Tavi got his taurg down to the water and led Max’s beast as well. The big Antillan, weary from the intensive crafting and fighting he’d done at the hive, simply flung himself down on the ground and slept.
Tavi found himself alone at the side of the stream, except for several taurga too tired and thirsty to cause trouble, and the lone Hunter who had survived the attack on the Vord queen.
“Thank you,” Tavi told him quietly. “You and your people saved my life.”
The Hunter looked up at him, ears quivering in surprise that he quickly suppressed. He bowed his head, Aleran-style.
“What were their names?” Tavi asked.
“Nef,” growled the Hunter. “And Koh.”
“And yours?”
“Sha.”
“Sha,” Tavi said. “I am sorry for their loss.”
The Hunter became very still for a long moment, staring down at the stream.
“It is the way of your people to sing over the fallen,” Tavi said quietly. “I’ve heard it before. Is there anyone to sing for Nef and Koh?”
Sha moved one paw-hand in a negative gesture. “Their kin sang their blood song long ago. When they became Hunters.”
Tavi frowned and tilted his head.
“We are as the dead,” Sha said. “Our purpose is to dedicate our lives to the service of our lord. And, when it is necessary, to surrender those lives. When we become what we are, we lose our lives-our names, our family, our homes, and our honor. All that remains is our lord.”
“But their sacrifice may have saved thousands,” Tavi said. “Is it the way of your kind to let such courage go unmourned?”
Sha studied him in silence for a long moment.
Tavi thought about the Cane’s words, then nodded slowly, understanding. “They served well, and they died well and with meaning,” he said. “What is there to mourn?”
Sha bowed his head again, more deeply this time. “You understand.” The Cane’s eyes gleamed as he looked at Tavi. “You were ready to die in that place as well, Tavar. We Hunters know what it looks like.”
“I hadn’t intended it to work out that way,” Tavi said. “But I knew it was a possibility. Yes.”
“Why?”
Tavi blinked at him. “What?”
“Why lay down your life?” Sha said. He gestured at the makers. “Varg is not your lord. These are not your people. They will not serve as soldiers if your plan to use our warriors against the Vord comes to pass.”
Tavi thought about his answer for a moment before giving it. “It is my purpose to defend those who cannot defend themselves,” he said finally.
“Even if they are your enemy.”
Tavi smiled at Sha, showing his teeth. The Hunter had used the Aleran word, not one of the many Canim variants on the term. “Perhaps I wish your people to be gadara to mine. Perhaps I wished to tell you so in such a way that would leave no doubts as to my sincerity.”
Sha’s ears quivered with surprise again, and he stared hard at Tavi, his head tilted to one side. “That is… not a thought I have heard given voice before.”
“His mind is strange,” came Varg’s rumbling voice, “but capable.” The dark-furred Canim Warmaster had approached in silence. He checked the straps on his mount’s saddle. “There is news on the roads. Couriers have passed by.”
Tavi straightened. “And?”
“The fortifications have fallen,” Varg said. “When Lararl sent a portion of his strength back to attack the Vord in the interior, the heaviest assault he had yet seen fell on the fortress.”
Tavi frowned. “Then the pressure that had been put on the fortress for the past weeks-it was a ruse.”
Varg nodded. “Convincing Lararl of the strength of his defenses. Causing him to send away more troops than he would have were he not confident that those remaining could hold. They waited for him to weaken himself, then…” Varg smacked his paw-hands together.
Tavi shook his head. It had cost the Vord untold numbers of their creatures to maintain the charade-but then, they had had bodies enough to spare. Mathematics had decided the war, probably months before the attack on Shuar began. “How bad?” Tavi asked.
“Lararl sent out couriers to spread the warning and dug in to hold the Vord for as long as possible. But the last couriers to leave saw the Vord entering the city at the top of the cliffs. What warriors escaped are fighting to slow the enemy-but a queen commands them.”
Tavi nodded. “She’ll drive for our only means of escape-Molvar. And she’ll be gathering more and more troops to her as she heads this way.”
Varg flicked his ears in assent. “We must return to the ships at once. The Shuarans may already have seized them.”
“No,” Tavi said. “We head for the hills west of Molvar.”
Sha glanced up sharply at Tavi at this blatant contradiction of Varg’s words.
“Tavar,” Varg said quietly, “there is no winning a battle against the Vord on this ground. And there is not room on the ships for a tenth of those who will wish to flee Shuar. To do other than reach the ships and sail away is death.”
Tavi stared at Varg, smiling.
Varg looked up from his saddle. “You meant it when you told Lararl you could get his people away?”
“How many times have I lied to you?” Tavi asked.
“I have never taken you prisoner,” Varg replied, his tone pensive. “Lararl had. And some of your folk are truthful only in preparation for the day when they need one critical lie to be believed.”
“If that is the case,” Tavi said, “then that day has not yet come.” He nodded at the camp of miserable-looking makers. Maximus had risen from his near stupor on the ground and was standing with Anag over one of the worst-looking of the wounded, supervising moving the injured Cane into the stream for a watercrafting. “We’re getting them away from here.”
Varg looked at Tavi, then at the makers. “Tavar, I sometimes think you are insane.”
“Are you coming with me?”
Varg glanced at him, and Tavi swore he could see something offended in the big Cane’s body language. “Of course.”
Tavi showed him his teeth again. “Glad I’m not the only one.”
By a few hours after midnight, they had reached the Aleran defenses.
A rising moon, nearly full, and the mercurial nature of Canean weather had swept the sky clean of clouds and bathed the land in silver light. A line of hills west of Molvar had been transformed by several days of furious labor on the part of the Narashan Canim and both Legions, aided by Aleran furycraft. Where there had been only gently rolling land, the combined forces had erected an earthworks twenty feet high, faced by freshly cut stakes of pine, in front of a trench very nearly as deep as the wall was high. Only a few narrow passages had been left through the defenses, which arched in a line nearly five miles long around Molvar. Refugees from the invaded territory had flooded the area inside, and the interior of the hastily erected, enormous fortress was already filling with Canim.
Even with all of Nasaug’s troops and both Aleran Legions, the defenses around the town were spread thin, though it was clear that the Shuarans had thrown what forces they had into the same effort. More were arriving at every moment, as well-stragglers, Tavi supposed, who had been separated from their battlepacks, and what looked like the occasional wayward company who had been cut off from the larger portion of their command and had found themselves nearby. The wounded, too, were pouring in, as were the Shuaran taurg cavalry, whose riders came and went in constant activity.
Max brought his mount up beside Tavi’s as they approached the earthworks, and whistled. “There’s a lot of work. That’s what the Legion’s been up to?”