Fidelias nodded slowly. Then he turned to the courier stationed on the roof near him, and said, “Ask Master Marok if he would please come speak to me.”
In the five minutes it took to line up the desperate plan, the First Aleran suffered more losses than it had during the entire campaign in the Vale and Canea combined. Men screamed and were dragged back to badly overworked healers. Men fell and were dragged out into the horde. Swords shattered. Shields were rent asunder. Vord died by the hundreds but never relented.
On the flanks, the Free Aleran fared little better, for all that they were in what amounted to a backwater, in terms of enemy presence. Perhaps a double tithe of the vord in the battle wrapped around to the sides of the beleaguered Legions, but the Free Alerans’ inexperience meant that they were hard-pressed. The only thing that kept some of the cohorts from bolting was the certain knowledge that there was no escape. Only victory—or death.
And victory was nowhere in evidence.
Marok stood with Fidelias calmly, looking out over the battle. Then he said, “You never asked me to lower the mists. I expected you to do so.”
“Nothing to be gained by it,” Fidelias said. “Except to show us exactly how many of the bloody vord are out there. The men fight better when it isn’t hopeless.”
Marok nodded. “As do our own warriors. But if I lowered the mists, the Canim units would see our plight.”
“The mission wasn’t for them to come rescue us. It was to kill sleeping vord. All of them. As long as we have the vord coming for us here, there are that many fewer in the field to oppose the others. They can kill twenty helpless vord in the time it takes to down one of the things while awake. It’s worth it.”
“Even if it means the death of everyone here?”
“That’s right.” Fidelias glanced aside as the courier waved a hand at him. The man gave him a thumbs-up. “They’re ready.”
Marok nodded slowly, and said, “The more vord attack your people, the fewer attack my own. Let us keep their attention.”
Then he lifted his dagger and cut deeply into his left forearm. Blood began to patter to the stone roof. The Cane growled, then began chanting something full of snarls and coughing growls. A moment later, Fidelias saw the mist about five feet in front of the first rank of legionares begin to thicken. As he watched, it darkened, becoming opaque, and a moment later the shrieks of dying vord began to echo across the Legions. A hideous stench filled the air.
Teams rushed out in pairs, each with one of the Legion’s best earthcrafters. Antillar Maximus looked hungover, but he wore his armor and moved under his own power. Beside him, the silver-skinned Araris Valerian kept pace, his eyes alert. Aldrick ex Gladius came after them, escorting a burly medico who had strapped Antillus Crassus to his back. Other Windwolves paced beside the engineers of the First Aleran, as they all hurried to spread themselves out equally within the defensive ring.
Marok kept on snarling and muttering to himself. The old Cane’s eyes were closed. His blood ran steadily.
Even before the earthcrafters all reached their positions, those who had gotten there began their work. The earth swelled and heaved like an ocean before the wind. Then it began to fold upon itself. Fidelias was reminded of the way a sheet would ripple and fold when one snapped it to get it spread out over a mattress.
Within moments, the crafting was complete. The earth rose slightly in a short ramp before the Legion lines, rising perhaps eighteen inches—but the far side of the ramp sloped down sharply, to a ditch seven or eight feet deep and twice as wide. Centurions began to shout orders to their units, and the Legions advanced to the lip of the ditch, dressing their ranks and changing out weaponry, to ply their spears against the vord as they tried to climb out. It was not by any means an ideal defensive structure—but it was also far, far better than nothing.
“They’ve got it,” Fidelias said.
Marok let out a slow exhale and allowed his snarling chant to trail off. The bloodspeaker slumped down to the stone of the roof and dropped heavily onto his side. His left arm was still extended, blood running from it. Fidelias turned to him with an alarmed intake of breath.
“Do not concern yourself for me, demon,” Marok said. “Bandages. My pouch.”
Fidelias found the bandages and began wrapping Marok’s arm to stanch the flow of blood.
“I thought you said clouds of acid were for amateurs,” Fidelias remarked.
“That was not a cloud. It was a wall.” He closed his eyes, and muttered, “Whining demon. You are welcome.”
Fidelias was about to order Marok taken to the healers when Ambassador Kitai stormed out onto the roof, looking around wildly. She spotted Fidelias and stalked toward him. “Where is he?”
“Not here,” Fidelias replied. “He dropped you off and left. The Queen went after him.”
Kitai ground her teeth, and said, “I might have known he would do something like this.”
Fidelias arched an eyebrow. “The healers said you had a bump the size of an apple on the back of your head.”
Kitai waved her hand impatiently. “I must go to him.”
Fidelias leaned toward her. “He’s alive?”
Kitai glanced aside, her eyes focused on nothing. “Yes. For now. And… pleased with his own cleverness, may The One help us.” She blinked and looked back at Fidelias. “Quick. What is the absolute worst place in this Valley one could go? The most insanely suicidal place to be found? The place where only a great fool would venture—and only an insane fool would follow?”
Fidelias responded at once and found himself speaking in chorus with the Ambassador as they both said, “Garados.”
“He is there,” Kitai said. And without another word she turned, leapt into the air, and vanished behind a veil as she raised a windscreen and shot off into the open sky. Half a dozen vordknights dropped into her flight path, hoping to intercept her even though they couldn’t see her.
Their wings burst into flame, and they went plunging to their deaths on the ground below.
Fidelias exhaled slowly. Then he turned back to the business of battle, redeploying their new assets, though he knew that their position could not long be held against such numbers, not for more than a few hours.
But he had a feeling he had done all that he could.
His eyes drifted in the direction of Garados. Somewhere on the cold, hard slopes of that mountain, a young man was pitting all the strength and cunning and brilliance of a thousand-year dynasty against the intelligence and remorseless power at the heart of the world-eating vord.
And, like everyone else, all Fidelias could do was wait to see what happened.
CHAPTER 56
From a distance the mountain was undeniably beautifuclass="underline" tall and imposing, crowned with snow and ice. But the closer one got to it, the more a sense of malevolent, hostile presence seemed to grow. Tavi had encountered the mountain’s ire once before—and what he had felt that day had been nowhere near this oppressively bleak. Garados wasn’t simply surly and resentful this time.
The vast fury was absolutely enraged.
The thunderclouds gathering around its peak were growing darker by the moment, as though they had drawn the night into themselves as it waned. Thana Lilvia, the vast wind fury that came sweeping down off the Sea of Ice and over the Calderon Valley, was making a show of force today, gathering her herds as usual near her husband. Flashes of lightning in wildly varying colors lashed constantly through the clouds, and even from miles away, Tavi could see the gliding, looping, sinister forms of windmanes, windmanes by the score, prowling the mountain’s slopes.