Codex Alera 05 - Princeps' Fury Part 16

Tavi nodded. "Me too." He put a hand on Max's shoulder. "Max, I need your help here. The rain's getting heavier and the night's getting colder. If we don't get some shelter, we could freeze to death."

Max closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Right. I'm on it." Max closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Right. I'm on it." "Durias," Tavi said. "Would you a.s.sist him, please?" "Durias," Tavi said. "Would you a.s.sist him, please?" The burly centurion nodded. "Yes sir, Captain." The burly centurion nodded. "Yes sir, Captain." Kitai walked over to Tavi. "You. Armor. Off." Kitai walked over to Tavi. "You. Armor. Off."

Tavi had been wearing the Legion lorica for so long that he had virtually forgotten it was there, but Kitai was right. The temperature was dropping fast. Once it was cold enough, any flesh that touched the armor would freeze to it-and besides, wearing it under those weather conditions was rather like putting on a coat made of icicles.

Tavi felt distinctly vulnerable as he shed the steel casing, and he doubted that Max and Durias liked it any better. The two men knelt at the center of the tower, bare hands flat to the dark stone, their eyes closed. Within a moment, there was a trembling vibration in the soles of Tavi's boots, then a smooth, round half dome of stone, like a partial bubble made of solid granite, rose out of the top of the tower.

Max and Durias sat back on their heels once it was done. Then Durias rose, considered the eight-foot dome for a moment, and with casual precision drove his fist through an inch of solid rock. He ran his fingertips horizontally over the surface and did it again. Then he moved down the dome and went through the same process, until he had broken out a rough doorway leading to the dome's interior.

Max bowed and rolled his hand in an elegant flourish. "Your summer palace awaits."

They gathered their things and hurried out of the rain. It was not nearly the improvement Tavi had hoped for. They were out of the wet, but the inside of what was in essence a small cave was not precisely warm. At least, not until Max frowned ferociously in concentration, the tip of his tongue between his lips, and laid his fingertips on one wall of the dome. His hands s.h.i.+mmered with heat-not the savage white flame of a battlecrafted fire, but something infinitely more gentle, hardly visible, and within a moment or two the dome was as warm as a baker's kitchen.

Kitai let out a purring sound and stretched out full length upon the floor. "I like you." Kitai let out a purring sound and stretched out full length upon the floor. "I like you." Max smiled wearily at her and slumped down. "Should keep us for a while. If we can hang a cloak over the doorway, longer." Max smiled wearily at her and slumped down. "Should keep us for a while. If we can hang a cloak over the doorway, longer." "I'll see to it," Durias said, taking off his own plain green cloak. "We should get some sleep." "I'll see to it," Durias said, taking off his own plain green cloak. "We should get some sleep." "Kitai," Tavi said. "Kitai," Tavi said. "No," she said. "I'll do it." "No," she said. "I'll do it." Max looked back and forth between them. "Do what?" Max looked back and forth between them. "Do what?" "Stand first watch," Kitai said. "Stand first watch," Kitai said.

Durias glanced back at them. "Do you think we need to do that? I know we're prisoners, but Lararl did give us his word that he wouldn't harm us tonight. When the Canim give their word, they mean it."

"It seems to me that Varg has Hunters that he sometimes employs when he needs to get around portions of his codes of behavior and honor that somehow conflict with his interests," Tavi said. "So far, Varg seems to have used them in order to protect the spirit of those codes, if not their letter. But it occurs to me that it would be a very small step for a Warmaster to employ his Hunters to get around the spirit while preserving the letter, if you see what I mean."

Durias frowned. "You don't think it's possible that you're judging Lararl wrongly?"

"Of course it's possible," Tavi said. "But it isn't probable. He gave us his oath of peace tonight, then stuck us on a roof in these conditions and left us here without shelter, food, or water. He's keeping the letter of his word. But not the spirit of it. So we're standing watch."

"I am standing watch," Kitai said. "Your lips are still blue." "I am standing watch," Kitai said. "Your lips are still blue." Tavi frowned and glanced at Max's dim form. "Are they?" Tavi frowned and glanced at Max's dim form. "Are they?" "Can't tell," Max said. "Too dark in here." "Can't tell," Max said. "Too dark in here." "There, you see?" Kitai said. "I am the only one qualified to judge." "There, you see?" Kitai said. "I am the only one qualified to judge." She pushed Durias's cloak aside and slipped out of the shelter. She pushed Durias's cloak aside and slipped out of the shelter. The rest of them had been Legion long enough to know what to do next. The rest of them had been Legion long enough to know what to do next. They were asleep in seconds. They were asleep in seconds.

