Codex Alera 06 - First Lord's Fury Read Online Free PDF

now,” Raucus said.
    “We think we do,” Aquitaine shot back, heat touching his voice for the first time. “This is our last chance , Raucus. If these Legions fall, there is nothing left to stop the vord. I will not waste the blood of a single legionare if I cannot be sure to make the enemy pay a premium for it.” He folded his hands behind his back, took a breath, and released it again, reassuming his air of complete calm. “They will come to us, and soon, and their Queen will be compelled to accompany them and coordinate the attack.”
    Raucus scowled, his shaggy brows lowering. “You think you can mouse-trap her.”
    “A defensive battle,” Aquitaine replied, nodding. “Draw them to us, endure the assault, wait for our moment, and counterattack with everything we have.”
    Raucus grunted. “She’s operating with furycraft now. And on a scale equal to anyone alive. And she’s still got a guard of the Alerans she took before Count and Countess Calderon ruined that part of her operation.”
    Not even Antillus Raucus, Ehren noted, was willing to point out openly to the new Princeps that his wife was among those who had been compelled to take up arms with the vord.
    “That’s unfortunate,” Aquitaine said, his voice hard. “But we’ll have to go through them.”
    Raucus studied him for a few seconds. “You figure on taking her yourself, Attis?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Aquitaine said. “I’m a Princeps. It’s going to be me, and you, and Lord and Lady Placida and every other High Lord and Lord and Count who can raise a weapon and the entire Legion Aeris and every other Legion I can arrange to be there besides.”
    Raucus lifted his eyebrows. “For one vord.”
    “For the vord,” Aquitaine replied. “Kill her, and the rest of them are little more than animals.”
    “Bloody dangerous animals.”
    “Then I’m sure hunting fashions will become all the rage,” Aquitaine replied. He turned around and nodded. “Sir Ehren. Have the reports come in?”
    “Yes, sire,” Ehren replied.
    Aquitaine turned to the sand tables and swept a hand in invitation. “Show me.”
    Ehren calmly walked to the tables and took up a bucket of green sand. Raucus winced when he did. The green sand marked the spread of the croach across Alera. They’d run through several buckets already.
    Ehren dipped a hand into the bucket and carefully poured green sand over the model of a walled city on the sand table that represented Parcia. It vanished into a mound of emerald grains. It seemed, to Ehren, an inadequate way to represent the ending of hundreds of thousands of Parcian lives, both the city’s population and the vast number of refugees who had sought safety there. But there could be no doubt. The Cursors and aerial spies were certain: Parcia had fallen to the vord.
    The tent was silent.
    “When?” Aquitaine asked quietly.
    “Two days ago,” Ehren said. “The Parcian fleet was continuing the evacuation right up until the very end. If they stayed near the coastlines, they could have employed much smaller vessels as well and loaded all of the ships very heavily. They may have taken as many as seventy or even eighty thousand people around the cape to Rhodes.”
    Aquitaine nodded. “Did Parcia unleash the great furies beneath the city on the enemy?”
    “Bloody crows, Attis,” Raucus said quietly, reproof in his voice. “Half the refugees in the entire south were at Parcia.”
    The First Lord faced him squarely. “No amount of grieving will change what has happened. But prompt action based upon rational thought could save lives in the near future. I need to know how badly the enemy was hurt by the attack.”
    Raucus scowled and folded his heavy arms, muttering beneath his breath.
    Aquitaine put a hand on the other man’s shoulder for a moment, then turned to face Ehren. “Sir Ehren?”
    Ehren shook his head. “There was nothing to indicate that he did so, Your Highness. From what we have heard from the