Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

“Not necessarily,” Magnus said quietly. “Perhaps someone sent them to track you back to one of us.”

Max grimaced at Magnus, then glanced away and sighed. “Crows.”

“Either way,” Tavi said, “we may still be in danger. We shouldn’t remain here.”

Max nodded. “Kinda works out then,” he said. “The Crown sent me to bring your orders, Tavi.”

“What are they?”

“We’re taking a trip to the Blackballs at the southern tip of Placida’s lands. There’s a new Legion forming there, and Gaius wants you in it.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

Tavi grunted. “That won’t please my aunt and uncle.”

“Hah,” Max snorted. “It won’t please Kitai, you mean.”

“Her, too. She-”

Magnus sighed. “Crows, Antillar. Don’t start him talking about his girl again. He won’t shut his mouth about her.”

Tavi scowled at Magnus. “I was just going to say that she was supposed to come with my family to our get-together in Ceres next month. I’m going to miss it.”

“And missing it is a bad thing?” Max frowned, then said, “Oh, right, I forgot. Your family likes having you around.”

“It’s mutual. I haven’t seen them in more than two years, Max.” He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. I know this is important but… two years. And it isn’t as though I’ll make a good legionare.”

“No problem,” Max said. “You’re going in as an officer.”

“But I haven’t even served my compulsory term. No one makes officer their first tour.”

“You do,” Max said. “You aren’t going as yourself. Gaius wants eyes and ears in the command structure. You’re it. Disguise, false identity, that kind of thing.”

Tavi blinked. “Why?”

“New concept Legion,” Max said. “Aquitaine managed to push the idea through the Senate. You’re to be serving with the First Aleran. Rariks and officers both consist of equal numbers of volunteers from every city. The idea is-”

Tavi nodded, understanding it. “I get it. If there’s someone from every city in the Legion, that Legion could never pose a military threat to any single city. There would be officers and legionares in the ranks who wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Right,” Max said. “So the Aleran Legion would be free to wander anywhere there was trouble and pitch in without ruffling anyone’s feathers.”

Tavi shook his head. “Why would Aquitaine support such a thing?”

“Think about it,” Max said. “A whole Legion of folks from all over Alera training near Kalare’s sphere of influence. People always coming and going, messengers and letters from all over the Realm. Do the math.”

“Espionage hotbed,” Tavi said, nodding. “Aquitaine will be able to buy and sell secrets like sweetbread at Wintersend-and since they’ll all be near Kalare and far from Aquitaine, he stands to gain a lot more intelligence on Kalare than he gives away about himself.”

“And Gaius wants to know all about it.”

“Anything more specific?” Tavi asked.

“Nope. The old man has flaws, but suppressing initiative in his subordinates isn’t one of them. This is a spanking new Legion, too. No experience, no battle standard, no combat history, no tradition to uphold. You’ll blend right in with the other green officers.”

Tavi nodded. “What kind of officer am I supposed to be?”

“Third subtribune to the Tribune Logistica.”

Magnus winced.

Tavi arched a brow at the Maestro, and asked Max, “Is that bad?”

Max grinned, and Tavi found the expression ominous. “It’s… well. Let’s just say that you won’t ever run out of things to do.”

“Oh,” Tavi said. “Good.”

“I’m going, too,” Max said. “As myself. Centurion, weapons trainer.” He nodded at Magnus. “So are you, Maestro.”

Magnus arched a brow. “Indeed?”

“Senior valet,” Max said, nodding.

Magnus sighed. “It could be worse, I suppose. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to play scullion somewhere.”

Tavi turned and blinked at Magnus in pure shock. “Maestro… I knew you were in the First Lord’s counsel, but… you’re a Cursor? ”

Magnus nodded, smiling. “Did you think I made it a point to have wine and ale on hand for passing merchants because I was lonely for company the past twelve years, my boy? Drunken merchants and their guards let out quite a bit more information than anyone realizes.”

“And you never told me?” Tavi asked.

“Didn’t I?” Magnus said, eyes sparkling. “I’m sure I did, at some point.”

“No,” Tavi said.

“No?” Magnus shrugged, still smiling. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Magnus let out a theatric sigh. “I thought I had. Ah, well. They say memory is the first thing to go.” He glanced around him. “Though I’ll miss this place. At first my work here was just a cover story, but crows take me if it hasn’t grown on me.”

Tavi shook his head. “Shouldn’t I know something about soldiering if I’m planning to be an officer there? What if someone puts me in charge of something?”

“You’re only technically an officer,” Max assured him. “Everyone is going to walk on you, so don’t worry about being in command. But yeah, you need the basics. I’m to give them to you on the way there. Enough that you should be able to fake it until you pick it up for real.”

Magnus heaved himself to his feet. “Well then, lads. We’re wasting daylight, and we’d best not wait for more assassins to arrive. Maximus, go catch your horse and see if our visitors left any nearby, if you would. I’ll put together enough food to last us a while. Tavi, pack our things.”

They set about preparing to leave. Tavi focused on the task at hand the whole while-packing saddlebags, satchels, bundling clothes and equipment, inspecting weaponry. The assassins’ three horses became pack animals once Max rounded them up, and shortly after high noon the three of them rode out, the string of spare mounts in tow. Max set a brisk pace.

Tavi tried to keep his mind on his work, but the steady throb from his wounded finger made it difficult to concentrate. Before they crested the rise that would put ruined Appia behind them, he glanced back over his shoulder.

Tavi could still see the dusty dead man sprawled in the ruins.

Amara hadn’t seen the Count of Calderon for months. When she and her escort of Knights Aeris swept down into the Calderon Valley, and to Bernard’s fortress-town of Garrison, she felt a flutter of excitement low in her belly.

To her surprise, Garrison had grown visibly, even in the weeks since she had last visited. What had begun as a tent town on the Aleran side of the fortress walls had become a collection of semipermanent wooden homes, and she could see that Bernard had found the money to hire enough earthcrafters to begin erecting buildings of stone, which would provide shelter from the deadly furies of this frontier of the Realm.

The really surprising development was what was happening on the outside of the protective walls of the fortress. Tents were spread out over the ground into an open market, and she could see a few hundred people moving about them, doing business as they might on any market day. That wasn’t so terribly unusual. The shocking thing was that most of the people moving around the improvised market were Marat.

The pale barbarians and their beasts had been little but an infrequent and vicious menace from the perspective of Aleran history, and only twenty years or so earlier, an invading horde had massacred the Crown Legion, which was still recovering from heavy losses in a previous campaign. Thousands of legionares and camp followers and holders of the valley had died in a single day, including Princeps Gaius Septimus and all but one of his personal armsmen-Sir Miles, now Captain of the newly re-created Crown Legion.