Tavi woke later. The rock of the tower was hard and uncomfortable under his back, but not painfully so-he hadn't been sleeping longer than two or three hours. The stone was cool, but true to Max's word, the air inside the little shelter was still toasty warm. Tavi had pa.s.sed worse nights in the field with the Legion.

The cloak over the dome's doorway moved aside, and Kitai appeared in the door. She padded silently to Tavi's side, knelt, and kissed him. Then she gave him a sleepy-eyed smile and stretched out on the floor. "Your turn."

Tavi gathered up his cloak, dry after several hours in the warmth inside the shelter, and threw it on over his shoulders before heading out into the cold and the mild sleet atop the tower. He drew the hood over his head and looked around the top of the blocky building, identifying Varg's silent form, crouched at the westernmost edge of the building. Tavi padded quietly across the wet, cold stone to stop several feet away from Varg, where he could still see the enormous Cane in his peripheral vision, and stared out over the sight below them.

Lararl's command building overlooked the fortifications below, where the battle against the Vord was raging. As far as Tavi could tell, it was going at precisely the same furious pitch as it had hours before. Still the Shuarans, in their blue-and-black armor, fought to hold the battlements, and still the Vord came on in a gleaming black tide.

From above, though, it was possible to make out far more detail.

The Vord had changed from those Tavi had seen and heard described before. Previously, he had encountered only the many-legged Keepers, bizarre, spiderlike creatures who haunted the green-glowing croach croach, the strange growth that covered the land wherever the Vord went. They were about as big as medium-sized dogs, weighing perhaps thirty or forty pounds each, had a venomous bite, and were frighteningly swift and nimble.

But he had also read his uncle's reports concerning the Vord warrior-creatures, enormous things each the size of a bull, hunched and crablike in their thick sh.e.l.ls, with huge pincer-claws and buzzing wings that could launch them skyward.

These were different.

All of the Vord attacking the fortifications were covered in the same slippery-looking black chitin, with the same eerie angularity to it, the same oddly shaped limbs-but the similarities went no further than that.

Some of the Vord went upon two legs, monstrosities more than ten feet tall, and impossibly wide. They moved with slow, ponderous steps, lifting stones that must have weighed well over a hundred pounds, and hurled them at the fortifications like an idle boy flinging rocks into a pond. Some of them went mostly on all fours, their lower limbs freakishly oversized and overdeveloped. They were able to make tremendous leaps of forty and fifty and sixty feet at a time, like huge, hideous frogs, or fiendishly oversized crickets, attacking by slamming their spine-covered bodies violently into their foes.

The majority of the Vord in the a.s.sault had powerful shoulders and heavy arms, ending not in grasping hands but in vicious, scythelike hooks. The head was elongated, apparently eyeless, though it sported a nightmarishly oversized mouthful of curving black fangs-a bizarre fusion of wolf and mantis.

Tavi realized with a start that the Vord had somehow taken inspiration from the foe that they faced.

They had made themselves more like the Canim.

Tavi's gaze went to the fortress's defenders. The Shuaran warriors favored axes over the curving swords commonly carried by Varg's Narashans, and they used the weapons against the armored chitin of the Vord with crus.h.i.+ng effect. The Shuarans worked methodically, in teams of two and three warriors, as the Vord tried to breach the walls. One or two warriors would pin a single Vord with spears fitted with heavy crosspieces, while a third, wielding an axe, would close in for a killing stroke.

Here and there among the defenders, Tavi spotted the figure of a black-robed ritualist, wearing the usual hooded mantle. These ritualists, however, did not sport the usual garment of pale leather Tavi had become accustomed to. Instead, theirs were made of gleaming black scales of chitin. The ritualists, Tavi realized, wore mantles made from the flesh of their foes.

Which meant that the pale leather of the mantles Sarl and the Narashan ritualists had been wearing was made of . . .

Tavi shuddered.

As he watched, one of the ritualists thrust a clawed paw-hand into a leather basket-pouch at his side, and withdrew it soaked in dark crimson blood. He flung the blood out over the edge of the battlements he defended just as a number of Vord scaled the top simultaneously, threatening to create a breach in the defenses. Tavi couldn't hear the Cane from his position, but he saw the ritualist lift his muzzle to the night sky, jaws parted in a primal howl.

