Cursor's Fury (10 page)

He only got to hear Magnus descend from his own mount, fuss for a moment over the state of his saddlebags, then present his papers to the prostrate sentry. He cleared his throat, and sniffed. “Magnus. Senior valet to the captain and his staff. I cant abide the state of your uniform. My bloody crows, this fabric is simply ridiculous. Does it always smell so bad? Or is that just you? And these stains. How on earth did you manage to . . . no, no, don’t tell me. I simply don’t want to know.”

Max burst out into his familiar roar of laughter, and a moment later he and Magnus caught up to Tavi. The pair of them rode through row after row of white canvas tents. Some of them looked Legion-perfect. Others sagged and drooped, doubtless the quarters of fresh recruits still finding their way.

Tavi was surprised at how loud the place was. Men’s voices shouted to be heard over the din. A grimy, blind beggar woman sat beside the camp’s main lane, playing a reed flute for tiny coins from passersby. Work teams dug ditches and hauled wood, singing as they did. Tavi could hear a blacksmith’s hammers ringing steadily nearby. A grizzled old veteran drilled a full cohort—four centuries of eighty recruits each—at the basic sword strokes Tavi had learned so recently, facing one another in a pair of long lines and going through drilled movements by numbers barked by the veteran, shouting in response as they swung. The strokes were slow and hesitant, incorrect movements aborted in midmotion to follow the instructor. Even as he watched, Tavi saw a
rudius
slip from the hands of a recruit and slam into the kneecap of the man beside him.
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The stricken recruit howled, hopping on one leg, and blundered into the man on his other side, knocking half a dozen recruits to the ground.

“But an officer wouldn’t,” Max said. “Centurions are the ones who break heads when legionares get out of line. Especially troublemakers like Nonus and Bortus.”

“Outside a battle line they aren’t worth the cloth it would stain to clean their blood off a knife.” Max shook his head and glanced back at them. “But they’re fighters. They know their work, and they’ve been in the middle of some bad business without folding. That’s why they got out under voluntary departure rather than forced discharge for conduct unbecoming a legionare.”

“And it also explains why they’re here,” Magnus added. “According to the records, they’re honorable veterans willing to start with a fresh Legion—and that kind of experience is priceless for training recruits and steadying their lines in battle. They know they’ll have seniority, that they won’t have to do the worst of the work, and that they’ll get better pay.”

Max snorted. “And don’t forget, this Legion is working up in the bloody Amaranth Vale. Plenty of freemen would kill to live down here.” Max gestured around them. “No snow, or not to speak of. No rough weather. No wild, rogue furies. Lots of food, and they probably think this is a token Legion that will never see real action.”

Tavi shook his head. “Aren’t men like that going to be bad for the Legion as a whole?”

Magnus smiled a little and shook his head. “Not under Captain Cyril. He lets his centurions maintain discipline in whatever way they see fit.”

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Max twirled his baton with a sunny smile.

Tavi pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Will all the veterans be like them?”

Max shrugged. “I suspect that most of the High Lords will do everything in their power to keep their most experienced men close to home. No Legion has too many veterans, but they all have too many slives like Nonus and Bortus.”

Max grunted. “They can’t all be rotten. And if Valiar Marcus is here, I suspect we’ll find some other solid centurions where he came from. We’ll slap the scum around enough to keep them in line, and work the fish until they shape up. Every Legion has this kind of problem when it forms.”

The Maestro shook his head. “Not to such a dramatic degree.”

Max shrugged a shoulder without disagreeing. “It’ll come together. Just takes time.”

Tavi nodded ahead of them, to a tent three or four times the size of any others, though it was made of the same plain canvas as all the rest. Two sides of the tent were rolled up, leaving the interior open to anyone passing by. Several men were inside. “That’s the captain’s tent?”

Max frowned. “It’s in the right place. But they’re usually bigger. Fancier.”

Magnus let out a chuckle. “That’s Cyril’s style.”

Tavi drew his mount to a halt and glanced around him. A slim gentleman of middle age appeared, dressed in a plain grey tunic. The eagle sigil of the crown had been stitched into the tunic over his heart, divided down the middle into blue and red halves. “Let me take those for you, gentlemen.” He glanced at each of them and then abruptly smiled at the Maestro. “Magnus, I take it?”

“My fame precedes me,” the Maestro said. He pushed the heels of his hands against the small of his back and winced, stretching. “You have the advantage of me.”

The man saluted, fist to heart, Legion fashion. “Lorico, sir. Valet. I’ll be working for you.” He waved, and a young page came over to take the horses.

Magnus nodded and traded grips with the man, forearm to forearm. “Pleased to meet you. This is Subtribune Scipio Rufus. Centurion Antillar Maximus.”

Lorico saluted them as well. “The captain is having his first general staff meeting, sirs, if you’d care to go inside.”

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Max nodded to them. “Lorico, could you direct me to my billet?”

“Begging your pardon, centurion, but the captain asked that you attend as well.”

Max lifted his eyebrows and gestured to Tavi. “Sir.”

Tavi nodded and entered the tent, glancing around the place. A plain legionare’s bedroll sat neatly atop a battered old standard-issue travel chest. They were the only evidence of anyone residing in the tent. Several writing tables stood against the walls of the tent, though their three-legged camp stools had been drawn to the tent’s middle, and were occupied by one woman and half a dozen men. There were another score or so of armored men crowded into the space the tent provided, all of them arranged in a loose half circle around an unremarkable-looking bald man in armor worn over a grey tunic. Captain Cyril.

