by Jim Butcher
They rode for a length of time Tavi could hardly guess at, considering that he had been tied face down, and he saw little more than one leg of the gargant and the snowy white ground rolling by beneath him. A sudden, low whistle broke the monotony. Tavi glanced toward the source of the sound and then up at his captor. The Marat shifted his weight slightly backward, and the gargant slowed its steps by degrees, coming to a ponderous halt.
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.
Fade stared vacantly for a moment and then frowned. "Marat eat Alerans."
Tavi swallowed. "I know, I know. But if they were going to eat us, they wouldn't have given us blankets and a place to sleep. Right?"
"Maybe they like hot dinner," Fade said, darkly. "Raw dinner."
Tavi stared at him for a minute. "That's enough help, Fade," he said. "Get up. Maybe nobody's looking and we can make a run for it."
They both stood up, and Tavi had just crept to the tent's flap to peek out, when the flap swung out, letting a flood of pale sunlight in along with a slender Marat youth dressed in a long leather tunic. His hair had been pulled into a braid identical to Doroga's, though his body was far more slender, and his features far finer, sharper. The youth's eyes were an opalescent swirl of colors, rather than the dark brown of Doroga's. His eyes widened upon seeing them, as though surprised, and a chipped dagger of some dark stone seemed to leap into his hands and swept at Tavi's face.
Tavi leapt back, fast enough to save his eyes, but not quickly enough to avoid a swift, hot pain, high on his cheek. Tavi let out a yelp, as Fade whimpered and jerked frantically at Tavi's shirt, dragging him back and unceremoniously to the floor behind himself.
The Marat blinked at them, startled, and then demanded something in
the guttural Marat speech, his voice high and, Tavi thought, perhaps nervous.
"I'm sorry," Tavi said. "Urn. I don't understand you." From the floor, he showed the Marat his open hands and tried to smile, though he supposed it looked rather sickly. "Fade, you're standing on my sleeve."
The young Marat scowled, half-lowering the knife, and demanded something else, this time in a different-sounding tongue. He looked from Tavi to Fade, face twisting into revulsion as he studied Fade's scars.
Tavi shook his head, glancing at Fade, who moved his foot and warily helped Tavi to his feet, watching the young Marat with his eyes wide.
The tent flap opened again, and Doroga entered. He stopped for a moment staring at Tavi's face. The burly Marat growled something in a tone that Tavi recognized extremely well-though he normally heard it from his uncle after something had gotten complicated.
The youth spun to face Doroga, hands sweeping behind his back and hiding the knife. Doroga scowled and rumbled something that made color flush the youth's cheeks. The youth snapped something back, to which Doroga replied with an unmistakable negative slash of his hand, together with the word, "Gnah."
The youth thrust up his chin defiantly, snapped something in terse terms, and darted out of the tent, past Doroga's reach, moving as quickly as a frightened squirrel.
Doroga lifted a hand and rubbed at the side of his face with it, then faced Tavi and Fade. The Marat studied them both with his dark eyes and grunted. "My apologies for the behavior of my whelp, Kitai. I am called Doroga. I am the headman of the Sabot-ha. Of the Gargant Clan. You are Alerans and my prisoners. You are the enemy of the Marat, and we will partake of your strength."
Fade whimpered in his throat and clutched at Tavi's arm hard enough to make it go numb.
"You mean," Tavi asked, after a moment's silence, "that you're going to eat us?"
"I do not wish to," Doroga said, "but such is the decree of Clanchief Atsurak." He paused for a moment, eyes focused on Tavi, and said, "Unless this judgment is contested by our laws, you will give your strength to our people. Do you understand?"
Tavi didn't. He shook his head.
Doroga nodded. "Listen to me, valleyboy. We-the-Marat prepare to
move against the Alerans of the bridge valley. Our law calls you enemy. No one speaks otherwise. So long as you are enemy of the Marat, you will be our enemy, and we will hunt you and take you." He leaned forward, speaking slowly. "So long as no one speaks otherwise."
Tavi blinked, slowly. "Wait," he said. "What if someone says that I'm not an enemy?"
Doroga smiled, showing his teeth again. "Then," he said, "we must hold trial before The One, and discover who is correct."
"What if I say we're not your enemy?"
Doroga nodded and stepped back out of the tent. "You understand enough. Come outside, valleyboy. Come out before The One."
Chapter 26
Tavi glanced back at Fade and then followed Doroga out of the tent and into the blinding light of the first day of winter. Sunlight poured through crystalline skies to blaze over the snow that covered the ground in an almost perfect layer of white. It took Tavi's eyes long seconds to adjust and for him to squint around him as he emerged from the tent, Fade clutching at his arm.
They stood among hundreds of Marat.