There was a flicker in the air as the droplets of blood flew, green-gold sparkles, and suddenly a cloud of sickly green gas billowed forth from the empty air. The gas rolled out in an instant, engulfing the threatening Vord-who simply dissolved, convulsing in agony, their bodies liquefying with terrifying abruptness as the green cloud touched them. The ritualist lifted the bloodstained paw-hand and slammed it down, as if smas.h.i.+ng a book down upon an insect, and the green cloud descended over the edge of the battlements just as abruptly.

Tavi had seen some of his own men slain by an identical ritual-working during his two-year battle with the Narashans. He had no qualms with watching the Vord be slain, but he was just as glad that he did not see the carnage that the ritualist had just visited upon whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to be below that section of the wall.

The Shuarans were professionals. Their tactics were calculating, brutal, and efficient. They were not battling the Vord, so much as simply butchering them as they attained the walls. From what Tavi could see, forty, perhaps even fifty Vord fell for every single casualty suffered by the Shuaran warriors.

Even so, he thought, the Vord stretched to the horizon. Even so, he thought, the Vord stretched to the horizon. They could afford to pay that price. They could afford to pay that price. Tavi did not think that the Shuarans could. Tavi did not think that the Shuarans could. "Tell me what you see, Aleran," Varg rumbled quietly. "Tell me what you see, Aleran," Varg rumbled quietly.

Tavi glanced over at the grizzled Warmaster. Varg had unrolled the heavy cloak carried by all Narashan warriors. He crouched on his haunches, the cloak completely covering him, the sleet and rain sheeting down it to the surface of the tower. His hood covered all but the last inch or two of his muzzle.

"The Vord aren't using any taken," Tavi said quietly.

Varg grunted and nodded to Tavi's left. "Down there."

Tavi looked that way, to the first street above the active battlements. He spotted a number of young Canim there, adolescents and children mostly, spread out every ten or twenty feet. All of them bore short clubs and crouched beneath their cloaks against the rain, just as Varg was doing.

"Sentries," Tavi surmised. "To keep the takers from getting into the city."

"Takers smell bad," Varg said. "Make odd noise when they move. Young ones have the sharpest senses. And the takers are only a threat if one is not aware of them. Lararl has the young ones positioned all over the city." The Cane turned to look at Tavi, eyes gleaming within the depths of his hood. "But you know that is not what I mean."

"No." Tavi returned his eyes to the battle. "The Vord aren't using aerial troops. They could have created half a dozen breaches by now if they were, and forced Lararl to fall back to his next line. Instead, they're just throwing away tens of thousands of their soldiers. They're up to something."

Varg turned his gaze back to the fight. "When we were both young, I tried to teach Lararl to play ludus ludus. He refused. He said that to learn war, one studies war. That games and books are a waste of time."

Tavi shook his head. "Will he truly attack your people?"

Varg nodded.

"With a foe like this out to destroy us all, he would truly put others of his own kind to death. It seems foolish to me," Tavi said.

Varg shrugged. "Shuar could barely produce enough food to sustain itself in the best of years. They imported food from other ranges. From Lararl's perspective, my people are doomed to death by slow starvation in any case. It is a dishonorable way to die. Far preferable for their lives to be spent in a useful purpose."

"Were I Lararl, I would reach for every possible weapon I could find against a threat like that."

"Were you Lararl, the one whose decisions defended your people's children, you would use the weapons you knew you could trust to destroy the enemy. You would be forced to choose who would live and who would die, Aleran. And given a choice between sacrificing the lives of your own people and the lives of neighboring enemies who were also in danger, you would protect your people, just as I would protect mine-and Lararl protects his." Varg shook his head. "He fears that he will fail his people's trust in him. It makes him almost blind. He cannot see even that much."

Tavi sighed. "Even though he's just told you he intends to murder all of your people, including your own son, and even though he's broken the spirit of his word of peace to us by putting us up here in this weather, you defend him."

Varg's chest rumbled in a warning growl. "No," the Cane said. "I understand him. There is a difference."

Tavi nodded, and was silent for a time, watching the battle below. Then he said, "What will he do next?"

