Chapter 43
Tavi stood atop the earthworks and stared out across the rolling plain. His armor and helmet had been scoured clean and freshly polished by the First Aleran's valets, and gleamed in the setting sun.
Since they had arrived the night before, thousands more refugees had appeared, and the flow of Canim makers fleeing the Vord was only growing heavier. The crafters of the Legions had made sure that there was freshwater available, but food was in much shorter supply, and shelter was almost nonexistent.
Heavy, purposeful footsteps marched up behind Tavi and stopped.
"What is it, Marcus?" Tavi asked.
"Your Highness," Valiar Marcus replied. He stepped up beside Tavi and stood in a natural-looking parade rest. "Did you sleep?"
"Not nearly enough," Tavi said. "But that's going around." He nodded at the berm that was Molvar's only defense. "You and your people must have worked without stopping."
"It was the Canim, sir," Marcus replied, his voice serious. "The ground around here has got a lot more rock than earth in it. Thousands of them were out here, moving stones. I knew that some of their warriors were strong, but bloody crows." He shook his head. "You should see what some of their makers can do. The ones who lift heavy things for a living, I mean."
"Impressive?"
"Terrifying," Marcus said. "This berm is as much rock as earth. Considering that Your Highness sent all of our engineers on a different mission, our men had to work like mad to keep up with the Canim."
Tavi nodded. "Well, it shouldn't have surprised us. We saw evidence enough of what they could do at Mastings, and even more since we've gotten here."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you have the latest reports?"
"Such as they are," Marcus said. The faintest trace of reproach laced his voice. "We could do a lot better if our Knights Aeris were available, sir."
"They're busy," Tavi said. "How much time do we have?"
"The Canim mounted packs have been encountering the Vord closer and closer to the port, sire. They're steering refugees in this direction."
"What is the count on refugees?"
"Just over sixty thousand, give or take."
Tavi grunted. "Has there been any contact with the main body of Lararl's forces?"
"No," Marcus said quietly. "But on the positive side, no sightings of the Vord main body yet, either."
"I'd almost feel better if we had seen them," Tavi said. "They have a way of turning up where they aren't expected."
"Your Highness is becoming paranoid," Marcus said. "I approve."
"Highness!" called another voice, and Magnus came puffing up the terraces to the top of the berm. The old Cursor's hair was in disarray, as if from sleep, and he clutched a sealed letter in his hand. He came and passed it over to Tavi, still huffing. His eyes stayed steadily on Marcus. Marcus stolidly ignored him.
Tavi took the letter, glancing between them. "Something I should know about, gentlemen?"
"Not that I know of, sir," Marcus said. He glanced at the old Maestro. "Magnus?"
Magnus stared at the First Spear for a moment more before he turned to Tavi. "No, Your Highness."
Tavi eyed them both again, then opened the letter and read it. "Hah," he said. "Crassus will be back sometime tonight. Marcus, do you remember those stairs we were talking about crafting into the cliff face when we first got here?"
"Yes, Highness."
"Make it happen, three times, on the farthest outthrust promontories within the fortifications-near where I've had you stockpiling supplies." Tavi frowned, thinking. "We'll need some lamps or furylamps set up on the stairs, too, so that they can be seen from the sea. If we don't have enough of our own, ask the Shuarans. They use a lantern that looks like it's designed to handle mist and spray."
Marcus and Magnus both blinked at Tavi.
"We're going to need a means to load people and supplies onto the transports," Tavi told them. "The wider the stairs, the better. Wake Maximus. He's good with stone."
"Ah, sir?" Marcus asked carefully. "What transports?"
"The ones Crassus is bringing."
The old Cursor frowned. "And the reason these transports cannot avail themselves of the Shuarans' perfectly respectable port is...?"
Tavi found himself grinning at them. "They wouldn't fit."
Both of the men frowned severely at him.
"Meanwhile," Tavi continued, "we should start getting all of our own noncombatants loaded up. Magnus, get that in motion, if you would, and make sure our captains are ready to set sail. After that, I want you to coordinate with the Tribune Logistica and work out the fastest way to get our men from the fortifications down to the ships and out to sea."
"Tavi," Magnus blurted. "Slow down. Are you sure you wish to ask our men to engage the Vord when we have no watercrafters to tend the wounded and only a score of Knights to support the legionares."
"With luck, they won't need to," Tavi said. "And our crafters will be back before the night is out. If we've done it quickly enough, we might be able to slip away without taking on the second queen at all." He turned his eyes to the lowering sun, frowning. "Time is the critical factor, here, gentlemen."
Marcus and Magnus struck their fists to the hearts and, after one last exchanged glance, they turned to be about their duties.
"Captain!" Durias called. Tavi glanced down to see the stocky legionare waving frantically at him from the back of a puffing taurg at the base of the terraced wall. "They made it! They're here!"
Tavi turned and hurried down the berm. He took Durias's offered hand and swung up onto the taurg behind the former slave. "Take me to Varg."
They found Varg walking the earthworks on the opposite side of the city from Tavi. Varg's militia-though they could scarcely be called that anymore after nearly two years of training beside Varg's warriors and conflict against the Aleran Legions-was spread around the fortifications, and the Canim Warmaster had placed blocks of heavily armored warriors at regular intervals around the wall. The militia would hold the line, and the warriors would be used as a reserve, ready to lend their tremendous power to the militia should the Vord breach the defense.
