“Sir,” Max said, saluting. He immediately rose, barking commands, and the weary legionares began to stir.
The column was forming-a much more difficult prospect in the dark, Tavi noted-when a rippling chill flickered down Tavi’s spine and made the hairs on his arms stand up. He glanced around him in the evening gloom, then headed for the darkest patch of shadows on the west side of the camp.
When he got close, he saw a flicker of pale skin within a dark hood, and Ki-tai whispered, “Aleran. There is something you must see.”
There was something very odd, very alien in her voice, and Tavi realized that Kitai sounded… afraid.
Kitai glanced about, drew back her hood, and met Tavi’s eyes with hers, poised in perfect, graceful suspension of motion, like a hidden doe ready to flee from a grass lion. “Aleran, you must see this.”
Tavi met her gaze for a moment, then nodded once. He went to Max and murmured, “Take them back to town. Leave two horses here.”
Max blinked. “What? Where are you going?”
“Kitai’s found something I need to see.”
Max lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “Tavi. You’re the captain of this Legion.”
Tavi answered just as quietly, and just as fiercely. “I am a Cursor, Max. It is my duty to acquire information for the defense of the Realm. And I’m not about to order anyone else to go out there tonight. I’ve gotten enough people killed today.”
Max’s expression became pained, but then a centurion called out that the column was ready.
“Go,” Tavi said. “I’ll catch up to you.”
Max exhaled slowly. Then he squared his shoulders and offered Tavi his hand. Tavi shook it. “Good luck,” Max said.
“And to you.”
Max nodded, mounted, and called the column into motion. Within a moment, they were out of sight. A moment more, and the sound of their passage faded as well, leaving Tavi suddenly alone, in the dark, in a strange part of the country filled with enemies only too glad to kill him in as painful and horrible a fashion as possible.
Tavi shook his head. Then he started stripping out of his armor. A beat later, Kitai was at his side, pale, nimble fingers flying over straps and buckles, helping him remove it. He drew his dark brown traveling cloak from his saddlebags, donned it, and made sure that both horses would be ready to move when he and Kitai returned.
Then, without a word, Kitai headed out into the night at a vulpine lope, and Tavi fell into pace behind her. They ran through the night and the occasional flicker of bloody lightning, and Kitai led him up into the rolling hills that framed that stretch of the Tiber valley.
His legs and chest were burning by the time they reached the top of what seemed like the hundredth hill, nearly two hours later, then Kitai’s pace began to slow. She led him over the next few hundred yards at a slow, perfectly silent walk, andTavi emulated her. It took them only a moment more to reach the lip of the hill.
Light glowed in the distance, bright and golden and steady. For a moment, Tavi thought he was looking at the burning city of Founderport-until he saw that the light of the tremendous fire was actually behind the city, from his perspective, its light making the city walls stand out as sharp, clear silhouettes.
It took him a moment longer to recognize what he was seeing.
Founderport wasn’t burning.
The Canim ^feet was.
The fire roared so loudly that he could actually, faintly hear it, as a far-distant moaning sound. He could see, amidst smoke and fire, the shapes of masts and decks of sailing vessels being consumed by flame.
“They’re burning their own ships behind them,” Tavi whispered.
“Yes, Aleran,” Kitai said. “Your people would not have believed it, from the lips of a Marat. Your eyes had to see.”
“This isn’t a raid. It isn’t an incursion.” Tavi suddenly felt very cold. “That’s why there are so many of the Canim this time. That’s why they’re willing to sacrifice a thousand troops just to keep us occupied.”
He swallowed.
“They mean to stay.”
Chapter 33
Tavi stared out at the burning ships, so far away, and thought about all the implications their presence would mean. It meant that whatever the Canim had done in the past, matters had altered, and drastically.
For all of Alera’s history, conflict with the Canim had been for control of the various islands between Alera and the Canim homeland-harsh, pitched fights for seaside fortifications, mostly, usually with a naval battle or two mixed in. Every few years, Canim raiding ships would hurtle from the deep seas to Alera’s shores, burning and looting towns where they could, carrying away the valuables to be had there, and occasionally seizing Alerans and dragging them off to a fate no one had ever been able to ascertain. Whether they wound up as slaves or food, it was certainly an unpleasant ending.
More infrequent were larger Canim incursions, some of which had curled around the coastline to the seafaring cities like Parcia, and dozens of ships swept down together in a much larger attack. The Canim had burned Parcia to the ground some four hundred years before and had leveled the city of Rhodes no fewer than three times.
But Ehren had said that this invasion force was infinitely larger than any previously seen. And they had no intention of striking at Alera and returning to their homeland. The Canim, for whatever reason, were there to stay, and the implications of that were terrifying.
For the Canim, their attack upon Alera was literally a do-or-die situation. They had nothing to lose, everything to gain, and they would be certain that the only way to ensure their own safety would be to destroy the folk of Alera, le-gionare and holder, city and steadholt alike. They were trapped, desperate, and Tavi well knew the kind of berserk, fearless ferocity any trapped creature could display.
He watched the fires for a moment more, then said to Kitai, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the sea. I wish it hadn’t been like this.”
She did not answer him-but her warm hand slipped to his, and their fingers intertwined.
“How did you see the fires in the first place?” Tavi asked Kitai. “What were you doing all the way out here?”
“Hunting,” she said quietly.
Tavi frowned. “Hunting what?”
“Answers.”
“Why?”
“Because I killed the man you wished to make talk. I thought it proper to make amends for that discourtesy.” She looked from the distant pyres to Tavi. “When you were returning to your camp with the prisoners, I saw the High Lady of Antillus ride from the city by the great bridge. Since then, I have tracked her. She has gone to ground nearby. I can show you where. Perhaps she will have the answers you wanted to find.”
Tavi frowned and stared at Kitai for a moment. “Do you have any idea how dangerous she is?”
Kitai shrugged. “She did not see me.”
Tavi gritted his teeth for a moment, then said, “She’s too much for us to handle.”
“Why?” Kitai said.
“She’s a High Lady,” Tavi said. “If you had any idea all the things she could do…”
“She is a coward,” Kitai said, contempt in her tone. “She lets others do all her killing for her. She arranges accidents. Things in which she will never be found and blamed.”
“Which does not mean that she couldn’t burn us to cinders with a flick of her hand,” Tavi said. “It can’t be done.”
“Like taking Max from the Grey Tower could not be done, Aleran?”
Tavi opened his mouth to argue. Then he closed it again and scowled at Kitai. “This is different.” He narrowed his eyes. “But… why in the world would she be all the way out here? You say she’s camped?”
Kitai nodded. “A narrow gulch not far from here.”
Tavi’s legs ached terribly, and his belly was going to be screaming for food once he got the long run out of his system. Lady Antillus was a deadly opponent, and with no witnesses, out here in the wilderness, she would almost certainly kill them both if she became aware of them-but the chance to learn more about any arrangements the traitorous Citizen might have made with the enemy was irreplaceable. “Show me, “ he told Kitai.