Varg's ears twitched slightly, this way and that, as he pondered. "Lararl knows that when Sarl fled, he took ten thousand warriors with him. He will think Nasaug has no more than ten thousand under his command at Molvar. And so he will send thirty thousand to a.s.sault them in order to force a surrender."

"Will they?" Tavi asked.

"Ten thousand warriors against thirty thousand, in hostile territory? Only a fool would throw away his warriors' lives in such a hopeless battle." Varg showed his teeth. "But Lararl does not know that Nasaug has trained our makers into something very like warriors themselves. His thirty thousand will meet something more like sixty thousand. And Nasaug will hand them their tails."

"And then what?" Tavi asked.

Varg tilted his head slightly, staring at Tavi.

"After that, what will your people do?" Tavi asked. "Fortify Molvar? Hold it? Wait for the Vord to break through Lararl's defenses and besiege them? Then fight until they are pushed into the sea?"

Varg turned back to the fight. "What would you have me do?" Varg turned back to the fight. "What would you have me do?" "Return to Alera with me," Tavi said. "Return to Alera with me," Tavi said. Varg snorted, eyes glittering. "You just spent years convincing us to leave." Varg snorted, eyes glittering. "You just spent years convincing us to leave." Tavi gestured at the land below and said, quietly, "That was before I saw this." Tavi gestured at the land below and said, quietly, "That was before I saw this." "And the sight made you wish to help us, Aleran?" "And the sight made you wish to help us, Aleran?"

"If it helps, let's just say that I consider you and your people to be dead already. And you know as well as I do that it will only be a matter of time before the Vord arrive in Alera. I simply wish to spend your deaths more profitably for my own people."

Varg's ears twitched in amus.e.m.e.nt, and his mouth dropped open for a bare second.

"My people at Molvar are in danger as well," Tavi said. "It makes sense for us to a.s.sist one another until we are out of the current crisis."

"You propose an alliance," Varg mused. "You propose an alliance," Varg mused. "I do." "I do." The Cane was silent for long moments more. Then he nodded once, and said, "Done." The Cane was silent for long moments more. Then he nodded once, and said, "Done."

CHAPTER 19

Amara and Bernard watched from a position of perfect concealment as the Vord annihilated the remnants of the Ceresian rear guard. The doomed legionares legionares took their stand in the ruins of a nameless village beside the causeway. They locked s.h.i.+elds, faced the foe, and fought with desperate determination to slow the oncoming enemy, to give the holders still trying to flee for the safety of the city's walls a chance to escape. took their stand in the ruins of a nameless village beside the causeway. They locked s.h.i.+elds, faced the foe, and fought with desperate determination to slow the oncoming enemy, to give the holders still trying to flee for the safety of the city's walls a chance to escape.

Four-legged creatures that looked something like the deadly predator-lizards of the southwestern swamps near Kalare dominated the enemy numbers. Long, low to the ground, swift, and powerful, their bodies were covered with the same dark chitin as the other Vord Amara had seen-with the addition of raised, serrated ridges down the lengths of their spines and flanks. As Amara watched, one of them snapped its jaws closed on the thigh of a legionare legionare. In a flash, it had wrapped its body around the man, the motion bonelessly swift-and then it simply writhed writhed, its body gliding in constant motion like a serpent circling its way up a tree branch.

The ridges ripped through steel and flesh alike, and the legionare legionare screamed as he died. screamed as he died.

The Ceresian cohort, more than three hundred men, were overrun by the Vord. Their lines held for ten seconds, then fifteen, then twenty. Then they seemed to sag and collapse inward, and the black tide of Vord swarmed over the men, rending and ripping, barely slowing down before they continued in pursuit of the band of refugees the legionares legionares had given their lives to protect. had given their lives to protect.

They had died for nothing. They had died for nothing. The Vord caught the holders within two minutes. The Vord caught the holders within two minutes. Amara couldn't watch the holders, most of them very old or very young, die. She closed her eyes. Amara couldn't watch the holders, most of them very old or very young, die. She closed her eyes. But she could still hear them screaming. But she could still hear them screaming.

With so much chaos, so much confusion, so much destruction in the lands of Ceres, it had been inevitable, she told herself, desperate to distract herself with a flow of simple fact and calm deduction. Some of the steadholts had received word in time to avoid the oncoming terror. Many had not. Of those that hadn't, the majority had reacted by taking to the causeways to flee for the shelter of their High Lord's Legions-and rushed directly into the waiting talons and mandibles of the Vord.

