Prologue
The steadholt was located several miles south of the
ruined wasteland that had once been Alera Imperia, and it
was an old one. Windmanes had not been sighted there in
more than six centuries. Furystorms had been absent for
even longer than that. The land, for miles about, had been
a patchwork of farmlands, steadholts, villages, and roads
for hundreds of years. Wild furies had been so few and so
feeble that they were all but extinct.
As a result, the little steadholt had not been built with
stone walls surrounding it, or with a heavy stone central
hall for shelter from fury-inspired weather. It was
instead a collection of cottages and small houses, where
each family had lived in its own home, separate from the
others.
But all that had been before the vord came.
Invidia Aquitaine stood at the outskirts of the little
steadholt, hidden in the shadows.
Shadows were abundant these days, she reflected.
The newborn volcano that stood as a gravestone for Gaius
Sextus, the final First Lord of Alera, had continued to
spew forth clouds of dark smoke and ash in the days and
weeks after its creation. Even now, the sky was covered
with low clouds that would release spring rain in fitful
sputters or maniacal bursts.
Sometimes the rain was yellow, or red, and sometimes
green. The clouds themselves were dimly lit, even at
night, by an angry scarlet light from the fire-mountain to
the north---and in every other direction by the steady,
haunting green glow of the croach, the waxy growth that
covered the ground, the trees, the buildings, and every
other feature of the land the vord had claimed for their
own.
Here, the vord had driven their presence the deepest.
Here, at the heart of what had once been Alera, they had
taken the most. The croach, the living presence of the
vord, covered everything for a hundred miles in every
direction, choking all other life from the land.
Except here.
The little steadholt was green. Its kitchen gardens were
well under way despite the fact that summer had not quite
arrived. Its modest-sized field already promised a fine
crop of grain. Wind sighed in the leaves of its enormous
old trees. Its animals grazed upon the grass of a rich
pasture. In the darkness, if one ignored the eerily lit
sky, the green glow of croach stretching to the horizon in
every direction, and the occasional alien shriek of one of
the vord, it looked like a normal, prosperous Aleran
steadholt.
Invidia shuddered.
The parasite on her torso reacted to the motion with an
uncomfortable ripple of its own. Since its dozen awl-
tipped legs were wrapped around her, their sharp tips sunk
inches into her flesh, it caused pain. It was nothing
compared to the agony she suffered as its head twisted,
its eyeless face and branching mandibles sunken into the
flesh between two of her ribs, burrowed invasively into
her innards.
Invidia loathed the creature--but it was all that kept her
alive. The poison upon the balest bolt that had nearly
taken her life had spread all through her body. It had
festered there, growing, devouring her from within, so
swiftly and perniciously that even her own ability to
restore her body via furycraft had been overwhelmed. She
had fought it for days as she stumbled away from
civilization, certain that she was being pursued, barely
conscious as the struggle in her body raged. And when she
had realized that the struggle could end in only one way,
she found herself lying upon a wooded hillside and knew
that she was going to die.
But the vord Queen had come to her. The image of that
creature, staring down at her without an ounce of pity or
empathy, had been burned into her nightmares.
Invidia had been desperate. Terrified. Delirious with
poison and fever. Her body had been so knotted with
shivering against the fever-cold that she literally had
not been able to feel her arms and legs. But she could
feel the vord Queen, the creature's alien presence inside
her thoughts, sifting through them one by one as they
tumbled and spun in the delirium.
The Queen had offered to save Invidia's life, to sustain
her, in exchange for her service. There had been no other
option but death.
Though they sent a wave of agony washing through her body,
she ignored the parasite's torturous movements. Like
shadows, there was, of late, also an abundance of pain.
And a small voice that whispered to her from some dark,
quiet corner of her heart told her that she deserved it.
"You keep coming back here," said a young woman at her
elbow.
Invidia felt herself twitch in surprise, felt her heart
suddenly race, and the parasite rippled, inflicting
further torment. She closed her eyes and focused on the
pain, let it fill her senses, until there was no semblance
of fear remaining in her mind.
One never showed fear to the vord Queen.
Invidia turned to face the young woman and inclined her
head politely. The young Queen looked almost like an
Aleran. She was quite exotically lovely, with an aquiline
nose and a wide mouth. She wore a simple, tattered gown of
green silk that left her shoulders bare, displaying smooth
muscle and smoother skin. Her hair was long, fine, and
white, falling in a gently waving sheet to the backs of
her thighs.
Only small details betrayed her true origins. Her long
fingernails were green-black talons, made of the same
steel-hard vord chitin that armored her warriors. Her skin
had an odd, rigid appearance, and almost seemed to reflect
the distant ambient light of the croach, showing the faint
green tracings of veins beneath its surface.
Her eyes were what frightened Invidia, even after months
in her presence. Her eyes were canted up slightly at the
corners, like those of the Marat barbarians to the
northeast, and they were completely black. They shone with
thousands of faceted lenses, insectlike, and watched the
world with calm, unblinking indifference.
"Yes, I suppose I do," Invidia replied to her. "I told you
that this place represents a risk. You seem unwilling to
listen to my advice. So I have taken it upon myself to
monitor it and ensure that it is not being used as a base
or hiding place for infiltrators."
The Queen shrugged a shoulder, unconcerned. The movement
was smooth but somehow awkward--it was a mannerism she had
copied but clearly did not understand. "This place is
guarded ceaselessly. They could not enter it undetected."
"Others have said as much and been mistaken," Invidia
warned her. "Consider what Countess Amara and Count
Bernard did to us last winter."
"That area had not been consolidated," the Queen replied
calmly. "This one has." She turned her eyes to the little
houses and tilted her head. "They gather together for food
at the same time every night."
"Yes," Invidia said. The Aleran holders who dwelt in the
little steadholt in cobbled-together households had been
working the fields and going about the business of a
steadholt as if they were not the only ones of their kind
living within a month's hard march.
They had no choice but to work the fields. The vord Queen
had told them that if they did not, they would die.
Invidia sighed. "Yes, at the same time. It's called dinner
or supper."
"Which?" the Queen asked.
"In practice, the words are generally interchangeable."
The vord Queen frowned. "Why?"
She shook her head. "I do not know. Partly because our
ancestors spoke a number of different tongues and--"
The vord Queen turned her eyes to Invidia. "No," she
said. "Why do they eat together?" She turned her eyes back
to the little houses. "There exists the possibility that
the larger and stronger would take the food of the weaker
creatures. Logic dictates that they should eat alone. And
yet they do not."
"There is more to it than simple sustenance."
The Queen considered the cottage. "Alerans waste time
altering their food through various processes. I suppose
eating together reduces the inefficiency of that
practice."
"It does make cooking simpler, and it is partly why it is
a practice," Invidia said. "But only in part."
The Queen frowned more deeply. "Why else eat in such a
fashion?"
