26

When I got outside, the entire fort seemed to be thriving with activity. There were at least forty new Imperial soldiers, some of them unloading crates of supplies, some of them carting off loads of debris and burned wreckage from the former Command Office. Along with the new shipment of soldiers, there a load of medical supplies, food, and tools to begin rebuilding the fort. A few survivors from the Imperial Cult were already laying down blueprints to rebuild the Command Office.

Gaea led me through the crowd to the front gate of the fort, where the new Captain was busy yelling at the soldiers. His back was to us, and he waved his arm emphatically, shouting in a deep voice, "Come on now! We haven't got all day! Get those carts up here! By the Nine, don't they have any damned horses?"

"Captain," Gaea said.

The man turned to face us and gave me a stiff look. He was older, perhaps in his late forties, and sported a bushy graying mustache and beard. His eyes were dark but expressive, and his mouth seemed turned in a perpetual frown.

"Is this her?" he snapped.

"Yes, Captain," Gaea said.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but was genuinely surprised when the Captain stuck out his hand in greeting. I grasped it and he shook my hand firmly. "That was a brave thing you did yesterday," he said gruffly, as if unfamiliar with giving praise. "The Legion and the Cult thank you. My name is Lucius Cavorian, and I've been sent here to set things right."

"Sasha Frost-Wind," I said. "Nice to meet you."

"Come on inside," he said. "You have some information for me, I believe. You too, Artoria, let's get out of this blasted cold."

We followed him into the Imperial Cult office and to one of the smaller conference rooms, and each took a seat around a table. Captain Cavorian grunted and pulled off his gloves, tossing them on the table, and then wiped his mustache before clearing his throat.

"I've been told," he began, "that you took it upon yourself to visit the Nords the other day. One of the villages up north of here. I understand your stake in this, of course, don't get me wrong. But I wish you had waited until we had arrived. This is a Legion matter."

"I know," I said, keeping my face expressionless. "But it is also a Nord matter, don't you think?"

"Yes, that's what I meant about your stake in this," Cavorian said. "Trying to protect your people, it's noble of you, I understand. Maybe trying to deflect the blame. If there is any blame to deflect, that is."

I said nothing, so he leaned forward. "So what did they tell you? All the Nord villages here are independent of each other, I know that already, so they couldn't have spoken for all the Nords on this island."

"They knew nothing about the raid," I said. "They said that the men who attacked the fort are criminals pretending to be Nords."

"Tell me everything," Cavorian said.

So I did. I explained pretty much everything that Skjoldr Wolf-Runner had said to me, regarding the attack and the supposed wolf cult. I even mentioned how Wolf-Runner laughed in amusement when I first told him about the attack, and more importantly, how he threatened a counter-attack if the Legion attacked them first. Cavorian listened intently, stroking his mustache in thought.

"Typical Nord, I guess," he grunted when I was finished. "Thinks with his sword instead of his brain. That kind of attitude has gotten the Nords in trouble before."

"What kind of attitude?" I asked, annoyed.

"You know what I mean," Cavorian said, leaning back and folding his hands in his lap. "Nords act that way all the time. They take offense where no offense was intended, they care more about their reputation and their honor than the lives of the people around them, they always jump at the chance to prove themselves more of a man than the next guy. They're not prudent, they're just reactionary."

My glare could have cut through ice. But he just smiled and added, "No offense, of course. But go ahead and get riled up, you know I'm right."

"Are you some kind of expert on the subject?" I snapped. Underneath the table, Gaea reached out to hold my hand, a silent plea for cooperation.

"As a matter of fact, I am," Cavorian answered smoothly. "Why do you think they sent me here? I've been dealing with the Nords for almost twenty years. I know how they think, I know how they act. I understand their tactics."

"Tactics?" I questioned, a sudden rush of coldness creeping up my back.

Cavorian gave me a solid look. "The Kalarand incident, ten years ago. The Brellar Uprising. The Snow-Crown Rebellion, that was barely four years ago. I've faced the Nords in battle more than a few times."

I felt the wind go out of me. My body seemed frozen.

Sensing my discomfort, Gaea spoke up. "You mean you've fought Nords in battle, sir?"

"Several times," Cavorian said. "Like I said, that's why the Legion sent me here. They figured if we're going to go to war with the Nords again, they might as well have someone like me calling the shots."

"But ..." Gaea said uncertainly. "I mean, you don't think the Nords are actually responsible for the attack, do you?"

