by Jim Butcher
The other man spoke, and Tavi had to force himself not to move. "No?" asked Lord Kalare. "Turk, Turk, Turk. If Rook had not asked me to give you a second chance, I'd have killed you when we came through the door."
"Oh," Turk mumbled. "Yes, my lord."
"Where is he?" Kalare asked. Turk must have answered with a gesture, because a moment later, footsteps approached. From a few feet in front of him, Tavi heard Kalare say, "He's unconscious."
"Rook rang his bells pretty good," Turk replied. "But there shouldn't be any lasting damage, my lord. He'll be awake in the morning."
"And this?" Kalare asked.
"Barbarian," said Turk. "She was with the other one."
Kalare grunted. "Why is she hooded?"
"She put up a fight before we got her bound. She bit Cardis's nose off."
"Off?" asked Kalare.
"Yes, my lord."
Kalare chuckled. "Amusing. The spirited ones always are."
"Rook said to ask you what you wanted done with them, my lord. Shall I detach them?"
"Turk," Kalare said, his tone pleased. "You've employed a euphemism. Next thing you know, you'll be showing signs of sagacity."
Turk was silent for a blank second, then said, "Thank you?"
Kalare sighed. "Do nothing yet," he said. "Live bait will do us more good than a corpse."
"And the barbarian?"
"Her too. There's a chance she's the result of some kind of fosterage agreement between the barbarians and Count Calderon, and until there is leisure to extract the information from them, there's little point in making myself a blood enemy of the Marat. Not until it will profit me."
Suddenly fingers tangled in Tavi's hair, painfully strong, and jerked his face up. Tavi managed to keep himself totally limp.
"This little beast," Kalare said. "If the woman wasn't a greater threat, I think I would enjoy seeing him flayed and thrown into a pit of slives. That such a waste of a life could have dared to lay a finger on my heir." His voice shook with anger and disdain, and he released Tavi's hair with a flick of his wrist that made the muscles in Tavi's neck scream.
"Shall I arrange for his transport, my lord?"
Kalare exhaled. "No," he decided. "No. There's no point in giving him a chance to survive, given what I have planned for his family. Even something like this could grow into a threat, given time. We'll throw them all into the same hole."
His boots thudded on the floor as he walked back to the door. Turk's heavier, clumsier steps followed, and the door opened and closed again, the bolt fastening.
Tavi checked to make sure that they were alone, then said, to Kitai, "You bit off his nose?"
Her voice was muffled by the satchel as she replied. "I couldn't reach his eyes."
"Thank you for the warning."
"No," she said. "I said someone was coming. I didn't mean through the door."
"What?"
"The floor," she said. "I felt a vibration. There, again," she murmured.
Tavi could hardly feel his feet, but he heard a faint, scraping noise from somewhere behind him. He twisted his head enough to see a floorboard a few feet away quiver and then suddenly bow upward, as if made from supple, living willow rather than dried oak. He saw someone beneath the floor work the floorboard free and draw it down out of sight. Two more floorboards followed it, and then a head covered with a shock of tousled and dusty hair emerged from the hole in the floorboards and blinked owlishly around.
"Ehren," Tavi said, and he had to labor to control his excitement and keep his voice down. "What are you doing?"
"I think I'm rescuing you," Ehren replied.
"There are guards here," Tavi told his friend. "They'll sense what you've done to get in here."
"I don't think so," Ehren said. He gave Tavi a shaky smile. "For once it's a good thing my furies are so weak, huh? They don't make much noise." He winced and began to wriggle up through the hole in the floor.
"How did you find us?" Tavi asked.
Ehren looked wounded. "Tavi. I've been training to be a Cursor as long as you have, after all."
Tavi flashed him a fierce grin, which Ehren struggled to return as he gave up on crawling up through the hole, and lowered himself to start passing a hand steadily over another of the boards, which quivered and slowly began to bend. "I was out asking questions, and I noticed that a man was following me. It stood to reason that whoever took your aunt might have an interest in following me around. So I went back up to the Citadel, turned around once I was out of his sight-"
"And tailed him back here," Tavi said.
