High Lord-or a First Lord, for that matter-is in the hearts and minds of those who support him.”
“The sword,” Ehren said. “He’s using it to hold a firecrafting together. He’s giving them courage.”
“Mmmm,” Gaius agreed. “Rhodes was powerful, in a personal sense, but he never saw any further than the ends of his own fingertips. No different than Lord Kalarus, really, except that Rhodes was more intelligent and had more dangerous neighbors.”
“Far more dangerous,” Ehren said. “So much so that Rhodes’s life was the price of said neighbor’s allegiance.”
The First Lord smiled, a wintry expression that meant nothing. “The Citizenry has been blind to the threat the Vord represent, certain they would be easily overcome. That arrogance was as dangerous to us as the Vord. After tonight, it will no longer be an issue.” He glanced up at the rumbling sky, where the rain continued to fall more and more thickly, and added, his tone wryly amused, “One way or another.”
Then he staggered and fell to one knee.
“Sire!” Ehren said, starting forward.
The First Lord coughed, the sound horrible and hollow, over and over, each one wracking his entire body with clenching motion.
Ehren knelt beside the old man, supporting his weight when Gaius’s balance failed again.
After a moment, the fit of coughing passed. The First Lord shuddered and leaned wearily against the young Cursor, his head bowed. His lips looked blue, to Ehren, his face pallid and grey.
“Sire?” Ehren asked quietly.
Gaius shook his head and spoke in a rasp. “Help me up. They mustn’t see.”
Ehren blinked at the First Lord for a heartbeat, then slipped one of Gaius’s arms over his shoulders and rose, helping the older man to his feet.
Gaius leaned against the battlements for a moment, his hands spread across the cold, wet stone. Then he drew in a deep breath and straightened, his features composed, as the Aleran forces returned to Ceres.
Aquitaine’s sword burned more and more clearly, until he and the men he had gathered around him, some two hundred or so Citizens and Knights Aeris, sailed over the walls of the city and down into the streets beyond, heading for the rally points where the Legions had already planned to gather before withdrawing. The cavalry was not far behind them, their exhausted horses running hard as they streamed back toward the city.
Aquitaine himself, instead of accompanying his men, soared up to the tower, cutting his windstream with masterful timing, landing like a man who had decided to hop over the last step in a stairway. He nodded once to Ehren, transferred his sword to his left hand, and saluted Gaius, putting his fist to his heart.
Though the fire of Aquitaine’s sword was out, the metal still glowed and hissed with every raindrop. His armor, elaborate, beautifully made lorica, was crusted with a thin sheath of ice across the shoulders and upon the bracers that covered his forearms.
“It’s working,” Aquitaine said shortly. “Their wings can’t handle the ice.”
“Naturally,” the First Lord replied calmly. “We’ll fall back to Uvarton, cutting the causeway every mile as we go.”
Aquitaine frowned and turned to stare back out toward the south. “Their greatest advantage is their mobility, their flight. We should move forward with every
“Their greatest advantage is the ability of the Vord queen to coordinate their movements,” Gaius countered. “If we march our men out there into the dark and the storm, it will be a hopeless mess. The Vord will have no such disadvantage. We retreat. More of our reinforcements will meet us every day.”
“As will theirs,” Aquitaine said. “We should hit them now, hard, try to thin them out.”
“If need be, I’ll ground them again, Your Grace.” Gaius’s eyes hardened. “We retreat.”
Aquitaine frowned steadily at Gaius for a long moment. Then he said, “This is the wrong move.”
“Were I a young man,” Gaius said, “I would think so as well. If you would be so kind, please notify the other High Lords. Sir Ehren, please take word to the Crown Legion and to the First and Third Imperian.”
Ehren and Aquitaine both saluted the First Lord. Aquitaine simply stepped up onto the battlements and dropped off the tower. The roar of his windstream came up to them a beat later. Ehren turned toward the door, but paused, looking back at the First Lord.
“Are you going to be all right, sire?”
The First Lord, his silver hair plastered to his head by the rain, stared down at the valley to the south and shook his head slowly. “None of us are going to be all right.” Then he glanced at Ehren and jerked his chin in a sharp gesture toward the door. “On your way.”
“Sire,” Ehren said, and turned to go back down the stairs and tell the Legion commanders which way to run.
CHAPTER 21
When the sun rose the next morning, Isana was already awake. She took a brief, simple breakfast that Araris brought from the Legion’s mess hall, and then put on her warmest cloak and went up to the top of the Shieldwall again. Aria fell into step beside her along the way, as she passed the High Lady’s chambers.
Isana felt Aria’s tension and worry at once, thick enough to breach her self-control. She frowned at the other woman. “Aria?”
“Word from the south. The First Lord has engaged the Vord.”
Isana traded a quick look with Araris. “And?”
“The Vord have taken Ceres. The Legions are falling back toward Alera Imperia, trying to slow the Vord enough for refugees to stay ahead of them.”
Isana drew in a quick breath. “Your husband?”
“He’s well. For now.” Aria shook her head. “But they confirmed that the Vord are using furycrafting, and on a significant scale. Rhodus Martinus was slain in the battle. Several dozen Citizens and nearly a hundred Knights Aeris were also killed or are unaccounted for.”
Isana shuddered at that last. Unaccounted for. In the course of a normal war, one could generally expect such soldiers, missing after a battle, to have been killed and their bodies fallen in some hidden place, to have been scattered by the tides of conflict, or to have been captured by the enemy and taken to some sort of prison. When fighting the Vord, though, capture could mean something infinitely more hideous than death. Worse, it could mean that the Vord had
“Then we had best get to work,” Isana said, doing her best to sound calm and confident.
Placidus Garius met them at the head of the stairs as they emerged into the light of predawn. He saluted crisply. “Your Highness. If you’ll come this way, our engineers have just finished crafting a stairway down the northern face of the Wall.”
Isana lifted an eyebrow. “There weren’t any already?”
Garius fell into pace beside Isana and shook his head. “No, milady. It would be too easy for the enemy to use it against us, were we to leave a permanent stairway.” His eyes flicked uneasily to the north. “They’re dangerous enough without giving them any help.”
“Garius,” Aria asked, “did your father contact you?”
Garius turned back to look at his mother and nodded grimly. “He did. Here we are, milady.” He’d led them to a staircase that ran down the northern face of the Shieldwall and into the snow-covered country beyond. He pointed to a slight rise of ground to the north. “That hill there is where the meeting is set to take place. We’ll be watching from here, and you’ll have help right away when things get violent.”
“‘When’?” Isana asked. “Not ‘if’?”
Garius shook his head. “Milady… you haven’t been up here. You don’t understand. You might talk to them for an hour, or a day. But in the end, there’s only one way this is going to fall out.” He touched a hand to the hilt of his sword to illustrate his point.
“You don’t think it’s possible to reach an agreement with the Icemen?”
