Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(163)

Max's expression became pained, but then a centurion called out that the column was ready.

"Go," Tavi said. "I'll catch up to you."

Max exhaled slowly. Then he squared his shoulders and offered Tavi his hand. Tavi shook it. "Good luck," Max said.

"And to you."

Max nodded, mounted, and called the column into motion. Within a moment, they were out of sight. A moment more, and the sound of their passage faded as well, leaving Tavi suddenly alone, in the dark, in a strange part of the country filled with enemies only too glad to kill him in as painful and horrible a fashion as possible.

Tavi shook his head. Then he started stripping out of his armor. A beat later, Kitai was at his side, pale, nimble fingers flying over straps and buckles, helping him remove it. He drew his dark brown traveling cloak from his saddlebags, donned it, and made sure that both horses would be ready to move when he and Kitai returned.

Then, without a word, Kitai headed out into the night at a vulpine lope, and Tavi fell into pace behind her. They ran through the night and the occasional flicker of bloody lightning, and Kitai led him up into the rolling hills that framed that stretch of the Tiber valley.

His legs and chest were burning by the time they reached the top of what seemed like the hundredth hill, nearly two hours later, then Kitai's pace began to slow. She led him over the next few hundred yards at a slow, perfectly silent walk, andTavi emulated her. It took them only a moment more to reach the lip of the hill.

Light glowed in the distance, bright and golden and steady. For a moment, Tavi thought he was looking at the burning city of Founderport-until he saw that the light of the tremendous fire was actually behind the city, from his perspective, its light making the city walls stand out as sharp, clear silhouettes.

It took him a moment longer to recognize what he was seeing.

Founderport wasn't burning.

The Canim ^feet was.

The fire roared so loudly that he could actually, faintly hear it, as a far-distant moaning sound. He could see, amidst smoke and fire, the shapes of masts and decks of sailing vessels being consumed by flame.

"They're burning their own ships behind them," Tavi whispered.

"Yes, Aleran," Kitai said. "Your people would not have believed it, from the lips of a Marat. Your eyes had to see."

"This isn't a raid. It isn't an incursion." Tavi suddenly felt very cold. "That's why there are so many of the Canim this time. That's why they're willing to sacrifice a thousand troops just to keep us occupied."

He swallowed.

"They mean to stay."

Tavi stared out at the burning ships, so far away, and thought about all the implications their presence would mean. It meant that whatever the Canim had done in the past, matters had altered, and drastically.

For all of Alera's history, conflict with the Canim had been for control of the various islands between Alera and the Canim homeland-harsh, pitched fights for seaside fortifications, mostly, usually with a naval battle or two mixed in. Every few years, Canim raiding ships would hurtle from the deep seas to Alera's shores, burning and looting towns where they could, carrying away the valuables to be had there, and occasionally seizing Alerans and dragging them off to a fate no one had ever been able to ascertain. Whether they wound up as slaves or food, it was certainly an unpleasant ending.

More infrequent were larger Canim incursions, some of which had curled around the coastline to the seafaring cities like Parcia, and dozens of ships swept down together in a much larger attack. The Canim had burned Parcia to the ground some four hundred years before and had leveled the city of Rhodes no fewer than three times.