Tavi eventually came to the conclusion that he was sulking.

It wasn't easily reached, of course. It took nearly ten minutes of staring at the wall in smoldering anger after his aunt's departure before it occurred to Tavi that she did not look at all well. That, in turn, led to worrying about her, and after that it became impossible to sustain a good, sullen rage. The anger slowly faded and left him feeling tired, sore, and hungry.

Tavi sat up on his bed and swung his legs over the side. He kicked his feet, frowning, while he thought about the events of the past day, and what they meant to him.

He had neglected his responsibilities and told a lie. And now he suffered for it-and so did the people who cared about him. His uncle had been wounded badly in his defense, and now Aunt Isana looked as though the efforts of healing his uncle's leg had damaged her health. Such things were not unheard of. And even though Bernard tried to hide it, his uncle walked with a very slight limp. It was just possible that he would keep it, that the injury had done permanent damage to his leg.

Tavi rested his chin in his hands and closed his eyes, feeling foolish, selfish, childish. He had been so focused on getting the sheep-his sheep- back, on keeping his uncle's respect, that he had forgotten to behave in a manner that was worthy of it. He had exposed himself and others to great risk, all for the sake of his dream-the Academy.

If he had gotten to the Academy as a result of his ill-considered choices, would it have been worth it? Could he really have made a better life for himself, knowing what he had traded away to get it?

"You are an idiot, Tavi," he mumbled to himself. "A true, shining example of idiocy."

Matters could be much worse for him-much worse for his family, as well. He shuddered at the thought of his uncle, dead on the ground, or his aunt laying beside a healing tub with her eyes empty, her body still breathing but already dead. Though things had not played out the way he had wished them to, they could have been more disastrous.

Though he ached in every muscle and his head felt light and feverish, he went to the door. He would find his aunt and uncle, apologize to them, and offer to make amends. He had no idea what he would do, but he knew that he had to at least try. They deserved that much.

He had to earn the respect he wanted, not through daring or cleverness, but simply through hard work and reliability, just as his uncle and aunt had.

Tavi was about to open the door when there came a swift, soft rapping at his window.

He blinked, looking back across the dimness of his room. Outside, the wind was rising, and he had already put up the storm shutters. Perhaps one of the more mischievous wind furies had rattled the shutters.

The knock came again. Three quick knocks, two slow, three quick, two slow.

Tavi went to the window and unfastened the latch to the storm shutters.

They sprang open, all but knocking him down, and let in a torrent of cold, misty wind. Tavi drew back several steps, as someone slipped into the room, lithe and nearly silent.

Amara made a soft, quiet sound and slipped entirely into the room, then turned and shut the window and the shutters behind her. She was wearing what looked like a pair of his uncle's trousers, belted about her slender waist with a heavy leather cord. His tunic and shirt billowed on her, as did the heavily padded jacket and cloak, but she had secured them with more strips of leather, so that she was quite evidently functional in them. She wore pale slippers on her feet and what looked like several layers of socks over them. In one hand, she held a bundle that included an old leather pack of Bernard's, his hunting bow, a handful of arrows, and the sword they'd recovered from the Princeps' Memorium.

"Tavi," she said. "Get dressed in warm clothes. Bring extra socks, some blankets, food if you have any up here. We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Tavi stammered.

"Keep your voice down," the slave hissed.

Tavi blinked and mumbled, "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Hurry. We don't have much time."

"We can't leave," Tavi protested. "The storm's coming in."

"It won't be as bad as the last one," Amara said. "And we can take more salt with us. You have a smokehouse here, yes? Salt for the meat?"

"Of course, but-"

Amara crossed to his trunks, swung the first open, and started digging.

"Hey!" Tavi protested.

She threw a pair of heavy trousers into his face, followed by three of his thickest shirts. She followed that with his jacket from its peg on the wall and then his second-best cloak.

"Get those on," Amara said.

"No," Tavi said, firmly. "I'm not leaving. I just got back. People got hurt trying to come and find me. I'm not going to make them go through that again. You can't expect me to put the people of my own steadholt in danger so that I can go running off with a fugitive slave!"

