by Jim Butcher
"Boy," Kalare snapped, fury in his voice. "This is Citizens' business. Hold your tongue."
"No! You aren't-" The air suddenly tightened in Tavi's throat, choking him to silence. He looked up to see Kalare frowning faintly.
"Boy," Lady Placida said in a cold voice. "You will hold your tongue. The High Lord is quite correct. This is Citizens' business." She stared at Tavi for a second, and Tavi thought he saw some expression flicker in her face, one of apology. Her next words were quieter, less frozen. "You must be silent here. Do you understand?"
The pressure in his throat eased, and Tavi could breathe again. He stared at Lady Placida for a moment, then nodded.
Lady Placida nodded back at him, then turned to the man next to him. "Captain, with your permission, I will see to the immediate wounds of those involved, before you take the accused into custody."
The legionare beside her said, "Of course, lady, and we are grateful for your assistance."
"Thank you," she told him, and started down the alley toward Tavi and Max.
As she did, Kalare turned to face her, clearly standing in her way.
Placida was inches taller than Kalare. She looked down at him with a serene, unreadable expression. The fire falcon on her wrist, still very much present, fluttered its wings restlessly, sending campfire sparks drifting to the ground. "Yes, Your Grace?"
Kalare spoke very quietly. "You do not wish me as an enemy, woman."
"Given what I know of you, Your Grace, I don't see how you could be anything else."
"Leave," he told her, his voice ringing with command.
Lady Placida laughed at him. It was a sound both merry and scornful. "How odd that Antillar Maximus inflicted all of these injuries with his hands. He does, you know, have considerable strength available to him at furycrafting."
"He is the bastard son of a stinking barbarian. It is to be expected," Kalare replied.
"As would be injuries to his knuckles after such barbarity. But his hands are unwounded. And what injuries Antillar does have are all upon his back."
Kalare stared at her in silent fury.
"Strange that the hands of the other boy are a frightful mess, Your Grace. Split knuckles on either hand. It seems odd, does it not? It is almost enough to make one think that the boy from Calderon overcame not only your son, but his companions as well." She pursed her lips in mock thought. "Is not the boy from Calderon the one with no ability whatsoever at furycraft?"
Kalare's eyes blazed. "You arrogant bitch. I will-"
Lady Placida's grey eyes remained as calm and as hard as distant mountains. "You will what, Your Grace. Challenge me to the juris macto?"
"You would only hide behind your husband," Kalare sneered.
"On the contrary," Lady Placida replied. "I will meet you here and now if that is Your Grace's desire. I am hardly a stranger to duels. As you remember from my own duel for Citizenship."
Kalare's cheek started a steady twitch.
"Yes," Lady Placida noted. "You do remember." She glanced at Brencis and his companions. "See to your son, Your Grace. This round is over. So if you would please stand aside and let me assist the wounded…?" The question was a polite one, but her eyes never wavered from Kalare's.
"I will remember this," Kalare murmured, as he stepped aside. "I promise you that."
"You would hardly believe how little that matters to me," Lady Placida responded, and walked past him without another glance, the fire falcon trailing falling sparks behind them.
She came to Tavi and Max and placed the falcon on the ground beside her, her expression businesslike. Tavi watched as Kalare helped his son to his feet and led him and his companions away and out of sight.
Tavi exhaled slowly, and said, "They're gone, Your Grace."
Lady Placida nodded calmly. Her eyes went flat for a moment as they saw the reopened scars on Max's back. She found the sword thrust through his lower back and winced.
"Will he live?" Tavi asked quietly.
"I think so," she replied. "He managed to close the worst of it on his own. But he isn't out of danger. It's fortunate that I followed Kalare when he left." She moved a hand, laying it across the wound, then slipped her other hand beneath Max, covering the wound where the sword had emerged on that side. She closed her eyes for two or three silent moments, then carefully drew her hands back. The sword wound had been closed, heavy with pink skin and scar tissue.
Tavi blinked slowly at it, and said, "You didn't even use a bath."
