Jim Butcher - Captain's Fury

Isana called out to Rill, to the sea, and as they flashed toward the Slive , the water rose beneath them, building up into a wave that lifted them from the surface of the already-roiling ocean, so that as they reached the ship, and the wave broke upon the watercrafting around it, they simply washed up onto its deck.

Demos was standing there as the furycrafted wave washed over his feet and rocked the Slive hard to its starboard side, and his eyes were wide with shock. The ship righted itself in the water, and Demos stirred, turning back to his men, and bellowing orders that could barely be heard over the bellows of angry leviathans.

Isana turned to Araris at once, crouching over him and laying her hands on his abdomen. There was a gaping wound in his side, just below his lowest ribs. She grasped at the split flesh with her hands, pushing it back together, pressing her attention down through her fingers. The wound was massive and uncomplicated, but if the bleeding wasn't stopped, and soon, he would not live.

"I did not go through that torture at Ceres to let you die now," she heard herself snarl. Then she willed Rill down into the wound, found its edges with the fury's help, and began to bind them together, to contain the blood trying to rush from his body. It was difficult, and Isana felt her strength swiftly fading, but it had to be done. She did not relent in her efforts until she felt the artery mend, felt the pressures of his body begin to stabilize.

After that, she finally relented, slumping, gasping for breath, and weary in every fiber of her being.

She looked up to find Tavi staring at her.

She looked around. Kitai was watching her as well, her canted eyes brilliant in the lowering light. Ehren's face was awed. Demos, too, stood watching her, as did a dozen sailors.

"Bloody crows," one of the men said. "She didn't even use a tub."

Isana blinked and stared down at her bloodied hands, at the unconscious man beneath them.

She hadn't?

She hadn't.

Bloody crows, indeed. That was impossible. Only the most powerful watercrafters in the Realm could…

There was another vast, sea-shaking bellow.

Isana looked up, as did everyone else on the Slive , to see the first leviathan attack the Mactis . It rose from the sea, a mountain of armored flesh and frenzied rage. It lifted the Mactis from the waves, and the crack of timbers snapping as its keel shattered cut through the twilight. Men screamed, falling from the ruined ship, rendered into toys by the distance and by the sheer magnitude of scale. Some of them splashed into the ocean. Some fell upon the bulk of the leviathan, its hide no more forgiving than the rocks of a hostile shore. Half of the ship stayed afloat for a moment-but only until a second leviathan rammed the first, crushing it between them. Men thrashed desperately for life, insects among the angry titans of the sea. Some of them had managed to get a few of the small boats into the sea, but they could not long remain afloat in that maelstrom, and the growing darkness, the surge of furious leviathans slamming into one another in their rage, and the tortured sea swallowed them as the Slive sailed on.

Isana felt the horror in those around them-and the sympathy. She realized that these men, though pirates and scoundrels, though struggling to say alive against a foe who would surely have killed them, had just witnessed one of their own nightmares. None of them desired to see another sailor die the way the men of the Mactis had.

Isana shook her head, struggling to separate her senses from those around her. It was too much, and her head had begun to pound again.

"All right," growled a voice whose tone brooked no dissent. Her son, she thought dully. "Show's over. Ehren, get the cabin door. Kitai."

Isana looked up dully as Kitai, still shirtless, calmly picked her up as she might carry a child. The Marat girl gave Isana a small, encouraging smile, while Tavi picked up Araris.

"It was well-done," Kitai murmured to Isana quietly. "We're back safe. Time to rest now."

Isana began to protest. She'd closed the worst of the wound, but Araris would need more attention-and she didn't even know if any of the others had been injured. She began to tell Kitai to put her down and fetch a healing tub.

But somewhere between drawing a breath and using it to speak, she lost the will to keep going and embraced the promise of silence and peace in her exhaustion.

"Bloody crows," snarled Antillar Maximus. "Right now, the captain's taking it easy, sleeping in his bunk in a nice, comfortable cell back at the fort at the Eli-narch, while we're getting soaked to the skin."

Valiar Marcus stepped down from the block that let him peer over the First Aleran's palisade and view the enemy position at the ford of the river Aepon. The Canim had employed the talents of the Free Aleran Legions. Their earthcrafters weren't the equals of a Legion engineering corps, and the positions they'd erected weren't made of the multilayered stone of a battlecrafted siege wall, but the heavy earthworks they had raised on the far side of the shallow ford were massive enough to provide a formidable defensive position.

"Bet he's eating hot breakfast cakes right now," Maximus continued. The young Tribune glowered up at the steady rain. "Maybe a morning cup of tea. Probably borrowed one of Cyril's books. Cyril's the sort to have a lot of books."

Antillus Crassus stepped down from his own block and glowered at Max. "I'm certain you never complained this much to Captain Scipio."

"Yes he did," Marcus murmured. "Just never in front of anyone. Except me."

Crassus gave Maximus a very direct look. "Tribune, I hereby order you to stop whining."

"That never worked for Scipio," Marcus noted.

"It's a sacred right," Max said. He chinned himself up on the palisade briefly, then dropped back to the ground again. "Looks like they're getting ready to change the guard."

"Signal the engineers," Crassus said.

Marcus turned and flashed a hand signal at the nearest Marat horseman- in this case, horsewoman, he supposed. She nodded, turned, and galloped to the top of the low hill behind them, and repeated the gesture in broader strokes.

"It isn't going to buy us much time, hitting them during their shift change," Max said.

"It doesn't need to," Marcus replied. "They're expecting a shooting match. A few seconds will make the difference." He turned and nodded to the file leaders of the Prime Cohort. They saluted, and murmured orders went down the ranks. The veterans drew their swords in slithering whispers of steel.

Crassus turned and beckoned a runner. The young man hurried over. "Please inform the Honorable Senator that our initial assault is about to begin."

The runner saluted and pelted away.

Marcus stepped up onto the block again and watched the river.

At first, he couldn't see it happening. The change was too slight. His ears, though, picked up on a change in the constant, almost-silent murmur of the water sliding between the banks. The pitch rose, and Marcus leaned forward, watching intently.

The ford was about three feet deep under normal circumstances-slightly deeper, given the steady rain they'd had during the past week. It was not too deep for infantry to ford, but it was more than deep and swift enough to take a man from his feet if he wasn't careful. Trying to cross the ford in the face of the enemy's defenses would be a slow and bloody business, where the balests and bows of the combined Canim and ex-slave forces would be able to take a terrible toll. It would be possible to grind resistance down, eventually, but a conventional assault would require a hefty price in blood.

Which was, Marcus reflected, probably why Amos had given the First Aleran the dubious distinction of leading the attack.