Codex Alera 06 - First Lord's Fury

by Jim Butcher

  Ehren looked up, squinting down at the battle, then up at the northern bluff. The second vordbulk had almost reached them, and the vord were massing heavily against the defenders, ready to assault the second the bulk had breached the walls.

  Though the sky had darkened and cold rain had begun to fall, there was still enough light to see. The sky to the west was absolutely black with storm clouds. The vast form of the great fury Garados could be seen intermittently through the overcast, though there was far less lightning playing through the distant clouds than there had been before. In fact, the bursts of light that colored the layers of cloud were . . .

  “That isn’t lightning,” Ehren said, yawning. “We’d hear thunder. At least a little. Even this far away.”

  “What else could it be?” Bernard asked.

  Ehren peered at the lights, then sat bolt upright. “Metalcrafting. Up near the head of Garados.”

  Bernard grunted in the affirmative. “The green flashes are the same color as the croach.”

  “Someone’s taking on the Queen?” Ehren asked. “If they bring her down . . .”

  “It still won’t be in time for us,” Bernard said calmly.

  Ehren looked up at the northern bluff. While he had been unaware, the vordbulk had waded forward through everything that had been thrown at it. It was only yards from being in position to crush Garrison’s defenses. The vordbulk let out another bellowing roar.

  And a Citizen, bearing a sword that blazed with emerald fire, suddenly streaked from the ground toward the vordbulk. Ehren and Bernard both came to their feet. Both of them recognized the armored, white-haired form of Lord Cereus. The nimbus of light around the old High Lord’s sword grew and grew, until it was almost violently bright. Ehren made himself watch, but just as it seemed the light’s intensity would force him to avert his gaze, High Lord Cereus plunged completely into the vordbulk’s roaring maw.

  The vordbulk smashed its jaws shut, and they came together like a pair of city gates closing.

  And an instant later, a brilliant green fireball replaced the vordbulk’s head and the spreading shield of bone around it. Fire tore at the torso and legs of the vordbulk, incinerating tons of chitin and muscle in one supremely violent blast.

  Incredibly, the vordbulk’s mangled left front leg quivered and began to take another step, as if the limb had no idea that the head had been destroyed—but then the creature sagged to its left. Lord Cereus had, clearly, timed and directed his attack to achieve that very outcome, and the vordbulk toppled like the one before it, falling away from the fortress. It fell in seeming deliberation, because of its sheer size, but the impact when it came crashing down crushed fully grown trees to splinters.

  Ehren stared in shock at the fallen vordbulk for a full minute, hardly able to comprehend the incredible courage and sacrifice of the old High Lord. But then, Cereus’s daughter Veradis was behind the walls, employing her considerable talents as a healer, and his grandchildren were in the refugee camp. Of course her father would be willing to lay down his life to protect his sole surviving child and his sons’ orphans; or at least, a man of Cereus’s character would. It was one thing for a man to say he was willing to lay down his life for his child—but quite another for him to actually do it.

  Count Calderon exhaled heavily, and breathed, “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  Ferocious battle ensued on the northern bluff, between the Wolf tribe and the vord who had been guarding the vordbulk, but it was no longer a hopeless fight for the Wolf, especially with the support of the Horse. Cereus’s brigade of Citizens came flying back into the fortress in a state of total exhaustion.

  Bernard looked up from a message brought by a courier and grunted. “That’s it, then. We’re out of firestones, and the rain is keeping the workshop from making any more.”

  “We can hold them with steel alone if they don’t bring us any more surprises,” Ehren said.

  “I’d like to think that the vord are straining their limits as much as we are,” Bernard said. “But our experience with them thus far does not fill me with confidence.” He shook his head. “Well. We can only do what we can do. We’ll stand for as long as our legs hold us. Sir Ehren, I wonder if you would please inform High Lady Cereus of her lord father’s passing. Let her know exactly what happened.”

  Ehren sighed. “Of course, my lord. Better to hear it now than in rumor half an hour from now.”

  Bernard nodded and rubbed at his jaw—then froze and peered to the west.

