Max passed the tool back to Tavi, his tone relieved. “Good. Look, I’ll bet we could figure out some other way to-”
Tavi took the hammer in his grip, braced his right leg against the wheel of a nearby wagon, and before he could actually stop to think about it, he swung it hard into the side of his shin.
The bone broke with an audible crackling sound.
Pain flooded through Tavi’s senses in a sudden fire, and it was suddenly all he could do not to scream. His whole body felt shockingly weak for a moment, as if the blow had transformed muscle and sinew to water, and he dropped to his rear, clutching at the wounded limb.
“Bloody crows and carrion!” Max swore, his eyes huge with surprise. “You’re insane, man.
“Shut up,” Tavi said through clenched teeth. “And get me to a medico.”
Max stared him for another long second, then shook his head and said, bewildered, “Right. What are friends for?” He stooped down and moved as though to pick Tavi up and carry him as one would a child.
Tavi glared.
Max rolled his eyes and grabbed one of Tavi’s arms instead, hauling it over his shoulder to support his weight.
A growling, rough voice said, “There you are, Antillar. Why the crows is your bloody century lined up beside Larus’s…” Valiar Marcus drew up short as he spotted Max and Tavi, and the battle-scarred old veteran’s ugly face twisted into a squint. “What the crows is this, Maximus?” He glanced at Tavi and threw him a casual salute. “Subtribune Scipio.”
Tavi grimaced and nodded in response to the First Spear. “I was loading the wagon,” he said, focusing on the words and trying to ignore the pain. “The horse spooked. Wheel went over my leg.”
“The horse spooked,” the First Spear said. He glanced at the horse hitched to the supply wagon.
The greying draft animal stood placidly in its traces with its head down, sound asleep.
“Urn,” Tavi said. He licked his lips and tried to think of something to tell the First Spear, but the pain of his leg made it difficult to come up with anything with his customary speed. Tavi glanced at Max.
Max shrugged at the First Spear. “I didn’t see it happen. Just came along and there he was.”
“There he was,” the First Spear said. Valiar Marcus squinted at Tavi. Then he took two steps and bent down. He stood up again with the smith’s hammer. “Spooked horse. Wagon wheel.” He squinted down at the hammer, then at the two young men.
Max coughed. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Thanks,” Tavi muttered sourly.
“What are friends for,” Max said.
Valiar Marcus snorted. “Antillar, get your century to its proper place and prepare to march.” He glanced at Tavi. “Going to be a nice day to march, sir,” he observed. “But I suppose not everyone has the same opinion.”
“Urn. Yes, centurion,” Tavi replied.
The First Spear shook his head and tossed the hammer to Max. Max caught it neatly by the handle. “Best get the subtribune to a medico first,” Marcus said. “Maybe drop that by the smithy wagons on the way, eh? Then get your fish to their place in the ranks. I’ll tell the senior teamster to be more careful with this, ah, nervous horse, eh?”
The old horse let out a snore. Tavi hadn’t known they could do that.
Max nodded, and threw the First Spear an awkward salute with the hand holding the hammer. It came dangerously close to braining Tavi in the temple, and he ducked aside from it, threatening Max’s balance.
The First Spear muttered a chuckling oath beneath his breath and stalked off.
“Think he figured out your clever plan?” Max asked brightly.
“Shut up, Max.” Tavi sighed, and the pair started limping for the medicos. “Is he going to talk? If someone starts asking questions, it isn’t going to take them long to find out that I’ve got no crafting of my own. And I only know of one person in the whole bloody Realm like that. It will blow my cover.”
Max grimaced. “Some spy you are. Maybe next time when I tell you the plan is crazy…”
“What? If you hadn’t wasted time whining about it, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“You wanna walk to the medico without me?” Max growled. “Is that it, Scipio?”
“If it will save me hearing more of your complaining, I might!” Tavi said.
Max snorted. “I ought to dump you in one of your latrines and leave you there.” But despite his words, the big northerner bore Tavi toward the medical wagons, careful not to jostle his friend’s leg.
“Just keep your mouth shut,” Tavi said, when Max got him to the wagon. “Until we know what he’s doing.”
“Right,” Max said. He left Tavi in the hands of the healers, then pulled his centurion’s baton from his belt and jogged off to pull his soldiers into proper marching order.
Foss appeared from one of the other wagons. The bearish old healer hopped up into the bed of the wagon Tavi sat in and briefly examined his leg. “Hungh. Accident, huh?”
“Yes,” Tavi said.
“Should have just bribed the First Spear to let you drive a wagon, kid. Don’t have to be a real good bribe for something like that.”
Tavi frowned. “How much? Once I get paid…”
“Cash only,” Foss said, his voice firm.
“Oh. In that case, I told you,” Tavi said. “It was an accident.”
Foss snorted and poked at Tavi’s leg.
It felt like a blade sinking into his skin, and he clamped his teeth together on a hiss of pain. “And I spent all my money at the Pavilion.”
“Ah,” Foss said, nodding. “Got to learn to balance your vices, sir. Lay off a little on the wenching, save something for avoiding work.” He dragged a long, slender tub from the back of the wagon, and filled it from a couple of heavy water jugs. Then he helped Tavi remove his boot, an agonizing process that made Tavi promise himself that he would take off the boot before he broke his own leg, the next time.
Foss hadn’t begun the healing yet when the Legion’s drums rolled, putting the column on notice that it was almost time to move. A moment later, a clarion sounded from the head of the column, and the wagons and infantry began to move. At first, they moved quite slowly, until the men and horses reached the causeway, then they picked up speed. A double-quick march stepped up to a steady jog, and from there they increased the pace to a mile- eating lope that was not quite a full sprint. The horses, similarly, worked their way up to a canter, and the wagon jounced and jittered along behind them.
Tavi felt every bump in the road in his wounded leg. Each one sent a flash of pain through him that felt like some small and fiendishly determined creature taking a bite out of his leg. That went on for what felt like half a lifetime, until Foss finally seemed satisfied that the pace had steadied enough to allow him to work and slipped Tavi s wounded leg into the tub.
The watercrafting that healed the bone was quick, transforming the pain to a sudden, intense, somehow benevolent heat. When that faded a moment later, it took most of the pain with it, and Tavi collapsed wearily onto his back.
“Easy there, sir,” Foss rumbled. “Here. Get some bread into you at least, before you sleep.” He passed Tavi a rough, rounded loaf, and Tavi’s suddenly empty belly growled. Tavi devoured the loaf, a small wedge of cheese, and guzzled down almost a full skin of weak wine before Foss nodded, and said, “That’s good enough. Have you back on your feet in no time.”
Tavi devoutly hoped not. He flopped back down, threw an arm across his eyes, and vanished into sleep.
He became dimly aware of alarmed shouts and blaring horns sounding a halt. The wagon slowed to a stop. Tavi opened his eyes to a sullen, overcast sky that flickered with flashes of reddish light and rumbled with threatening thunder. Tavi sat up, and asked Foss, “What’s going on?”
The veteran healer stood up in the back of the wagon as it came to a halt, peering ahead. A drum rattled in a series of fast and slow beats, and Foss exhaled a curse. “Casualties.”
“We’re fighting already?” Tavi asked. He shook his head, hoping to slosh some of the sleep from it.
“Make a path!” called a woman’s voice, louder than humanly possible, and Lady Antillus’s large white horse
