by Jim Butcher
Tavi had never heard so many words from the slave all together, and he tilted his head to one side. “Fade? Were you in the Legions?”
Fade’s expression barely moved, but Tavi thought he detected a sense of deep, slow pain there, nonetheless. “Fade. Coward. Ran.”
“Ran from what?”
Fade turned away from Tavi and started walking deeper into the woods, making his way east. Tavi looked after him for a moment and then followed him. They made good time for a while, though Tavi tried to get Fade to talk with several other small questions, he did not respond to them. As they moved, the wind continued to rise, and it made the woods whisper and creak and groan. Tavi saw movement around him, in the branches and the hollows of the trees—the furies of the wood, restless as the animals before the coming storm, skittering back and forth and watching silently from the shadows. They did not frighten Tavi — he was as used to them as to the animals of the steadholt. But his hand stayed close to the knife at his belt, just in case.
Soon, the sound of running water came to them through the trees, and Tavi hurried forward, taking the lead from Fade. They came out on the banks of the Rillwater, a small and swift river that rushed through the Calderon Valley from just east of Garados and raced off into the mountains south of the Valley.
“All right,” Tavi said. “We need to find the ford Uncle marked. So long as we start from there, I can find our way through the woods and out the other side. Otherwise, the furies there will twist us around and we’ll get lost. Uncle said that when he was young, a couple of people got lost in the twisty woods and never came out again. He found them starved to death less than a bowshot from the causeway, but they’d never found it.”
Fade nodded, watching Tavi.
“I can get us through, but we have to start with the path Uncle made.” He chewed on his lip, looking up and down the river. “And with this storm coming, too. Here.” He dug into his makeshift pack and passed the second sack of salt back to Fade. “Hold on to that, in case we need it. Don’t drop it.”
“Don’t drop it,” Fade repeated, nodded solemnly.
Tavi turned and started upstream. “This way, I think.”
They made their way along the stream, and night settled over them entirely. Tavi could barely see to walk, and Fade stumbled and muttered behind him.
“Here,” Tavi said, finally. “Here’s where we cross. See that white rock? Uncle had Brutus set it there so it would be easier to find.” Tavi slipped down the bare, chill earth of the bank to the stream.
Fade let out a yelp.
“Fade?” Tavi turned around in time to see someone moving toward him in the dark. Something hit his face, hard, and he felt his legs go loose and relax. He fell back, into the swift, shallow, chilling flow of the Rillwater, blinking and trying to focus his eyes. He tasted blood in his mouth.
Bittan of Kordholt leaned down enough to drag him up by the front of his shirt and hit him again, another hot flash of pain. Tavi yelped and tried to throw up his arms to protect himself, but the larger boy’s fists landed with a cool, sadistic precision, again and again.
“Enough,” Kord’s voice rumbled. “Get out of the damn water, Bittan. Unless you want to get drowned again.”
Tavi looked up, blearily. He could see Kord hulking on the bank, his lank and greasy hair swinging as he turned his head to look at the stream. A form lay on the ground before him, motionless: Fade.
Bittan hauled Tavi out of the water and threw him at the bank, an ugly smile twisting his handsome face. “Climb out yourself, freak.”
Tavi climbed out of the water, shivering, even as the wind began to shriek and howl overhead. The storm, he thought numbly. The storm was on them. Tavi moved to Fade and found the slave still breathing, though he didn’t move. He could see blood gleaming on Fade’s scarred face.
Bittan followed Tavi up from the stream and kicked him, knocking him forward and back to the ground. “Looks like you were right, Pa.”
Kord grunted. “Figured they’d send word to Gram about that little fracas the other night. Didn’t figure they’d send the freak and the idiot, though.”
Aric’s voice came to them quietly. Tavi looked up to see the tall, slender man, a dark shadow a bit separated from the other two. “The boy’s smart, Pa. He can write. You have to write to file legal charges.”
“Doesn’t add up,” Kord said. “Maybe they would send him in good weather, but not with this storm coming.”
“Unless Bernard’s dead, Pa,” Bittan said, spiteful. “Maybe that bitch died trying to save him. He looked like a dead man.”
