The fear vanished, and Tavi abruptly threw back his head and laughed. "Come on!" he shouted to them. "What are you waiting for? The water's fine!*'
The Canim rushed at him-and then suddenly slid to a halt in their tracks with two dozen panicked, inhuman stares.
Tavi blinked, entirely confused. Then he looked behind him.
On either side of him, the waters of the Tiber had flowed into solid form, into water-sculptures similar to those he had seen before.
Similar, but not the same.
Two lions, lions the size of horses, stood at his sides, their eyes flickering with green-blue fox fire. Though formed of water, every detail was perfect, down to the fur, down to the battle scars upon their powerful chests and shoulders. Stunned, Tavi lifted a hand and touched one of the beasts on its flank, and though its substance appeared to be liquid, it was as hard as stone beneath Tavi's fingers.
Tavi turned to face the Canim again, and as he did so both lions opened their mouths and let out roars. Tavi could not hear it, but it set his armor to buzzing, and the surface of the waters rippled and jumped in place for a hundred feet in every direction.
The Canim flinched away from the river, and their stance changed, becoming wary, their eyes apprehensive. And then, almost as one, they turned and fled over the grass, back toward the Canim host.
Tavi watched them go, then slogged up out of the river and planted the standard's butt on the ground. He leaned wearily against it and turned his head to consider the enormous furies that had risen to his defense.
A faint tremble in the earth warned him of approaching horses, and he looked up to find Max and Crassus thundering up to him on horses of their own. Each of the young legionares dismounted and came toward him. Max's mouth started moving, but Tavi shook his head, and said, "I can't hear anything."
Max scowled at him. Then he turned to the larger of the two water furies. The great old lion greeted Max and nuzzled his hand as affectionately as a pet cat. Max placed his hand on the fury's muzzle and nodded, the gesture both grateful and dismissive, and the fury sank back into the river.
Beside him, Crassus went through almost precisely the same routine, and the second water lion also sank from sight. The half brothers stood in their place for a moment, staring at one another. Neither of them spoke. Then Crassus flushed and shrugged. Max opened his mouth and let out a bark of the laughter Tavi was familiar with, then shook his had, punched his brother lightly on the shoulder, and turned to Tavi.
Max faced him and mouthed, words exaggerated so that Tavi could read them, That was not in the plan.
"He read my bluff," Tavi said. "But I made him look pretty bad. It might have worked."
Max mouthed, This it what it looks like when it works? You are insane.
"Thank you," Tavi said. He tried to sound dry.
Max nodded. How had is your leg?
Tavi frowned at him, puzzled, and looked down. He felt startled to find, high on his left thigh, a wide, wet stain of fresh blood on his breeks. He touched his leg tentatively, but felt no pain. He hadn't been injured there. The fabric wasn't even torn.
Then an inspiration hit him, and he reached into his pocket. At the very bottom, precisely at the top of the bloodstain, Tavi found it-the scarlet stone he'd stolen from Lady Antillus. It felt oddly warm, almost uncomfortably so.
"I'm fine," Tavi said. "I don't think that's mine." He frowned down, and then peered out at the Canim host, and then at the scarlet clouds overhead.
You need not fear his breed's power, and you know it, Kalarus had told Lady Antillus. And then immediately after, he had ordered her to fly to Kalare. But if she could have flown, why would she steal horses?
Because the stone would have protected her from the Canim ritual sorcery that blanketed the skies.
Just as it had protected Tavi from the same power.
His heart beat faster. He tried to think of another explanation, but it was the only thing that made sense. How else could he have survived a blast of the same power that had slain the Legion's officers?
Of course. The Canim had known precisely where to strike. Legion commanders kept their tents in the same location in any camp, no matter where they went. No one was supposed to have survived that blast-no one but Lady Antillus, who would have had the stone with her had not Tavi stolen it when he took her purse.
