Princeps Fury

CHAPTER 29

Ehren didn’t have the full military experience of a true Legion officer, but he knew enough to know that the retreat from Ceres had not gone well. The battered Legions had barely been able to stay ahead of the pursuing Vord, despite the advantage of the furycrafted causeways. The Vord simply outnumbered them too badly. A man could march for hours or for days when he had to, but sooner or later, he had to sleep-while the Vord simply kept coming.

Though the Legions did everything they could to keep the civilians moving out ahead of them, they couldn’t help everyone. The Vord had spread through the countryside, and Ehren did not like to think of what would happen to the poor folk who were left behind each time the road was cut, ending any possibility of escape for the poor holders who had been fleeing toward the hope of safety the road had offered.

Ehren paced in the hall outside the First Lord’s room, a suite in an inn in the town of… Ehren wasn’t sure. Uvarton had fallen after the Legions had taken barely a night’s rest. The vordknights had caught up to them and begun dropping takers behind the town’s walls. Ehren was still having nightmares about the fourteen-year-old girl, taken by the Vord, whom he’d seen rip the heavy wooden tongue from a wagon and beat half a dozen legionares to death with it before being cut down herself. That was only after she’d set half a dozen buildings on fire with a simple candle. Others had seen much worse, and the chaos wreaked by the takers had been severe enough to force the Legions to abandon the city before the Vord reached them.

After Uvarton had come… Marsford, he thought, where the Vord had poisoned the wells, then Beros, where the Vord had brought up enough wind that, combined with the cold, the Legions had lost one in thirty men to frostbite, then Vadronus, where…

Where the Vord had driven them back again. And again. He’d slept in spare moments, half an hour, here and there, for the past… some number of days. He wasn’t sure. The First Lord had taken even less than that-which was why he had collapsed.

The door to Gaius’s room opened, and Sireos the healer emerged. As the personal physician to the First Lord, the thin, silver-templed Sireos was a familiar sight near the capital-which was less than a day’s hard ride on the causeway from there. Sireos exchanged nods with the guardsmen at the door and turned toward Ehren.

“Sir Ehren,” Sireos said. He had a long, mournful face and a very deep, very resonant voice. “Could I speak to you privately, please?”

He accompanied the physician to the end of the hallway and spoke in a quiet voice. “How is he?”

“Dying,” Sireos said in a level tone. “I was able to stabilize him, but he’s got to get regular food and regular rest, or he won’t last the week.”

“And if he does?” Ehren said.

“Weeks,” Sireos said. “Months, if he’s lucky. He’s using furycraft to ignore the pain and strengthen himself, or he would know exactly how bad his condition is.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Ehren asked.

Sireos gave him a steady look, then sighed. “I’ve been working on him for years-and never mind what he’s been able to do for himself. He’s every bit as skilled as I am at watercraft, even though his education as a physician is incomplete. His organs are simply breaking down. His lungs are the most obvious among the symptoms-he had pneumonia several years ago, and they’ve never been right since then. His spleen, his liver, his pancreas, one of his kidneys-they’re all breaking down as well.”

Ehren bowed his head.

“I’m sorry,” Sireos said. “He’s a remarkable man.”

Ehren nodded. “You’ve told him all of this?”

“Of course. He insists that he has a duty. Even if it kills him.”

“Have you seen what’s out there, sir?” Ehren asked.

Sireos’s face turned even more mournful. “I’m under the impression that I will.”

Ehren nodded. “It would seem so.”

“The world can be a hard place. We all have to face it as best we can, son.” He put a hand on Ehren’s shoulder. “Good luck, Sir Ehren. I’ll be nearby.”

“Thank you,” Ehren said quietly.

He turned away to look out the inn’s window as the physician retreated.

Retreat seemed to be in fashion.

A muffled voice came from the First Lord’s room, and the guard opened the door. Gaius strode out, clean from his time in the healing tub, dressed in fresh clothing. He moved with brisk purpose, but Ehren fancied that he could see the frailty underneath the calm surface.

“Sire,” Ehren said, as Gaius walked over to him. “You should be in bed.”

Gaius regarded him steadily for a moment. “I would be better off. Alera would not.”

Ehren bowed his head again. “Yes, sire. At least you should eat something.”

“There’s no time for that, Cursor. I want you to collect the latest intelligence reports and-”

“No,” Ehren said in a firm voice. “Sire.”

The two guardsmen glanced at each other.

Gaius arched his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“No, sire,” Ehren repeated. He planted his feet and looked up at the First Lord. “Not until you’ve eaten something.”

Boots treaded on the stairs, and Captain Miles of the Crown Legion appeared. He was a stocky man of medium height and build, his plain steel lorica dented and nicked with use, and he wore a similarly unadorned, functional, and well-used sword at his side. He sized up the situation in the hallway as he came to a halt, and saluted sharply to Gaius.

“Sire,” Miles said, “the defenses are prepared, and the Crown Legion stands ready to serve you.”

“Good to see you, Captain,” Gaius said, his eyes never leaving Ehren’s. He smiled, very slightly, to the young Cursor and inclined his head to such a slight degree that Ehren thought he might have imagined it.

Gaius turned to Miles. “I was just about to take some… breakfast?” He glanced at Ehren.

“It’s more like lunchtime, sire,” Ehren supplied.

“Lunch,” Gaius said firmly, nodding. “Join me, and we’ll discuss the defenses.”

“Yes, sire,” Miles said firmly.

Ehren bowed slightly to Gaius as the First Lord returned to his quarters with Captain Miles. Then he went to see to it that food was brought up to the room before Gaius changed his mind.

It was only after he was several steps down the stairs that he realized the import of Gaius’s words, and realized what was happening. Ever since Ceres, Gaius had been retreating from the Vord-and for the last several days, Aleran forces had barely put up any resistance at all. But the Crown Legion was Gaius’s single most trusted and capable force, and would certainly be present in any decisive confrontation with the enemy. If the First Lord had sent the Crown Legion ahead to prepare Alera Imperia, it meant that Gaius never intended to prevent the Vord from reaching the Realm’s capital.

Gaius wasn’t being driven back by the Vord.

He was luring them forward.

If the retreat had been such a terrible strain on Alera and her Legions, it had to be pushing the Vord’s resources, too. Savage and deadly as they might be, the Vord still had to eat, and they apparently needed their croach as food. By forcing them to stay on the move and in pursuit of the Aleran forces, Gaius was also keeping them ahead of their supply lines, advancing far faster than the croach could grow.

Meanwhile, the Crown Legion was preparing Alera Imperia herself for battle.

Gaius was drawing the Vord into the most vulnerable position he could arrange for them, tiring them with the campaign-only to prepare to turn upon them at the high point of his power, the heart of the Realm, Alera Imperia.

It was the gamble of a desperate man, Ehren thought. If Gaius won, he would crush the Vord strength in the Realm. If he lost, the center of Aleran commerce, travel, and government would fall with him.

Ehren hurried forward, to get the First Lord a solid meal.