More missiles flew up at the flight of Knights, but none found their mark, and as Crassus flashed past the gates, Tavi saw him point a finger and cry out. A flickering bead of white-hot fire appeared before him and screamed earthward, striking the pitch-soaked wooden ram and bursting into a sudden cloud of angry fire.
The flame seared and burned, and Canim screamed. The deadly hot pitch took fire as well, dooming anything already soaked in it to a swift and terrible demise.
Atop the walls, Tavi saw one of the Canim reach the wall above his scaling chain, but hard-faced legionares were waiting. Swords and spears lashed out, and the Cane fell out of sight. Other legionares used captured javelins as pry bars, levering the heavy grappling hooks out of position and sending more Canim to the earth.
Tavi could not have said precisely what it was that let him understand it, but he sensed the sudden hesitation in the Canim charge. He turned to Crassus and whirled his arm in a circle over his head.
The Knight Tribune had blackened eyes since Tavi had broken his nose, but they were sharp, and the flight of Knights banked and hurtled along the walls again upon a furycrafted gale, casting dirt and dust into the Canim's eyes and noses while Crassus hurled half a dozen more blazing spheres down into the Canim, tiny beads of light blossoming into explosions of flame.
Before Crassus and his Knights could make another pass, the low horns of the Canim sounded in rapid rhythm, a signal to the attacking troops, and the armored regulars below began a swift and orderly withdrawal. They were back out of bow range within two minutes, though the Alerans on the walls sent as many arrows as they could into the departing ranks.
Crassus began to lead his Knights into a harrying action, but Tavi saw the movement, and lifted his spread hand straight over his head, clenched it into a fist, and drew it back down to shoulder level. Crassus saw the signal, acknowledged it with a raised fist, and he and the other Knights returned to the fortifications.
Around him, legionares let out cheers and rained defiant insults on the backs of the departing Canim. Every man there knew that the battle was far from over, but for the time being, at least, they were alive and unbeaten, and Tavi did nothing to discourage the jubilation given them by the small victory in the opening moments of the battle. He sheathed his sword and watched the retreating Canim, breathing hard though he had barely been physically involved. He leaned out over the battlements and looked down. Still, broken forms lay below, totaling perhaps seven- or eightscore dead. None of the Canim left behind were wounded-only the dead lay there. The regulars had taken their wounded with them.
"Well," Ehren panted behind him. "That was bracing."
"Medico!" Tavi called to a nearby healer. "What's the count?"
"Three casualties, two moderate, one mild. No dead, sir."
That drew another round of shouts from the legionares, and even the First Spear almost smiled. "Good work!" Tavi shouted to them. Then he turned and headed for the stairs down to the courtyard.
"So," Ehren said, following. The little spy was hardly able to wear the armor Magnus had procured for him. "Now what happens?"
"That was just a probe," Tavi replied. "And I'll give fair odds that their leader wanted it to fail."
"Fail? Why?"
"Because Sari is a ritualist, but he's got a bunch of warriors to control," Tavi said. "To do that, he has to convince them that he's strong enough and worthy enough to lead them. He let the warriors take the first swing at us, knowing we'd hit them hard enough to let them know they'd been kissed. His next move is going to be to prove how worthy a leader he is, when he uses whatever powers he has to help them take the walls. He saves lives. Gets to be the hero. Proves his strength."
Ehren nodded, as he and Tavi reached the courtyard, and Tavi walked toward a horse being held there. "I see. So what are you doing now?"
"Cutting Sari's drama out from under him," Tavi replied. He sheathed his sword and mounted the horse. "If I move now, I can steal his thunder."
Ehren blinked. "How are you going to do that?"
Tavi nodded to the legionares at the gate, and they swung it wide open. He whistled up at the First Spear, over the gate, and Marcus tossed him the Legion's standard on its wooden haft. Tavi grounded it next to his boot on the stirrup.
"I'm going to ride out there and make him look like an idiot," Tavi said.
Ehren's eyes widened. "Out there?"
"Yes."
"By yourself?"
"Yes."
Ehren stared at Tavi for a second, then turned and looked out the gates, to where the Canim host waited less than a mile away. "Well, Captain," he said after a beat. "Whatever happens, I suppose someone's going to look awfully foolish."
Tavi flashed Ehren a smile and winked, though on the inside he felt more like screaming and running to a very small, very dark hiding place. It was possible that his whole plan was little more than a fantasy-but after spending so much time with Ambassador Varg, Tavi thought that his knowledge of the enemy might be the only effective weapon against them. If he was right, he could cripple Sari's support, and if extremely lucky, he might even divorce Sari from his regulars altogether.
Of course, if he was wrong, he probably wouldn't live to ride back into the shelter of the town's walls.
He closed his eyes for a second and fought against his fear, forcing himself to tightly controlled calm. Fear, now, would quite literally kill him.
Then he kicked his horse lightly and rode forward out of the protection of the First Aleran Legion and the safety of the town's walls, toward sixty thousand savage Canim.
Chapter 38
Tavi rode out past the crackling bonfire his legionares had made of the Canim's ram. The scent of burnt wood and of something astringent and bitter filled his nose. The fire popped, his mount's hooves struck the ground in the three-beat of a slow canter. Crow calls had become a constant, low background noise, like the crashing of the surf in a seaside town. Otherwise, the gloomy afternoon in the space between armies was freakishly silent.
That was fine by Tavi. The farther he could stay from the Canim host and still be heard, the better.
The ride took forever, and as he drew closer to the Canim host, they seemed larger and larger. Tavi was familiar with the enormous, dangerous presence of the Canim, but even so the sight of the monstrous warriors roused a kind of primitive, instinctive alarm that threatened to undermine his self-control far more powerfully than he would have believed. They crouched down on their haunches on the earth in organized ranks, their own version of standing at ease, tongues lolling out of open mouths as they rested after the attack.