Ehren coaxed the board into bending still more. "I swam out under the pier and listened to a couple of men talking about the prisoners. I thought maybe it could have been your aunt, so I decided to take a look."
"Well done, Ehren," Tavi said.
Ehren smiled. "Well. It was sort of a happy accident, wasn't it. Here, almost got it."
The board creaked and began to move, when Kitai hissed, "The door."
The bolt on the warehouse door rattled, and the door opened.
Ehren hissed and dropped down into the hole and out of sight, except for the white-knuckled fingers of one hand, holding the warped board flat against the floor with his weight.
Tavi licked his lips, thinking furiously. If he remained inert, the guards would have nothing better to do than notice the missing boards.
He lifted his head to face Turk. The broad-chested man wore a curved Kalaran gutting knife on his belt, and his eyes were stormy. Behind him walked a lean, skinny man in the same river sailor's clothing, and another curved knife rode on his belt. He was bald and looked as though he had been made from lengths of knotted rawhide-and his nose was missing. Watercrafting had left what remained a shade of fresh pink, but it gave him a skeletal look, his naval cavities reduced to a pair of oblong slits in his face. Cardis, then.
"Well," Turk said. "Look at that. Kid's awake."
"So what," Cardis snarled, stalking over to the bound and hooded Kitai. He tore off the leather hood, took a fistful of the girl's hair, and savagely tore it out of her scalp. "I don't give a bloody crow about the boy."
Kitai's eyes blazed with emerald fire, something wild and furious rising up behind them. Her face bore bruises on one cheek, and dried blood clung in brown-black clots to the lower half of her face.
"Don't touch her!" Tavi snarled.
Cardis almost idly dealt Tavi's face a sharp, stinging blow with his open hand, then turned back to Kitai.
The Marat girl stared at Cardis without flinching or making a sound, then deliberately slipped her tongue between her lips and licked at the blood on her upper lip, a slow and defiant smile crossing her face.
Cardis's eyes went flat and dangerous.
"Cardis," Turk snapped. "We're not to harm either of them."
The other man stared down at Kitai and tore out another heavy lock of hair. "So we don't mark them up. Who's to know?"
Turk growled, "My orders are from the old crow himself. If I let you cross him, he'll kill you. And then he'll kill me for not stopping you."
Cardis's voice rose to a furious scream as he gestured at his face. "Do you see what that little bitch did to me? Do you expect me to just stand here and take that?"
"I expect you to follow orders," Turk spat.
"Or what?"
"You know what."
Cardis bared his teeth and drew his knife. "I've had about as much of this dung as I'm going to take for one day."
Turk drew his knife as well, eyes narrowed. He flicked a glance aside at Tavi, then his eyes paused on the floor behind them. "Bloody crows," he muttered. "Look at this." He took a couple of steps to stand over the hole in the floor.
"What?" Cardis asked, though his voice was less angry.
"Looks like someone is trying to-"
Ehren's head and shoulders popped up out of the hole, and the little scribe drove his knife straight down through Turk's heavy leather boot and the foot inside it to bury its tip in t
he floor. Turk let out a startled cry and tried to dodge, but his pinned foot could not move with him, and he fell to the ground.
Kitai let out a sudden and bloodcurdling howl of primal wrath. Her body jerked once, twice, and the chair she was tied to shattered into pieces still attached to her limbs. She swung one arm in a broad arc, and smashed the heavy wooden arm of the chair still tied to her wrist into Cardis's knife arm. The knife tumbled free and rang as it hit the floor.
Ehren shouted and the fourth board popped free. Then he swarmed up out of the hole in the floor and started kicking Turk in the head. Turk managed to slash clumsily at Ehren's leg with his curved knife, and scored. Ehren staggered back, his leg unable to support his weight. He fell to the ground just behind Tavi, scrambled to seize Cardis's dropped knife, and hacked desperately at Tavi's bonds.
Tavi saw Turk jerk the dagger impaling his foot clear of his flesh, tossed the knife into a half flip, seized the blade, and flung it at Ehren's back.
