"Here?" she demanded finally, half-smothered in laughter. "You ask me here? Now? Like this?"
His back had gone completely stiff. "Well," he managed to say after a moment. "Yes. It's..." His voice sobered abruptly. "It's all I have."
She fumbled with her bound, half-numb fingers until she found his. They managed to intertwine some of them, more or less at random.
"It's enough," Isana said quietly.
Araris was carefully still for a moment. "Is... Then... Yes?"
Isana sighed and squeezed his fingers as hard as she could. "Yes."
He suddenly sagged. "Oh," he breathed. "Oh. Oh, good." He shook his head, stroking one of her fingers with one of his. "For a moment there, I was worried."
The absurdity of that statement, all things considered, hit them both at the same time.
They were still laughing together when the tent flap rustled, and Phrygiar Navaris ripped off their hoods, a naked sword in her hand.
Chapter 50
"This one," Tavi said quietly, picking up one of the long blades Durias had brought out for his inspection. He snapped it up to a guard position, whirled it about in a loose circling motion of his wrist, and nodded. He could feel it in the steel, the way it settled in his hand, the subtle vibration of the blade as it ceased motion. The weapon was an old one but of excellent manufacture, its blade notched with battle scars in the torchlight, but still strong, flexible, and true. "What about Ehren?"
'Til take you to him," Durias said. "This way, please, Captain."
Tavi followed the centurion through the darkened Canim camp and was surprised at how much similarity it bore to an Aleran battle camp-though admittedly, the various stations were spread out over a considerably wider area. Perhaps the Canim measured their camp in strides, the way legionares did.
The healer's shelters were crowded, but the sounds coming from them were nothing like those of an Aleran healing tent. Instead of the cries and moans of the wounded, there was nothing but a daunting chorus of snarling and growling in every pitch one could imagine, and it made Tavi glad to be unable to see inside.
Most of the wounded Canim who emerged from the tents were walking under their own power. Those who weren't were almost invariably missing limbs. Somewhere in the background, the mourning howls of individual Canim for their fallen brethren rose into the night sky, haunting and savage and beautiful.
"A year ago," Durias said quietly, "I thought I'd get used to that. Still makes the hairs on my neck stand up."
"We're very different peoples," Tavi said quietly.
Durias turned around and stared at Tavi, his expression surprised. "Huh."
"What's that, centurion?"
"Not sure which surprises me more," he said. "To hear a Legion captain call them 'people' instead of 'animals' or to lump himself into a group with a bunch of slaves who have taken up arms."
"You walk, talk, breathe, eat, sleep. Same as me."
Durias snorted. "Since when has that been reason to regard someone else as an equal?"
Tavi showed Durias his teeth, more in the Canim gesture than the Aleran. "You wear armor, carry a sword-and I'm in your camp."
"Hah," Durias snorted. He shook his head once. "But so what if you're a good talker? Talking is easy."
Tavi found himself smiling more naturally as they walked. "I didn't talk you unconscious last spring, centurion."
Durias snorted and rubbed at his jaw. "No. No you didn't."
"You've been with Nasaug for almost two years, I take it."
Durias nodded. "I was... He said he got the idea for Free Alera from me."
Tavi lifted his eyebrows. Then he said, "You're the First Spear of your Legion."
"Isn't hard to be First Spear, Captain. You just serve longer than the others. I was the first recruit."
"Bet that's a good story."
Durias shrugged his oversized shoulders.
"But you aren't captain," Tavi noted.
Durias's brief grin showed, and he gestured at his jaw. "Don't have the fist-fighting experience for it, I suppose."
Tavi snorted.
Durias took them past the Canim hospital area and nodded at a patched old Aleran Legion pavilion, converted into a tent with the addition of what looked like reused canvas sails. "Your man's in there."
Tavi stepped forward and noticed Durias standing precisely in the "shadow" of his body, exactly where it would be hardest for Tavi to turn and strike him with the sword he carried. He checked over one shoulder and saw Durias's hand on his gladius. He arched an eyebrow at the blocky young man. "What are you doing, centurion?"
"Preventing misunderstandings," Durias said. "Orders, Captain."
Tavi turned fully toward him, then wordlessly offered his sword, hilt first.
Durias shook his head. "That means more here than it does in your Alera, Captain. Keep yours. Just bear in mind that I have one, too."
Tavi studied the young man for a moment, and realized that he was standing with his back straight, feet spread and ready, hand on his sword, but his weight back on his heels. It was an arrogant stance, by Aleran standards, one that almost begged for a fight-but if he'd been a Cane, Tavi would have recognized it immediately as a stance of nonaggression tempered with caution, as one of respect.
"I'll do that," Tavi said. Then he turned and entered the tent, to find Ehren lying in a tub, his throat bloodied-and an enemy knelt beside him with a scarlet blade in her hand.
Tavi's hand went to his sword instantly-but he restrained himself from drawing steel, and an instant later felt the subtle change in the air behind him as Durias's sword crept half an inch from its sheath.
Antillus Dorotea, High Lady Antillus, the sole surviving sibling of the High Lord Kalarus, and the woman who betrayed the First Aleran to the Canim, glanced up at Tavi as he entered the tent.
Tavi felt her emotions at once-first a flare of anger, swift and hot, then a sudden surge of fear that wiped the anger away. She closed her eyes for a moment, lips pressing together, and he felt the woman will both anger and fear away, replacing them with an intent focus and concentration. She turned her attention back to Ehren, who lay naked in a healing tub, his eyes closed and barely conscious.
She set the knife aside, along with the quill she'd been forced to cut free from the swollen flesh around Varg's original incision. Then Lady Antillus gently pressed Ehren lower in the tub, until his throat was covered by the water, and bowed her head.