Cursor's Fury (64 page)

Tavi ignored the Canim, looking up and down the wall. The attack had been repulsed, but it had cost the defenders, badly. The high-arced stones had been distressingly effective, and the medicos rushing to assist the injured were far outnumbered by the casualties. The green troops coming up to the walls weren’t moving with the swift certainty of the veterans, and the rushing medicos and legionares attempting to carry the wounded to help weren’t helping matters. The legionares had barely held the wall before, and if they did not reorganize and restore discipline to the defensive positions on the battlements, the Canim might well overwhelm them. Or at least, they might have, had they not broken instead of maintaining the attack.

Chapter 41

_p. 311
Tavi drew in a sharp breath as the regulars approached. He’d been certain that they would strike at sundown—but that was an hour away, and Marcus was not on the wall. If the trap was to be successfully sprung, the Canim would need something to occupy their attention, and the plan had been for the Alerans to fall back in a fighting retreat, forcing the Canim to keep the pressure on the withdrawing troops.

The problem with that sort of ploy was that it would be all too easy for the false panic to become perfectly genuine and for the situation to spin totally out of anyone’s control. Given that their discipline and training were the only things that gave the Legion anything like a fighting chance against a foe like the Canim, putting it at risk was the maneuver of a foolish or desperate commander.

Tavi supposed he could well be both.

“I need Max at once,” Tavi told Ehren, and the young Cursor immediately leapt from the wall to the bed of a wagon parked beneath, then sprinted off across the courtyard.

“Centurions, finish the rotation and clear these walls of noncombatants!” Tavi shouted. “Medicos, use those wagons and get the wounded back to the secondary aid station!” Then he turned and flashed another hand sign to the rooftop several streets away where Crassus and his Knights Aeris waited. Tavi drew his hand in a wave, right to left, and then drew it in a sharp, slashing motion across his throat. Crassus turned to one of his Knights, and they descended from the rooftop.

Tavi whirled to check on the Canim and found the raiders pulling back, leaving the regulars plenty of room in which to work. For the first time, at the crest of the hill, Tavi made out the outlines of several black-cloaked, pale-mantled Canim. Sari, or at least some of his ritualist acolytes, were apparently intent on observing the regulars’ assault.

_p. 312
“Move!” Tavi shouted, as the regulars marched closer. “Reserves, withdraw to your secondary positions near the bridge!” Tavi whirled, spotted the nearest centurion, and growled, “Get those men’s shields strapped on tighter. One of those hurled stones will spin the bloody things on their arms and smash their brains out.”

The young centurion turned to face Tavi, his face pale, saluted, and began bellowing at the indicated legionares.

The centurion was Schultz. Tavi took a look left and right, and found few faces as old as his own. Only the centurions were veterans at all, and even they looked like young men serving in their first term of service in that rank.

Crows, he shouldn’t have ordered the veterans off the wall, but it was too late to change it now. After the pounding they’d just received, after brutal and exhausting battle on the wall, they might not have held up against a tide of armored Canim. It was possible that the fish would be better suited to the maneuver than the veterans—if only because they were too inexperienced to realize just how much danger they were about to face.

Tavi bit on his lip and silently, savagely berated himself. That was no way to think about young men who were about to put their lives on the line for their Realm, their fellow legionares—and for him. He was about to order these young men into a storm of violence and blood.

And yet the cold fact was that if the ploy worked, it could cripple the Canim army, perhaps beyond its will to fight. If Tavi had to sacrifice a hundred legionares—or a thousand—to contain the Canim invasion, it would be his duty to do precisely that.

The walls were finally cleared, the wounded headed back to the next aid station, the reserve cohort coming up behind the fish on the wall marching for the fallback point. Tavi looked up and down the walls one more time—and saw quietly terrified young men, all of them pale, all of them standing ready.

Boots pounded down the battlements, and Max arrived at Tavi’s side, along with Ehren. Crassus was a dozen steps behind, and Tavi glanced over his shoulder to find most of the Knights Aeris not yet judged ready to fly in combat rushing into positions opposite the gate.