Lady Placida smiled slightly. "I didn't have one handy." She glanced back at the legionares, and asked, "What really happened?"
Tavi told her about the fight itself, as quietly and succinctly as he could. "Your Grace," he said, "it's important that Max return to the Citadel with me. Please, he cannot be arrested tonight."
She shook her head. "I am afraid that is impossible, young man. Maximus has been accused of a crime by a High Lord and three Citizens. I am sure that any reasonable court will acquit him, but there is no avoiding the process of a trial."
"But he can't. Not right now."
"And why not?" Lady Placida asked.
Tavi stared at her in helpless frustration.
"You'll be quite safe, at least from legal accusation," Lady Placida said. "There's no chance at all that Kalare would let his son accuse you of half-killing him."
"That isn't what I'm worried about," Tavi said.
"Then what is?"
Tavi felt his face flush, and he looked away from Lady Placida.
She sighed. "I suggest you be grateful that you are both alive," Lady Placida said. "It's something of a miracle that you are."
"Tavi?" asked Max. His voice was weak, thready.
Tavi turned to his friend immediately. "I'm here. Are you all right?"
"Had worse," Max murmured.
"Maximus," Lady Placida said firmly. "You must be silent until we can get you to a proper bed. Even if it is in a cell. You're badly hurt."
Max shook his head a little. "Need to tell him, Your Grace. Please. Alone."
Lady Placida arched a brow at Max, but then nodded and rose. At her gesture, the fire falcon took wing toward her, vanishing into nothingness as it did. She walked calmly back to the legionares and began speaking with them.
"Tavi," Max said. "Went to Sir Nedus's."
"Yeah?" Tavi leaned closer, his heart pounding in time with his head.
"Attacked outside his house. Sir Nedus is dead. So are the coachmen. The courtesan. So are the cutters."
The bottom fell out of Tavi's stomach. "Aunt Isana?"
"Never saw her, Tavi. She's gone. There was a blood trail. Probably took her somewhere." He started to say something else, but then his eyes rolled back into his head and closed.
Tavi stared numbly at his friend as the legionares gathered around him and carried him away to imprisonment. Afterward, he went to Sir Nedus's manor, to find the civic legion already moving over the grisly scene there. The bodies had all been laid out in a line. None of them were his aunt.
She was gone. Probably taken. She might already be dead.
Max, the only person who could maintain the illusion of Gaius's strength, was in jail. Without his presence as Gaius's double, the Realm might already be destined for a civil war that would let its enemies destroy them entirely. And it was Tavi's decision that had led to it.
Tavi turned and began to walk, slowly and painfully up the streets to the Citadel. He had to tell Killian what had happened.
Because there was nothing else that he could do for either his family, his friend, or his lord.
Chapter 25
Amara woke to the sensation of something small brushing past her foot. She kicked her leg at whatever it was, and heard a faint scuttling sound on the floor. A mouse, or a rat. A steadholt was never free of them, regardless of how many cats or furies were employed to keep them at bay. She sat up blearily and rubbed at her face with her hands.
The great hall of the steadholt was full of wounded men.
Someone had gotten the fires going at the twin hearths at either end of the hall, and guards stood by both doors. She rose and stretched, squinting around the hall until she located Bernard at one of the doors, speaking in low voices with Giraldi. She crossed the hall to him, skirting around several wounded on cots and sleeping palettes.
"Countess," Bernard said with a polite bow of his head. "You should be lying down."
"I'm fine," she replied. "How long was I out?"
"Two hours or so," Giraldi replied, touching a finger to the rim of his helmet in a vague gesture of respect. "Saw you in the courtyard. That wasn't bad work for a, uh…"
"A woman?" Amara asked archly.
Giraldi sniffed. "A civilian," he said loftily.
Bernard let out a low rumble of a laugh.
"The survivors?" Amara asked.
Bernard nodded toward the darker area in the middle of the hall where most of the cots and palettes lay. "Sleeping."
"The men?"