The original treason became clear to Tavi. After assuming command of the Legion according to proper chain of command, Lady Antillus was probably supposed to lead the union in a retreat, so that the Canim could control the bridge, thereby preventing any sort of Aleran incursion from the north that could march through to Kalarus's lands.
Of course, that had been before she knew the Canim were arriving in such enormous numbers. Kalarus had tried to use them as a weapon, but they had turned and sliced into his own hand.
Hey, Max mouthed, sticking his face into Tavi's. Are you all right?
Max and Crassus suddenly whipped their heads toward the Canim host, then they both started back for their horses. Max mouthed to Tavi, They're coming. We need to go.
Tavi grimaced, nodded, then took the standard and mounted behind Max. The three of them rode for the town as the Canim host began to stir once more. Out of sheer defiance, Tavi raised the standard and let the wind of their passage send the blackened eagle flying where anyone with eyes could see.
Tavi couldn't hear it as they rode back through the town's gates, but as they closed behind them he looked up at the battlements and around the courtyard in surprise. Every man in sight, fish and veteran alike, pale-eyed northmen and dark-eyed southerners, old, young, Knight, centurion, and legionare all stood facing Tavi, slamming their steel-cased fists to their breastplates in what had to be a deafening thunder as together they shouted and cheered their captain's return.
Pain flashed through Tavi's head again, sudden, harsh, and every bit as painful as the lightning blast that had deafened him. Someone started screaming sul-furous expletives with great volume and sincerity.
A second later, Tavi realized that the cursing was his own, and he came to an abrupt stop. He could suddenly hear the battle he knew was raging at the gates, the deafening howls of a sea of Canim punctuated in surges by the shouting and cheering of the town's defenders.
"There you go, sir," Foss rumbled. "Your eardrums were broken. Happens to young Knights Aeris a lot when they're showing off. Eardrums can heal up on their own, but it can take a while, which we don't have, and keeping sickness out of them isn't any fun." The big healer crouched down at the head of the healing tub and snapped his fingers on either side of Tavi's head. "Hear that? Both sides?"
The snaps had an odd reverberation to them that Tavi had never heard before, but he could hear them. "Good enough. You shouldn't be wasting energy on me in any case."
"Deaf Captain won't be much help to us, sir," Foss disagreed. "And we're staying ahead of the wounded so far."
Tavi grunted and pushed himself up out of the tub. His muscles and joints screamed protest. Sari's thunderbolt may not have killed him, but the fall from the horse had done him no favors. He started climbing back into his clothing. "Help me armor up?"
"Yes, sir," Foss drawled, and stood by, helping with the buckles on Tavi's armor.
"What's the count?" Tavi asked quietly as he worked.
"Seventy-two injured," Foss said at once. "All but eleven are back in the fight. Nine dead."
"Thank you, Foss. Again."
The veteran grunted and slapped a hand on Tavi's breastplate. "You're set."
Tavi put on his sword belt and slipped a replacement gladius Magnus had dug up into the scabbard. Outside, a fresh round of singing broke out of the troops waiting in the courtyard to reinforce the walls or gate. The verses now contained a great many disparaging references to the men currently on the walls, complemented by enthusiastic boasting of the men waiting for the alleged incompetents to step out of their way.
Magnus entered the tent and nodded. "Sir," he said. "Crassus asked me to tell you that Jens is finished."
"Jens?" Tavi asked.
"Our only Knight Ignus, sir."
"That's right," Tavi said. "Good. Thank you, Magnus." He beckoned and strode out of the tent, back toward the fighting on the wall. As he left the tent, Ehren appeared at his side and kept pace on Tavi's left, and Tavi nodded to him.
"What's happening?" Tavi asked Magnus.
"The Canim sent about a third of their raiders forward. Valiar Marcus says that the regulars have shifted their position, and that they're ready to move forward fairly quickly."
Tavi grimaced. "Crows take it."
Magnus lowered his voice. "It was worth a try. It may be that the Canim's loyalties are not so fractured as we hoped."
