Chapter 19
Tavi ran.
His muscles were sore and the myriad scratches felt horrible, sending curling ribbons of pain through his skin, but he was able to run. For a while, Amara ran beside him in silence, hardly limping at all-but after a quarter mile, her motion became uneven, and on her exhales she started letting out whimpers of sound. Tavi dropped his pace a bit to run beside her.
"No," she gasped. "You have to keep going. Even if I don't get to the Count, you have to. "
"But your leg-"
"I'm not important, Tavi," Amara said. "Run. "
"We need to head east," Tavi said, staying beside her. "We'll have to find a place to cross the Rillwater, but there's thick and twisty woods on the other side. In the dark, we could lose them there. "
"One of the men behind us," she panted. "Woodcrafter. Strong one. "
"Not there," Tavi said. "The only one who has ever gotten along with those furies is my uncle, and it took him years. He showed me how to get through them. "
Amara slowed and nodded, as they neared the top of a hill. "All right. You, come here. " She beckoned to Fade, who shuffled to her obediently. She took the bundle from him and took out his uncle's bow and the arrows with it. She braced the bow against her leg and leaned hard on it, bending it enough to string it, then took it in hand and picked up the arrows. "I want you two to get into the woods. Keep going through them. "
Tavi swallowed. "What are you going to do?"
Amara took the sword from the bundle and slipped it through her makeshift belt. "I'm going to try to slow them here. I'll be able to see them coming here as well as anywhere. "
"But you're standing out here in the open. They'll just shoot you. "
She smiled, grimly. "I think there will be a bad wind for it. Leave me some of the salt. Once that storm hits, we should be free to start evading them a little more securely. "
"We'll stay here and help," Tavi said.
The Cursor shook her head. "No. You two get moving. Just in case things don't go well. I'll find you by morning. "
"But-"
"Tavi," Amara said. She turned to him, frowning gently. "I can't protect you and still fight here. These men are powerful crafters. You can't do anything to help me. "
The words hit him like a physical blow, and he felt a surge of frustration, helpless anger, that raced through him and for a moment washed away the aches of his body. "I can't do anything. "
"Wrong," Amara said. "They'll be using earth- and woodcrafting to track you-not me. I'll be able to ambush them, and if I get lucky I might stop them altogether. Get moving and keep their attention on you. "
"Won't their earthcrafter feel you?" Tavi asked. "And if they're using wood, too, you can't climb a tree to get off the ground. "
Amara glanced to the north. "When that storm gets here, the furies
in it. . . " She shook her head. "But I can take advantage of things now. Cirrus. "
She closed her eyes for a moment, and the wind began to rise around her. It made the loose clothing on her billow and flap, though Tavi, standing only a few feet away, felt nothing. Amara spread her arms slightly, and the wind gusted her completely off the ground for a moment-and then settled into a whirlwind that threw up dust and debris and specks of ice in a cloud around her legs to the knee. She hovered there, momentarily, then opened her eyes and drifted left and right, experimentally.
Tavi stared at her, stunned. He had never seen such a display of wind-crafting. "You can fly. "
Amara smiled at him, and even in the dimness her face seemed bright. "This? This is nothing. Maybe after all this is over, I can show you what real flying is. " She nodded. "Those storm furies you have here are bad ones, and there's not much time before they get here. But this will keep Fidel-the enemy from sensing me. "
"All right," Tavi said, uncertainly. "You'll be sure to find us?"
Amara's smile faded. "I'll try. But if I haven't in a few hours, then keep going yourself. Can you get to Garrison?"
"Sure," Tavi said. "I mean. I think I will. And Uncle will be coming. He can find us anywhere in the Valley. "
"I hope you're right," Amara said. "He seems a good man. " She turned her back on Tavi and Fade, frowning, facing back the way that they had come. She set an arrow to the bow. "Get to Garrison. Warn the Count. "
Tavi nodded, then dug into his bag and got out one of the bags of salt. He threw it down, not far from Amara, but not too close to the fury holding her in the air, either. She glanced back and down at the salt and then at Tavi. "Thank you. "
"Good luck. "
Fade tugged at Tavi's sleeve. "Tavi," he said. "Go. "
"Yeah. Come on. " Tavi turned and started down the hill, picking up to a jog again. Fade kept pace with him, the slave seemingly tireless and uncomplaining. They left Amara behind on the hilltop, and the darkness of settling evening swallowed her from sight. Tavi took his bearings from the slope of the hill, a pair of boulders he and Frederic had once teased, and before another quarter hour had passed, they had found the edges of the wood and slipped into shadows of the pines and aspen and beneath the long fingers of the barren oak.
Tavi slowed his pace to a walk then, breathing in swift pants. He held a hand to his side, where a slow, throbbing pain was starting to rise. "I haven't ever done this much running all together," he told Fade. "Getting cramps. "
"Legions, run. March. Train. " Fade said. The slave looked behind them, and the shadows fell over the coward's brand on his marred face. His eyes glittered. "Tavi in the Legions, run lots. "
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.