Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)

"Too soon to tell," she said, and turned back to the tubs.

Cyril grunted, rubbed at his jaw, and asked Fantus, "Did you get a feel for the crafting behind this overcast?"

"No," Fantus said. "It isn't furycrafted."

More thunder rumbled. Scarlet lightning danced behind veils of clouds. "It's natural?"

Fantus stared up. "Obviously not. But it isn't furycraft."

"What else could it be?" Cyril murmured. He glanced at the wounded Knights. "Acid burns. Never heard of a fury that could do that."

Fantus squinted up at the overcast sky, and asked, "What else could it be?"

Cyril's eyes followed the Knight Tribune's gaze. "Well. If life was simple and predictable, imagine how bored we'd all get."

"Bored is good," Fantus said. "I like bored."

"So do I. But it would appear that fate did not consult with either one of us." Cyril rubbed at his forehead with one thumb, his face distant, pensive. "We need to know more. Take your best fliers up and be on your guard. Get another look at them if you can. We need to know if they're going to stay up there in the cover or if they'll come down here for dinner."

"Yes, sir," Fantus said.

"Meanwhile, I want one tier of the air patrol to keep a relatively low ceiling. Say, halfway up. Then a second tier, above them, keeping an eye on the clouds. If there's trouble, the first tier can come up to help."

Fantus frowned. "That near the ground it's going to be tiring on the first tier, Captain. The men will have to take it in shifts. It will severely reduce the number of eyes we've got looking out for trouble."

"We aren't in hostile territory. Better that than to lose more of our Knights Aeris to these things. We're spread thin enough as it is. Do it."

Fantus nodded and saluted again. Then he went to Crassus and stood beside the young Knight, staring down at the men in the tubs.

Tavi glanced back at the tubs and nearly threw up.

One of the men was dead, horribly dead, his body shrunken and wrinkled like a rotten grape, gaping holes burned into the body. The other Knight was breathing in frenzied gasps, his eyes wide and bulging, while the healers worked frantically to save him.

"It would seem that someone is attempting to impede our progress," the captain said to the First Spear.

"Doesn't make much sense. The way we're marching, we're getting out of Kalarus's way. Totally out of the theater of this war. He should be happy to see us on the road."

"Yes," Cyril said. "But it would seem that someone wants us slow and blind."

The First Spear grunted. "Which means you want to move fast and find out what the crows is going on out here. Just to spite him."

Cyril's teeth flashed in a swift smile. "Take half a glass for the men and the animals to get some water. Then we're on the march again."

The First Spear saluted the captain and marched off, beckoning runners and delivering orders.

Cyril stared at the survivor of the attack. He was slowly easing down from his agonized thrashing. He stepped up to stand beside Crassus. The young Knight hadn't moved. His gaze remained on the sad, withered body of the dead man.

"Sir Crassus," Cyril said.

"Sir?"

The captain took the young man by his shoulders and gently forced his entire body to turn away from the corpse, and toward the captain. "Sir Crassus, you can do nothing for him. Your brother Knights need your eyes and thoughts to be upon your duty. They are who you should focus upon."

Crassus shook his head. "If I'd-"

"Sir Crassus," Cyril said, his tone quiet but hard. "Writhing in recrimination and self-doubt is a game your men cannot afford you to play. You are a Knight of the Realm, and you will comport yourself as such."

Crassus stiffened to attention, swallowed, and threw the captain a steady salute.

Cyril nodded. "Better. You've done all you can for them. Return to your duties, Sir Crassus."

"Sir, " Max's half brother said. He began to look over his shoulder but arrested the movement with a visible effort, then donned his helmet and strode back toward the front of the column.

Cyril watched Crassus for a moment, then the healers began to back away from the second tub, with the air of men whose work had been completed. The young Knight in the tub, though pale as death, was breathing steadily while Lady Antillus continued to kneel beside the tub, her head bowed, her hands on the injured Knight's head.

Cyril nodded, and his gaze fell on Tavi. "Scipio?" he asked. "What happened to you?"

"Accident with a cart, sir," Tavi replied.

"Broke his leg," Foss provided with a grunt, as he returned to the wagon.

Cyril arched a brow and glanced at Foss. "How bad?"

"Lower leg, clean break. I mended it. Shouldn't be a problem."

Cyril stared at Tavi for a long moment, his eyes narrowed. Then he nodded.

Lady Antillus rose from the healing tub, smoothed her skirts, and walked sedately to the captain. She saluted him.

"Tribune," Cyril greeted her. "How is he?"

"I believe he is stable," Lady Antillus replied, her voice cool, calm. "Barring complications, he should survive. The acid ate away most of the muscle on his left thigh and his right forearm. He'll never serve again."