_p. 313
He scowled. “I know, I know. I just never heard of it before.”

“Trust me,” Tavi said. “Sawdust is more dangerous than you know. And if the grain storehouse was on this side of the town, it would have been even better. He watched as the regulars closed, and said, “All right. You two get back and be ready to cover us.”

The Canim regulars had, indeed, stopped in their tracks, several dozen yards out of arrow range. To Tavi’s increased surprise, they all settled down onto their haunches again, and they were so many that even that sounded like a rumble of distant thunder.

“That,” Ehren said quietly, “is a whole lot of Canim.”

At the front and center of the regulars, a single figure remained standing—the same Cane Tavi had addressed earlier in the day. He swept his gaze around the armored Canim, nodded, then took a long, curved war sword from his side. He held the weapon up, facing the town, then deliberately laid it aside. Then he strode out onto corpse-strewn killing ground between and stopped halfway to the wall.

“Aleran Captain!” the Cane called, his deep, growling voice enormous and unsettling. “I am Battlemaster Nasaug! I have words for you! Come forth!”

Max let out a grunt of surprise.

“Well,” Ehren murmured, beside Tavi. “Well, well, well.
That
is interesting.”

“What do you think, Max?” Tavi murmured.

“They think we’re stupid,” Max said. “They’ve already broken faith with us once. They tried to murder you the last time you went to them, Captain. I say we return the favor. Call up our Knights Flora, shoot him full of arrows, and let’s get on with it.”

“He’s already seen me, Max,” Tavi said. “It has to be me. If he makes a move first, take him down. Otherwise, leave him alone. Make sure everyone else knows it, too. And get Marcus back up here, meanwhile.”

_p. 314
“You think you’ve driven a spike between their leader and the warriors?” Ehren asked.

“Possibly,” Tavi said. “If this Nasaug had hit us instead of stopping out there, it could have been bad. Now we’re getting a chance to breathe and reorganize. I can’t imagine Sari’s terribly pleased about that.”

Ehren shook his head. “I don’t like it. Why would he do that?”

Tavi took a deep breath, and replied, “Let me go ask him.”

Tavi did not ride out to meet the Canim this time. Instead, he went to the gates, which opened just enough to let him step outside the protection of the walls. The ground beneath the walls stank of blood and fear, fire and offal. Canim bodies lay piled in windrows, and since the fighting had ceased, thousands of crows descended to begin feasting upon the dead.

Tavi fought to keep his stomach under control as he walked out to meet the Battlemaster—a rank akin to an Aleran captain, a commander in charge of an entire force. Twenty yards from the Cane, he drew out his sword and laid it down on the ground beside him. With or without it, he stood little chance against an armored and experienced Cane afoot—but he could all but feel the watching eyes of his fellow Alerans behind him. They would be of greater protection than any horse or suit of armor. In all, Tavi had the position of greater strength, for Nasaug was in the reach of Tavi’s companions. Tavi was far from Nasaug’s.

Nonetheless, as Tavi approached the Cane, he had to admit that Nasaug’s sheer size was more than frightening enough to protect him from Tavi, personally. Not to mention that his natural weaponry was considerably more fearsome than Tavi’s. It was not a situation of perfect balance, but it was as close to one as they were likely to get.

Tavi stopped ten feet from Nasaug, and said, “I am Rufus Scipio, Captain of the First Aleran.”

The Cane watched him with dark and bloody eyes. “Battlemaster Nasaug.”

Tavi wasn’t sure who moved first, and he didn’t remember consciously deciding to make the gesture, but both of them tilted their heads very slightly to one side in greeting.

“Speak,” Tavi said.

The Cane’s lips peeled back from his fangs, a gesture that could indicate either amusement or a subtle threat. “The situation prevented me from recovering my fallen within the time limit you granted me,” he said. “I wish your permission to recover them now.”