“Noon,” Tavi said. “You’ll have to trust me on this one.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not sure that we don’t have more spies in the camp. Need to know only, First Spear.”
Marcus stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” Tavi said quietly. “When we push through to the center of the bridge, I’m going to drive forward with one cohort, while the engineers work.”
“One cohort?” Marcus asked.
Tavi nodded. “If the plan works, one cohort will be enough. If it doesn’t, we should be able to hold the Canim off long enough for the engineers to finish.”
Marcus took a slow breath. The First Spear understood the implications.
“I’m going to ask for volunteers,” Tavi said quietly.
“You’ll get them,” Marcus said. “But I don’t see why we shouldn’t hit them at first light, cut the bridge, and call it a day.”
“If we lose the bridge, they’ll be able to secure their entire northern front with just a few of their troops, and the rest of them will be free to kill Alerans elsewhere. As long as the bridge is up, we’ll be able to put Legions into the territory south of the bridge, and they won’t dare divide their forces.” Tavi narrowed his eyes. “This is our job, Marcus. It isn’t a pretty one, but I can’t just hand it to someone else.”
There was a quality of frustration to Marcus’s grunt of acknowledgment.
“I’ll hold the volunteers back to rest until we push. The rest of First Aleran is at your disposal, as are our Knights Flora.”
“All six of them.” Marcus sighed.
“Tell them to keep their heads down. If those marksmen start up again, they’re going to be your only chance to counter them.”
“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, sir,” Marcus muttered.
Tavi snorted and turned to the First Spear. “You’ve got to hold them, Marcus. At any cost.”
Marcus let out a slow breath. “Yes, sir.” He stared at the night for a moment before he said, “Offer you a suggestion, sir?”
“Go ahead,” Tavi said.
“Don’t split up a cohort when you get your volunteers. These men know each other. Trained together. It makes a difference.”
Tavi frowned. “I won’t take anyone with me who doesn’t want to go.”
“Then make sure men who are willing to die for you have every chance to survive. You owe them that.”
Tavi arched an eyebrow. “Three hundred and twenty men, all volunteering together? How likely is that?”
Marcus gave him a sidelong look, and said, “Sir. It’s the infantry.”
Three cohorts volunteered to spearhead the attack.
Tavi had them draw lots. By the time the Canim renewed their assault, he stood at the north end of the Elinarch with the winners. Or, he thought, the losers. Depending on whether or not his idea worked.
His heart skipped a few beats, but he sternly ordered it back to work.
“Sir,” Schultz said, “when Antillar Maximus was our centurion, he was senior centurion in this cohort, and his century was first century. But I’m only an acting centurion, sir. I don’t have the seniority to command first century, much less the cohort.”
Tavi glanced at the fish. “I’ve spoken to the other centurions. They agree that you know what you’re doing, Schultz, and that your century is still the best disciplined. So you’re senior centurion until I tell you you’re not. Do you hear me, soldier?”
“Yes, sir,” Schultz responded at once.
“Good,” Tavi said.
A roar went up from the legionares on the last wall, and every man in the spearhead cohort looked suddenly tense. Canim horns blared, and heavy drums rolled, and the screaming roar of combat came down to the town as the rest of the Legion battled the Canim on the bridge.
Tavi listened for two minutes before seeing the signal on the wall, a blue banner lifted beside the Legion’s standard.
“Good call, Captain,” Max observed, his voice amused. He walked forward from the rear of the cohort, buckling on the much-longer sword preferred by duelists and mounted legionares. “They did what you thought they would. They’re hitting us with their raiders.”
Tavi exhaled very slowly, and nodded. “You ready?”
“Born ready, ‘ Max replied cheerfully, drawing a round of quiet chuckles from the waiting Legion. The only three Knights Terra in the Legion came with him, their armor clanking, their vicious, oversized weapons weighing heavy on their shoulders.
Tavi nodded to the Knights and raised his voice. “Tribune Antillus?”
“Ready when you give the word, sir,” called Crassus from the rear of the cohort, where he waited with his Knights Aeris-and the Legions’ engineers, including their new recruits, the dancers from the Pavilion, now dressed in the armor of slain or incapacitated legionares.
“All right, then,” Tavi said. “Keep the men in this courtyard, but let them get some food and rest. Once we start pushing, there won’t be time for anything else.”
Maximus nodded to Schultz, who began giving orders for his inexperienced cohort to fall out for food and remain nearby.
“Captain,” Max said, under the cover of the noise. “Sit down. We have some time to wait through, and you haven’t rested.”
“No,” Tavi said. “I need to be on the wall with the First Spear until it’s time to move. I’ll come back and get you then.”
“Captain,” Max said, in exactly the same tone of voice. This time, though, he put a hand on Tavi’s shoulder, and his fingers clamped down on it like steel bands. “You aren’t going to do anything up there that he can’t. You let yourself get too tired, and it will slow down your wits. And since we’re betting it all on your wits, sir, I think it best that you make sure they’re ready to perform.” Max met his eyes. “Please, Calderon.”
Tavi closed his eyes for a second, and that horrible fatigue threatened him again. Part of him wanted to snarl at Max to shut up and follow orders. The rest realized that the big Antillan was right. He was asking these men to risk their lives carrying out a course of action he had planned. He owed it to them to give them his very best effort when they put everything on the line.
“All right,” Tavi said. “I’ll sit down. But just for a minute.”
“A minute,” Max said, nodding. “That’s fine.”
Tavi slipped out of his helmet, sat down with his back against the stone columns at the base of the Elinarch, and closed his eyes. He’d never be able to get any sleep, but at least he could take a few moments of quiet to order his thoughts, to go over the possibilities, all the things that could go wrong with his plan.
Try as he might, he couldn’t think of anything else he might do, and after a few moments of effort, he shook his head and opened his eyes.
Gloomy daylight greeted his gaze, the veiled sun barely visible through the overcast above the land. Tavi blinked up at it in confusion for a second. A muscle cramp seized his neck and set off a series of similar painful contractions in the muscles between his shoulder blades. He labored to his feet and bent, trying to stretch the muscles, until the cramps eased.
“Sir,” said Schultz from behind him.
“Centurion,” Tavi mumbled, turning. “How long was I asleep?”
“Hours, sir,” Schultz replied. “Tribune Antillar said to leave you be.”
Tavi muttered something about Max-under his breath. It wouldn’t do for a Legion’s captain to call one of his Tribunes names in front of the men, after all.
“Oh,” Schultz said. He swallowed, then hurried to one side and picked up a plate covered with a soft napkin and a tankard that lay nearby. “He told me to give you these first thing, sir.”
Tavi ground his teeth, but managed to keep from snatching the plates from Schultz’s hands. “Thank you.”
“Welcome, sir,” Schultz said. Then he hastily backed away as though he expected Tavi to rip his head off.
Tavi suffocated a grumpy snarl, wolfed down the food and drank the water in the tankard. By the-time he finished, the lingering after-spasms of the muscle cramps had vanished.
“Can you form words yet, sir?” Max asked, striding up to Tavi. He nodded to Schultz, and the acting centurion bellowed for the cohort to fall in. Le-gionares began to rise from where they’d dropped into sleep on the ground or sat awaiting their turn to fight.