Jim Butcher - First Lords Fury (Codex Alera, Book 6)

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Also by Jim Butcher

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The Codex Alera

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FURIES OF CALDERON

ACADEMS FURY

CURSORS FURY

CAPTAINS FURY

PRINCEPS FURY

FIRST LORDS FURY

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The Dresden Files

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STORM FRONT

FOOL MOON

GRAVE PERIL

SUMMER KNIGHT

DEATH MASKS

BLOOD RITES

DEAD BEAT

PROVEN GUILTY

WHITE NIGHT

SMALL FAVOR

TURN COAT

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This is an original publication of The Berkley PublishingGroup.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, andincidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are usedfictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businessestablishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisherdoes not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility forauthor or third-party websites or their content.

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Copyright 2009 by Jim Butcher.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in anyprinted or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in orencourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights.Purchase only authorized editions. ACE and the A design are trademarks ofPenguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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eISBN : 978-1-101-15151-8

1. Imaginary placesFiction. 2. Imaginary wars andbattlesFiction. I. Title. PS3602.U85F57 2009 813.6dc22 2009037610

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[http://us.penguingroup.com] http://us.penguingroup.com

For our own Knights and legionares,

the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

If you didnt do what you do, I couldnt do what I do. Thankyou.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This one owes deep debts of gratitude to my editor, Anne Sowards, whodeserves something for having to put up with me. Another big thank-you goesout to Priscilla, for going above and beyond the call of fandom in helpingmake the map of Alera, finally. Thanks also to the many fans at the[http://jim-butcher.com] jim-butcher.com forums, whose efforts helped us torefine and create the map by providing us with multiple reference points uponthe maps they have made.

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And, as ever, thank you, Shannon and JJ.

The steadholt was located several miles south of the ruined wasteland thathad once been Alera Imperia, and it was an old one. Windmanes had not beensighted there in more than six centuries. Furystorms had been absent for evenlonger than that. The land, for miles about, had been a patchwork offarmlands, steadholts, villages, and roads for hundreds of years. Wild furieshad been so few and so feeble that they were all but extinct.

As a result, the little steadholt had not been built with stone wallssurrounding it, or with a heavy stone central hall for shelter fromfury-inspired weather. It was instead a collection of cottages and smallhouses, where each family had lived in its own home, separate from theothers.

But all that had been before the vord came.

Invidia Aquitaine stood at the outskirts of the little steadholt, hidden inthe shadows.

Shadows were abundant these days, she reflected.

The newborn volcano that stood as a gravestone for Gaius Sextus, the finalFirst Lord of Alera, had continued to spew forth clouds of dark smoke and ashin the days and weeks after its creation. Even now, the sky was covered withlow clouds that would release spring rain in fitful sputters or maniacalbursts. Sometimes the rain was yellow, or red, and sometimes green. The cloudsthemselves were dimly lit, even at night, by an angry scarlet light from thefire-mountain to the northand in every other direction by the steady,haunting green glow of the croach, the waxy growth that covered theground, the trees, the buildings, and every other feature of the land the vordhad claimed for their own.

Here the vord had driven their presence the deepest. Here, at the heart ofwhat had once been Alera, they had taken the most. The croach, theliving presence of the vord, covered everything for a hundred miles in everydirection, choking all other life from the land.

Except here.

The little steadholt was green. Its kitchen gardens were well under waydespite the fact that summer had not quite arrived. Its modest-sized fieldalready promised a fine crop of grain. Wind sighed in the leaves of itsenormous old trees. Its animals grazed upon the grass of a rich pasture. Inthe darkness, if one ignored the eerily lit sky, the green glow ofcroach stretching to the horizon in every direction, and the occasionalalien shriek of one of the vord, it looked like a normal, prosperous Aleransteadholt.

Invidia shuddered.

The parasite on her torso reacted to the motion with an uncomfortableripple of its own. Since its dozen awl-tipped legs were wrapped around her,their sharp tips sunk inches into her flesh, it caused pain. It was nothingcompared to the agony she suffered as its head twisted, its eyeless face andbranching mandibles sunken into the flesh between two of her ribs, burrowedinvasively into her innards.

Invidia loathed the creaturebut it was all that kept her alive. The poisonupon the balest bolt that had nearly taken her life had spread all through herbody. It had festered there, growing, devouring her from within, so swiftlyand perniciously that even her own ability to restore her body via furycrafthad been overwhelmed. She had fought it for days as she stumbled away fromcivilization, certain that she was being pursued, barely conscious as thestruggle in her body raged. And when she had realized that the struggle couldend in only one way, she found herself lying upon a wooded hillside and knewthat she was going to die.

But the vord Queen had come to her. The image of that creature, staringdown at her without an ounce of pity or empathy, had been burned into hernightmares.

Invidia had been desperate. Terrified. Delirious with poison and fever. Herbody had been so knotted with shivering against the fever-cold that sheliterally had not been able to feel her arms and legs. But she