Amara went to the door and checked the latch, making sure it was shut. "Tavi, we don't have time. If you want to live, come with me. Right now."

Tavi blinked at her, so startled that he dropped the clothes he had been holding. "Wh-what?"

"If you don't leave with me, right now, you aren't going to live through the night."

"What are you talking about?"

"Get dressed," she said.

"No," he snapped. "Not until I know what's happening."

Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time he'd been near her, Tavi felt a sliver of fear quiver through him. "Tavi. If you don't get dressed and come with me, I will knock you out, wrap you in a blanket, and take you with me."

Tavi licked his lips. "N-no you won't," he said. "You couldn't carry me down through the hall, and you won't be able to carry me out the window, either-or on the ground. Not with your ankle hurt."

Amara blinked at him and then ground her teeth. "Too clever," she muttered. "This steadholt, maybe every one in the Valley, is in danger. I think you and I can help them. Tavi, get dressed. Please. I'll explain while you do."

Tavi swallowed, staring at the young woman. The steadholt in danger?

What was she talking about? The last thing he needed was to go chasing off again, to prove to everyone who mattered that he couldn't be trusted.

But Amara had saved his life. And if she was telling the truth...

"All right. Talk." He stooped down to recover his clothes and started shrugging into the shirts.

Amara nodded and came closer, holding the clothes for him, helping him into them. "First of all, I'm not a slave. I'm a Cursor. And I've been sent to this valley at the command of the First Lord himself."

Tavi blinked up at her and then stuffed his arms into the sleeves. "To deliver mail?"

Amara sighed. "No. That's just one of the things we do, Tavi. I am the agent of the First Lord. He thinks this valley may be in danger, and he sent me to do something about it."

"But you're a girl!"

She frowned at him and jerked the next shirt down over his ears roughly. "I'm a Cursor. And I think the First Lord is right."

"But what does this have to do with me? With Bernardholt?"

"You've seen the danger, Tavi. I need to take you to Garrison. You have to tell the Count there what you saw."

A cold feeling chilled Tavi, and he blinked up at her. "The Marat," he breathed. "The Marat are coming. Aren't they? Like when they killed the Princeps."

"I think so," Amara said.

"My uncle saw them, he's the one that should go. The Count would never believe that-"

"He can't," Amara said. "Crafting trauma, when he was healed. He doesn't remember any of it."

"How do you know that?" Tavi demanded.

"Because I listened. I faked passing out, and I listened in on all the talk up here. Your uncle doesn't remember, and your aunt is suspicious of me. There's no time to explain it to them-we have to leave here, and right now."

Tavi tugged the heavy tunic on over the shirts, his hands moving more slowly now. "Why?"

"Because downstairs are some men who are here to kill you, me, and anyone who has seen the Marat."

"But why would another Aleran do that?"

"We really don't have time for that. They're the enemy. They want to

unseat the First Lord, and they want the Marat to wipe out the steadholts in the Valley so that the Realm perceives the First Lord as weak and ineffective."

Tavi stared at her. "Wipe out the Valley? But that would mean..."

She regarded him, her face drawn. "Unless we take warning to the Count, unless the forces at Garrison are ready to meet them, the Marat will kill everyone. This steadholt and all the rest as well."

"Crows," Tavi whispered. "Oh, crows and furies."

"You're the only one who has seen them. The only one who I can use to convince the Count to rouse Garrison." Amara stalked back over to the window, opened it again, then turned to Tavi and extended her hand. "Are you with me?"

They used a sheet from Tavi's bed, tied to its leg, to drop from his window to the courtyard below. The wind whistled from the north, bringing with it the stinging chill of true winter. Amara went down first, then beckoned to Tavi, who tossed down a bundle thrown hurriedly together into the blankets from his bed. Amara caught it, and then the boy swallowed, and slithered down the sheet to the stones of the courtyard.

Amara led them across the courtyard in silence. No one was in evidence, though the light and noise from the hall could be heard through its thick doors. The gate door was open, and they slid through it and out into the outbuildings. Full dark was getting close, and shadows lay dim and thick over the cold ground.

