Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

"Not so much say," Doroga said. "But… he makes me know how he feels. Walker thinks we are companions only until he gets too hungry. And then I can either give him more food or stand clear of those apples."

Amara found herself smiling. "And the other tribes. They are…"

"Bonded," Doroga provided.

"Bonded with their own totems?"

"Horse with horse, Wolf with wolf, Herdbane with herdbane, yes," he confirmed. "And many others. It is how our people learn. Not just the wisdom of the mind." He put a fist on his chest. "But the wisdom of the heart. They are equally important. Each of them part of The One."

Amara shook her head. The beliefs of the barbarians were a great deal more complex than she would have believed possible. And if Doroga was telling the literal truth about the Marat bond with their beasts, it meant that they might be a great deal stronger than the Alerans had previously believed.

Hashat, for example, the chieftain of the Horse Clan, wore the cloak pins of three Royal Guardsman on her saber belt. Amara had assumed they had been looted from the field after the first day of First Calderon, but now she was not so sure. If the Marat woman, then a young warrior, had challenged the Princeps's personal guardsman on horseback, her bond with her animal may have given her a decisive advantage, even over Aleran metalcrafting. At Second Calderon, Doroga's gargant had smashed through walls built to withstand the pressures of battle of all kinds, from the great mauls of earthcrafter-borne strength to furycrafted blasts of fire and gale winds.

"Doroga," she said, "why have your people not made war on Alera more often?"

Doroga shrugged. "No reason to do it," he said. "We fight one another often. It is a test The One has given us, to see where the greatest strengths lie. And we have differences of thought and mind, just as your own folk do. But we do not fight until one side is dead. Once the strength is shown, the fight is over."

"But you killed Atsurak at the battle two years ago," Amara said.

Doroga's expression darkened with what looked like sadness. "Atsurak had become too savage. Too steeped in blood. He had betrayed his own purpose before The One. He had stopped learning and began to forget who and what he was. His father died at the Field of Fools-what my tribe call First Calderon-and he grew to manhood lusting for vengeance. He led many others with him in his madness. And he and his followers killed an entire tribe of my people." Doroga tugged at the braid again and shook his head. "As he grew, I had hoped he would learn to forget his hate. He did not. For a time, I feared I would hate him for what he did to me. But now it is over and done. I am not proud of what I did to Atsurak. But I could do nothing else and still serve The One."

"He killed your mate," Amara said quietly.

Doroga closed his eyes and nodded. "She hated spending winters with my tribe, in our southlands, in the dunes by the sea. Too much sleeping, she said. That year, she stayed with her own folk."

Amara shook her head. "I do not want to disrespect your beliefs. But I must ask you something."

Doroga nodded.

"Why do you fight to destroy the ancient enemy if we are all a part of The One? Aren't they as much a part of it as your people? Or mine?"

Doroga was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "The One created us all to be free. To learn. To find common cause with others and to grow stronger and wiser. But the ancient enemy perverts that union of strengths. With the enemy, there is no choice, no freedom. They take. They force a joining of all things, until nothing else remains."

Amara shivered. "You mean, joined with them the way you are with your totems?"

Doroga's face twisted in revulsion-and, Amara saw with a sense of unease, the first fear she had ever seen on the Marat's face. Deeper. Sharper.

"To join the enemy is to cease to be. A living death. I will speak no more of it."

"Very well," Amara said. "Thank you."

Doroga nodded and turned around to face forward.

She untied the saddle rope and dropped it over the gargant's flank, preparing to climb down it, when a call went down the column to halt. She looked up to see Bernard sitting his nervous horse with one hand lifted.

One of the scouts appeared on the road, his horse running at top speed toward the column. As the rider closed on Bernard and slowed, Bernard gave the man a curt gesture, and the two of them cantered side by side down the length of the column, until they were not far from Doroga's gargant.

"All right," Bernard said, gesturing from the scout to Amara and Doroga. "Let's hear it."

"Aricholt, sir," the man said, panting. "I was just there."

Amara saw Bernard's jaw clench. "What has happened?"

"It's empty, sir," the scout replied. "Just… empty. No one is there. There are no fires. No livestock."

"A battle?" Amara asked.

The scout shook his head. "No, lady. Nothing broken, and no blood. It's as if they all just walked away."

Bernard frowned at that and looked up at Amara. It didn't show on his face, but she could see the worry behind his eyes. It matched the worry and the fear she was feeling herself. Missing? An entire steadholt? There were more than a hundred men, women, and children who called Aricholt their home.

"It is too late to save them," Doroga rumbled. "This is how it begins."

"I don't understand this," Isana said. "He's an academ. He's at the Academy. It isn't all that enormous. What do you mean that you can't find my nephew?"

The runner Serai had hired grimaced. He was a boy too young to labor on the docks but too old to be free of the need to work, and his sandy hair was limp with sweat from running back and forth between the Citadel and the private manor in the Citizens' Quarter.

"Pardon, my lady Citizen," the boy panted. "I did as you asked and inquired after him in every place in the Academy visitors are allowed."

"Are you sure you checked his quarters in the dormitories?"

"Yes, my lady," the boy said, apology in his tone. "There was no answer. I slipped your note under his door. He may be in examinations."

"Since dawn ?" Isana demanded. "That's ridiculous."

Serai murmured, from nearby, "Antonin's suggestion has merit, Stead-holder. Final examination week is extremely demanding."

Isana settled down lightly onto the raised wall of flagstones surrounding the garden's central fountain, her back straight. "I see."

Birds chirped in the background, bright and cheerful in the warm afternoon that almost had the feel of spring to it. The manor to which Serai had brought Isana was a small one, by the standards of the capital, but its designer had crafted the home with an elegance that made the larger, richer homes surrounding it seem gaudy by comparison.

Isana opened her eyes. Though still marked by the chill of winter night, the garden had begun to awaken to the spring. Buds had already formed on the early-blooming plants and upon all three of the carefully pruned trees. Like the house, the garden was modest and beautiful. Surrounded upon all sides by the three-story manor, hanging and climbing vines hid the silvery marble of the building almost completely, so that the garden seemed more like a glade in a heavy forest than part of a metropolitan household. The bees had not yet awakened from their winter slumber, nor had most of the birds returned from their yearly journey, but it would not be long before the garden would be full of motion, bustling with the business of life.

Spring had always been her favorite time of year, and her own happiness had been infectious. Isana always felt her family's emotions quite clearly, regardless of the season, but in the spring they were the most happy.

That thought led her to Bernard. Her brother was walking into danger, and leading holders she had known for most of her life as he did. He would arrive at Aricholt today-and perhaps he already had. His men might be racing the danger the vord represented as early as the next morning.