  Far down the valley, the storm clouds veiling Garados had apparently gone mad, spewing a thousand colors of lightning like spray at the bottom of a waterfall. Ehren stopped in his tracks and watched, as well, as the distant storm raked the land with lightning bolts. He was sure he imagined it, but for a moment it almost looked like one enormous windmane, miles and miles across, was raking the ground with claws of living lightning.

  Then the vord all began to shriek, screaming as one creature. The wail put the hairs up on the back of Ehren’s neck, but he stepped forward and gripped the edge of the balcony’s railing, staring.

  The seething, pulsing rhythm of the mass of vord, that sense of underlying organization and purpose that made them all seem like the various organs of a single body, began to fray. Over the next several minutes, Ehren watched the vord attackers change from an army driven by purpose and perfect discipline to a mob of hungry, dangerous predators. Though the sheer pressure of numbers crammed into limited space forced the vord at the leading edge of the mob to continue the attack on the walls of Garrison, farther back was a different tale.

  Ehren brought up a sightcrafting and stared as the vord to the rear of the immediate combat began to turn upon one another, apparently driven by desperate hunger—and those farthest back began to depart altogether. It would take a long time, hours perhaps, for the pressure on the leading edge of the vord to relent enough to allow them to retreat, but it would happen. It would happen!

  “What can you see?” Count Calderon asked, his weary voice anxious.

  “They’re breaking,” Ehren said. He recognized that his own voice was thick with emotion he had neither expected nor approved. “They’re turning on one another at the back of the mob. They’re breaking.” His vision was blurred by something. “They aren’t holding together. They’re breaking.”

  “They did it,” Count Calderon breathed. “By all the furies, they did it. They killed the Queen!”

  Ehren couldn’t hear what Calderon said next. Months of horror and despair had all come down to this moment. He found himself sitting on the stone floor of the balcony, sobbing and laughing at the same time. He had never believed, never really believed, that the vord could be defeated. Not after so many retreats, so many deadly surprises.

  But here, in the Calderon Valley, they had finally done it. They had endured the heaviest blows the enemy could deliver and survived. The Realm had survived. The Realm would survive.

  It would survive thanks to the sacrifice of Cereus, and to the rather unassuming backcountry Citizen who now knelt beside him, putting a brawny arm around Ehren’s shoulders. “Easy there, son. Easy. Come with me. I could use a drink. I’ve given orders to the Legions to keep rotating fresh troops in. Now all we have to do is wait this out.”

  Ehren nodded several times. “A drink,” he said, his voice thick. “I don’t drink very well.” Then he added, “But if you can’t drink to this, what can you drink to? Let’s go.”

  EPILOGUE

  History will eventually claim that the appearance of the vord was a water-shed moment, that it was the best thing that ever happened to Alera. The vord forced us to exceed our limits, to grow after centuries of stagnation—and to look beyond ourselves. It is certain that because of the vord, we have gained a host of new enemies, in the Canim sense of the word. May we keep them and meet many more.

  But history is a cold and distant observer. Those of us who must face today have goals far more finite: We must mend our wounds, mourn our dead—and survive
the winter. Crows take what the historians think.

  History will attend to itself.

  —GAIUS TAVARUS MAGNUS, 1 AV.

  “It’s too tight,” Tavi complained, tugging at the neck of the tunic. “And it’s ridiculously overdone. Honestly, people are starving, and they’re trying to deck me out in gems and cloth of gold?”

  “No one is starving,” Max said. “They just wish they were.” He wore his new suit of armor, marked with the black crow of the First Aleran Legion upon a field of red and blue, and his dress uniform beneath it, including a captain’s cloak of red velvet. “Bloody clever way to get rid of the croach if you ask me. Let people eat it up, especially as we’re short on food and all.”

  “A bit too clever. I’m sick of the stuff.”

  Max snorted, slapped Tavi’s hands out of the way, and started fastening the collar. “Stop eating it, then.”

  “I can’t tell half the people in the Realm they’ve got to eat bug wax until next spring and not eat it myself, Max.”