"There's more to serving a Legion than fighting," Cyril said quietly.

"Yes, sir," Lady Antillus said, her neutral tone speaking clearly as to her disagreement.

"Thank you, Your Grace," Cyril said. "For his life."

Lady Antillus's expression became remote and unreadable, and she inclined her head very slightly.

Cyril returned the nod, then turned to his horse, mounted, and headed back up the column.

Lady Antillus turned to Tavi after the captain left. "Scipio."

"Tribune," Tavi said, saluting her.

"Hop down from the wagon," she said firmly. "Let's see your leg."

"Excuse me?"

Lady Antillus arched a brow. "I am the Tribune Medica of this Legion. You are one of my charges. Now hop down, Subtribune."

Tavi nodded and eased himself down slowly, careful to put as little weight as he could on his wounded leg.

Lady Antillus knelt and touched the wounded leg for a moment, then rose and rolled her eyes. "It's nothing."

"Foss healed it," Tavi said.

"It is a minor injury," she said. "Surely, Scipio, someone with even your modest skills of metalcrafting could ignore any discomfort it might cause and march."

Tavi glanced back at Foss, but the healer was supervising the loading of the wounded Knight into the bed of the wagon and studiously kept his eyes away. "I'm afraid not, Your Grace," Tavi improvised, regarding her thoughtfully. "It's still fairly tender, and I don't want to slow the Legion."

Clearly, he hadn't fooled Lady Antillus by starting that fire. It was depress-ingly probable that she knew or at least strongly suspected his identity, and she was out to expose him. Given how badly he'd beaten her nephew, Kalarus Bren-cis Minoris, back at that fiasco during Wintersend, he wasn't surprised at her animosity. Even so, he couldn't allow her to prove to everyone in sight who he was.

Which meant that he had to act.

"I'm sorry, Your Grace," Tavi said. "But I can't put any weight on it yet."

"I see," Lady Antillus said. Then she reached out and firmly pushed on Tavi's shoulder, forcing his weight to the injured leg.

Tavi felt a flash of pain that shot from his right heel to his right collarbone. The leg buckled and he fell, pitching forward into Lady Antillus, almost knocking her down.

The High Lady let Tavi fall and recovered her balance. Then she shook her head, and said, "I've seen little girls in Antillus bear more than that." Her eyes fell on Foss. "I don't care to waste my time dealing with obvious shirkers. Watch the leg. Get him back on his feet the moment you deem him fit. Meanwhile, he can play nurse for the casualty."

Foss saluted. "Yes, Tribune."

Lady Antillus glared down at Tavi. Then she tossed her dark hair back over one shoulder, mounted her horse again, and kicked it into a run toward the front of the column.

After she was gone, Foss snickered. "You've got a nose for trouble, sir."

"Sometimes," Tavi agreed. "Foss. Assuming I can get some cash, how much are we talking, to ride in the wagon."

Foss considered. "Two gold eagles at least."

Tavi returned his small knife to its sheath in his pocket, calmly loosened the neatly sliced strings of Lady Antillus's coin purse, and upended its contents into his hand. Three gold crowns, half a dozen gold eagles, and eleven silver bulls jingled together. Tavi selected a gold crown and flicked the coin to Foss.

The healer caught the coin on reflex and stared at Tavi, then at the silk purse. His eyes widened, and he made strangling sounds in his throat.

"That's five times your asking price," Tavi said. "And I'll help with your casualty the whole way. Good enough?"

Foss rubbed a hand back over his short-shorn hair. Then he let out a rough laugh and pocketed the coin. "Kid, you got more balls than brains. I like that. Get in."

While dawn was half an hour away, Lady Aquitaine summoned four Wind-wolves, mercenary Knights long in service to the Aquitaines-and responsible for no few lost lives themselves. Allegedly responsible, Amara reminded herself firmly. There was no proof.

Amara, Bernard, Rook, and Lady Aquitaine met them atop the northernmost spire of Cereus's citadel. The Knights Aeris and the coach they bore swept up to the spire from within the city, keeping lower than the rooftops whenever possible.

They were dressed for travel-Amara in her close-fit flying leathers and her sword belt, Bernard in a woodsman's outfit of brown and green and grey, bearing his axe, bow, bedroll, and war quiver. Lady Aquitaine wore clothing similar to Amara's, though the leathers' layers sandwiched an impossibly fine mesh of steel, providing greater protection for the High Lady. She also wore a sword, something Amara had never pictured Invidia Aquitaine using-but she bore the long, slender blade as casually as Amara did her own.

