Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

Tavi woke up with his head pounding, but his instincts screamed warnings, and he most carefully did not move or alter the patterns of his breathing. If he was still alive, it meant that his captors intended him to be that way. Announcing that he was alert would profit him nothing. Instead, he kept himself limp and passive and sought to learn whatever he could about his surroundings and his captors.

He was sitting in a chair. He could feel the hard wood under him, and his legs were bound, one to each leg of the chair. His elbows rested at the right height for the arms of a chair, though he could not feel his hands. He surmised that his wrists were bound, and that his bonds had cut off the circulation to his hands.

He could hear the creaking of wood around him. Most of the buildings in the city were constructed of stone. The only wooden structures were outside the walls of the capital itself, or else were the storage houses and shipwrights down at Riverside. He took part of a breath through his nose and caught the faint smell of water and fish. The river, then, and not outside the capital's walls. He was in a warehouse or a shipwright's-or, he amended, upon a ship. The Gaul was a wide, deep river, the largest in all Alera, and even deepwater vessels could sail up it to the capital.

"Were you able to fix him?" growled a male voice. From the sound of it, it was coming to him from an adjacent room, or possibly from the other side of a thin door or heavy screen. The voice itself had the quality of one shut indoors. His captors, then, most likely.

"I stopped the bleeding," said a voice, a woman's. It had an odd accent, from somewhere in the south of the Realm, Tavi thought, perhaps Forcian. "He'll have to see a professional about getting his nose back, though."

The man let out a laugh that had nothing to do with merriment. "That's rich. Serves him right for letting a little girl get to him."

There was an oppressive silence.

"You aren't little, Rook," the man said, his tone defensive.

"Bear in mind," Rook said, "that the girl is a Marat. They are physically stronger than most Alerans."

"Must be good exercise, bedding all those animals," he said.

"Thank you, Turk, for reminding me why some of us attend to the jobs that require intelligence, while others are restricted to the use of knives and clubs."

Turk snorted. "I get the job done."

"Then why is the Steadholder not dead?"

"Someone interfered," Turk said. "And no one told us that the old man was that good with a blade."

"Very true," Rook said. "The armsman protecting the coach was, goodness, skilled at arms. I can see why you were taken off guard."

Turk growled out a vitriolic curse. "I got the boy, didn't I?"

"Yes. The old crow might even decide not to make you sorry you weren't with the men at Nedus's manor."

"Don't worry," Turk said, sullen. "I'll get her."

"For your sake, I hope you are correct," Rook said. "If you will excuse me."

"You're not staying? I thought you were done."

"Try not to think too much," she said. "It doesn't do anyone any favors. I have a few loose ends to trim before I go."

"What do you want us to do with these two?"

"Keep them until the old crow arrives to question them. And before you ask, the answer is no. You aren't to touch either one of them meanwhile. He'll tell you how he wants you to handle it afterward."

"One of these days," Turk said in an ugly tone, "someone is going to shut your mouth for you."

"Possibly. But not today. And never you."

A door opened and closed, and Tavi chanced a quick peek up through the veil of his hair. He was in a storage house, surrounded by wooden shipping crates. A muscular, ill-favored man, dressed in a sleeveless river rat's tunic, stood glaring at the door as it closed. To Tavi's right, there was another chair, and Kitai was tied into hers just as he was into his-except that she'd had a leather satchel drawn over her head and tied loosely shut around her neck.

Tavi lowered his head again, and a second later Turk, the ugly man, turned and walked across the floor toward him. Tavi remained still as the man pressed fingers against his throat, grunted, and stepped over to Kitai. Tavi opened an eye enough to see him touch her wrist, then turn and stalk out of the warehouse. He slammed the door shut behind him, and Tavi heard a heavy bolt sliding into place.

Tavi agonized for a moment over what to do. The place may have had some sort of furycrafted guardian set to watch him-but on the other hand, the presence of any kind of formidable guardian would have drawn the attention of the civic legion's furycrafters, who regularly inspected the warehouses in Riverside. That meant that if there were any furies set to watch him, they would probably only raise the alarm, rather than attacking.

Tavi tested his bonds, but there was not an inch of the ropes that were not inescapably tight. If he'd been conscious when tied, he could have attempted to keep his muscles tight so that when he relaxed them there would have been some margin of slack in the ropes to allow him to wriggle out of them. But it hadn't happened that way, and there seemed little he could do now.

Even if he had been free, it might not have done him any good. There was only one door to the storage house-the one Turk had just walked out. Tavi tested his chair. It wasn't fastened down, and the legs thumped quietly on the floorboards as he wiggled back and forth.

Kitai's head jerked up, lifting the leather satchel. Her voice was muffled. "Aleran?"

"I'm here," he said.

"You are all right?"

"Got a headache I'm going to remember for a while," he responded. "You?"

She made a spitting sound from inside the hood. "A bad taste in my mouth. Who were those men?"

"They were talking about trying to kill my aunt Isana," Tavi said. "They probably work for Lord Kalare."

"Why did they take us?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe because getting rid of me will make Gaius look weak. Maybe to use me to try to lure Aunt Isana into a trap. Either way, they aren't going to let us go after this is over."

"They will kill us," she said.

"Yes."

"Then we must escape."

"That would follow, yes," Tavi said. He tensed up, testing his bonds again, but they were secure. "It's going to take me hours to get out of these. Can you get loose?"

She shifted her weight back and forth, and Tavi heard the wood of her chair creaking under the strain. "Perhaps," she said, after a moment. "But it will be loud. Are we guarded?"

"The guard left the building, but there might be furies watching us. And the men who took us won't be far away."

The satchel tilted suddenly, and Kitai said, "Aleran, someone comes."

Tavi dropped his head forward again, as it had been when he awoke, and a second later the bolt rattled and the door opened. Tavi caught a quick glimpse of Turk and another, taller man entering the warehouse.

"… sure you can see that we'll have her before sunrise, my lord," Turk was saying in an unctuous tone. "You can't listen to everything Rook has to say."

The other man spoke, and Tavi had to force himself not to move. "No?" asked Lord Kalare. "Turk, Turk, Turk. If Rook had not asked me to give you a second chance, I'd have killed you when we came through the door."

"Oh," Turk mumbled. "Yes, my lord."

"Where is he?" Kalare asked. Turk must have answered with a gesture, because a moment later, footsteps approached. From a few feet in front of him, Tavi heard Kalare say, "He's unconscious."

"Rook rang his bells pretty good," Turk replied. "But there shouldn't be any lasting damage, my lord. He'll be awake in the morning."

"And this?" Kalare asked.

"Barbarian," said Turk. "She was with the other one."