"Varg!" Tavi called. "There is something you should see."
The big Cane looked down from the wall, and his ears twitched in mild amusement. "Is there?"
"I do not know," Nasaug said, the Cane's resonant voice coming from where Nasaug sat upon his own taurg beside Durias's mount, along with a spare beast for Varg. "He would tell me nothing."
Varg grunted. "Only a fool seeks a quarrel with a tavar." He came down the terraces, slammed the open taurg on the snout when it tried to snap at him, and mounted.
They rode to the single opening in the earthworks that bestrode the road leading out of Molvar. "When are the engineers going to close this up?" Durias asked him.
"They aren't," Tavi said.
Durias blinked. "Why build the wall if you're only going to leave an enormous and obvious weakness in it?"
"Because it means we know where the enemy will concentrate his strength," Varg growled. "The defenses are thin. The enemy is many. If every spot was as good as any other, the Vord would simply attack at random, and we would have no way to predict where to concentrate our strength against them."
"Leave them a big, obvious opening to exploit," Tavi said, "and we can be certain where their main thrust will fall. This is where the Legions will fight."
Durias nodded, looking around. "That's why we're putting up the lower berms inside, then, along the road. They can't be seen from the outside. When the Vord come through, they'll be walking into a death trap."
"It'll be worse than that," Tavi said. "You've never seen what firecrafters can do in an enclosed area." He glanced up at Varg, and added, with very mild emphasis, "Neither have you, Warmaster."
Varg paused a moment, meeting Tavi's gaze, before he replied just as mildly, "My ritualists will be there as well, gadara. It should be interesting."
Tavi carefully suppressed a quiver of unquiet at the thought of some of the things he'd seen the Canim ritualists do. He showed Varg his teeth, and said, "That's for later. My scouts spotted something I think you'd want to know about." He pointed across the rolling landscape outside the earthworks.
Varg exchanged a look with his son, then the pair of them stood up in their stirrups and peered out across the land. They stared for a long, silent moment.
Nasaug let out an explosive snarl, and lashed his startled taurg into a sudden, ground-shaking gallop that made the other two taurga bawl and rumble in complaint. Half a dozen Shuaran refugees who were just arriving had to throw themselves out of the way before the taurg flattened them. Durias and Varg brought their beasts under control again. Varg growled low in his throat, glanced at Tavi, then dismounted and tossed the reins of his beast to Durias.
Tavi dismounted as well, dodged a sullen kick Durias's taurg aimed at him, and hurried after Varg, who was striding up the terraces to the top of the earthworks beside the gateway. Tavi came to a stop beside him and watched Nasaug's progress.
Out on the plain outside the earthworks, a large group of refugees was moving together. Unlike the majority of the Shuarans, though, these Canim were all dark-furred. Among them moved, often with the aid of canes and crutches, warriors in red-and-black armor, and at the heart of the group, a long spear bearing a simple twin pennant of red-and-black cloth stood above the rest of the group.
"My people," Varg said, his voice very deep and very quiet. "Some of them survived."
"Ten thousand or so, according to my scouts," Tavi agreed quietly. "I know that isn't many."
Varg was silent for a moment before he growled, "It is everything, gadara. Some of our warriors live among them." He arched one paw-hand, dark claws spreading fiercely. "We did not fail them entirely." He turned his eyes to Tavi. "Where were they?"
"Lararl had them near the fortress."
Varg turned pensively back toward the plain, then narrowed his eyes, a growl shaking his chest. "His ritualists needed blood."
Tavi said nothing.
Nasaug reached the group a moment later, and all but broke his taurg's neck hauling it to a halt. The mount snapped at his arm as Nasaug dismounted, but the Cane struck it between the eyes with one enormous fist, staggering the three-quarter-ton mount as easily as if it had been a drunk staying too late at a wine house.
The arriving Narashans let out cries and howls as Nasaug reached them and began striding through them, toward the banner at the heart of the group.
"That was what it meant, back in Lararl's chambers," Varg said. "When you told him that everyone was to leave."
Tavi said nothing.
Varg turned to him, and said, "Lararl would not have given up a military resource in such a desperate situation without cause. You demanded it of him, Tavar."
"I couldn't tell you they were near," Tavi said quietly. "You would have gone to get them, and to crows with the circumstances."
Varg narrowed his eyes and growled deep in his considerable chest. It made Tavi acutely aware of exactly how large the Cane really was.
Tavi took a steadying breath and turned to meet Varg's eyes. He cocked an eyebrow at the Cane, daring him to deny the statement, and hoped that Varg's intense passions on the subject weren't about to express themselves at his expense.
Varg looked back out at the plain and let his growl rumble away to nothing. After a long moment, he said, "You protected them."
"And the Shuarans," Tavi said in a very soft, very nonchallenging voice. "And myself. We're all standing in the same fire, Varg."
Varg rumbled out another growl, one containing a tone of agreement. Then he turned from Tavi, strode down the terraces, and out onto the plain, toward the oncoming group of Narashan survivors.
Tavi watched them come. A moment later, Durias climbed the stairs beside him, and asked, "How'd he take it when he realized you didn't tell him?"
"He didn't like it," Tavi said. "He understood it."
