Jim Butcher - Furies of Calderon

She turned toward her brother's room and took a deep breath. Then she paced inside, determined.

Bernard had left the lamp burning on a low flame, and the room's interior was lit by soft, golden light. Bernard lived simply: He had, ever since Cassea and the girls had died. He had removed all of her things, packing them in a pair of trunks stowed underneath his bed. He lived out of a single trunk, now, as he had in the Legions. His weapons and gear were stowed on

racks on one wall, across from the bare writing desk, all the records for the steadholt stowed neatly in its drawers.

The girl slept in Bernard's bed. She was tall, with lean features that seemed particularly drawn in the light, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes. Her skin glowed golden, almost the same shade as her hair. She was beautiful. A braid of leather circled her throat.

Isana frowned at her. Her brother had gotten down the extra blankets and piled them over the girl-though she had evidently stirred enough that her feet had slipped from beneath them. Isana stepped forward absently to cover her feet again and saw that they had been bandaged and covered in slippers of soft calfskin.

Isana stared down at the slippers for a moment. Pale white, stitched neatly, with delicate beadwork tracing a design over the tops. She recognized it at once: She had done it herself, perhaps ten years before. The slippers had been a birthday gift for Cassea. They had been in the chest beneath the bed for more than a decade.

Isana stepped back from the bed. She wanted to speak to the girl- but her brother had warned her against disturbing her. She had hoped for years that he would find someone else, after he'd lost Cassea and the girls, but he never had. Bernard had continually kept a quiet distance between himself and anyone else, and those who lived in the Valley, those who remembered his wife and daughters, had simply given him the solitude he wished.

If her brother had found it in himself again to reach out to someone else-and from his words to her and the way he had treated the girl, it seemed that he had-could she so readily act against him?

Isana stepped forward and laid her hand across the girl's forehead. Even before she had reached out through Rill, she felt the mild fever in her. She shivered and slowly extended her senses out, through the fury, and into the sleeping slave.

Bernard had not been mistaken. The girl bore several injuries, from painful cuts upon her legs to a painfully swollen ankle to a sharp, vicious cut along her upper arm. Her body had been pushed to exhaustion, and even in sleep, Isana could feel that the girl was gripped by a terrible worry and fear. She murmured softly to Rill and felt the fury course gently through the girl, mending closed the smaller cuts and easing the swelling and pain. The

effort left Isana's head light, and she drew her hand back and concentrated on remaining on her feet.

When she looked down again, the girl had opened her exhausted eyes and was staring up at her. "You," she whispered. "You're the watercrafter that healed the Steadholder."

Isana nodded and said, "You should rest. I just want to ask you one question."

The girl swallowed and nodded. She let her eyes fall closed.

"Have you come for the boy?" Isana asked. "Are you here to take him?"

"No," the girl said, and Isana felt the simple truth in her words as clearly as the tone of a silver bell. There was a purity to the way she spoke, a sense of sincerity that reassured Isana, let her shoulders unknot, if only a little.

"All right," Isana said. She adjusted the blankets over the girl, covering her feet once more. "Sleep. I'll bring you some food in a little while."

The girl did not reply, motionless on the bed, and Isana withdrew from the room, to the top of the stairs. She could hear voices, below, as the hold-folk gathered into the hall. Outside, thunder rumbled, low and ominous, from the north. The events of the night before, the Kordholders' attack on her, came rushing back in memory, and she shivered.

Then she straightened and walked down the stairs, to deal with the other strangers who had come to Bernardholt.

Fidelias waited until the big Steadholder had padded up the stairs and out of his sight, carrying someone wrapped in a blanket. The former Cursor glanced around the hall. For the moment, at least, he and his companions had been left alone. He turned to Odiana and Aldrick with a frown.

Aldrick stood staring after the Steadholder and murmured, "Well, I wonder what that was all about."

"Fairly obvious," Fidelias said. He glanced at Odiana.

"Fear," she whispered, and shivered as she leaned closer to Aldrick. "The most delicious fear. Recognition."

"Amara." Fidelias nodded. "She's here. That was her."

Aldrick lifted his eyebrows. "But he never turned around. You never saw her face."

Fidelias gave Aldrick an even look and suppressed a surge of irritation. "Aldrick, please. Do you expect her to hang a sign on the door that she's here? It all fits. Three sets of tracks-the boy's, the Steadholder's, and hers. She was limping. That's why he was carrying her."

Aldrick sighed. "All right then. I'll go up and kill those two, and we can be about it." He turned away and lifted a hand to his sword.

"Aldrick," Fidelias hissed. He seized the swordsman's arm at the biceps and reached down into the earth to borrow from his fury's strength. He stopped the larger man cold.

Aldrick glanced down at Fidelias's arm and relaxed. "That was the point, wasn't it?" the swordsman said. "Fidelias, we have to stop them from reporting to Gram. Without the element of surprise, this entire campaign could be for nothing. We came here to find the Steadholder and the boy who had seen our friend Atsurak, and kill them. Oh, and the agent of the crows-eaten Crown if we happen to run across her, which we have."

"Love," Odiana said. "We still don't know where this boy is, do we? If you go and kill the ugly little girl right now, won't the Steadholder object? And then you'd have to kill him as well. And anyone else upstairs. And all these people here…" She licked her lips, her eyes bright, and said to Fidelias, "Why shouldn't we do this again?"

"Remember where you are," Fidelias said. "This is the most dangerous area of the Realm. Powerful furies, dangerous beasts. This isn't one of the old plantations of the Amaranth Vale. It breeds strong crafters. Did you see the way that boy handled those gargants out front? And he calmed our mounts when they got nervous-that wasn't me. And he did it without so much as stopping to make an effort. A boy. Think about it."

Aldrick shrugged. "They don't go armed. They're Steadholders, not warriors. We could kill them all."

"Probably," Fidelias said. "But what if that retired Legionnaire Steadholder is a strong crafter to boot? What if some of the other holders here are that strong? Odds are some of them would escape-and since we don't know who the boy we're looking for is we'd never know if we got him."

"What about that boy out front?" Odiana asked. "That lovely strong tall one with the gargants."

"His feet are too big," Fidelias said. "The rain all but obliterated the tracks, but the ones from earlier today are clearer. We're looking for a smallish boy, not growing a beard yet-or possibly a girl. Atsurak probably wouldn't know the difference at that age, if a girl had been wearing breeches. The Marat don't make the same distinctions we do."

"He had big hands, too," Odiana mused, and leaned against Aldrick, her eyes heavy, drowsy. "May I have him, love?"

Aldrick leaned down and absently kissed her hair. "You'd only kill him, and then he'd be no good to you."

"Get the idea out of your heads," Fidelias said, his tone firm. "We have an objective. Find the boy. The storm is rolling in behind us, and everyone will be gathering into the hall. As soon as we find him, we'll take him, the Stead-holder, and the Cursor and leave."