"Looks that way." Tavi sighed. "They're using their raiders to wear us down. They'll send the regulars in once they've softened us up."
"Quite probably," Magnus said.
"What about Tribune Cymnea's project?" Tavi asked.
"Let's just say it's a good thing you weren't in the river for very long, Captain."
"Good," Tavi said. "Come nightfall, the Canim will try to get some troops across. They'll want to hit us in the rear and send the regulars through the front door." He paused as a thought struck him. He squinted up at the dim outline of the lowering sun behind the bloody clouds. "Two hours?"
"A little less, " Magnus said.
They had to pause as Crassus and his half dozen Knights Aeris swept overhead to strafe the enemy lines with howling winds and bursts of flame. The miniature gale supporting them temporarily precluded conversation.
"What about the bridge?" Tavi asked, when he could be heard again.
"The engineers say they'd like more time to strengthen it, but they always say that. They've got it up to what you asked for." Magnus paused. "Did you want to give the order now?"
Tavi bit his lip. "Not yet. We hold the gate until sundown."
"You don't know that the regulars will come then," Magnus said. "And it's going to be hard on the men at the gate to stay there. Not to mention the fact that it's going to be difficult for them to maneuver and retreat in the dark."
"Send for fresh troops from the north side of the river then," Tavi said, glancing at Ehren. The Cursor nodded. "Then tell the First Spear to increase the rotation on the walls and keep our men as rested as possible."
"If we do that, we'll have to start using the fish. '
"I know," Tavi said. "But they've got to get into the mud sometime. At least this way, they'll have the veterans to back them up."
Magnus grimaced. "Sir, the plan isn't going to be easy, even if we move right now. If we wait another two hours..." He shook his head. "I don't see what there is to be gained by the wait."
"Without more Knights Ignus, we've only got one really big punch to throw. It's got to count. The regulars are their backbone and this may be our only chance to break it." He glanced back at Ehren and nodded, and the spy set out at a swift jog to deliver Tavi's orders.
"How long has Marcus been on the wall?"
"Since it started. Call it almost two hours."
Tavi nodded. "We'll need him fresh and in charge when we fall back, wouldn't you say?"
"Definitely," Magnus said. "The First Spear has more experience than anyone on the field."
"Anyone on our side of it, anyway," Tavi muttered.
"Eh? What's that?"
"Nothing," Tavi sighed. "All right. I'm going to order him down. Get some food into him and make sure he's ready for nightfall."
Magnus gave Tavi a wary look. "Can you handle them up there on your own?"
"I've got to get in the mud, too," Tavi replied. He squinted up at the wall. "Where's the standard?"
Magnus glanced up at the walls. "It had been burned and muddied pretty thoroughly. I'm having a new one made, but it won't be ready for a few more hours."
"The burned one is just fine," Tavi said. "Get it for me."
"I'll put it on a new pole, at least."
"No," Tavi said. "Saris blood is on the old one. That will do."
Magnus shot Tavi a sudden grin. "Bloodied, dirty but unbroken."
"Just like us," Tavi agreed.
"Very good, sir. I'll send it up with Sir Ehren."
"Thank you," Tavi said. Then he stopped and put a hand on Magnus's shoulder, and said, more quietly. "Thank you, Maestro. I don't think I've said it yet. But I enjoyed our time at the ruins. Thank you for sharing it with me."
Magnus smiled at Tavi and nodded. "It's a shame you're showing an aptitude for military command, lad. You'd have been a fine scholar."
Tavi laughed.
Then Magnus saluted, turned, and hurried off.
Tavi made sure his helmet was seated snugly and hurried up onto the battlements, making his way down the lines of crouched legionares, bearing shields, bows, and buckets of everything from more pitch to simple, scalding water. He deftly made his way through the fighting, not jostling or interfering with any of the men, and found the First Spear, bellowing orders ten yards down the wall from the gates, where the Canim were attempting to get more climbing lines-these of braided leather and rope, not chain-while their companions below showered the walls with rough spears and simple, if enormous, stones.