Once the coach had landed, the door opened, and one of the most deadly swordsmen alive emerged from it. Aldrick ex Gladius stood half a head taller than even Bernard, and moved with a kind of placid grace, no motions wasted. He had a pair of swords belted to his left side, a Legion-issue gladius and a duelist's longblade. His wolfish grey eyes found Lady Aquitaine, and he gave her a curt nod. "Your Grace."

Behind him, a woman in a pale green gown peered at them from her seat in the coach, her beautiful, pale face a ghostly contrast with her dark hair and eyes. Amara recognized Odiana, another of Aquitaine's mercenary Knights. Her head tilted oddly to one side as she studied the others, and Amara saw the colors of her silk dress pulse and swirl, tendrils of dark red and vermilion slithering over the fabric covering her shoulders, a disquieting sight.

Aldrick stared at them for a moment, eyes never leaving Amara and Bernard. "This is too much load for the coach, milady. Well never outrun their Knights Aeris."

Lady Aquitaine smiled. "It will just be the four of you," she told Aldrick. "The Countess and I will travel outside the coach. Assuming that is acceptable, Countess?"

Amara nodded. "I'd planned on it in any case."

Aldrick frowned for a moment, then said slowly, "This is not a wise decision, my lady."

"I'll survive having my hair blown about, thank you," she replied. "But I am willing to listen to an alternative suggestion, assuming you have one."

"Leave one of them here," he said immediately.

"No," Amara said. Her tone made the word into a command.

When Lady Aquitaine did not dissent, Aldrick's frown deepened.

"The sooner we leave," Lady Aquitaine said, "the farther away from the city we can get before daylight. Count Calderon, Madame Rook, please have a seat."

Bernard glanced at Amara, who nodded. Rook had been provided with a simple brown dress, and she had altered her features, though it had seemed considerably more of an effort for her than it had for Lady Aquitaine. She still limped slightly, and she looked exhausted-and there was a noticeable absence of weaponry on her person-but she entered the coach under her own power. Bernard and Aldrick faced one another for a second, before Aldrick bowed slightly, and said, "Your Excellency."

Bernard grunted, gave Amara a wry glance, and entered the coach. Aldrick followed him in, and the Knights Aeris at the carry poles hooked their flight harnesses to them and, with an unavoidable cyclone of wind, lifted the coach from the stones of the tower and launched into the air, slowly but steadily gaining altitude.

"Countess," Lady Aquitaine said, as they prepared to fly, "I assume you have seen aerial combat before."

"Yes."

"I haven't," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "You're in command. I suggest that I attempt to veil us."

Amara arched an eyebrow at the proud High Lady, impressed. Invidia might be arrogant, ruthless, ambitious, a dangerous enemy-but she was no fool. Her suggestion was a good one. "That large a windstream will be difficult to hide."

"Impossible, in fact, if any Knights Aeris pass nearby," Lady Aquitaine said. "But I believe I will be able to reduce our chances of being seen at a distance."

Amara nodded. "Do it. Take position on the coach's left. I'll take the right."

Lady Aquitaine nodded, twisting her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and tying it there. "Shall we?"

Amara nodded and called to Cirrus, and the two women stepped up onto the tower's battlements and leapt into the predawn sky. Twin torrents of wind rose and lifted them swiftly into the sky. They easily overtook the slowly rising wind coach, and Amara took up a position on the right side of the coach, between it and the general direction of Kalarus's approaching forces.

They had gained nearly four thousand feet of altitude before the sun rose, reducing the landscape beneath to a broad diorama, every feature on it seemingly rendered in miniature. If they continued ascending to risk the swift high winds of the upper air, the land would resemble a quilt more than anything else, but at sunrise Amara could still see details of the land beneath them-notably, travelers on the road from the south, fleeing toward the protection of the walls of Ceres.

And, beyond them, marching at speed down the road toward Ceres, came Kalarus's Legions. Shadows yet blanketed much of the land below, but as the early golden light began to fall upon the column between gaps in the terrain, it glinted on their shields, helmets, and armor. Amara raised her hands, focusing part of Cirrus's efforts into bending the light, bringing the landscape beneath into crystalline, magnified focus. With the fury's aid, she could see individual legionares.

Both Legions below moved swiftly, their ranks solid and unwavering-the marks of an experienced body of troops. This was no ragged outlaw Legion, raised and trained in secret in the wild, its ranks consisting mostly of brigands and scoundrels. They must have been Kalare's regular Legions, those the city had maintained from time out of mind. Though they saw less action than the Legions of the north, they were still a well-trained, disciplined army. Mounted riders flanked the infantry in greater numbers than in most Legions, who typically maintained only two hundred and forty cavalry in a pair of auxiliary wings. There were perhaps three times that number in Kalarus's Legions, the horses all tall and strong, their riders wearing the green-and-grey livery of Kalare.