Marat men, most of them as heavily built as Doroga, sat at cooking fires or watched casually, hands near the hafts of spears or on chipped-stone daggers or furyforged Aleran blades. Like Doroga, they wore only a brief loincloth, despite the weather, and evinced no signs of discomfort, though some of them wore cloaks of hide and fur that seemed more ornamental or martial than made with the intention of keeping their owners warm or dry. Children ran here and there, dressed in the same long leather tunic Doroga's whelp had worn, and watched the strangers with obvious interest.
To Tavi's astonishment, the women wore nothing more than the men, and lean, muscular legs, naked, strong shoulders and arms, and other things a proper Aleran boy was not supposed to see (but wanted to anyway) abounded.
Tavi felt his face flush, and he shielded his eyes furiously, trying to pretend it was still the sun in them.
One of the young warriors nearby made a quiet comment, and that same coughing laughter resounded around the camp, which Tavi saw was arranged down the slope of a long, bald hill. He felt himself flush further, yet, and glanced at Fade. The slave stood beside him, no expression on his face, his eyes somewhat distant-but he put his hand on Tavi's shoulder and squeezed, as though reassuring himself that the boy was there.
Doroga stood, patiently waiting, and then nodded toward the crest of the hill. He started that way himself, clearly expecting to be followed. Tavi glanced around them at the young warriors, who watched him with studied disinterest and fingered their weapons. Tavi moved his eyes to where a couple of older Marat women were chatting to one another and piling up wood beneath a roasting spit. One of them turned to Tavi and squinted at him, holding up a weathered thumb, then compared it to the length of the spit.
Tavi swallowed and hurried up the hill after Doroga, Fade close at hand.
At the top of the hill stood a dozen huge stones the size of a small house, arranged in a loose circle, some leaning upon others. They were rounded, any rough edges filed away by the winds and rains and seasons, but had obdurately resisted the elements, with no cracks apparent in their surfaces.
At the center of the stones was a pool with seven white stones spaced around it. Upon two of the stones sat Marat.
Tavi was struck at once by the difference in their appearance. Doroga, huge and solid, paced around to one of the stones. On the way there, he passed a lean Marat woman, her pale hair shaved on the sides to leave only a long, silky mane atop her head. She, too, wore only a loincloth, though, more than her nakedness, Tavi noted an Aleran cavalry saber riding a Legion-issue belt at her hip, and three badges, tarnished silver falcons, which spangled the belt. Her skin was shades darker than most of the Marat and seemed weathered and tough, and her dark eyes were cool, appraising. As Doroga passed her, she lifted a hand, and the Chief of the Gargant Clan lightly rapped his knuckles against hers.
Doroga settled on the next rock, folded his hands, and glowered at the third Marat on the hilltop.
Tavi turned his attention to him. The man was of moderate height and lean build. His hair, though Marat-pale, grew in a wild, bristling mane that fell to his shoulders and continued to sprout from his skin down past his ears and
along the lines of his jaw. His eyes were an odd shade of pale grey, almost silver, and he held h
imself with a slow, restless tension. The Marat caught Tavi looking at him and narrowed his eyes, baring his teeth. Tavi blinked to see huge, ripping canines, more properly called fangs, in the Marat's mouth. A snarl bubbled from his throat, and the man half-rose from his stone.
Doroga rose and spat, "Will the headman of the Drahga-ha defile the peace of the horto?"
The fang-toothed Marat glared from Tavi to Doroga. His voice came out as a bubbling growl, low, harsh, hardly understandable. Could a wolf speak, Tavi thought, it would sound like this. "The headman of the Sabot-ha has already defiled its sanctity with these outsiders."
Doroga smiled. "The horto welcomes all who come in peace." His smile widened a touch. "Though perhaps I am mistaken. Do you believe that this is the case, Skagara?"
The woman said, without rising, "I believe he thinks you mistaken, Doroga."
Skagara snarled toward the woman, his eyes flickering warily between her and Doroga. "Stay out of this, Hashat. I need neither you nor the Kevras-ha to tell me what I believe."
Doroga rolled a pace toward Skagara. The big Marat flexed his hands with an ominous crackling of knuckles. "This is between you and I, Wolf. Do you believe me mistaken?"
Skagara lifted his lips away from his teeth again, and there was a long and tense silence on the hill. At the end of it, he let out a spiteful growl and looked away from Doroga. "There is no need to bring this matter before The One."
"Enough, then," Doroga said. He continued staring at the other man and settled slowly back down onto his stone. Skagara mirrored him. Doroga then murmured, "We come before The One at this horto." He turned his face up toward the sun, eyes closing, and murmured something in his own tongue. The other two Marat did the same, speaking in a pair of distinct-sounding languages. Silence reigned on the hilltop for the space of a score of heartbeats, and then the Marat together lowered their eyes again.
"I am called Doroga, headman of the Sabot-ha, the Gargant Clan," Tavi's captor said in formal tones.
"I am called Hashat, headman of the Kevras-ha, the Horse Clan," stated the woman.
