Jim Butcher - Furies of Calderon

The first order of business, Fidelias would have said, would be to gather intelligence. She had to establish what was going on in the Valley before she could effectively do anything about it, whether it be to act, to invoke her authority as a Cursor of the Crown to the local Count, or to report back to Gaius.

She swallowed. All she had to help her was the knife she'd stolen from Fidelias's boot and some clothing far too light for the weather it seemed she would be faced with. She looked back at the boy, curled on his side before the fire, shivering.

She also had him.

Amara moved to the boy's side and laid a hand on his forehead. He let out a soft groan. His skin was too hot, feverish, and his breathing had dried out his lips, cracked them. She frowned and went back to the water, cupping her hands together and carrying it back to the boy. She urged him to drink and tried to tip the water into his mouth. Most of it trickled through her fingers and splashed onto his chin and neck, but he managed to swallow a little. Amara repeated the process several times, until the boy seemed to relax a little, settling down again.

She studied him as she fetched another of the scarlet capes, folded it into a pad, and slipped it beneath his head. He was a beautiful child, in many ways, his features almost delicate. His hair curled around his head, dark, glossy ringlets. He had the long, thick lashes that so many men seemed to have and not care about, and his hands had long, slender fingers that seemed entirely oversized to the rest of him, promising considerable growth yet to come. His skin, where not marred with bruises or scratches, glowed with the ruddy clarity of youth that had somehow avoided awkward adolescence. She hadn't seen what color his eyes were, in the hectic events of the previous evening, but his voice had been clarion-clear in the storm, bell-sharp.

She frowned more seriously, studying the boy. He had almost certainly saved her life. But who was he? They were a considerable walk from any of the local steadholts. She had chosen her landing site in order to avoid coming

down within sight of any of the locals. So what had the boy been doing there, in the middle of nowhere, in that storm?

"Home," the boy murmured. Amara looked down at him, but he hadn't opened his eyes. His face twitched into a frown in his sleep. "I'm sorry, Aunt Isana. Uncle Bernard should be home. Tried to get him home safe."

Amara felt her eyes widen. Bernardholt was the largest steadholt in the Calderon Valley. Steadholder Bernard was the boy's uncle? She leaned closer and asked him, "What happened to your uncle, Tavi? Was he hurt?"

Tavi nodded, a dreamy motion. "Marat. The herdbane. Brutus stopped it but not before it bit him."

Marat? The savages hadn't given the Realm any trouble since the incident on this very site, fifteen or sixteen years ago. Amara had felt skeptical when Gaius had voiced his concern about the Marat, but apparently one had come into the Calderon Valley and attacked an Aleran Steadholder. But what did it mean? Could it have been one lone Marat warrior, a chance meeting in the wilderness?

No. Too coincidental for mere chance. Something larger was under way.

Amara clenched her hand on the fabric of the cape in frustration, wrinkling it. She needed more information.

"Tavi," she said. "What can you tell me of this Marat? Was he of the Herdbane tribe? Was he alone?"

"Had 'nother one," the boy mumbled. "Killed one, but he had 'nother one."

"A second beast?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Where is your uncle now?"

Tavi shook his head, and his expression twisted with pain. "Here. Was supposed to be home. Sent him home with Brutus. Brutus should have brought him back." Tears had started down his cheeks, and Amara swallowed upon seeing them.

She needed information, yes. But she couldn't torment an unconscious child for it. He needed rest. If he was the Steadholder's nephew, and the man had survived the attack, she could bring him home safely and almost certainly secure the Steadholder's enthusiastic cooperation.

"'M sorry," the boy said, broken and still weeping quiet tears. "I tried. Sorry."

"Shhhh," she said. She used an edge of the cloak to wipe the tears away. "Time to rest now. Lay down and rest, Tavi."

He subsided, and she frowned down at him, smoothing his hair back from his fevered forehead while he slept. If a lone Marat was in the Valley, perhaps the Steadholder had gone to hunt it down. But if so, then why would this boy be along? He had no particular skill at crafting, she judged, or he would have used it when the windmanes had been attacking them. He bore no weapons, no equipment. He couldn't have been hunting the Marat.

Amara inverted the idea. Had it hunted the folk of Bernardholt? Possible, particularly from the Herdbane tribe, if all that she heard of the Marat was true. They were a cold and calculating people, as ruthless and deadly as the animals that accepted them as one of their own.

But Marat didn't often take more than one beast as… what sufficed to describe the term? Mate? Companion? Blood-sibling? She shook her head with a shiver. The savages' ways were still alien to her, something fantastic from a tale rather than the businesslike reality she had learned from classes in the Academy.

Hordemasters took more than one beast, commonly, as a symbol of status. But what would a Marat hordemaster be doing in the Calderon Valley?

Invading.

Her own silent response to the thought gave her a little chill. Could the holders have run into the advance scouts of a Marat attack force?

The attack could hardly come at a more advantageous time for the enemy, Amara realized. The roads were slowly closing down for the winter season here among the northern cities. Many troops had been given winter furlough with their families, and folk of the countryside, in general, were winding down the frantic labor of harvest into the sedate pace of winter.

If the Marat attacked the Valley now, providing the forces stationed at Garrison were neutralized, they could wipe out every person in it and maraud through all the steadholts, practically all the way back to Riva itself. They might even, if they numbered enough, simply pour around the city and into Alera's interior. Amara shuddered to imagine what a horde might accomplish in that event. She had to contact the Count at Garrison- his name was Bram or Gram or something like that-and put him on the alert.

But what if the boy was lying about the Marat? Or mistaken? She grimaced. She knew the local Citizenry by name, at least, though the memorization of the Lords and Counts had been one of the more tedious chores at the Academy. She had no such knowledge of this Steadholder Bernard or

of the folk of the Valley By all accounts, they were a tough and independently minded folk, but she knew nothing about their reliability or lack of it

She had to talk to this Bernard If he had indeed seen a Marat horde-master and been wounded by one of the great hunting birds of the outland plains, then she had to know it, secure his support (and hopefully some new clothes with it), and act

She frowned But she could expect the opposition to be moving as well Fidelias had lead her into a trap she had escaped by the smallest of margins She had been pursued for several hours and escaped the Knights Aeris sent after her through skill and good fortune Did she suppose that Fidelias would not continue the pursuit?

In all probability, she realized, his business lay here, in the Calderon Valley That had to be one of the reasons Gaius sent her here Fidelias was her patnserus Or had been, she thought, with a bitter taste in her mouth She knew him, perhaps better than anyone else alive She had seen through his deception at the renegade camp, though only barely