Kord turned to Tavi and nudged the boy with his boot. “Well, freak?”
Tavi thought furiously. There had to be a way to stall for enough time for Amara to catch up to them, or for his uncle to find them — but what were they talking about? A fracas the other night? Had something happened when his uncle came home wounded? That had to have been it. Had they tried to kill Bernard? Is that why they would be concerned with someone filing legal charges with Count Gram?
Kord nudged him again and said, “Talk, boy. Or I’ll bury you right now.”
Tavi swallowed. “If I tell you, will you let us go?”
“Us?” Kord asked, warily.
Aric said, “He means the idiot, Pa.”
Kord grunted. “Depends on what you say, freak. And if I believe you.”
Tavi nodded and said, without looking up, “A Marat warrior injured Uncle. He got hurt protecting me, and I got away. One of the First Lord’s Cursors came to Bernardholt, and now I’m trying to get to Count Gram to warn him that the Marat are coming and that he has to rouse the garrison and prepare to fight.”
There was a moment’s stunned silence, and then Kord guffawed, a quiet, hoarse sound. Tavi felt a hand grip his hair, and Kord said, “Even a freak should be smarter than to think something like that would fool me.”
“B-but,” Tavi stammered, his heart hammering with a sudden panicked terror. “It’s the truth! I swear to all the furies it’s the truth!”
Kord dragged him down the bank and said, “I’m tired of your lying mouth, freak.” Then he shoved Tavi’s head into the freezing water and bore down with all of his strength.
CHAPTER 20
Amara tried to still the frantic pounding of her heart and to slow her breathing. Cirrus swirled and spun beneath her feet, though to her the air beneath her felt almost as solid as the ground itself. Even so, the wind fury’s best efforts moved her ever so slightly from side to side, up and down, and would make shooting impossible if she wasn’t calm and focused.
The pain of her injured ankle and arm, though lessened by Isana’s ministrations, was by no means absent. She tested the pull of the bow and felt it in her arm, her left, in which she held the heavy wooden weapon. She would not be able to hold it drawn for long — not surprising, since it was probably made with the thews of the enormous Steadholder in mind.
Shaking and unable to aim for long, she would have to wait until the enemy was close before she shot — and she would have to take down the swordsman, first. She would never defeat him with the blade she carried. His experience and furycrafting would make him a living weapon, unstoppable to someone not equally gifted.
If she had time, Fidelias would be her next target. Cirrus could defeat even her old teacher’s formidable woodcrafting-enhanced archery. His earthcrafting, however, would give him strength she could not hope to match. It would be all he needed to shatter her defense and defeat her, in an absence of other factors. Even with Cirrus lending speed to her strikes, she was only marginally his equal with a blade.
The sword was for the water witch, though it would suit Amara equally well to shoot the woman. Though she was not, in open battle, the threat the other two were, she was dangerous nonetheless. Even though Amara would have the freedom of concentration to smother the woman, she could not likely accomplish it before if the witch could cross the distance between them—and if she managed to touch her, Amara was done for. Of th
e three, she was the only one Amara could reliably overcome with the blade.
Poor options, she thought. A poor plan. She was unlikely to be able to shoot a second arrow, even presuming the first arrow managed to strike down Aldrick ex Gladius, a man who had faced some of the most skilled warriors alive— Araris himself!— and defeated them, or at least lived to tell the tale. But if they were allowed to catch up to the boy, even if they came close, he was certain to be killed—and the boy was the only one whose testimony could convince the Count at Garrison to mobilize and raise the alarm.
Amara stood facing the darkness behind the already departed boy and the slave with him and realized that it was very probable that she was about to die. Painfully. Her heart raced with a frantic terror.
She bent down to pick up a pair of arrows from the ground. She slipped one through her belt and set one to the bow. She checked the hilt of the sword with one hand, reasonably sure that she could draw it forth without slicing her own leg off or cutting the belt that kept the clothes she’d stolen from flapping like a banner.