"Look!" called Lady Aquitaine. "To the north!"

Amara looked over her shoulder. Though very far away, Amara spotted another column of troops marching down toward Ceres from the foothills north of the city-the Crown Legion, coming to the city's defense. Amara noted with satisfaction that, as Gaius had promised, they were nearer Ceres than the southern Legions and would beat them to the city's walls.

Over the next few moments, the sun's golden light dimmed a shade and took on the same ruddy hue as the stars.

A disquieting sensation flickered through Amara's awareness.

She frowned and tried to focus upon it. As the sun's light changed, or perhaps as they rose higher into the air, there was a subtle shift in the patterns of wind around her. She could sense them through Cirrus as the fury became uneasy, the windstream it provided her wobbling in tiny fluctuations. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and Amara suddenly had the distinct impression that she was being watched, that a malevolent presence was nearby and intent upon doing her harm.

She drew in closer to the coach's side, rising a bit to look over it at Lady Aquitaine. The High Lady had a frown on her face as she peered around her, one hand upon the hilt of her sword. She turned a troubled gaze on Amara. Roaring wind made conversation problematic, but Lady Aquitaine's shrug and a slight shake of her head adequately conveyed that she, too, had sensed something but did not know what it was.

Bernard leaned his head out the window of the coach, his expression concerned. Amara dropped closer, flying beside the coach closely enough to hear him. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure."

"That woman of Aldrick's is having some kind of seizure," Bernard called. "She's curled up in a ball on the floor of the coach."

Amara frowned, but just before she spoke she saw a shadow flicker across the wall of the coach. She put a hand on Bernard's face and shoved him hard, back into the coach, and used the impulse of it to roll to the right. World and sky spun end over end, and she felt an intruding windcrafting interfere with Cirrus's efforts to keep her aloft. Simultaneously, the form of an armored man in the green-and-grey colors of Kalare flew nearly straight down, sword gleaming red in the altered sunlight. The blade missed Bernard's head, and the Knight Aeris tried for a swift cut at Amara. She avoided it by darting straight up and watched the enemy Knight shoot far past them, fighting to pull out of his dive and pursue.

Amara checked around her again and saw three more armored figures half a mile above and ahead of the coach. Even as she watched, the three Knights banked, sweeping down to intercept the coach's course.

Amara called to Cirrus, and the furious winds around her let out a high-pitched whistle of alarm like the cry of a maddened hawk, to alert the others to the danger. She darted ahead of the coach, so that its bearers could see her, and flicked her hands through several quick gestures, giving orders. The bearers banked the coach to the left and put on all the speed they could muster. It leapt ahead through the eerie vermilion sky.

That done, Amara darted like a hummingbird to Lady Aquitaine 's side of the coach, flying in close enough to speak.

"We're under attack!" she said, pointing ahead and above them.

Lady Aquitaine nodded sharply. "What do I do?"

"Keep the veil up and see if you can help the coach move any faster."

"I will not be able to aid you, Countess, if all my concentration is on the veil."

"Right now there are only four of them. If every picket Knight can see us from miles away, we'll have forty on us! Keep the veil up unless they get close. They'll have salt. They'll try to injure the bearers' furies with it and force the coach down. We have to stop them from getting that close. I want you to take position above the coach."

Lady Aquitaine nodded and flitted into position. "Where will you ber"

Amara drew her sword and regarded the diving Knights grimly. "Watch for any that get past me," she shouted. Then she called to Cirrus and shot up to meet the oncoming foe, swifter than an arrow from the bow.

The oncoming Knights Aeris hesitated for a moment as she rushed them, and she exploited their mistake by pouring on all the speed at her command. Amara was arguably the fastest flier in Alera, and the advancing Knights were unprepared for the sheer velocity of her charge. She was on the foremost Knight before the man had fairly drawn his sword and stabilized his windstream to support a blow. Amara swept past the man and struck, both hands on the hilt of her blade.

She had aimed for his neck, but he ducked at the last moment and her sword struck the side of his helmet. The sturdy blade shattered under the sheer force of the blow, metal shards tumbling in the scarlet light. Amara felt an instant of painful, tingling sensation in her hands, which then immediately went numb. Her windstream fluttered dangerously, sending her into a lateral tumble, but she gritted her teeth and recovered her balance in time to see the doomed enemy Knight plummeting toward the earth, knocked lethally senseless by the blow.

The other two Knights saw their comrade's plight and rolled into a dive, their furies driving them down faster than the unconscious Knight could fall-but it would be a near thing, both to catch him and pull out of the dive in time. The coach would have valuable minutes to flee, to place more distance between it and the observers, so that Lady Aquitaines veil could hide it from sight once more.

