Furies of Calderon ca-1 Page 13

  Isana tried to push Kord away, but he was too big, too heavy, her arms too weak.

  "All you have to do is nod," he whispered. "Just be a good girl and agree to let things go. It doesn't have to be this way."

  She stared up at him, feeling her own helplessness and fear wash through her, felt herself losing control in the face of that terror. She knew that Bittan was making the fear worse, making her more afraid, but that bit of knowledge seemed to have no particular relevance before the wild, animal panic. If she did not give in to Kord, she was certain, he would stand by and let her die.

  Fury flashed through her, then, a sudden fire that evaporated the fear.

  Isana raked her nails at Kord's eyes. He drew back from her before she could do more than leave a set of small, pink weals on his cheek, his eyes sparkling with anger.

  Isana forced herself to sit up as her vision grew darker and darker. She pointed a finger, weakly, toward the fire.

  Everyone turned to look-and Aldo's eyes widened in sudden comprehension.

  "Bloody crows!" he snarled. "That bastard of Kord's is killing her!"

  There was a general gasp. Confusion spread rapidly through the room, the heightened emotions already present making it flare up like a wildfire through dry grass. Everyone started crying out at once.

  "What?" Otto looked back and forth. "Someone's what?"

  Aldo turned and started shoving his way toward the fire. Then he yelped and fell forward, clutching at his foot where the stone floor had suddenly folded up and over it like a heavy cloth. The young Steadholder whirled and barked a word at the heavy wooden bench beside the table. The wood shuddered and then twisted, snapping with the brittle sound of old bones, sending splinters as long as daggers flying toward Kord.

  The big Steadholder ducked toward Isana, away from the splinters, though one of them had opened his cheek in a sudden spilled sheet of scarlet blood. He lifted his fist and drove it toward her.

  Isana rolled off the table and felt the big Steadholder's blow shatter the heavy oak like kindling. She crawled away from him on her hands and knees toward the fire and the man whose fury was smothering her.

  She saw Fade at the fire, staring at all the confusion with a baffled expression, still half-bent over the pot, a ladle in one hand. He gabbled something and turned to flee, whimpering high in his throat. His feet stumbled over Bittan, as the young Kordholder stood to his feet, knocking the young man down. Fade let out a screech and fell to one side, steaming stew flying from both bowl and ladle.

  It splashed all over Aric's frowning face, drawing a sudden scream of surprised agony from the slender windcrafter.

  Isana drew in a shocked breath, even as she felt the wild confusion of emotion in the room vanish as suddenly as the shadow of a bird flying by overhead. People looked around for a moment, unbalanced by the sudden release from the firecrafting, backing toward the walls.

  "Stop them!" Isana gasped. "Stop Kord!"

  Kord let out a furious roar. "You barren bitch! I'll kill you!" The big man turned, and Isana could all but feel the stirring in the earth as he drew upon his fury for strength, lifted the broken trestle board of the table as though it did not weigh as much as a grown man, and swung it toward her. Aldo, his foot twisted and dragging, hauled himself to his feet and threw himself at Kord's legs. The smaller Steadholder hit the larger man low, dragging him off balance and sending the trestle plank sailing wide of Isana, cracking into the wall. Kord kicked Aldo away, as though he weighed no more than a puppy, and turned toward Isana once more.

  Isana struggled to crawl away, calling Rill to her with desperate intensity. She heard a confusion of sounds around her, men cursing, a door banging open. The air suddenly shrieked, and a gale flung itself down the chimney and hurled a cloud of red-hot embers at Isana. She cried out, falling flat onto the earth, waiting for the pain to begin.

  Instead, she felt them swirl up and past her, and Kord let out a sudden howl of dismay.

  "There, Kord, you lying slive!" cackled Steadholder Warner, from atop the stairs. He stood naked and dripping with water, a towel wrapped around his waist, soap in his wispy hair and running down his skinny legs. His sons stood behind him, swords in hand. "It's about time someone taught you to respect a lady! Take them, boys!"

  "Father," Aric called, through the confusion. Warner's sons leapt down the stairs. "Father, the door!"