"Down!" Tavi snarled. Ehren might not have been physically imposing, but the young scribe was quick. He dropped to the floor and the flung knife struck flat against the back of Tavi's chair and clattered down.
The ropes came free from his arms as Turk charged toward them. Tavi hopped in the chair to twist it around, then overbalanced himself to land hard on his side. He'd been too slow. Turk darted in with his curved Kalaran knife.
Kitai let out a shriek and swung at Turk. She missed, but it forced the man to dodge and bought Tavi a precious second. He seized Ehren's knife from the floor and turned just as Turk seized his hair. The knife flashed down. Tavi blocked the slash by interposing his forearm with Turk's wrist, simultaneously slashing up with his knife.
The blow whipped across Turk's inside upper thigh and bit deep. Blood sprayed.
Kitai seized Turk from behind, her encumbered hands gripping the back of his skull and the point of his chin. She howled and twisted her body in a sudden, savage motion, and broke the man's neck. He fell in a jellylike heap to the floorboards. Kitai promptly seized Turk's knife in one hand, and ripped his shirt clear of his chest with the other, her eyes wild, focused on his heart as she drove the knife down and started cutting.
"Kitai," Tavi panted, cutting the bonds on his legs free. "Kitai!"
Her face snapped up toward him, a terrifying mask of rage and blood. Blood dripped from the curved knife, and the fingers of her other hand were already set inside the opening she had cut, ready to tear the body open and take the heart.
"Kitai," Tavi said again, more quietly. "Listen to me. Please. You can't do this. There's no time."
She stared, frozen, the wild light in her eyes fluttering uncertainly.
"My legs," he said. "I can't feel them. I need you to help me get out of here before more of them come."
Her eyes narrowed with an anticipation that was almost lustful. "More. Let them come."
"No," Tavi said. "We have to leave. Kitai, I need to cut you loose. Give me the knife." He offered her his hand.
She stared at him, and the wild energy seemed to recede, leaving her panting, bruised, and covered in welts, small cuts, and rope burns. After a second of hesitation, she reversed her grip on the knife and passed him its hilt before kneeling beside him.
"Great furies," Ehren breathed quietly. "Is… is that a Marat?"
"Her name is Kitai," Tavi said. "She's my friend." He started cutting the ropes from her as gently as he could. She simply sat, waiting passively, her eyelids drooping lower and lower as the wild and furious energy that had filled her ebbed away.
"Ehren," Tavi said. "Can you walk?"
The other boy blinked, nodded once, and cut cloth from the hem of his tunic. He wound it several times around his calf and tied it off. "Thank goodness they didn't have any furies."
"Maybe they did," Tavi said. "Thugs like that tend to be earthcrafters, and this warehouse is on the pier. They aren't touching the ground. But we've got to get out of here before someone else shows up." He rose and tugged on Kitai's hand. "Come on. Let's go."
She rose, and hardly seemed conscious of her surroundings.
"There's a knotted rope on your left," Ehren said. "Take it down to the water. Go in as quietly as you can and head for shore. I'll be along in a moment."
"What are you going to do?" Tavi asked.
Ehren gave him a tight smile. "Put those boards back and let them wonder what the crows happened in there."
"Good thinking," Tavi said. "Well done." He climbed down to the rope, got his feet steadily on one of the knots, and paused. "Ehren?"
"Yes?"
"What time is it?"
"Not sure," Ehren replied. "The moon's going down, though."
Tavi's flesh went cold and crawled with goose bumps. He started down the rope, encouraging Kitai to follow him, desperate to hurry but forced to move deliberately, quietly, until he was safely away from Lord Kalare's killers.
The moon was going down.
The Canim were coming for the First Lord.
Chapter 43
Amara stared out of the mouth of the cave at the taken as the morning light grew. "Why aren't they moving faster? It's as though they want us to come out and slaughter them before they're in position."
"We should already be doing it," grumbled a new voice from behind Amara.
"Giraldi," Bernard growled. "You shouldn't be standing on that leg. Get back with the rest of the wounded."
Amara glanced aside as the centurion limped heavily to the front of the cave to stand beside Bernard, herself, and Doroga. "Yes, sir. Right away sir." But he found a place on the wall and leaned on it with no evident intention of moving anywhere, and regarded the enemy line of battle-such as it was.