I could only stare at him in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and a million thoughts flew through my brain, a hundred different desires pulled my body in every direction. I desperately wanted to run screaming from the room, I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from them, I wanted to take a knife and stab Cavorian in the heart with it.

He actually called it the "Snow-Crown Rebellion." Was it possible that he could recognize me? He couldn't know who I was, there was no way. He would have arrested me on the spot. But how could he not know? He must have seen me, he must know. Or had he just put me into the back of his mind, and didn't even recognize me as the same person from years ago?

Cavorian gave Gaea a thoughtful look and then turned his gaze on me. I felt like he was seeing right through me, and I tried my hardest to keep my face from giving anything away. I just looked surprised, and he probably thought that his military history had made me speechless, which certainly had something to do with it.

"Do I think the Nords attacked this fort?" he asked rhetorically. "Of course not."

I let out the breath I had been holding and slumped into my chair. I had never even considered that a Legion commander would recognize that the Nords weren't responsible, I assumed that anyone from the Legion would blame the Nords regardless of the truth. But Cavorian was not a common Legion Captain, it seemed.

"You see," Cavorian explained when neither me nor Gaea said anything, "Nords don't make sneak attacks in the night and then lurk away and disappear like that. They make their intentions known long in advance, and when they do come for a fight, they come in broad daylight and even give you time to put your armor on. They absolutely don't make sneak attacks and kill unarmed men and civilians. I'm told that one of the civilians killed was a Nord woman herself, and what kind of Nord would kill an innocent woman? Even their berserkers have more sense than that."

Gaea breathed out a sigh of relief, and to my surprise, so did I. I found myself actually glad that the Legion had sent an expert on Nord warfare. It never even occurred to me that an outsider would be able to make such obvious conclusions, when I hadn't even considered such things. But it was hard for me to stand back and look at the situation objectively.

Cavorian was still talking. I got the impression that he liked to lecture. "No, this whole terrible situation stinks of a set up. You noticed how they took away the bodies of their own dead? Nords wouldn't do that either, but imposters would, to prevent us from taking a good look at them. I'm convinced that whoever attacked this fort was trying to make us believe it was the Nords."

"But why?" Gaea asked.

"To throw suspicion away from themselves, of course. Make us follow a false trail and waste time while they get away."

"But why attack the fort at all?" I asked. "Why would they want us to suspect the Nords of something like that? To start a conflict between us? For what purpose?"

Cavorian stroked his mustache again. "A couple of possible reasons. The most likely is that they are trying to distract us by forcing our attention elsewhere. Starting a fire in the barn, and then stealing our valuables from the house while we try to fight the fire. Something like that."

"What about the werewolf cult story?" Gaea asked. "Why would they go to such lengths to create such an elaborate falsehood?"

"To make the attack seem more plausible, I suppose."

"So you think the werewolf cult is fake?"

"It's definitely fake," Cavorian said firmly, as if it was a stupid question.

He sounded far too sure of this on such little information, and I suddenly felt curious. "How do you know?" I asked.

"I have my sources," he said simply.

He had a spy, I realized. Of course he did, that was why he was so sure of himself, so quick to declare the cult a fake and the attack a set up. Someone was already feeding him information. And there was only one possible suspect: Red-Spear.

"Now," Cavorian said. "Don't you think it's a good thing that someone like me was sent here? The Legion could very well have sent someone else without my experience, and then you'd be having a very different conversation right now."

"Yes," I said softly, thinking to myself. "You're right about that."

"Well, I still have lots of work to do," he said, standing up. He pulled his gloves on and said, "So thank you again for saving the young woman, Mirisa, and for doing your part to investigate the source of the attack. I do appreciate it."

"So what do I do now?" I asked.

Cavorian merely shrugged. "You're not part of the Legion, so I'm not going to give you orders. If you would like to stay here at the fort and help the rebuilding, please do so. We can use all the help we can get."

He left the conference room and Gaea and I left soon after. I had a lot to think about, so I remained quiet.

When we got outside, Gaea said, "I have a lot of work to do. Captain Cavorian has promoted me to temporary second-in-command, since I'm the most experienced guard here."

"Congratulations," I said, although by Gaea's tone of voice I could tell she was hardly thrilled with the promotion. "I'm going to go see Mirisa and see how she's doing. I'll catch you later, all right?"

"Sure thing," Gaea said, heading off in the other direction.

I stood out in the yard for a few moments, gathering my thoughts, and then headed back inside the Cult offices.