Captain's Fury (36 page)

Which was, Marcus reflected, probably why Arnos had given the First Aleran the dubious distinction of leading the attack.

Marcus wasn't sure if the captain would have run the battle the same way, but he was certain that he would have approved of Crassus's immediate response to such a bloody scenario—to change the scenario.

"Sir," Marcus growled.

Crassus drew his blade and nodded to Maximus. The big Antillan gave his half brother a grin, and, with a murmur to the Knights Pisces, drew his sword. They immediately readied their own weapons.

Marcus kept his eyes on the river, struggling to see through the almost-lightless evening and the steady rain. The reeds the scouts had placed earlier that day had been stripped to pure, white wood that would be more easily seen in the dark, but even so, Marcus began to wonder whether or not it would do him any good.

Marcus jerked hard on the rope beside him, stepped down from the block, drew back his leg, and kicked at the palisade. Though it seemed a standard Legion defensive wall from the other side, the engineers had altered a two-hundred-foot section of the fence, and when Marcus kicked down the section immediately in front of him, the others fell as well in a sudden wave, crashing to the earth on the far side.

Cries went up in the other camp, but they were immediately drowned out as Crassus lifted his sword, let out a howling battle cry, and the knights and veterans around him responded in kind. Crassus dropped his blade forward, and the Prime Cohort and Knights Pisces surged forward, with Marcus, Crassus, and Maximus in the first rank.

The First Aleran hit the now-shallow water of the ford and surged toward the opposite bank. Arrows began to fly from the earthworks. In the dark and confusion and splashing water, Marcus knew that only a very skilled or very lucky shot from any Aleran bow would have a chance of downing one of the heavily armored
legionares
. Most arrows skimmed off of the steel helmets, or slammed harmlessly into the steel-lined wooden shields of the Legion.

Some didn't.

Marcus heard a scream on his right, and felt, more than saw, the sudden drag in the integrity of the cohort's formation as someone else went down and slowed the advance of those behind him. An arrow struck sparks from Maximus's helmet, and another flickered past Marcus's ear with an eerie, fluttering hiss.

They were halfway across before the Canim sharpshooters went to work.

The flat, metallic twang of the odd bows was not loud, but they were near enough now to hear it. Each twang was followed almost instantly by the heavy sound of impact—a thud accompanied by the shriek of torn steel. Marcus saw from the corner of his eye as another file leader went down—as did the two men in tight formation behind him. Men screamed, and the advance grew more sluggish.

"Now, Max," Crassus shouted. The acting captain of the Legion lifted his blade, and it was suddenly wreathed in brilliant flame, a beacon and a signal to every man in the Legion—not to mention to everyone in the enemy lines as well.

At the same time, Maximus stretched out a hand toward the waters remaining between the First Aleran and the shore. He cried out, and a sudden swirl of wind went rushing down the river, spinning and twisting into a miniature waterspout that threw up great, shimmering sheets of water, obscuring the flaming sword and its wielder from easy observation.

"Forward!" Crassus cried. The fire on the blade pulsed and shimmered. "Forward! For Alera!"

As he finished his cry, Crassus unleashed the firecrafting he'd been preparing.

Rage poured through Marcus, more sudden, hotter, and more violent than any he had felt in years. Every other thought was scorched away by the fire of his anger, and he found himself letting out another cry of eagerness to meet the enemy in battle.

The hesitation of the advancing force vanished entirely, as nearly eight hundred throats erupted in a simultaneous bellow of raw hostility. The First Aleran picked up speed, building to a furious charge as they crossed Maximus's windcrafted water screen. Driven by that anger, they thrust themselves into the teeth of the enemy, utterly ignoring the missiles that continued streaking toward them, claiming lives.

The First Aleran took its hits as it emerged from the river, and accepted them as a necessary price to come to grips with their foe. They surged up the earthworks, spearheaded by the First Aleran's Knights Terra. They struck the mixed earth-and-stone defenses with their great hammers, triggering a minor landslide—one that could be climbed, up and over the defensive walls. Marcus, Maximus, and Crassus were the first to set foot on the improvised ramp, advancing up to the makeshift battlements.

