Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

While dawn was half an hour away, Lady Aquitaine summoned four Wind-wolves, mercenary Knights long in service to the Aquitaines-and responsible for no few lost lives themselves. Allegedly responsible, Amara reminded herself firmly. There was no proof.

Amara, Bernard, Rook, and Lady Aquitaine met them atop the northernmost spire of Cereus’s citadel. The Knights Aeris and the coach they bore swept up to the spire from within the city, keeping lower than the rooftops whenever possible.

They were dressed for travel-Amara in her close-fit flying leathers and her sword belt, Bernard in a woodsman’s outfit of brown and green and grey, bearing his axe, bow, bedroll, and war quiver. Lady Aquitaine wore clothing similar to Amara’s, though the leathers’ layers sandwiched an impossibly fine mesh of steel, providing greater protection for the High Lady. She also wore a sword, something Amara had never pictured Invidia Aquitaine using-but she bore the long, slender blade as casually as Amara did her own.

Once the coach had landed, the door opened, and one of the most deadly swordsmen alive emerged from it. Aldrick ex Gladius stood half a head taller than even Bernard, and moved with a kind of placid grace, no motions wasted. He had a pair of swords belted to his left side, a Legion-issue gladius and a duelist’s longblade. His wolfish grey eyes found Lady Aquitaine, and he gave her a curt nod. “Your Grace.”

Behind him, a woman in a pale green gown peered at them from her seat in the coach, her beautiful, pale face a ghostly contrast with her dark hair and eyes. Amara recognized Odiana, another of Aquitaine’s mercenary Knights. Her head tilted oddly to one side as she studied the others, and Amara saw the colors of her silk dress pulse and swirl, tendrils of dark red and vermilion slithering over the fabric covering her shoulders, a disquieting sight.

Aldrick stared at them for a moment, eyes never leaving Amara and Bernard. “This is too much load for the coach, milady. Well never outrun their Knights Aeris.”

Lady Aquitaine smiled. “It will just be the four of you,” she told Aldrick. “The Countess and I will travel outside the coach. Assuming that is acceptable, Countess?”

Amara nodded. “I’d planned on it in any case.”

Aldrick frowned for a moment, then said slowly, “This is not a wise decision, my lady.”

“I’ll survive having my hair blown about, thank you,” she replied. “But I am willing to listen to an alternative suggestion, assuming you have one.”

“Leave one of them here,” he said immediately.

“No,” Amara said. Her tone made the word into a command.

When Lady Aquitaine did not dissent, Aldrick’s frown deepened.

“The sooner we leave,” Lady Aquitaine said, “the farther away from the city we can get before daylight. Count Calderon, Madame Rook, please have a seat.”

Bernard glanced at Amara, who nodded. Rook had been provided with a simple brown dress, and she had altered her features, though it had seemed considerably more of an effort for her than it had for Lady Aquitaine. She still limped slightly, and she looked exhausted-and there was a noticeable absence of weaponry on her person-but she entered the coach under her own power. Bernard and Aldrick faced one another for a second, before Aldrick bowed slightly, and said, “Your Excellency.”

Bernard grunted, gave Amara a wry glance, and entered the coach. Aldrick followed him in, and the Knights Aeris at the carry poles hooked their flight harnesses to them and, with an unavoidable cyclone of wind, lifted the coach from the stones of the tower and launched into the air, slowly but steadily gaining altitude.

“Countess,” Lady Aquitaine said, as they prepared to fly, “I assume you have seen aerial combat before.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “You’re in command. I suggest that I attempt to veil us.”

Amara arched an eyebrow at the proud High Lady, impressed. Invidia might be arrogant, ruthless, ambitious, a dangerous enemy-but she was no fool. Her suggestion was a good one. “That large a windstream will be difficult to hide.”

“Impossible, in fact, if any Knights Aeris pass nearby,” Lady Aquitaine said. “But I believe I will be able to reduce our chances of being seen at a distance.”

Amara nodded. “Do it. Take position on the coach’s left. I’ll take the right.”

Lady Aquitaine nodded, twisting her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and tying it there. “Shall we?”

Amara nodded and called to Cirrus, and the two women stepped up onto the tower’s battlements and leapt into the predawn sky. Twin torrents of wind rose and lifted them swiftly into the sky. They easily overtook the slowly rising wind coach, and Amara took up a position on the right side of the coach, between it and the general direction of Kalarus’s approaching forces.

They had gained nearly four thousand feet of altitude before the sun rose, reducing the landscape beneath to a broad diorama, every feature on it seemingly rendered in miniature. If they continued ascending to risk the swift high winds of the upper air, the land would resemble a quilt more than anything else, but at sunrise Amara could still see details of the land beneath them-notably, travelers on the road from the south, fleeing toward the protection of the walls of Ceres.

And, beyond them, marching at speed down the road toward Ceres, came Kalarus’s Legions. Shadows yet blanketed much of the land below, but as the early golden light began to fall upon the column between gaps in the terrain, it glinted on their shields, helmets, and armor. Amara raised her hands, focusing part of Cirrus’s efforts into bending the light, bringing the landscape beneath into crystalline, magnified focus. With the fury’s aid, she could see individual legionares.

Both Legions below moved swiftly, their ranks solid and unwavering-the marks of an experienced body of troops. This was no ragged outlaw Legion, raised and trained in secret in the wild, its ranks consisting mostly of brigands and scoundrels. They must have been Kalare’s regular Legions, those the city had maintained from time out of mind. Though they saw less action than the Legions of the north, they were still a well-trained, disciplined army. Mounted riders flanked the infantry in greater numbers than in most Legions, who typically maintained only two hundred and forty cavalry in a pair of auxiliary wings. There were perhaps three times that number in Kalarus’s Legions, the horses all tall and strong, their riders wearing the green-and-grey livery of Kalare.

“Look!” called Lady Aquitaine. “To the north!”

Amara looked over her shoulder. Though very far away, Amara spotted another column of troops marching down toward Ceres from the foothills north of the city-the Crown Legion, coming to the city’s defense. Amara noted with satisfaction that, as Gaius had promised, they were nearer Ceres than the southern Legions and would beat them to the city’s walls.

Over the next few moments, the sun’s golden light dimmed a shade and took on the same ruddy hue as the stars.

A disquieting sensation flickered through Amara’s awareness.

She frowned and tried to focus upon it. As the sun’s light changed, or perhaps as they rose higher into the air, there was a subtle shift in the patterns of wind around her. She could sense them through Cirrus as the fury became uneasy, the windstream it provided her wobbling in tiny fluctuations. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and Amara suddenly had the distinct impression that she was being watched, that a malevolent presence was nearby and intent upon doing her harm.

She drew in closer to the coach’s side, rising a bit to look over it at Lady Aquitaine. The High Lady had a frown on her face as she peered around her, one hand upon the hilt of her sword. She turned a troubled gaze on Amara. Roaring wind made conversation problematic, but Lady Aquitaine’s shrug and a slight shake of her head adequately conveyed that she, too, had sensed something but did not know what it was.