  "Wait!" Isana cried. She started to stand. "Wait, no! No bloodshed in my house!" A weight hit her from behind and pressed her ungently to the ground. She struggled and squirmed, to find Fade on top of her, firmly pressing her down.

  "Fade!" she gasped. "Get off me!"

  "Hurt Fade!" the slave gabbled, and hid his face against her back, sobbing, clinging to her like an overlarge child. "No hurt, no more hurt!"

  Kord let out a bellow and caught the first of Warner's sons, as he threw himself at the big Steadholder. Kord grasped the young man by the wrist and belt and threw him across the room to crash hard into the wall. Kord rushed toward the doors to the hall, Aric and Bittan hard on his heels, and the folk of Bernardholt scattered from the Steadholder's path. He slammed into one of the doors and tore it from its hinges, letting in a howl of cold wind and half-frozen rain. He vanished into the night, his sons following.

  "Let them go!" shouted Isana. So sharply did her voice ring out that Warner's other two sons drew up short, staring at her.

  "Let them go," Isana repeated. She wriggled out from beneath Fade and looked around at the hall. Aldo lay gasping and hurt, and Warner's son slumped unmoving against the wall. At the other end of the hall, Old Bitte crouched over Bernard's pale and motionless form, an iron poker from the fire gripped determinedly in her withered fingers.

  "Isana," protested Warner, coming down the stairs, still clasping his towel with one hand. "We can't just let them leave! We can't let animals like that go unstopped!"

  Weariness and the pounding in her head met with the backwash of Isana's terror, of the panic at the sudden and vicious violence, and she began to shake. She bowed her head for a moment and willed Rill to keep the tears from her eyes.

  "Let them go," she repeated. "We have our own wounded to attend to. The storm will kill them."

  "But-"

  "No," Isana said, firmly. She looked around at the other Steadholders. Roth was standing to his feet, slowly, and looked dazed. Otto was supporting the older man, and sweat shone on his mostly bald pate. "We have wounded to see to," Isana told the two men.

  "What happened?" Otto stammered. "Why did they do that?"

  Roth put a hand on Otto's shoulder. "They were firecrafting us. Isn't that it, Isana? Making us all more afraid, more worried than we needed to be."

  Isana nodded, silently grateful to Roth, and aware that as a watercrafter, he would sense it. He smiled at her, briefly.

  "But how," Otto said, his tone baffled. "How did they do it without one of us sensing it?"

  "My guess is that Bittan built it up slowly," Isana said. "A little at a time. The way you can heat bathwater a little at a time, so that anyone inside doesn't notice."

  Otto blinked. "I knew you could project emotions, but I didn't know you could do it that way."

  "Most of the Citizenry who know firecrafting will do it to one degree or another, during their speeches," Isana said. "Nearly any Senator can do it without really thinking about it. Gram does it without knowing all the time."

  "And while his son did it to us," Roth mused, "Kord fed us that nonsense

  about a possible flood-and we were worried enough to think that it sounded reasonable."

  "Oh," Otto said. He coughed and flushed pink. "I see. You came down late, Isana, so you were able to notice it. But why didn't you just say something?"

  "Because the other one was smothering her, dolt," growled Aldo, from where he lay. His voice carried the stress of the pain from his injured foot. "And you saw what Kord tried to do to her."

  "I told you all," Warner said with a certain vicious satisfaction in his
voice from his position on the stairs. "They're a bad lot all around."

  "Warner," Isana said wearily. "Go get dressed."

  The spare Steadholder looked down at himself and seemed to become aware of his nakedness for the first time. He flushed, then muttered something to excuse himself and hurried from the room.

  Otto shook his head again. "I just can't believe someone would do that."

  "Otto," muttered Aldo. "Use your head for something besides a dressing mirror. Bernard is hurt, and so is Warner's son. Get them into a tub and craft them better.'

  Roth nodded decisively, visibly gathering himself together. "Of course. Steadholder Aldo," he inclined his head a bit, to the younger man, "was right all along. Isana, I offer you my full support in your crafting, as does Otto, here."