There, they met the enemy.

Marcus had been ready to face the Canim again, but the former slaves were another matter entirely. As he gained the wall, a boy of no more than fifteen summers raised a bow, fumbling at an arrow. Marcus had no time to think. His arm lashed out, and the young soldier fell back, blood rushing from his opened throat.

Marcus stared at the boy for a shocked second, a single thundering heartbeat that suddenly stretched, elongated, drawing the rest of the world into a deceptively dreamy languor. The rage still burned in him, but for that instant, it existed outside of himself, a part of the background that was neither more nor less important than the sounds of battle.

The boy's neck was marred by collar scars. Old ones. If he truly had been fifteen years of age, then he must have gained his scars when he was scarcely old enough to walk—and Marcus had few illusions about what sorts of uses a slaver would find for a helpless child.

Arnos had named the "Free Alerans" traitors—but crows, Marcus wasn't sure that he would not have done precisely the same thing had he been in their place. The lot of a slave in the southern portions of the Realm was a dismal one, and the tolerance of every man, Citizen or not, had its limits.

Then there was a furious, lupine roar, and the frozen instant ended. Marcus ducked the swing of a curved Canim sword and found himself facing eight feet and several hundred pounds of furious, steel-armored warrior-caste Cane.

Marcus was a competent swordsman, and he knew that his own earth-crafter's strength gave him significant advantages against most opponents. Against one of the Canim of the warrior caste, though, he had no advantage of strength, and he might well be the Cane's inferior at bladework. He had not become an old soldier, though, by fighting for pride, and as the Cane advanced and swung again, Marcus shed the blow at an oblique angle along his lifted shield, shoved forward, inside his opponent's guard, and drove his
gladius
into the Cane's knee.

The Cane howled and lurched. Maximus had seen Marcus press in for the ugly little disabling attack, and before the Cane could recover and hew into Marcus, the young Tribune's sword licked out and back in a single motion, and gore erupted from the Cane's throat.

Marcus got his balance again and menaced a foe that was pressing an attack on Maximus's flank, and they drove forward into a half-panicked group of Free Alerans. Marcus was glad that they didn't put up too much of a fight. He slammed one man to the ground with his shield, dealt out a couple of nonlethal cuts with his blade, then the foe was running. Marcus pressed close behind them, down off the fortifications and onto the ground on the far side, and the men of the Prime Cohort pressed in with him.

There, they met a hastily assembled counterattack from the Canim. The wolf-warriors had gathered thirty or forty of their number—shocking, really, given how little time they'd had to prepare, and indicative of considerable military discipline—and they charged the Aleran forces with blood-maddened howls.

Marcus bellowed, "Shield high, blade low!"

"Shield high, blade low!" the cohort roared back, quoting the doctrine that they'd devised as one of the only viable tactics against the immense foe. The Canim hit the line, but their descending weapons were met by a raised curtain of Legion shields, and the soldiers in the front row concentrated on nothing but dishing out disabling blows to the feet, knees, legs, and groins of their attackers.

The Canim had comparatively little experience in fighting a foe so much smaller than their selves, and the low-line attacks had repeatedly proved to be difficult for them to defend against.

Canim smashed at the Legion's shieldwall. One
legionare's
shield took a blow squarely, rather than at a proper angle for a deflection. Lined with steel or not, the shield splintered under the terrible force of the warrior Canes blade, and the sword that had done it removed the
legionare's
arm at the shoulder. The man went down, screaming.

Beside Marcus, Crassus caught the blow of an immense cudgel on his shield, and even with his fury-strengthened equipment and fury-assisted strength, he grunted with pain and faltered, his shield arm dropping limply to his side.