"To be with one another," Invidia said. "To spend time
together. It's part of what builds a family."
Great furies knew that was true. She could count on her
fingers the number of meals she had taken with her father
and brothers.
"Emotional bonding," the vord Queen said.
"Yes," Invidia said. "And... it is pleasant."
Empty black eyes looked at her. "Why?"
She shrugged. "It gives one a sense of stability," she
said. "A daily ritual. It is reassuring to have that part
of the day, to know that it will happen every day."
"But it will not," the Queen said. "Even in their natural
habitat, it is not a stable circumstance. Children grow
and leave homes. Routines are disrupted by events beyond
their control. The elderly die. The sick die. They all
die."
"They know that," Invidia said. She closed her eyes and
for an instant thought of her mother, and the too-brief
time she had been allowed to share her table, her company,
and her love with her only daughter. Then she opened her
eyes again and forced herself to look at the nightmare
world around her. "But it does not seem that way, when the
food is warm and your loved ones are gathered with you."
The vord Queen looked at her sharply. "Love. Again."
"I told you. It is the primary emotion that motivates us.
Love for others or for oneself."
"Did you take meals like this?"
"When I was very young," Invidia said, "and only with my
mother. She died of disease."
"And it was pleasant to have dinner?"
"Yes."
"Did you love her?"
"As only children can," Invidia said.
"Did she love you?"
"Oh, yes."
The vord Queen turned to face Invidia fully. She was
silent for two full minutes, and when she finally spoke,
the words were spread apart carefully for emphasis--it
gave the question a surprisingly hesitant, almost
childlike, quality. "What did it feel like?"
Invidia didn't look at the young woman, the young monster
that had already destroyed most of the world. She stared
through the nearest set of windows at the dinner being set
down at the table.
About half of the people inside were Placidans, taken when
the vord had completed their occupation of Ceres and moved
forward over the rolling plains of that city's lands. They
included an old man and woman who were actually a couple.
There was a young mother there, with two children of her
own and three more that the vord had deposited in her
care. There was a man of early middle age who sat beside
her, an Imperian farmer who had not been wise enough or
swift enough to avoid capture when the vord came for Alera
Imperia and the lands around her. Adults and children
alike were tired from a day at work on the steadholt. They
were hungry, thirsty, and glad of the simple meal prepared
for them. They would spend some time together in the
hearth room after the meal, take a few hours of time to
themselves with full stomachs and pleasantly weary bodies,
then they would sleep.
Invidia stared at the little family, thrown together like
a mass of driftwood by the fortunes of invasion and war
and clinging to one another all the more strongly because
of it. Even now, here, at the end of all things, they
reached out to one another, offering what comfort and
warmth they could, especially to the children. She nodded
toward the candlelit table, where the adults actually
shared a few gentle smiles with one another, and the
children sometimes smiled and even laughed.
"Like that," she said quietly. "It felt like that."
The young Queen stared at the cottage. Then she
said, "Come." She strode forward, graceful and pitiless as
a hungry spider.
Invidia ground her teeth and remained where she stood. She
did not want to see more death.
The parasite writhed in agonizing reproof.
She followed the vord Queen.
The Queen slammed the door open, disdaining the doorknob
to shatter its entire frame. Though she had displayed it
on rare occasions before, her raw physical might was
unbelievable from such a slender figure--even to Invidia,
who was well used to seeing earthcrafters perform feats of
superhuman strength. The Queen strode over the splinters
and into the kitchen, where the little family took their
dinner at a table.
They all froze. The youngest of the children, a beautiful
male child perhaps a year old, let out a short wail, which
the young mother silenced by seizing the child and placing
her hand over his mouth.
The Queen focused on the mother and child. "You," she
said, pointing a deadly, clawed fingertip at the young
woman. "The child is your blood?"
The young holder stared at the vord Queen with wide,
panicked eyes. She nodded once.
The vord Queen stepped forward, and said, "Give him to
me."
The woman's eyes filled with tears. Her eyes flicked
around the room, haunted, seeking the gaze of someone else-
-anyone else--who might do something. None of the other
holders could meet her gaze. The young mother looked up at
Invidia pleadingly, and she began to sob. "Lady," she
whispered. "My lady, please."
Her stomach twisted and rebelled, but Invidia had learned
long ago that retching sent the parasite into convulsions
that could all but kill her. She ate seldom, of late. "You
have another child," she told the young mother in a calm,
hard voice. "Save her."
The man sitting beside the young mother moved. He gently
took the boy from her arms, leaned forward to kiss his
hair, and held him out to the vord Queen. The child wailed
in protest and tried to go back to his mother.
The vord Queen took the child and held him in front of
her. She let him kick and wail for a moment, watching him
with her alien eyes. Then, quite calmly, she held the boy
close to her body with one arm and twisted his head
sharply to one side. His wails ceased.
Invidia found herself about to lose control of her
stomach, but then she saw that the child still lived. His
neck was twisted to the breaking point, his breaths coming
in small, labored gasps--but he lived.
The vord Queen stared at the sobbing mother for a moment.
Then she said, "She feels pain. I have not harmed her, yet
she feels pain."
"The child is hers," Invidia said. "She loves him."
The Queen tilted her head. "And he loves her in return?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it is the nature of love to be answered in kind.
Especially by children."
The Queen tilted her head to the other side. Then she
stared down at the child. Then at the young mother. Then
at the man seated beside her. She leaned down and touched
her lips to the child's hair and paused for a moment, as
if considering the sensation.
Then, moving slowly and carefully, she released the child
from her hold and passed him back to the weeping mother.
The young woman broke down into shuddering sobs, holding
the child close.
The vord Queen turned and left the cottage. Invidia
followed.
The young Queen walked up a nearby hillside and, once they
had crested the hill and moved into sight of a vord
landscape stretching out before them, stood with her back
to the little steadholt for a time. "Love is not always
returned among your kind."
"No," Invidia said simply.
"When it is not," she said, "it is a kind of pain to the
one who has loved."
"Yes."
"It is irrational," the vord Queen said--and to Invidia's
shock, there was a quiet heat to the words. An anger. The
vord Queen was angry.
Invidia felt her mouth go dry.
"Irrational," the Queen said. Her fingers flexed, the
nails lengthening and contracting. "Wasteful.
Inefficient."
Invidia said nothing.
The vord Queen spun abruptly, the motion so swift that
Invidia could barely track it. She stared at Invidia with
unreadable, alien eyes. Invidia could see a thousand tiny
reflections of herself in them, a pale, half-starved woman
with dark hair, clad only in a suit of vord chitin-
carapace that fit her as closely as her own skin.
"Tomorrow," the vord Queen said, smoldering anger filling
the normally empty tones of her voice, "you and I will
have dinner. Together."
Then she turned and vanished in a blur of green silk into
the endless rolling waves of croach.
