Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera 3)

Max jabbed the baton into Nonus again. The legionare nodded frantically.

"Good man," Tavi said, then clucked to his horse, riding on without so much as looking over his shoulder.

He only got to hear Magnus descend from his own mount, fuss for a moment over the state of his saddlebags, then present his papers to the prostrate sentry. He cleared his throat, and sniffed. "Magnus. Senior valet to the captain and his staff. I cant abide the state of your uniform. My bloody crows, this fabric is simply ridiculous. Does it always smell so bad? Or is that just you? And these stains. How on earth did you manage to... no, no, don't tell me. I simply don't want to know."

Max burst out into his familiar roar of laughter, and a moment later he and Magnus caught up to Tavi. The pair of them rode through row after row of white canvas tents. Some of them looked Legion-perfect. Others sagged and drooped, doubtless the quarters of fresh recruits still finding their way.

Tavi was surprised at how loud the place was. Men's voices shouted to be heard over the din. A grimy, blind beggar woman sat beside the camp's main lane, playing a reed flute for tiny coins from passersby. Work teams dug ditches and hauled wood, singing as they did. Tavi could hear a blacksmith's hammers ringing steadily nearby. A grizzled old veteran drilled a full cohort-four centuries of eighty recruits each-at the basic sword strokes Tavi had learned so recently, facing one another in a pair of long lines and going through drilled movements by numbers barked by the veteran, shouting in response as they swung. The strokes were slow and hesitant, incorrect movements aborted in midmotion to follow the instructor. Even as he watched, Tavi saw a rudius slip from the hands of a recruit and slam into the kneecap of the man beside him. The stricken recruit howled, hopping on one leg, and blundered into the man on his other side, knocking half a dozen recruits to the ground.

"Ah," Tavi said. "Fish."

"Fish," Max agreed. "It should be safe to talk here," he added. "There's enough noise to make listening in difficult."

"I could have handled those two, Max," Tavi said quietly.

"But an officer wouldn't," Max said. "Centurions are the ones who break heads when legionares get out of line. Especially troublemakers like Nonus and Bortus."

"You know them," Tavi said.

"Mmmm. Served with them, the slives. Lazy, loud, greedy, drunken, brawling apes, the both of them."

"They didn't seem happy to see you."

"We once had a discussion about the proper way to treat a lady in camp."

"How did that turn out?" Tavi asked.

"Like today, but with more teeth on the ground," Max said.

Tavi shook his head. "And men like that are given status as veterans. They draw higher pay."

"Outside a battle line they aren't worth the cloth it would stain to clean their blood off a knife." Max shook his head and glanced back at them. "But they're fighters. They know their work, and they've been in the middle of some bad business without folding. That's why they got out under voluntary departure rather than forced discharge for conduct unbecoming a legionare."

"And it also explains why they're here," Magnus added. "According to the records, they're honorable veterans willing to start with a fresh Legion-and that kind of experience is priceless for training recruits and steadying their lines in battle. They know they'll have seniority, that they won't have to do the worst of the work, and that they'll get better pay."

Max snorted. "And don't forget, this Legion is working up in the bloody Amaranth Vale. Plenty of freemen would kill to live down here." Max gestured around them. "No snow, or not to speak of. No rough weather. No wild, rogue furies. Lots of food, and they probably think this is a token Legion that will never see real action."

Tavi shook his head. "Aren't men like that going to be bad for the Legion as a whole?"

Magnus smiled a little and shook his head. "Not under Captain Cyril. He lets his centurions maintain discipline in whatever way they see fit."

Max twirled his baton with a sunny smile.

Tavi pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Will all the veterans be like them?"

Max shrugged. "I suspect that most of the High Lords will do everything in their power to keep their most experienced men close to home. No Legion has too many veterans, but they all have too many slives like Nonus and Bortus. "

"So you're saying the only men in this Legion will be incompetent fish-"

"Of which you are one," Max said. "Technically speaking, sir."

"Of which I am one," Tavi allowed. "And malcontents."

"And spies," the Maestro added. "Anyone competent and friendly is likely a spy."

Max grunted. "They can't all be rotten. And if Valiar Marcus is here, I suspect we'll find some other solid centurions where he came from. We'll slap the scum around enough to keep them in line, and work the fish until they shape up. Every Legion has this kind of problem when it forms."

The Maestro shook his head. "Not to such a dramatic degree."

Max shrugged a shoulder without disagreeing. "It'll come together. Just takes time."

Tavi nodded ahead of them, to a tent three or four times the size of any others, though it was made of the same plain canvas as all the rest. Two sides of the tent were rolled up, leaving the interior open to anyone passing by. Several men were inside. "That's the captain's tent?"

Max frowned. "It's in the right place. But they're usually bigger. Fancier."

Magnus let out a chuckle. "That's Cyril's style."

Tavi drew his mount to a halt and glanced around him. A slim gentleman of middle age appeared, dressed in a plain grey tunic. The eagle sigil of the crown had been stitched into the tunic over his heart, divided down the middle into blue and red halves. "Let me take those for you, gentlemen." He glanced at each of them and then abruptly smiled at the Maestro. "Magnus, I take it?"

"My fame precedes me," the Maestro said. He pushed the heels of his hands against the small of his back and winced, stretching. "You have the advantage of me."

The man saluted, fist to heart, Legion fashion. "Lorico, sir. Valet. I'll be working for you." He waved, and a young page came over to take the horses.

Magnus nodded and traded grips with the man, forearm to forearm. "Pleased to meet you. This is Subtribune Scipio Rufus. Centurion Antillar Maximus."

Lorico saluted them as well. "The captain is having his first general staff meeting, sirs, if you'd care to go inside."