Jim Butcher - First Lord's Fury

Amara looked up and down the lines, counting heavy weaponry. She was shocked at how many Knights Terra she could see, waiting in supporting positions in the third or fourth rank of each Legion, ready to step forward and steady any weak points in the shield line. Standard tactical doctrine insisted that the power represented by Knights Terra should be concentrated in one place, hammered into a deadly spearpoint that could thrust through any foe.

Then she realized—in the current situation, standard tactical doctrine had been superseded by the desperation of the Realm’s defenders. Standard doctrine was based upon the assumption that the furycrafting talent of a Knight would be in short supply, for the excellent reason that they nearly always were. But here, now, the Citizens standing to battle outnumbered the Legions’ Knights by an order of magnitude. They could afford to place the normally rare assets into supporting positions in the line. There would be plenty of furypower left over.

The medicos labored feverishly, dragging the wounded and dead back from the line, where they would be sorted into three categories. First came the most severely wounded, who would need the attentions of a healing tub merely to survive. Next priority went to those men most lightly wounded—a visit to a healing tub and a comparatively minor effort from a watercrafter would put them back into the lines in an hour.

And then came… everyone else. Men with their bellies ripped open could not hope to return to the fight, but neither were they in danger of expiring from their injury within the day. Men with shattered ribs, their wind too short to permit them to scream, lay there in agony, their faces twisted with pain. They were worse off than those who had lost limbs and managed to stop the bleeding with bandages and tourniquets. A man whose eyes were a bloody, pulped ruin sat on the ground moaning and rocking back and forth. Scarlet tears streamed down his cheeks in a gruesome mask.

The dead, Amara thought morbidly, were better off than all of them: They could feel no pain.

“Countess!” Miles called.

Amara looked up to see that Aquitaine’s bodyguards had opened a way between them, though they didn’t look happy about it. Miles was standing in the newly created aisle, beckoning her, and Amara hurried to join him.

Miles walked her over to where Aquitaine sat on his horse beside a dozen of his furycrafting peers—High Lord Antillus, High Lord Phrygia and his son, High Lord and Lady Placida, High Lord Cereus, and a collection of Lords who, through talent or discipline, had established themselves as some of the most formidable furycrafters in the Realm.

“Countess,” Aquitaine said politely. “Today’s schedule is somewhat demanding. I am pressed for time.”

“It’s about to get worse,” Amara said. After a beat, she added, “Your Highness.”

Aquitaine gave her a razor-thin smile. “Elaborate.”

She informed him, in short, terse sentences, of the horde of feral furies. “And they’re moving fast. You’ve got maybe half an hour before they reach your lines.”

Aquitaine regarded her steadily, then dismounted, stepped a bit apart from the horses, and took to the air to see for himself. He returned within a pair of minutes and remounted, his expression closed and hard.

Silence spread around the little circle as the mounted Citizens traded uneasy looks.

“A furybinding?” Lady Placida said, finally. “On that scale? Is it even possi—” She paused to glance at her husband, who was giving her a wry look. She shook her head and continued. “Yes, as it is in fact happening at this very moment, of course it is possible.”

“Bloody crows,” Antillus finally spat. He was a brawny man, rough-hewn, and had a face that looked as if it had been beaten with clubs in his youth. “Furies will go right through the lines. Or under them, or over them. And they’ll head straight for Riva, too.”

Aquitaine shook his head. “Those are entirely uncontrolled furies. Once they’re set loose, there’s no telling which direction they’ll go.”

“Naturally,” Amara said in a dry tone. “It would be impossible for the vord to be able to give them a direction.”

Aquitaine looked at her, sighed, and waved an irritated gesture of acceptance.

“If there are that many wild furies, the vord don’t need to aim them,” the silver-haired, aged Cereus said quietly. “Even if they could only bring the furies close and let them spread out randomly, some of them are bound to hit the city. It wouldn’t take many to cause a panic. And as crowded as the streets are…”

“It would clog the streets and trap everyone inside,” Aquitaine said calmly. “Panic in those circumstances would be little different from riots. It will force the Legions to maneuver all the way around the city walls instead of marching through. Force us to divide our strength, sending troops back to restore order. Cause enough confusion to let the vord slip agents and takers inside.” He frowned, bemused. “We haven’t seen any vordknights yet, in this battle.” He looked back over his shoulder. “They’re north and west of us, spread out in a line, like hunters. Ready to snap up refugees as they flee the city in disorder.”

Amara got a sinking feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t thought all the way through the chain of logic in the vord Queen’s gambit, but what Aquitaine said made perfect sense. Though the vord were deadly enough in a purely physical sense, the weapon that might truly unmake Alera this day was terror. In her mind’s eye, she could see panicked refugees and freemen being slaughtered by wild furies, could see them taking to the streets with all they could carry, shepherding their children along with them, seeking a way out of the death trap the walls of Riva had become. Some would manage to escape the city—only to find themselves the prey of an airborne foe. And while the rest of the city’s residents were trapped and embroiled in chaos, the Legions were effectively pinned in place. They could not retreat without leaving the people of Riva to be butchered.

The great city, its people, and its defending Legions would all die together within days.

“I think we’d better stop those furies,” Antillus rumbled.

“Yes, thank you, Raucus,” Lord Phrygia said in an acidic tone. “What would you suggest?”

Antillus scowled and said nothing.

Aquitaine actually seemed to smile for an instant, something that surprised Amara with its genuine warmth. It faded rapidly, and his features shifted back into his cool mask again. “We have two choices—retreat or fight.”

“A retreat ?” Raucus said. “With this mob? We’d never coordinate it in the face of the enemy. Whichever Legions were the last out would be torn to shreds.”

“More to the point,” Lord Placida said quietly, “I think it’s a good bet that they’ll be expecting it. I think you’re right about their circling their aerial troops into position behind us.”

“Even more to the point,” Aquitaine said, “we have nowhere left to go. No position that will be any stronger than this one. That being the case—”

“Your Highness,” Amara interrupted smoothly. “In point of fact, that is not entirely true.”

Amara felt every eye there lock upon her.

“The Calderon Valley has been prepared,” she said calmly. “My lord husband spent years trying to warn the Realm that this day was coming. When no one listened, he did the only thing he could do. He readied his home to receive refugees and fortified it heavily.”

Aquitaine tilted his head. “How heavily could he possibly have strengthened it on a Count’s income?”

Amara reached into her belt pouch, drew out a folded piece of paper, and opened a map of the Calderon Valley. “Here is the western entrance, along the causeway. Half-height siege walls have been built across the entire five-mile stretch of land, from the flint escarpments to the Sea of Ice, with standard Legion camp-style fortresses every half mile. A second regulation siege wall belts the valley at its midway point, with fortresses and gates each mile. At the eastern end of the valley, Garrison itself has been surrounded by more double-sized siege walls, enclosing a citadel built to about a quarter of the scale of the one in Alera Imperia.”