  “Sure you can. You’re the First Lord.” Max arched an eyebrow. “You must not hate it all that much. This tunic fit you at your confirmation, you know.”

  Tavi grunted in discomfort. “It might taste terrible, but it’s apparently good for you. Plus I’m not wearing armor around every day, now.”

  “And it shows,” Max said cheerfully. He got the collar fastened with one last, hard tug, then eyed Tavi carefully. “Why is your face turning red?”

  Tavi idly slid an effort of will into the cloth of gold, metalcrafting its strands to stretch out a bit. Once the collar had loosened, he was able to exhale without making an effort. “There. How’s that?”

  “Oh, ah,” Max said, looking him over judiciously. “You look like . . . a First Lord.”

  “How descriptive. Thank you.”

  “Anytime, Calderon,” Max said, grinning.

  “Max,” Tavi said. “Have . . . have you heard from Crassus?”

  Max’s grin faded. “He’s . . . not coming. Officially, he’s helping his father and mother get the situation in Antillus under control. But he’s still upset about . . . well. Everything.”

  Tavi nodded, frowning. “I’m glad Antillus took Dorotea back.”

  Max grunted sourly. Then said, “She’s gotten almost human over the past couple of years. I suppose she might do some good up there.”

  “Certainly, Crassus is in good hands, as far as healing is concerned. I . . . I wish I knew what to do to make it right.”

  “Stop thinking you can fix everything,” Max said bluntly. “Give it time. That might help. Or not. But you’ll only make things worse if you push.”

  Tavi nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Always happy to explain the obvious to you, Calderon. Now if you’ll excuse me? Nothing makes a girl want to be seduced more than a wedding. I’ve got plans. I’ll see you at the ceremony.”

  “Veradis is here, isn’t she?” Tavi asked. “Do you honestly think she’s going to change her mind about you because of the social environment?”

  Max grinned. “No telling until I try, is there?” He paused by the door, and said, more seriously, “I’ve been looking in on her, since her father died. Making sure no one’s been giving her a hard time, or anything. I might have spoken a few words into the ears of some of Cereus’s clients who were not, shall we say, appreciative of the sacrifice he made.”

  Tavi smiled at his friend and inclined his head to him, not saying anything. Back in the Academy, he’d listened to Max describe beating the owners of crooked gambling houses in the same terms.

  “You look fine, Calderon,” Max said.

  “Thanks.”

  Max saluted, giving the gesture more formal precision and grace than he usually did. He winked and departed.

  No sooner had he left than there was a knock at the side door to the chamber, which was the largest suite of the largest private home in Riva. Its previous owner had died in the battle to cover the retreat from the city. Tavi had felt somewhat ghoulish moving into the house, but he’d needed the room. There was an absolutely astounding need for staff and support for the First Lord, and all of that help needed somewhere to work and sleep. The Rivan-style tower proved more than roomy enough, though Tavi felt somewhat conflicted about residing on the top floor. With his windcrafting, stairs weren’t really an issue—which he was sure was part of the point of Rivan Citizens residing in towers. There was a real temptation to feel somewhat smug about that.

  “Enter,” Tavi said.

  The door opened, and Ehren came in, looking much as he always did—neatly and plainly dressed, smudged with ink stains, and carrying a quill and a stack of paper. Even then, though there hadn’t been a vord sighted within a day’s march of Riva in months, Tavi could sense that Ehren still carried half a dozen knives on his person, out of sight.

  “Good morning, sire,” Ehren said. He plopped the stack of papers down on Tavi’s desk. “I’ve brought the daily reports.”

  “I’m getting married in an hour,” Tavi said. He crossed the room to sit down behind his desk and gestured for Ehren to sit in the chair across from him. “Summarize anything new?”

  “You’re going to love this,” Ehren said, settling down comfortably. “We’ve got no less than three steadholts who have objected, violently, to our Knights attacking ‘their’ vord.”