Invidia fought the sense of terror spreading through her
stomach. She stared back down at the collection of
cottages. From her place on the hillside, the steadholt
looked lovely, furylamps glowing in its little town square
and inside the cottages. A horse nickered in a nearby
pasture. A dog barked several times. The trees, the
houses, they all looked so perfect. Like dollhouses.
Invidia found herself suppressing a laugh that rose up
through the madness of the past several months, for fear
that she would never be able to stop.
Dollhouses.
After all, the vord Queen was not quite nine years old.
Perhaps that was exactly what they were.
<>
Varg, Warmaster of the fallen land of Narash, heard the
familiar tread of his pup's footsteps upon the deck of the
Trueblood, flagship of the Narashan fleet. He peeled his
lips back from his teeth in macabre amusement. Could it be
the flagship of a Narashan fleet when Narash itself was no
more? According to the codes, it was the last piece of
sovereign Narashan territory upon the face of Carna.
But could the code of law of Narash be truly considered
its law without a territory for it to govern? If not, then
the Trueblood was nothing more than wood and rope and
sailcloth, belonging to no nation, empty of meaning as
anything but a means of conveyance.
Just as Varg himself would be empty of meaning--a
Warmaster with no range to protect.
Bitter fury burned inside him in a fire-flash instant, and
the white clouds and blue sea he could view through the
cabin's windows abruptly turned red. The vord. The
accursed vord. They had destroyed his home and murdered
his people. Of millions of Narashans, fewer than a hundred
thousand had survived--and the vord would answer to him
for their actions.
He got hold of his temper before it could goad him into a
blood-rage, breathing deeply until the normal colors of
daylight returned. The vord would pay. There would be a
time and a place to exact vengeance, but it was neither
here nor now.
He touched a claw tip to the page of the book and
carefully turned it to the next. It was a delicate
creation, this Aleran tome, a gift from Tavar. Like the
young Aleran demon, it was tiny, fragile--and contained a
great deal more than its exterior suggested. If only the
print wasn't of such a diminutive size. It was a constant
strain on Varg's eyesight. One had to read the thing by
daylight. With a proper, dim red lamp, he couldn't make it
out at all.
There was a polite scratch at the door.
"Enter," Varg rumbled, and his pup, Nasaug, entered the
cabin. The younger Cane bared his throat in respect, and
Varg returned the gesture with slightly less emphasis.
Pup, Varg thought, as he looked fondly upon his get. He's
four centuries old, and by every reasonable standard
should be a Warmaster in his own right. He fought the
accursed Aleran demons on their own ground for two years
and made good his escape despite all of their power. But I
suppose a sire never forgets how small his pups were once.
"Report," he rumbled.
"Master Khral has come aboard," Nasaug rumbled. "He
requests an audience."
Varg bared his teeth. He carefully placed a thin bit of
colored cloth into the pages of the book and gently closed
it. "Again."
"Shall I throw him back into his boat?" Nasaug asked.
There was a somewhat wistful note to his voice.
"I find myself tempted," Varg said. "But no. It is his
right under the codes to seek redress for grievances.
Bring him."
Nasaug bared his throat again and departed the cabin. A
moment later, the door opened again, and Master Khral
entered. He was nearly as tall as Varg, closer to nine
feet than eight when fully upright, but unlike the warrior
Cane, he was as thin as whipcord. His fur was a mottled
red-brown, marked with streaks of white hairs born from
scars inflicted by ritual and not by honest battle. He
wore a demonskin mantle and hood, despite Varg's repeated
requests that he not parade about the fleet in a garment
made from the skins of the creatures who were presently
responsible for keeping them all alive. He wore a pair of
pouches on cross-body belts, each containing a bladder of
blood, which the ritualists needed to perform their
sorcery. He smelled like unclean fur and rotten blood, and
reeked of a confidence that he was too foolish to see had
no basis in reality.
The senior ritualist stared calmly at Varg for several
seconds before finally baring his throat just enough to
give Varg no excuse to rip it out. Varg did not return the
gesture at all. "Master Khral. What now?"
"As every day, Warmaster," Khral replied. "I am here to
beg you, on behalf of the people of Narash and Shuar, to
turn aside from this dangerous path of binding our people
to the demons."
"I am told," Varg rumbled, "the people of Narash and Shuar
like to eat."
Khral sneered. "We are Canim," he spat. "We need no one to
help us attain our destiny. Especially not the demons."
Varg grunted. "True. We will take our destiny on our own.
But obtaining food is another matter."
"They will turn on us," Khral said. "The moment they have
finished using us, they will turn and destroy us. You know
this is true."
"It is true," Varg said. "It is also tomorrow. I am in
command of today."
Khral's tail lashed in irritation. "Once we have separated
from the ice ships, we can pick up the pace and make
landfall within a week."
"We can make ourselves into meals for the leviathans, you
mean," Varg replied. "There are no range charts of the sea
this far north. We would have no way to know when we
entered a leviathan's territory."
"We are the masters of the world. We are not afraid."
Varg growled low in his chest. "I find it remarkable how
often amateurs confuse courage with idiocy."
The ritualist's eyes narrowed. "We might lose a vessel
here and there," Khral acknowledged. "But we would not owe
our lives to the charity of the demons. A week, then we
can begin to rebuild on our own."
"Leave the ice ships," Varg said. "The same ships that are
carrying more than half of our surviving people."
"Sacrifices must be made if we are to remain true to
ourselves," Khral declared, "if our spirits, our pride,
and our strength are to remain pure."
"I have noticed that those who speak as you do are rarely
willing to include themselves among those sacrificed."
A furious snarl burst out of Khral's throat, and one paw-
hand flashed toward the hip bag at his side.
Varg did not so much as rise from his crouch. His arms
moved, shoulders twisting with sinewy power as he flung
the Aleran book at Khral. It sailed through the air in a
blur of spinning motion, and its hard spine struck the
master ritualist in the throat. The impact knocked Khral's
shoulders back against the door to the cabin, and he
rebounded from it to fall to the cabin's deck, making
gagging sounds.
Varg got up and walked over to the book. Its leaves had
opened, and some of the delicate pages had been harshly
folded. Varg picked it up carefully, smoothed the pages,
and considered the Aleran creation again.
Like Tavar, he mused, it was apparently more dangerous
than it appeared.
Varg stood by for a moment, as Khral's gagging gradually
transformed to labored breathing. He hadn't quite crushed
the ritualist's windpipe, which was disappointing. Now
he'd have to suffer the fool again tomorrow. After
surviving today's conflict, Khral would be unlikely to
allow Varg another such opportunity to remove him.
So be it. Some ambitious underling might turn a dead Khral
into a martyr. It was entirely possible the ritualist
would be more dangerous dead than alive.
"Nasaug," Varg called.
The pup opened the door and considered the prostrate form
on the floor. "Warmaster?"
"Master Khral is ready to return to his boat."
