Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

"Not now, please," Amara told Frederic. "It doesn't get us anywhere if we assume there was no logical reason for it," she told Bernard. "Something happened out here that was different than what happened inside. We need to discover what that was."

Bernard grunted. "Giraldi, what else can you tell me about the taken in the great hall?"

Giraldi shrugged. "Not much, sir. It was fast, bloody. Swords and knives. One of the men used the haft of his spear and broke one of the taken's necks with it."

"Weaponplay," Amara said. "Centurion, was there any crafting involved?"

Giraldi frowned. "Nothing overt, my lady. I've some metalcrafting, but it's never been something I actually do anything to use, if you follow me. One of the men maybe used some earthcraft to throw a trestle at one of the taken to slow it down when it went for one of the children."

Amara frowned. "But drawing upon a fury for strength is an internalized use of furycraft-just like your enhanced skills of swordplay. Or Bernard's archery." She glanced up at Bernard. "But you actually manifested Brutus to pin Janus down. It was after you did that he…" She frowned. "He almost seemed surprised when it happened, as if he could feel it, somehow. And then he loosed his own furycrafting against you, Bernard."

Bernard frowned. "But what does that mean?"

"I don't think he could have called upon any furycrafting when he first came outside," Amara said. "If he could have, I think he'd have turned it on Harger at once."

Bernard nodded slowly. "You think he couldn't have used it until… what? Until someone showed him how? Until someone else initiated a crafting?"

Amara shook her head. "Perhaps. I don't know."

Giraldi growled. "Janus was after our last healer? Crows."

Bernard nodded. "Our healers. Our firecrafters. These vord, whatever they are, are not stupid. They lured us into a trap, and they're striking deliberately at our strongest crafters. They've predicted several of our moves. Which means that they know us. They know us a lot better than we know them." Bernard grunted and hauled himself unsteadily to his feet. "That's bad news, people."

"Sir," Frederic said.

"Wait a moment," Bernard said, holding up a hand to Frederic. "Amara, you said you felt something brush your foot while you were sleeping?"

"Yes," she said.

Bernard nodded. "So. Let's assume that these takers are something very small-about the size of a mouse or a small rat. We all must sleep sooner or later. We're still vulnerable to them. We need to work out some kind of defense."

"Can't we just make sure the great hall is emptied of them?" Amara asked.

"Not for certain," Bernard said. "In the first place, we don't even know what they look like. And secondly, something mouse-sized is going to be able to find cracks in the stone, holes in the walls, places to get in and places to hide. The rats do."

"And I don't think camping outside is an option," Amara mused.

"Definitely not."

"We need to know more about these takers," Amara said. "If we could get a look at one, it might help us work out a plan."

Frederic let out an explosively frustrated sigh, stepped forward between them all, and slammed the open mouth of the cup down onto the cobblestones in a swift gesture. Amara blinked at him in surprise. The young Knight looked up at them, and said, "They look like this."

He jerked the cup up off the ground.

Amara stared at the taker. It was as long as her hand and very slender. Its flesh was a sickly, pale color, streaked with scarlet blood, and its body was covered in overlapping segments of translucent chitin. Dozens of legs protruded from either side of its body, and antennae fully as long as its body sprouted from either end of the creature. Its head was a barely discernible lump at one end of the body, and was armed with short, sharp-looking mandibles.

The taker flinched into a writhing ball when the light touched it, as if it could not stand its brightness. Its legs and chitinous plates scraped against the stones.

"Look," Amara murmured, pointing at the taker. "Its back."

There were two lumps there, as there had been on the warriors. Amara reached down to touch one, and with blinding speed the taker's body whirled and those heavy mandibles snapped down upon Amara's finger. The Cursor let out a hiss and flicked her wrist. The taker's grip was surprisingly strong, and it took her several tries to dislodge the creature and fling it away from her.

Bernard spun around and stomped down with one boot. The taker's body made a crackling sound as he crushed it.

"Crows," Giraldi breathed quietly.

Everyone turned to look at Frederic.

"I was moving one of the corpses," Frederic said quietly. "Tyrus. His head had been chopped off. That thing crawled out of…" Frederic swallowed and looked a little green. "It crawled out of the head's mouth, sir."

An odd and unpleasant burning sensation had begun to throb through Amara's finger scarce seconds after the taker had bitten down. Over the next several heartbeats, the burning numbness spread to her entire finger and hand, to the wrist. She tried to clench her fingers, and found them barely able to move. "Its bite," she said. "Some kind of poison."

Frederic nodded and held up his own weakly flapping hand. "Yes, ma'am. Bit me a few times when I caught it, but I don't feel sick or anything."

Amara nodded with a grimace. "It wouldn't make sense for a taker's venom to be lethal. We'll have to hope for the best. These things must have approached men who were sleeping. Crawled into their mouths." She started to feel queasy herself. "And then took control of them."

Giraldi frowned. "But you'd feel it crawling into your mouth. Those things are big enough to choke you."

"Not if it bit you," Amara responded. "Not if you'd gone numb, so you couldn't feel it on you. Especially if you were asleep to begin with."

"Great furies," Bernard breathed.

Amara continued to follow the line of logic. "They didn't pick random targets, either. Janus. Our Knights." She took a steadying breath. "And me."

Frederic said, "Steadhold-uh, that is, Count Bernard. We've taken a head count inside. We're missing four other men."

Bernard arched an eyebrow. "They aren't in the steadholt?"

"We haven't found them," Frederic said. "But the far door of the hall was open."

"They were taken," Amara murmured. "Must have been. They went out the door on that side so that they could leave the steadholt without us or Doroga seeing them go." She took a deep breath. "Bernard. The longer we wait around, the more likely it is that we will suffer additional losses. We need to wipe out that nest immediately."

"Agreed," Bernard said quietly. "But can we do it? Without the firecrafters to set it ablaze and assist us in any fighting, I'm not sure how effective we can be."

"Do we have a choice?" Amara asked quietly.

Bernard folded his arms across his chest, squinted up at the sun, and shook his head. "I don't suppose we do," he rumbled. "Every advantage. We must create what we need." Bernard nodded once, sharply. He turned to Giraldi, and said, "I want your century ready to march in ten minutes. Tell Felix about the takers, and make sure all the men know about them. Have him create a record of what we've learned so far and leave it where any relief troops will find it in case we… aren't able to tell anyone ourselves. They'll need to stand watch for one another against the takers, and sleep in shifts."

Giraldi banged his fist on his breastplate and stalked off, bellowing orders again.

Bernard turned to Amara. "Countess, I'm appointing you Knight Commander. We'll need to make the most of our Knights' strength. I want you to do it."

Amara licked her lips and nodded. "Very well."

"Frederick," Bernard said, "get every Knight Terra we have left and have them cover you while you go through some of the buildings. I want every furylamp outside of the steadholt's great hall ready to go with us when we march. Move."