Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

“How much time have you spent working within a steadholt’s woodshop, Max?” Tavi asked him.

He scowled. “I know, I know. I just never heard of it before.”

“Trust me,” Tavi said. “Sawdust is more dangerous than you know. And if the grain storehouse was on this side of the town, it would have been even better. He watched as the regulars closed, and said, “All right. You two get back and be ready to cover us.”

Crassus saluted and turned to go, but Max remained in place, frowning out at the Canim.

“Hey,” Max said. “Why’d they stop?”

Tavi blinked and turned around.

The Canim regulars had, indeed, stopped in their tracks, several dozen yards out of arrow range. To Tavi s increased surprise, they all settled down onto their haunches again, and they were so many that even that sounded like a rumble of distant thunder.

“That,” Ehren said quietly, “is a whole lot of Canim.”

At the front and center of the regulars, a single figure remained standing-the same Cane Tavi had addressed earlier in the day. He swept his gaze around the armored Canim, nodded, then took a long, curved war sword from his side. He held the weapon up, facing the town, then deliberately laid it aside. Then he strode out onto corpse-strewn killing ground between and stopped halfway to the wall.

“Aleran Captain!” the Cane called, his deep, growling voice enormous and unsettling. “I am Battlemaster Nasaug! I have words for you! Come forth!”

Max let out a grunt of surprise.

“Well,” Ehren murmured, beside Tavi. “Well, well, well. That is interesting.”

“What do you think, Max?” Tavi murmured.

“They think we’re stupid,” Max said. “They’ve already broken faith with us once. They tried to murder you the last time you went to them, Captain. I say we return the favor. Call up our Knights Flora, shoot him full of arrows, and let’s get on with it.”

Tavi snorted out a low laugh. “Probably the smart thing.”

“But you’re going to go talk to him,” Max said.

“Thinking about it.”

Max scowled. “Bad idea. Better let me go. He gets frisky, I’ll show him how we do things up north. “

“He’s already seen me, Max,” Tavi said. “It has to be me. If he makes a move first, take him down. Otherwise, leave him alone. Make sure everyone else knows it, too. And get Marcus back up here, meanwhile.”

“You think you’ve driven a spike between their leader and the warriors?” Ehren asked.

“Possibly,” Tavi said. “If this Nasaug had hit us instead of stopping out there, it could have been bad. Now we’re getting a chance to breathe and reorganize. I can’t imagine Sari’s terribly pleased about that.”

Ehren shook his head. “I don’t like it. Why would he do that?”

Tavi took a deep breath, and replied, “Let me go ask him.”

Tavi did not ride out to meet the Canim this time. Instead, he went to the gates, which opened just enough to let him step outside the protection of the walls. The ground beneath the walls stank of blood and fear, fire and offal. Canim bodies lay piled in windrows, and since the fighting had ceased, thousands of crows descended to begin feasting upon the dead.

Tavi fought to keep his stomach under control as he walked out to meet the Battlemaster-a rank akin to an Aleran captain, a commander in charge of an entire force. Twenty yards from the Cane, he drew out his sword and laid it down on the ground beside him. With or without it, he stood little chance against an armored and experienced Cane afoot-but he could all but feel the watching eyes of his fellow Alerans behind him. They would be of greater protection than any horse or suit of armor. In all, Tavi had the position of greater strength, for Nasaug was in the reach of Tavi’s companions. Tavi was far from Nasaug’s.

Nonetheless, as Tavi approached the Cane, he had to admit that Nasaug’s sheer size was more than frightening enough to protect him from Tavi, personally. Not to mention that his natural weaponry was considerably more fearsome than Tavi’s. It was not a situation of perfect balance, but it was as close to one as they were likely to get.

Tavi stopped ten feet from Nasaug, and said, “I am Rufus Scipio, Captain of the First Aleran.”

The Cane watched him with dark and bloody eyes. “Battlemaster Nasaug.”

Tavi wasn’t sure who moved first, and he didn’t remember consciously deciding to make the gesture, but both of them tilted their heads very slightly to one side in greeting.

“Speak,” Tavi said.

The Cane’s lips peeled back from his fangs, a gesture that could indicate either amusement or a subtle threat. “The situation prevented me from recovering my fallen within the time limit you granted me,” he said. “I wish your permission to recover them now.”

Tavi felt his eyebrows lift. “Given how matters transpired before, my men may be nervous about yours so near the walls.”

“They will approach unarmed,” Nasaug replied. “And I will remain here, within range of your Knights Flora, as a pledge of their conduct.”

Tavi stared at Nasaug for a long moment and thought he saw a certain amount of smug amusement in the Cane’s eyes. Tavi smiled, a baring of his own teeth, and said, “Do you play ludus, Nasaug?”

The Cane lifted his helmet from his head, ears twitching and flicking as they came out from beneath the steel. “At times.”

“Allow me to call out a messenger to send word to my men while you send for your own. Your men, unarmed, may approach until the sun is set. I will remain here with you until that time, in order to help avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings.”

A burbling growl came from Nasaug’s throat-quite possibly the most threatening chuckle Tavi had ever heard in his life. “Very well.”

And so, in the next five minutes Tavi faced Nasaug across a traveling ludus set, a case whose legs unfolded to support it as a small, portable table. Plain discs of stone were carved on one side with piece designations, rather than being the full miniature statuettes of a conventional board. Tavi and Nasaug began playing, while eighty Canim, armored but unarmed, trooped forward, digging through the carnage at the base of the walls to locate the black-armored corpses of their fallen brothers in arms. None of them passed within a twenty-foot circle of the two commanders.

Tavi watched the Cane as the game began, and he opened with what seemed to be a reckless attack.

Nasaug, for his part, narrowed his eyes in thought as the game progressed. “Nothing wrong with your courage,” he said, several moves in. “But it does not secure a victory alone.”

A few moves later, Tavi replied, “Your defense isn’t as strong as it might be. Pushing it hard enough might shatter it.”

Nasaug began to move in earnest then, exchanging the first few pieces, while more moved into position, gathering for the cascade of exchanges that would follow. Tavi lost a piece to the Cane, then another, as his attack began to slow.

Footsteps suddenly approached, and a Cane in the accoutrements of one of Sari’s acolytes stalked up to them. He bared his teeth at Tavi, then turned to Nasaug and snarled, “ Hrrrshk naghr lak trrrng kasrrrash .”

Tavi understood it: You were ordered to attack. Why have you not done so?

Nasaug did not respond.

The acolyte snarled and stepped up to Nasaug, put a hand on the Battle-master’s shoulder, and began to repeat the question.

Nasaug turned his head to one side, jaws flashing, and in a single, vicious snap tore the hand from the end of the acolyte’s arm, following it with a vicious kick that sent the other Cane sprawling, screaming in pain.

Nasaug reached up and took the acolyte’s severed hand from his mouth and idly threw it at him without looking up from the board. “Do not interrupt your betters,” he growled, also in Canish. Tavi could make out most of it. “You may tell Sari that had he wished an immediate attack, he should have given me time to recover my fallen from the Alerans. Tell him that I will attack when and where it suits me.” The Battlemaster glanced at the acolyte, and snarled, “Move. Before you bleed to death.”