Gram’s bloodshot gaze squarely, without flinching.

  “Cursor,” Gram muttered. He glared at Pluvus. “You were going to arrest one of the First Lord’s Cursors?”

  Pluvus stammered.

  “One of my Steadholders?”

  Pluvus stuttered.

  “Bah,” growled Gram. “Ninny. Bring the garrison to full alert, recall all soldiers on leave, and instruct every man to get into his armor and fighting gear, now.”

  Pluvus stared, but Gram had already swept back around to Bernard. “How bad are you thinking it’s going to be?”

  “Send word to Riva,” Bernard said, quietly.

  Gram clenched his jaw. “You want me to call for a full mobilization? Is that what I’m hearing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what kind of fire is going to fall on my ears if you’re wrong?”

  Bernard nodded.

  Gram growled, “Scouts. Deploy scouts and reconnaissance into the wilderness and make immediate contact with our watchtowers.”

  “Y-yes, sir,” Pluvus said.

  Gram stared at him for a second. Then roared, “Now!”

  Pluvus jumped and then turned to the nearest soldier and started repeating versions of Gram’s orders.

  Gram rounded on Bernard. “Now then. I think you’d better explain what kind of idiot you are. Hitting one of my soldiers.”

  A gliding caress of cold air slid over the back of Amara’s neck and made her shiver — a warning from Cirrus. She glanced behind her, out toward the blinding white of pale sunlight on snow and ice. She shaded her eyes, but saw nothing.

  Cirrus stirred against her again, another warning.

  Amara took a slow breath, focusing on the area behind them.

  She almost didn’t see through the veil.

  There, perhaps no more than ten feet away, was a disturbance in the air, several feet off the ground, a rippling dance of light, like waves rising from a sun-heated stone. Her breath caught in her throat, and she sent Cirrus out toward the disturbance with a whispered command. Her fury encountered a globe of dense air, changed to bend light, much as she herself used it to view things from afar in greater clarity.

  Amara took a breath and then forced Cirrus against the globe, sudden and quick.

  There was a whoosh of expanding air as she dispersed the globe, and abruptly three men in armor with drawn swords appeared, hovering in the air. Amara cried out, and the men, their expressions startled, hesitated for a faltering second before acting.
r />   One flicked himself through the air toward her, sword gleaming. Amara threw herself to one side, sweeping her hands at the man to direct Cirrus. A roar of sudden wind washed up against her attacker’s flank, shoving him wide of her, guiding his course into one of Garrison’s stone walls. The man tried to slow his advance, but collided hard with the wall, and dropped the blade in the impact.

  The second of the men, expression cool, calm, thrust his hands forward, and a gale rose up immediately before the gates of Garrison, whirling snow and chips of ice into the air in a stinging cloud, and hurling legionares from their feet, driving them behind the gates for shelter.

  The third took his sword in hand and shot toward Bernard’s back.

  Amara tried to cry out a warning, but Bernard’s fatigue, perhaps, had made him too slow. He turned and tried to dodge to one side, but snow and ice betrayed his footing, and he fell.

  Gram stepped in the way. The flame-haired Count jerked the sword from the stunned Pluvus’s belt and met the oncoming Knight Aeris head-on. Steel chimed on steel, and then the attacker shot on past Gram.

  “Get on your feet!” Gram roared. He spat as the snow and ice clouded his vision. “Get the girl! Get inside the walls!” Gram turned his body against the icy spray and shielded his palm against his side. Amara saw sudden fire kindle there, and Gram turned toward the second of the attackers and hurled a sudden, roaring wall of flame back against the ice and snow. The attacker screamed, a horrible sound, and the gale abruptly vanished.

  Something black and heavy fell smoking into the snow before the gates, and the odor of charred meat filled the air.

  Amara dashed to Bernard’s side, helping the Steadholder to his feet. She didn’t see the man who had attacked her until it was almost too late. He rose and drew a knife from his belt, eyes focused on her. With a flick of his wrist, and a sudden pinpoint burst of air, the knife hurtled toward her, whistling with its raw speed.

  Bernard saw it, too, and dragged her down, out of the path of the knife.

  It hit Gram in the lower back.

  Such was the force of the fury-assisted throw that Gram was hurled several paces forward into the snow. He went down at once, without so much as a cry or a gasp of pain, and lay still.

  Someone on the walls cried a command, and a pair of legionares with bows loosed at the man at the base of the wall from almost directly above him. Arrows struck him hard, one in the thigh and one in back of the neck, its bloody tip emerging from the man’s throat. He, too, fell into the snow, blood staining a quickly growing scarlet pool around him.

  “Where’s the other one?” Amara demanded. She stood and swept her eyes over the sky. She barely saw, from the corner of her eye, another flickering of light and air, but when she focused on it, it was gone. Tentatively, she sent Cirrus out toward it, but her fury found nothing, and after questing about aimlessly for a few moments, Amara gave up the effort.

  “It’s no good,” she whispered. “He got away.”

  Bernard grunted and rose to his feet, one leg held stiffly, his face twisted with pain. “Gram.”

  They turned to see Pluvus and several legionares hoveringover Gram’s form in the snow. The truthfinder’s face was pale. “Healer!” he screamed. “Someone get the healer! The Count is hurt, get the healer!” Legionares stood around him, stunned, staring.

  Amara let out a hiss of frustration and grabbed the nearest soldier. “You,” she said. “Go get the healer, now.” The man gave a nod and sprinted off.

  “You,” Pluvus said, his face twisted with distress, anger, and fear. “I don’t know who those men were, or what is going on, but you must be in on it. You came here to hurt the Count. This is your fault.”

  “Are you mad?” Amara demanded. “Those men were the enemy! You have got to get this garrison ready to fight!”