Amara pressed her numb-tingling hands against her sides, keeping an eye on the diving Knights, and banked around to glide back to the coach. From here, she could see through the crafting Lady Aquitaine's furies held around the coach, though she could not make out many details. It was like staring at a distant object through the wavering lines of heat arising from one of Alera's causeways in high summer. If she'd been much farther away, she might not have seen the coach at all.

Amara shook her head. Though she could, if she had to, veil herself in a similar fashion, her own abilities would be pushed to their utmost to do so. Lady Aquitaine's veil was twenty times the volume, at least, and she did it while also muffling the gale that held them all aloft, as well as propelling herself. She might not have Amara's training or experience in aerial conflict, but it was a potent reminder of how capable-and dangerous-the woman truly was.

Something hit Amara from below, a sudden blow that drove the breath from her body and made her vision shrink to a tunnel of black with a vermilion sky at the far end. She'd been sinking in a shallow dive to rejoin the coach, and her own descent made the blow far more powerful than it might have been on its own.

For a second, she lost her reference to sky and earth completely, but her instincts warned her not to stop moving, and she called desperately to Cirrus for more speed, regardless of the direction in which she flew. She fought her way through the disorientation, past the pain in one thigh and the hollow-gut sensation of having her breath knocked from her, and realized that she was soaring almost straight up, bobbing and weaving drunkenly. Feathery, faint oceans of bloodred cloud surrounded them, a mere translucent haze.

Amara shot a glance over one shoulder and realized her mistake. Though she had been watching the descending pair of Knights, she had forgotten the first attacker, who had to have possessed speed to challenge Amara's own, to have ascended again so quickly.

Now he pressed hard behind her, a young man with muddy eyes and a determined jaw, now holding one of the short, heavy bows of horn and wood and steel favored by huntsmen in the rolling forests and swamps of the southern cities. He had a short, heavy arrow fitted to the string, the bow half-drawn.

She felt the air around her ripple, and knew that the knight had loosed the first shaft, and that she did not have time to evade it. Amara directed Cirrus to deflect the missile, the air between her shoulder blades suddenly as thick and hard as ice, but it struck with such force that Cirrus was unable to maintain the pace of her flight, and her speed dropped.

Which, she realized with a sudden surge of fear, had been the point of shooting at her in the first place.

The enemy Knight was upon her in an instant, the column of air that propelled him interfering with hers, and Cirrus faltered even more.

And to make things worse, that inexplicable sense of a hostile presence returned, stronger, nearer, more filled with anger and hate.

The enemy Knight shot ahead of her, above her, and his windstream abruptly vanished as he turned, an open leather sack in his hands, and hurled half a pound of rock salt directly into Amara's face.

Another whistling shriek split the air, this time agonized, and as the salt tore into the fury in a cloud of flickering blue lights, briefly outlining the form her fury took most often, that of a large and graceful destrier whose legs, tail, and mane terminated in continuous billows of mist. The fury reared and bucked in torment, and its pain slammed against Amara's consciousness, and she suddenly felt as if a thousand glowing embers had crashed into her, the sensation at once insubstantial and hideously real.

With another scream, Cirrus dispersed like a cloud before high winds, fleeing the pain of contact with the salt.

And Amara was alone.

Her windstream vanished.

She fell.

She thrashed her arms and legs in panic, out of control, desperately calling upon her furycraft. She could not reach Cirrus, could not move the air, could not fly.

Above her, the enemy Knight recalled his fury and recovered his air stream, then dived down after her, fitting another arrow to his bow, and she suddenly knew that he did not mean to let her fall to her death.

He was a professional and would take no chances.

He would make sure that she was dead before she ever hit the ground.

Amara fumbled for her knife, a useless gesture, but twisting her hips to reach it sent her into an uncontrolled, tumbling spin, more severe and more terrifying than anything she had felt before.

She saw in flashes, in blurred images.

The ground waxed larger beneath her, all fields and rolling pastures in the ruddy sunlight.

The scarlet sun scowled down at her.

The enemy Knight raised his bow for the killing shot.

Then the misty scarlet haze they fell through moved.

Ground.

Sky.

Sun.

The scarlet haze condensed into dozens of smaller, opaque, scarlet clouds. Ruddy vinelike appendages emerged from the undersides of each smaller cloud, and writhed and whipped through the air with terrifying and purposeful motion.

An eerie shriek like nothing Amara had ever heard assaulted her ears.

A dozen bloody vines shot toward her pursuer.

The enemy Knight loosed his shot. The impact of the bizarre tendrils sent the shaft wide.

The Knight screamed, one long, continuous sound of agony and terror, a young man's voice that cracked in the middle.

