Jim Butcher - Captain's Fury

The woman's face went white, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her knees gave way, and she melted slowly to the ground, her arms spread to her sides, her open mouth to the sky.

Arnos stood in place behind her, and the dagger fell from his fingers. He looked down at the blood flooding from the hole in his chest, where the bolt that had spitted them both emerged. He screamed, a sound full of protest and terror. It was a breathless scream, one with no strength, and his hands scrabbled at his chest, as if he thought he could brush the wound away if only he acted quickly enough.

Tavi walked over to him, Araris at his back.

Arnos was letting out desperate little grunting coughs, and blood bubbled from his lips as he did. His hands kept moving, but his fingers seemed to have gone limp, and he was only slapping uselessly at his lifeblood as it spilled from the massive wound the Canim projectile had left in his chest.

Tavi flashed signals to the Marat. Archer. That way. Find .

The barbarians loped into the ruins, eyes bright. Their night vision would give the unseen assassin nowhere to hide.

"Healer!" Tavi bellowed. "Now!"

Amos turned a look of pathetic gratitude on Tavi, reaching out with his useless hands to grasp at the young man.

Tavi slapped Arnos's hands away with one motion and dealt him a contemptuous blow to the face with the back of his hand with the next. Amos fell to the ground and landed on his side, shaking his head. He tried to speak, but blood strangled whatever he'd been going to say.

"For the woman. Not for you." Tavi squatted next to Arnos, and said, "I'm doing you a kindness you probably don't deserve, Senator. This is a better death than the Canim would give you."

Arnos's head jerked, and his eyes went out of focus. He made a few thrashing movements, his expression twisting, knotting, becoming absolutely agonized. Tavi didn't want to feel the man's terror and pain and confusion, but he still did. Logically, his actions had merited far more than what he had received-but he was still human, still Tavi's countryman, and someone who, in a perfect world, Tavi would have protected from his own ambition.

Arnos died there in a pool of his own blood, frightened and friendless and broken.

Tavi wouldn't lose any time mourning the fool-but he regretted the needless deaths of so many Alerans. Even the Senator's.

Things like that shouldn't happen to anyone.

Tavi pulled Arnos's cloak over his face and head, and asked Araris, "How is she?"

"Not good," Araris said. He'd torn off his cape, folded it into a pad, and had it pressed hard against her back. "Pulse is thready. I think she's got a hole in her lung, and she might be bleeding into it. We don't dare move her, and-" Araris froze for a second, then leaned forward, his nostrils flared.

"What is it?"

"I think… I think this bolt was poisoned."

Tavi leaned down and sniffed himself. There was a faintly corrupt odor from the wound in the front of the domestic's body, underlying a sharper, almost lemony scent. "That's heartfire," he said. "Master Killian taught us to recognize it. It speeds up the victim's heart until it bursts. Blinds them, too. I don't know what the other scent is."

"Rancid garic oil," Araris said.

"I've only read about that. Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Crows," Tavi said. "She's the First Spear's woman."

Araris shook his head. "Bad bloody luck."

"This way!" called Kitai from behind them. A moment later, she arrived leading a score of Marat and a trio of weary-looking healers, including Tribune Foss.

The bearish Tribune immediately examined the wound and listened as Tavi explained about the poison. Then he and the other healers loaded the woman onto a stretcher as gently as they could and carried her away, while the Marat took position around Tavi.

Tavi watched them go and rubbed at his forehead with one hand. "Get me two horses. Tie the late Senator over one of them."

"You can't ride out to the Canim," Araris said. "They aren't dealing in good faith. Look what they just did to Arnos."

Tavi shook his head and rose. He held out one hand, and said, "Arnos was about this tall."

"Yes," Araris said.

"And the woman was bent back, with the top of her head level with his."

"Yes."

"Arnos's wound was in the center of his chest. Hers was in the same spot, but more to the right, because of where she was standing." Tavi extended a finger in a straight line. "The bolt was traveling horizontally and fast enough to pierce them both. Which means it was fired from fairly short range, from inside the walls."

Araris followed the line of reasoning. "You don't think the Canim did this."

Kitai came to stand beside Tavi. "He thinks Alerans are far more capable than the Canim are when it comes to treachery and back-shooting," she said quietly. "He's right."

Tavi found her warm hand with his, and squeezed tight. She returned it, gripping hard.

"Which leaves us with a question for which we have no answer," Tavi said.

Araris nodded. "If not the Canim," he murmured, "then who did it?"

Valiar Marcus stood upon the southern battlements with his men, watching as the Princeps rode forth from the ruins. A second horse, trailing on a rope, carried Senator Arnos's corpse draped upon its back. The sun was rising, the lands around them steadily growing brighter.

The balest had gone the same way as the jars of poison. It had been tricky for a few moments, when the Marat had come looking for the hidden archer, but his woodcrafted veil had served him well, and he eluded them.

The whole thing had gone to the crows, as such plans often did. Marcus had been forced to change position when the Senator bolted. He'd been sure the man would run to Lady Aquitaine, given a chance, but he'd fled even before the duel was over, and Marcus had been forced to shadow him.

Fortunately, it had hardly been difficult to remain unobserved in the frenzy around the duel, and he'd been able to use the reactions of the hunting Marat as a guide to the Senator. The doubled opportunity he'd finally found had been a stroke of fortune he had acted upon instinctively and instantly. Such moments could not be predicted and never lasted. The tiniest hesitation, and they were gone.

He had heard that "Davia," career Legion domestic, had died in the healing tub, as the poison on the bolt set her heart to racing, spreading the deadly taint of the garic oil through the whole of her body, until her life had simply failed.

That was a pity, Marcus thought. The woman was undeniably capable. She could have been a tremendous asset to the Realm, handled properly, and the loss of such potential to the Crown was regrettable. On the other hand, she was stubborn. He doubted she would have cooperated quickly or easily. He was certain he would not have survived the fallout, regardless of what she chose to do. Still. The skills of the powerful bloodlines of Alera were vital to the long-term survival of the Realm, and-

He felt himself smile a little. For a moment there, he'd been thinking like a Cursor.

"What do you think, First Spear?" asked Tribune Kellus. The annoying young officer had survived the battle and had naturally wandered away from his command again to come chew the fat with Marcus.

"Sir?" Marcus asked politely.

Kellus nodded at the Canim army outside, surrounding the ruins. "Think the captain can get us out of this?"

"Difficult to say, sir," Marcus replied.

"I hope so," Kellus muttered.

Marcus drew in a breath and silently counted to three. "Yes, sir."

The Princeps stopped as a group of Canim, with what must have been two or three former Aleran slaves, came out of the enemy ranks to meet him. They faced off about ten feet from one another, then two of the slaves, an armored legionare and a black-haired woman in a grey dress, came forward to examine the body. The woman looked at his face and nodded, and then the enemy contingent withdrew-except for a single Cane, an enormous, scarred, black-furred brute, who remained facing the Princeps.