First Lord's Fury (Page 66)

Araris Valerian, arguably the greatest swordsman of his generation, was not yet out of the fight.

He met her eyes for a breath, winked at her once, then closed them again.

Isana straightened her spine slowly and made sure her emotions and expression were under control as she turned back to face Invidia and the vord Queen.

Invidia was smiling at the Queen, her expression, beneath its chill veneer, balanced between terror and glee. Then she inclined her head and swept out of the chamber.

The vord Queen said, to Isana, "This will only cause more pain." Then she lifted her face again, and the walls and ceiling of the chamber began to glow once more. "In the end it will change nothing. I will kill Octavian. I will kill you all."

In the silence that followed, Isana suppressed a surge of fury. How dare she? How dare this creature threaten her son?

No, Isana thought to herself, grimly. No, you won’t.

Chapter 20

Riva burned, illuminating the moonless night.

"There’s always a fire," Amara said, her tone dull. "Why is there always a fire?"

"Fire’s a living thing," Sir Ehren replied. He stared at the city as Amara did, looking up at it from the plain on its northern side. Refugees streamed past them in a dazed, shambling river, directed by elements of the Rivan civic legion, and flanked by the legionares of Riva. "If you don’t control it, it looks for food, eats, and grows. It’s in every house in the city, and it just takes a moment’s carelessness to set it loose." He shrugged. "Though I imagine all the feral furies had something to do with it, too."

A windmane swept out of the night, letting out a whistling shriek as it dived toward the pair of Cursors speaking at the side of the causeway. Amara idly lifted a hand and made an effort of will. Cirrus flung himself at the hostile fury in a rush of wind, and as the two met, Amara’s fury was outlined in ghostly white light, a specter of a long-legged horse. Like a dozen others in the past hour, the clash was brief. Cirrus’s lashing hooves rapidly drove the windmane away.

"Countess," Ehren said. "I understand that you were in the city."

Amara nodded. She felt oddly detached from the events of the night, smooth and unruffled. She wasn’t calm, of course. After what she had seen, only a madwoman would be calm. She suspected it was more like going numb. The terrified, wounded flood of humanity in front of her would have been heart-wrenching if she hadn’t seen so much worse within Riva’s walls as the feral furies overran them. "For a while. I was bearing messages back and forth between Riva and Aquitaine."

Ehren studied her intently for a moment. Then he said, "That bad?"

"I saw an earth fury that looked like a gargant bull knock down a building being used to shelter orphaned children," she said in a level tone. "I saw a pregnant woman burned to black bones by a fire fury. I saw an old woman dragged down into a well by a water fury, her husband holding her wrists the whole way. He went with her." She paused, musing over the placid, inflectionless calm of her own voice, and added, "The second minute was worse."

Ehren folded his arms and shivered. "I hate to think what would have happened if the High Lords hadn’t been able to return to the city to drive some of the ferals away."

"True," Amara said.

"Countess. Are you sure you’re all right?"

"Perfectly."

The little Cursor nodded. "And… the Count?"

Amara felt herself grow more distant. She thought it was likely the only reason she wasn’t weeping hysterically. "I don’t know. He was part of Riva’s command staff. He wasn’t there."

Ehren nodded. "He… doesn’t seem the sort of man to stay indoors when something like this is happening."

"No. He isn’t."

"If I had to guess," Ehren said diffidently, "I’d say he was probably assisting in the evacuation. And that you’ll see him as soon as he’s gotten everyone he can out of the city."

"It wouldn’t be out of character," Amara agreed. She took a deep drink from a flask of water she’d forgotten she was holding. Then she passed it back to Ehren. "Thank you."

"Of course," he said. "Where are you going now?"

"I’m to help provide an air patrol over the refugee column," Amara said. "Princeps Attis thinks that their aerial troops will be in position to attack us farther down the causeway." She paused, then asked, "And you?"

"I’m consolidating the food and supplies of the column," Ehren said with a grimace. "Which closely resembles bald theft – especially to everyone whose food I order taken away."

"There’s no choice," Amara said. "Without rationing, most of these people won’t have the strength to reach Calderon."

"I know," Ehren said, "but that doesn’t make it any more palatable." They both fell quiet and watched the refugees shuffle past. "Crows." He sighed. "Hard to believe that this could have been worse. Give the Princeps his due. He reacted quickly. He’s light on his feet."

Amara felt a thought stirring, deep down beneath the numbness. She frowned. "Yes," she said. "The presence of the High Lords in the city made the difference…" She drew in a sharp breath as the thought crystallized in her head. "Sir Ehren. The vord will strike at them."

"I wish them good luck," Ehren snorted. "The High Lords are more than capable of handling an attack from any of the vord we’ve seen in this battle."

"What about from their fellow Citizens?" Amara asked. "Such as the ones who took Lady Isana."

Ehren’s mouth opened slightly. "Ah," he said. "Oh dear."

Amara spun on her heel, leapt into the air, and let Cirrus lift her aloft. She gathered speed and was shortly hurtling like an arrow toward the burning city.

Amara soared up toward the High Lord’s citadel, the tallest of many towers in the great city. Several times, she had to bank around columns of thick black smoke. The air was turbulent as fires spread below.

She could hear the battle raging south of the city. Drums rolled, pounding out messages. Horns blared. The huge, hollow thumps of the more traditional fire-spheres thrummed through the air, whumping irregularly against Amara’s chest. Though the screams of wounded legionares did not reach her, the shrieks of dying vord carried through the air, the distance removing the steely menace from their high-pitched cries. They rather sounded like a distant, enormous flock of birds.

Amara wasn’t far enough away to escape the pain and terror of the night, though. Human shouts and cries and screams came up from the city – the men of the civic legion, trying to rescue those trapped by fires, the wounded, the dying. She saw several vord as she overflew the city – solitary warriors, leaner and swifter-looking than those attacking the front lines, who had somehow made their way into the city during the night’s confusion. Teams of three and four armored men, probably Knights Ferrous, seemed to be hunting the vord in turn, stalking through the blazing, panicked maze of Riva’s dying streets.