Tavi stared out at the plain for a time, watching as the female caught up and dragged the pups from their grandsire, then exchanged deep bows of the head with Varg, showing him the deference of a confident subordinate to a much-respected superior. Then they embraced, after the Canim fashion, their muzzles touching, heads resting together, their eyes closed.
“Maybe,” Tavi said. His throat felt a little tight. “None of us have survived this yet.”
The night was clear, and when the scream of the windstreams of the Legions’ Knights Aeris drifted across the fortifications, Tavi emerged from the command tent and looked up to see the forms of his Knights speckling the face of the almost-full moon. The sentries were taking note of it at the same time, and horns rang through the camp, alerting officers of the return of the Aleran fliers.
“Yes!” Tavi snarled, as Marcus came out of the tent behind him. “They’re here! Magnus!”
The old Cursor was already hurrying toward the tent, from where he’d been resting briefly nearby, still tugging his tunic into place. “Your Highness!”
“Get everyone who isn’t fighting into the ships, now! I don’t want to lose a minute.”
“Very good, Your Highness.”
“Gradash!”
The grey-furred old Canim huntmaster came out of the tent on Marcus’s heels, squinting up at the sound of the incoming windcrafters. “I am here, Tavar.”
“I think you should send word to your people now, and get them moving toward the piers as we discussed.”
“Aye.” He turned to a pair of whippet-thin young Canim runners who had been waiting nearby, and began growling instructions.
“Marcus,” Tavi continued. “I want you at the breach with the men. The minute you see the signal, fall back to Molvar and get to the ships.”
“Sir,” Marcus said, banging a fist to his breastplate. The First Spear turned, barking orders, and was shortly mounted and riding out to the earthworks.
Kitai and Maximus came out of the command tent, and stood watching with Tavi as the Knights Aeris came in to land in two groups, one dropping into the landing area of the former slave Legion, the other landing in the First Aleran’s-except for a single armored figure that came down not twenty yards from the command tent.
“Crassus!” Tavi called, grinning. “You’re looking well.”
“Sir,” Crassus replied with an answering smile. He saluted Tavi, who returned the gesture, then clasped forearms with the young officer. “I’m glad to see you got back in one piece.”
“Tell me,” Tavi said intently.
“It’s working,” Crassus hissed, his eyes bright with triumph. “It took us a bloody lot of crafting to pull it off, and the witchmen aren’t at all comfortable, but it’s working.”
Tavi felt his mouth stretch out into a fierce grin. “Hah!”
“Bloody crows!” Maximus said, frustration and delight warring in his voice. “In the name of all the great furies, what are you two talking about?”
Crassus turned to his half brother, grinning, and embraced him. “Come on,” he said. “See for yourself.”
Crassus led them all to the cliffs overlooking the sea below Molvar. In the silver light of the moon, the sea was a monochrome portrait of black water and white wave-caps-and riding upon that dark sea were three white ships, ships so enormous that for a moment it seemed that Tavi’s eyes had to be lying to him. And he’d known what to expect.
He turned to see the faces of the others, who were simply staring in disbelief at the enormous white vessels. They watched as tiny figures moved about on the decks of the sail-less ships-engineers of the First Aleran, whose tiny forms upon the white decks showed the true size of the ships: Each of them was nearly half a mile in length and more than half as wide.
“Ships,” Max said, his tone dull. “Really. Big. Ships.”
“Barges, really,” Gradash corrected him, though the old Cane’s own voice was sober and quiet. “No masts. What’s making them move?”
“Furycraft,” Tavi replied. “Witchmen are using seawater to push them.” He turned to Crassus. “How many levels deep?”
“Twelve,” Crassus said, something smug in his voice. “Cramped for a Cane, but they’ll fit.”
“Ice!” Kitai exclaimed suddenly, her tone enormously pleased. “You crafted ships from ice!”
Tavi turned to her and nodded, smiling. Then said, to Gradash, “I remembered the ice mountains you showed me as we arrived. And if the leviathans truly avoid them, we should have no problems with them on the way back to Alera.”
The old Cane stared at the ships, his ears quivering. “But the ice mountains. They roll like taurga with itchy backs.”
“The keels go fairly deep, and are weighted with stone,” Crassus assured the Cane. “They should be stable, provided they don’t take a big wave broadside. They won’t roll.”
“Roll, crows,” Maximus sputtered. “Ice melts.”
“It also floats,” Tavi said, feeling a little smug himself, though he probably didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t been working himself to exhaustion for days to make them happen, after all.
“The firecrafters have been making coldstones nonstop,” Crassus told Max. “There are enough of them there to keep the ships from melting for three weeks, by which time they’ll have made more-and the engineers stretched a granite frame throughout. They think they’ll hold, if we can avoid the worst of the weather.”
Tavi slammed a fist on the pauldrons of Crassus’s armor. “Well done, Tribune,” he said fiercely.
“So,” Kitai said, smiling. “We get everyone on the ships, and we leave the Vord screaming their frustration behind us. This is a fine plan, Aleran.”
“If the weather holds,” Max said darkly.
“That’s what Knights Aeris are for,” Crassus said calmly. “It will be hard work, but we’ll do it. We have to do it.”
Canim horns brayed from the earthworks, pulsing out in odd, baying signals. Tavi held up a hand for silence and watched Gradash.
The old Cane took in the horn calls and reported, “The first of the main body of Lararl’s regulars have been sighted, Tavar.”
Max whistled. “One crowbegotten fine retreat, if they held together all the way from the fortress.”
Tavi nodded agreement. “And that means that the Vord won’t be far behind. We need to get moving, people. The enemy is close.” He began giving rapid orders, rounding up a couple of couriers to get them out to the right portions of the Legion, when a surge of terrified realization from Kitai hit him like a punch in the belly. He stopped in the middle of his sentence and turned to her.
“Aleran!” she said, staring out at the breach in the earthworks where the First Aleran was stationed.
Tavi spun to see the First Aleran under assault. Enormous blue-armored Canim had, in the midst of passing peacefully through their positions, suddenly whirled to attack. In the bright moonlight, Tavi could see the Shuarans hacking into the surprised Alerans, fighting in perfect unison and entirely without regard for their own lives.
He sucked in a breath and realized what had happened. “Taken,” he spat. “Those Shuarans have been taken by the Vord.” He turned to the others, and said, “The Vord aren’t close. They’re here.”
CHAPTER 44
The Vord surged toward the defenses around Molvar in a great, dark wave, and the last defenders of Canea rose to meet them in a single, enormous roar of defiance and hate. Signal horns, Canim and Aleran alike, bayed and shrilled across the fey, silver-lit landscape, and from the west poured a great wave of the enemy, chitin gleaming and winking beneath the great eye of the winter moon.
Tavi knew that he was speaking, because orders were flying off his lips more rapidly than he could keep track of them, and all around him officers of the Legion were slamming out salutes and sprinting away, but it seemed that he didn’t actually understand anything he was saying. His thoughts were racing, trying to cover every possible outcome of the next minutes and hours, anticipating everything, taking every measure he possibly could. Then he was swinging up behind Kitai onto a taurg and racing toward the battle.