Lord Cereus had spent his legionares' legionares' lives in an effort to s.h.i.+eld the refugees for as long as possible, sending out his small cavalry forces in an effort to guide fleeing holders off the causeways and around the worst areas of danger, but there simply had not been enough time or enough men. The slow, the foolish, or the merely unlucky perished by the hundreds upon the roads of Ceres over those few desperate days. lives in an effort to s.h.i.+eld the refugees for as long as possible, sending out his small cavalry forces in an effort to guide fleeing holders off the causeways and around the worst areas of danger, but there simply had not been enough time or enough men. The slow, the foolish, or the merely unlucky perished by the hundreds upon the roads of Ceres over those few desperate days.

There was nothing she and Bernard could have done. The Vord were simply too many. Any action on their part would have accomplished nothing but to reveal their presence and seal their own fates along with those of the slain refugees. Their mission was more important than that. It could save hundreds of thousands of lives. She could not afford to let compa.s.sion for those who were directly in front of her blind her to the fact that she had a greater responsibility to the whole of the Realm. Doing her job was the proper thing to do, the logical thing to do.

Still, she wept for the brave legionares legionares and the poor holders, and logic was no comfort whatsoever. and the poor holders, and logic was no comfort whatsoever.

She wept, but she did so in silence. In the hours that followed, the Vord overran their position in greater and greater numbers, some of them pa.s.sing within yards of where she and her husband lay hidden by veil and stealth and furycrafted cloth. The enemy was gathering for the attack that would certainly fall soon upon the single Aleran strongpoint that remained to challenge them.

Ceres itself.

She had not spoken to her husband for four days.

That was, Amara thought, the worst part of the entire arrangement. Speech was a luxury that could not be afforded, not when the enemy could literally lurk beneath virtually any fallen leaf. They could move in nearly perfect silence, and complete invisibility-but the sound of voices, even in whispers, would betray the presence of Alerans more surely than nearly anything else they could do.

Legion scouts had long since developed a fairly complex series of hand gestures, capable of signaling critical information in the field, but it was by no means a subst.i.tute for speech. There was no signal language gesture for "I can't bear to look at this anymore," or, "someone is going to pay."

In the four days since they had entered occupied territory, they had discovered the scenes of multiple ma.s.sacres of holders and legionares legionares alike-and instances where the Vord had met less success, as well. Twice, wide swaths of woodland had been burned black, down to the very soil, and the charred remains of Vord armor and bits of tree trunk were all that remained, evidence of the fury of the Knights and lords of Ceres. In other instances, the destruction had been more limited and prosaic, but no less brutal-groups of desperate holders, some of them gifted strongly enough to make a fight of it, had unleashed all the crafting at their command, and left Vord crushed and broken on the earth, among the bodies of Aleran dead. In still other places, a lone Vord would be found dead, destroyed by what was doubtless a rogue fury, running wild and uncontrolled after the death of the Aleran who had previously guided it. And in still other places, the slaughter would be, not of Alerans, but of deer, or wild boar, or other animals of the forest, destroyed as remorselessly and ruthlessly as if they had been thinking foes of the Vord, not harmless beasts of the wild. In some places, even some of the plants had been systematically destroyed. alike-and instances where the Vord had met less success, as well. Twice, wide swaths of woodland had been burned black, down to the very soil, and the charred remains of Vord armor and bits of tree trunk were all that remained, evidence of the fury of the Knights and lords of Ceres. In other instances, the destruction had been more limited and prosaic, but no less brutal-groups of desperate holders, some of them gifted strongly enough to make a fight of it, had unleashed all the crafting at their command, and left Vord crushed and broken on the earth, among the bodies of Aleran dead. In still other places, a lone Vord would be found dead, destroyed by what was doubtless a rogue fury, running wild and uncontrolled after the death of the Aleran who had previously guided it. And in still other places, the slaughter would be, not of Alerans, but of deer, or wild boar, or other animals of the forest, destroyed as remorselessly and ruthlessly as if they had been thinking foes of the Vord, not harmless beasts of the wild. In some places, even some of the plants had been systematically destroyed.