"It's a strength of their mind-set," the young centurion said, nodding. "Working through the logic of others dispassionately." Durias smiled. "Though if they'd come to harm because of it, it wouldn't have stopped him from gutting you."
"Don't I know it," Tavi said. "But I didn't have any good choices."
Durias squinted out at the Narashans for a second, then his eyes widened. "Bloody crows."
Tavi glanced at him. "What?"
"That banner," Durias said. "That isn't a common symbol among them."
"What does it mean?"
"Warriors rarely use spears," Durias said. "They gave the Free Aleran a hard time because our standards were mounted on them. They're considered to be a female's weapon."
Tavi lifted his eyebrows. "So?"
"So the spear standard in the colors of the range means a matron of a high warrior bloodline," the young centurion told him. "And I-"
His voice was suddenly drowned out when ten thousand Canim throats erupted into wordless howls, and though the sounds were not human, Tavi could hear the emotions that drove it-raw celebration, sudden and unexpected joy. He traded a glance with Durias, and the two leaned forward, watching.
As Varg approached, the small sea of singing Canim parted, and Nasaug appeared, walking beside a Canim female as tall and as dark-furred as he, their hands joined. Even as they walked, half a dozen young Canim, one of them scarcely larger than an Aleran child, came bounding out of the crowd and rushed Varg, baying in high-pitched tones. The Warmaster planted his feet, and was shortly inundated in delighted, furry children and wagging tails. A gang wrestling match ensued, in which Varg pinned each of the children to the earth with one hand and nipped at their throats and tummies, to squeals of protest and delight.
"Bloody crows," Durias breathed again. The young centurion turned to Tavi, and said, "Your Highness. Unless I'm very much mistaken, you just saved the lives of Varg's family. Nasaug's mate, and their children. Furies, you practically brought them back from the dead."
Tavi stared out at the plain for a time, watching as the female caught up and dragged the pups from their grandsire, then exchanged deep bows of the head with Varg, showing him the deference of a confident subordinate to a much-respected superior. Then they embraced, after the Canim fashion, their muzzles touching, heads resting together, their eyes closed.
"Maybe," Tavi said. His throat felt a little tight. "None of us have survived this yet."
The night was clear, and when the scream of the windstreams of the Legions' Knights Aeris drifted across the fortifications, Tavi emerged from the command tent and looked up to see the forms of his Knights speckling the face of the almost-full moon. The sentries were taking note of it at the same time, and horns rang through the camp, alerting officers of the return of the Aleran fliers.
"Yes!" Tavi snarled, as Marcus came out of the tent behind him. "They're here! Magnus!"
The old Cursor was already hurrying toward the tent, from where he'd been resting briefly nearby, still tugging his tunic into place. "Your Highness!"
"Get everyone who isn't fighting into the ships, now! I don't want to lose a minute."
"Very good, Your Highness."
"Gradash!"
The grey-furred old Canim huntmaster came out of the tent on Marcus's heels, squinting up at the sound of the incoming windcrafters. "I am here, Tavar."
"I think you should send word to your people now, and get them moving toward the piers as we discussed."
"Aye." He turned to a pair of whippet-thin young Canim runners who had been waiting nearby, and began growling instructions.
"Marcus," Tavi continued. "I want you at the breach with the men. The minute you see the signal, fall back to Molvar and get to the ships."
"Sir," Marcus said, banging a fist to his breastplate. The First Spear turned, barking orders, and was shortly mounted and riding out to the earthworks.
Kitai and Maximus came out of the command tent, and stood watching with Tavi as the Knights Aeris came in to land in two groups, one dropping into the landing area of the former slave Legion, the other landing in the First Aleran's-except for a single armored figure that came down not twenty yards from the command tent.
"Crassus!" Tavi called, grinning. "You're looking well."
"Sir," Crassus replied with an answering smile. He saluted Tavi, who returned the gesture, then clasped forearms with the young officer. "I'm glad to see you got back in one piece."
"Tell me," Tavi said intently.
"It's working," Crassus hissed, his eyes bright with triumph. "It took us a bloody lot of crafting to pull it off, and the witchmen aren't at all comfortable, but it's working."
Tavi felt his mouth stretch out into a fierce grin. "Hah!"
"Bloody crows!" Maximus said, frustration and delight warring in his voice. "In the name of all the great furies, what are you two talking about?"
Crassus turned to his half brother, grinning, and embraced him. "Come on," he said. "See for yourself."
Crassus led them all to the cliffs overlooking the sea below Molvar. In the silver light of the moon, the sea was a monochrome portrait of black water and white wave-caps-and riding upon that dark sea were three white ships, ships so enormous that for a moment it seemed that Tavi's eyes had to be lying to him. And he'd known what to expect.
He turned to see the faces of the others, who were simply staring in disbelief at the enormous white vessels. They watched as tiny figures moved about on the decks of the sail-less ships-engineers of the First Aleran, whose tiny forms upon the white decks showed the true size of the ships: Each of them was nearly half a mile in length and more than half as wide.
"Ships," Max said, his tone dull. "Really. Big. Ships."
"Barges, really," Gradash corrected him, though the old Cane's own voice was sober and quiet. "No masts. What's making them move?"
"Furycraft," Tavi replied. "Witchmen are using seawater to push them." He turned to Crassus. "How many levels deep?"
"Twelve," Crassus said, something smug in his voice. "Cramped for a Cane, but they'll fit."