Marcus cut across the young officer's front, deflecting the Cane's next blow, rather than attempting to match strength with strength, and thrust up at an angle into the Cane's lower abdomen. The Cane fell back with a howl of pain, and Marcus bellowed two of his veterans into position to shield Crassus.

The press of combat abruptly loosened, relaxing, and Marcus realized that the Prime Cohort, followed closely by the rest of the First Aleran, had cleared the earthworks. Braying Canim horns began to blow, and the enemy moved into a general retreat, falling back from their positions and vanishing into the rain and the dark.

Crassus unstrapped his shield from his left arm, his face pale. Marcus turned and glanced at the young officer's arm. "Shoulder's out of its socket," he said. "Need to get you to a healer, sir."

"Let them have the men who are bleeding, first. I'm not feeling it right now, anyway." He wiped his blade clean on the mantle of a fallen Cane, sheathed it, and looked around soberly. "Have the engineers put the river back on its course and recall them. Deploy the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Cohorts to a perimeter. Second through Fifth to erect a palisade. The rest in formation as a reserve."

Marcus saluted. "Sir."

"Wait," Maximus said. He stepped closer to Crassus and lowered his voice. "They're off-balance, Crassus. We need to press the attack, now, while we have the advantage."

"The objective was to take the ford," Crassus said. "We've done it."

"This is an opportunity," Max said. "We've got to press it. We might not get another chance like this to hit them when they aren't ready."

"Stop and think about this, Max," Crassus said. "It might hurt, but try to pretend you're a Canim for a minute. When else are you going to get a chance to launch an attack against an Aleran Legion isolated from the other two with it, on open ground, and in the dark, no less?"

Max glanced at Marcus. "First Spear? What do you think?"

Marcus grunted. "This is a textbook target of opportunity, sir. If you don't order the pursuit after a rout like this, the Senator isn't going to like it."

"But do you think this is a trap?" Maximus pressed.

"It would take a bloody brilliant soldier to manage it," Marcus replied.

"And Nasaug is," Crassus said. He glanced at Maximus, then out at the dark, his brow furrowing in thought for a moment. "You don't plan for what you think the enemy is going to do," he said, finally. "You plan for what he is capable of doing. I'm not sending the Legion out there blind."

Maximus shook his head. "I'm not eager to wrestle Canim in the dark, but if you don't order an advance, Arnos is going to have your balls."

Crassus shrugged. "Let him try to collect them, then. We secure the ford, first. Get the men moving, First Spear."

Marcus saluted Crassus and turned to the nearest runner, doling out a list of instructions.

"Meantime, send the Marat on ahead," Crassus said. "They can see in the dark and can outrun the Canim. If they don't find the enemy in force out there, we'll send out the cavalry and keep the Canim on the run."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Max said.

"If we stay put, and I'm right, we save ourselves a lot of blood. If we stay put, and I'm wrong, we've still taken this position, and there are only two more between here and Mastings."

"Scipio would have advanced," Max said. "I'm sure of it."

Crassus rubbed at his injured shoulder, his expression undisturbed. "I'm not Scipio," he said. "And you have your orders."

Maximus glowered at Crassus for a moment, then slammed his fist to his chest and went to his horse. He mounted, then let out an explosive sneeze. The tall Antillan scowled up at the falling rain and nudged his horse into motion, passing near Marcus.

"Lying in bed with a book," he growled to Marcus. "And with the Ambassador, too, I'll wager."

Maximus nudged his horse into a trot, and a moment later, half an alae of Marat cavalry thundered through the captured earthworks and into the country beyond.

Marcus oversaw the positioning of the remainder of the Legion, with some of the men in advance positions, others erecting the mobile palisade wall behind them, and the rest standing in ranks in the center of their position, ready to march or fight should the need arise.

Once that was done, Marcus returned to find Crassus speaking to one of the senior officers of the First Senatorial Guard. The man was evidently angry, because he gestured extensively as he spoke. Crassus stared at the man with no expression on his face and spoke a single word in reply.