Legion armor always made a man’s shoulders look wide, but Cyril’s looked almost deformed beneath the pauldrons. His forearms were bare, scarred, the skin stretched tight over cords of muscle. His armor bore the same red-and-blue eagle insignia Tavi had seen on Lorico’s tunic, somehow embedded into the steel.

Tavi stepped aside to let Magnus and Max enter, and the three of them came to attention while Lorico announced them. “Subtribune Scipio, Astoris Magnus, and Antillar Maximus, sir.”

Cyril looked up from the paper he held in his hand and nodded to them. “Good timing, gentlemen. Welcome.” He gestured for them to join the circle around him. “Please.”

“My name is Ritius Cyril,” he continued, after they had joined the circle. “Many of you know me. For those who don’t, I was born in Placida, but my home is here, in the Legions. I have served terms as a legionare in Phrygia, Riva, and Antillus, and as a marine in Parcia. I served as a Knight Ferrous in Antillus, as a Tribune Auxiliarus, Tribune Tactica, and Knight Tribune, as well as Legion Subtribune. I have seen action against the Icemen, the Canim, and the Marat. This is my first Legion command.” He paused to look around the room steadily, then said, “Gentlemen, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of pioneers. No Legion like this one has ever existed. Some of you may be expecting to serve in a token fighting force—a political symbol, where the work will be light and the business of war will seldom cross paths with us.

“If so, you are mistaken,” he said, and his voice turned slightly crisp. “Make no mistake. I intend to train this Legion to be the equal of any in the Realm. There is a great deal of work ahead of us, but I will ask nothing more from any of you than I do of myself.

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“Further, I am as aware as any of you of the various agendas of the lords and Senators who supported the founding of this Legion. Lest there be any misunderstandings, you should all know now that I have no patience for politics and little tolerance for fools. This is a Legion. Our business is war, the defense of the Realm. I will not allow anyone’s games to interfere with business. If you are here with your own agenda, or if you have no stomach for hard work, I expect you to resign, here and now, and be gone after breakfast tomorrow.” His gaze swept the room again. “Are there any takers?”

Tavi arched a brow at the man, impressed. Few would dare to speak so plainly to the Citizenry, of which most of the officers of every Legion were members. Tavi glanced around the gathering of listeners. None of them moved or spoke, though Tavi saw uncomfortable expressions on several faces. Evidently, they were no more used to being spoken to in no uncertain terms than Tavi was to hearing them so addressed.

Cyril waited for a moment more, then said, “No? Then I will expect you all to do everything in your power to fulfill your duties. Just as I will do all in my power to aid and support you. That said, introductions are in order.”

Cyril went around the room and delivered terse introductions of each person there. Tavi took particular note of a beefy-looking man named Gracchus, Tribune Logistica and Tavi’s immediate commander. Another man, a weathered-looking veteran whose face had never been pretty even before all the scars, was identified as Valiar Marcus, the First Spear, the most senior centurion of the Legion. When Cyril reached the end of the introductions, he said, “And we have been the beneficiaries of some unanticipated good fortune,” Cyril said. “Gentlemen, some of you know her already, but may I present to you Antillus Dorotea, the High Lady Antillus.”

A woman rose from where she sat on the stool in a grey dress that bore the First Aleran’s red-and-blue eagle over the heart. She was slim, of medium height, and her long, fine, straight dark hair clung to her head and shone as if wet. Her features were narrow and vaguely familiar to Tavi.

Beside him, Max sucked in a startled breath.

Captain Cyril bowed politely to Lady Antillus, and she gave him a grave inclination of her head in response. “Her Grace has offered her services as a watercrafter and healer for the duration of our first deployment,” Cyril continued. “You all know that this is not her first term of service with the Legions as a Tribune Medica.”

Tavi arched an eyebrow. A High Lady, here in the camp? That was anything
_p. 53
but ordinary for a Legion, despite anything the captain might have said to the contrary. The high blood of Alera wielded an enormous amount of power by virtue of their incredible talent of furycrafting. A single High Lord, Tavi had been told, had the strength of an entire century of Knights, and Antillus, one of the two cities that defended the great northern Shieldwall, was renowned for its skill and tenacity in battle.

“I know it isn’t traditional, but I’ll be meeting with each of you separately to take your oaths. I’ll send for each of you over the next day or two. Meanwhile, Lorico has your duty assignments and will show you to your billets. I would be pleased if you all would join me at my table for evening meals. Dismissed.”

Those seated on stools rose, and the men parted politely to let Lady Antillus leave first. There were a few murmurs as they left, each taking a leather message tube from Lorico.

“Go on, lads,” Magnus murmured to them without even opening his leather tube. “I’ll get started here. Good luck to you both.” He smiled and stepped back into the captain’s tent.

Tavi walked away with Max and read his orders. Simple enough. He was to report to Tribune Gracchus and assist with the management of the Legion’s stores and inventory. “He was different than I expected,” Tavi said.

“Hmmm?” Max asked.

“The captain,” Tavi said. “I thought he’d be more like Count Gram. Or perhaps Sir Miles.”

Max grunted, and Tavi frowned at his friend. The big Antillan’s face was pale, and his brow was beaded with sweat. That was hardly new to Tavi, who had nursed Max out of hangovers more than once. But now he saw something different in his friend’s face, behind the distraction in his expression. Fear.

Max’s eyes shifted left and right. “Partially. But if she’s come all this way, it’s because my brother is here. It’s the only reason she’d come.”