“I hope you will do us the honor of allowing our healers to treat your wounded. There’s no sense in having them out of action when we can put them back into top condition.”

“That would please me,” Varg replied. “I will request it of them.”

Octavian inclined his head to the Canim leader and returned Antillar’s salute. “Let’s have it.”

“A few of them managed to get out of the close fight,” Antillar Maximus said. “None of them made it out of the fog. The scouts reported other vord like these falling back to the city. They went right up the wall. They’re inside now, maybe a thousand.”

“And those are just the ones we saw,” Octavian said. “We can’t leave them in a fortress at our backs, growing a supply of croach to feed reinforcements they move into the area. This one will be up to us, I believe. Signal the Prime Cohort and the Battlecrows. I want them to be the first through the gates. Both cavalry elements are to take up positions around the city, to catch any others who try to run.”

Antillar blinked. “Those gates aren’t exactly made of paper and glue, Calderon,” the Tribune said. “The High Lords were probably reinforcing them for months, this winter. You know how to run the figures. Any idea of the kind of power it will take to bring them down?”

The Princeps considered Antillar’s words. Fidelias eyed Antillar and Varg alike, but he didn’t think either of them could see how nervous Octavian was. Then the Princeps nodded, and said, “A considerable amount of force.”

“I don’t think we have it,” Max said.

“I think you’re wrong, Max,” Octavian said calmly.

The Ambassador’s eyes narrowed in anticipation, all but glowing green, and her smile somehow made Fidelias take more note of the points of her canine teeth than any of the others.

The Princeps grinned at her in reply, almost unsettlingly boyish, and said, “Let’s find out.”

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 32

Tavi wondered if he was about to make a very large, very humiliating, potentially fatal mistake.

He frowned, and spoke to that doubting part of himself in a firm tone of thought: If you didn’t want to take the big chances, you shouldn’t have started screaming about who your father was. You could have moved quietly across the Realm and disappeared among the Marat, if you had wanted to. You decided to fight for your birthright. Well, now it’s time to fight. It’s time to see if you can do what you have to do. So quit whining and bring down that gate.

“Warmaster Varg will have operational command while I deal with the gate,” Tavi said.