Princeps’ Fury

“She was a part of it,” Aria whispered. “The cabal that killed him. That’s what Septimus’s letter means. If one reads between the lines.”

“Citizens and lords,” Isana sighed. “Wounded pride. Ambition. Vengeance. Their motivations seem so… average.”

Aria smiled faintly and nodded toward Raucus, who was the center of the swirl of activity. “I think you’ve been given ample opportunity to observe that Citizens and lords can be idiots as easily as anyone else. Perhaps more so.”

Isana gestured at the letters. “Read the letter. It’s in every flourish and scratch. Attis hated Gaius. Hated the corruption, the ambition of his peers.”

“And became what he hated,” Aria said quietly. “It’s happened to many men before him, I suppose.”

Fire blossomed in the midst of the First Aquitaine, the light of a burning sword that was clearly visible, even from that distance, in broad daylight. The Legion roared in response, the sound distant, like the surge of waves crashing on a shoreline. The Legion drove into the mass of the Vord, killing and crushing, lances of fire lashing into the largest of the Vord, spheres of white-hot flame enveloping the heads of the behemoths and sending them crashing down to crush their fellows.

Cavalry alae, launched from the Legions flanking the First Aquitaine, pressed into the gap, harassing and crushing the disordered Vord-while the Legion re-formed and retreated, screened by the shock of the cavalry’s charge. The Legion withdrew perhaps three hundred yards from its original stand against the Vord and reset its lines as the cavalry retreated, in turn, behind them.

Again the Legion clashed with the Vord, who were coming thicker and in greater coordination. The First Aquitaine was joined by its brother Legions on either side-Second Placidan, Isana thought, and the Crown Legion, judging by the ba

Isana watched as the Legion repeated its maneuver against the enemy, but each time the Vord came more thickly, and each time the Legions gained less ground before they were forced to turn and face them again.

“Why hasn’t Antillus attacked yet?” she asked. She looked over her shoulder to Araris, who waited patiently at her back. “If they don’t move soon, the Legions down there will be destroyed.”

Araris shook his head. “No. Aquitaine’s got them right where he wants them.” He pointed at the thickening lines of the Vord. “He’s tempting them into concentrating, readying for a final push.”

“Bloody right he is,” Antillus Raucus said, riding his horse closer, and surveying the battlefield below. “His fliers have spotted us up here. He’s gathering all those great bloody bugs into one place so that I can-” He smashed one fist into the open palm of his other hand, the sound shockingly loud in the comparative quiet of the hilltop. “Not bad work,” he added, in a tone of grudging admiration, “for someone who isn’t much more than an amateur.”

“How long?” Araris asked him.

Raucus pursed his lips. “Five minutes. Next retreat, they’ll push up, and we’ll have them.” He signaled one of the Legion staff waiting nearby and called, “Five minutes!”

The call went up and down the lines of troops and officers, spreading with rapid and precise discipline. Antillus nodded to himself, a sense of confidence and satisfaction radiating from him, now that he was close enough for Isana to sense his emotions. He cleared his throat, and said, “Your Highness?”

“Yes?”

“May I have a moment to speak to you alone?”

Isana arched an eyebrow, but inclined her head to him. “Lady Placida. Araris. Would you give us a moment, please?”

Aria and Araris both murmured assent and walked their horses several yards away. It wasn’t solitude, precisely, but it was as close to a private conversation as they were likely to come by, in the midst of an army preparing to move.

“You never asked me,” Raucus said bluntly. “You never asked me why I had given the order to bring my Legions south. Why I had decided to trust my people’s safety to your word. You just got out of bed and demanded a horse so you could come along.”

“Politely,” Isana said. “I demanded politely. I distinctly remember using the word ‘please.’ ”

Raucus showed his teeth when he laughed. “Crows and bloody furies. It looks like Septimus knew what he was talking about after all.”

Isana returned his smile. “I assumed you would tell me when you were ready.”

“You never asked why I was… so set against you, either, when you came to the Wall.”

“I assumed the same.”

He gestured at the letters she once again held in her hand. “You read them?”

“Of course.”

“You could have been with them,” he said, simply. “You could have been one of the treacherous slives who killed him. Get a child on him, kill him, and put the child on the throne once he was grown.”

Isana drew in a slow breath. “Do you think that now?”

Raucus shook his head. “I followed you here because of what you showed me on that field at the foot of the Wall.”

“What was that?”

The High Lord stared at her for a moment, and then out at the desperate battle unfolding below them. “Any man with a brain in his head looks for three things in anyone he’ll follow: will, brains, and a heart.” His eyes grew distant. “Gaius has the first two. He’s one fearsome old cat.” He gestured at himself. “I’ve the first and last. But those things aren’t enough. Gaius never felt much for his people. He had their fear and respect. Never their love. I took care of my men as best I could. But I let my fear for them blind me to what else was happening.”

“I still don’t understand,” Isana said gently.

“Septimus had all three, lady,” Raucus replied. “You showed me your will when you stayed my attack on the Icemen, and when you challenged me and wouldn’t back down. Even when you bloody well knew you should have.

“You showed me your heart when you fought me as you did-to the death, without flinching. When you lay bleeding with-” He shook his head, as though flinching from the image, but forced himself to continue. “With my sword in your guts. But your concern was for me. I felt it in you. It was no act, lady. You were willing to die to open my fool eyes. There was no scheme in that, no puppet strings. You meant what you said.”

“Yes,” Isana said simply.

“That’s two,” Raucus said. “But when I realized that you staged the whole thing to happen where the Icemen could see-and bloody sense everything that was going on, you showed me you had the brains as well. Sunset came alone into my personal chambers, after we’d seen to your wounds, and gave me his hand and his word that his folk would abide by the truce until we returned from battling the Vord.” Raucus shook his head, and a small note of what might have been wonder entered his voice. “And he meant it. It won’t resolve everything overnight. Maybe even not in my lifetime, but…”

“But it’s a start,” Isana said.

“It’s a start, Your Highness,” Raucus said. “Septimus, my friend, chose you. And chose well.” He bowed his head to her, and said, simply, “I am yours to command.”

“Your Grace,” Isana said.

“Highness?”

“These creatures have destroyed our lands. Murdered our people.” Isana lifted her chin. “Pay them for it.”

When Antillus Raucus looked up, his eyes were hard, cold, and clear. “Watch me.”