He touched her chin with his fingertips, lifting her eyes to his. "Isana," he said. "He's your son. It is your place to tell him. He should hear it from you." He shook his head. "But if you can't-or won't-I will."
Isana flinched a little at the words, if not his quiet, steady tone. "Has it come to that? Really?"
"Yes."
The simple answer held absolutely no room for doubt. Isana bit her lip.
"He'll… Will he understand? Why I had to do it? Lie to him…" She shook her head. "He's grown so fast, Araris."
"He'll understand," he said quietly. "Or he won't. Either way, he deserves to know. He needs to know."
Isana shivered, and without being asked, Araris stepped forward, putting his arms around her. She leaned against him gratefully, closing her eyes. His armor was warm from the gentle sunshine, and he felt steady, immovable, like an obdurate stone in a rushing stream. He was that. He had always been there for her, and for Tavi, had always watched them, helped them, protected them, his presence and his trustworthiness something so elemental that she'd barely thought to question it, any more than she would have tested fire to be sure that it was hot, water to be sure it was wet.
All the same, it was a daunting thought. Telling Tavi the truth, after so many years of hiding it from him. From everyone.
"I don't want to tell him," she said quietly.
Araris nodded, silent and steady.
"But you're right."
He nodded again.
"I'll tell him."
Chapter 1
"My ass hurts," said Antillar Maximus, Tribune Auxiliarus of the First Aleran.
"My ass hurts, sir," Tavi corrected him.
"Hey. Sacred right."
Tavi grunted where he lay prone and peered steadily through the yellow-and-brown winter grass of the Vale at the valley beneath them. "Just imagine if you'd marched here instead of riding."
"No thank you, sir," Max replied. "I'm too busy imagining I decided to take a few more terms at the Academy so that I could practice my earthcrafting with wealthy and beautiful Citizen girls, sir, instead of riding around the back of beyond looking to pick a fight with big, scary monsters."
The two of them lay low, and Max's voice was pitched barely louder than a whisper, for all that it never stopped running. As long as they didn't stand up and present the enemy force marching through the valley below with a beautiful silhouette, they were far enough above them to avoid being seen. Probably.
"I make that four thousand," Tavi murmured after a moment. "You?"
"Forty-two hundred," Max replied promptly. For all his complaining, the big Antillan was every bit the trained observer Tavi was. In fact, Tavi trusted his friend's estimate over his own.
Tavi frowned, thinking. "Figure one cohort for camp security…"
"… and one more for scouting ahead and behind as they march," Max continued the thought.
"Bloody crows." Tavi sighed. "A full Legion."
Max let out a grim sound of agreement. "Looks that way."
Tavi felt a cold little shiver run along his belly.
In the valley below, an army of Canim marched steadily through the dry grass. The wolf-headed warriors moved with steady purpose, a good three thousand of them spread in a loose, horseshoe-shaped arrangement around a core of solid, heavily armored troops marching in ranks. Three thousand raiders shifting position would not have stirred Tavi to launch any kind of assault. Conscripted Canim, with a minimum of military discipline, the raiders were dangerous only by virtue of their numbers and their tremendous size and strength. The average Cane stood between seven and eight feet tall, and that was in their standard, half-crouched posture. Standing erect, they would have been a foot taller than that, and the sheer speed and power held within those lean frames was terrifying.
Still, the Canim army now occupying much of the territory of the cities of Ceres and Kalare could afford to lose three thousand of their dregs. It was the core of disciplined troops marching at their center, members of the elite Canim warrior caste, that had drawn Tavi from the fortifications.
A thousand of those hardened, disciplined, supremely dangerous troops represented a tithe of the Canim's total number of heavy infantry. In all their clashes with the Canim, the First Aleran had killed a relatively limited number of the warrior caste. Canim losses had been almost universally drawn from among their raiders. Nasaug, the leader of the Canim forces, never used his best troops except in devastatingly well-timed assaults, and the vast majority of Aleran losses had been at the hands of the Canim warrior caste.
Ehren's report of a thousand of them shifting position had represented an opportunity to inflict serious harm upon Nasaug's troops. A thousand were not so many as to be undefeatable, but more than enough to represent a significant loss to the enemy's prize corps of troops. When Tavi had learned which territory they were moving through, he had ordered his most mobile and dangerous units into the field at once.
The Canim warriors were walking through a death trap.
This particular valley had remarkably steep walls, and the lattice of tiny streams that ran through it provided enough water to ensure a growth of luxuriant grass-which had not yet flushed into the lush, verdant sea of green it would become within a few more weeks. For now, it was a ten-mile-long, one-mile-wide box filled with kindling and a thousand of Nasaug's finest.
The First Aleran's Knights Ignus were already in position, with the far more numerous Knights Aeris beside them. At Tavi's signal, the Knights Ignus would set the valley ablaze while the Knights Aeris used their furies to call forth a gale and send a sudden riptide of fire and fury over the foe. The Battlecrows stood at the head of the valley, ready to set a backfire and blockade the valley's only means of egress, while Max's cavalry stood ready to sweep down from the other end of the valley and crush any Canim who managed to escape immolation.
Which was why the second Legion marching beside the Canim company was a problem.
They were Alerans.
Better than four thousand Alerans in full Legion regalia marched beside the most dangerous historic foes of the Realm, under banners that did not correspond to any of the great cities of Alera. Worse, they were moving in good order. Two years ago, Tavi would never have understood how difficult such an apparently simple maneuver actually was. It took serious discipline to achieve such uniform movement, and was evidence of a disturbing amount of competence on behalf of whoever was training those troops.
"Give me a lens, please," Tavi said quietly.
The big Antillan rose a little, leaned over Tavi, and held his hands out on either side of Tavi's face, fingers spread. The air between Max's palms blurred, and suddenly the force below them seemed to rush hundreds of yards closer, as Max's furies bent the air, magnifying Tavi's view.
"Those aren't Kalaran banners," Tavi murmured after a moment's study.
Max let out a skeptical grunt. "Maybe Kalare didn't want to be openly associated with them."
"He's already attacked his neighbors without warning, kidnapped several family members of his fellow High Lords, and had dozens and dozens of Citizens murdered by his pet maniacs," Tavi pointed out. "You really think he's worried about covering up his involvement with the Canim at this point?"
"Put that way," Max said. "No."
Tavi let out a little snort of a breath. "Take a look at their gear."
Max moved his hands up to hold before his own face. A moment later, he reported, "It's old. I mean, everything looks to be in pretty good shape, but the armor is of a design that went out of use years ago. There are lots of missing pieces, too. Mismatched greaves, nonstandard-length spears, that kind of thing." Max grunted. "Never seen any banners like that, either. Brown and green? Who uses brown and green for banners? They're supposed to be visible. That's the point of banners."