  "I do?" Otto said. "Oh, I mean. Yes, of course. Isana, how could we have been so stupid. Of course we'll help."

  "Child," Bitte called from beside Bernard's still form, her voice high, sharp. "Isana, there's no more time."

  Isana turned to look at Bitte. The old woman's face had gone pale.

  "Your brother. He's gone."

  Chapter 10

  Tavi stumbled beneath the force of a sudden gust of wind. The girl caught his arm in one hand, keeping him upright, and with the other, she hurled a few scanty remnants of the salt crystals he'd given her a few hours before. There was a shriek from the faintly luminous form of the windmane behind the gust, and it withdrew.

  "That's it," she called over the wind. "I'm out of salt!"

  "Me, too!" Tavi answered her.

  "Are we close1?"

  He squinted through the darkness and the rain, shivering and almost too cold to think. "I don't know," he said. "I can't see anything. We should be almost there,"

  She shielded her eyes from the stinging half-sleet with her hand. "Almost won't be good enough. They're coming back."

  Tavi nodded and said, "Keep your eyes out for firelight." He gripped her hand tightly in his, before stumbling forward, through the darkness. Her fingers tightened on his own. The slave was stronger than she looked, and even though his hand had long since gone mostly numb from the cold and the sleet, her grip was painful, frightened. The wind and the deadly manes within it yowled, driving and cold and furious.

  "They're coming," she hissed. "If we're going to get out of this, it has to be right now."

  "It's close. It's got to be." Tavi squinted against the blinding rain, peering ahead of them as best he could. Then he saw it, a faint golden radiance flickering at the edge of his vision. In the storm, he had gotten turned around somehow, and he swerved abruptly to one side, hauling on the girl's wrist. "There! The fire! It's right there! We have to run for it."

  Tavi drove his exhausted body forward, toward the distant light, and the ground began to slope upward, rising steadily toward it. The curtains of sleet and rain blinded him and veiled the light, so that it flickered like a guttering candle, but Tavi kept his eyes doggedly locked on his destination Lightning snarled among the clouds m treacherous, blinding flashes, while the wind-manes howled out their wrath overhead

  Tavi could hear the slave's labored, gasping breath even through the wind-she was evidently at the end of her endurance Her footsteps staggered, as they grew closer to the glowing firelight In the darkness, the wind-manes screeched, and Tavi looked back to see one of them swooping down through the sleet, its face twisted into a grimace of hatred and hunger

  The girl's eyes widened as she saw Tavi's expression, and she began to spin about-but she was too late, her reaction too slow She couldn't possibly turn to defend herself in time

  Tavi reached back and seized her wrist in both hands With the weight of his whole body, he hauled her forward, past him, and sent her stumbling toward the light ahead "Go'" he shouted "Get inside'"

  The windmane hit Tavi, and there was suddenly no air in his lungs, no warmth in his limbs He felt his feet leave the ground, and he went tumbling, jouncing, and bounding down the slope and away from the shelter at its summit, blown like a leaf before the power of the storm He rolled, arms and legs loose, struggling to keep from stopping too abruptly, to guide his fall down the hill and to its base A grey stone appeared before his eyes in a flash of emerald lightning, and he felt himself scream as he flinched away from it

  He caught a flash of light reflected on water, on the ground, and aimed himself toward it through the half dark, desperate and terrified He came to a halt in the mud pooling at the bottom of the hill beneath a finger-width of freezing water, his arms sinking into it halfway to his elbows He struggled and heaved them free of the muck, turning in time to see the windmane descend on him once more

  Tavi rolled to one side, the sludge slowing his movements, and felt the wrndmane's deadly chill settle around his mouth and nose, cutting off his air He thrashed and flinched, but accomplished nothing He could no more keep the fury from blocking his air than he could spread his arms and fly above the storm

  Tavi knew that he had only one chance, and that a slim one He struggled to his feet, then leapt into the air and hurled himself sprawling in the muck Cold, oozing mud and chilled water slithered over him, churned to the consistency of thick pudding by the storm He wriggled down deeper, forcing his face into the mud, then rolled to his back, covering himself in it

  And suddenly, he could breathe again.