"Crows take it! " Marcus bellowed. "You don't have to stick your fool head up to cut a line. Use your knife, not your sword."
Tavi crouched and, while he waited for Marcus to finish bellowing, drew his knife and sawed swiftly through a braided line attached to a hook that landed near him. "Let's keep the hooks, too, Tribune," Tavi added. "Not throw them back out to be reused against us." Tavi checked the courtyard below, then tossed the hook down.
"Captain!" shouted one of the legionares, and a round of shouts of greeting went up and down the walls.
Valiar Marcus checked over his shoulder and saw Tavi there. He gave him a brisk nod and banged a gauntlet to his breastplate in salute. "You all right, sir?"
"Our Tribune Medica set me right," Tavi said. "How's the weather?"
A thrown stone from below clipped the crest of the First Spear's helmet, and the steel rang for a second. Marcus shook his head and crouched a little lower. "If the sun was out, we'd still be fighting in the shade," he said a moment later, teeth flashing in a swift, fighting grin. "Two or three of them gained the wall once, but we pushed them back down. We burned down six more rams. They aren't trying that one anymore."
"Not until it gets dark," Tavi said.
The First Spear gave him a shrewd look, and nodded. "By then, it shouldn't matter."
"We hold," Tavi said. "Until they bring the regulars in."
Valiar Marcus stared at him for a moment, then made a sour face and nodded. "Aye. It'll cost us, sir."
"If we can break their regulars, it could be worth it."
The grizzled soldier nodded. "True enough. We'll see to it, then, Captain."
"Not you," Tavi said. "You've been here long enough. I want you to sit down, get a meal in you, some drink. I need you fresh for sundown."
The First Spear's jaw set, and for a second Tavi thought he was going to argue.
Then a shout went up down the wall, and Tavi looked to see Ehren hurrying toward them down the wall-and though the little Cursor kept his head down, he bore the blackened standard upright, and the men cheered to see it.
The First Spear looked from the men to the standard to Tavi and nodded. "Use your head," he said. "Trust your centurions. Don't take any chances. We got another veteran cohort coming in five minutes to relieve this one."
"I will," Tavi said. "See Magnus. He's got something ready for you."
Marcus nodded, and the pair exchanged a salute before the old soldier made his way back down the wall, keeping his head down. Ehren hurried to Tavi's side, keeping the standard high.
The attack continued without slacking, and Tavi checked in with each of the two centurions on the wall-both veterans, both worried about their men. Tavi saw a number of legionares breathing hard. A man went down, struck on the helmet by a stone almost as large as Tavi's head. The cry for a medico went up. Tavi seized the man's shield and blocked the crennel with it, hiding the medico as he hurried to the fallen man. A spear struck against the shield, and a moment later another stone struck it so hard that it slammed back into Tavi's helmeted head hard enough to make him see stars, but then another legionare stepped into position with his own shield, and the fight went on.
It was terrifying, but at the same time it had become an experience oddly akin to an afternoon of heavy labor back at his old home on the steadholt. Tavi moved steadily along the wall, from position to position, encouraging the men and watching for any change in behavior from their foes. After what seemed almost an hour, fresh troops arrived to relieve the legionares, and the men on the wall switched out smoothly, one crennel at a time, with their replacements. And the battle went on.
Twice, the Canim raiders managed to get a number of hooks up into locations where a barrage of stones had disrupted the defenses, but both times Tavi was able to signal Crassus and his Knights Aeris to deliver a burst of pain and confusion to the enemy, delaying them in turn until the Aleran defense could solidify again.