  Tavi’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”

  “They’re communities that surrendered when the Queen gave them the option. Apparently, the croach just grew up around the perimeter of their fields and moved on. It’s guarded by a crew of warriors and tended by spiders, apparently operating under orders to protect the holders as well as guarding them—and they’ve kept doing it, up to and including defending them from the rogue vord who scattered when the Queen died.” Ehren shook his head. “The holders have painted their vord in various colors, so they can tell the difference.”

  Tavi frowned. “They want to keep them?”

  “So it would seem. They’re all deep inside occupied territory, but the holders declined an offer of transport out.”

  Tavi mused over the situation. “If the vord were given instructions, they would follow them to the exclusion of all others unless the Queen changed them.”

  Ehren blinked. “You want to let them stay?”

  “No. But I can’t blame them. The Realm didn’t protect those people’s homes and lives. The vord did. If they want to stay where they are, fine. This is a problem we’ll deal with when we’ve killed enough of the croach to reach them. File them under secondary priorities.”

  “Very good,” Ehren said. “The siege at Rhodes has been officially broken now, sire. The Legion Aeris and her Citizens arrived two days ago and made short work of it.”

  “Excellent,” Tavi said. Rhodes had been the last city to be held prisoner within her own walls by large numbers of vord. Once sent running into the countryside, the vord tended to disperse as naturally as any predator. They were ill suited for life in the wild, though. After six months, most of the feral vord had starved to death. Some of them, though, seemed to have learned to survive on their own. Tavi imagined that they would continue to be a threat to travelers in the wild places for a good long while, despite the Legions’ success at finding and destroying the underground warrior gardens, where new vord ripened and were born.

  “We’ll start breaking them into fire teams, then,” Tavi said “We’ll be able to handle twice as much croach-clearing in the Vale with the extra hands, as long as the vord don’t get any more uppity than they already have.”

  Ehren nodded. “Without the Queen to drive them, they aren’t much more than animals. They’ll break at strong resistance, like they did at Garrison.”

  Tavi grunted. “You haven’t talked about that much.”

  Ehren looked away and was still for a moment. Then he said, “I was there when Lord Cereus died. It was the most courageous, saddest thing I’ve ever seen. He deserved a better death.”

  “If he hadn’
t done it, that vordbulk would have crushed half of Garrison’s walls. The vord had numbers enough that, even undirected, they would have killed everyone—his family included.”

  “That makes his death worthwhile. But not good. He deserved better.” Ehren shook himself and went to the next page. “Ahem. The Academy Novus is officially under construction now. Magnus reports that he’s building the lecture halls with enough windows and vents to keep them from baking all the students to sleep in the spring and summer, and setting up boundaries around the ruins to protect them from progress.

  “And, in related news . . .” Ehren turned another page. “. . . Senator Valerius has lodged an official protest regarding the new College of Romanic Studies and the admittance of freemen without patronage. He has fourteen distinct arguments, but what it all amounts to is ‘we’ve never done it that way before.’ ”

  “Senator Valerius’s protest will in no way disturb my digestion,” Tavi said.

  “Or mine. But Valerius has become a focal point for everyone who objects to your policies.”

  Tavi shrugged. “They don’t want to admit to themselves that the war has changed things. If we don’t look to the future, we’ll never be able to manage it. Someone’s always upset about something.”

  Ehren thumbed through the next several pages. “The good Senator opposes . . . the Slavery Ban . . . the recognition of the Canim State . . . the recognition of the Marat State . . . the recognition of the Iceman State . . . giving the Shieldwall to the Icemen . . . the enfranchisement of freemen, and, last but not least, relocating the capital to Appia.”

  “He has a point on that last one,” Tavi said, somewhat wistfully. “There’s a perfectly good volcano going to waste at old Alera Imperia. We could throw all the idiots in and be rid of them.”

  “I’m not sure if the entire Senate would fit inside, sire. In other news, the repair of the causeways is progressing reasonably well. We should have most of the old ones finished by next autumn, but . . .”

  “But they all led to Alera Imperia, before,” Tavi said. “What about the plans for the new routes?”