Nasaug bared his throat, not quite hiding his
amusement. "Immediately, Warmaster." He leaned down,
seized Khral by his ankle, and simply dragged him out of
the cabin.
Varg gave Nasaug a few minutes to get Khral back into his
boat, then strode out onto the Trueblood's deck.
The ship was painted black, as most Narashan vessels were.
It offered a stealth advantage when moving at night, and
during the day it collected enough heat to enable the
adhesive sealing the hull to remain flexible and
watertight. It also lent them an air of menace,
particularly to the Aleran demons. They were nearly blind
at night and painted their own ships white so that they
could see a little more clearly during darkness. The very
idea of a black ship was alien to them, and darkness was a
primal fear for the species. While their blindness and
fear might not stop them from attacking, especially with
their sorcery at hand, it did prevent any independent
individual or small group from attempting to board a
Narashan vessel for whatever mad reason it might concoct.
The Alerans were many things, but not stupid. None of them
liked the idea of stumbling around in the darkness while
the night-wise Canim came for them.
Varg went to the ship's prow and stared out over the sea.
They were in waters hundreds of leagues north of any he
had sailed before, and the sea was choppy. The weather had
remained clear, either as the result of fortune or Aleran
sorcery, and the fleet had made the long, slow trek from
Canea without serious incident--something Varg would have
considered the next best thing to impossible only months
before.
The voyage from Canea to Alera was a month's worth of
sailing with a moderately favorable wind. It had taken
them over three months to get this far, and there were
still three weeks' worth of ocean in front of them at
their current pace. Varg turned his eyes to the south and
studied the reason for their crawl.
Three almost unbelievably enormous ships rode squarely in
the center of the fleet, rising like mountains from the
sea and dwarfing even the Trueblood into insignificance--
but their size was not the most remarkable thing about
them.
The ships had been built from ice.
The Alerans had used their sorcery to reshape icebergs
calving from a glacier into seaworthy forms, with multiple
decks and a vast capacity for their precious cargo--all
that remained of once-proud Canea. Makers, females, and
pups filled the three ships, and the Narashan captains of
the vessels escorting her had orders to spill their crews'
blood like seawater if that was what it required to
protect the civilians.
The ships had enormous, flat decks, and no mast could
stretch high or broad enough to hang enough sail to move
the vessel, but the Alerans had managed to overcome the
problem with their typical ingenuity. Hundreds of poles
with crossbars had been placed on the topmost deck of the
ship, and they billowed with every form of cloth one could
imagine. They alone would not propel the ice mountains,
but Tavar was, correctly, of the opinion that even a small
contribution would prove significant over time. Then, too,
the wind demons with the Aleran fleet had been tasked with
bringing up enough of a breeze to lighten the load on the
water demons who truly drove the vast ships.
Propelled primarily by Aleran sorcery, the ice ships had
proved to be steady in the water. If the quarters for his
people were a bit cold--albeit less so than one would have
imagined--their discomfort was a small price to pay for
survival. Some of the sick and elderly had been
transferred to Varg's transports to get out of the cold,
but for the most part matters had proceeded with relative
simplicity.
Varg looked up and down the length of his ship, watching
his sailors tending to their work. His warriors and
sailors were painfully lean, though not cadaverous.
Gathering rations had been a hurried affair during the
escape, and there were thousands of mouths to feed.
Priority for food went to the Aleran wind and water
demons, then sailors, with civilians close behind. The
demon Legions followed, thanks to the necessity of
maintaining their fragile forms, and last came Varg's
warriors. The order might have been reversed during lean
times in a land campaign, but here, on the open water,
those most vital to the fleet's progress and purpose had
priority.
Varg watched as a hunting ship sailed into the fleet from
outside the formation. It moved sluggishly, even under
full sail, but its speed was adequate to catch the ice
ships. A massive form floated in the water behind the
hunting ship--the corpse of a medium-sized leviathan.
The demons' work, again. Leviathans were fiercely
territorial, but they hated the cold of the chilled sea
surrounding the ice ships. Hunting vessels would sail out
of the bitterly cold water and draw the attention of a
leviathan. Then air and water demons would work together
to slay it, somehow drowning the creatures on air even
while they were in the water.
It was a dangerous business. Two out of ten hunting ships
never returned--but those that did brought enough food
with them, in the form of the leviathans, to feed the
entire fleet for two days. The taste of leviathan meat and
blubber was indescribably foul, but it kept a body alive.
Nasaug came to his side and watched the hunting ship with
Varg. "Warmaster."
"The good Master is gone?"
"Yes," Nasaug said. "And surly."
Varg bared his teeth in a grin.
"Father," Nasaug said. He paused to choose words
carefully. Varg turned to face him and waited. When Nasaug
did that, what he had to say was generally unpleasant--and
worth listening to.
"In three weeks we will reach Alera," Nasaug said.
"Yes."
"And fight the vord beside the demons."
"Yes."
Nasaug was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "Khral
is a scheming fool. But he has a point. There is no reason
for the Alerans to keep us alive once we have won the
war."
Varg's ears twitched in amusement. "First we must win the
war," he rumbled. "Many things can happen in the passing
of time. Patience."
Nasaug flicked his ears in agreement. "Khral is building a
following. Speaking to gatherings on the ice ships. Our
people are afraid. He is using that fear."
"It is what bloodspeakers do," Varg said.
"He could be dangerous."
"Fools often are."
Nasaug did not gainsay him, but then he rarely did. The
younger Cane straightened his shoulders in resignation and
looked out to sea.
Varg put a hand on his pup's shoulder. "I know Khral. I
know his like. How they think. How they move. I have dealt
with them before, as have you when you fed Sarl to the
tavar."
Nasaug showed his fangs in a grin of remembrance.
Varg nodded. "If necessary, we will deal with them again."
"This problem might be better removed now than later."
Varg growled. "He has not yet stepped outside the code. I
will not kill him improperly."
Nasaug was quiet for a moment more. Then he looked back
behind them at the tiny, cramped cabin built just behind
the forecastle, the smelliest and most uncomfortable
quarters on the ship.
It was where Varg's Hunters lived.
"Hunters do not exist to circumvent the code," Varg
growled, "but to preserve its spirit against its letter.
Of course they could do the job. But it would only give
Khral's ambitious underlings additional fire--and a
genuine grievance to rally their followers behind. We may
need the ritualists before all is done." He leaned his paw-
hands on the rail and turned his nose into the wind,
tasting the sky and the sea. "Master Marok is the brother
of one of my finest enemies, and seniormost of the
followers of the Old Path. I have his support within the
ritualist camp."
Nasaug flicked his ears in acquiescence and seemed to
relax a bit. He stood with his sire for a moment, then
bared his throat and departed back to his duties.
