Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera 5)

She leaned over and kissed his mouth, lingering for a moment, mouth moving slowly and intently on his.

Bernard let out a growling exhale. "There are some things I miss, too."

"Such as?"

"We'll discuss them when we're finished," he said. "At length."

Amara found herself smiling into the dark. "Good. Anything to make you more determined to get home."

His fingers squeezed hers. Then she felt the earth begin to tremble again, and the light of the gloom-shrouded night bloomed like a darkling sunrise above them. They rose slowly and emerged into the cold, sleeting evening. Without needing to signal one another, they brought up the concealing furycraftings again, their furies winding layers of veils around them even as their cloaks changed their hues, darkening to become one with the night.

Bernard signaled that he would take the lead, then started out into the night, the sound of rattling sleet blanketing the few sounds he made as he moved. Amara wasn't sure of their direction, in the gloom, but she knew that Bernard had a nearly supernatural facility with fieldcraft. He would lead them to the south, in the direction the Vord had taken the Aleran prisoners-and away from their friends and allies, who were retreating from the Vord.

Amara shivered against the cold and the sleet, and fervently hoped that she had been right in her assessment of their abilities-and that she had not just committed herself and her husband to cold and pitiless deaths at the hands of their inhuman foes.

Chapter 23~24

Chapter 23

"There's frozen ground back in Alera, too, soldier," Valiar Marcus barked. "Without a palisade, we'll be easy meat for the first gang of Shuarans to come along. So put your back into it and dig, or I'll have you at a whipping post until your balls freeze and drop off."

The startled legionare, one of the Free Aleran troopers, started up from where he sat, his face showing chagrin that quickly turned to sullen anger. The spear of legionares working on that section of the palisade wall turned darkening faces toward him.

Bloody crows, Marcus thought. It was perhaps unwise to threaten a fanatical former slave with a lashing. He had no desire to fight eight men by himself, but neither could the First Spear back down from any show of open insubordination.

Marcus turned to square his shoulders and face the men, keeping them all within his field of vision. "You know how the Legions maintain discipline, legionare, or ought to."

The recalcitrant legionare, perhaps bolstered by the support of his fellows, drawled, "And maybe it's time that changed, centurion."

Marcus took one step forward, called up strength from the earth, and struck the man with a backhanded blow. The legionare was flung from his feet and crashed into the stack of loose poles that the Legions had brought with them from Alera. The man and the material spilled into a disorderly sprawl. The legionare moaned once and lay in a senseless puddle.

Marcus regarded the man distantly for a moment, and said, "I disagree." He turned his gaze to the other legionares, who stood stunned and staring, and said in a quiet voice, "You'll have to work a bit harder to get your section put up in time, gentlemen."

A tall, wiry man in the helmet of a centurion from the Free Aleran came striding down the line of men erecting the camp's palisade and paused, glowering at the men in front of Marcus. His eyes swept back and forth across them, and fastened on the man on the ground. He grunted, turned to Marcus, and gave him a nod. "First Spear."

"Centurion," Marcus replied.

"Problem with these men?"

"I've been giving them a motivational talk," Marcus said.

The Free Aleran centurion glanced at the unconscious man. He didn't quite smile. "You men are lucky. I'd have had you all at the whipping post."

"But-" protested one of the ex-slaves.

"And I'd have been right to do it," the centurion snapped. "We told you when you signed on that the Free Aleran Legion was not about taking vengeance. We told you that you would be held to the standards of behavior of every other Legion, dealt with in the same way as any free soldier. Now get your lazy asses to work before I decide that the First Spear was too lenient on you, interpret your actions as refusal to obey a direct order while the Legion is in enemy territory, and have you all hanged."

The men were shocked from their stasis by the centurion's words, perhaps. In any case, they leapt back to the work with a will.

Marcus faced off with the centurion and nodded to him. "Thank you," he said in a quieter tone.

"Bugger off, you crowbitten piece of Citizen bootlicking trash, sir," the centurion responded in a voice just as quiet as Marcus's. "You don't know these men, or what they've seen. If you have a problem with our legionares-even idiots like Bartillus, there-you deal with it through our officers. Sir."

"There is no our, here, centurion," Marcus replied, narrowing his eyes. "We're all Alerans here. We'll all die together if it comes to a fight with the Shuarans."

The centurion glared at Marcus a moment longer. Then he grunted, a tone of vague assent, and turned to start back down the line of laboring men. He barked orders for a pair of them to carry the unconscious Bartillus to the healers.

Marcus watched him go and shook his head. Bloody crows, he must be going senile not to have realized how sharp the division between the former slaves and the First Aleran had been. In the wrong situation, they would be as eager to fight the First Aleran as they would the Canim.

And besides that, he admitted to himself, the Free Aleran centurion had a point. Had the men he'd been passing been members of the Crown Legion, or of the First Imperian, he would most likely have spoken to the centurion in charge of the men, though he was technically within his rights to brace the men directly for such an obvious breach of discipline.

Within his rights, but unwise. And it sent the wrong message to the men of both Legions-that the command of the expedition did not trust the Free Aleran's officers. He would avoid a repetition of such foolishness in the future.

"First Spear!" Marcus looked up from his thoughts to spot one of Magnus's runners charging toward him. The young man came to a panting halt and saluted him. "Sir!"

Marcus restrained a sigh, and declined to tell the valet that "sir" was used to address officers, not centurions. "What is it, son?"

"Sir, Sir Magnus's compliments, and a message from the Princeps has arrived, sir. He said you would wish to be informed immediately."

Marcus nodded once, sharply. "Take me to the messenger."