Jim Butcher - Furies of Calderon

The Marat did not bother to have the gargant kneel, but swung from a braided cord, knotted every foot or so, down from the saddle, and gave a low whistle in answer.

From the darkness emerged another Marat, broad of shoulder and deep of chest, panting, as though from a run. His expression seemed, to Tavi, to be sickened, even afraid. He said something in the guttural Marat tongue, and Tavi's captor put a hand on the younger Marat's shoulder, making him repeat himself.

Once he had, Tavi's captor gave a short whistle, and another Marat from down the row of gargants swung down from his saddle, carrying what Tavi recognized as a torch and a firebox of Aleran manufacture. The Marat knelt, holding the torch up with his thighs, and with a stone struck sparks from the firebox and lit the torch. He passed it over to Tavi's captor, who kept his hand on the young Marat's shoulder and nodded to him.

Tavi watched as the younger Marat led his captor to a vague form in the snow. Tavi could see little of it, other than that the snow over it had been stained with red. The Marat took a few paces more. Then a few more. More lumps in the snow became evident.

Tavi's stomach twisted with a slow shock of understanding. They were people. The Marat were looking at people on the ground, people dead so recently that their blood still stained the newly fallen snow. Tavi looked up and thought he saw light from the Marat's torch reflected from water not far away. The lake, then.

Aldoholt.

Tavi watched the Marat walk a quick circle, the light of his torch at one point catching the sloped walls of the steadholt proper. Bodies lay in a line leading from the steadholt gates, one by one, as though the holders had made a last-moment effort to run, only to be dragged down, one at a time, and savaged into the snow.

Tavi swallowed. Without doubt, the holders were all dead. People he had met, people he had laughed with, apologized to-people he knew, ravaged and torn to shreds. His belly writhed, and he got sick, trying to lean far enough over the side to sick up onto the ground instead of the gargant's saddle.

The Marat leader came back, though he had passed the torch to the younger one. In each of his hands he held a vague, lumpy shape, which Tavi identified only as the Marat got close to the gargant.

The Marat leader held the shapes up in the light of the torch, letting out another low whistle to his men. Firelight fell on the severed heads of what looked like a direwolf and a herdbane, their eyes glassy. The residents of the

steadholt, it seemed, had not died alone, and Tavi felt a helpless little rush of vengeful satisfaction He spat toward the lead Marat

The lead Marat looked up at him, head tilted to one side, then turned to the younger one and drew a line across his throat The younger dropped the torch's flame into the snow, quenching it The Marat leader dropped the heads and then swarmed up the knotted cord back onto the saddle He turned to Tavi and stared at him for a moment, then leaned over and touched a spot on the saddle that Tavi hadn't been able to avoid staining when he got sick

The Marat lifted his fingertips to his nose, wrinkled it, and looked from Tavi to the silent, bloody forms in the snow He nodded, his expression grim, then took a leather flask from a tie on the saddle, turned to Tavi, and unceremoniously shoved one end of the flask into his mouth, squeezing water out of it in a rush

Tavi spluttered and spat, and the Marat withdrew the flask, nodding Then he tied the flask to the saddle and let out another low whistle The line of gargants moved out into the night, and the spare Marat swung up behind another rider further down the file

Tavi looked back to find his captor studying him, frowning The Marat looked past him, back toward the steadholt, his broad, ugly features unsettled, perhaps disturbed Then he looked back to Tavi again

Tavi puffed out a breath to blow the hair out of his eyes and demanded, his voice shaking, "What are you looking at?"

The Marat's eyebrows went up, and once again that broad-toothed smile briefly took over his face His voice came out in a basso rumble "I look at you, valleyboy "

Tavi blinked at him "You speak Aleran?"

"Some," said the Marat "We call your language the trading tongue Trade with your people sometimes Trade with one another The clans each have their own tongue To one another, we speak trade Speak Aleran "

"Where are you taking us?" Tavi asked

"To the horto," the Marat said

"What's a horto?"

"Your people have no word "

Tavi shook his head "I don't understand "

"Your people never do," he said, without malice "They never try"

"What do you mean?"

"What I say." The Marat turned back to the trail in front of them, idly ducking under a low-hanging branch. The gargant swayed a bit to one side, even as its rider did, and the branch passed the Marat by no more than the width of a finger.

"I'm Tavi," he told the Marat.

"No," the Marat said. "You are Aleran, valleyboy."

"No, I mean my name is Tavi. It's what I am called."

"Being called something does not make you that thing, valleyboy. I am called Doroga."

"Doroga." Tavi frowned. "What are you going to do to us?"

"Do to you?" The Marat frowned. "Best not to think about it for now."

"But-"

"Valleyboy. Be quiet." Doroga flicked a look back at Tavi, eyes dark with menace, and Tavi quailed before it, shivering. Doroga grunted and nodded. "Tomorrow is tomorrow," he said, turning his face away. "For tonight, you are in my keeping. Tonight you will go nowhere. Rest."

After that, he fell silent. Tavi stared at him for a while and then spent a while more working his wrists at the cords, trying to loosen them so that he could at least try to escape. But the cords only tightened, cutting into his wrists, making them ache and throb. Tavi gave up on the effort after an endless amount of squirming.

The sleet, Tavi noted, had changed into a heavy, wet snow, and he was able to lift his head enough to look around him a little. He couldn't identify where they were, though dim shapes far off in the shadows nagged at his memory. Somewhere past the lake and Aldoholt, he supposed, though they couldn't be heading anywhere but to Garrison. It was the only way into or out of the Valley at that end.

Wasn't it?

His back and legs were soaked and chill, but only a while after he noticed that, Doroga glanced back at him, drew an Aleran-weave blanket from his saddlebags, and tossed it over Tavi, head and all.

Tavi laid his head down on the saddle-mat and noted idly that the material used in its construction was braided gargant hair. It held his heat well, once the blanket had gone over him, and he began to warm up.

That, coupled with the smooth, steady strides of the beast, were too

much for Tavi in his exhausted state. He dozed off, sometime deep in the night.

Tavi woke wrapped in blankets. He sat up, blinking, and looked around him.

He was in a tent of one kind or another. It was made of long, curving poles placed in a circle and leaning on one another at the top, and over that was spread some kind of hide covering. He could hear wind outside, through a hole in the roof of the tent, and pale winter sunlight peeked through it as well. He rubbed at his face and saw Fade sitting on the floor nearby, his legs crossed, his hands folded in his lap, a frown on his face.

"Fade," Tavi said. "Are you well?"

The slave looked up at Tavi, his eyes vacant for a moment, and then he nodded. "Trouble, Tavi," Fade said, his tone serious. "Trouble."

"I know," Tavi said. "Don't worry. We'll figure a way out of this."

Fade nodded, eyes watching Tavi expectantly.

"Well not right this minute," Tavi said, after a flustered moment. "You could at least try to help me come up with something, Fade."