Academ's Fury (41 page)

Max let out a groan, each blow driving him farther down. But when he looked up at Tavi, there was defiant determination in his face as well as agony and fear. Tavi felt the bonds on his wrists and ankles suddenly begin to loosen, and his frustrated fear and rage surged to new heights as he understood Max's intention.

Brencis paid Tavi no attention at all, utterly focused upon continuing to lash at Max, snarling and cursing at him the entire while. Max let out a harsh groan and sagged almost completely to the ground, and Tavi was abruptly free of the stone.

He set his feet, flicked his knife's handle, caught the flat of its blade between his fingers, and with a practiced, instinctive motion, threw the knife at Brencis's throat. It spun end over end through the air, and Brencis didn't know it was coming until the last instant. He flinched from the knife, and its blade struck home hard, drawing blood from one of Brencis's cheeks and sinking entirely through the boy's ear. Brencis screamed in sudden pain.

Tavi knew he had only seconds, if that, before Brencis recovered and killed them both. He launched himself forward, leaping over Max and driving his shoulder into Brencis's chest. They both went down. Brencis reached for his dagger, but Tavi drove his thumb into the other boy's eye with vicious desperation, and Brencis screamed.

There was no time for thought, for technique, for complex tactics. The struggle was too ugly, elemental, brutal. Brencis got his free hand on Tavi's throat and started to squeeze, trying to crush Tavi's windpipe with fury-born strength, but Tavi countered by getting his teeth into Brencis's forearm and biting down until blood filled his mouth. Brencis screamed. Tavi started hitting the other boy, pounding his fists down like clumsy sledgehammers while Brencis tried uselessly to bring his sword to bear in the close quarters of their grapple.

Tavi screamed and did not relent, terror and fury lending him more strength. Brencis tried to crawl away, but Tavi seized him by his braid and started slamming the other boy's face down onto the stones. Again and again he drove Brencis's face into the cobblestones, his weight on the other boy's back, until the body underneath him suddenly went limp and loose.

And then a hammer slammed into the top of his head and threw him back and away from Brencis.

Tavi landed in a heap, hardly able to see. But he looked up, his head pounding with nauseating throbs, and saw a man emerge from the mist, dressed in green and grey. Tavi dimly recognized him as High Lord Kalare.

The man stared contemptuously at Tavi, then walked over to Brencis. He prodded his son with the tip of his boot.

"Get up," said Kalare, his voice seething with bitter anger. Behind him, Tavi saw the pathetic, hunched forms of Varien and Renzo, leaning on one another to keep from falling.

Brencis stirred, then slowly lifted his head. He sat up, his face a mass of cuts, blood, and bruises. His bloodied mouth hung open, and Tavi could see broken teeth.

"You are pathetic," Kalare said. There was neither compassion nor concern for his son in his voice. "You had them. And you allowed this… freakish little nothing to overcome you."

Brencis tried to say something, but it came out as a mush of sounds and sobs that meant nothing.

"There is no excuse," Kalare said. "None." He looked up at the two boys at the back of the alley. "No one can ever know that you, my son, were bested by this paganus. Never. We cannot allow word of this humiliation to leave this alley."

Tavi's heart lurched. Max, though breathing, was not moving, and he lay in a welter of his own blood. Tavi tried to gain his feet, but it was all he could do to keep from throwing up, and he knew High Lord Kalare was about to kill them. He watched helplessly as Kalare raised one hand and the earth began to shake around him.

But then light flooded the alley, a searing, golden light that burned away the mist and fog as swiftly as though the sun itself had come to Alera Imperia. The light stabbed at Tavi's eyes, and he lifted his hand to shield them against it.

Placida Aria, High Lady of Placida, stood at the other end of the alley with half a century of the civic Legion behind her. One slender arm was lifted, wrist parallel to the ground, and upon it perched the form of a hunting falcon made of pure, golden fire. That light fell onto the alley, illuminating everything there.

"Your Grace," Lady Placida said, her voice ringing with the clarity of a silver trumpet, calm and unmistakably strong. "What passes here?"

The tremors in the ground abruptly ceased. Kalare stared at Tavi for a moment with empty eyes, and then turned to face Lady Placida and the
legionares
. "An assault, Your Grace. Antillar Maximus has attacked and badly injured my son and his companions from the Academy."

Lady Placida narrowed her eyes. "Indeed?" She looked from Kalare to the boys on the ground, to Brencis, Renzo, and Varien. "And you observed this assault?"

"The last of it," Kalare said. "Swords were drawn. Antillar was trying to murder my son after badly beating these other boys. My son and his friends can all testify to the facts."

"N—no," Tavi stammered. "That isn't what happened."

"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