Jim Butcher - Princeps’ Fury

“His Royal Highness appreciates that,” Tavi said. “Where’s Magnus?”

“Still furious that you would not allow Maximus to take your place,” Kitai said.

Tavi shook his head. “Even if he crafted himself into my twin, Varg would have known the second he got close enough to smell him.”

“I know. Magnus knows. He is angry because it is true.” Kitai leaned over the side of the longboat and kissed Tavi hard on the mouth, her fingers tight in his hair for a moment. Then she broke it off abruptly, met his eyes, and said, “Survive.”

He winked at her. “I’ll be fine.”

“Of course he will,” Maximus said. “If there’s a lick of trouble, Tavi will set something on fire-it’s easy to set something on fire, believe me-and I’ll see the smoke, knock down all the buildings between him and the dock, come get him, and we’ll leave. Nothing simpler.”

Kitai gave Maximus a steady look. Then she shook her head, and said, “And the truly incredible part is… you actually believe it.”

“Ambassador,” Max said, “in the course of my life, I have more than once been too ignorant to know that something was impossible before I did it anyway. I see no reason to jeopardize that success.”

“It certainly explains your study habits at the Academy,” Tavi noted. “We’re ready, Captain.”

Demos, who had been directing the affairs of the ship from nearby, called out an order to the crew, and the sailors of the Slive lowered the boat to the chill waters of the fjord.

Tavi flung his scarlet cloak about his shoulders and hooked it to the clasps on his armor, while Max sat down at the rear of the boat. The big Antillan thrust one hand into the water for a moment, murmured something, and a second later the longboat surged silently forward, propelled by a burbling current that pressed against its stern.

Tavi rose to stand in the prow, and the wind threw his cloak back as the longboat glided silently for the shore.

“First impressions, eh?” Max muttered.

“Right,” Tavi said. “When they get close enough to get a look at you, try to look like someone who isn’t impressed.”

“Got it,” said Max.

The longboat altered course to run parallel to the boat coming from Varg’s vessel. Varg’s boat was crewed by seven warrior-caste Canim, six of them pulling oars while a seventh held the longboat’s tiller. Varg, like Tavi, stood in the prow of his boat. He wore no cloak, but the fading light of day managed, somehow, to glitter upon the bloodred gem hanging from a gold ring in one ear, here and there upon his black-and-crimson armor, and upon the hilt of the curved sword hanging at his side.

“Carrying a lot of bloodstone on him,” Max noted.

“I get the impression that Varg hasn’t made a lot of friends among the ritualists,” Tavi said. “If I were he, I’d carry a lot of bloodstone, too.”

“Beats being annihilated by red lightning or melted into sludge by a cloud of acid, all right. You brought your stone, right?”

“Got it in my pocket. You?”

“Crassus loaned me his,” Max confirmed. “Do you really think that showing up with only two of us will impress the Shuarans?”

“It might,” Tavi said. “Mostly, I feel better knowing that I’m not leaving anyone helpless to Canim sorcery standing around on the dock behind me to be taken prisoner or wounded and used to slow me down.”

Max snorted. “You didn’t say anything about that aboard the ship.”

“Well. No.”

“Just did it to impress the girl, eh, Your Highness?”

Tavi threw a sly glance over his shoulder. “It was a pretty good kiss.”

Max snorted, then they fell silent until they reached the sea-gate of Molvar.

Huge bars of black iron rose from the cold sea, supported on either side by walls made from hand-hewn granite blocks. Even without the use of furycraft, the Canim had been able, somehow, to raise the seabed into something solid enough to support massive walls, built out from the sides of the fjord. Tavi could not imagine how much sheer, brute effort, how much raw sweat and muscle power had gone into their construction, or what techniques must have been used, even with the incredible strength of the Canim laborers, to maneuver the enormous blocks of stone. They made the ruins in Appia look like children’s projects by comparison.

As the two boats approached, the sea-gates groaned and began to move, slowly parting. Phosphorescence flickered up and down the metal bars, and eerie, fluttering waves of light danced over the surface of the water. Metal rattled on metal, an eerie, regular thump-thump-thump as the gates opened, swirling water in their wake.

The boats passed through, and Tavi spotted several Canim on the walls above them, in dark armor and strange, long, slippery-looking cloaks, all but hidden within their garments. Each of them bore one of the steel bolt throwers in his hands, the deadly balests that had claimed the lives of so many Knights and legionares in the wars in the Amaranth Vale, and Tavi’s shoulder blades developed a distinct itch as the boat passed them. A bolt hurled by one of the deadly weapons could slam through his armor’s backplates, his body, and his breastplate in an instant, and still carry enough momentum to kill a second armored man on the other side of him.

Tavi did not allow himself to turn his head or alter his straight-backed, confident stance. Posture and gesture were of enormous significance among the Canim. Someone who looked as if he expected to be attacked quite possibly would be, simply as an outgrowth of unspoken, unintended, but very real statements being made by his body.

A cold trickle of sweat slid along Tavi’s spine. It was no time for bungled communications to spoil an otherwise reasonably fine day. After all-he was about to get off the bloody water for the first time in weeks.

He let out a little breath of laughter at the thought and calmed himself as his boat, along with Varg’s, crossed the harbor of Molvar.

It was huge-half a mile across at the least, large enough to house the whole of his fleet and the Canim’s, too. Indeed, in the failing light he counted at least thirty Canim ships of war, whose designs differed subtly from those designed and built by Varg’s shipwrights. Granite bluffs framed the harbor, except for a long stretch of stone piers, as large as any Tavi had seen in Alera, where warships and other vessels, built more along the lines of merchants, were docked.

One pier was set apart from the others. Torches had been lit at its end and burned scarlet with more intensity than any normal fire. It was crowded with Canim, also in their odd, wet-looking cloaks, but Tavi caught glimpses of midnight blue steel armor beneath their cloaks and similarly tinted weaponry in their hands.

Varg’s longboat headed for that pier, and without being told, Max altered his heading slightly to do the same. The two longboats pulled up on opposite sides of the pier in almost-total silence. The only sound was the rattle of wood and metal fittings as the rowers in Varg’s craft shipped their oars.

From there, Tavi thought, looking up at the pier, it certainly looked like a great many more Canim were present than had been there a moment before. They also looked quite a bit taller. And their weapons looked a great deal sharper. Doubtless, he thought, it was all just a trick of the light.

“No fear,” he muttered to himself. Then he took a long step up to the pier and stepped out of the longboat and onto the Shuaran stone.

Opposite him, Varg was doing the same, albeit having less difficulty with the scale of the construction. He tilted his head slightly toward Tavi, who returned the gesture at precisely the same depth and timing. They turned simultaneously to face the warriors gathered on the pier.