Tavi led them past the stables and over to the smokehouse. The building shared a wall with the smithy, where both could use the same chimney for a fire. The sharp smell of smoke and meat hung around the smokehouse in a permanent cloud.

"Get the salt," Amara murmured to him. "Just take the sack, if there's one at hand, or a bucket. I'll keep watch here. And hurry."

Tavi slipped inside, where the fading twilight held little sway, and fumbled through the dark, to the shelf at the back of the smoke room. He stopped to take down a pair of hams that had been hanging, and dropped them into his makeshift bag. The salt, all rough crystals, filled a large homespun sack. Tavi tried to lift it and grunted with effort. Then he put it back down, took one of his blankets, and tore off a couple of large sections. He piled heavy salt crystals into them, and twisted them shut, tying them with several lengths of leather cord kept on hand for hanging the meats.

He had just picked them up and was heading back for the door when he

heard a squealing sound outside the smokehouse. There was a hiss of breath and a pair of heavy thumps. Tavi hurried outside, his eyes wide, his heart pounding in his chest.

There, Amara knelt with one knee on the chest of a fallen man, a knife gripped in her hand and pressed to his throat.

"Stop," Tavi hissed. "Get off of him!"

"He snuck up on me," Amara said. She didn't move the knife.

"That's Fade. He's no danger to anyone."

"He wouldn't answer me."

"You scared him," Tavi said and shoved at her shoulder. Amara shot him a look, but didn't fall. She took the knife from Fade's throat and rose back and away from the fallen slave.

Tavi leaned down and took Fade's hand, hauling the man to his feet. He wore heavy clothes against the gathering cold, including a woolen cap with flaps that hung down to his shoulders and dangled like the ears of a gangly puppy and secondhand gloves missing several fingers. The whole side of the slave's face was slack with fear, and he stared at Amara with wide eyes, backing up from her until his shoulders touched Tavi's chest. "Tavi," Fade said. "Tavi. Inside. Storm coming."

"I know, Fade," Tavi said. "But we have to go."

"There's no time for this," Amara said, shooting a glance behind her. "If one of them sees us-"

"Tavi stay," Fade insisted.

"I can't. Me and Amara have to get to Count Gram and warn him that the Marat are coming. She's a Cursor, and we have to go before some bad men try to stop us."

Fade turned to blink his head slowly at Tavi. His face twisted in confusion, and he asked, "Tavi going? Tonight?"

"Yes. I have salt."

Amara hissed, "Let's go then. No time."

Fade frowned, almost scowled. "Fade, too."

"No, Fade," Tavi said. "You have to stay here."

"Going."

"We have to travel light," Amara said. "The slave stays."

Fade threw back his head and let out a howl like a wounded dog.

Tavi choked and lurched toward the man, covering his mouth with one hand. "Quiet! Fade, they'll hear us!"

Fade ceased howling but looked at Tavi, his expression steady.

Tavi looked from Fade to Amara. The Cursor rolled her eyes and gestured at him to hurry. Tavi grimaced. "All right. You can go. But we have to leave right now."

Fade's mouth broke into a witless smile behind Tavi's hand, and he started chortling. He held up a hand to them, dashed inside the smithy, and emerged a few heartbeats later bearing a battered old rucksack on his back and muttering excited, nonsense phrases to himself.

Amara shook her head and asked Tavi, "He's an idiot?"

"He's a good man," Tavi said, defensively. "He's strong and he works hard. He won't get in the way."

"He'd better not," Amara said. She slipped the knife away into her belt and threw her bundle at Fade. "I'm hurt, he's not. He carries mine."

Fade dropped it and scraped a bow to Amara as he picked up the bundle of blankets and appropriated gear. He lifted that one to his other shoulder.

Amara turned to lead them away from Bernardholt, but Tavi put his hand on her shoulder. "These men. Won't they catch us if we're on foot?"

"I'm not good with horses. You're no earthcrafter. Is the slave?"

Tavi glanced at Fade and grimaced. "No. I mean, he knows a little metal. And he makes shoes for the horses, but I don't think that he's an earthcrafter."