"Ice!" Kitai exclaimed suddenly, her tone enormously pleased. "You crafted ships from ice!"
Tavi turned to her and nodded, smiling. Then said, to Gradash, "I remembered the ice mountains you showed me as we arrived. And if the leviathans truly avoid them, we should have no problems with them on the way back to Alera."
The old Cane stared at the ships, his ears quivering. "But the ice mountains. They roll like taurga with itchy backs."
"The keels go fairly deep, and are weighted with stone," Crassus assured the Cane. "They should be stable, provided they don't take a big wave broadside. They won't roll."
"Roll, crows," Maximus sputtered. "Ice melts."
"It also floats," Tavi said, feeling a little smug himself, though he probably didn't deserve it. He hadn't been working himself to exhaustion for days to make them happen, after all.
"The firecrafters have been making coldstones nonstop," Crassus told Max. "There are enough of them there to keep the ships from melting for three weeks, by which time they'll have made more-and the engineers stretched a granite frame throughout. They think they'll hold, if we can avoid the worst of the weather."
Tavi slammed a fist on the pauldrons of Crassus's armor. "Well done, Tribune," he said fiercely.
"So," Kitai said, smiling. "We get everyone on the ships, and we leave the Vord screaming their frustration behind us. This is a fine plan, Aleran."
"If the weather holds," Max said darkly.
"That's what Knights Aeris are for," Crassus said calmly. "It will be hard work, but we'll do it. We have to do it."
Canim horns brayed from the earthworks, pulsing out in odd, baying signals. Tavi held up a hand for silence and watched Gradash.
The old Cane took in the horn calls and reported, "The first of the main body of Lararl's regulars have been sighted, Tavar."
Max whistled. "One crowbegotten fine retreat, if they held together all the way from the fortress."
Tavi nodded agreement. "And that means that the Vord won't be far behind. We need to get moving, people. The enemy is close." He began giving rapid orders, rounding up a couple of couriers to get them out to the right portions of the Legion, when a surge of terrified realization from Kitai hit him like a punch in the belly. He stopped in the middle of his sentence and turned to her.
"Aleran!" she said, staring out at the breach in the earthworks where the First Aleran was stationed.
Tavi spun to see the First Aleran under assault. Enormous blue-armored Canim had, in the midst of passing peacefully through their positions, suddenly whirled to attack. In the bright moonlight, Tavi could see the Shuarans hacking into the surprised Alerans, fighting in perfect unison and entirely without regard for their own lives.
He sucked in a breath and realized what had happened. "Taken," he spat. "Those Shuarans have been taken by the Vord." He turned to the others, and said, "The Vord aren't close. They're here."
Chapter 44
The Vord surged toward the defenses around Molvar in a great, dark wave, and the last defenders of Canea rose to meet them in a single, enormous roar of defiance and hate. Signal horns, Canim and Aleran alike, bayed and shrilled across the fey, silver-lit landscape, and from the west poured a great wave of the enemy, chitin gleaming and winking beneath the great eye of the winter moon.
Tavi knew that he was speaking, because orders were flying off his lips more rapidly than he could keep track of them, and all around him officers of the Legion were slamming out salutes and sprinting away, but it seemed that he didn't actually understand anything he was saying. His thoughts were racing, trying to cover every possible outcome of the next minutes and hours, anticipating everything, taking every measure he possibly could. Then he was swinging up behind Kitai onto a taurg and racing toward the battle.
The First Aleran had hacked down the taken Shuarans, suffering ruinous casualties in doing so-anything taken by the Vord was enormously strong, oblivious to pain, and fought with mindlessly suicidal ferocity. Though the taken Canim were down, several Alerans had joined each of the fallen enemy upon the earth-and the enemy's ruse had paid a dividend. The Legion's ranks had been badly disrupted, and the Vord's first thrust came hard on the heels of their opening gambit.
The Legion was being driven back from the breach in the earthworks, while more Vord-always more Vord-assaulted the rest of the defensive positions, preventing the Canim from coming to the Alerans' aid. Now the Legion fought to defend a twenty-foot-wide corridor, the opening in the earthworks. Ten-foot walls flanked the opening, and legionares with spears crouched in ranks atop those walls, thrusting their weapons into the press of armored Vord bodies below, while the infantry fought with shield and sword to keep the Vord from forcing their way through the engineered bottleneck and past the fortifications.
Tavi drew his sword and flung himself from the plunging taurg as the beast began to ride through the scattered and reeling legionares who had been driven out of position and away from their various centuries. "Legionares!" he bellowed. "To me!"
"Captain!" called a dazed legionare.
"Form up on me!" Tavi called to the scattered soldiers. "You, you, you, you're spear leaders! Line them up! Legionares, fall in on this line!"
Once he had the men organized into a fighting century, a block ten files long and eight legionares deep, he sent them forward, to the support of the men already fighting. He did it over and over, until the scattered soldiers were accounted for, and realized as he did that the Vord had imitated the enemy yet again. Tavi's group might have hunted down and killed the nearby queen a few days before, but the Vord were returning the compliment-the taken Shuarans, it seemed, had focused their efforts upon killing the centurions within each century. Crested helms lay far more thickly among the fallen Alerans than they should have and in the press of battle, without the leadership of the men wearing them, the organization vital to the Legion's order of battle had frayed.