She looked to the north and could feel the storm furies out there, up by the ominous form of a mountain whose tip held the last purple light of sunset upon it, like some balefully glowering eye. The clouds moved down, swallowing the mountain’s head as they did, and Amara could feel the freezing fury of the coming storm, a true winter howler. Once it arrived, presuming it didn’t kill the boy, it would make pursuit of him impossible. She didn’t have to win. She only had to slow down those behind them.
So long as she provided a delay, death was an acceptable outcome.
Her hands shook.
Then she waited.
She couldn’t feel the earthcrafting move past beneath her, but she saw it—a barely perceptible wave in the earth, a ripple of motion that flowed through the ground, briefly unsettling it as a wave does water. The wave flashed by and moved on behind her. Her feet hadn’t come within a handsbreadth of the ground as it went past. It couldn’t have detected her.
She took a slow breath and blew on the fingers of the hand that would hold the string, the arrow. Then she lifted the bow, ignoring the twinge in her arm, and willed herself forward and a bit down the slope ahead of her, so that she would present no profile against the purpling sky or the storm-lighted clouds.
She saw motion against the dark earth and remained as still as she could, willing Cirrus to hold her steady. Another pulse went by in the earth, this one stronger, nearer. Fidelias had crafted such a search before, and she knew how effectively he could use it to find someone not wise enough to get his feet off of the ground.
The shape came closer, though she could not tell who it was, or how many there might be. She drew the bow as tight as she comfortably could, held with the strung arrow pointing at the ground. The motion came closer, and she could hear footsteps, make out the shape of a large man, the glint of metal in the darkness. The swordsman.
She took a breath, held it, then drew, aimed, and loosed, all in a single motion. The bow thrummed, and the arrow hissed through the darkness.
The shape froze, one hand lifting toward her, even as the arrow leapt across the yards between them. She heard the wooden shaft shatter, an abrupt crack of sound. She reached for the other arrow at her belt, but the man in the darkness hissed in a quiet voice, and something caught her wrist in a sudden, crushing grip.
Amara looked down to find the arrow’s shaft wrapped around her wrist and just winding about the belt, so that her hand was fastened to her middle. She spun, gathering momentum to throw the bow at her assailant, thus freeing her left hand to make an awkward draw of the sword. But even as she turned, the bow in her hands abruptly warped and slithered around her arm, more swift and lithe than a serpent. It wasn’t long enough to wrap about her torso as well, but once about her arm it hardened, straightening her limb, until her hand was held well out and away from the sword at her waist.
Amara turned her head to see the man rushing her, and she flung herself straight up, over his head, Cirrus assisting her. She flipped in midair and managed to bring her heel down onto her attacker.
She missed her target, the nape of his neck, and her scything kick landed on his shoulder instead. Cirrus stopped her feet from touching the earth, but even as she regained her balance, a hand, brutally strong, wrapped around her ankle, swung her in an arc overhead, and brought her crashing down onto the frigid ground.
Amara struggled, but the impact had stunned and slowed her. Before she could escape, the man had pinned her, full weight of his body on hers. One hand had closed around her throat and twisted her head aside, to near the breaking point, as easily as though she had been a weak kitten.
“Where is he?” Bernard snarled. “If you’ve hurt that boy, I’ll kill you.”
Amara stopped her struggling and willed Cirrus away, so that she lay quietly beneath the enraged Steadholder. She could see the dark-haired giant out of the corner of her eye, dressed only lightly against the weather, bearing a woods-man’s axe, which had been let fall before he seized her. She had to struggle to breathe, to speak. “No. I didn’t hurt him. I stayed back to stop the men after him. He and the slave went on ahead.”
The granite grip on her head eased, marginally. “Men after him. What men?”
“The strangers. The ones who came in when you carried me into the hall. They’ll be after us, I’m sure of it. Please, sir. There’s no time.”
The Steadholder growled. He kept her pinned with one hand and with the other drew the sword from her belt and tossed it aside. Then he patted at her waist, until he found the knife she’d stolen from Fidelias inside her tunic, and roughly tugged aside her layers of clothing to remove it as well. Only then did he let his grip on her jaw and throat ease. “I don’t know who you are, girl,” he said. “But until I do, you’re going to stay right here.” Even as he spoke, the earth curled up around her elbows and knees, turf and roots twisting into place, locking her limbs to the ground.
