Amara let out a nervous little laugh, and her cheeks flushed hot. She took two steps to Bernard and leaned up to kiss him again. He returned it, one hand touching her waist, a possessive gesture.
She withdrew from the kiss slowly, and searched his eyes. "Do you think we can hold out?"
Bernard began to speak, then stopped himself. He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. "For a little while," he said quietly. "But we're outnumbered, and the enemy has no fear of death. The men will get injured. Tired. Spears and swords will break. We'll soon run out of arrows. And I'm not so confident that Giraldi's man can bring up any water. With furycrafting, we might hold out for several hours. Without it…" He shrugged.
Amara bit her lip. "You think that we should use it after all?"
"No," Bernard said. "You've made your case, Amara. I think you've seen what we haven't. You're one damned sharp woman-which is one of the reasons I love you." He smiled at her, and said, "I want you to have something."
"What?" she asked.
"It's an old Legion custom," he said quietly, and took the thick silver band set with a green stone from his right hand. "You know that legionares aren't allowed to marry."
"And that most of them have wives," Amara said.
Bernard smiled and nodded. "This is my service ring. Marks my time with the Rivan Fourth Legion. When a legionare has a wife he isn't supposed to have, he gives her his ring to hold for him."
"I could never wear that," Amara said, smiling. "It's not quite big enough for my wrist."
Bernard nodded and drew a slender silver chain from his pocket. He slipped the ring through it, and placed the necklace gently about her throat, clasping it with a dexterity surprising for a man so large. "So a soldier will put his ring on a chain like this," he said. "It isn't a marriage band. But he knows what it means. And so does she."
Amara swallowed and blinked back sudden tears. "I'll be proud to wear it."
"I'm proud to see it on you," he said quietly. He squeezed her hands and glanced past her as a light drizzle began to come down. "Maybe it will make them miserable."
She half smiled. "It's a shame we don't have another, oh, thirty or so Knights Aeris. With that many, I might be able to do something with that storm."
"I wouldn't mind another thirty or forty earth and metalcrafters," Bernard said. "Oh, and perhaps half a Legion to support them." His smile faded, eyes sharpening as he watched the vord. "Better get moving. They'll be here in a moment."
She squeezed back hard, once, then hurried into the cave to round up their knights, as grim-faced veteran legionares began to arise, weapons and armor prepared, and fell into ranks with quiet, confident purpose. Giraldi hobbled by, using a shield as a kind of improvised crutch, giving quiet orders, tightening a buckle here, straightening a twisted belt there. He broke the century into its "spears," its individual files, ordering each file into its own squad.
The men of the first squad marched in good order to the front of the cave, while the others formed up behind them, ready to move forward if needed.
Amara rounded up the Knights, placing the archers on the elevated shelf and setting their remaining four Knights Terra on the ground before them. Each of the large men had strapped on their heavy armor and bore the monstrously heavy weaponry that only fury-born strength could wield. When those men cut into the unarmored ranks of the taken, it would be pure carnage.
Thunder rolled again, loud enough to shake the cave, and on the heels of the thunder, an eerie howl rose up through the morning air and sent rivulets of cold fear rippling over Amara's spine. Her mouth went dry, and she took a step up onto the elevated shelf to be able to see.
Outside, the file of taken was on the march, moving swiftly toward the cave. It was an eerie sight. Men, women, even children, dressed in Aleran clothing and Legion uniforms, all the clothing stained, twisted, rumpled, dirty, with no effort made to correct it. Faces stared slackly through the rain, eyes focused on nothing, but they moved in inhumanly perfect unison, step for step, and each of them bore weapons in their hands, even if they gripped only a heavy length of wood.
"Furies," breathed one of the legionares. "Look at that."
"Women," said another man. "Children."
"Look at their eyes," Amara said, loudly enough to be heard by everyone around her. "They aren't human anymore. And they all will kill you if you give them the chance. This is the fight of your lives, gentlemen, make no mistake."
The queen prowled along aside the lead rank until they reached bow range, at which time she fell back along the far side of the column, shielded from view by the file of taken. From behind the file, that eerie call rose up again, and Walker shook himself as he rose from his crouch, enormous claws flexing, and answered the call with a rumbling, trumpeting battle call of his own.
Bernard came up from the back of the cave and leapt up onto the shelf, his great bow in hand. "Men, you'll be happy to know that we'll have plenty of water to drink, compliments of Rufus Marcus. And it only tastes a little bit funny."
There was a rumble of low laughter from the readied legionares, and a couple of calls of, "Well done, Rufus!"
Outside, the column of empty-eyed taken grew closer, marching with steady speed through the rain.
"Careful now," Bernard said. "Front rank, keep your shields steady, mind your bladework, and don't get greedy with the spears. Second rank, if a man goes down, do not pull him back. That's for third rank to do. Get your shield into place."
The steady tramp of hundreds of feet striking in unison grew louder, and Amara felt her heart begin to race again.
"Keep them from closing if you can!" Bernard called over the noise. "They're all going to be stronger than they look! And by the great furies, don't let any of your swings hit the allied auxiliaries."
"Just me and you," Doroga rumbled to Walker. "But they are calling us allied auxiliaries."
The gargant snorted. Another low round of chuckles rustled among the legionares.
The tramp of feet grew louder.
And hundreds, if not thousands, of crows came flashing over the crown of the hill outside the cave in a sudden, enormous, raucous cloud.
"Crows," breathed a number of voices in a whisper, including Amara's. The dark fliers always knew when there was a slaughter in the making.
Crows screamed.
Thunder rumbled.
The tread of feet shook the earth.
Doroga and Walker bellowed together.
The Alerans joined them.
And then the first rank of the taken raised their weapons, crossed into the cave, and slammed into a wall of Legion shields and cold blades.
Chapter 44
Tavi had already done so many foolish things for one evening that he decided that stealing three horses wasn't going to significantly change the amount of grief he would receive whenever official attention finally settled on him. There was an ostler's filled with riding horses brought in from all over the countryside around the capital, some from as far as Placida and Aquitaine.
One step upon the property revealed the presence of an unfriendly earth fury, and Ehren warned them that there was a watchful wind fury around the barn. Tavi and Kitai, not without a certain amount of smug satisfaction, used the methods Kitai had shown him and broke into the barn as they had the prison. Within moments, furies circumvented, locks picked, horses and gear liberated from the dark quiet of the stables, Tavi and Kitai rode out, leading a third horse for Ehren, who swung up into the saddle as they came out of the ostler's. They were half a block away before the furylamps around the burgled stable started flashing on, and though the proprietor attempted to raise a proper hue and cry, the attempts were lost amidst the general merry confusion of Wintersend.