Varg spent an hour or so on deck, inspecting, offering
encouragement, snarling at imperfection. All was quiet,
otherwise, which he mistrusted. There hadn't been nearly
enough adversity during this crossing. Ill fortune must be
holding its balest bolt until it could be sure it was
lethal.
Varg returned to his book, an ancient Aleran writing
apparently handed down since their people's prehistory.
Tavar had said that they were not sure how much of the
material was original and how much had been added in over
the centuries--but if half of it was truth, then the
Aleran warmaster described in its pages had been
competent, if a shade arrogant. It was easy to see how his
memoirs had influenced the strategies and tactics of the
Aleran Legions.
Though, Varg mused, he was not at all convinced that this
Julius person, whoever he was, would have had a very great
deal to teach Tavar.
. . . . .
Sir Ehren ex Cursori walked toward the tent at the heart
of the vast Legion camp outside the ancient city of Riva.
He looked up the hill toward the walled city and felt
uncomfortable for what must have been the hundredth time
in a few days. The walls of Riva were high and thick--and
offered him a conspicuous lack of comfort, considering
that he and the surviving Legions under the command of
First Lord Aquitaine were on the outside of them.
Traditionally, when attacking a city, that was the where
the enemy tended to congregate.
Oh, certainly, the palisade walls around each Legion were
a perfectly defensible barrier, he knew. But the modest
earthworks and wooden walls were not enough to stop the
vord.
Then again, the walls of Alera Imperia herself hadn't
stopped them, either.
Ehren shook his head and brushed off the heavy thoughts
with a sigh. There was no good in dwelling over what even
the true First Lord of Alera, Gaius Sextus, had been
powerless to stop. But at least in dying, Gaius had given
the people of Alera a fighting chance to survive. The fire-
mountain that had arisen as the vord closed their jaws on
the heart of Alera had all but wiped out their horde, and
the Legions brought down against all hope from the far
northern cities by Gaius Isana had savaged the survivors.
Against any other foe the Alerans had faced, that would
have been quite sufficient, Ehren reflected. It seemed
quite unfair that such an enormous act of wanton
destruction should prove to be nothing more than a
moderate setback, regardless of who the enemy might be.
A quiet and rational part of his mind, the part that did
all of his mathematics when he was faced with columns of
figures, told him that the vord would be Alera's last foe.
There was no way, none at all, to defeat them with the
forces Alera had remaining. They were simply breeding too
swiftly. Most wars, in the end, came down to the numbers.
The vord had them.
It was as simple as that.
Ehren firmly told that part of his mind to go to the
crows. It was his duty to serve and protect the Realm to
the best of his ability, and he would not better attend to
that duty by listening to such demoralizing naysaying,
regardless of how correct it might be in a historical--and
literal--sense.
After all, even driven to her knees, Alera was still a
force to be reckoned with. The greatest gathering of
Legions in a thousand years had congregated on the open
plain around the city of Riva--the vast majority of them
made up of veterans from the continually warring cities of
Antillus and Phrygia. Oh, true, some of the troops were
militia--but the militia of the sister cities of the north
were quite literally as formidable as any of the active
Legions of the south, and smithies were turning out
weapons and armor for the Legions more rapidly than at any
time in Aleran history. In fact, if they could have
produced even more equipment, the Realm had volunteers
enough for a dozen more Legions to add to the thirty
already encamped.
Ehren shook his head. Thirty Legions. Just over two
hundred thousand steel-clad legionares, each one part of a
Legion, a living, breathing engine of war. The lower ranks
of the Citizenry had been distributed among the Legions,
so many that every Legion there had a double-sized cohort
of Knights ready to do battle. And, beyond that, a full
bloody Legion Aeris, its ranks consisting solely of those
with the skills of Knights Aeris, led by the upper ranks
of the Citizenry, had been harassing the foe for months.
And standing by beyond even that force was the First Lord
and the High Lords of the Realm, each a furycrafter of
almost unbelievable power. There was strength enough in
that camp to rip the earth to its very bones, to set the
sky on fire, to draw down the hungry sea from the north,
to raise the winds to a killing scythe that would destroy
any caught before it, all protected by a seething sea of
steel and discipline.
And yet refugees, fleeing the destruction spreading from
the heart of the Realm, continued to flood in. There was a
desperate edge to the voices of centurions driving their
troops to drill. Couriers, riding the winds, went roaring
into the skies on thunderous columns of fury-guided air,
so many that the Princeps had been forced to establish a
policy for lanes of approach to prevent the fliers from
collisions. Smithies burned their forges day and night,
creating, preparing, repairing, and would continue doing
so until the vord overran them.
And Ehren knew what was driving all of it.
Fear. Unmitigated terror.
Though the gathered might of all Alera spread for miles
around Riva, the fear was a scent on the air, a shadow
hovering at the edges of vision. The vord were coming, and
calm, quiet voices whispered in every mind with the
capacity for thought that even the power gathered there
would not be enough. Though Gaius Sextus had died like a
rogue gargant brought to bay, crushing his foes as he
fell, the fact remained that he had fallen. There was an
unspoken thought lurking behind everyone's eyes--if Gaius
Sextus could not survive the vord, what chance did anyone
else possess?
Ehren nodded to the commander of the score of guards
surrounding the command tent, spoke the current
passphrase, and was admitted to the tent without needing
to so much as slow his steps. Nothing much really slowed
Ehren's steps, these days, he reflected. Gaius Sextus's
letter to then.High Lord Aquitaine had apparently seen to
that--among other things
"Five months," snarled a rumbling voice, as Ehren entered
the tent. "Five months we've been sitting here. We should
have been moving south against the vord weeks ago!"
"You're a brilliant tactician, Raucus," replied a deeper,
quieter voice. "But long-term thinking was never your
strongest suit. We can't know what surprises the vord have
in store for us on ground they've had time to prepare."
"There's never been evidence of any defenses," Antillus
Raucus, High Lord Antillus retorted, as Ehren brushed
aside the second tent flap and entered the tent proper.
Raucus faced the Princeps across a double-sized sand table
in the center of the tent that bore a map of all Alera
upon it. He was a big, brawny man with a craggy face long
used to winter winds, and he wore the scars of a soldier
upon his face and hands, the reminders of nicks and cuts
that had been so numerous and frequent that not even his
considerable skills at furycraft could smooth them
away. "In all of our history, this is the most powerful
force ever assembled. We should take this army, ram it
right down their throats, and kill that bitch of a Queen.
Now. Today."
The First Lord was a leonine man, tall and lean, with dark
golden hair and black, opaque eyes beneath the, simple,
undecorated steel band of his coronet, the traditional
crown of a First Lord at war. Dressed in his own colors of
scarlet and black, still, Aquitainus Attis--Gaius
Aquitainus Attis, Ehren supposed, since Sextus had legally
adopted the man in his last letter--faced Raucus's
insistent statement with total calm. In that, at least, he
actually was like Sextus, Ehren thought.
