Jim Butcher - Furies of Calderon

She slipped the sword through her belt. "I hope your shoulder doesn't hurt too much."

His smile widened. "I'll make it. How's your ankle?"

"Slowing me," she confessed.

"Then get your fury to lift you again," he said. He drew a piece of cord from his pouch, ran it through the back of his belt, and tied it closed in a loop. He tossed the loop to her and said, "Keep your body behind mine and stay low. The wood will make my passage clear, but don't go waving your head around, or a branch might take it off."

Amara barely had time to breathe her agreement before the ground itself rumbled, and the Steadholder took off at a bounding run, the earth impelling him forward with every step. She turned and ran to keep up with him, but even in her best condition she would have been hard pressed to hold the pace. She managed to take several steps to keep close to him, one hand clinging to the loop of leather cord, then leapt in the air, calling to Cirrus as she did.

The presence of her fury solidified beneath her feet, and she flowed over the ground after the Steadholder, tugged forward by the cord. If he noticed her weight dragging at him, it did not show, and the man moved through the night with perfect confidence and near-perfect silence, as though even the withered grass beneath his feet conspired to cushion the impact and lessen the noise of his passing.

Before she had gotten her breath back, they had passed into the woods, and Amara had to duck her head to keep branches from slashing at her face. She hunched down in the Steadholder's shadow, once jerking her feet up as he leapt a fallen tree that Cirrus hadn't quite managed to carry her feet over.

"Got them!" he said, in a moment more. "At the ford. Fade's on the ground, Tavi's partly in the water and…" He snarled. "And Kord is there."

"Kord?" Amara demanded.

"Steadholder. Criminal. He'll hurt them."

"We don't have time for this!"

"So sorry it's inconvenient, Cursor," Bernard snapped. "I can't feel your friends. They've left the road."

"He must be concealing his own passage," Amara said. "He never passes up a surprise attack. It won't be long before he gets to the boy."

"Then we have to defeat Kord and his sons first. I'll take Kord, he's the old one. The other two are up to you."

"Crafters?"

"Air and fire-"

"Fire?" Amara blurted.

"But cowards. The taller one is more dangerous. Hit them hard and fast. Over the next rise."

Amara nodded and said, "I will. Cirrus!" The Cursor gathered the air beneath her and with a rush of swirling winds swept herself from the ground, through the stark branches of the barren trees and into the air above them.

The waters of the little river were ice-cold, swift. Tavi's mouth went numb the moment Kord pushed his head into the water, and his ears tingled and burned with sensation. Tavi struggled, but the Steadholder's grip was too strong, fingers tangled tightly in Tavi's hair. His greasy Steadholder's chain thumped against Tavi's shoulders. Kord pressed down brutally, and Tavi felt his face mash up against the rocks at the bottom of the river.

And then that inexorable pressure vanished. Tavi felt himself hauled back, by the hair, and thrown through the air to land upon the ground many feet away. He came down upon something warm and living, that proved to be a dazed Fade. Tavi lifted his head, blinking water from his eyes, toward Kord, but someone moved between them, blocking his view.

"Uncle!" Tavi said.

Bernard said, "Get Fade up and get him out of here, Tavi."

Tavi scrambled to his feet, hauling Fade up with him, and swallowed. "What are we going to do?"

"Get clear. I'll handle things here," Bernard said. Then he turned his back to Tavi, keeping himself between Kord and his nephew. "This time, Kord, you've gone too far."

"Three of us," Kord growled, as his sons took up a position on either side of him. "And one of you. Plus the fool and the freak, of course. I'd say that you're the one who has his neck stuck out, Bernard."

The ground in front of Kord rumbled, shifting, and the thing that hauled itself up out of the earth, its hide and limbs all of stone, looked like nothing that Tavi had ever seen. It had the long body of a slive, but its tail curled up over its back, held in the air like a club. Its mouth was hideously elongated and filled with flint-sharp jags of teeth. As Tavi watched, it twisted its head to one side, opened its jaws, and let out a granite-deep, rumbling growl.

Beside Kord, Bittan took the cover from a ceramic firepot. Red flames licked up from it as he did, and they curled into the shape of a reared serpent, hovering and ready to strike, flaming eyes bright. The tall and slender Aric, on Kord's other side, steepled his fingers together and wind and bits of bracken swirled around him, casting back his cloak in a shape vaguely like great wings.

"Don't do this, Kord," Bernard said. The ground beside him stirred, and then Brutus thrust his way up out of the soil, until the rocky hound's broad head rested beneath Bernard's hand, emerald eyes focused on the Kordholters. Brutus gave his great shoulders a shake, sending earth and small stones skittering down off of his flanks in a miniature avalanche. Tavi saw Bittan blanch and take a small step back. "You're digging yourself deeper into your own grave."

"Trying to take my land," Kord spat, "from me and my family. What gives you the right?"

Bernard let out his breath in a sigh, glancing upward for a moment. "Don't play righteous with me, slaver. The storm's almost here, Kord. Last chance. If you back down, right now, you get to live to face Gram's justice instead of mine."

Kord's eyes flashed. "I'm a Citizen, Bernard. You can't just kill a Citizen."

"That's on your lands," Bernard said. "We're on mine."

Kord's face went white. "You self-righteous bastard," he hissed. He threw his hands forward and screamed, "I'll feed you to the crows!"

The stone beast before him lurched forward across the stony ground, lizard-quick. Even as it did, something lashed out from Aric, the blurred shape vaguely reminiscent of a bird of prey as it sped toward Bernard. Bittan hurled his firepot down into the nearest brush, and even damp, the wood went up in a sudden blaze, the flame-serpent within it swelling to twenty times its previous size in the space of a long breath.

Bernard moved quickly. He threw his hand toward Aric's attacking fury, scattering a fistful of salt crystals through the air. A whistling shriek went up from the air before him, even as Brutus lunged forward, clashing against Kord's fury with a shockingly loud crunch of impact. Both furies blended

into a mound of stone that sank into the earth, where the surface of the ground twitched and bulged, where the Steadholders' furies battled out of sight beneath it.

Kord let out a bellow and came for Bernard. Tavi's uncle hefted his axe and swiped it at the other Steadholder. Kord threw himself back and to one side, and Bernard followed him, lifting the axe for another strike.

Tavi saw Aric draw a knife from his belt and head for Bernard's back. "Uncle!" he shouted. "Behind you!"

And then a column of wind so furious and strong that it almost seemed a solid mass hammered down into Aric's back, throwing him hard against the earth. The young man let out a choked cry and began to rise, but from the dark sky above, Amara dropped onto his back, her stolen clothes flapping wildly in the sudden wind. Aric had time to let out a strangled shout, and the winds gathered around the pair of them in a sudden shriek of sound. Tavi saw Amara's arm lock beneath Aric's chin, and then the pair of them were rolling around on the ground, Aric struggling to dislodge the girl from his back.

Tavi turned in time to see Kord strike his uncle's arm, knocking the axe from his hand. The weapon tumbled end over end and vanished into the water of the river. Bernard didn't waste a moment, but threw his balled fist into Kord's ribs, a blow that lifted the other man from the ground and sent him tumbling. Bernard pursued him, but Kord rose up again with fury-born fortitude, and the two met in a close grapple, the earth quivering and shaking beneath them.