Princeps’ Fury

“Gotcha,” said Demos in satisfaction. “My lord.”

“Chala!” Kitai shouted. She was there beside him, her own wet tunic clinging to her slender form as she ripped a cloak from a passing sailor and tossed it over him. “Maximus! He’s bleeding!”

“Healer!” bellowed Marcus’s smoke-roughened voice. “Bring out a tub!”

“Captain,” Tavi croaked. “Get us the crows away from here.”

“Aye,” Demos said, as several willing hands lifted him toward a tub that had been hurriedly brought up from the hold of the ship. “Aye, my lord. Let’s go home.”

EPILOGUE

All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper-and they will not miss him.

-FROM THE FINAL JOURNAL ENTRY OF GAIUS SEXTUS, FIRST LORD OF ALERA

The air around the former capital was too hot and too laden with fumes to overfly, Amara thought numbly. She would have to lead their party of rescued Knights and Citizens around it.

She turned course to circle the flaming wasteland, following its eastern edge as they proceeded north. Alera Imperia, the shining white city upon a hill, was only a gaping hole in the ground. Smoke and flame seethed in that cauldron, far below them. The river Gaul poured into it, and steam obscured the land below from time to time in its own layer of thick white mist that lay over the ground like a filmy funerary shroud.

Amara glided in close to the lead wind coach, opened the door, and slipped inside. She sat quietly for a moment, her head bowed.

“Bloody crows,” Gram breathed, looking down. “Did the Vord do that?”

“No,” Bernard said. Amara felt him take her hand in his and squeeze gently. “No. I’ve seen something like this before. At Kalare.”

“Gaius,” Gram whispered. He shook his head, then bowed it. “That arrogant old…” His voice cracked, and he broke off his sentence.

“Do you think the horde was there?” Amara asked her husband.

“Absolutely. They weren’t shy about leaving a trail. You could see it from up here.”

“Then Gaius defeated them,” Gram said.

Amara shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.” She lifted her head and looked out the window at the destruction. “He would never do… this, unless the city was all but taken in any case.”

“The Vord won,” Bernard rumbled nodding. “But he made them pay for it.”

“Where would survivors of the battle go, Bernard?” she asked.

“Survive? That?” Gram asked.

Amara gave him a steady look and turned back to Bernard.

Her husband took a deep breath, thinking. “They’d take the causeway north, into the Redhill Heights, until they reached the crossroads. From there, they could turn east toward Aquitaine or northeast to Riva.”

The crossroads, then, would be the natural rendezvous point for anyone in the region who was fleeing the Vord-ridden south.

She nodded to her husband and stepped out of the coach, once again willing Cirrus to bear up her weight. Then she signaled to the other fliers in their group to follow her, and took the point position again, to lead her own band of survivors north.

Within half an hour, a hundred Knights Aeris plunged down upon them in a swirling mass of cold air, from such an altitude that their armor was coated with frost. The lead Knight-no, Amara corrected herself, the Placidan Lord who was obviously in command of the unit, flashed her an angry signal, to which she knew no countersign. Shouting at one another amidst so many roaring windstreams would have been an exercise in futility, so instead she simply lifted her head to bare her uncollared throat and lifted her hands into the air. The Placidan scowled at her, but flashed a standard signal at her to land, then signaled a hover, and spun his finger to encompass the rest of her group. She nodded, signaling her own folk to remain in place, and descended toward the ground with the Placidan Lord.

They landed on the causeway, and the lord never took his eyes off her the whole way down. He stopped ten feet from her and faced her silently, one hand on his sword.

“No,” Amara told him tiredly. “I haven’t been taken.”

The man seemed to relax, at least by a fraction. “You understand, of course, that security is a priority.”

“Of course,” Amara said. “I’m sorry, sir. I recognize that you are of the Placidan Citizenry, but I can’t remember your name.”