The silence thickened.
"We have to move, fast and hard," Tavi said. "There are millions of lives at stake, and the enemy knows where we are. So we're not going to be here. We're going to be in Calderon by tomorrow, a full day before we're expected. And then we're going to find the vord Queen and pay the bitch back for what she did tonight."
Eighty men raised their voices in a sudden, furious roar of approval.
"Schultz will give you your assignments," Tavi said. "Get it done."
Another roar went up, and Schultz began striding down the ranks, striking each man lightly on his armored shoulder with his baton and issuing the name of an Aleran or Canim officer he was to contact. The men went sprinting into the dark, and within minutes trumpeters were sounding the signal to prepare to march.
"Sir," Schultz said, after he'd sent the last of the men off, "we might make Calderon that fast. But the Canim can't, sir, nor their beasts. There's no way."
Tavi showed the legionare his most Canish smile. "Faith, Schultz," he said. "Where there's a will, there is a way. And my will is for us all to be in Calderon by the sunrise after next."
Schultz blinked. "Sir?"
"Get the rest of the 'Crows ready to move out, Schultz," he said. "That's your job. Getting all of us there? That's mine."
Chapter 45~46
Chapter 45
The vord came precisely when Invidia said they would. Sunrise was still four hours away, and once the moon had vanished behind the mountains to the south, the night turned as black as the inside of a coffin.
Amara was on the wall, waiting to see if Invidia had spoken the truth. There was no warning whatsoever. In one moment, the night was completely silent and still. In the next, there was a single flicker of movement at the very edge of the ground illuminated by the wall's furylights, then the gleaming black chitin of the horde exploded from the night, rushing across the ground in the rumble of millions of feet striking the still-scorched earth.
They must have moved slowly and silently until they reached the edge of the lights, Amara thought. No Aleran Legion could possibly have moved stealthily in such vast numbers - but it hadn't done them any good. The legionares on the walls were ready and waiting.
Hundreds of Citizens brought up the flickering curtain of fist-sized fire-spheres that had first been used at Riva. It proved just as deadly to the foe here as it had at the great city. Vord surged into the burned zone before the wall and were slain in blasts of fire and superheated air, a million deadly fireflies barring their way. The horde died by the hundreds, then the thousands, but as they had at Riva, the weight of numbers began to let the vord grind their way forward, scrambling over the corpses of their fallen comrades, laying a road of death and twitching limbs for those coming behind them.
Within moments, the vord had paid the necessary toll, and the Aleran firecrafters who lined the walls began to crumple down, exhausted. As they did, they were replaced with every Knight Flora in the Legions, and every Citizen with the necessary skills to join them. Arrows began to leap from bows, their fury-enhanced limbs sending the shafts leaping forward with supernatural power.
Deadly arrows hissed through the night, with the Knights Flora working in teams of ten and twenty, sharing targets with shouts of coordination, each archer loosing as fast as he could. Hundreds of streams of arrows slewed back and forth across the vord lines, like the sprays of water used by fire wardens in cities all across Alera.
In many ways, Amara supposed, fighting the vord was a great deal more like battling a fire than an enemy. They rushed forward with the same implacable need to devour and spread. The streams of arrows would beat back the vord where their deadly skill touched them, but wherever a stream hadn't swept for a few seconds, the vord surged forward again, like a blaze chewing through an old wooden building - just as determined, and just as unstoppable.
Amara licked her lips, her heart beating faster, as the first vord mantis reached the wall and began gouging out fresh climbing holds. Archer teams began withdrawing, leaving heavily armed legionares to take their places.
Standing beside her, Bernard nodded judiciously. "About now, I think."
Amara nodded and turned to the trumpeter next to her. "Signal the mules."
The man saluted and immediately began blowing a quick signal on his horn. In the dark on the ground behind the wall, the mules went to work again. Their arms made a creaking sound, followed by a distinct report of wooden arm striking wooden crossbeam, followed by a rattling, thumping sound as the mule rocked wildly back and forth before settling down again. A few seconds later, the ground outside the walls was illuminated by a blossoming wall of flame, incinerating hundreds more vord.
But they never slowed down.
Bernard watched a while more, until every archer team in sight was down from the walls and in their second position. The legionares fought on doggedly, throwing down the enemy with sword and shield, spear and fury. "Any sign?" he asked Amara.
Amara swept her eyes over the sky. It was impossible to see even the stars of the moonless sky outside of the radius of the wall's furylamps. "Not yet," she reported.
Bernard grunted. "What about that reserve force?"
Amara looked up and down the walls for the telltale colored furylamps they were using to send messages. A flashing blue light would have indicated that someone had spotted the specialized troops Invidia had described. "Not yet," Amara said.
Bernard nodded and continued watching the battle, unmoving, apparently unconcerned.
Amara knew it was a facade, for the benefit of the troops, and she tried to support it by appearing just as calm and steady as her husband - but despite her efforts, she bit her lip when she saw a young legionare, barely more than a boy, seized by a mantis's scythes and tossed screaming into the swarm below. His companions in arms cut the vord responsible into quivering chunks - but they were too late for the youth. Wounded were being carried from the wall by field medicos every few seconds. Once more, the Marat and their gargants stood by, patiently waiting while dozens of wounded were loaded into their carrying harnesses, then turned to begin striding toward Garrison.
"This is getting tight," Bernard muttered. "They're pushing harder than they did before."
"Should we sound retreat?"
Bernard stood calmly, looking down at the battle and giving no indication of his concern on his face or in his body language. "Not yet. We've got to know."
Amara nodded again and struggled to control her outer self once more. It was difficult. Calm and composure in the face of personal danger was something she had been trained for, something she had mastered. Watching others carried away, screaming in agony - or worse, dying in perfect silence - in support of the plan she'd helped to shape and create was something else entirely. She hadn't been ready for this. She'd had no talent whatsoever for watercrafting, and could barely make water roll across the bottom of a shallow pan, back at the Academy, when she'd been practicing hard. Now she wished she'd done even more. She would give anything to be able to let herself feel the horror that was hammering down on her without fearing that the sight of tears on her face might make things even worse.