Bernard nodded toward the heavy tubs against one wall, upended now and drying. "The healers have the walking wounded back up to fighting shape, but without Harmonus we haven't been able to get the men who were intentionally crippled back up and moving. Too many bones to mend without more watercrafters. And some of the bad injuries…" Bernard shook his head.
"We lost more men?"
He nodded. "Four more died. There wasn't much we could do for them-and two of the three healers left were wounded as well. It cut down on what they could do to help the others. Too much work and not enough hands."
"Our Knights?"
"Resting," Bernard said, with another nod at the cots. "I want them recovered from this morning as soon as possible."
Giraldi snorted under his breath. "Tell the truth, Bernard. You just enjoy making the infantry stay on their feet and go without rest."
"True," Bernard said gravely. "But this time it was just a fortunate coincidence."
Amara felt herself smiling. "Centurion," she said, "I wonder if you would be willing to find me something to eat?"
"Of course, Your Excellency." Giraldi rapped his fist against the center of his breastplate and headed for the nearest hearth and the table of provisions there.
Bernard watched the centurion go. Amara folded her arms and leaned against the doorway, looking outside at the late-afternoon sunshine pouring down upon the grisly courtyard. The sight threatened to stir up a cyclone of fear and anger and guilt, and Amara had to close her eyes for a moment to remain in control of herself. "What are we going to do, Bernard?"
The big man frowned out at the courtyard, and after a moment, Amara opened her eyes and studied his features. Bernard looked weary, haunted, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy with guilt. "I'm not sure," he said at last. "We only got done securing the steadholt and caring for the wounded a few moments ago."
Amara looked past him, to the remains in the courtyard. The legionares had gathered up the fallen, and they lay against one of the steadholt's outer walls, covered in their capes. Crows flitted back and forth, some picking at the edges of the covered corpses, but most of them found plenty to interest them in the remains too scattered to be retrieved.
Amara put her hand on Bernard's arm. "They knew the risks," she said quietly.
"And they expected sound leadership," Bernard replied.
"No one could have foreseen this, Bernard. You can't blame yourself for what happened."
"I can," Bernard said quietly. "And so can Lord Riva and His Majesty. I should have been more cautious. Held off until reinforcements arrived."
"There was no time," Amara said. She squeezed his wrist. "Bernard, there still is no time, if Doroga is right. We have to decide on a course of action."
"Even if it is the wrong one?" Bernard asked. "Even if it means more men go to their deaths."
Amara took a deep breath and responded quietly, her voice soft, her words empty of rancor. "Yes," she said quietly. "Even if it means every last one of them dies. Even if it means you die. Even if it means I die. We are here to protect the Realm. There are tens of thousands of holders who live between here and Riva. If these vord can spread as swiftly as Doroga indicated, the lives of those holders are in our hands. What we do in the next few hours could save them."
"Or kill them," Bernard added.
"Would you have us do nothing?" Amara asked. "It would be like cutting their throats ourselves."
Bernard looked at her for a moment, then closed his eyes. "You're right, of course," he rumbled. "We move on them. We fight."
Amara nodded. "Good."
"But I can't fight what I haven't found," he said. "We don't know where they are. These things laid a trap for us once. We'd be fools to go charging out blind to find them. I'd be throwing more lives away."
Amara frowned. "I agree."
Bernard nodded. "So that's the question. We want to find them and hit them. What should our next step be?"
"That part is simple," she said. "We gather whatever knowledge we can." Amara looked around the great hall. "Where is Doroga?"
"Outside," Bernard said. "He refused to leave Walker out there by himself."
Amara frowned. "He's the only person we have who has some experience with the vord. We can't afford to risk him like that."
Bernard half smiled. "I'm not sure he isn't safer than we are, out there. Walker seems unimpressed by the vord."
Amara nodded. "All right. Let's go talk to him."
