First Lord's Fury (Page 115)

She entered the hall, a very large structure with a fireplace at each end of sufficient size to place an entire cow on a spit over the fire within it. At the far end of the hall, the fireplace had been blocked off by suspended cloths. Another pair of guards stood outside the makeshift chamber. Amara marched over, and said, "I have information for the Princeps. It can’t wait."

The taller of the two guards inclined his head. "One moment, lady." He vanished into the chamber, and Amara heard voices. Then he emerged and held the flap open for her.

Amara slipped inside to be greeted by a wave of uncomfortable warmth. The fire in the huge fireplace was taller than she. A bed stood nearby the fire, and Attis lay in it, his face even more pale and drawn than before. He turned his head listlessly toward her, coughed, and said, "Come in, Countess."

She approached and saluted him. "Your Highness. We have a problem."

He tilted his head.

"The evacuation is moving too slowly. We still have a horde of civilians west of Garrison’s walls. Our people estimate that it may take until midnight to get them all through."

"Hngh," Attis grunted.

"Furthermore," she said, "the vord somehow managed to divert a river onto the coal plain. The fire held them back for less than an hour. They’ve been sighted approaching this wall. Signal arrows are rising at all points."

"It never rains." Attis sighed. He closed his eyes. "Very well. Your recommendation, Countess?"

"Keep to the plan, but slow it down," she said. "Use the mules to grind away at them rather than trying to do it for the shock value. Hold the wall until the civilians are safe, then disengage."

"Disengage in the dark?" he asked. "Have you any idea how dangerous a feat that is? The slightest error could turn it into a complete rout."

"Ask Doroga and his clan to hold them off for a time and cover the retreat," she responded. "Those gargants of theirs are natural-born vord-killers, and they’re fast enough to stay ahead of the enemy on the way back down to Garrison."

Attis thought about it for a moment, then nodded slowly. "That’s likely the best we’re going to get, under the circumstances. Make it happen, Countess, on my authority if need be."

"Yes, Your Highness."

He nodded wearily and closed his sunken eyes.

Amara frowned at him and glanced around the room. "Your Highness? Where is Sir Ehren?"

Attis’s cheekbones seemed to become even starker. "He died on the wall this morning, while stemming a vord breakthrough."

Amara felt her belly twist. She had liked the young man and respected his skills and intelligence. She could hardly bear to think of him lying cold and dead on the stones of that wall. "Oh, great furies," she breathed.

"Did you know, Countess," Attis said, "whose idea it was for me to present myself as a target back at Riva? Alone and vulnerable to draw out Invidia or the Queen?" His exhausted smile still had a leonine quality to it. "Of course, he didn’t phrase it like that."

"Was it?" Amara said quietly.

"Yes. Put forward so diffidently I had to think for a moment to recall that it hadn’t been my idea." He coughed again, though it had no energy to it. "No one will ever be able to know for certain, of course," he said. "But I think the little man assassinated me. Barely a fury to his name and…" He coughed and laughed as he did it, both sounds dry with exhaustion. "Perhaps that was why he insisted on watching what would happen this morning, when he sent Antillus and the others out to be a bellows for the fire. Because he knew that his suggestion had such power." He waved a hand down at his own shattered body. "Perhaps because he felt guilty to see the results of his actions."

"Or perhaps instead of being a manipulator and assassin, he was simply a loyal servant of the Realm," Amara said.

A wry, bitter smile tugged at his lips. "The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, Countess."

"He shouldn’t have been there. He was never trained as a soldier."

"In a war like this, Countess," Attis said very softly, "there are no civilians. Only survivors. Good people die, even though they don’t deserve it. Or perhaps we all deserve it. Or perhaps no one does. It doesn’t matter. War is no more a respecter of persons than is death." He was quiet for a moment, then said, "He was more than I have been. He was a good man."

Amara bowed her head and blinked sudden tears away. "Yes. He was."

He lifted a weak hand and waved it at her. "Go. You have much to do."

The vord arrived perhaps a quarter of an hour after Amara emerged from the steadholt’s hall. Trumpets sounded. Legionares stood ready as engineers finished closing the gates that had been crafted into the walls, until the walls presented a single face of solid granite, its front smoothed to a gleaming finish. She stood beside Bernard upon a tower ten feet higher than the wall. Defensive towers had been spaced every hundred yards down the length of the wall, here a little less than three miles long.

A courier put down upon the tower, briefly kicking up a small gale of wind, and saluted. "Count Calderon, sir."

Bernard didn’t take his eyes from the field ahead of him. "Report."

The young man stood there, blinking uncertainly.

Amara sighed and beckoned him. He took a few tentative steps closer.

"There," Amara said, once he was past the windcrafting she was maintaining to keep Bernard’s orders from being monitored by enemy crafters. "Can you hear now?"

"Oh," said the courier, flushing. "Yes, ma’am."

"Report," said Bernard in exactly the same tone as before.

The young man looked mildly panicked. "Captain Miles’s compliments, sir, and there’s a sizeable enemy force moving to the north, sir, to circle around the end of the wall!"

"Hngh," Bernard said. "Thank you."

The young man’s eyes widened. "Um? Sir? Captain Miles is afraid that the enemy will turn our flank. There’s nearly a quarter mile of open ground at the end of the wall before it reaches the flank of the mountain."

"And that’s a problem?"

"Sir!" the courier protested. "The wall isn’t finished, sir!"

Bernard bared his teeth in a wolfish smile. The leading wave of the vord was now dressing its ranks and preparing to charge. "The wall is exactly what it’s supposed to be, son."

"But sir!"

Bernard paused to give the young man a hard look.