The First Lord shook his head. "The vord are obviously
alien to us, but just as obviously intelligent. We have
prepared defenses because it is an intelligent measure
that even fools realize increases our ability to defend
and control our land. We would be fools ourselves to
assume that the vord cannot reach the same conclusion."
"When Gaius led our forces against the vord, you advised
him to attack," Raucus pointed out. "Not retreat. It was
the correct course of action."
"Given how many vord came to the final assault on Alera
Imperia, apparently not," the First Lord replied. "We had
no idea how many of them were out there. If he'd taken my
counsel, our assault would have been enveloped and
destroyed--and the vord were expecting us to do so."
"We know their numbers now," Raucus said.
"We think we do," Aquitaine shot back, heat touching his
voice for the first time. "This is our last chance,
Raucus. If these Legions fall, there is nothing left to
stop the vord. I will not waste the blood of a single
legionare if I cannot be sure to make the enemy pay a
premium for it." He folded his hands behind his back, took
a breath, and released it again, reassuming his air of
complete calm. "They will come to us, and soon, and their
Queen will be compelled to accompany them and coordinate
the attack."
Raucus scowled, his shaggy brows lowering. "You think you
can mousetrap her."
"A defensive battle," Aquitaine replied, nodding. "Draw
them to us, endure the assault, wait for our moment, and
counterattack with everything we have."
Raucus grunted. "She's operating with furycraft now. And
on a scale equal to anyone alive. And she's still got a
guard of the Alerans she took before Count and Countess
Calderon ruined that part of her operation."
Not even Antillus Raucus, Ehren noted, was willing to
point out openly to the new Princeps that his wife was
among those who had been compelled to take up arms with
the vord.
"That's unfortunate," Aquitaine said, his voice hard. "But
we'll have to go through them."
Raucus studied him for a few seconds. "You figure on
taking her yourself, Attis?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Aquitaine said. "I'm a Princeps.
It's going to be me, and you, and Lord and Lady Placida
and every other High Lord and Lord and Count who can raise
a weapon and the entire Legion Aeris and every other
Legion I can arrange to be there besides."
Raucus lifted his eyebrows. "For one vord."
"For the vord," Aquitaine replied. "Kill her, and the rest
of them are little more than animals."
"Bloody dangerous animals."
"Then I'm sure hunting fashions will become all the rage,"
Aquitaine replied. He turned around and nodded. "Sir
Ehren. Have the reports come in?"
"Yes, sire," Ehren replied.
Aquitaine turned to the sand tables and swept a hand in
invitation. "Show me."
Ehren calmly walked to the tables and took up a bucket of
green sand. Raucus winced when he did. The green sand
marked the spread of the croach across Alera. They'd run
through several buckets already.
Ehren dipped a hand into the bucket and carefully poured
green sand over the model of a walled city on the sand
table that represented Parcia. It vanished into a mound of
emerald grains. It seemed, to Ehren, an inadequate way to
represent the ending of hundreds of thousands of Parcian
lives, both the city's population and the vast number of
refugees who had sought safety there. But there could be
no doubt. The Cursors and aerial spies were certain:
Parcia had fallen to the vord.
The tent was silent.
"When?" Aquitaine asked quietly.
"Two days ago," Ehren said. "The Parcian fleet was
continuing the evacuation right up until the very end. If
they stayed near the coastlines, they could have employed
much smaller vessels as well and loaded all of the ships
very heavily. They may have taken as many as seventy or
even eighty thousand people around the cape to Rhodes."
Aquitaine nodded. "Did Parcia unleash the great furies
beneath the city on the enemy?"
"Bloody crows, Attis," Raucus said quietly, reproof in his
voice. "Half the refugees in the entire south were at
Parcia."
The First Lord faced him squarely. "No amount of grieving
will change what has happened. But prompt action based
upon rational thought could save lives in the near future.
I need to know how badly the enemy was hurt by the attack."
Raucus scowled and folded his heavy arms, muttering
beneath his breath.
Aquitaine put a hand on the other man's shoulder for a
moment, then turned to face Ehren. "Sir Ehren?"
Ehren shook his head. "There was nothing to indicate that
he did so, Your Highness. From what we have heard from the
survivors, High Lord Parcius was assassinated. The vord
didn't assault and breach the walls until after he had
fallen." He shrugged. "The reports indicate widespread
incidents with wild furies in the aftermath, but that was
to be expected given the number of deaths."
"Yes," Aquitaine said. He folded his arms and studied the
map in silence.
Ehren let his eyes drift over it as well.
Alera was a land of vast stretches of sparsely settled or
uninhabited wilderness between the enormous cities of the
High Lords. Furycrafted roads between the great cities,
and a great many waterways, provided lifelines of trade
and created a natural support structure for smaller
cities, towns, and villages that spread out into the
countryside around them. Steadholts, farming hamlets, were
scattered into the areas between the towns and cities,
each supporting between thirty and three hundred or so
people.
All that had changed.
The green sand covered the core of Alera, sweeping most
thickly up from the uninhabited wasteland that had once
been the city of Kalare, through the rich, productive
lands of the Amaranth Vale, over the gutted corpse of the
city of Ceres, and up to the smoldering slopes of the
volcano that now loomed over what had once been Alera
Imperia. Strands, like the branches of some alien tree,
spread out from that vast central trunk, swelling into
larger areas that surrounded several of the other great
cities--cities that had settled in to fight until the
bitter end and were stubbornly withstanding months of
siege. Forcia, Attica, Rhodes, and Aquitaine had all been
besieged and currently fought the invaders at their gates.
The rolling plains around Placida had fared better, and
the croach had not managed to close within twenty miles or
so of the city's walls--but even so, the stubborn
Placidans had lost ground slowly and inexorably, and would
be in the same position as the others in a matter of weeks.
Antillus and Phrygia, in the far north, had been spared
attack thus far--but columns of the croach had swollen and
sprouted, growing steadily and mindlessly toward them,
just as it did toward the northeastern city of Riva--and,
by extension, toward Ehren ex Cursori. Though he admitted
it was possible that he was taking it a little personally.
"The refugees from Parcia are going to put more strain
upon Rhodes's food supply," Aquitaine murmured,
finally. "Raucus, send out a call for volunteers. We'll
send Rhodes every earthcrafter willing to go in and help
produce more food."
"We can't keep that up, Attis," Raucus said. "Oh, the
earthcrafters can bring in a season's crop once a month,
if they need to, maybe faster. But there just isn't enough
soil inside the city's walls. They're depleting it of what
the crops need to grow far more quickly than it can
restore itself."
"Yes," Aquitaine said. "They can only maintain that kind
of production for a year. Eighteen months at the outside.
But even with every rooftop and avenue in Rhodes converted
to grow crops, it will be a strain to fill another eighty
thousand bellies. Once starvation sets in, disease will
follow, and with the city so crowded, they will never
recover." He shrugged elegantly. "This will all be decided
in well under eighteen months, after which we will break
the sieges. We will keep as many as possible alive until
then. Send the earthcrafters."
