And now several centuries' worth of danger and death were racing toward the Aleran lines.
The Legions would never be able to stand before the hammerblow those feral furies would deliver. Simply surviving them would require all of the focus and furycraft at their command - which would mean that they would not be able to direct it toward the vord. And in a purely physical contest, the invaders would grind the Alerans to dust.
And should the feral horde shatter the Legion lines and rush through to Riva and the freemen and refugees now living there... their deaths would be violent and horrible, the loss of life enormous.
The enemy had just transformed Riva from a stronghold into a trap.
Amara felt herself breathing harder and faster than she needed. To the best of her knowledge, there were no Aleran fliers operating as high as her group. The teams covering the lower altitudes wouldn't be able to see the oncoming threat until it was far too late to react.
Amara shivered and suppressed a desire to scream in frustration.
"Aldrick," she snapped. "Take the Windwolves back to Riva, directly to the High Lord's tower. Stand there to cover Lord and Lady Riva, and to respond to any emergency requiring your team's support." Her eyes flicked to Veradis. "Lady Veradis will explain."
Aldrick stared at her, but only for a second. His eyes shifted down and back up, then he nodded once. He made a short series of hand gestures to one of his men, and seconds later, the Windwolves' fliers and the coaches they carried were banking into a turn, to descend toward the embattled city at their best possible speed.
"Amara," Veradis said.
"There is no time," Amara replied calmly. "The enemy has those furies channeled and moving in the proper direction, but they don't have anything like real control over them. They must have modified the causeway, somehow. Once they turn those furies loose, everything is going to change."
"What do you mean?" Veradis asked.
"We won't be able to hold the city," Amara spat. "Not in the face of so many hostile furies. They'll rip the city to shreds around us, killing our people along the way. The only thing we can do is withdraw."
The younger woman shook her head dazedly. "W-withdraw? There's nowhere left to go."
Amara felt a surge of fierce pride rush through her. "Yes," she said. "There is. You will follow Aldrick and his people. Explain to him about the feral furies. Make sure Lord Riva knows, as well."
"B-but... what are you going to do?"
"Warn Aquitaine," she snapped. "Stop hovering there like an idle schoolgirl and go!"
Veradis nodded jerkily, turned, and began accelerating to catch up with the Windwolves. Amara watched for a few seconds, to be sure Veradis wasn't about to fly off in the wrong direction in sheer confusion. Then she turned, called to Cirrus, and dived, rushing down toward the far-distant earth with all the speed that gravity and her fury could give her. There was a thunderous explosion all around her as her speed peaked, and she realized that she had none of the operating passwords for the battlefield below. She would just have to hope that the combat teams patrolling the air were too slow to stop her or kill her before she could speak to Aquitaine.
Besides, that was the least of her worries.
How was she going to be able to face Bernard and tell him that for the sake of the Realm, she had chosen to leave his sister's fate in enemy hands?
Chapter 17~18
Chapter 17
Tavi stood at the prow of the Slive and stared ahead of the fleet as it raced across the long strip of ice laid out upon the north side of the Shieldwall. The ride was not a gentle one. Extra ropes and handholds had been added all over the ship, and Tavi only stayed standing by virtue of holding on to one supporting rope with each hand.
He had grown used to the sound of the runners screaming as they glided over the ice, a sort of endless squeal-hiss that went on and on and on. The ship juddered and shook as it raced before the unnaturally steady northwestern wind, sails rigged to catch it to best advantage. The Slive creaked and groaned with every shudder and thump. Those of her crew not terrified for dear life were frantically running up and down the ship, making constant efforts of woodcrafting to keep her timbers from shivering apart under the strain.
"There it is," Tavi called back, pointing ahead to where a Legion javelin with a green cloth tied across its butt had been thrust into the ice. Crassus and his windcrafters had been racing ahead of the fleet, ensuring that the frozen path the Icemen had created for them remained smooth and safe.
Well. Relatively safe. The pace of the ships was faster than any travel Tavi had ever heard of, short of actual flight. They had covered the full day's marching distance of a Legion on a causeway in the first three hours. At that speed, a patch of bare earth within the ice could catch a ship's keel, and sheer momentum would send it tumbling end over end down the length of the vessel. The Tiberius actually had struck such a bare spot, where the ice hadn't had time to harden properly.
Tavi had watched in helpless horror from a hundred yards away as the vessel wavered, its wing-runners snapping off, and began to tumble, its masts snapping like twigs, its planks splintering into clouds of shattered wood - its crew being tumbled before and among the juggernaut mass of the doomed ship.
Three other ships had foundered as well, overbalanced by the wind, or by mismanagement of their sails, or by simple foul luck. Like the Tiberius, they had come to pieces. Tavi thought himself a bit cowardly for feeling relieved that at least he hadn't actually seen it happening with his own eyes: When an ice-sailing ship went down at full speed, no one survived the wreckage. Canim and men were simply crushed and broken like limp, wet dolls.
Now the fliers were marking any spots that might cause another such accident. It was a simple precaution that had already guided them around two more potentially lethal patches of ground. Any idiot could have thought of it ahead of time, but Tavi hadn't - and the lives of the crews of four ships, Canim and Aleran alike, now hung over him.
"The way remains smooth!" Tavi called, noting the next green-flagged javelin beyond the first. "Keep the pace!"
"Giving orders to keep doing what they're already doing," drawled Maximus from a few feet down the handrail. "Well, they say never issue an order you know won't be obeyed, I suppose."
Tavi gave Max an irritated glance and turned back to face forward. "You want something?"
"How's your stomach?" Max asked.
Tavi clenched his teeth and stared out over the land ahead of them. "Fine. It's fine. It's that slow rolling that really does me in, I think." The ship struck a depression in the ice, and the entire vessel sank, then rose sharply into the air, its runners actually clearing the ice for a fraction of a second. Tavi's heels flew up, and only his hold on the safety ropes kept him from being slammed violently to the deck or off the ship completely.