Behind them came a long double column of supply wagons, cargo wagons, farm carts, town carriages, rubbish carts, vegetable barrows, and every other form of wheeled conveyance imaginable. Phrygius Cyricus had, in under two hours, provided them with enough carts to bear more than two-thirds of the Canim infantry. The carts themselves were not being drawn by horses—the Legion simply did not have enough personnel to care for the army of beasts that would be needed, nor did they have enough cartage to haul their feed. Instead, the vehicles were being pulled by teams consisting largely of whichever legionares had most recently earned their centurion’s displeasure.
Canim warriors overflowed the carts in a fashion that was little short of comical. Those who couldn’t fit in the carts came behind them, galloping along swiftly enough to keep pace with the reduced speed of the Legions. They could only maintain that pace for two hours or so, then the entire force would halt and allow the rested Canim in the carts to exchange places with those who had been running, rotating between them in turns throughout the day. By this time, even the Canim who had been in the carts the longest looked hungry, miserable, and exhausted, though Tavi supposed that might largely be due to the way the rain was plastering their fur to their skin.
Behind them rode the cavalry. First came the mounted alae of the Legions, eight hundred horses and their riders, then the Canim cavalry. Composed almost entirely of Shuaran Canim riding the odd-looking Canean creature called a “taurg,” they each massed two or three times the weight of a legionare on a horse. The horned, hunchbacked taurga, each considerably larger than a healthy ox, kept pace with the column without difficulty, the muscles in their heavy haunches flexing like cables of steel. The taurga didn’t look tired. The taurga looked impatient and short-tempered and as though they were giving serious consideration to eating their riders or fellow herd members. Possibly both. Tavi had ridden a taurg for weeks in Canea, and in his judgment it would not be out of character for the war beasts.
He sighed and looked aside and up at Maximus, who was riding a particularly ugly, mottled taurg of his own. “Crows, Max. I thought you’d killed and eaten that thing.”
Max grinned. “Steaks and New Boots, Captain? I hate this critter like no other on Carna. Which is why I decided he could be miserable carrying me all this way in the rain instead of inflicting it on some perfectly decent horse.”
Tavi wrinkled up his nose. “It stinks, Max. Especially in the rain.”
“I have always found the odor of wet Aleran to be slightly unsavory,” Kitai said, from where she rode on Tavi’s right.
Tavi and Max both gave her an indignant look. “Hey,” Max said, “we don’t smell when we’re wet.”
Kitai arched an eyebrow at them. “Well, of course you don’t smell yourselves.” She lifted a hand and waved it daintily at the air by her nose, an affectation of gesture that Tavi thought she must have studied from some refined lady Citizen. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.” She nudged her horse several paces to one side and let out a sigh of relief.
“She’s joking,” Max said. He frowned and looked at Tavi. “She’s joking.”
“Um,” Tavi said, “almost certainly.”
Kitai gave them an oblique look and said nothing.
There was a muffled roar of wind as Crassus came soaring down out of the rainy skies. He hit the water-slickened surface of the causeway with his shoulders parallel to the road, his legs spread solidly. A sheet of water sprayed up from his boots as he slid along the causeway for twenty yards before slowing to a couple of skipping steps, then came to a halt in front of Tavi’s horse. He threw Tavi a crisp salute and began running alongside the horse. “Captain. Looks like we’d better get used to the idea of getting rained on. There’s a fairly rocky patch about half a mile ahead. It won’t be comfortable, but I don’t think anyone will get sucked into the mud there.”
Tavi grunted and peered up at the weeping sky. He sighed. “All right. There’s no sense in pushing through in the dark. Thank you, Crassus. We’ll make camp there. Please spread the word to the Tribunes. Maximus, please inform the Warmaster that we’ll halt in half a mile.”
The Antillan brothers both saluted, then left to follow their orders.
Tavi eyed Kitai, who continued to ride facing straight ahead, not looking at him. Her expression was unreadable. “You were joking, weren’t you?”
She lifted her chin, sniffed, and said nothing.
For the first time in history, Alerans and Canim pitched a camp together.
Tavi and Varg walked about the camp together as their respective country-men labored to set up the camp’s defenses after a hard day’s marching, in the rain, with night coming on rapidly.
“Should be interesting tonight,” Varg rumbled.
“I thought that the Free Aleran Legion had done this sort of thing many times,” Tavi said.
Varg growled in the negative. “Nasaug was already pushing the letter of the codes by training makers to fight. Bringing demons into a warrior camp? He would have been forced to kill some of his own officers to keep his place.” Varg squinted at a team of Aleran engineers who were using earthcrafting to soften the stone so that they could drive the posts of the palisade into it.
Tavi watched them for a moment, considering. “There was more to it than that.”
Varg inclined his head slightly. “Can’t just tell a soul it is free, Tavar. Freedom must be done for oneself. Important that the slaves created their own freedom. Nasaug gave them advisors. They did everything else on their own.”
Tavi glanced up at Varg. “Are you going to be forced to kill some of your officers tonight?”
Varg was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Possible. But I think unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Because their opposition would be based upon tradition. Tradition needs a world to exist. And the world has been destroyed, Aleran. My world. Yours, too. Even if we could defeat the vord tomorrow, nothing would change that.”
Tavi frowned. “Do you really think that?”
Varg flicked his ears in the affirmative. “We are in uncharted waters, Tavar. And the storm has not yet abated. If we are still alive when it is over, we will find ourselves on unknown shores.”
Tavi sighed. “Yes. And then what?”
Varg shrugged. “We are enemies, Tavar. What do enemies do?”
Tavi thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “I only know what they did in the old world.”
Varg stopped in his tracks. He eyed Tavi for several seconds, then shook his ears and began walking again. “Wasted breath to talk about it now.”
Tavi nodded. “Survive today. Then face tomorrow.”
Varg flicked his ears in agreement. They had crossed into the Canim side of the camp as they spoke. Varg came to a halt outside a large, black tent. There was an odd smell of incense in the air, and the stench of rotting meat. From inside the tent, a deep-bellied drum kept a slow, reverberating cadence. Deep voices chanted in the snarling tongue of the wolf-warriors.
Varg stopped outside the tent and drew his sword in a long, slow rasp of steel on brass. Then he hurled it point down into the earth before the tent. It sank into the ground with a thump, and the bubbling whisper of its quivering went on for several seconds.
The chanting voices inside the tent stopped.
“I am here regarding the matter of the dead makers at Antillus,” Varg called.