  Tavi peered up at the windmane-but it wasn't facing him. The fury swirled and swooped around the point where it had first attacked him, its glowing, hungry eyes flicking back and forth. They never did settle on Tavi. The windmane screamed, and half a dozen of its fellows came looping down and around the area near where Tavi had fallen, spinning and spiraling, searching for him.

  Tavi lifted a hand to brush mud from his eyes, a fierce grin stretching his lips. He'd been right. The earth. The earth that was the nemesis of furies of the air had covered him, hidden him from them. But it was bitterly, painfully cold. Tavi stared at the swirling windmanes and felt the chill settle into his bones. He was safe from the manes. But for how long?

  The rain continued to pelt down, and muddy water dribbled into Tavi's eyes. The rain would wash his coating of mud away in short order, assuming he didn't simply collapse to the ground and freeze. Moving as quietly as he could, he reached down and scooped more mud into his hand, dumping it onto his belly and chest, where the rain had begun to make headway.

  Tavi peered through the storm and up the gentle slope of the mound, to where the light burned at its top, outlining an opening in a dark structure, otherwise invisible in the night. He saw no sign of the slave-which meant that she was either safe or dead. Either way, he had done everything he could for the young woman. He let out a hiss of frustration.

  Instantly, three of the windmanes spun their glowing eyes toward him and flowed through the air, directly at his mouth.

  A yelp started in his chest, but he stifled it from reaching his throat- instead, rolling away, through the mud for several paces, and got to his feet. Looking back, he saw the furies of the storm swirling around the spot where he had lain. They could not see him, perhaps, but they could surely hear him. Even in the din of the storm, they had heard his breath. He scarcely dared to breathe now and wondered if they would hear him moving.

  Either way, he thought, the rain would expose him to them in a few moments. He had to get off of the open ground, to shelter. He had to try to slip past the furious windmanes.

  Tavi would remember that walk for the remainder of his life, as the torment a starving mouse must feel when darting between the feet of giants to snatch at crumbs of food and then rush back to safety.

  All around him, the windmanes swirled and howled. A young bounder

  buck came leaping out of the darkness across Tavi's tail, squealing and throwing his hindquarters wildly about. To the buck clung three of the windmanes, their claws raking, eyes blazing. As Tavi watched, the furies rode the bounder down to the ground, its horns passing harmlessly through them. The buck let out an awful scream, bef
ore one of the manes tore open its throat and two more flowed over its muzzle, cutting off its air. The bounder struggled in silence, thrashing and bucking as its blood flowed. The other windmanes nearby swirled closer, shrieking, clawed hands reaching.

  The animal vanished into a luminescent mass of churning mist and vicious claws. Only moments later, the cloud dispersed into a dozen howling forms.

  And all that remained of the bounder was a head, its eyes wide open and white with terror, beside a scattered pile of claw-rent meat and cracked, bloody bones.

  Tavi's knees went weak, and for the space of several breaths, he couldn't remove his eyes from the gruesome spectacle. The lightning left him in the dark a moment later, leaving the sight of the poor buck's fate blazed across his vision. He opened his mouth to scream and found himself breathless, silent, as in the helpless terror of a nightmare.

  Lightning split the sky again, and the fear took him and ate him in one bite. His trembling paralysis became a sudden surge of fragile, terrified strength, and he all but flew up the hill toward the promised safety of the light. He heard himself suck in a breath and scream, and the windmanes rose up around him in an angry chorus-but one without a director, without a tempo. They swooped and dove furiously around him, but none could see him. The protection of the earth held true, until Tavi had raced up the slope to its summit.

  There, a simple dome of polished marble rose from the slope of the hill to the height of three men. Its open entryway glowed with a soft golden light, and above it, writ into the marble in gold was the seven-pointed star of the First Lord of Alera.

  Tavi felt a section of earth as heavy as a feastday cake slough off of his back and heard the furies scream behind him. His own scream answered them, as the terrible wind raced toward him. He held his arms over his head and threw himself at the doorway.