Princeps’ Fury

They leaned against one another in the darkness, while the Vord gathered to assault Ceres.

* * *

It took the foe less than a day to concentrate their forces and launch the assault upon the city.

Amara and Bernard were less than a mile and a half away from Ceres’ walls, looking out over the broad valley from an abandoned steadholt running along the top of a low ridge. They crouched in the ruins of an old brick storage building that had collapsed when a particularly large old tree had toppled onto it. In normal circumstances, the Steadholder probably would have taken the opportunity to replace the old storehouse with a newer building-it had been old enough that time had been taking bites out of it in any case. Instead, the old building had just been left to lie in pieces, with the ancient tree still sprawling in the wreckage, and it provided a perfect hiding place. Bernard was able to use the branches and leaves of the tree, along with the grass still growing around the storehouse, to surround them with a woodcrafted veil, and Amara had layered it with her own subtle windcrafting, to hide the heat of their bodies from the Vord, as well as their scents. Bernard was also able to settle his earth fury into the foundation of the building beneath them, hiding them from any possible observation by means of earthcrafting. With the added security of their color-shifting cloaks, they were as well hidden as it was possible to be.

Half an hour after night fell, the Vord surged forward in silence and perfect unison.

For several moments, nothing happened-and then, without warning, Ceres blazed into light.

Amara found herself holding her breath. Had this been a normal engagement, the Legions would have engaged with arrows and flame, their archers and their Knights striking with their heaviest ranged salvos from the walls as the enemy closed in. The idea would have been to break enemy morale in the opening charge, to force him to pay heavily in the first moments of the attack on the city, to stamp heavily into the minds of the opposing soldiers and commanders that if they wanted Ceres, they would have to buy it dearly.

But against the Vord, such warfare of the mind was pointless, as were many of the rote techniques and tactics of the Legion-as too many of Ceres’ legionares had already learned.

No arrows flew from Ceres’ walls. No fire leapt out from the battlements. The city, still pitted and battle-scarred from the siege against the Legions of High Lord Kalarus, stood brilliantly lit, silent, and apparently vulnerable as the black tide washed forward.

Amara found her fingers searching for Bernard’s. She grasped her husband’s hand and squeezed tight as the wave of Vord crashed against the walls of Ceres.

Not a sound or motion came from the brilliantly lit city. Not a sword was lifted in resistance, not a legionare stood against the enemy.

The Vord swarmed against the walls, their claws sinking into the stone, climbing up it like enormous black insects. They disdained the tactics of armies, attacking gates and towers, simply scaling the walls wherever they reached them instead. The Vord blackened the land to the south, covering the fields of the broad valley around Ceres like one enormous shadow. For a moment, it looked as though the city would fall without any resistance whatsoever.

Amara knew better. Gaius Sextus commanded her defenses, and the First Lord had planned to make a fight of it.

The first Vord to climb began to crest the walls and mount the battlements.

From deeper and higher within the city, trumpets sounded, sudden and sharp and clear. Amara felt the instantaneous, massive stirring of windcrafting in the air, felt the hairs on her neck and at the base of her scalp begin to stir and rise of their own accord. The air itself seemed to dance and glitter with a hundred thousand flickering pinpoints of silver-white light, a host of miniature stars erupting into brilliant, brief life in the air and upon the trees across the whole of the Ceresian valley.

And then, with a roar that shook the city to the stones of its foundation, lightning leapt up from the city’s walls to the Aleran skies, great, savage spears of scarlet and azure flame, twisting into the shapes of eagles leaping into flight, the colors and symbols of the House of Gaius. That sheet of thunder and power shattered the leading wave of Vord, tearing them from the walls by the hundreds, charring them to black powder in the air, and scattering them back over the stunned forms of their fellows following in their wake.