never arrive in time to save Magnus. Fidelias himself was badly wounded. The shock was keeping him from feeling it, but he knew that even with the attentions of a Legion healer, he'd be off his feet for a few days.
Magnus knew.
No one would be able to blame him for only killing two and a half of three vord. Fidelias would remain hidden. Valiar Marcus's position would be secure. And to accomplish it, all Fidelias would need to do was. . . nothing.
Nothing but let one of them, the vord, the foe of every living thing on Carna, rip a trusted confidant of the rightful First Lord of Alera to quivering bits of meat.
And suddenly he was consumed with rage. Rage at the lies and selfish ambition that had poisoned the heart of Alera ever since the death of Gaius Septimus. Rage at Sextus's stubborn pride, pride that had driven him to turn the Realm into a venomous cauldron of treachery and intrigue. Rage at the things he had been forced to do in the name of his oath to the Crown, and then in supposed service to the greater good of all Alera, when it seemed clear that the man to whom he had sworn his oath had abandoned his own duty to the Realm. Things that boy at the Academy, all those years ago, would be horrified to know were in his future.
It had to stop.
Here, before the greatest threat any of them had ever known, it had to stop.
Valiar Marcus let out a roar of furious defiance and threw himself onto the vord's back. He jammed an armored forearm between the vord's jaws, and felt the terrible pressure of its teeth as they clamped down. He ignored it and ripped savagely at the vord's head with his shoulders, twisting and worrying at the thing like a man trying to rip a stump from the earth.
The vord let out a hiss of rage. It was too sinuous and flexible to let him snap its neck.
But as he strained and pulled, Valiar Marcus saw its scales pulled up, extending slightly from the skin of its neck, baring the tender flesh beneath to a blow struck from the proper angle.
Maestro Magnus saw it, too.
He produced the knife from his sleeve with a single flicking motion of his hand, as smoothly and swiftly as a skilled conjurer. The blade was small but bright, its edge deadly keen.
The Cursor drove it to the hilt into the vord's neck. Then, with a ripping twist, he opened the thing's throat. The vord bucked, muscles straining in sudden agony - but its jaws had suddenly lost their power.
Then the legionares arrived, swords hacking, and in a moment, it was over.
Marcus lay on his back on the earth in the aftermath. One of the legionares had gone running to find a healer and raise the alarm. The others had spread out in a line, putting their armored bodies between the gathering night outside and the two wounded old men behind them.
Marcus lay there panting and turned to look at Magnus.
The old Cursor was just staring at him, his watery eyes blank with shock, his face and white beard stained with vord blood. He stared at Marcus and stammered out a few sounds that had no meaning.
"We got to talk," Marcus growled. His own voice sounded rough and thin. "You're getting a little paranoid, old man. Jumping at every shadow. You need to relax. "
Magnus looked at him. Then he turned and stared at the three dead vord on the ground around them. One of them, the second to die, was still twitching, its tail fluttering randomly in the low brush.
Magnus wheezed out a laugh.
Marcus joined him.
When the healers came up with reinforcements, they eyed the pair of wounded old men as if they'd gone completely mad.
They could only laugh harder.
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