“What are you talking about?” Malahi asked.
“Peaceably assailing a fortress,” Agrippa called back. “Killian’s never done it, so I’m imparting my extensive wisdom.”
Killian gave Agrippa a furious shove, the pair arguing under their breaths before going back to Agrippa’s drawing, and next to her, Baird gave a soft chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Lydia asked the giant, whom she’d thought had been asleep.
“The four of you make me feel old,” he answered. “And young.”
He closed his eyes, seemingly unconcerned with leaving Lydia unsupervised with Malahi, which gave Lydia a strange sense of peace in her heart.
“I looked for answers in the library at the healing temple,” she told Malahi. “I couldn’t find anything, but it was disorganized and there wasn’t time to read everything.” Shaking her head, she added, “It made me wish for the Great Library in Celendrial with its endless librarians who, between them, have read every tome. Research takes time, and time is the one thing we don’t have.”
“There is such a library in Revat,” Malahi said. “I’ve seen it myself. More books than you can imagine and countless librarians holding court within its walls, many of whom are marked. We could appeal to the Sultan for their help, for if there is an answer written, it is surely there. Once we reach Serlania, we should send word.”
To call it a plan was a mockery of the word, but it wassomething.Something where moments before, there had felt like nothing.
Lydia smiled and stretched her legs out before her, only for every instinct in her body to flare as Malahi’s eyes widened with fear.
A cold blade pressed against Lydia’s throat, and then a male voice said, “Some might say it is brave for Mudamorians to walk these lands, but I? I say it is very,veryfoolish.”
34TERIANA
Teriana leaned on the ramparts, her eyes staring north. Not at the endless swathes of jungle, but at a vision in her imagination of the Orinok river. A river wider than any in the world, yet not an hour ago, Marcus had ordered hundreds of men to accompany Rastag to its banks.
Where they were instructed to build a bridge.
Not just any bridge, but a bridge over a river that increased to three times its width each rainy season. Which meant that it was a bridge that never had a hope of being completed because it would be washed away as soon as the heavy rains began to fall.
“Could be a floating bridge,” Quintus had offered when they’d heard about thenew plan.“Those don’t take long to build.”
Except floating or otherwise, Marcus had ordered the bridge built exactly opposite the Gamdeshian fortress on the far bank. A fortress withcatapultsthat would make short work of any construction that reached past the midpoint of the river.
Even Quintus seemed worried. He no longer clung to his unfaltering faith that no matter Marcus’s flaws, he’d never lead the Thirty-Seventh astray. This was unease that was clearly shared, for through her tent walls, Teriana heard mutters about the lunacy of it all. Most of it came from the Forty-First and Fifty-First, but the unease in the Thirty-Seventh was palpable even in their silence. Marcus was the reason they were considered the most dangerous legion in service, ever undefeated, but if he’d lost his nerve, that would swiftly change.
It was as though in their erosion of faith in him, they’d lost faith in themselves. While on duty, they seemed calm, but the moment the legionnaires were left to their own devices, violence ensued. Most especially when men ventured into Aracam. She’d have thought it because of the tension of the war they all knew was coming, but the civilians were as bad, if not worse. She’d heard that last night the legions had broken up dozens of fights, and this morning, no less than six bodies had been found in alleys.
Friends killing friends.
Husbands murdering wives.
Mothers turning on children.
To top it off, disease was taking a toll. Not on the legion camp, but on the civilians, and Teriana had heard that Racker and his medics frequently went into Aracam to treat illnesses common to the Empire that had never been seen before in the West.
Because all the healers were absent.
All themarkedwere absent.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Teriana returned to watching the Thirty-Seventh train the Fifty-First.
It was the one thing that did seem to be going right in a sea of wrong, and Teriana thought that might be because it was the one order Marcus had given that made sense.
They’d spent the day in endless exercises and drills, the older legionnaires seeming to take their duties to the boys as a personal mission after Marcus’s speech late that morning. The boys had come out of Lescendor supposedly knowing everything, but even her inexperienced eye could see the superior skill of legionnaires who’d been blooded in battle more times than they could count. “Could they win a battle on their own?”
Quintus yawned. “That’s too vague a question. Give me a situation. Numbers.”
“The battle on the plains beyond the ridge.” She shoved her hand in her pocket, gripping the hair ornament, the tiny mast digging into her palm. “When the Thirty-Seventh was attacked from the rear.”
