Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(255)

Tavi was barely able to get his cohort into a more conventional fighting front, incorporating the Knights in its center, before the vengeful Alerans fell on the Canim. Canim screamed. Legionares went down. Tavi fought to keep the lines stable, to get the wounded clear of the fighting before they were trampled. The desperate Canim rushed up onto the improvised battlements and threw themselves over, perfectly willing to fall rather than face the juggernaut of the First Aleran's advance. A few even cast themselves off the bridge. It was a long, dangerous fall to the water from there, the maximum height of the bridge from its surface.

Dangerous as it might have been, the waiting sharks were a far more serious threat-and after two days of constant blood-taint in the water and relatively little food, they were hungry. Nothing that fell into the river came out alive again.

Tavi was the first legionare to mount up onto the battlements at the bridge's center. Ehren was close behind him, and a roar went up from the Alerans as the black eagle/crow banner gained the wall.

Tavi watched as Max and his Knights plunged through the opening in the wall to make sure the Canim had a reason to continue their retreat. They were followed by a number of excited Battlecrows who should have been taking defensive positions, but who had allowed the heat of battle to control their movements. Max, Crassus, and the Knights Terra settled for crippling blows upon the fleeing Canim where they had to, and the following legionares finished up the gruesome work the Knights had begun.

Tavi had no idea whether Max realized how far past the wall the assault had actually rolled, and he signaled the Battlecrows' trumpeter to sound the halt. The clarion call rolled out over the downhill slope of the far side of the bridge, and at its signal Max looked around him, and even a hundred yards away, Tavi could see the expression of dismay on Max's face as he saw how far forward he'd come.

Beside Tavi, Kitai sighed and rolled her eyes. "Alerans."

Max got the Knights and legionares stopped and began an orderly withdrawal back to the wall at the bridge's center.

Tavi glanced over his shoulder, then turned and started back down to the surface of the bridge, barking out orders. "Bring up the engineers! Knights Aeris to the wall! Battlecrows, with me!"

Ehren followed hard on his heels. "Uh, sir? Shouldn't we be preparing to, uh, you know. Defend against a counterattack?"

"That's what we're doing," Tavi said. He stalked through the opening in the wall and out onto the surface of the bridge. Tavi stared down the Elinarch's slope, to where the Canim were already rallying, down at the next defensive wall. "Schultz! Bring them up!"

"Right," Ehren said. His voice sounded distinctly nervous. "It's just that it seems a shame that the engineers went to all this trouble to build us a real nice wall, and here we are out in front of it. Not using it. I'm just worried that it might hurt their feelings."

"The Knights need the space on the walls and the engineers can't afford to be interrupted by a breakthrough. We have to buy them all room to work in," Tavi said.

"Us," Ehren said. "And one cohort." He stared down the bridge. "Against the next best thing to sixty thousand Canim."

"No," Kitai put in quietly. "Us against one."

Tavi nodded. "Sari."

Ehren said, "Ah." He glanced back as the Battlecrows filed into place around them. "You don't think there's a chance he might bring a friend or two?"

"That's the idea," Tavi said. "Make sure they can see the standard."

Ehren swallowed and adjusted the standard against the wind. "So they know exactly where you are."