Cursor's Fury (65 page)

_p. 315
Tavi felt his eyebrows lift. “Given how matters transpired before, my men may be nervous about yours so near the walls.”

“They will approach unarmed,” Nasaug replied. “And I will remain here, within range of your Knights Flora, as a pledge of their conduct.”

Tavi stared at Nasaug for a long moment and thought he saw a certain amount of smug amusement in the Cane’s eyes. Tavi smiled, a baring of his own teeth, and said, “Do you play
ludus,
Nasaug?”

The Cane lifted his helmet from his head, ears twitching and flicking as they came out from beneath the steel. “At times.”

“Allow me to call out a messenger to send word to my men while you send for your own. Your men, unarmed, may approach until the sun is set. I will remain here with you until that time, in order to help avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings.”

A burbling growl came from Nasaug’s throat—quite possibly the most threatening chuckle Tavi had ever heard in his life. “Very well.”

And so, in the next five minutes Tavi faced Nasaug across a traveling
ludus
set, a case whose legs unfolded to support it as a small, portable table. Plain discs of stone were carved on one side with piece designations, rather than being the full miniature statuettes of a conventional board. Tavi and Nasaug began playing, while eighty Canim, armored but unarmed, trooped forward, digging through the carnage at the base of the walls to locate the black-armored corpses of their fallen brothers in arms. None of them passed within a twenty-foot circle of the two commanders.

Tavi watched the Cane as the game began, and he opened with what seemed to be a reckless attack.

Nasaug, for his part, narrowed his eyes in thought as the game progressed. “Nothing wrong with your courage,” he said, several moves in. “But it does not secure a victory alone.”

A few moves later, Tavi replied, “Your defense isn’t as strong as it might be. Pushing it hard enough might shatter it.”

Nasaug began to move in earnest then, exchanging the first few pieces, while more moved into position, gathering for the cascade of exchanges that would follow. Tavi lost a piece to the Cane, then another, as his attack began to slow.

Footsteps suddenly approached, and a Cane in the accoutrements of one of Sari’s acolytes stalked up to them. He bared his teeth at Tavi, then turned to Nasaug and snarled, “
Hrrrshk naghr lak trrrng kasrrrash
.”

Tavi understood it:
You were ordered to attack. Why have you not done so?

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Nasaug did not respond.

The acolyte snarled and stepped up to Nasaug, put a hand on the Battlemaster’s shoulder, and began to repeat the question.

Nasaug turned his head to one side, jaws flashing, and in a single, vicious snap tore the hand from the end of the acolyte’s arm, following it with a vicious kick that sent the other Cane sprawling, screaming in pain.

Nasaug reached up and took the acolyte’s severed hand from his mouth and idly threw it at him without looking up from the board. “Do not interrupt your betters,” he growled, also in Canish. Tavi could make out most of it. “You may tell Sari that had he wished an immediate attack, he should have given me time to recover my fallen from the Alerans. Tell him that I will attack when and where it suits me.” The Battlemaster glanced at the acolyte, and snarled, “Move. Before you bleed to death.”

The wounded Cane clutched the bleeding stump of his arm to his belly and retreated, making high-pitched whimpering noises in his throat.

“Apologies,” Nasaug then said to Tavi. “For the distraction.”

“No offense was given,” Tavi replied, his tone thoughtful. “You have little love for the ritualists.”

“Your eyes can see the sun at midday, Captain,” Nasaug replied. He studied the board a moment later, and said, “Your strategy was sound. You know much of us.”

“Some,” Tavi replied.

“It took courage and intelligence to attempt it. For this, you have earned respect.” Nasaug looked up at Tavi for the first time since the game began. “But however much I may despise Sari and those like him, my duty is clear. Sari and his ritualists are few, but they have the faith of the maker caste.” He tilted an ear in a vague gesture at the enormous number of raiders. “They may be fools to believe in the ritualists, but I will not turn upon the makers or desert them. I have studied your forces. You cannot stop us.”

“Perhaps,” Tavi said. “Perhaps not.”

Nasaug bared his teeth again. “Your men are half-trained. Your officers were slain, your Knights far weaker than they should be. There is little help to be had from the Alerans of the city.” He pushed a
ludus
Lord forward, beginning his own attack. “You have not seen our caste in battle, but for the probe this morning. You will not repulse us again, Aleran. Before tomorrow’s sunset, it will be over.”

Tavi frowned. Nasaug wasn’t posturing. There was neither threat nor anger nor enjoyment in the tone of his voice. He was simply stating a fact, attaching
_p. 317
no emotion to it, no menace. It was far more disturbing than anything else he could have said.

But Nasaug was a warrior Cane. If he was anything like Varg, his words were like blood—never loosed unless necessary. And then as little as possible. “I wonder why you bother to speak of it.”

“To offer you an alternative. Retreat and leave the bridge sound. Take your warriors, your people, your young. I will give you two days to travel, in which I will make sure no forces are sent after you.”

Nasaug nodded once. “Your gesture to allow us to take back our fallen was a generous one. Especially given how Sari dealt with you. For that, I offered you what I could.” The Cane began moving his pieces in earnest, and the rapid exchange began. It took him only three moves to see what Tavi had done, and he stopped, staring at the board.

Tavi’s reckless assault had been nothing of the kind. He had spent a great deal of time thinking about Ambassador Varg’s stratagem in their last game together, and he had adapted it to his own strengths as a player. The sacrifice of some of his lesser pieces earlier in the game had given the greater pieces a far more dominant position, and within the next two moves he would control the skyboard completely and have the positioning and power he would need to strike down Nasaug’s First Lord. His pieces would take terrible losses to do it, but Nasaug had seen the trap a bare move too late, and he could not possibly escape it.

“Things,” Tavi said quietly, “are not always as they seem.”

The last of the fallen Canim had been found and borne back to the Canim camp by their unarmed fellows. A grizzled Cane nodded to Nasaug in passing.

Nasaug stared at Tavi, then tilted his head very slightly to one side in acknowledgment of the defeat. “No. Which is why my warriors will not be the first to enter the town.”

Tavi’s heart all but stopped in his chest.

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Nasaug had figured out the trap. He might not yet know the details, but he knew it was there. Tavi kept all expression from his face and stared impassively at the Battlemaster.

The grizzled Cane returned, bearing a cloth bundle held upon his upraised palms. At a nod from Nasaug, the Cane set the bundle down on the
ludus
board and unfolded it. Tavi’s
gladius,
the one he had cast aside that morning, lay within.

Nasaug and Tavi fractionally bared their throats to each other once more. Then Nasaug backed away several paces before turning and striding back toward his army. Tavi folded up the
ludus
board back into its case, recovered both of his blades, and made his own way back to the city. He slipped in through the gates just as deep drums began to rumble and Canim war horns began to blare.

Tavi spotted Valiar Marcus and called to him. “First Spear, get the men into position! This is it!”

Chapter 42

_p. 319
“Very well,” Lady Aquitaine said. She nodded to Odiana, and said, “Time we got into costume.”

Odiana promptly opened a backpack and handed Amara her disguise.

Amara stared down at the scarlet silk in her hands, and said, “Where is the rest of it?”

Aldrick stood at the hostel’s window, watching the street outside. The big swordsman glanced back at Amara, made a choking sound in his throat, and turned away.