Dark crimson cloudbeasts surrounded him, vines ripping, tearing.

His screams stopped.

Amara's vision blurred over, the disorientation too great, and she called desperately, uselessly to Cirrus, struggling to move as she would if the fury had been there to guide her. She managed to slow the spinning, but she could do nothing else. The land below rose up, enormous, prosperous-and ready to receive her body and blood.

Cirrus was beyond her call.

She was going to die.

There was nothing she could do about it.

Amara closed her eyes, and pressed her hands against her stomach.

She didn't have the breath to whisper his name. Bernard.

And then gale winds rose up to surround her, pressing hard against her, slowing her fall. She screamed in frustration and fear at her helplessness and felt herself angling to one side, pulling out of the fall as if it had been an intentional dive.

The land rushed up and Amara came to earth in the furrowed field of a stead-holt. She managed to strike with her feet and tried to fold herself into a controlled roll to spread out her momentum. The rich, fresh earth was soft enough to slow her momentum, and after fifty feet of tumbling she fetched up to a halt at the feet of a steadholt scarecrow.

She lay on her side, dazed, confused, aching from dozens of impacts suffered during the landing, and covered with earth and mud and what might have been a bit of manure.

Lady Aquitaine alighted near her, landing neatly.

She was in time to be sprinkled with the blood of the Knight taken by the cloudbeasts. Amara had beat it to the ground.

Lady Aquitaine stared up in shock, bright beads of blood on one cheekbone and one eyelash. "Countess?" she breathed. "Are you all right?"

The coach descended as well, and Bernard all but kicked the door off its hinges in his hurry to exit and run to Amara. He knelt with her, his expression almost panicked, staring at her for a breath, then examining her for injuries.

"I managed to slow her fall," Lady Aquitaine said. "But she's been badly bruised and may have cracked some bones."

The words sounded pleasant to Amara, though she could not remember what they meant. She felt Bernard's hand on her forehead and smiled. " M all right, my lord," she murmured.

"Here, Count," Lady Aquitaine said. "Let me help you."

They fussed over her, and it felt nice.

Fear. Pain. Terror. Too much of it for one day.

Amara just wanted to rest, to sleep. Surely things would be better after she rested.

"No broken bones," Lady Aquitaine said.

"What happened up there?" Bernard asked, his voice a low growl.

Lady Aquitaine lifted her eyes to the red skies above.

Droplets of blood still fell, tiny beads of red that had once been a human being.

She frowned and murmured, perplexed, "I have no idea."

The next morning, Isana woke when Lady Veradis opened the door. The pale young healer's dark-circled eyes were even more worn than the day before, but she wore the colors of her fathers house in a simple gown. The young woman smiled at Isana and said, "Good morrow, Steadholder."

"Lady," Isana said, with a nod. She looked around the room. "Where is Fade?"

Lady Veradis entered the room, bearing a tray covered with a cloth napkin. "Being bathed and fed. I'll have him brought in once you are ready."

"How is he?"

"Somewhat disoriented with fever. Weary. Otherwise lucid." She nodded at the food. "Eat and ready yourself. I will return presently."

Isana pushed worry from her mind, at least long enough to wash herself and partake of the sausages, fresh bread, and cheeses Veradis had brought. Once some of the food had touched her tongue, Isana found herself famished, and ate with abandon. The food would be necessary to keep her strength up during the healing, and she should take as much as she could.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door and Veradis asked, "Steadholder? May we enter?"

"Of course."

Veradis came in. Three guards bore a healer's tub readied with water. The tub wasn't as large as the one from the day before, and it bore spots of rust and wear that marked it as a well-worn member of its breed. It had probably been stored in a closet somewhere, forgotten until the sudden attack on the city demanded the use of every tub that could be found. The guards set it down on the floor, then one of them drew a low chair over to sit beside it.

A moment later, Giraldi came in, supporting Fade with one shoulder despite his limp and his cane. Fade wore only a long, white robe, his face was flushed with fever, his eyes glazed, and his wounded hand had swollen up into a grotesque mockery of itself.

Giraldi grimly helped the scarred man over to the tub and had to help Fade remove the robe. Fade's lean, wire-muscled body showed dozens of old scars Isana had never seen before, especially across his back, where the marks of the whipping that had accompanied his branding stood out from his skin, as thick as Isana's littlest finger.

Fade settled weakly into the tub, and when he laid his head back against the wooden rest, he seemed to fall asleep instantly.

"Are you prepared?" Veradis asked quietly.

Isana rose and nodded, without speaking.

Veradis gestured to the chair. "Sit, then. Take his hand."

Isana did so. The low chair put her head on a level with Fade's, and she watched the scarred slave's features as she reached down to take up his healthy hand and grip it between hers.

