Academ's Fury (58 page)

There was a cry from inside the room, and Tavi's ears abruptly sang with the thrill of battle. He raced forward. There was a rasp of a blade being drawn, the sound of something being knocked over, then a bestial roar of surprise and anger and pain. Kitai's voice trilled out a battle cry, scornful laughter in it, until a rising, bubbling snarl drowned it out; and then Tavi was at the doorway.

Ambassador Varg filled the room with its bulk, its hulking form doubled down, its crouch so low that it might have looked painful if the Cane had not moved with such incredible, lithe agility as it darted at Kitai.

The Marat girl faced Varg, crouched on top of Max's dresser, her eyes glittering, her mouth set in a sneer. Her knife was in one hand, its blade wet with dark blood, and she grasped Tavi's blade in the other. As Varg reached for her, she whipped both knives at the extended claws, and one of the cuts swept drops of blood onto the ceiling.

Varg's bellowing snarl shook the room, and with casual strength the Ambassador kicked the dresser out from under Kitai. The girl let out a shocked sound and fell, landing on all fours like a cat. Quick though she was, she was not fast enough to avoid Varg's claws, and the Cane hauled her from the floor and shook her as a terrier might a rat. The knives clattered from her hands, and Varg whirled to face the door.

Tavi did not pause a beat on his way into the room. When Varg turned to him, he had already picked up the heavy clay water pitcher from its place on the table beside the door, and he threw it with all the strength of both hands and his entire upper body. The pitcher shattered on Varg's snout, driving its weight back onto its rear foot. The Cane's blood-colored eyes widened with actual surprise, pain, and anger, and the dark lips pulled back from yellow-white fangs in a snarl of outrage.

"Let her go!" Tavi snarled, already throwing the plate the pitcher usually rested upon, but Varg swept it out of the air with casual precision and leapt at Tavi in a blur of fur, fangs, and bloodred eyes.

The Cane hit him, and Tavi felt the sheer power as a shock of utter surprise. Varg bulled through him as if he had weighed no more than a few feathers, and the force of the impact sent Tavi flying up from the ground to land clumsily on his back and elbows ten feet away.

"Aleran!" Kitai gasped.

Varg growled, crouched over Tavi with his naked teeth gleaming white in the dark. "Follow or she dies."

Varg turned and bounded down the shadowed row of doors, then across the open courtyard beyond it, down a servant's path which, Tavi knew, led to a grate that could be pulled up to gain entrance to the Deeps.

Tavi stared after Varg for a second, then let out a snarling curse. He picked himself up and snatched up both knives. He seized the lit candle and slapped it into his little tin lantern, then burst out of the room, sprinting along on Ambassador Varg's trail.

It was madness, Tavi knew. He could not fight Varg and win. For that matter, he could not fight Varg and
survive
. But neither could he allow the Canim to take Kitai from him, nor abandon the Marat girl to her fate when she had trusted him to shelter her for the day.

He knew that Varg would outrun him easily, and that Tavi would only be able to catch up to him when he was allowed to do so, but he had no choice.

He had promised Kitai that she was not alone, and though it cost him his life, he would make good on it.

Chapter 35

Amara stared out of the mouth of the cave and murmured, "What are they waiting for?"

Outside, the silent host of taken had descended the hill and advanced to the edge of the blackened earth that had been the
croach
. For a time, they had been visible in the light of the burning trees, but as those fires slowly died down, the trees crashing one by one to earth, darkness swallowed them until the silent forms of the taken were now no more than motionless outlines in the gloom. The moon sank from the sky, deepening the night's blackness dramatically.

Standing in the cave itself was like standing in a vast fireplace long overdue for cleaning. Soot covered every surface, where the wind-driven firestorm had roared into the cave, consuming whatever had been inside. All that was left when the Alerans entered had been ugly, blackened lumps and scorched bits of heat-warped vord armored hide. A sickly-sweet scent filled the cave, a noxious cloud of unseen fumes, and even though it had been hours since they entered, the smell had not faded or become unnoticeable.

"Waiting for sunrise, maybe," Doroga rumbled.

"Why?" Amara said, staring out at the silent enemy.

"So they can see," Doroga said. "Vord can see in the dark pretty good. So can Marat. Your people, not so good. So taken, they don't see so good."

"That might be it," Amara murmured. "But if that was the case, they should have assaulted us immediately, while they still had the light from the fires and the moon."

"They got to know we don't have much water," the Marat headman rumbled. "Or food. Maybe they think they can wait us out."

