bearing their injured comrades to the cart. They were clearly desperate, and loaded men as swiftly as they possibly could. When the cart was filled, the boy called to the horses, leading them back to the healers as fast as they could run.
Tavi watched, sickened, as another cart passed the first. There were more, coming along behind them, to pick up wounded and bring them back to the healers.
Tavi tried to swallow. "How many?"
"Uh. Around eleven hundred dead, I think," Max said, his tone quiet, neutral. "About the same number of men out of action. Foss and his boys look like something the crows have been at. It's all they can do just to save men who are bleeding out."
Tavi watched as more of the legionares following his orders were loaded onto the half dozen carts for the wounded.
The dead were stacked like cordwood into the last of the carts. It was the largest of the carts in service, with a high-railed bed, and it required the patient, enormous strength of a team of oxen to pull.
"The First Spear has his men ready for the push," Max said. "But they're tired, and barely holding together. He says if we don't hit them soon, we won't be able to."
Tavi took a deep breath, nodded once, then put on his helmet. "Our Knights?"
"On the way, sir," Max said.
Tavi laced his helmet into position and stalked over to the waiting cohort of fish. Max kept pace beside him, and the armored figures of the Knights Terra with him followed him. Before Tavi had reached the fish, Crassus and his Knights Pisces marched double time into position beside the volunteer cohort. Crassus called the halt, and the Knights stopped with commendable discipline, given how little time they'd spent in marching drill. The engineers, meanwhile, hurried into position at the rear of the other two forces.
Tavi stopped before them all, looking the men over, trying to think of what to say to them at a time like this. Then he stopped and blinked at the armor of the two groups of men.
The legionares' armor had changed. Instead of the blue-and-red eagle of the First Aleran, the insignia over their hearts had become the perfect black silhouette of, not an eagle, but a flying crow.
Beside them, the Knights Pisces' armor had changed as well. Again, the original insignia of the Legion had been replaced-this time with the finned, solid black shape of a shark, jaws opened wide.
Tavi arched an eyebrow and glanced at Crassus. "Tribune. Was this your doing?"
Crassus saluted Tavi, and said, "We watched the Canim trying to swim the river this morning, sir. Apparently, they never realized how bad a bunch of fish could hurt them." Crassus straightened his spine. "It seemed appropriate, sir."
"Hngh," Tavi said. He glanced at Schultz. "And what about you, acting centurion? Did you men also take it upon yourselves to change your uniforms?"
"Sir," Schultz said with a crisp salute. "We just wanted to match the standard, sir!" Schultz glanced aside at Tavi. "And to let the Canim know that this time the crows are coming for them, sir!"
"I see," Tavi said. He turned to speak to Max, and found Ehren standing beside Max, dressed in an ill-fitting breastplate. The little Cursor carried Tavi's standard in his right hand, and the armor and helmet made him look a great deal more formidable than Tavi would have expected.
Standing beside Ehren was Kitai. The Marat girl wore another set of armor which, while clearly not her own, fit her tall, athletic form perfectly adequately. She'd slung a Legion-issue gladius from either hip. Her mouth was curled up into a small, excited smile, and her exotic green eyes burned with the intensity of her anticipation.
"What are you two doing here?" Tavi asked.
"It occurred to me, Captain," Ehren said, "that since the First Lord already has messages on the way about the Elinarch, he and his captains will be here within a week or two at the most, and it would take me nearly four weeks to ride it. The fastest way to get him that message was to stay here, Captain."
Kitai snorted, and said, "Aleran, did you really expect us to allow you to order us to stay away from danger while you faced it alone?"
Tavi met Kitai's eyes for a long and silent moment. Then he glanced at Ehren. "I don't have time to argue with you both," he said quietly. "But if we survive this, I'm going to take it out