Princeps Fury

Of course, he never let anything stand between him and what he deemed “required,” either. No matter how many innocent people it might kill.

Isana pressed her lips together and restrained her thoughts on the matter of the ending of Lord Kalarus and his rebellion-and his city and its inhabitants, and all the lands around it and everyone who lived in them. It was not the time to review once again Gaius Sextus’s actions, or to judge them as acts of war, or necessity or murder-or, most likely, all three.

“Citizens,” he began, his sonorous voice serious, sober. “I come to you tonight as no First Lord has for hundreds of years. I come to you to warn you. I come to you to call you to duty. And I come to you to ask you to go beyond all that duty requires.” He paused, to let the echoes of his voice roll through the darkening evening. “Alerans,” he murmured. “We are at war.”

CHAPTER 6

“Well of course we’re at war,” Amara murmured crossly to Bernard. “We’re practically always at war. There’s constant low-level conflict with the Canim, an ongoing conflict on the Shieldwall that’s been in progress for generations, the occasional argument with a horde of screaming Marat and their beasts…”

“Shhhhh, love,” Bernard said, patting her hand with his. They were fairly far up in the seating above the box of the High Lord of Riva, but Bernard hadn’t bothered establishing his own colors to reflect those of Riva’s. The green and brown of the Count of Calderon tended to fade into the landscape around his home-but among the scarlet-and-gold-clad Citizens of Riva, it had the opposite effect. That did not, Amara reflected, appear to disturb her husband.

“I just don’t see the point in playing up the drama of this,” Amara said, folding her arms. “He’s let the dramatic pause go on long enough.”

“It’s a large room,” Bernard said, glancing around. “Give him a moment. Can you see where Ehren’s gotten off to?”

“He’s sitting with your sister in Lady Placida’s box,” Amara said idly.

“Isana?” Bernard scowled. “Of course it was too much to ask for Gaius to leave her in peace.”

“Hush, pause over,” Amara said, squeezing Bernard’s hand.

“An enemy which has previously only been a theory, a vague concern, has become a very real, very present threat to the Realm,” Gaius continued. “The Vord have come to Alera.”

Amara felt Bernard’s body grow tense beside her.

“At the moment, it would appear that they landed and established themselves sometime late last summer, after the end of the Kalare Rebellion, in the wilderness region to the southwest of the city.”

“Good place for it,” Bernard rumbled.

Amara murmured her agreement. The area was an ideal place for the Vord to establish themselves and begin to spread. It was richly forested and thick with game, while simultaneously being almost empty of human inhabitants. It was, in fact, for that very reason that they had approached the city of Kalare through that region with the First Lord, when he had made his now-famous furyless trek to Kalare to unleash Kalus, the great fire fury beneath the mountains near the former city of Kalare, before the mad High Lord Kalarus could use it to take down as many people as possible with him when the Legions finally brought him to bay.

“We discovered their presence just under one month ago,” the First Lord continued. “When they began attacking the southernmost patrols from the area around the Waste. A number of teams of Cursors and combat patrols of Knights were dispatched to determine enemy numbers and whereabouts.” He paused and swept his gaze around the Senatorium. “Casualties were heavy.”

“Bloody crows,” Bernard snarled. His right hand closed into a fist, his knuckles popping. “If they’d been careful enough, they should have… No one listened.”

“You tried,” Amara murmured. “You tried, love.”

“The nearest Legion, one of the re-formed interim Kalaran Legions, was dispatched to secure the region,” Gaius continued. “They engaged the Vord under near-ideal circumstances thirty miles south of the Waste and were overwhelmed within an hour. With the exception of two Knights Aeris, who escaped to bring word of the Legion’s fate, there were no survivors.”

The murmurs died.

Gaius continued speaking in a dispassionate tone. “The entirety of the other forces in the region, including the Senatorial Guard and both interim Kalaran Legions, marched at once, linked up, and gave battle to the enemy at the northern edge of the Waste. We cannot be certain what happened at that point-there were apparently no survivors from the second engagement.”

Shocked silence ruled the Senatorium.

Gaius turned to the broad, shallow pool in the center of the floor and waved his hand at it. The water’s smooth surface rippled at once, then resolved itself into the familiar mountains, valleys, and rivers of a map of Alera itself, in full color, the cities of each High Lord marked by a disproportionately large model of their respective citadels-including the sullen, fiery mountaintop of Mount Kalus, where the city of Kalare once stood. Thanks to the furycrafting of the Senatorium’s builders, Amara could clearly see the model in the pool, even from the high seats, and she regarded it intently, along with every other soul present.

As she watched, the entire coastline southwest of Mount Kalus began to turn a dirty brown-green, as if being coated with some sort of moldy sludge that began to spread steadily over the ground to the north and east, sliding inexorably forward, over the Waste that was all that remained of the city of Kalare, and continuing toward the Amaranth Vale beyond it. Amara recognized it after a moment-the croach, the strange, waxy substance that grew all around the Vord wherever they began to spread, choking out all other life.

The croach continued to spread, sweeping into the Vale and halfway through it.

“The enemy has come this far-a distance of nearly two hundred miles from the first point of contact-in less than a month. The substance you see represented on the map is known as the croach. It is some kind of mold or fungus that grows in the Vord’s wake, killing all other plant and animal life.”

A befuddled-looking, portly old country Count, his gold-and-scarlet tunic patched and faded, sat on the bench beside Amara, shaking his head. “No,” he murmured beneath his breath. “No, no, no. This is some kind of mistake.”

“Our aerial scouts have confirmed that the entire area represented here has been covered entirely,” Gaius continued. “Nothing lives there now that is not Vord.”

“Oh come now,” sputtered Lord Riva, rising, his jowls flushed and sweating. “You cannot expect us to believe that some kind of fungus is a threat to our Realm?”

The First Lord glanced at the High Lord of Riva and narrowed his eyes. “My lord, you have not been recognized by the Speaker of the Senate. You are out of order. The floor will open for questions and debate as soon as it is practical, but for the moment, it is essential that-”

“That you force these histrionics upon us?” Riva demanded, gathering momentum. “Come now, Gaius. Winter is all but upon us. The first freeze will destroy this… infestation, at which point competent military leadership should suffice to contain and destroy the invaders. I see no reason why these theatrics-”

Gaius Sextus turned toward the High Lord of Riva.

“Grantus,” Gaius said in an even tone. “I do not have time for this. Every moment of delay puts more lives at risk.” His expression hardened. “Perhaps even your own.”

Riva stared at Gaius for a startled moment, his eyes wide, then flushed dark red with anger. His hands opened and closed several times as he realized that the First Lord had all but openly threatened him with the juris macto.

Lord Aquitaine’s gaze snapped to Gaius like a falcon’s and locked upon him.

Amara tensed suddenly.

The First Lord was taking a terrible risk. In his prime, Amara would have thought Gaius the match of any crafter in Alera-but she knew, better than almost anyone, how much of the First Lord’s apparent strength was an act of bravado, a display of sheer will. Beneath the outer show of energy and drive, Gaius was a weary old man, and