"Better we walk then," she said. "One of the men after us is, and he can make the horses do what he wants to."

"On horseback, they'll be faster."

"That's why we'd better get going. Hopefully they'll be here until morning."

"Meet me at the stable," Tavi said, and hurried off toward it in the growing dark. Amara hissed at him, but Tavi ignored her, moving to the stable doors and inside.

He was familiar with the animals of Bernardholt. The sheep milled sleepily in their pen, and the cattle took up the rest of the room on the same side. On the other, the hulking gargants lay blowing lustily in their sleep in their burrow-and behind them, Tavi heard the noise of restless, nervous horses.

He slipped silently down through the stable, before he heard a sound in the loft, above him, the storage space between the rafters and the peak of the roof. He froze in place, listening.

A tinny voice said, from the loft, "Between all the excitement yesterday and then last night, it's been one thing after another. Though I suppose it isn't anything compared to the life of a gem merchant, sir."

Tavi blinked. The voice was Beritte's, but it came as though through a long pipe, distant and blurred. It took him a moment to realize that it sounded the same as when his aunt spoke to him through Rill.

A woman's voice, strange to Tavi and near to hand, murmured with a sort of languid laziness, "There you see, love? He has a drink now, and we're able to pay attention. Sometimes it's nice to hurry."

A strange man's voice answered with a low growl. "All this hurrying. When we kill them and finish the mission, I'm going to lock you in a room in irons for a week."

The woman purred, "You're so romantic, my love."

"Quiet. I want to hear what he's saying."

They fell into silence while tinny voices came down to Tavi on the floor. He swallowed and moved very quietly, forward, past the spot in the loft the voices came from, and down to the stalls where the strangers' horses had been put.

Though their gear had been removed, the horses still wore their bridles, and the saddles had been stood on end on the floor beside them, ready to be thrown on and cinched, rather than resting on the pegs on the other side of the stables and their blankets drying on the ground.

Tavi crept into the first stall and let the horse smell him, keeping a hand on the animal's shoulder as he moved to its saddle and knelt beside it. He drew the knife from his belt and, quietly as he could, started cutting through the leather of the saddle's girth. Though the leather was thick, his knife was sharp, and he cut through it completely in only a moment.

Tavi repeated the gesture twice more, leaving the stall doors open and cutting the other two saddles to uselessness. Then he went back, gathering up the horses' reins, keeping his motions as slow as possible, and led them out of their stalls and back down the stables toward the doors out.

As he passed the spot in the loft where the strangers lay, Tavi's throat tightened and his heart hammered in his chest. People, people he had never seen and did not know were there to kill him for reasons he could not fully understand. It was all too strange, almost unreal-and yet the fear in him, something instinctive and all too certain, was very real indeed, like a trickle of cold water gliding slowly down his spine.

He had led the horses past the loft when one of the beasts snorted and tossed its head. Tavi froze in place, panic nearly sending him running.

"Fear," hissed the woman's voice, suddenly. "Below us, the horses."

Tavi jerked on the reins and let out a loud whistle. The horses snorted, breaking into an uncertain trot.

Tavi let go of the reins to dash ahead to the stable doors and throw them open. As the horses went through, Tavi let out a scream that warbled into a high-pitched shriek, and the horses burst out into a run.

There was a roar from behind him, and Tavi glanced over his shoulder in time to see a man, even bigger than his uncle, come crashing down from the loft, a naked sword held in his fist. He looked around him, wildly, and Tavi turned and fled into the darkness.

Someone seized his arm and he almost screamed. Amara clapped cold fingers over his mouth and dragged him into a run, north and east, toward the causeway. Tavi glanced around behind him and saw Fade shuffling along under the weight of his burdens, but no one else seemed to be following them.

"Good," Amara hissed. He saw the flash of her teeth in the growing dark. "Well done, Tavi."

Tavi shot her a grin and one to Fade as well.

And that was when the scream came to them, from behind the walls of the steadholt proper, clear and desperate and terrified.

"Tavi," Isana screamed. "Tavi, run! Run!"

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***