Against the raiders, the legionares' archery had considerably greater effect. The wild troops were not nearly as disciplined as the regulars, which slowed them down considerably as they struggled to work together. Their armor was also much lighter, where they had any at all, and arrows that struck and inflicted injuries were almost more useful to the defense than outright kills. Wounded Canim thrashed and screamed and had to be carried away from the fighting by a pair of their comrades, vastly slowing the pace of whatever operation they'd been attempting, whereas the dead were simply left where they fell.
The Canim dead numbered in the hundreds, and in places the corpses lay so thick that the Canim had been forced to stack them in piles, like cordwood-piles that they then used for shelter from enemy arrows. Even so, Tavi knew, they could afford the losses far more easily than the Alerans. As far as Sari was concerned, Tavi thought, their deaths would simply reduce the number of hungry mouths to feed. If thev could kill any Alerans while they died, so much the better.
And then it happened. The legionares on station began switching out with the next unit in the rotation, one with a much higher concentration of green recruits. A particularly thick shower of rocks were thrown up from the base of the wall, lobbed up on a high arc to come almost straight down upon the defenders. The stones wouldn't hit with the same killing force as those hurled directly at a target, but they were so large that they hardly needed more than a few feet to fall to attain enough speed to be dangerous to even an armored legionare.
Tavi was about twenty feet away when it happened, and he clearly heard a bone snapping, just before the injured men began screaming.
There was a sudden, furious wave of Canim howls and war cries, and more ropes and hooks were thrown up along the whole length of the wall, just as another group of Canim appeared from their rear areas and charged forward, bearing another heavy ram.
Tavi stared for a second, trying to understand everything that was happening, knowing full well that he had to act, and quickly, or risk being overrun. He had to direct the force of his Knights to where they would do the most good. If the Canim gained the walls, they would still be contained to one degree or another, hampered by being forced to climb a rope, they could pour in added numbers, but only in a trickle. If the gates were breached, their entire force could pour through as quickly as they could fit. Whatever else happened, the gates had to hold.
Tavi let out a sharp whistle and signaled Crassus to attack the enemy center-he had to trust that the young Knight Tribune would see the ram and correctly identify it as the largest threat to the town's defenses. There was little more he could do about the oncoming ram, because the only legionares not fully occupied fending off the assault were the men directly over the gate. Tavi pointed at half of the men there. "You, you, you, you two. Follow me."
Legionares seized shields and weapons, and Tavi led them down the wall, to the first point of attack, where two Canim had already gained the walls while more came behind them. A green recruit screamed and attacked the nearest Cane, forgetting the founding principle of Legion combat-teamwork. The Cane was armed with nothing but a heavy wooden club, but before the young le-gionare could close to within range of his Legion-issue gladius, the Cane took a two-handed swing that slammed the heavy club into the legionares shield, sending him sailing into the air to fall to the stone courtyard below, where he landed with bone-shattering force.
"Ehren," Tavi shouted, as he drew his own sword. The Cane took club in hand again, raising it to strike at Tavi before he could close the range.
But just as the Cane began to swing, there was a flash of steel in the air, and Ehren's skillfully thrown knife struck the Cane's muzzle. The blade's point missed by an inch or so, and it only drew a single, short cut across the Cane's black nose, but even so, the knife was deadly. The Cane flinched from the sudden pain in such a sensitive area, and it threw off the timing and power of its attack. Tavi slipped aside from the heavy club, drove in hard, and struck with a single slash that opened the Cane's throat clear to the bones of its neck.
The mortally wounded Cane dropped his club and tried to seize Tavi, teeth bared, but Tavi kept driving forward, inside the Cane's easy reach, and the legionare coming along behind Tavi added his own weight to Tavi's rush, as did the man behind him, so that their weight drove the Cane back against the battlements, where the legionares dispatched the raider with ruthless savagery.
Tavi hacked down at a heavy rope on the battlements, but the tough stuff refused to part despite several blows, and another Cane gripped the top of the wall, to haul himself up. Tavi slashed at the Cane's hand, drawing a cry of pain, before the raider fell back, and Tavi finished the job on the rope.