Bernard nodded once and beckoned Giraldi. The centurion came back over to the doorway bearing a wide-mouthed tin cup in one hand. He took his position at the doorway again and offered the steaming cup to Amara. It proved to be full of the thick, meaty, pungent soup commonly known as "legionare's, blood." Amara nodded her thanks and took the cup with her as she and Bernard walked outside to speak to Doroga.
The Marat headman was in the same corner he'd defended during the attack. Blood and ichor had dried on his pale skin, and it lent him an even more savage mien than usual. Walker stood quietly, lifting his left front leg, while Doroga examined the pads of the beast's foot.
"Doroga," Amara said.
The Marat grunted a greeting without looking up.
"What are you doing?" Bernard asked.
"Feet," the Marat rumbled. "Always got to help him take care of his feet. Feet are important when you are as big as Walker." He looked up at them, squinting against the sunlight. "When do we go after them?"
Bernard's face flickered into a white-toothed grin. "Who says we're going after them?"
Doroga snorted.
"That depends," Amara told Doroga. "We need to know as much as we can about them before we decide. What more can you tell us about the vord?"
Doroga finished with that paw. He looked at Amara for a moment, then moved to Walker's rear foot. Doroga thumped on Walker's leg with the flat of one hand. The gargant lifted the leg obligingly, and Doroga began examining that foot. "They take everyone they can. They destroy everyone they can't. They spread fast. Kill them swiftly or die."
"We know that already," Amara said.
"Good," Doroga answered. "Let's go."
"There's more to talk about," Amara insisted.
Doroga looked blankly up at her.
"For instance," Amara said. "I found a weakness in them-those lumps on their backs. Striking into them seemed to release some kind of greenish fluid, as well as disorient and kill them."
Doroga nodded. "Saw that. Been thinking about it. I think they drown."
Amara arched an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"Drown," Doroga said. He frowned in thought, looking up, as though searching for a word. "They choke. Smother. Thrash around in a panic, then die. Like a fish out of water."
"They're fish?" Bernard asked, his tone skeptical.
"No," Doroga said. "But maybe they breathe something other than air, like fish. Got to have what they breathe or they die. That green stuff in the lumps on their backs."
Amara pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Why do you say tha
t?"
"Because it smells the same as what is under the croach. Maybe they get it there."
"Tavi told me about the croach," Bernard mused. "That coating that gave the Wax Forest its name. They had the stuff spread out all over that valley."
Doroga gave a grunt and nodded. "It was also spread over the nest my people destroyed."
Amara frowned in thought. "Then perhaps this croach isn't simply something like… like beeswax," she said. "Not just something they use to build. Doroga, Tavi told me that these things, the wax spiders, defended the croach when it was ruptured. Is that true?"
Doroga nodded. "We call them the Keepers of Silence. And yes. Only the lightest of my people could walk on the croach without breaking it."
"That might make sense," Amara said. "If the croach. contained what they needed to survive…" She shook her head. "How long was the Wax Forest in that valley?"
Bernard shrugged. "Had been there as long as anyone could remember when I came to Calderon."
Doroga nodded agreement. "My grandfather had been down into it when he was a boy."
"But these spiders, or Keepers-they never appeared anywhere else?" Amara asked.
"Never," Doroga said with certainty. "They were only in the valley."
Amara looked over at one of the dead vord. "Then they couldn't leave it. These things have been swift and aggressive. Something must have kept them locked into place before. They had to stay where the croach was to survive."
"If that's true," Bernard said, "then why are they spreading now? They were stationary for years."
Doroga put Walker's foot back down and said, quietly, "Something changed."
"But what?" Amara asked.
"Something woke up," Doroga said. "Tavi and my wh-and Kitai awoke something that lived in the center of the croach. It pursued them when they fled. I threw a rock at it."
"The way Tavi told it," Bernard said, "the rock was the size of a pony."
Doroga shrugged. "I threw it at the creature that pursued them. It struck the creature. Wounded it. The creature fled. The Keepers went with it. Protected it."
"Had you seen it before?" Amara asked.
"Never," Doroga said.
"Can you describe it?"