"It isn't a terribly complicated crafting," Veradis said. "The infection has a natural tendency to gather at the site of the wound. So concentrated, his body cannot drive it out. You must dilute the infection, spreading it more thinly throughout his body, where he will have a chance to fight it off."

Isana frowned and drew in a slow breath. "But that will spread the sickness throughout his whole body. If I stop, the infection could take root anywhere. One site is bad enough. I could not handle two at once."

Veradis nodded. "And it could take his body days to fight off the infection."

Isana bit her lip again. Days. She had never maintained a healing furycraft for more than a few hours.

"It isn't a very good way to help him," Veradis said quietly. "It is, however, the only way. Once you begin, you cannot stop until he has won through. If you do, the garic oil will corrupt his blood entirely. He'll die within an hour." She reached into a pocket and drew out a soft, supple cord, offering it to Isana. "Are you sure you wish to attempt this?"

Isana studied Fade's scarred face. "I can't tie that with one hand, lady."

The young healer nodded, then knelt and, very carefully, bound Isana's hand loosely together with Fade's. "A very great deal will depend upon him, Steadholder," she murmured as she worked. "Upon his will to live."

"He will live," Isana said in a quiet voice.

"If he so chooses, there is hope," Veradis said. "But if he does not, or if the infection is simply too great, you must end the crafting."

"Never."

Veradis continued as if Isana had not spoken. "Depending on the progress of the infection, he may become delusional. Violent. Be prepared to restrain him. Should he lose consciousness altogether, or if he bleeds from the nose, mouth, or ears, there is little hope for his life. That's how you will know when it is time to break away."

Isana closed her eyes and shook her head, firmly, once. "I will not leave him."

"Then you will die with him," Veradis said, her tone matter-of-fact.

I should have, Isana thought bitterly. I should have twenty years ago.

"I strongly urge you not to throw away your life in vain," Veradis murmured. "In fact, I beg you. There are never enough skilled healers during war, and your talents could prove invaluable to the city's defense."

Isana looked up and met the young woman's eyes. "You must fight your battle," she said quietly. "And I must fight mine."

Veradis's tired gaze focused elsewhere for a moment, then she nodded. "Very well. I will look in on you if I can. There are guards in the hall. I have instructed them to serve as attendants, should you need food or any kind of assistance."

"Thank you, Lady Vera-"

Isana's words were suddenly drowned by a titanic booming sound, so loud that it shook the stones of the citadel and rattled the glass in the windows, cracking it in several places. There was a second boom. Then, much more faintly, a rumble of drums, a series of clarion calls of military trumpets, and a sound like wind rushing through thick forest.

Lady Veradis drew in a sharp breath, and said, "It's begun."

Giraldi stumped over to the window and peered out. "Here come Kalare's Legions. Forming up near the south gate."

"What was that sound?" Isana asked.

"Knights Ignus. Probably tried to blast the gate down, first thing." He squinted for a moment, then said, "Cereus's Legions are on the walls now. Must not have taken the gate down."

"I must go," Veradis said. "I am needed."

"Of course," Isana said. "Thank you."

Veradis gave her a fleeting smile, and murmured, "Good luck." She departed on silent feet.

"To all of us," Giraldi growled, frowning out the window. A series of smaller detonations came rippling through the predawn air, and Isana could actually see the light of the fires reflected against the glass.

"What's happening?" she asked.

"Kalare brought his firecrafters up. Looks like they're blasting the walls."

"Aren't they too thick to blast through?" Isana asked.

Giraldi grunted in the affirmative. "But it creates rough spots to help troops climb ropes and ladders. If they get lucky, they might crack the wall. Then they could bring in watercrafters and use them to widen the break or undermine the wall."

A brilliant glow suddenly poured through the windows, the light a cool, bluish color rather than the orange-gold of dawn.

Giraldi grunted. "Nice."

"Centurion?"

He glanced at her over his shoulder. "Cereus let the firecrafters go to town until he could tell where most of them were. Then he moved his Knights Flora to the walls and turned on every furylight and lamp in the city so they could see to shoot."

"Did it work?"

"Can't see from here," Giraldi said. "But the legionares on the walls are cheering them on."

"Perhaps they've killed Kalare's firecrafters, then."

"They didn't get all of them."

"How do you know?"

Giraldi shrugged. "You never get them all. But it looks like they've given Kalare's forces something to think about."

Isana frowned. "What happens now?"

Giraldi frowned. "Depends on how bloody they're willing to get. Cereus and his people are on their home ground, familiar with the local furies. It gives them an advantage over Kalare's Knights. They tried a lightning assault and failed. Now as long as Cereus keeps his Knights intact and uses them well, Kalare's forces will get massacred if they charge in against Cereus's Knights."

