And still others were dressed in the clothing of common holders.
Tavi stared. Among the dead were the elderly. Women. Children. Their clothing was stained with blood, their bodies mangled by brutally violent attacks. If he didn't retch his guts out on the ground, it was only because he'd had so much practice holding them in over the past two years.
It took him a moment longer, but he realized that the Canim were... putting the bodies through some kind of process. A pair of ritualists in their pale mantles stood at two separate tables-no, they were more like wide, shallow, elevated basins, tilted at a sharp angle. As Tavi watched, two other Canim, older laborers of the maker caste, by their simple clothing and greying fur, gently picked up the body of a holder woman. They carried it to one of the tables and laid it down on the basin, with her head positioned at the basin's lower end.
The ritualist murmured something, a musical-sounding, even meditative growl-and then reached down with a curved knife and cut the dead woman's throat on both sides.
Blood trickled from the corpse. It drained down the shallow basin, where it gathered and flowed down through a hole at the bottom of the basin, out of a small spigot. There, it poured into a wide-mouthed stone jar.
Tavi could only stare at it in mute astonishment, unable to quite believe what he was seeing. The laborers fetched another corpse for the second basin. As Tavi watched, the first ritualist beckoned a nearby Cane, a young male not more than six feet tall, and far more wiry than an adult. The young Cane gathered up the stone jar, replacing it with another one from a row of similar vessels nearby. Then he turned and loped rapidly away, toward the sorcery-blasted hilltop.
A moment later, the ritualist nodded to another set of workers-only these were half a dozen or so Alerans, also wearing the clothing of holders. They gently removed the woman's body, wrapped it in sackcloth, and carried it to an open wagon, typical of those used as an improvised hearse on the battlefield, where they laid it down beside several other similarly wrapped figures.
Tavi looked up to find Durias watching him from where he stood at his own mount's head. The centurion's face was bleak, but Tavi could read nothing from it, nor sense any of the young man's emotions through his own shock, revulsion, and growing anger.
"What is this?" Tavi demanded. His voice came out confident and cold, though he hadn't meant it to be.
The muscles in Durias's jaws flexed a few times. Then he said, "Wait here." He led his horse away.
Tavi watched him go, then averted his eyes from the basins and the stacked corpses. He walked his weary mount back to the wagon to give it the company of the mules drawing it.
"Varg?" Tavi asked quietly.
Varg watched the ritualists with a rigidly neutral body posture. "Blood into jars," he rumbled.
"This is where their power comes from," Tavi said softly. "Isn't it?"
Varg flicked his ears in assent, as bodies continued to be drained and runners continued to carry the filled jars toward the battle lines.
"This is how they used power against us at the Elinarch," Tavi snarled. "They killed our people after they landed and used their blood against the Legion."
"Take no particular offense, Aleran," Varg rumbled. "They are not choosy about which blood they take, so long as it is from a reasoning being. The ritualists have killed more of my people than the whole of your race. The sorceries they used to assault your shores, block your skies, redden your stars would have required millions upon millions of lives."
"And you allow them to exist?" Tavi spat.
"They serve a purpose," Varg replied. "They have the power to bless bloodlines. Increase fertility in our females. Increase the bounty of crops, and to lessen the ravages of storms, droughts, plagues."
"And you are willing to sacrifice your peoples lives for them to do it?"
"My people are willing to make a gift of their blood upon death," Varg growled. "Though there are times when a particularly powerful ritualist forgets that his power should be used to serve his people. Not the other way around."
"There are women there," Tavi said, his mouth tight. "Children. I thought better of Nasaug."
"And I," growled Nasaug, from behind Tavi, "thought better of you."
Tavi turned around, hand on his sword, eyes narrowed.
Nasaug stood ten feet away, in full armor-armor stained with several shining new nicks and dents and spattered with drying blood. The dark-furred Cane's lips were lifted from his teeth in open hostility, and a naked sword was in one of his hands. Durias stood at Nasaug's right hand, his teeth similarly bared.
Some distant part of Tavi's mind shouted that he should be calm and cautious. He could barely hear it over the outrage and horror, and he met Nasaug's eyes squarely. "Tell your men to get their hands off of my people."
"Or what?" Nasaug said, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"Or I'll bloody well make them do it," Tavi replied.
"You are about to die, Aleran," Nasaug said.
Tavi drew his sword. "You'll find me harder to kill than defenseless old holders and children, dog."
Nasaug surged forward-not a leap, but a controlled, blindingly swift rush, his sword gripped in two hands. Tavi lifted his sword, shifting his weight, preparing to slide the enormously powerful blow aside, summoning strength from the earth.
Until Varg hit Nasaug in the chest like a hurled spear.
Nasaug, though huge and armored, was still outweighed by the larger and more heavily scarred Varg. Both Canim went down in an explosion of deafening snarls, and a bestial struggle ensued. Varg knocked the sword from Nasaug's grip, but the smaller Cane sank his fangs into Varg's shoulder, drawing blood. Varg roared, driving a blow at Nasaug's nose, slamming his head aside, his teeth ripping great gashes in Varg's flesh.
The two Canim struggled, rolling and twisting, exchanging blows and rakes of their claws and slashes of their fangs. Though Varg was larger and stronger, Nasaug was armored, and ruthlessly made use of the advantage his greater protection afforded him.
Nasaug managed to slam his armored forearm into Varg's throat, then his jaws opened and his fangs flashed as he snapped forward.
Varg was too swift. The larger Cane fell back, claws hooked in Nasaug's armor, then whirled the smaller Cane off the ground and down onto it in a vicious slam that shook dust from the earth for twenty feet in every direction.
Nasaug tried to roll away but, stunned by the impact, was too slow, and Varg was on his back, jaws on the back of his neck, body pinning the smaller Cane down.