The additional centuries helped to stiffen the lines, though Tavi knew that it would only be for a few moments-fortunately, those moments were enough.
The air screamed as forty Knights Aeris swept down upon the battle. Tavi lifted his sword, signaling Crassus, who flew at the head of the Knights-each of whom flew paired with another Knight, carrying a third armored form between them.
"Crassus!" Tavi shouted into the din of battle, pointing to the walls overlooking the bottleneck. "On the wall!"
But the young Tribune hadn't needed Tavi's gesticulations to see where his help was needed. Signing instructions to his men, Crassus touched down on the wall overlooking one side of the breech, along with half of his flight. The other half landed on the other side, where each pair of Knights Aeris deposited the men they'd brought to the fight-the Knights Ignus of the First Aleran.
Tavi couldn't see what happened from his vantage point on the ground, behind the Legion's wall of shields, but heartbeats later, there was an enormous roar and hellish blue-white light flared ahead of him, burning the black silhouette of the massed ranks into his vision. The Legion let out a shout of exultation at the return of their Knights, and surged forward, driving the Vord back into the sudden vacuum the Knights Ignus had burned into their ranks.
Tavi sprinted up to the earthworks to join Crassus, but by the time he got there, the situation was in hand-at least for the moment. The Vord had reeled back from the breach, and every time they began to press in more closely, one of the Knights Ignus unleashed a blast of fire in their midst.
"Max is coming," Crassus panted to Tavi. His face was streaked with sweat from the effort of his recent furycrafting. He turned to point back toward the city, where Max and a column of armored figures were marching at the quick step from the Legion camp outside the city walls. "He's bringing the engineers and our Knights Terra. We'll close up the breach and-"
On the outer earthworks, Canim horns blared and brayed, and at that signal, dozens of ritualists appeared among the Canim on the walls. All of the hooded figures threw back their pale mantles, dipped their hands into the pouches of blood they wore slung at their sides, and cast scarlet droplets into the air. Again, Tavi wasn't in position to see the results of the working, but he saw the great, billowing clouds of greenish mist form and fall, and heard the screams of agony among the Vord as it descended upon them, scouring the earthen walls clean of attackers.
"Form up!" bellowed a strident voice from the breach below. "Crows take your idiot eyes, form up! Dress the ranks before they hit us again!"
Tavi looked down to see Valiar Marcus-absent his crested centurion's helmet-striding among the Aleran lines. The First Spear's armor was horribly dented over his left shoulder, and that arm hung limply at his side-but he carried his centurion's baton in his right hand and made liberal use of it, shoving soldiers into line, rapping them sharply on their helmets to get their attention. Marcus had thought quickly, Tavi saw. The scarred veteran must have realized that his crested helm had marked him as a target when the battle had gotten under way and he'd removed it. A quick scan showed Tavi that there was a notable absence of crested helms among the ranks-but the centurions were still visibly doing their jobs, maintaining their presence by virtue of their batons, voices, and sheer force of will.
"It's going to take us several hours to load the supplies and all the refugees," Tavi said. "We have to hold them. Marcus is in charge of the breach. Support him. I'm going to talk to Varg."
"Aye, Your Highness," Crassus said, slamming a fist to his heart. "We'll do our part, never fear."
Tavi rushed up to the walls, taking advantage of the brief respite in the battle as the Vord recoiled from the massive scourge of acidic blood magic the ritualists had released upon them. He had to pace almost half a mile along the walls until he found Varg, who was striding the wall among his own people.
Tavi nodded to him and began speaking without preamble. "Three hours. We have to hold them that long at least."
Varg looked from Tavi out to the field, where the Vord were still pouring in from all over the countryside. The base of the wall was a ruin of melted chitin and half-formed bodies, all that was left after the ritualists' counterattack. "Three hours. That could be a long time."
"It will take that long for the transports to dock and for our people and supplies to load on," Tavi said. "There's no point in rescuing them now only to let them starve to death at sea."
Varg growled out his agreement. "What of our fighters?"
Tavi laid out the withdrawal plan for him. "None of which matters if we can't hold now."
Already, the Vord had recovered from the sting of the first repulsion, and were beginning to mass again, preparing to assault the earthworks once more en masse.
"We will hold," Varg growled. "We will wait for your signal."
For three hours, more and more Vord poured in from all across the countryside, their numbers growing ever larger, their attacks more focused and cohesive: and for three hours, the last defenders of Canea cast them back.
The casualty rate was hideous, the worst fighting any of them had seen-and for the First Aleran, that was saying something indeed. Once the earthcrafters had closed the breach in the earthworks, the Legions fought to defend a relatively tiny section of the defenses-proportional to their numbers.
It was the Canim who carried the lion's share of the battle.
Shuarans and Narashans fought side by side, reserve forces of warriors charging forward more and more frequently to come to the aid of hard-pressed militia fighters in their far lighter armor. Ritualists screamed to the night sky and sent death in multiple, hideous forms down upon their attackers-Varg had, it turned out, been bleeding volunteers from his people a bit at a time, regularly, on their way to Canea, saving up a store of blood for the ritualists to use. They unleashed it on the Vord, holding back nothing, to terrible effect, until they were pouring their clouds of acid down the faces of the earthworks not to kill Vord, but to further dissolve the corpses that were piling up higher and higher, building a ramp for the Vord that followed in their wake.