He looked up in time to see his legionares chopping their way down the wall, dispatching the second Cane, though the creature's sickle-sword took one veteran's hand from his arm before it fell. Legionares hacked at the remaining climbing lines. There was a howl of wind, then a roar and a blossom of fire at the gate, and all the while, more of those high-arcing stones rained down on Aleran heads and shoulders.
"Buckets!" Tavi shouted. "Now!"
Legionares seized the buckets of pitch, scalding water, and heated sand, and hurled them down upon the Canim at the base of the walls, eliciting more screams. It gave some of the defenders precious seconds to throw down the remaining lines, while archers had the opportunity to send arrows slicing down into the foe, inflicting even more injury, even before Crassus and his Knights made a second run along the wall, blinding and deafening the foe with the gale of their passing.
The morale of the attackers broke, and they began fleeing from the walls, at first hesitant, then in an enormous wave. The archers sent arrows flying after them as swiftly as they could loose them, wounding still more, while legionares began to whoop and cheer again.
Tavi ignored the Canim, looking up and down the wall. The attack had been repulsed, but it had cost the defenders, badly. The high-arced stones had been distressingly effective, and the medicos rushing to assist the injured were far outnumbered by the casualties. The green troops coming up to the walls weren't moving with the swift certainty of the veterans, and the rushing medicos and legionares attempting to carry the wounded to help weren't helping matters. The legionares had barely held the wall before, and if they did not reorganize and restore discipline to the defensive positions on the battlements, the Canim might well overwhelm them. Or at least, they might have, had they not broken instead of maintaining the attack.
The deep Canim horns blared and jerked Tavi's gaze to the host outside the walls.
The black-armored regulars had risen to their feet, and were moving with terrible, casual speed for the walls of the town.
Tavi drew in a sharp breath as the regulars approached. He'd been certain that they would strike at sundown-but that was an hour away, and Marcus was not on the wall. If the trap was to be successfully sprung, the Canim would need something to occupy their attention, and the plan had been for the Alerans to fall back in a fighting retreat, forcing the Canim to keep the pressure on the withdrawing troops.
The problem with that sort of ploy was that it would be all too easy for the false panic to become perfectly genuine and for the situation to spin totally out of anyone's control. Given that their discipline and training were the only things that gave the Legion anything like a fighting chance against a foe like the Canim, putting it at risk was the maneuver of a foolish or desperate commander.
Tavi supposed he could well be both.
"I need Max at once," Tavi told Ehren, and the young Cursor immediately leapt from the wall to the bed of a wagon parked beneath, then sprinted off across the courtyard.
"Centurions, finish the rotation and clear these walls of noncombatants!" Tavi shouted. "Medicos, use those wagons and get the wounded back to the secondary aid station!" Then he turned and flashed another hand sign to the rooftop several streets away where Crassus and his Knights Aeris waited. Tavi drew his hand in a wave, right to left, and then drew it in a sharp, slashing mo-tion across his throat. Crassus turned to one of his Knights, and they descended from the rooftop.
Tavi whirled to check on the Canim and found the raiders pulling back, leaving the regulars plenty of room in which to work. For the first time, at the crest of the hill, Tavi made out the outlines of several black-cloaked, pale-mantled Canim. Sari, or at least some of his ritualist acolytes, were apparently intent on observing the regulars' assault.
"Move!" Tavi shouted, as the regulars marched closer. "Reserves, withdraw to your secondary positions near the bridge!" Tavi whirled, spotted the nearest centurion, and growled, "Get those men's shields strapped on tighter. One of those hurled stones will spin the bloody things on their arms and smash their brains out."
The young centurion turned to face Tavi, his face pale, saluted, and began bellowing at the indicated legionares.
The centurion was Schultz. Tavi took a look left and right, and found few faces as old as his own. Only the centurions were veterans at all, and even they looked like young men serving in their first term of service in that rank.
