“Isana!” she heard Araris call. “Isana!”

He shook her shoulders, and she looked around dazedly at him. She wasn’t sure how long she had upheld the defense against Antillus Raucus’s strike, but she couldn’t see the Knights Aeris. Araris’s voice sounded oddly distant.

“Isana!” Araris called. “It’s all right. The Icemen are gone! They’re safe!”

She lowered her hand, and heard an enormous whuffing rumble behind her. She turned to see fine powdery snow rising in a huge cloud, through the steam, as though settling after a sudden avalanche.

Doroga regarded the steam and settling snow for a long and silent moment. Then he looked at Isana appraisingly.

“I ever invade Calderon again,” he said, “it will be in the summer.”

Isana stared wearily at him, and said, “I’d see to it that you never got those sweetbread cakes you like. Ever again.”

Doroga gave her a wounded look, sniffed, and said to Walker, “Alerans don’t ever fight fair.”

“Help me up,” Isana said to Araris. “He’ll be coming.”

Araris did so at once. “Who?”

“Just stay by me,” she said. She caught his eyes. “And trust me.”

Araris lifted his eyebrows as he helped her up. Then instead of answering, he leaned forward and kissed her. After a moment, he drew back from her, and said, “With my life. Always.”

She found his hand with hers and squeezed it very hard.

Seconds later, wind roared, and two forms plummeted through the mist and powder. Antillus Raucus landed hard, sending up a cloud of powdery snow. Lady Placida came down beside him, and immediately put one hand on his arm in a gesture of restraint.

“Raucus,” Aria said. “Crows take it, Raucus, wait!”

The heavily armored High Lord shook off her arm and stalked straight toward Isana. “You little idiot!” he snarled. “That was our chance to throw them back, force them to reorganize enough to send some relief to the south! What do you think you were doing, you high-handed-”

When he reached her, Isana drew back and smacked him coldly across the face. Hard.

Raucus’s head rocked to one side, and when he looked back at her, his lower lip had been cut against one of his teeth and was bleeding slightly. The surprise in his eyes began to be replaced by more anger.

“Antillus Raucus,” Isana said, in the instant of unbalance. “I accuse you of cowardice and treachery against the authority of the First Lord and the honor of the Realm. And here, in front of these witnesses, I formally challenge you to the juris macto.” She drew in a deep breath. “And may the crows feast on the unjust.”

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.