"If they want to storm the city, they must destroy its Knights," Isana said. "Is that it?"

"Pretty much. They've got to know that time isn't on their side, too. They've got to take the city before reinforcements arrive. The only way to do it fast is to do it bloody." The old soldier shook his head. "This is going to be a bad one. Like Second Calderon."

Isana's memory flashed back to the battle. The corpses had been burned in bonfires that reached forty feet into the sky. It had taken most of a year to clean the blood and filth from the stones of Garrison. She could still hear screams, moans, cries of the wounded and dying. It had been a nightmare.

Only this time, it would not be a few hundred noncombatants in peril, but thousands, tens of thousands.

Isana shuddered.

Giraldi finally turned from the window, shaking his head. "You need anything from me? "

Isana drew in a deep breath and shook her head. "Not now."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Giraldi said. "Ill be right outside."

Isana nodded and bit her lip.

Giraldi paused at the door. "Steadholder. You thinking you can't do this?"

"I... " Isana swallowed. "I've never... I don't think I can do it. '

"You're wrong," Giraldi growled. "Known you for years. Fact of the matter is, you can't not do it." He nodded to her and slipped outside. He shut the door behind him.

Isana bowed her head at Giraldi's words. Then she turned back to her patient.

She had treated infected wounds often, both in her capacity as a steadholt's healer and during her term of service in the Legion camps. Standard practice was to encourage increased blood flow through the site, then to painstakingly focus on the afflicted tissues, destroying the infection a tiny piece at a time. Once Rill had severely weakened the infection, the patient's body itself could eliminate whatever sickness was left in the wound.

She'd done it with training injuries in the camps, for young legionares too foolish to properly clean and care for a minor cut. She'd done it for holders and their children, even for livestock. Infections were a tricky business, requiring both delicacy, to finely control the actions of her fury, and strength, to assault the invading fevers. It had rarely taken her more than half an hour to render such a wound manageable once more.

Isana sent Rill gliding into the tub, surrounding Fade with the fury's presence. Isana's senses, extended through the water fury, usually felt the presence of an infection as a low, sullen, hateful kind of heat. Exposure to it was unpleasant but bearable, on a scale somewhat similar to being burned by a long day in the sun.

But Fade's wound was different. The instant her fury touched upon the battered man's wound, Isana felt it as a searing blaze, hotter than an oven, and she flinched back from it by pure reflex.

Fade groaned in his sleep and stirred before settling down again. He was in the grip of a fever dream. She felt his confusion as a series of flashes of one emotion, then another, none of them remaining long enough to be clearly understood. Isana set her jaw in determination. Then, focusing again on Rill, she pressed her senses back into the waters of the tub and reached for Fade's wounded hand.

As she touched upon the wound, she felt every muscle in her body grow suddenly tight, as the pulsing, malevolent fire of the garic-oil infection seared its way into her perceptions. She held herself against the pain, marshaling her thoughts and her focus, and pressed harder against the wound site.

She saw at once why Veradis regarded this crafting as a difficult and dangerous one. Infections had life of their own, and Isana had encountered several different breeds, attempting to spread through the body of the victim, like the freemen of a steadholt marching into a new wilderness to make it their own.

The garic fever, though, was no mere steadholt of settlers. It was a Legion, a horde, a civilization of tiny, destructive creatures. That was why the usual, uncomfortable heat was so much more intense and painful. The fever was already destroying Fade's hand, corroding the veins and vessels, working its way in threads and tendrils to the bones of his hand and wrist. If Isana attempted the usual course of action, attacking the fever directly, it would tear apart Fade's hand, allow the infection to spread to different areas of the body while maintaining its painful and dangerous density, send him into shock, and likely kill him. She could not simply attempt to crush it.

Instead, she would have to lay siege to the fever in the stronghold it had made of the wound. Attacking it by inches, she should be able to chip slowly away at the teeming mass of infection to wash it out through the blood in pieces small enough for Fade's body to combat them successfully. As she did so, she would simultaneously have to keep pressure against the infection, to keep it from fracturing into larger pieces as she undermined it, chipping it away.

But there was so much of the fever. It could take days for her to finish the job, and all the while, it would be attempting to grow, spread, and destroy. If she worked too swiftly, freeing masses of infection too large, Fade's body would not be able to combat them, and the infection would spread with lethal consequences. If she worked too slowly, breaking off pieces too small, the fever would breed faster than it could be destroyed. And all the while, she would be forced to endure the pain of proximity and keep her focus on the task.

It seemed almost impossible. But if she allowed herself to believe that, she would never be able to help him.