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 the three, she was the only one Amara could reliably overcome with the blade.