"Giraldi," Bernard said, his voice a warning.
"If we get through this, Count, you can demote me for insubordination if it makes you feel better."
"Fine." Bernard grimaced and nodded reluctantly to Giraldi, then turned to watch the enemy.
The taken had been forming into a column of a width approximately equal to that of the cave's mouth for several minutes. The formation was not complete yet, and the front ranks, well out of bow range even for Bernard and his Knights Flora, consisted of the largest of the taken holders and legionares, the youngest and strongest of the men the vord had captured. The queen simply crouched at the head of the column, never moving, unsettling and shapeless in her dark cloak.
"Looks like they're going for quick and dirty," Giraldi growled. "Form up a column and push it right down our throats."
"The taken are very strong," Doroga rumbled. "Even Aleran taken. And we are outnumbered."
"We'll take a stand ten feet down the tunnel," Bernard said. "That will keep our fronts matched, reduce the advantage of numbers." He drew his heel across the dirt floor. "We form the shieldwall here, on this side of the tunnel, and leave the other to Walker and Doroga."
Giraldi grunted. "Three shields across, it looks, sir."
Bernard nodded. "Swords on the front rank. Spears in the next two." He nodded to a slightly raised shelf along one wall that had been used as a place for sleeping mats. "I'll be there with the archers and take what shots we can. We're low on shafts, though, so we'll have to be cautious. And you'll have our Knights Terra on the ground level in front of us, ready to assist either Doroga or the legionares if they need the pressure taken off them."
Giraldi nodded. "Nine men fighting at a time. I suggest six squads, Count. Each of them can take ten minutes of every hour. That will keep them as rested as we can get them and let us hold out the longest."
"Doroga," Bernard asked. "Are you sure you and Walker won't need resting time?"
"Walker can't back much farther down this tunnel," Doroga said. "Get us a couple minutes to breathe now and then. That will be as much as we can ask for."
Bernard nodded. "We'll need to give some thought to what craftings we'll want to use, Giraldi," Bernard began. "Brutus is still hiding us from Garados. What have your men got that isn't on the off
icial list?"
"All of them have some metalcraft, sir," Giraldi said. "I've got one man who's a fair hand at firecrafting. He was a potter's apprentice for a while, and managed the fires there. I'm not saying he could call up a firestorm, but if we set up a trench with fuel and a low flame, he could maybe turn it into a barrier for a little while. Two men with enough windcraft to blow up a lot of smoke and dust. I daresay that they could probably help the Countess, if she's of a mind to try another windstorm. We've got a man who knows enough water to be damned good at poker, and he says that there's a stream at the back of the cave he might be able to call out when we run short on water. And I've got one more man who had a smart mouth when he first signed on, and he wound up digging most of the latrine trenches for about three years."
Bernard snorted. "He get his mouth under control?"
"No," Giraldi said. "He built up enough earthcraft that it wasn't a challenge for him anymore. With your permission, I thought I would have him help me prepare a fallback position deeper in the cave. Trench, earthwork, nothing fancy. If we need it, it won't save anyone, but it might make them pay more to get to us."
"Fine," Bernard said. "Go ahead and-"
"No," Amara said. Everyone stopped to blink at her, and she found herself fumbling for a way to put her thoughts into words. "No overt crafting," she said, then. "We don't dare use it."
"Why not?"
"Because I think it's what they are waiting for," she said. "Remember, that the taken could indeed employ crafting, but that they only did so after we had called up craftings of our own. After we had set forces in motion."
"Yes," Bernard said. "So?"
"So what if they waited because they couldn't initiate a crafting?" Amara said. "We all know how critical confidence and personality is to initiating a furycrafting. These taken may have Aleran bodies, but they aren't Alerans. What if they can only use their talent at furycraft once someone else gathers enough furies into motion?"
Bernard frowned. "Giraldi?"
"Sounds pretty thin to me," the centurion said. "No offense, Countess. I'd like to believe you, but there's nothing to suggest that your guess is anything more than that."