  “You cannot order me about like some kind of common slave, woman!” shouted Pluvus. “Centurion,” he snapped, eyes watering but with his voice ringing with authority. “You all saw what happened. Arrest these two and take them to the cells on charges of murder and treason against the Crown!”

  CHAPTER 30

  Despite her exhaustion, Isana could not sleep.

  She spent the night holding Odiana’s head in her lap, monitoring the woman’s fever, with little else she could do for her. Pale light came through chinks in the walls of the smokehouse, when a grey, winter dawn rose over Kordholt. Isana could hear animals outside, men talking, crude laughter.

  Despite the cold air drifting in from without, the interior of the smokehouse remained broiling, the ring of coals around the two women glowing with sullen heat. Her throat, parched before, began to simply ache, agonizing, and at times it felt as though she could not get enough air into her lungs, so that she swayed and had trouble sitting up.

  Once, when Odiana tossed restlessly, Isana rose and went to the far side of the ring of coals. Her head spinning with heat and thirst, she gathered her skirts and made to step over the coals, a short leap to the far side — even though she knew the door would be locked and bolted, there might be a loose board in the wall, or something she could use as a weapon in order to make an attempt at escape.

  Even as she lifted her foot, though, the ground on the far side of the coals stirred, and the swift, heavy form of Kord’s fury rose up from the ground, misshapen and hideous. Isana’s breath caught in her throat, and she lowered her foot again.

  The malformed fury subsided and sank slowly back into the earth.

  Isana clenched her fists in her skirts, frustrated, then moved back over to Odiana and took the woman’s head onto her lap again. In her sleep, the collared woman whimpered and stirred languidly, her eyes rolling beneath their lids as she dreamt. Once, she let out a pathetic cry and flinched, and her hands spasmed toward the collar. Even in the woman’s dreams, it appeared, Kord’s collar continued its assault on her senses, her will. Isana shuddered.

  The light waned, shadows shifting over the floor by infinitely slow degrees. Isana let her head fall forward, her eyes closed. Her stomach turned and twisted with worry. Tavi and Bernard and Fade. Where were they? If they were alive, why hadn’t Bernard followed her here? Had the ones attacking them been too much for her brother to handle? Bernard would never allow her to remain in Kord’s hands—not while he lived.

  Could he be dead? Could the boy be dead as well? Surely he had escaped ahead of the flood, surely he had evaded anyone who may have pursued him even after.

  Surely.

  Isana shook, and gave no voice to the sobs that racked her. No tears would fall. Her body had hoarded back all the moisture it could. She longed for the freedom to weep, at least. But she did not have it. She drifted that way, head bowed, sweltering and dizzy, and thought of Bernard, and of Tavi.

  The grey of twilight was in the air when the bolt at the door rattled, and Aric entered. He held a tray in his hands, and he did not lift his face toward Isana. Instead, he walked to the circle of coals and stepped over, setting the tray down.

  There were two cups on the tray. Nothing more.

  Isana looked steadily up at Aric. He rose and stood there for a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his eyes down. Then he said, “Snow’s starting up again. Heavier.”

  Isana stared at him, and said nothing.

  He swallowed and stepped back out of the ring of coals. He went to the hod of coal and began scooping out buckets again, to spread them over the smoldering ring, fresh fuel. “How is she?” he asked.

  “Dying,” Isana said. “The heat is killing her.”

  Aric swallowed. He dumped out a bucket of coals onto the ring, spilling some out sloppily, and went for more. “The water’s clean, at least. This time.”

  Isana watched him for a moment and then reached for one of the cups. She lifted it to her mouth and tasted, though it was all she could do not to start gulping frantically. The water was cool, pure. She had to steady herself with a deep breath and hold the cup in both shaking hands. She drank, slowly, giving each s
ip time to go down.

  Isana only allowed herself half the cup. The rest she gave to Odiana, half hauling the woman into a sitting position and urging her to drink, slowly, which she did with a listless obedience.

  She looked up to see Aric watching her, his face pale. Isana lowered the collared woman back down and brushed a few loose strands of hair back from her neck. “What is it, Aric?”

  “They’re coming tonight,” he said. “My father. They’re going to finish the . . . Odiana and then put the collar on you.”

  Isana swallowed and couldn’t stop the chill that went down her spine.

  “After dinner,” Aric said. He slopped more coals down. “It’s like a celebration for him. He’s handing out wine.”

  “Aric,” Isana said. “It isn’t too late to do something.”

  Aric pressed his lips together. “It is,” he said. “There’s only one thing left now.” Without speaking, he finished carelessly dashing coals onto the ring of fire around them.

  Kord’s entrance was presaged by a low tremble in the floor of the smokehouse. Then the big Steadholder banged open the door with one fist and stepped inside, glowering. Without a word, he cuffed Aric’s head, hard enough to stagger the younger man against the wall. “Where is that tar, boy?”

  Aric left his head down, his body held in a crouch, as though expecting to be hit again. “I haven’t got it done yet, Pa.”

  Kord sneered at him, placing his fists on his hips. Isana noticed the drunken sway to his balance as he did. “Then you can just get it done while the rest of us eat. And if you fall off the crows-eaten roof in the dark, that’s your own affair. Don’t go crying to me about a broken leg.”

  Aric nodded. “Yes, Pa.”

  Kord growled something beneath his breath and then turned to Isana. “Better get that other glass of water before my new whore figures out it’s there.”

  Odiana let out a soft noise, curling in on herself. Kord watched her with a smirk on his face. Isana saw the ugly glitter in his eyes as he prepared to speak again, and interrupted him. “Kord. She’s nearly dead as it is. Leave her be.”