Jim Butcher - Captain's Fury

"I didn't," Tavi replied. "I've been gone more than six weeks, bringing Varg to you, as we agreed." He frowned. "Your people didn't kill those holders?"

Nasaug spat. "No. Cavalry from your Legions have been striking steadholts for weeks now." He jerked his muzzle at the draining tables. "So I have allowed the bloodspeakers to drain the blood of the dead and so avenge them."

Tavi lifted a hand to his face for a moment. "These riders," he said. "Alerans?"

"Aye."

"Not Marat?"

"The white-hairs. No."

Tavi exhaled slowly. "Then it hasn't been the First Aleran. Arnos must have ordered the Guard's cavalry to do it."

"That matters little to the dead," Durias said quietly. "Or to their families. Manus's wife and children were killed two days ago. That's why he reacted as he did, Captain."

"Why would Arnos do such a thing?" Kitai asked quietly.

Tavi shook his head. "To ensure that there would be no peaceful conclusion to this campaign, maybe. Or…" He glanced at Durias. "Has the Free Aleran Legion engaged the Crown forces yet?"

"No," Durias said quietly. "We've been holding off as long as possible."

Tavi spat a bitter taste from his mouth. "That's why, then," he said. "This campaign has been about ambition from the start. Arnos wants to be sure you have reason to fight. Then he gets the credit for defeating an invader and putting down a slave revolt as well."

"If he wished to anger us," Nasaug said, "then he has succeeded. There will be no quiet end to this struggle, Aleran."

Tavi frowned. "I lived up to my end of the agreement."

"I agreed that if you freed Varg, we would talk. I have talked, and you may go in peace, gadara . But I will not allow those who murder makers and females to walk away unpunished." He jerked his muzzle at the besieged ruins. "They will not last the night."

Tavi clenched his jaw. Nasaug was no fool, and he could clearly see that the Legions were already in desperate straits. They'd been taken off guard, and the ongoing sorceries seemed more than able to pulverize what little shelter they had, given enough time.

And blood.

Tavi racked his brain desperately. There had to be some way out of this mess, some way to save the First Aleran, some way to…

"And what then?" Tavi heard himself ask quietly.

Nasaug tilted his head to one side.

"After you've killed them," he continued, struggling to keep up with a sudden flood of possibilities. "They'll be replaced by more Legions-and you'll be long gone. But the Free Alerans won't. And you can bet that whatever force comes next will have orders to wipe them out. They'll be the ones to pay for what you do to the men on that hill."

Durias lifted his chin defiantly-but there was something in his eyes that was not at all certain.

"For that matter," Tavi said, "how do you expect to get across the sea? When your fleet came, they used a storm the ritualists summoned to travel swiftly, and they came in large numbers to get through the leviathans. You won't be sailing nearly so swiftly on the way back. How many more ships will you lose? How much weaker will your army be when you finally return to your home?"

Nasaug growled in his throat. "We are willing to face those dangers, Aleran."

"What if you didn't have to?" Tavi asked.

Varg's ears flicked in amusement. "Perhaps you noticed," he growled to Nasaug, "that our young gadara is clever."

Nasaug snapped his jaws pensively. "What do you propose?"

"I'm going to give you the man responsible for those deaths," Tavi said. "I'm going to punish those who carried out his orders. I'm going to see to it that the Free Alerans are not treated as criminals for what they have done-and after that , I'm going to make sure your fleet gets safely over the sea and back to your home."

"And in exchange for all of this?" Nasaug asked, his tone clearly skeptical.

Tavi gestured at the ocean of Canim surrounding the hill. "You surrender."

Nasaug lifted his lips from his teeth. "What?"

"You surrender," Tavi repeated.

"Even if this was possible, I will never surrender to Alerans or their Legions," Nasaug said. "Too many of them are no better than animals."

"You won't be surrendering to Aleran Legions," Tavi replied. "You'll be surrendering to me, personally-a gadara ."

Nasaug tilted his head, his ears swiveling forward in concentration. He traded a long look with Varg, then tilted his head to one side. He drew a heavy leather sash from his belt and tossed it to the larger Cane.

Durias's mouth fell open, and he stared at the exchange in pure surprise.

Varg donned the sash, belting it on with practiced movements. "Aleran," he said. "Let us assume that I agree to this proposal. What will you need to make it happen?"

Tavi's heart began to pound in excitement, and he felt a grin try to stretch his lips. He was careful to keep his teeth covered, lest he give the Canim the wrong idea.

"First," he said, "I'll need you to take my wounded man to a healer. I'll need his help."

Varg nodded, and said to Durias, "See to it at once."

Durias glanced at Nasaug, but even as he did his fist was banging out a salute on his chest, and he hurried away.

Varg nodded and turned back to Tavi. "And?"

"Any eyewitnesses to any of the attacks," Tavi said. "I'll need to speak to them."

Varg glanced at Nasaug, who nodded. "It can be done, sar ."

Tavi pointed at the besieged ruins. "The attack needs to stop, at least temporarily."

Varg narrowed his eyes but nodded once. "Is midnight time enough for this plan?"

"It should be," Tavi said.

In fact, it should be plenty of time, Tavi thought. By the time midnight got there, he would almost certainly have fulfilled his word to the Cane.

And if he hadn't, he'd be too dead for his failure to bother him overmuch.

Gaius Sextus fell upon the forward ranks of the legionares coming toward them, and terror like none they had known crashed over them.

The flaming brand in his fist cast out a blinding radiance, and Amara could feel the very edges of the fearcrafting that imbued it. Once before she had borne a flame containing a fury of terror, and she had barely remained conscious during the act. Count Gram's fearcrafting had been formidable, routing thousands of barbarian Marat and their war beasts alike, sending them screaming from the walls of Garrison during Second Calderon.

Beside the horror Alera's First Lord now sent against the Kalaran legionares , Gram's fearcrafting had been a momentary flutter of insecurity.

The men nearest Gaius, those file leaders of whatever luckless century had the fortune to make up the column's center, never got to scream. Their eyes rolled back in their heads, and as a single man, they convulsed and fell to the stony ground.

Then the screams began.

Hundreds of throats opened in terrorized howls, a sudden and deafening cacophony. Ranks and files melted like butter on a hot skillet, and Legion discipline vanished like dew beneath a desert sunrise. Some men fell, clutching at their shoulders and chests, bleeding from the eyes, or frothing at the lips. Some sobbed and staggered to their knees, weapons tumbling from fear-numbed fingers. Some turned their weapons upon those near them, panicked beyond reason or ability to recognize their sword-brethren. Most simply fled, casting aside their swords and shields.

Among those hundreds of afflicted souls, one man alone stood his ground. Though his face was ashen, somehow this man withstood that horrible fear, bracing his shield and raising his sword in wavering defiance.

The First Lord's blade of fire swept down, and no shield or sword in all of Alera could have withstood that molten furnace of a blow. In a flash of light, the legionare's shield shattered into cleaved halves and droplets of molten metal, parted every bit as easily as his armor and the flesh beneath. He fell in a horrible cloud of hissing gasses and the stench of scorched flesh, and Amara could not help but feel pity that the poor man had been so rewarded for his courage, greater than any of the Legion about him.