Raucus put his fist to his heart in a Legion salute and
sighed. "I just don't get it. These fields where they're
growing new vord. The Legion Aeris is burning them to ash
before they can get more than a crop or two of their own
out. How can there be so crowbegotten many of the
bastards?"
"Actually," Ehren said, "I think I know the answer to
that, my lords."
Aquitaine looked up and arched an eyebrow at Ehren.
"I've gotten a report from an old business acquaintance of
mine outside of Forcia. He's an aphrodin smuggler who used
to use furycraft to grow crops of hollybells in caverns
beneath the ground." Hollybells, the lovely, blue flower
from which the drug aphrodin was made, could thrive
without sunlight in certain conditions. The smugglers who
manufactured the drug for recreational use, despite laws
against such activity, had taken advantage of the
fact. "He says that the areas where the vord seem to be
most populous coincide almost exactly with parts of the
land that have a large number of such suitable caverns."
Aquitaine smiled thinly. "The fields on the surface were a
ruse," he murmured. "Something to keep our attention, to
make us feel as if we were succeeding--and to prevent us
from searching for the true source of the enemy's numbers
until it was too late to do any good." He shook his
head. "That's Invidia's influence. It's the way she
thinks."
Ehren coughed into an awkward silence.
"Attis," Raucus said, evidently choosing his words
carefully, "she's helping the vord Queen. Maybe of her own
will. I know that she is your wife, but..."
"She is a traitor to the Realm," Aquitaine said, his voice
calm and hard. "Whether or not she has turned against
Alera of her own will is irrelevant. She is an enemy asset
that must be removed." He slashed a hand gently at the
air. "We're wasting time, gentlemen. Sir Ehren, what else
have you to report?"
Ehren focused his thoughts and kept his report concise.
Other than Parcia's loss, little had changed. "The other
cities are holding. None report a sighting of a vord
Queen."
"Are there any signs that the croach has invaded the
Feverthorn Jungle?" the First Lord asked.
"None as yet, sire."
Aquitaine sighed and shook his head. "I suppose whatever
the Children of the Sun left behind has kept us out for
five hundred years. Why should the vord be any different?"
He glanced over at Raucus. "If we had more time, we could
use that against them, somehow. I'm sure of it."
"If wishes were horses," Raucus rumbled back.
"Being a trite cliché makes it no less true," Aquitaine
said. "Please continue, Sir Ehren."
Ehren took a deep breath. This was the moment he'd dreaded
all morning. "Sire," he said, "I think I know how to slow
their advance toward Riva."
Raucus let out a startled huff of a laugh. "Really, boy?
And you just now thought of mentioning it?"
Aquitaine frowned and folded his arms. "Speak your mind,
Cursor."
Ehren nodded. "I've been running calculations of the rate
of the vord advance in various stages of their campaign,
and I've isolated where they moved slowest and most
rapidly." He cleared his throat. "I can show you the
figures if--"
"If I didn't trust your competence, you wouldn't be here,"
Aquitaine responded. "Continue."
Ehren nodded. "The vord moved most quickly during their
advance through the Amaranth Vale, sire. And their slowest
advance came when they crossed the Waste of Kalare--and
again when they advanced through the region around Alera
Imperia." He took a deep breath. "Sire, as you know, the
vord use the croach as a sort of food. It's mostly a
gelatinous liquid, underneath a very tough, leathery
shell."
Aquitaine nodded. "And they can somehow control the flow
of nutrients through it. It's something like an aqueduct;
only instead of water, it conveys their food supply."
"Yes, sire. It is my belief that, in order to grow, the
croach needs to consume other forms of life--animals,
insects, grass, trees, other plants, and so on. Think of
them as the casing around a seed. Without that initial
source of nutrients, the seed can't grow, can't extend
roots, and can't begin its life."
"I follow you," Aquitaine said quietly.
"The Waste of Kalare was virtually lifeless. When the
croach reached it, its rate of advance dropped
precipitously. It did so again when it was crossing the
region that had been blasted by the forces Gaius Sextus
unleashed--another area that had been virtually emptied of
life."
"Whereas in the Vale, the richness of the soil and land
fed the croach very well, enabling it to spread more
quickly," Aquitaine murmured. "Interesting."
"Frankly, sire," Ehren said, "the croach is an enemy just
as dangerous as any of the creatures the vord Queen
creates. It chokes off life, feeds the enemy, serves as a
sentinel to them--and who knows, it may do even more that
we aren't yet aware of--and we know that the main body of
their troops does not advance without the croach to supply
them. The only time they've done so--"
"Was in the presence of the vord Queen," Aquitaine said,
his eyes glinting.
Ehren nodded and exhaled slowly. The First Lord understood.
"How much time might this give us?"
"Assuming my calculations are correct and that the rate of
progress is slowed to a comparable degree, four to five
weeks."
"Giving us time enough to equip at least four more
Legions, and a high probability of forcing the vord Queen
to appear to lead the horde over the open ground."
Aquitaine nodded, his expression pleased. "Excellent."
Raucus looked between the pair of them, frowning. "So...
if we can keep the croach from coming up, the vord Queen
has to attend to fighting us in person?"
"Essentially, yes," Aquitaine said. "The extra time to
prepare will hardly hurt, either." He glanced over at
Ehren and nodded. "You have the full authority of the
Crown to recruit the necessary firecrafters, evacuate
anyone left in that corridor of approach, and deny its
resources to the enemy. See to it."
"See to what?" Raucus said.
"In order to slow the croach and compel the Queen to
reveal herself," Ehren said quietly, "we'll need to starve
it. Burn out anything that grows. Salt the fields. Poison
the wells. Make sure that it has nothing to help it set
down roots between the current line of advance and Riva."
Raucus's eyes widened. "But that means... bloody crows.
That's nearly three hundred miles of settled, arable land.
Some of the last such in Alera that's still free. You're
talking about burning down the best of the croplands we
have left. Destroying thousands of our own people's
steadholts, cities, homes. Creating tens of thousands of
additional refugees."
"Yes," Aquitaine said simply. "And it will be a great deal
of work. Best get started at once, Sir Ehren."
Ehren's stomach twisted in revulsion. After all that he
had been through since the vord had come, he had seen more
than enough of destruction and loss inflicted by the
enemy. How much worse would it be to see more of Alera
destroyed--this time at the hands of her own defenders?
Especially when, deep down in his guts, he knew that it
wouldn't make any difference. Whatever they did, this war
could end in only one way.
But they had to try. And it wasn't as though the vord
would destroy those lands any less thoroughly, when they
came.
