A flicker of motion from Etan warned Fidelias that the three riders were not alone in the grey shadows of the woods. He drew his mount to a stop at once, lifting his hand to signal the others to do the same. There was silence there among the dimness of the evergreens, broken only by the breathing of the three horses, the drip of rainwater from the trees to the forest floor, and the soft sigh of cold northern wind.
Fidelias’s mount threw back its head and let out a short, shrill sound of fear. The other two horses picked up on it, heads lifted high and eyes wide and white. Odiana’s mount threw its head about and danced to one side, nervous and spooky. Fidelias reached out to Vamma at once, and the earth fury acted upon his will, spreading to the beasts around him the soothing calm of the deep earth. Fidelias felt the earth fury’s influence expand like a slow wave, until it rippled over the horses, stealing away the restless agitation and letting their riders bring the beasts once more under control.
“Something watches,” the water witch hissed. She drew her mount close to Aldrick’s side, her dark eyes glittering and agate-hard. “They are hungry.”
Aldrick pursed his lips, then put one hand on his sword. He didn’t otherwise straighten from the relaxed slouch he had maintained during the whole ride.
“Easy,” Fidelias murmured, putting a hand on his horse’s neck. “Let’s move forward. There’s a clearing just ahead. Let’s give ourselves some open space around us.”
They eased the horses forward into a clearing, and though the mounts were under control, they still tossed their heads restlessly, eyes and ears flicking about for some sign of whatever enemy they had scented.
Fidelias led them to the center of the clearing, though it scarcely gave them thirty feet on any side. The shadows fell thick through the trees, the wan grey light creating pools of shifting, fluid dimness between branch and bough.
He scanned the edges of the clearing until he spotted the vague outline of Etan’s form, the squirrel-like shape flickering around the edges of a patch of dimness. Then he nudged his horse forward a step and addressed it directly. “Show yourself. Come out to speak beneath the sun and the sky.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then a shape within that dimness resolved itself into the form of a Marat and stepped forward into the clearing. He stood tall and relaxed, his pale hair worn in a long braid across his scalp and down the nape of his neck. Dark, wiry feathers had been worked into the braid. His wore a buckskin belt and loincloth about his hips and nothing more. He bore a hook-shaped knife in his right hand, gleaming like dark glass.
At his side paced a herdbane, one of the tall predator birds of the plains beyond. It more than matched the Marat in height, though its neck and legs were so thickly built with muscle as to seem stumpy and clumsy. Fidelias knew that they were not. The bird’s beak gleamed in tandem with the Marat’s knife, and the terrible, raking claws upon its feet scratched through the bed of damp pine needles covering the forest floor and tore at the earth beneath.
“You are not Atsurak,” Fidelias said. He kept his voice measured, clear, his speech almost rhythmic. “I seek him.”
“You seek Atsurak, Cho-vin of the Herdbane Tribe,” the Marat said, his own guttural voice in the same cadence. “I stand between you.”
“You must stand elsewhere.”
“That I will not do. You must go back.”
Fidelias shook his head. “That I will not do.”
“Then there will be blood,” the Marat said. His knife twitched, and the herdbane beside him let out a low, whistling hiss.
From behind Fidelias, Odiana murmured, “Ware. He is not alone.”
Fidelias followed Etan’s flickering, unseen guidance. “To our left and right, at right angles,” he murmured back to Aldrick.
“Aren’t you going to talk?” Aldrick asked, his voice a lazy drawl.
Fidelias reached up a hand to scratch at his neck, squintingat the Marat. “These three evidently disagree with their Cho-vin. Their chief. They aren’t interested in talking.”
Odiana let out a breathy, “Oh, goodie.”
The former Cursor gripped the hilt of the knife that hung at the back of his neck and whipped his arm forward and down. There was a flicker of grey light on steel, and then the spikelike throwing knife buried itself in the herdbane, its handle protruding from the bird’s head, just where its beak met its skull. The herdbane let out a scream and leapt into the air in a great spasm. It fell to the forest floor, screaming still, thrashing viciously in its agony.
From the left and right came a sudden shriek of sound, the war cries of the birds and their masters, one savage paired with a bird rushing the group from either side. Fidelias felt, more than saw, Aldrick slip to the ground and turn to face one pair, but he heard quite clearly the rasp of the man’s sword being drawn. Odiana murmured something under her breath, a soft, cooing sound.
The lead Marat rushed to the fallen herdbane’s side for a moment and then, with a decisive motion, ripped the hook-shaped knife over the bird’s throat. The herdbane let out a final, weak whistle and then shuddered to stillness on the ground as its blood stained the earth. Then the Marat turned toward Fidelias with his face set in a flat, murderous rage and flung himself at the former Cursor.
Fidelias barked a command to Vamma and flicked his hand in his attacker’s direction. The ground beneath the Marat bucked in response, throwing him to one side, sending him sprawling. Fidelias took the opportunity to dismount from his increasingly agitated horse and to draw the dagger from the sheath at his hip. The Marat regained its balance and rushed him, aiming to move past his opponent, raking the horrible knife along Fidelias’s belly in passing, disemboweling him.
Fidelias was familiar with the technique and countered by facing the Marat squarely, meeting his rush with one boot abruptly thrust out at the Marat’s knee. He felt his foot connect hard, and something snapped in the Marat’s leg. The Marat let out a squall and fell, whipping its knife at Fidelias’s thigh as it did. The Aleran pushed away from the Marat’s body in the same motion, pulling his leg clear a finger’s width ahead of the knife, then turned to face his opponent.
The Marat attempted to rise to his feet, only to have his knee buckle. He fell into the pine needles. Fidelias turned and walked toward the nearest tree, glancing back at the others as he did.
Aldrick stood at the edge of the clearing, facing out, his blade gripped and held parallel to the ground, his arm extended straight out to his side, an almost dancelike pose. Behind the swordsman lay a herdbane, its head missing, its body flopping and clawing wildly, evidently unaware of its own impending death. The Marat that had rushed Aldrick knelt on the forest floor, its head lowered and swaying, its hands pressing at its belly and stained with blood.
On the other side of the clearing, Odiana sat on her horse, humming quietly to herself. The ground in front of her had, it had seemed, quite abruptly transformed into bog. Neither Marat nor herdbane could be seen, but the silt and mud before her stirred vaguely, as though something thrashed unseen beneath its surface.