For the Alerans, the fight was grueling and desperate. Blocks of legionares, working together, could fend off the wave-assaults of the enemy, but when a formation was broken, or when any of the men were isolated, death followed close behind. Antillar Maximus, leading a cadre of Knights Terra and Ferrous, launched himself time and again into the fray, where the more deadly weapons of the powerful Knights would crush the Vord like so many toys, driving them back from the more vulnerable legionares.
Tavi did everything he could to make sure the men could fight on stable ground, and to facilitate the rotation of the rear ranks with those in the fore, fighting the exhaustion that was certain to do them more harm, in the end, than any Vord form or poison. Those wounded too badly to be able to walk were taken from the field, stabilized, and loaded onto the ships that waited for them at the bottom of the city of Molvar. Other wounds were quickly closed, then the men were sent back to the defenses, until there was barely a spear in the Legion who wasn't at least half-populated by the walking wounded.
When the Vord press became too great, firecrafters would lend their aid to the defenses-but the Knights Ignus quickly tired, and soon only Crassus remained capable of laying out the supporting fire the Legions required to survive. Tavi could only urge the young man on, silently, from his position at the rear of the fighting, and wonder at how the young Tribune could keep rising to his feet, again and again, to destroy more of the Vord.
Meanwhile, behind the battle, the civilians filed down the stairways hurriedly crafted into the stone, down to the water, there to board the vast ice ships. Canim families bore crushing loads with them, everyone lending a hand to the effort to pile supplies on the ships, the knowledge of the certain death that howled at the earthworks driving them to cooperation and orderly conduct more surely than any law or tradition ever could.
Twice, the Vord breached the earthworks and began pouring down the terraces-but both times, Anag and the Shuaran taurg cavalry charged, shattering the momentum of the advance, which was then pushed back by blocks of Varg's elite warriors, led personally by the Warmaster.
And then, after more than four endless, nightmarish hours, the horns Magnus had stationed at the piers began to sound the retreat.
"That's it!" Tavi screamed, turning to the trumpeter he'd kept near him. "Signal the Canim! Sound the retreat!"
As the silver trumpet shrilled, the First Spear turned to Tavi from his place in the ranks, eyes searching. Tavi flashed Marcus several hand signals, and the veteran centurion began barking orders that were repeated instantly through the ranks.
Once more, the Canim horns brayed, and the ritualists came forward for one last, mass summoning of blood magic. The Vord reeled back from the destruction-and in that moment of opportunity, the defenders turned and withdrew from their positions.
"Go!" Tavi shouted, waving men past him, willing them to retreat in good order, to escape, to survive. "Through the city gate and down to the ship! The route is marked by our colors! Go, go, go!"
Four hours of hard fighting made a poor prelude to the mile and a half of hard marching the men would have to make before they could board their ships, but none of them seemed anything less than eager to take to his heels. Despite the hours of slaughter and havoc they and the Canim had wreaked upon the Vord, the enemy numbers outside the walls had not visibly diminished-this was a battle they could not possibly win, and they knew it. They could only hope to survive.
The Vord came over the walls and began to pour down them like a black flood finally breaching a strained levy, pursuing the retreating forces-but the taurg cavalry flung itself forward into the foremost elements of the advance. The taurga, bellowing their fury and fear, smashed into the oncoming Vord with a ferocity and power of impact that Tavi had never seen, an unstoppable hammerblow that left acres of Vord crushed into the Canean soil.
Again and again the taurga charged, and here and there, one of the great mounts fell, pulled down by the sheer weight of numbers, spilling a blue-and-black-armored Canim warrior onto the cold earth to a savage death.
But all they could do was slow the oncoming tide.
Tavi pushed along at the rear of the Aleran forces, a shoulder under one of Crassus's arms, hauling the exhausted young Tribune along by main force. He was exhausted, and every nerve felt strained. Everything happened very rapidly, and at the same time in achingly slowed distortion.
The Canim and Alerans alike flowed into Molvar through the city's several gates, and went rushing down to the docks, where the ships stood waiting for them, lined up in specific order. Boarding instructions were designed for speed, not organization. Each ship would take its maximum load from the first to reach it, then clear the piers in the port for the next.
If Tavi had known, when he was younger, how much of war depended upon vast and complex ways of organizing where people were supposed to walk, eat, sleep, and relieve themselves, he thought he would have had a completely different opinion on the subject.
He was among the last Alerans to enter the city, and he could see the Vord, halfway across the open ground, rushing toward the city as the Canim at the gates swung them closed and locked them shut.
"Go!" Tavi urged them silently. "Go, go, go!"
Outside, he heard the Canim cavalry sound their own retreat, then the taurga racing toward the stone piers. Tavi could not imagine the danger and mayhem that was about to ensue when several hundred blood-maddened Canim guided the battle-frenzied taurga down narrow stone staircases so that they could board the ice ships, but it was plain to him that no sane man would want to be anywhere close.
Even as Tavi kept urging his men to hurry on through the city, their way marked by pennants made from strips of red-and-blue cloth, he saw the Canim on the walls of the city begin to rush through the walls and buildings with lit torches, setting them aflame. The fires had been laid hours before, and spread rapidly, smoke coming up in a sudden veil.
Molvar would burn to shield their escape.