Ehren put his fist to his heart in a salute and bowed to
the First Lord. Then he turned and left the tent, to
arrange the greatest act of premeditated destruction ever
perpetrated by Aleran forces. He only hoped that he wasn't
doing it for nothing--that in the end, the desolation he
was about to create would serve some sort of purpose.
As such things went, Ehren thought, it was a rather small
and anemic hope, but the slender little Cursor decided to
nurture it anyway.
After all.
It was the only one he had left.
Prologue, continued
Gaius Isana, the theoretical First Lady of Alera, wrapped
her thick traveling cloak about her a little more securely
and stared out the window of the enclosed wind coach. They
must be very close to her home now--the Calderon Valley,
once considered the farthest, most primitive frontier in
all of Alera. She looked down at the landscape rolling
slowly by, far beneath them, and felt somewhat frustrated.
She had only infrequently seen Calderon from the air, and
the countryside beneath her stretched out for miles and
miles and miles all around. It all looked the same--either
wild forest, with rolling mountains that looked like
wrinkles in a tablecloth, or settled land, marked by
broad, flat swaths of winter fields being prepared for
spring, its roads running like ruler lines between
steadholts and towns.
For all that she knew, she could be looking at her home at
that precise moment. She had no reference point with which
to recognize it from this high.
". . . which has had the effect of reducing the spread of
sickness through the refugee camp," said a calm young
woman's voice.
Isana blinked and looked at her companion, a slender,
serious-looking young woman with wispy, white-blond hair
that fell in a silken sheet to her elbows. Isana could
feel the girl's patience and gentle amusement, tainted
with an equally gentle sadness, radiating out from her
like heat from a kitchen oven. Isana knew that Veradis had
doubtlessly sensed her own bemusement as Isana's thoughts
wandered.
Veradis looked up from a sheaf of notes and arched a
faint, pale eyebrow. The barest hint of a smile haunted
her mouth, but she maintained the fiction. "My lady?"
"I'm sorry," Isana said, shaking her head. "I was thinking
of home. It can be distracting."
"True enough," Veradis said, inclining her head. "Which is
why I try not to think of mine."
A spear of bitter grief flashed from the young woman, its
base fashioned from guilt, its tip from rage. As quickly
as it appeared, the feeling vanished. Veradis applied her
furycraft to conceal her emotions from Isana's acute
watercrafting senses. Isana was grateful for the gesture.
Without a talent for metalcrafting to balance the empathic
sensitivity native to any watercrafter of Isana's skill,
strong emotions could be as startling and painful as a
sudden blow to the face.
Not that Isana could blame the young woman for feeling it.
Veradis's father was the High Lord of Ceres. She had seen
what happened to her home when the vord came for it.
Nothing human dwelt there now.
"I'm sorry," Isana said quietly. "I wasn't thinking."
"Honestly, my lady," Veradis said, her voice calm and
slightly detached, a telltale sign of the use of
metalcrafting to stabilize and conceal emotion. "You've
got to get over that. If you try to avoid every subject
that might remind me of Cer... of my former home, you'll
never speak another word to me. It's natural for me to be
feeling pain right now. You did nothing to cause it."
Isana reached out to touch Veradis's hand lightly for a
moment, and nodded. "But all the same, child."
Veradis gave her another small smile. She glanced down at
her papers, then back to Isana. The First Lady
straightened her spine and shoulders and nodded. "Excuse
me. You were saying? Something about rats?"
"We had no idea that they might be carrying the disease,"
the young woman said. "But once the security measures were
put in place to guard three camps against the vord takers,
the rat populations in them were severely reduced. A month
later, those same camps had become almost completely free
of the sickness."
Isana nodded. "Then we'll use the remaining security
budget from the Dianic League to begin implementing the
same measures in the other camps. Priority will be given
to those who are hardest hit by the disease."
Veradis nodded and withdrew a second paper from her sheaf.
She passed it to Isana, along with a quill.
Isana scanned the document and smiled. "If you already
knew how I was going to respond in any case, why not
proceed without me?"
"Because I am not the First Lady," Veradis said. "I have
no authority to dispense the League's funds."
Something in the young woman's tone of voice or perhaps in
her posture raised an alarm in Isana's mind. She'd felt a
similar instinctive suspicion when Tavi had been
withholding the truth from her, as a child. A very small
child. As Tavi grew, he'd become increasingly capable of
avoiding such discoveries. Veradis's skills of evasion
simply did not compare.
Isana cleared her throat and gave the young woman an arch
look.
Veradis's eyes sparkled, and though her cheeks didn't
become pink, Isana suspected it was only because the
younger woman was using her furycraft to prevent
it. "Though, my lady, since lives were at stake, I did
issue letters of credit to the appropriate contractors, so
that they could go ahead and begin their work, beginning
at the worst camps."
Isana signed the bottom of the document and smiled. "Isn't
that the same thing as doing it without me?"
Veradis took the document back, blew gently on the ink to
dry it, and said, in a satisfied tone, "Not anymore."
Isana's ears suddenly pained her, and she frowned, looking
back out the window. They were descending. Within a
minute, there was a polite tap at Isana's window, and a
young man in gleaming, newly made steel armor waved a hand
at her from outside. She rolled down the window, letting
in a howl of cold air and the roar of the columns of wind
that kept the coach aloft.
"Your Highness," the young officer called, touching his
fist to his heart politely. "We'll be there in a moment."
"Thank you, Terius," Isana called back. "Would you see to
it that a messenger is sent for my brother as soon as we
land, please?"
Terius saluted again. "Of course, my lady. Be sure to
fasten your safety straps."
Isana smiled at him and closed the coach's window, and the
young officer banked up and away, to move back to his
place at the head of the formation. The sudden lack of
roaring sound made the inside of the coach seem too still.
After a silent moment spent rearranging her wind-tossed
hair, Veradis said, "It is possible that he knows, you
know."
Isana arched an eyebrow at her. "Hmmm?"
"Aquitaine," Veradis said. "He might know about the
fortifications your brother has been building. He might
know why you came here today."
"What makes you say that?"
"I saw one of Terius's men entering Senator Valerius's
tent this morning."
Valerius, Isana thought. A repulsive man. I'm really
rather glad Bernard found it necessary to break his nose
and two of his teeth.
"Really?" Isana asked aloud. She mused for a moment, then
shrugged. "It doesn't matter if he knows, really. He can
say what he wishes and wear anything on his head that he
likes--but he isn't the First Lord, and he never will be."
Veradis shook her head. "I... my lady..." She spread her
hands. "Someone must lead."
"And someone will," Isana said. "The rightful First Lord,
Gaius Octavian."
Veradis looked down. "If," she said, very quietly, "he is
alive."
Isana folded her hands in her lap and looked out the
window as the valley below began to grow larger, the
colors brighter. "He is alive, Veradis."
"How can you know that?"
Isana stared out the window and frowned, faintly. "I...
I'm not sure," she said, finally. "But I feel certain of
it. It feels to me as i