Other couriers and messengers were darting up and down the wall, in the air and mounted upon swift horses. Amara narrowly avoided a collision with another flier, a panicked-looking young Citizen in armor too large for him, who called a hasty apology over his shoulder as he struggled to maintain his own windstream. She did not think he looked old enough to attend the Academy, much less serve as a courier in a war.
But he could fly, and the vord had taken away the Alerans' ability to spare their young from the deadly realities at hand. At least he'd been given a duty he could perform rather than simply being relegated to the ranks of Knights Aeris.
Amara arrowed neatly down to the command group, positioned at the center of the wall's north-south axis. Her landing hardly stirred the capes of the elite Knights Ferrous and Terra serving as bodyguards for the command staff. Evidently, word of how she had dealt with the young idiot outside the Princeps' tent had spread, at least enough to ensure that she would be readily recognized. The leader of the contingent was waving her past before she'd settled her weight completely onto her feet again.
Amara brushed past them with a nod, settling her own sword a little more comfortably on her hip. She had declined the offer of a suit of lorica. A body had to be conditioned to bear its weight over the course of months of effort, and Amara had not had that kind of time to spare. Instead, she wore a far-more-comfortable leather coat lined with small plates of light, strong steel. It would almost certainly preserve her hide against an arrow or the slash of a scalpel-edged dueling blade.
Pity the vord didn't fight with either of those weapons.
Amara strode forward to the low observation platform built upon the wall in lieu of an actual tower and mounted the steps to it rapidly.
"I'm simply saying that it's the sort of thing that one can't take too seriously," High Lord Riva was saying. The rather dumpy Lord of Riva looked a bit out of place in Legion lorica, finely made as it might be. "Bloody crows, man," he sputtered. "You've built a bloody campaign fortress right in my own backyard!"
"Good thing I did, too," Bernard said mildly, through his stiffened jaw.
Lord Riva scowled, and said, "I never even appointed you. Bloody Sextus did it, interfering old busybody."
"Mmhmm," Bernard agreed. "Good thing he did, too."
Riva gave him a harsh look that faded quickly as he let out an exasperated sigh. "Well. You tried to warn us about the vord, didn't you?"
"We're all trying to do our best to serve the Realm and our people, sir," Bernard said. He turned and smiled at Amara as she joined them. "My lady."
She smiled and touched his hand briefly. "Shouldn't we sound battle positions?"
"Enemy isn't here yet," Bernard said, his voice placid. "Men stand around with swords in their hands for a few hours, they get nervous, tired, start wondering why some fool gave the order for no reason." He winced and touched his fingertips to his jaw as the effort of so many words pained him. "Won't hurt to wait. Excuse me."
Bernard turned to walk down the wall to the elderly man in Legion armor and a centurion's helmet, his trousers emblazoned with not one, but two scarlet stripes of the Order of the Lion. He muttered a couple of words, and old Centurion Giraldi, out of retirement and back in his armor, nodded stolidly and began dispatching couriers.
"Countess," Riva greeted her, "when a lord raises a great fortress in his liege lord's hinterlands, it's perfectly reasonable to be suspicious. Look what happened at Seven Hills. I don't think I'm out of line, here."
"Under most circumstances, you wouldn't be, Your Grace. But given our situation, I'd say that this is something we can discuss when this is all over. We can even have a hearing over it. Assuming any legates survive."
Riva grunted, rather sourly, but conceded the point with a nod. He stared out to the southwest, his gaze following the line of the causeway that led back to Riva. "My city taken. My people fleeing for their lives, dying. Starving." He looked down at his armor, at the sword on his belt, and touched it gingerly. When he spoke again, he sounded like a very tired man. "All I've ever wanted for my lands was justice, prosperity, and peace. I'm not much of a soldier. I'm a builder, Countess. I was so pleased with how many folk were moving through the lands to trade, with how much good work you and your husband had done in Calderon. Increasing trade. Building goodwill with the Marat." He looked at her mildly. "I assumed that you were saving the money you were making, after taxes. Or investing it, perhaps."
"Oh, we were investing it, my lord," Amara said, smiling faintly. "In this morning."
Riva pursed his lips and nodded. "I suppose I can hardly argue with that. How did you do all this? How did you keep it hidden?"
"The walls?" Amara shrugged. "Most people who pass through the valley never leave the causeway. Anything out of sight of the causeway is not difficult to conceal. For the walls, most of the work, as I understand it, is preparing the earth beneath, first. Gathering the proper stone and so on. Once that is done, the raising of the walls is much simpler."
Riva frowned and nodded. "True. So you aligned the proper stone over time and only brought them up as you needed them."
"Yes. The Dianic League was most useful in helping us with that, as well as with some of the more serious stone-moving craftings." She gestured out at the land before them. "And the walls are only the beginning of the defenses, of course. A skeleton, if you see what I mean."
Lord Riva nodded. "It's... all quite irregular."
"My lord husband and his nephew have been exchanging ideas for it by letter for quite some time. Gaius Octavian has a rather irregular turn of mind."
"So I have gathered," Riva said. He looked at Bernard, and said, "I have to admit, I think he's probably the right choice for running the defenses here. He knows them better than anyone else in the Realm, after all."
"Yes, he does," Amara said.
"Rather remarkable man, really. Do you know, he's never once said, 'I told you so.' "
"He isn't the sort to think such things are important," Amara said, smiling. "But, Your Grace... he told you so."
Lord Riva blinked at her, then let out a rueful chuckle. "Yes. He did, didn't he?"
"Riders!" cried a lookout at the corner of the tower, pointing.
The Aleran pickets who had been watching for the approach of the vord appeared at the top of a distant hill, riding their horses hard down its slope and onto the open plain. Vordknights swarmed over them like night insects around a furylamp, sweeping down to strike and rake, while arrows leapt up from the scouts, with only limited success in warding away the attackers.