Princeps’ Fury

“I’m not going to lose,” Isana said, “and he’s not going to die.”

“In a duel to the death-one which you instigated.” Aria shook her head. “I know you didn’t go to the Academy, but… there is something called ‘diplomacy, ’ Isana.”

“There isn’t time,” Isana said quietly. “Just as there wasn’t time earlier today, Aria.” She felt her cheeks heat slightly. “When I hit you. For which I must now apologize.”

Aria opened her mouth, then pressed her lips into a line and shook her head. “No. In retrospect… it may have been for the best.”

“Necessary or not, I wronged you. I’m sorry.”

Some of the rigid tension eased slowly from Aria’s stance, and the sense of angry restraint around her faded slightly. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly,” she said. “Afterward, I… I felt the way they were communicating with one another. I’ve never sensed anything like that before. And you felt it yesterday.” She shrugged. “You were right about them. I didn’t-” Aria’s eyes widened, and she looked up at Isana with her mouth open. “Great furies, Isana. That’s what this is. You’re slapping Raucus across the face to get his attention.”

“If I’d thought a slap across the face would do the job,” Isana said wryly, “I would have stopped before I dropped the challenge onto him.” She shook her head. “I have to reach him. I have to get through his anger and his pride. And there’s no time, Aria.”

Lady Placida stood silently for several long seconds. Then she said, “I’ve known Raucus since I was fourteen years old. We were… close, back then, at the Academy. And this is dangerous, Isana. Very dangerous.” She glanced at the door and then back to her. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“It isn’t going to change his mind about the duel,” Isana said.

“No,” Aria said calmly. She gave Isana a slight smile. “But perhaps there will be a miracle and his stiff neck will bend half an inch.” She nodded. “At least I can lay a foundation you might be able to build upon.”

“Thank you,” Isana said quietly.

“Thank me if you survive,” Aria replied, and slipped quietly out of the room.

* * *

Several hours later, Isana had taken a private meal and sat reading dispatches from the south, sent by water fury and transcribed for her and for Lord Antillus.

Matters had grown worse. Ceres was overrun, and the Vord were harrying the Aleran forces, who had been forced to fight a series of desperate actions to slow the advancing horde enough to allow desperate civilians to flee. Teams of engineers were dismantling causeways as they went, destruction that would take decades of effort to repair-if it ever was.

Losses in the Legions were hideous-worse than anything seen in Kalarus’s rebellion or in the battle with the Canim. Militias were mobilizing all throughout Alera, with priority given to those younger men who had most recently left the Legions-but virtually every male in the Realm had served at least a single two-year term in the Legions, and everyone was being called upon to take up arms again.

The problem, of course, was in supplying those arms. Legionares were not allowed to keep their weaponry and armor upon leaving the Legion-they were left to be used by the recruits arriving to take their places. Most legionares retired to their steadholts, where the only weapons readily available, affordable, and necessary were bows and the occasional hunting spear.

In the cities, of course, there were the civic legions-but they were peacekeepers and investigators, not soldiers. Lightly armored, generally more familiar with truncheons than swords, and used to operating in an entirely different manner than armies in the field, they were of more use organizing refugees and preventing crimes among the displaced population than in actual combat with the enemy. In both cities and in the smaller towns, each lord and Count would generally maintain a small body of personal armsmen, but those rarely consisted of more than twenty or thirty men. There were similarly a limited number of professional soldiers, generally roving from job to job, plying the trade of violence out from under the rigid structure of the Legions. But all in all, there were fewer weapons available than hands to wield them, and peaceful steadholt smithies across the Realm were desperately forging steel for use in Alera’s defense.

The thought of that chilled Isana. Back at her own steadholt-her former steadholt, she supposed wistfully-there would be a flurry of activity. Harvest would have been well over a few weeks ago. Elder Frederic would be at Araris’s old forge, laboring on weapons instead of horseshoes. Children would be gathering slender branches, smoothing and straightening them into arrow shafts, while their older siblings were taught how to fletch feathers, fix nocks, and secure arrowheads onto them.