Read Captain's Fury for Free Online Page A

until the fighting is over."

    "But those are going to fight like the crows are coming for them," Max said, his voice grim.

    "Yes," Tavi said quietly.

    Max was silent for a minute. Then he said, "All the more reason to order the attack. I know why you didn't do it. Great furies know I agree with your principles. But a lot of men are going to have to die to stop them now. You could have done that without a loss. It's going to cost us."

    "It won't cost as much as creating a Legion of martyrs," Tavi said quietly. "If I'm right, then right now, four thousand slaves have taken up arms. If we'd wiped them out, Max, if we'd proven to every slave in the occupied territory that Alera didn't give a crow's feather about their lives, Nasaug wouldn't have four thousand fresh troops ready to fight. He'd have forty thousand terrified, outraged volunteers. Read history, Max. The Canim have." Tavi shook his head. "Men fight hardest for their lives—and for their freedom."

    Max drew in a slow breath, his rough, appealing features drawn into a pensive frown. "This was a trap," he said quietly. "We were offered those warriors as bait."

    "This could have been a trap," Tavi said, nodding. "But Nasaug doesn't plan operations with only one purpose if he can possibly help it. I think this was something else, too."

    "What?" Max said.

    "A message." Tavi rose, nodding to the downed scout. "Come on. We'd better clear out before his friends notice that he's missing and come looking for him." Tavi leaned down and rolled the limp man onto his side.

    "What are you doing?"

    "Making sure he doesn't choke on his own blood," Tavi said. "Let's move."

    They moved at a crouch out to where they'd left the horses, hidden in a thick copse of evergreens. "Tavi?" Max asked.

    "Yes?"

    "Is that really why you didn't order the attack? Did you really think it was a trap?"

    Tavi regarded his friend steadily. "You think I felt sympathy for them."

    "No," Max said. "I bloody well know you did, Calderon. I know you. But we're at war. I'm not sure you can afford that. I'm not sure the men can afford it."

    Tavi paused beside Acteon, one hand on the saddle, one on the reins, and stared at nothing in particular. "I think," he said quietly, "that I have a duty to Alera, Max. All Alerans." He took a deep breath and mounted. Then he said, his voice distant and very calm, "And yes. That's why I didn't kill them all."

    Max mounted a moment later and rode up beside Tavi as they moved back toward the rally point. "That works for me." He glanced back at the ridge behind them and let out a low chortle.

    "What?" Tavi asked.

    "Your singulare has been walking around in your shadow for almost two years now. The first day he's not here, you charge out into the field and get yourself half-choked to death. He's going to be furious. So's Kitai."

    Tavi let out a rough-sounding chuckle. It grated painfully in his throat. "Don't worry, Max. I'll deal with them."

    Max's smile faded. "Senator Arnos was hoping to put a big new feather in his cap for this conference with the First Lord. He and the War Committee are not going to be happy about you letting those regulars get away."

    Tavi felt his eyes narrow as his smile turned into a simple baring of his teeth. "Don't worry, Max," he said. "I'll deal with them, too."

Chapter 2

    "First Spear!" bellowed a legionare's voice.

    Valiar Marcus had spent more years in the Legions than many of the volunteers in the First Aleran had been drawing breath. Though he'd had the third watch, and been asleep for less than an hour, his feet swung off his cot and hit the cheap rug that he'd thrown over the bottom of his small, but private, tent. He already had his tunic and boots on by the time the legionare reached his tent.

    "Centurion," panted Vilius, a young legionare in the cohort's third century. "We've got reports of movement on the road to the east. A large force."

    "Bloody crows," Marcus swore. "The relief column." He struggled to draw