Even this city, though, had been strained to its limits, Tavi could see. Dome-shaped tents stood in precise groups around the city’s walls, stretching for thousands of yards over the open ground of the plateau, surrounded by simple earthworks patrolled lightly by warrior Canim in blue-and-black armor. Beyond them, cruder tents had been erected in a far-more-chaotic fashion. As they passed through them, Tavi could see evidence of tanners, smiths, and all manner of other tradesmen necessary to support such a gathering of troops. Members of the maker caste, the tradesmen had evidently overflowed whatever quarters had been intended for their use in the city proper. The cold and the rain kept most of the occupants of the tents inside them, but a few laborers-notably smiths-were still hard at work under flimsy canopies, and wide-eyed Canim children came rushing to the flaps of the tents to watch as the taurga came huffing and swaying through the tent city.

“They’re cute,” Max commented idly. “The little ones.”

Durias snorted.

Tavi glanced over his shoulder at the former slave and arched an eyebrow. “Not cute?”

“They’re adorable,” Durias said. “But I once saw a slave owner who was being taken to his trial try to escape by taking one of them hostage. Little female, maybe five years old. He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, picked her up, and put his arm around her throat. Held her like you might a child you had half a mind to strangle. Had a knife in his other hand.”

Kitai, riding in front of Tavi, turned all the way around in her saddle, comfortably balanced in the rhythm of the walking taurg, her expression intently interested. “What happened?”

“That little female puppy opened up her jaws and just about tore that bad man’s hand off at the wrist,” Durias said. “She did dislocate his shoulder in the process.”

Tavi lifted his eyebrows. “Strong little things.”

“They don’t develop the same way our children do,” Durias said, nodding. “By the time they can run, their muscles are functioning almost at an adult level.”

“What happened to the slave owner?” Kitai asked. “Was he found guilty at the trial?”

“No,” Durias said shortly. “The puppy’s mother was there. So was her uncle. Once the child was out of reach of the knife…”

Tavi winced. Not that he mourned the loss of any man who would take a child prisoner-even the child of an avowed enemy invader-but he couldn’t imagine that a slave owner, no matter how benevolent or law-abiding, could have expected to survive a trial in the hands of a government composed of ex-slaves. Such pressure could drive any man to desperate acts.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Captain,” Durias said, a few seconds later, as though he had read the thoughts behind Tavi’s expression. “The man was a rapist and worse. We did all that we could to spare the lives of those who hadn’t actually abused women or taken a slave’s life themselves.”

Tavi shook his head and chuckled wryly. “There’s going to be a lot of things to be worked out once we get home, you know.”

“Slavery must end, sir,” Durias said. His tone was quiet and respectful, but the words were made of granite and steel. “From there, we are willing to abide as any other freeman. But not until all Alerans are free.”

“That isn’t going to be simple or easy,” Tavi said.

“Worthy things often aren’t, sir.”

They drew near the gates of the fortifications themselves-massive things that rose forty feet above the level of the plateau. The falling rain had begun to coat them in ice. Low-burning torches blazed at wide intervals on the walls, providing barely enough light for the Alerans to see. That could become a problem. The Canim had excellent night vision. The light they preferred to use, when they used any at all, was a dim, red form of illumination that was hardly enough for Aleran eyes to separate solid shapes from shadows. There was no reason to suppose that the interior of their fortress would be lit well enough to prevent the Alerans from looking extremely foolish-which was to say, helpless and weak.

And that, Tavi thought, would be a very bad message to send to the Shuaran nation.

A horn blew atop the gates, and Anag bellowed for the column to halt. He began exchanging what sounded like formal greetings with the guard atop the gate, introducing their company.

“Max,” Tavi said. “Crassus. Once we get into the dark, we’ll need to see our way. I think your swords should strike the proper tone.”

Crassus nodded and Max grunted in the affirmative. A moment later, the huge gates swung open, wide enough to allow the column of taurga to enter three abreast.

Max and Crassus fell in on either side of Tavi, with Durias and Kitai bringing up the rear. As they passed into the blackness beneath the gates, into the tunnel that ran beneath walls a hundred feet thick, the two brothers drew their long blades and held them upright, at rest beside them. As they did so, bright tongues of flame suddenly rushed out from the hilts of the blades to their tips, golden white light that wreathed the steel and drove back the cavernous night beneath the Shuaran gates.

As the company rode out of the tunnel and into the city beyond it, they entered what looked like a large square or marketplace, where hundreds of Canim, makers and warriors alike, were hurrying past through the rain, purpose in their strides. As the light of the blazing swords began to cast harsh, long shadows against the buildings on the far side of the square, several dozen passersby stopped to stare at the troop and the Alerans as they entered the city.

Then an Aleran Legion trumpet abruptly rang out behind Tavi, sharp and silvery, crying out against the dark stones of Shuar. The opening bars of the Anthem of Eagles, the clarion call of the Princeps of Alera, shivered through the rain and the night, proud and cold and defiant. Tavi shot a quick, surprised glance over his shoulder, to see Durias lowering the trumpet, returning it to hang from its baldric at his side. The young centurion inclined his head to Tavi with a very small smile and winked.

If the glare of light had slowed foot traffic around them, the cry of the trumpet stopped it completely.

The square went deathly still and silent. Hundreds of dark Canim eyes stared intently at the visiting strangers.

Varg nudged his mount forward, glancing once at Tavi.

Without knowing precisely why, Tavi felt that the Cane wanted him to do the same. He guided his own taurg to stand beside Varg’s.

“I am Varg of Narash,” the grizzled Cane called out, his voice carrying throughout the city around them. “This is my gadara, Tavar of Alera. We ride to seek audience with Warmaster Lararl. Let any who would bar our way stand forward now.”

Within seconds, a path leading to one of the exits on the far side of the square was entirely unoccupied.

“Huh,” Max muttered. “Guess they know him here.”

Varg let out a satisfied sound somewhere between a grunt and a growl, and made a polite, beckoning gesture to Tavi. The two of them started their mounts forward, followed closely by Max and Crassus, with their burning blades, then Durias and Kitai, and finally followed by Anag’s troops, formed into a hasty honor guard.

Word apparently rushed ahead of them as they rode. Though the cavern-dark city was filled to overflowing with Canim, the street before Tavi and Varg was, without exception, perfectly empty.

It was an eerie ride. What would have been familiar crowd murmur in Alera Imperia was instead the continuous chorus of rumbling growls and snarls that comprised the Canim tongue. Though the light cast by the brothers’ swords was bright, outside of that circle there were only dark shapes and thousands and thousands of gleaming red eyes-and the occasional glimpse of white fangs.

The atmosphere was not helped by the fact that Max and Crassus, at Tavi’s suggestion, had slowly decreased the intensity of the flames surrounding their swords, until the Alerans’ eyes had adjusted more adequately to the dim red luminescence the Canim favored for light. They still could not see well, but neither had they been entirely blinded as they entered the city, and avoiding moments of apparent weakness was critically important in any dealings with their predatory hosts.