"No," Amara said, shaking her head. "They've behaved intelligently all along—very intelligently. They've been aware of their enemy, of our capabilities, of our weaknesses. They have to be aware that we are only a small part of a much larger nation. They have to know that a relief force will arrive within days at the most. They don't have time for a siege."

"Maybe they are sending more takers," Doroga said.

"They'd have moved by now," Amara said. "I've got you and Walker guarding the cave mouth. Everyone wounded or sleeping has a partner to watch for more takers. No one has seen any of them."

Doroga grunted, folded his arm, and leaned against Walker's shoulder, where the great gargant bull rested placidly on his belly, chewing cud from his earlier foraging. The beast filled up most of the cave's mouth and regarded the silent enemy outside without particular fear. Amara envied the gargant that. The strength of a mere Aleran was no match for the berserk power of a taken Aleran, but both were of little consequence to something the gargant's size, and Doroga seemed to share Walker's calm.

Bernard moved up from the rear of the cave, silent for all of his size. Though they had placed several furylamps on the ground outside the cave to illuminate any possible approach, lights within the cave were kept dim to hide them from observation. It took Amara a moment to sense the weariness and worry in him.

"How is he?" she asked quietly.

"Giraldi is a tough old bastard," Bernard replied. "He'll make it. If we get out of this." He stared out at the silent forms of the vord for a moment, and said, "Three more dead. If we'd had a watercrafter, they all would have made it. But the rest look like they'll pull through."

Amara nodded, and the three of them stared out at the silent foe.

"What are they waiting for?" Bernard sighed. "I don't mind if they keep doing it, but I wish I knew why."

Amara blinked, then said, "Of course."

Bernard said, "Hmmm?"

"They're afraid," Amara murmured.

"Afraid?" Bernard said. "Why would they be, now? They've got us by the throat. If they storm this cave, they can probably finish us. They've got to know how hurt we are."

"Bernard," she said. "Don't you see? They made it a point to attack our Knights early on—first the watercrafters, then the firecrafters. They understood what kind of threat they represented and eliminated them."

"Yes," Bernard said. "So?"

"So we just wiped out the vord nest with fire," Amara said. "When they thought they had killed our firecrafters. We've done something that they didn't expect, and it's shaken them."

Bernard shot a glance out at the enemy and lowered his voice to a bare whisper. "But we don't have any firecrafters."

"They don't know that," Amara replied as quietly. "They probably expect us to come out to them and do it again. They're waiting because they think it's their smartest option."

"Waiting for what?" Bernard said.

Amara shook her head. "Better light? For us to be weaker or more tired? For our wounded to expire? I don't know enough about them to make a better guess."

Bernard frowned. "If they think we've got firecrafters here, then they must think it's suicide to come into the cave. We'd fry them here at the mouth, before they ever got to close to combat range. They're waiting for us to come out to burn them down, out where they can use the advantage of numbers against us." He let out a quiet chuckle. "They think they're the ones in trouble."

"Then all we have to do is wait them out," Amara said. "Surely a relief force will be here soon."

Bernard shook his head. "We have to figure that they'll understand that, too. Sooner or later, when we don't come out to them, they're going to realize it's because we don't have what they think we have. And then they'll come in."

Amara swallowed. "How long will they wait, do you think?"

Bernard shook his head. "No way to tell. But they've been too bloody smart all along."

"Dawn," Doroga said, his voice lazy and confident.

Amara looked at Bernard, who nodded. "His guess is as solid as anyone's. Probably more so."

Amara stared out at the darkness for several moments. "Dawn," she said quietly. "Had the First Lord dispatched Knights Aeris to us, they would have been here already."

Bernard stood beside her and said nothing.

"How long until then, do you think?" Amara asked.

"Eight hours," Bernard said quietly.

"Not time enough for the wounded to recover without crafting."

"But time enough to rest," Bernard said. "Our Knights needed it. As do you, Countess."

Amara stared out into the darkness, and it was then that the vord queen stepped into the light of the furylamps.

The queen walked upon two legs, but something in its motion was subtly off, as though it were performing a trick rather than moving naturally. A worn old greatcloak covered all but a few portions of the queen. Its feet were long, the toes spreading out and grasping at the ground as it moved. Its face, where not covered by the cloak's deep hood, was strangely shaped—its features almost human, but carved from some kind of rigid green material incapable of changing expression. Its eyes emitted a soft green-white glow, round orbs of color with no detectable lids or pupils.