Kitai was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was more gentle. "What do you mean?"
"Chala," he said quietly. "Look at what the Vord have done to the Canim. If the only option we have is to fight... I don't think Alera could do any better. How am I supposed to lead people into a fight I know they can't win? Ask them to die in vain? Watch them d-"
His vision blurred for a moment, and his throat felt tight.
Kitai's arms tightened around him, and he suddenly became intensely aware of her love for him, her faith, her trust, wrapping around him as tangibly as her embrace. "Oh, chala," she said quietly.
Several moments passed before he could speak. "What do I do?"
Her hand touched his face. "I know that you feel as if you need to find some clever alternative. Some way to overcome the Vord, to save lives, to avoid bloodshed. But this is not an enemy who might live with you in peace for a time. The Vord want nothing but to destroy. And they will destroy you if they can. They will use your desire for peace against you."
She gently turned his head until he could meet her eyes again. "If you truly want peace, if you truly wish to save lives, you must fight them. Fight them with everything you have. Fight them with everything you are. Fight until there is not a breath left in your body." She lifted her chin. "And I will fight beside you."
She was right, of course. He knew that. When the Vord finished with the Canim, they would come for Alera. The advantage of numbers they had was formidable, but it wasn't impossible. Not if all of Alera worked together.
That was the problem. There were too many divisive elements in play at home. Oh, certainly, once Alerans at large realized the danger, they would respond together-but by the time they did, it might already be too late. His uncle had been trying in vain to warn Alera about the Vord for years. Many Alerans regarded the Canim as little more than animals with weapons. His countrymen would never believe that the Canim civilization had been so large, so developed, and consequently its destruction would lack credibility as a warning of the danger to come.
Worse, he himself represented another enormous element of division. Many Citizens had tacitly refused to recognize his legitimacy as heir to the Crown. He had escorted Varg's people back to Canea precisely because his presence was such a potent disruption. Crows, he'd felt fortunate to avoid any encounters with assassins before he left.
Gaius was wise and powerful, but he was also aging. Fighting a campaign of the scale of this one would be would be taxing even on a young man-and it was the kind of fight the old First Lord was not suited to in the first place. He was a master of politics, of manipulation, of the critical strike delivered at precisely the right instant with precisely the force needed. He was used to being thoroughly in control.
But war wasn't like that. You never thought of all the possibilities. Something always happened to throw off your plans. Supplies could be delayed or lost. Soldiers could encounter sickness, bad terrain, parasites, faulty gear, hostile weather, and a million other factors that would prevent them from performing as expected. Meanwhile, the enemy was doing everything in his power to kill you. No one could control that kind of chaos. All you could hope to do was keep your eyes open, make sure everyone was working together, and stay a couple of steps ahead of disaster.
A united Alera would have a chance. Probably not a good chance, but if led correctly, they could make a fight of it. Oh, certainly Gaius had the training, but the study of books and the stories of old generals and models on a sand table were a far cry from war's horrible reality. Could Tavi's aging grandfather change his thinking as quickly and drastically as this war would demand?
The first step, Tavi supposed, was to believe. Believe that victory was possible. Believe that he could make it happen. Then bring that same belief to others. Because sure as crows on a corpse, anyone who fought believing they would lose had lost already. He had to trust in his grandfather, the single most formidable person Tavi had ever known, to guide the Realm through this storm. And if he was to trust and serve the First Lord, then he had to give the fight everything he had.
There would be no surrender.
"All right," he said quietly. He looked up at the earthworks and nodded. "Let's get inside. There's a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in."
Kitai's arms tightened hard on him, and he felt her fierce pride and exultation as if it were his own.
Tavi rode toward the last defenses of a dying land to do everything in his power to take a host of deadly allies to the man who was Alera's only hope.
Chapter 40
For the first time in history, Alera Imperia braced herself for war beneath a canopy of wheeling crows.
Ehren stood on a southward-facing balcony of the First Lord's citadel, where Gaius was the center of a swarm of activity while the Legions prepared to defend the city. From there, he could overlook all the prepared defensive positions, descending through the city's defensive rings.
Alera Imperia had been built to withstand a siege-originally, at any rate. Her avenues ran in concentric, descending circles around the citadel, with cross streets laid out in straight lines from the city's heart, like the spokes of a wheel. Each avenue was approximately fifteen feet above the next level of the city, and the stone buildings lining each avenue had been reshaped by Legion engineers, so that their outer edges had become defensive walls. The streets had been sealed, except for a single avenue between each level, alternating on opposite sides of the city. Now, the only way to the citadel was a long corridor of streets faced with stone walls, so that even if the enemy took one gate, they would be faced with another and another before they reached the citadel itself.
Against conventional tactics, Alera Imperia could theoretically hold against an attacker almost indefinitely.
Against the Vord... Well. They would soon find out.
"... and Third Rivan will also be on the first tier," Aquitainus Attis was saying, nodding to the city gates behind the actual, massive walls of battlecrafted stone, far below the citadel. "First and Third Aquitaine, Second and Third Placidan, and the Crown Legion are camped on the north side of the city, outside the walls."
"I cannot agree with this measure," muttered a man Ehren recognized as the senior captain of the Rhodesian Legions. "We may not be able to open and close sally ports to get your men back inside when the Vord arrive."
"It's the right move," Captain Miles said. "A mobile force can exploit any opening they leave us as they approach the city. They could inflict more damage than months of fighting from defensive positions."