“They’re coming, sir!” the man reported. “Skirmish line, maybe a cohort’s worth, coming at us hard, sir! And they’re ugly, big as they were in Canea, not those swamp-lizard things. Looks like they’ve got a hell of a reach on them, too.”

Octavian grunted. “Looks like the Queen changed them to better handle a shieldwall.”

Fidelias nodded. “Like you said she might. I’m impressed.”

The Princeps coughed. “It was a guess. I wasn’t certain about it. Just seemed reasonable.”

Fidelias frowned, and said quietly, “Piece of advice, sir?”

“Hmm?”

“Next time, just nod. People like it better when the Princeps seems to know something they don’t.”

The Princeps made a quiet, snorting sound and raised a hand, signaling the trumpeter waiting nearby. “Sound advance to the Canim. Let’s see what these vord think about meeting a few thousand Narashan warriors instead of a Legion shieldwall.”

“And see if the Canim will be willing to take your orders, eh?” Fidelias murmured, beneath the clear notes of the signal trumpet.

Octavian grinned, and responded, quietly, “Nonsense. I have no doubts whatsoever in the solidity of our alliance.”

“Excellent, sir,” Fidelias said. “That’s more like what I was talking about.”

The shrill, brassy cries of vord warriors came drifting through the mist, different than any Fidelias had heard before but unmistakable. He had to keep himself from shuddering. For the sake of the rest of the Legion, he was still playing the part of Valiar Marcus, relegated to the role of advisor to the young captain by advancing age. Valiar Marcus would not show fear before the enemy. No matter how bloody terrifying they were to anyone with half a mind.

A double column of Canim warriors, several hundred strong, came rolling up to the front of the host, led by Varg himself. Their loping pace was swift, and Varg stopped to confer briefly with the Princeps. He nodded to Octavian, then gave a few orders in the snarling tongue of the wolf-warriors, and his troops fell into a curved double line that arched out in front of the rest of the host like a legionare’s shield.

Fidelias could clearly see only the nearest of the Canim, at the center of the line—Varg and the warriors closest to him. The lean, powerful bodies of the Canim moved in a fashion that was both completely nonuniform and fluidly coordinated, each armored warrior occupying precisely enough space to move and use his weaponry, with his companions on either side maintaining a precise distance, seemingly without any conscious effort.

The Canim were soldiers, sure enough, clearly moving in coordinated discipline, but their methods and tactics were utterly alien to those used by Aleran legionares. Fidelias didn’t even want to think of the pure shocking power of a Canim shieldwall. If they used such infantry tactics, an Aleran Legion would not be able to survive the clash of close combat.