Crows, he shouldn't have ordered the veterans off the wall, but it was too late to change it now. After the pounding they'd just received, after brutal and exhausting battle on the wall, they might not have held up against a tide of armored Canim. It was possible that the fish would be better suited to the maneuver than the veterans-if only because they were too inexperienced to realize just how much danger they were about to face.
Tavi bit on his lip and silently, savagely berated himself. That was no way to think about young men who were about to put their lives on the line for their Realm, their fellow legionares-and for him. He was about to order these young men into a storm of violence and blood.
And yet the cold fact was that if the ploy worked, it could cripple the Canim army, perhaps beyond its will to fight. If Tavi had to sacrifice a hundred legionares-or a thousand-to contain the Canim invasion, it would be his duty to do precisely that.
The walls were finally cleared, the wounded headed back to the next aid station, the reserve cohort coming up behind the fish on the wall marching for the fallback point. Tavi looked up and down the walls one more time-and saw quietly terrified young men, all of them pale, all of them standing ready.
Boots pounded down the battlements, and Max arrived at Tavi's side, along with Ehren. Crassus was a dozen steps behind, and Tavi glanced over his shoulder to find most of the Knights Aeris not yet judged ready to fly in combat rushing into positions opposite the gate.
"Great bloody crows," Max panted as the Canim came on.
"Ready, Captain," Crassus added. "Jens is all set."
"This is one bloody big throw of the dice, sir," Max said. "I never heard of such a thing being used."
"How much time have you spent working within a steadholt's woodshop, Max?" Tavi asked him.
He scowled. "I know, I know. I just never heard of it before."
"Trust me," Tavi said. "Sawdust is more dangerous than you know. And if the grain storehouse was on this side of the town, it would have been even better. He watched as the regulars closed, and said, "All right. You two get back and be ready to cover us."
Crassus saluted and turned to go, but Max remained in place, frowning out at the Canim.
"Hey," Max said. "Why'd they stop?"
Tavi blinked and turned around.
The Canim regulars had, indeed, stopped in their tracks, several dozen yards out of arrow range. To Tavi s increased surprise, they all settled down onto their haunches again, and they were so many that even that sounded like a rumble of distant thunder.
"That," Ehren said quietly, "is a whole lot of Canim."
At the front and center of the regulars, a single figure remained standing-the same Cane Tavi had addressed earlier in the day. He swept his gaze around the armored Canim, nodded, then took a long, curved war sword from his side. He held the weapon up, facing the town, then deliberately laid it aside. Then he strode out onto corpse-strewn killing ground between and stopped halfway to the wall.
"Aleran Captain!" the Cane called, his deep, growling voice enormous and unsettling. "I am Battlemaster Nasaug! I have words for you! Come forth!"
Max let out a grunt of surprise.
"Well," Ehren murmured, beside Tavi. "Well, well, well. That is interesting."
"What do you think, Max?" Tavi murmured.
"They think we're stupid," Max said. "They've already broken faith with us once. They tried to murder you the last time you went to them, Captain. I say we return the favor. Call up our Knights Flora, shoot him full of arrows, and let's get on with it."
Tavi snorted out a low laugh. "Probably the smart thing."
"But you're going to go talk to him," Max said.
"Thinking about it."
Max scowled. "Bad idea. Better let me go. He gets frisky, I'll show him how we do things up north. "
"He's already seen me, Max," Tavi said. "It has to be me. If he makes a move first, take him down. Otherwise, leave him alone. Make sure everyone else knows it, too. And get Marcus back up here, meanwhile."
"You think you've driven a spike between their leader and the warriors?" Ehren asked.
"Possibly," Tavi said. "If this Nasaug had hit us instead of stopping out there, it could have been bad. Now we're getting a chance to breathe and reorganize. I can't imagine Sari's terribly pleased about that."
Ehren shook his head. "I don't like it. Why would he do that?"