"Max!" Tavi gasped, still hauling Crassus along by one arm. "Here, help me!"
Max appeared from the confusion and smoke and got beneath his brother's other arm. "I can handle him. You should move ahead, get to a ship!"
"Once all of our people are ready to go, I will," Tavi responded. "Stop slowing me down, and get moving."
"Captain!" Marcus appeared out of the smoke, coughing. "West wind is rising! The fire's spreading toward us faster than we can move away!"
"Get to the front of the line with some Knights!" Tavi called back. "Knock down some walls if you have to!"
"Yes, sir!" Marcus saluted and vanished again.
As they got closer to the piers, the line came to a halt, the men backed up in the street, pressed chest to shoulder blades with their fellows. Tavi could hear Marcus bellowing orders in a smoke-roughened voice, somewhere ahead of them. Men had begun to shout and mill about in panic, as the roar of the fire grew nearer, along with the light of the spreading flames.
"Stand easy, men!" Tavi called. "We'll get through. We're going to be-"
Tavi didn't know how the Vord had gotten through. Perhaps it had been one of the first to reach the city, and had plunged through the flames before they had risen to deadly intensity. Perhaps its froglike form had been specifically designed to resist heat. Perhaps it had just gotten lucky. Regardless, Tavi didn't realize that it was there at all until something disturbingly like a hand seized a weary, wounded legionare beside him, holding the man's entire head in its grasp, and flung him to his back on the ground.
Just as it happened, there was a surge of motion and a roar of triumph from the Legion ahead of Tavi. Men stumbled forward as the restraining pressure of the bodies in front of them was released.
Tavi screamed for help, but his voice was lost amidst the shouts and the roaring fire and wind. The Vord hunched over the fallen legionare, moving with a hideously lithe ferocity. Sparks flew from the armor over the legionare's belly as the Vord raked at him with shining green-black claws.
Tavi drew his sword, needing no conscious effort to call upon the furies within the Aleran steel. His sword struck through the arm with which the Vord had the legionare pinned, then through its slender neck in a pair of rapid strokes, followed by a fury-enhanced kick that prevented the Vord's mass from falling on the downed legionare and pinning him there.
Tavi flashed the stunned-looking man a quick grin and hauled him to his feet. "No lying down on the job, soldier. Watch my back until we get to the ship, eh?"
The man answered his smile with one of his own and drew his sword. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
The two of them hurried through the thickening smoke to catch up with the retreating legionares, and Tavi found himself beginning to cough and struggle for breath. There were more of the Vord in the haze, moving as swiftly as shadows, glimpsed for only a second before they were gone again. An eerie shriek rose through the smoke, and others answered it from all around, the cries echoing between buildings and becoming strangely distorted as they bounced around stone.
Elsewhere in the streets, they heard the snarls and roars of fighting Canim, mixing with the shrieks of the Vord. They were under attack, as they descended through their own routes to the harbor.
The smell of seawater, tar, and fish, the odor of every harbor Tavi had ever encountered, suddenly reached him through the acrid stench of smoke. The legionares were emerging from one of the several streets to the harbor, where their ships waited to receive them. Enough light shone through the smoke from the burning city above them to light their way, even without the lamps set up along the piers, and Tavi could hear Marcus and other centurions bellowing orders, counting off men to each ship.
"Form on me!" Tavi called, sword still in hand, and began organizing the legionares at the rear into an outward-facing defense, swords and shields at the ready, with spears in the second rank, their gleaming steel points protruding in a defensive thicket.
He'd acted none too soon. Vord rushed them through the smoke, half a dozen of the froglike beasts bounding out of the shadows and confusion, only to meet the armor and steel of the readied Legion. Once they were in position, Tavi let a trio of baton-wielding centurions take over the defense, which slowly contracted backward onto the wharves as the legionares behind the wall of shields boarded their vessels.
The ships began to warp away from the piers as they filled, turning to sail down the channel and out of the harbor. The smaller Aleran ships had few problems, but the passage was a far tighter fit for the larger Canim vessels, and the process of emptying the harbor was agonizingly slow. It had to be. A ship, if mishandled, could sink in the channel and block it for every vessel behind. Even moving at the most frantic pace that could be managed, the ships practically touching one another as they sailed out, it was more than an hour before the rear of the column stepped slowly backward onto the piers. All the while the smoke thickened, and the fires drew nearer.
Tavi checked to see that Marcus was counting off the last thousand men onto half a dozen ships that had hurriedly thrown lines to the piers and tossed down gangplanks. The Slive was the last ship, tying on to the end of the pier, and Tavi could see Kitai standing in the prow.
Tavi counted off men from the last line, sending them back to board a ship one by one, until only he, Marcus, and half a dozen legionares remained, marching slowly backward down the stone pier while half a dozen of the frog-Vord ghosted through the smoke, wary of rushing forward after an hour of clashing uselessly against Legion shields.
Only forty yards remained as the last of the legionares boarded and the ships cast off. Then twenty. Then ten.
Five yards from the gangplank of the Slive, something seized Tavi's leg in an iron grip and hauled him off the pier and down into the cold water of the harbor. He plunged into frigid and utter darkness, and the weight of his armor pulled him down like a sinking stone.
The Vord that had seized his leg had not let go. Tavi felt an enormous hand clutch him around the waist. Something clamped onto his arm at the elbow, fangs sinking into the skin above the steel bracer on his forearm, tearing into his biceps and shook him savagely.