“No,” Amara protested. “Steadholder, my name is Amara. I’m one of the Crown’s Cursors. The First Lord himself sent me here, to this valley.”
Bernard stood up, away from her, and rummaged in a pouch at his side. He took something from it, then something else. “Now you’re not a slave, eh? No. My nephew’s out in this mess somewhere, and it’s your fault he is.”
“It’s because I led him from the steadholt that he isn’t dead already!”
“So you say,” Bernard said. She heard water gurgle from a flask into a cup or a bowl. “Where is he now?”
Amara tested the bonds of earth, uselessly. “I told you. He and Fade went on ahead of me. He said something about a river and a twisty wood.”
“Fade went with him? And these men chasing him? Who are they?”
“A traitor Cursor, Aldrick ex Gladius, and a water witch of considerable skill. They’re trying to kill anyone who saw the Marat moving in the Valley. I think because they want a Marat surprise attack to succeed.”
“Crows,” Bernard spat. Then he said, raising his voice a bit, “Isana? Did you hear?”
A voice, tinny and faint, echoed up from somewhere near at hand. “Yes. Tavi and Fade will be at the Rillwater ford. We must get there immediately.”
“I’ll meet you,” Bernard rumbled. “What about the girl?”
Isana’s voice came a moment later, as though she spoke under a great strain. “She means no harm to Tavi. I’m sure of that. Beyond that I don’t know. Hurry, Bernard.”
“I will,” Bernard said. Then he stepped back into her vision and drank away whatever was in the cup. “This man after you, with the swordsman. Why did you expect him instead of me?”
Amara swallowed. “He’s an earth and woodcrafter. Very experienced. He can find the boy.” She lifted her head, looking at him intently. “Let me up. I’m the only chance you have to help Tavi.”
He scowled. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you don’t know these people,” Amara said. “I do. I can anticipa
te him, what he’s going to do next. I know his strengths, his weaknesses. And you can’t defeat his swordsman alone.”
Bernard stared down at her for the space of a breath, then shook his head irritably. “All right,” he said. “Prove it. Anticipate him. Tell me where he is.”
Amara closed her eyes, trying to remember the geography of the region. “He knew I would expect him to follow, directly. That’s his strength. But he didn’t follow. He anticipated me, and he’s moving around, to get ahead of the boy. Check the causeway, the furies in the cobblestones. He’ll have made for the road and be using those furies to help him get ahead of the boy, so that he can cut him off.” She opened her eyes and watched the Steadholder’s face.
Bernard growled something quietly, and she felt a slow, silent shudder in the earth. There was silence for a moment, while the big man knelt and put a bare hand on the ground, closing his eyes with his head tilted to one side, as though listening to a distant music.
Finally, he let out a breath. “You’re right,” he said. “Or seem to be. Someone’s earthwaving through the road itself, and fast. Horses, I think.”
“It’s him.” Amara said. “Let me up.”
Bernard opened his eyes and rose decisively. He recoveredhis axe, gestured at the earth, and Amara abruptly found her limbs free, the bow and the arrow returning to their original shapes, unwinding from her arm. She clambered to her feet again and recovered the sword and knife from the ground.
“Are you going to help me?” he asked.
Amara faced him and let out a shaking breath. “Sir. I swear it to you. I’ll help you protect your nephew.”
Bernard’s teeth flashed, sudden in the darkness. “Good thing you’re not going after these people with wood from their own trees.”
She slipped the sword through her belt. “I hope your shoulder doesn’t hurt too much.”
His smile widened. “I’ll make it. How’s your ankle?”
“Slowing me,” she confessed.
“Then get your fury to lift you again,” he said. He drew a piece of cord from his pouch, ran it through the back of his belt, and tied it closed in a loop. He tossed the loop to her and said, “Keep your body behind mine and stay low. The wood will make my passage clear, but don’t go waving your head around, or a branch might take it off.”