Tavi took a deep breath, and replied, "Let me go ask him."
Tavi did not ride out to meet the Canim this time. Instead, he went to the gates, which opened just enough to let him step outside the protection of the walls. The ground beneath the walls stank of blood and fear, fire and offal. Canim bodies lay piled in windrows, and since the fighting had ceased, thousands of crows descended to begin feasting upon the dead.
Tavi fought to keep his stomach under control as he walked out to meet the Battlemaster-a rank akin to an Aleran captain, a commander in charge of an entire force. Twenty yards from the Cane, he drew out his sword and laid it down on the ground beside him. With or without it, he stood little chance against an armored and experienced Cane afoot-but he could all but feel the watching eyes of his fellow Alerans behind him. They would be of greater protection than any horse or suit of armor. In all, Tavi had the position of greater strength, for Nasaug was in the reach of Tavi's companions. Tavi was far from Nasaug's.
Nonetheless, as Tavi approached the Cane, he had to admit that Nasaug's sheer size was more than frightening enough to protect him from Tavi, personally. Not to mention that his natural weaponry was considerably more fearsome than Tavi's. It was not a situation of perfect balance, but it was as close to one as they were likely to get.
Tavi stopped ten feet from Nasaug, and said, "I am Rufus Scipio, Captain of the First Aleran."
The Cane watched him with dark and bloody eyes. "Battlemaster Nasaug."
Tavi wasn't sure who moved first, and he didn't remember consciously deciding to make the gesture, but both of them tilted their heads very slightly to one side in greeting.
"Speak," Tavi said.
The Cane's lips peeled back from his fangs, a gesture that could indicate either amusement or a subtle threat. "The situation prevented me from recovering my fallen within the time limit you granted me," he said. "I wish your permission to recover them now."
Tavi felt his eyebrows lift. "Given how matters transpired before, my men may be nervous about yours so near the walls."
"They will approach unarmed," Nasaug replied. "And I will remain here, within range of your Knights Flora, as a pledge of their conduct."
Tavi stared at Nasaug for a long moment and thought he saw a certain amount of smug amusement in the Cane's eyes. Tavi smiled, a baring of his own teeth, and said, "Do you play ludus, Nasaug?"
The Cane lifted his helmet from his head, ears twitching and flicking as they came out from beneath the steel. "At times."
"Allow me to call out a messenger to send word to my men while you send for your own. Your men, unarmed, may approach until the sun is set. I will remain here with you until that time, in order to help avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings."
A burbling growl came from Nasaug's throat-quite possibly the most threatening chuckle Tavi had ever heard in his life. "Very well."
And so, in the next five minutes Tavi faced Nasaug across a traveling ludus set, a case whose legs unfolded to support it as a small, portable table. Plain discs of stone were carved on one side with piece designations, rather than being the full miniature statuettes of a conventional board. Tavi and Nasaug began playing, while eighty Canim, armored but unarmed, trooped forward, digging through the carnage at the base of the walls to locate the black-armored corpses of their fallen brothers in arms. None of them passed within a twenty-foot circle of the two commanders.
Tavi watched the Cane as the game began, and he opened with what seemed to be a reckless attack.
Nasaug, for his part, narrowed his eyes in thought as the game progressed. "Nothing wrong with your courage," he said, several moves in. "But it does not secure a victory alone."
A few moves later, Tavi replied, "Your defense isn't as strong as it might be. Pushing it hard enough might shatter it."
Nasaug began to move in earnest then, exchanging the first few pieces, while more moved into position, gathering for the cascade of exchanges that would follow. Tavi lost a piece to the Cane, then another, as his attack began to slow.
Footsteps suddenly approached, and a Cane in the accoutrements of one of Sari's acolytes stalked up to them. He bared his teeth at Tavi, then turned to Nasaug and snarled, "Hrrrshk naghr lak trrrng kasrrrash."
Tavi understood it: You were ordered to attack. Why have you not done so?