Tavi had to fight not to scream. His long sword would have been useless at such close quarters, so he drew his dagger and thrust it awkwardly at the Vord, feeling the badly aimed tip slip and turn aside from the Vord's armored skin. Surrounded completely by water, he tried in vain to summon strength from the earth, the only thing that might allow him to escape the Vord's grip, but it was useless. He distinctly felt the bone in his arm break as the Vord ripped at him with hideous strength in the dark-and continued pulling, beginning to rip his arm from his body, the pain mounting, bubbles of priceless breath escaping his lips and sliding along his face.
And then his feet struck the icy silt at the bottom of the harbor.
Fury-born strength surged through him and he transferred the dagger to his mouth, gripping the blade in his teeth, so that he could twist around with his undamaged arm. The motion tore his shoulder from its socket, but he drew the steel of his dagger into his mind and the pain became a piece of background datum, like the temperature of the water or the fact that he was hungry. He secured a grip on the Vord's armored limb and twisted his hips, scissoring his legs up, feeling his back strike the mud as the Vord struggled. He locked his legs around what he thought was the Vord's body, closed his good hand in the tightest grip he could imagine and arched his body, crushing his legs together with all his strength.
For seconds they strained in stasis-and then something broke with a horrible crack, and the Vord's grip went loose. Tavi kept ripping and straining until the Vord tore, then shoved the still-twitching pieces away from him, into the water.
His fingers flew to the fastenings on his armor. He'd done and undone them thousands of times by now, and it was an operation he could perform when practically asleep-when he was using both hands. And when the leather fastenings weren't soaked and swollen. And when his fingers weren't numb from the freezing water. And when he wasn't more than half-panicked, his lungs burning, with brightly colored stars dancing across his vision.
He kept struggling with the lacings, and finally managed to slide free of his armor. Only his continued focus on his metalcrafting as his broken arm and shoulder came free kept the pain from curling him into a ball of agony and sealing his fate. He ripped at the buckles of his heavy greaves until they came free, kicked off the bottom with whatever feeble strength he had left, and swam in the direction he thought was toward the surface. The pressure on his lungs and ears was awful, and he needed to breathe, and his lungs were collapsing, readying to draw in another breath whether he was clear of the water or not, and the dagger had fallen from his mouth and the fire from his shoulder and arm was simply too agonizing to be real-
Something slapped against his head, then seized him by the collar, and he was rising through the water, choking on the first half-breath of water-as his head emerged into the air.
Kitai jerked his head and shoulders out of the water with unexpected strength, and her panic and fury pounded against his senses. "Aleran!" she cried. "Chala!"
He retched out water and choked in a wet, heavy breath, hardly able to move his limbs together.
Something cut through the water nearby them, something dark and large and swift. A shark-or another Vord.
"Go!" Tavi gasped. "Go, go!"
Kitai began swimming, hauling him along by his tunic, and Tavi struggled just to keep his head above the water. They were fifty feet from the Slive, and just as far from the pier-which was haunted with Vord. Tavi had just begun to make sense of things again, through the pain in his shoulder and chest and arm, when he looked up to see the bulk of the Slive, already drifting back from the pier, moving above him.
Men were shouting, and a line fell into the water. Kitai seized it with one hand, wrapped it several times around her forearm and screamed something. Then she was rising and pulling Tavi up out of the water by the tunic-and his weight all seemed to concentrate itself in his ravaged shoulder.
Tavi screamed at the agony and bucked in entirely involuntary reaction, accompanied by the sound of ripping cloth and a short fall into the water.
He fought his way to the air again as something rushed by beneath the surface, brushing against his legs. He saw the ship gliding backward from the pier and away from him, Kitai and the line already out of reach. Her hand was tangled in the rope and she fought frantically to free herself, but she was already yards away. Tavi looked up to see Demos looking over the rail at the side of the ship, the captain's eyes wide, and then there was only the old carved figurehead of the Slive, the beautiful woman staring sightlessly ahead with a slight smile on her lovely lips.
Tavi's legs began to fail, and the water reached up for him. He began to sink, the figurehead holding his attention, until it almost seemed to swell in size, growing larger, turning toward him.
He realized with a shock that the carven woman on the Slive's prow was moving, and that it was not some trick of his frozen, agonized mind. She bent to him with a grace and splendor belied by the peeling paint of her features, smiling, and extended a strong and slender hand.
Tavi summoned the last of his failing strength and took it, feeling her grip his hand with flexible, inexorable strength. She was drawing him from the water, lifting him through the air, as another frog-Vord struck at his heels in vain. He had a brief and dizzying view of the foredeck of the ship, then he was lying on wooden planks, too tired to lift his head.
"Gotcha," said Demos in satisfaction. "My lord."
"Chala!" Kitai shouted. She was there beside him, her own wet tunic clinging to her slender form as she ripped a cloak from a passing sailor and tossed it over him. "Maximus! He's bleeding!"
"Healer!" bellowed Marcus's smoke-roughened voice. "Bring out a tub!"
"Captain," Tavi croaked. "Get us the crows away from here."
"Aye," Demos said, as several willing hands lifted him toward a tub that had been hurriedly brought up from the hold of the ship. "Aye, my lord. Let's go home."
