Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(167)

It was terrifying, frustrating, unfair, and he leaned back against Kitai, taking solace in her presence, her scent, her touch.

"They're coming," he murmured. "It won't be long now."

Kitai looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. "If it is true, if they are a great host, can your Legion destroy them?'

"No," Tavi said quietly. He closed his eyes for a moment, helpless as a ludus piece, and every bit as likely to be destroyed with the killing came and hurtled them into a grim endgame.

Endgame.

The wolfish Canim war horns sounded again.

Ludus.

Tavi took a sudden deep breath and rose to his feet, mind racing. He stared out at the light of the burning ships in Founderport s harbor, reflecting against the low clouds overhead.

"We can't destroy them," he said. "But I think I know how we can stop them. "

She tilted her head. "How?"

He narrowed his eyes, and said, very quietly, "Discipline."

Isana, exhausted, did not lift her head to ask, "What day is it, Giraldi?" "The twenty-ninth day of the siege. Dawn's in a few hours more." Isana forced herself to churn thoughts through her weary brain. "The battle. Is Lady Veradis likely to be free today?"

Giraldi was silent for a long minute. Then he dragged a stool across the floor to Isana and sat down on it in front of her. He leaned down and lifted her chin with callused, gentle fingers, so that she had to look up at him. "No," he said quietly. "She won't, Isana."

Isana struggled to process the thought. Not today, then. She must hold another day. Another eternal, merciless day. She licked her dried, cracked lips, and said, "Gaius will come soon."

"No," Giraldi said. "There's something about this storm that keeps Knights Aeris from flying more than a few yards off the ground. The First Lord could not send rapid response troops to lift the siege, and Kalarus has disrupted the causeways between Ceres and the capital. It will take them another week to march here."

A week. To Isana, a week almost seemed like a mythical amount of time. Perhaps that was a mercy. A single day was a torment. Just as well that she could not clearly remember how many days were in a week. "I'm staying. "

Giraldi leaned forward. "Kalarus's forces have breached the city walls. Cereus and Miles managed to collapse enough buildings to contain them for a time, but it's only a matter of hours, probably less than a day, before he's forced back to the citadel here. The fighting is worse every hour. Cereus and Miles have lost more Knights, and now the enemy's take a greater and greater toll of the rank-arid-file legionares. Veradis and her healers work to save lives until they drop. Then they get up and do it again. None of them can come to help you."

She stared at him dully.

Giraldi leaned forward and turned her head toward Fade. "Look at him, Isana. Look at him."

She did not wish to. She could not quite remember why, but she knew that she did not want to look at Araris. But she could not summon up the means to deny the centurion's command. She looked.

Araris, Fade, her husband's closest friend, lay pale and still. He'd coughed weakly for several days, though that had ceased sometime in the blurry, recent past. His chest barely rose and fell, and it made wet sounds as it did. His skin had taken on an unhealthy, yellowish tinge in patches around his torso and neck. He had cracks in his skin, angry sores swollen and red. His hair hung limp, and every feature of his body looked softened, more indistinct somehow, as if he'd been a still-damp clay statue slowly melting in the rain.