They had also found several pockets of the glowing green croach croach, growing and spreading, tended by no more than a handful of the spiderlike Keepers. Whatever the substance was, it seemed to feed upon the very stuff of Alera itself. The Keepers seemed to pack the living and the dead, plant and animal alike, beneath the surface of the croach croach with equal amounts of indifference. Standing several yards from the edge of one such growth, Amara fancied she could actually hear the stuff spreading, rustling leaves, here and there, as it oozed slowly outward. with equal amounts of indifference. Standing several yards from the edge of one such growth, Amara fancied she could actually hear the stuff spreading, rustling leaves, here and there, as it oozed slowly outward.

They did not dare linger long near the croach croach. It quickly became clear that the area served as some kind of deposit of food or supplies for the enemy. Individiual Vord, or fast-moving groups would stream rapidly into a pocket of croach croach and thrust their heads and jaws into the stuff, wallowing like pigs at a trough, gulping down the foul-smelling sludge beneath the waxy surface in seconds before turning to race off about their business again. and thrust their heads and jaws into the stuff, wallowing like pigs at a trough, gulping down the foul-smelling sludge beneath the waxy surface in seconds before turning to race off about their business again.

At first, Amara dared to hope that their haste indicated desperation-but after the incident had repeated itself several times with precisely regular intervals, it became clear that the Vord as a whole were moving at the direction of an unseen ch.o.r.eographer on a scale more ma.s.sive than she could have imagined. Though they rarely made sounds, and though they never spoke, the Vord knew knew where to move, when to strike, where to go to find food, to reinforce weak points. They made the communications and discipline of the Legions look crude and childish by comparison. where to move, when to strike, where to go to find food, to reinforce weak points. They made the communications and discipline of the Legions look crude and childish by comparison.

It was madness, all of it, sheer insanity, there in Ceres, within the Amaranth Vale itself, the longest-settled, gentlest, most-tamed heart of the Realm. Yet it was her duty to see it, to take it all in-and so she did. She looked, and she took notes, writing down everything that she saw, and comparing her notes with Bernard's, to make sure that she had not missed anything her husband had observed, and vice versa.

Sleep was difficult. They had to rest in turns, for only a few hours at a time, when they thought they could afford to stop for a bit and catch what rest they could. What Amara had seen tended to replay itself before her eyes if she lay still too long, and a single outcry during a dream could have had dire consequences. She didn't dare allow herself to sleep too deeply-and yet the constant tension, the wearing strain of unrelenting caution and stress and worry had taken a toll.

She knew it had, because even if she felt that she had somehow gone numb, herself, she could see the pressure wearing on Bernard, on his face and on the set of his shoulders. His own eyes, which had grown steadily more care-worn over the past few years, were positively haunted, even if they maintained their constant, cool green vigil around them-when she saw him at all, at any rate. Most of the time, he was as invisible to her as she was to him, and they kept track of one another only by the shared knowledge of where they had intended to move and by the faint sounds of their pa.s.sage.

But not speaking to Bernard, especially after watching the Vord catch that last group of refugees, was the worst of it.

The worst by far.

She intertwined her fingers with his and clutched his hand tightly. He squeezed back, a little less gently than she would have expected, and she knew that he was every bit as disturbed and furious and outraged as she was.

But they only had to last a little longer. If the First Lord was right, the battle for Ceres would draw the Vord's furycrafters into the open and allow Bernard and Amara to get a look at them. Once that was done, they could leave this nightmare and report upon what they had learned.

They leaned against one another in the darkness, while the Vord gathered to a.s.sault Ceres.

It took the foe less than a day to concentrate their forces and launch the a.s.sault upon the city.

Amara and Bernard were less than a mile and a half away from Ceres' walls, looking out over the broad valley from an abandoned steadholt running along the top of a low ridge. They crouched in the ruins of an old brick storage building that had collapsed when a particularly large old tree had toppled onto it. In normal circ.u.mstances, the Steadholder probably would have taken the opportunity to replace the old storehouse with a newer building-it had been old enough that time had been taking bites out of it in any case. Instead, the old building had just been left to lie in pieces, with the ancient tree still sprawling in the wreckage, and it provided a perfect hiding place. Bernard was able to use the branches and leaves of the tree, along with the gra.s.s still growing around the storehouse, to surround them with a woodcrafted veil, and Amara had layered it with her own subtle windcrafting, to hide the heat of their bodies from the Vord, as well as their scents. Bernard was also able to settle his earth fury into the foundation of the building beneath them, hiding them from any possible observation by means of earthcrafting. With the added security of their color-s.h.i.+fting cloaks, they were as well hidden as it was possible to be.