Which left only one likely suspect…
Tavi felt his heartbeat begin to quicken and a trembling sensation low in his belly.
“There,” he told Kitai. “That’s it.”
Anag and a contingent of guards came to take them to Lararl within the hour.
“No,” Tavi told them calmly. “We’re not going anywhere. Tell Lararl that we’ve come to see him once already. If he wants to speak to us again, he can come up here.”
Anag stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “This is Lararl’s tower. Here, you do what he says.”
Tavi showed Anag his teeth as he folded his arms. “Apparently not.”
Anag growled and put his paw-hand to his sword.
Tavi sensed it when Maximus and Kitai, standing close behind him, tensed up. He did not move himself. He simply stared steadily at Anag.
Varg stepped forward in the precise instant that Anag’s anger began to waver. He stopped beside Tavi, and said, “Lararl has shamed himself enough without you adding to it, Anag.”
The younger Cane hesitated, his eyes flicking from Tavi to Varg.
Varg didn’t reach for his weapon. He strode forward to stand within range of Anag’s as-yet-undrawn blade without a flicker of apprehension. “You will go to Lararl,” Varg said. “You will tell him that we await him here.” Varg moved his arm then, slowly putting his hand to his weapon in a display made quietly deadly by the utter stillness in the rest of his body. “You will tell him that I am disinclined to be moved anywhere by any will but my own.”
Anag was still for a few seconds more, then leaned his head to one side in acknowledgment and vanished from the rooftop, taking the other guards with him.
Max let out an explosive breath. “Bloody crows, Tavi.”
Varg turned his head slightly to stare at Tavi. He had not, Tavi noted, taken his hand from his weapon. His voice came out in a deep, threatening basso growl. “Why?”
Tavi met Varg’s gaze as he answered. “Because circumstances have changed. Lararl needs us, or he would have left us to rot up here.”
Varg let out a rumbling growl, and Tavi found himself centering his balance, in case he needed to avoid a sudden strike-but the sound proved to be more pensive than angered, and Varg lowered his paw-hand from his sword’s hilt.
“Besides,” Tavi said, “Lararl abused your people’s sense of honor and obligation. I find myself unconcerned with protecting his pride.”
Varg made another thoughtful rumbling sound. “Have a care, Tavar. Lararl is not swift to forgive. And he never forgets.”
“I am not one of his subordinates,” Tavi replied.
Varg flicked his ears in acknowledgment. “No. You have declared your intention to replace him as a leader.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Tavi said, showing Varg his teeth in another smile, “that is precisely what I intend to do.”
Lararl came to the rooftop alone.
Anag and several other apprehensive-looking Canim stood by while Lararl shut the door in their faces and turned to Varg. “My guards may be going deaf,” the golden-furred Warmaster snarled. “Because only a fool or a madman would have spoken the words they brought to me.”
Varg faced Lararl without any kind of movement.
Lararl stepped forward to stand directly in front of Varg, and the two Canim put their hands to their swords in precisely the same instant.
Silence reigned on the rooftop for a full minute, the sounds of the battle below rising and falling with the breeze, like some enormous, gruesome surf pounding upon a seashore.
“Give me one reason,” Lararl snarled, “not to kill you here and now.”
“I will give you three,” Varg answered, and inclined the tip of his nose slightly toward the stone shelter the Alerans had crafted.
There was a vague sense of movement in the darkness within, then a slender-looking Cane clad in soft grey-and-black cloth glided silently out of the darkness. Immediately after, two more similarly clad, younger Canim flowed out behind the first, taking up a silent, passive stance on either side of the first.
Behind Tavi, Max hissed in a breath of surprise, and he did not need to look to see that Max’s hand had gone to the hilt of his sword. “Bloody crows. Hunters.”
Tavi suppressed his own startled reaction. He recognized the gear of the three Canim. The trio that had nearly gutted him during the war against Nasaug had been dressed identically.
Beside him, Kitai narrowed her eyes in suspicion, and Tavi felt the surge of surprise and… annoyance, he thought, as she spoke. “When did
“They can’t have been in there more than half an hour,” Tavi murmured. “That was the last time one of us went inside to warm up.”
“I saw and heard nothing.” Kitai’s eyes glittered, and her teeth showed in a quick smile. “That was well done.”
Lararl eyed the three Hunters for a moment, then turned his attention back to Varg.
“Since the battle with your enemy seems to have clouded your vision,” Varg said, “I will explain matters to you. It is possible for you to kill me. But you cannot be sure of stopping my Hunters from carrying word of such an act to Nasaug. Even if you do, Nasaug is my wisest student. He will very likely assume that you have killed me and react accordingly.
“If you can count, you will see that the Alerans are missing a member of their party. Doubtless, he has already returned to their Legions to report what you have done so far. It is my belief that they remain imprisoned largely as a matter of respect-which they have given, even when it has not been given to them.” Varg showed his teeth. “Finally, it is possible that I kill you, in which case your people are left without a Warmaster.
“Nothing you do with that weapon,” Varg concluded, “will help your people. It will leave them without a Warmaster-or it will create more enemies. Is that what you want for them, Lararl?”
The other Cane shivered, and Tavi could all but see the rage rolling off him.
Then Lararl let out an explosive snarl and turned to stalk several paces away.
Varg released the hilt of his weapon and glanced at Tavi.
Tavi raised his voice. “Your defenses are the most impressive I have ever seen, Warmaster,” he said to Lararl.
The Canim glanced back at Tavi, his eyes angry, wary.
“But impressive or not, they are still fortifications. You can’t move them, adjust them-and they are all positioned to prevent an enemy from entering your range at all. The highest wall in the world is useless if the enemy can march around it.” Tavi took a slow breath. If he’d guessed correctly, his next words would show it. If he hadn’t… well. At least he was armed. “How did the Vord bypass your defenses?”
Lararl’s eyes narrowed still farther. “I did not say the Vord had done so.”
“Those soldiers who arrived earlier were wounded by something,” Tavi said. “If they’d been fighting my people, they never would have escaped on taurga. If they’d been fighting Varg’s warriors, you would have sent someone to execute him or just let him rot on this rooftop. Instead, you sent Anag, whom we have reason to trust and respect. It was not a gesture of anger or retaliation.” Tavi nodded out toward the battle. “The enemy are many. Once behind your defenses, it would take only a fraction of the forces out there to devastate your range.”
Lararl said nothing. Tavi’s mouth felt dry.
“Warmaster,” Tavi said, “it seems clear to me that if you wish to protect your people, you need our help to do it.”
Lararl bared his fangs. They were impressive. Tavi forced himself to keep his expression steady and blank. Then the golden Cane looked away. His ears twitched, almost imperceptibly, in assent.
