First Lord's Fury (Page 120)

Octavian raked his fingers through his hair. "Of course not. It’ll be a good start. But there will be severe repercussions for the balance of power in our society that must be addressed. The Canim will, probably, be settling here, and we’ll have to reach some kind of mutual understanding with them, and the Free Alerans are never going to back the same set of laws that allowed them to be enslaved. Not to mention the fact that – "

Fidelias cleared his throat gently. "Young man, I submit to you that your standards of victory are… set rather high. If you continue that way, no matter what you do, it will never be enough."

"That is exactly correct," Octavian replied. "Are the men and women the vord have already killed only partially dead? Are they only technically dead? Only legally dead? Can a compromise be made wherein they are given back some portion of their lives?" He shook his head. "No. No compromise. My duty to them, and to those still alive, demands nothing less than everything I can give them. Yes, old soldier, my standards are high. So are the stakes. They’re a matched set."

Fidelias stared at him, then shook his head slowly. Gaius Sextus had held an air of absolute authority, of personal power that arrested one’s sense of reason, at times, to extract support and obedience. Gaius Septimus had been a vibrant figure, driven and intelligent, always looking to the future. He could have inspired men to follow him down any path of reason, no matter how winding.

But Octavian… men would follow Octavian into a leviathan’s gullet if he asked it of them. And crows take him if Fidelias himself wouldn’t be one of them. The headstrong lunatic would probably discover some way to lead them all out the other side draped in the rings and crowns of a devoured treasure ship and somehow emerge clean.

"I couldn’t lead the Legions and the Canim," Fidelias said quietly. "Not alone. But… if you made your will known to Varg, then Valiar Marcus could serve as Crassus’s advisor, his huntmaster. Varg would give him the chance to stand on his own merits in that case. And I would direct him as best I could."

"You know the Canim," Octavian said. "Better than anyone else I have." His eyes glinted. "You’ve spent time with Sha, I think."

"I’ve met the Cane," Fidelias said calmly. "He seems most professional."

"And have you ever met Khral?"

"I do not believe my duties as First Spear ever brought me into contact with him, my lord."

"Oh," Octavian said, smiling suddenly. "Very smooth."

Fidelias inclined his head, his mouth touched with amusement at one corner.

The Princeps turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Marcus."

Fidelias dropped his eyes. "My lord…"

"Whatever else you’ve done," Octavian said gently, "I have seen you. I have trusted you with my life, and you have trusted me with yours. I have seen you work tirelessly to serve the First Aleran. I have seen you give your body and heart to the Legion, to your men. I refuse to consider the idea that it was all a ploy."

Fidelias looked away from him. "That hardly matters, sir."

"It matters if I say it matters," Octavian growled. "Crows take me, if I am to be First Lord, we’re going to establish that from the outs – "

The earthcrafting went beneath Fidelias so swiftly, so softly, that he hardly noticed it. He froze in place and narrowed his eyes, sending his own awareness into the ground beneath them.

A second passed by him. And a third.

They were all heading in the same direction – toward the command tent, the center of the camp.

"… if I have to crack every skull in the Senate to…" Octavian frowned. "Marcus?"

Fidelias’s hand went to his side, where his sword would normally be. It was, of course, gone. "Sir," he said, his voice tight, "there are earthcrafters passing beneath us at this very moment."

Octavian blinked. Powerful the young man might be, but he didn’t have the subtlety, the awareness, that could only come from decades of experience. He hadn’t sensed a thing. But once he closed his own eyes for a moment, frowning, he let out a blistering curse. "Friendlies would never attempt to enter the camp like that. The vord had a number of Citizens in their control."

"Aye."

"Then we can’t send legionares against them. It will be a bloodbath." He "listened" for a moment more, then opened his eyes. "They’re heading for command," Octavian said shortly. Only his eyes showed strain. "Kitai’s there."

"Go," Fidelias said. "I’ll bring the Pisces after you."

"Do it," Octavian snapped, and before he was finished speaking, he took a single bounding step and leapt into the air on a roaring gale of wind. Within another heartbeat, he had drawn his sword, and white-hot, furious fire burned forth from the blade.

Fidelias turned to sprint toward the center of the camp. As he went, he began bellowing orders that carried even over the hollow roar of Octavian’s monstrous windstream.

He did not need to be doing such things at his age, but he tried to focus on the positive: At least he wasn’t running in full armor. And, thank the great furies, the Princeps hadn’t taken Fidelias flying alongside him. Even so, some part of Fidelias noted with amusement that he wasn’t simply following Gaius Octavian, unarmed and unarmored, into the leviathan’s mouth.

He was sprinting.

Chapter 42

Tavi didn’t know how many earthcrafters the vord had collared and enslaved, but given how quickly Alera said that they had affected repairs upon the causeways, it was either a great many Citizens with lesser gifts or a few very powerful ones. Either way, Kitai was in the command tent, averting friction between the Antillan brothers and the Canim, and between the command staff of the Free Aleran and Maestro Magnus, and unaware of what was coming.

Tavi dived at the command tent, a dangerous maneuver when flying so low – but he managed to land perhaps twenty feet off without breaking his legs or ankles, then promptly redirected his windstream to catch the command tent and tear it neatly up off its posts and stakes like an enormous kite. A dozen people in the tent, staff and guards, Aleran and Canim, came lurching to their feet. Half a dozen of them, including Kitai, had already drawn steel before Tavi got a clear look at them.

"To arms!" he thundered, before either the guards or the people within the tent could react. He ran toward the tent, the sword in his hand sending out sparks that threatened to catch his own bloody cloak on fire, and shouted, "Enemy earthcrafters coming in low!"

"Oh crows take it," muttered Maestro Magnus in a positively offended tone. He had to gather up his long tunic to show pale, scrawny legs as he stepped up onto a wooden camp stool. "Of all the ridiculous nonsense."