Furies of Calderon (53 page)

“Too heavy,” Doroga repeated. “His weight will break the surface of the
croach
. The wax. It will alert the Keepers as soon as he steps on it. Only our whelps or a small female can enter the Valley of Silence and live.”

Tavi swallowed again. “Right then,” he said. “It’s got to be me.”

Fade frowned, but fell silent.

The gargant’s slow-seeming steps covered ground quickly and carried them down to the edge of the precipice. There, Tavi saw Hashat standing beside a large, pale horse, the wind tossing their white manes off to one side, the lean Marat woman with her long legs somehow a mirror of the big grey beside her. The cool winter light gleamed on the captured eagle brooches on her sword belt.

Over to one side, seated at the edge of the precipice, near a couple of lumps in the snow, was Kitai, still dressed in his rough smock, skinny legs dangling over the edge, feet idly waving. The wind pressed his hair back from the slender, stark lines of his face, and he had his eyes narrowed to slits against the drifting flakes of snow.

Tavi scowled at the other boy, and his face stung for a moment, where he had been cut the previous morning.

Doroga nodded wordlessly to Hashat and clucked to his gargant. The great beast let out a snort and rolled to a stop before lowering itself almost daintily to the ground. Doroga tossed down the saddle strap and used one hand to steady himself with it as he slid down. Tavi followed suit, as did Fade.

Tavi drew in a little breath and looked at Fade. The slave looked worried, though his eyes weren’t focused on anything. He just stared out over the Wax Forest.

Doroga glared at Hashat. The maned Marat turned her face away a little too late to hide her smile. “Your whelp is growing up, Doroga. They always get moody before they bond. You know that.”

Doroga rumbled, “You just want Kitai to be part of Horse.”

Hashat shrugged her shoulders. “Speed, intelligence. Who wouldn’t want that?” She lifted her chin and called, “Kitai. We are ready to begin.”

Kitai stood up, idly dusted snow off of his smock, and paced toward them, his expression cool. He stopped not a pace away from Tavi, glaring at the Aleran boy.

Tavi felt a sudden fear, as his cut throbbed again, and then set his jaw stubbornly. He had never allowed a bully to frighten him. He’d been beaten often enough, but he’d never surrendered to fear. He took a step closer to Kitai, eyes narrowed, facing the other boy’s opalescent gaze with his own. Their eyes were on a level, and the other boy did not seem to be much bigger than Tavi was. Tavi folded his arms and stared at his opponent.

Kitai seemed uncertain how to react to Tavi’s stance and glanced at Hashat.

Doroga growled irritably. “You both know the trial. The first to recover the Blessing of Night and return it to my hand will be the victor.” He turned to Tavi. “Aleran. The Blessing is shaped as a mushroom. It has a flat head, slender stalk, and is the color of night. It is located at the base of the great tree, within its trunk.”

Doroga turned to him and placed his huge hands on the boy’s slender shoulders. He turned Kitai to face him, an effortless flexing of Doroga’s shoulders. “Then be careful. Your mother would want you to be careful.”

Kitai lifted his chin, though his eyes glittered bright. “My mother,” he said, “would have fetched the Blessing and been back by now while you talked, sire.”

Doroga’s teeth showed, suddenly. “Yes,” he agreed. One of his hands squeezed Kitai’s shoulders, and he released the boy, to turn to Tavi. “We will lower you down and wait until dawn. Once you begin, there are no rules. The results are all that matter. You can choose not to face the trial now, if you wish, valley-boy.”

“Then we begin.” Doroga turned to one of the lumps in the snow and dug into it with his huge hands, uncovering a great coil of rope of a weave Tavi had never seen before. Beside him, Hashat did the same with a second coil of rope.

Tavi saw Kitai step up beside him out of the corner of his eye. The Marat boy watched the two adults uncovering the rope and testing its length. “It is rope from the
Gadrim-ha
. From the ones you call the Icemen. Made of the hairs of their females. It will not freeze or break.”

Tavi nodded. He asked, “You’ve done this before?”

Kitai nodded. “Twice. It wasn’t for a trial, before. But I have gone in twice and returned with the Blessing. I was the only one who returned.”

Kitai sniffed. “When I return with the
Blessing
before you, I will have defended my sire’s honor in a trial before The One. I will be an adult and may choose where I live.”

Kitai frowned, pale brows coming together. “No. But I wish to be a part of her Clan. To be free with her Clan. Not to plod around with Doroga and his stupid
Sabot.”
He glanced aside, to be sure no one was close, apparently, and confided in a low voice to Tavi, “They smell.”

Tavi lifted his brows, but nodded. “Yeah I guess they do.”

“Aleran,” Kitai said. “My sire is right about one thing. You have courage. It will be an honor to face you in a trial. But I will defeat you. Do not think that this will end in any other way, despite whatever spirits are yours to call.”

Tavi felt a scowl harden his features Kitai’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped back a half pace, one hand falling to the knife at his belt.

“I don’t have any,” Tavi said. “And back at my stead-holt, we have a saying about counting your chickens before they’ve hatched.”

“My people eat eggs before they’ve hatched,” Kitai said, and stepped to ward the coiled ropes. “I thought you might make it out alive, Aleran, thanks to your spirits. But we will only need to use one rope before dawn.”

Tavi started to say something quick and heated back, but Fade’s hand gripped his shoulder abruptly Tavi turned to face the slave. Fade frowned at him, his scarred face hideous and concerned. Then he said, “Be careful, Tavi.” And with that, he took the pack that had been slung over his shoulder and dropped it onto Tavi’s. The boy let out a breath at the sudden weight. “Fade, uh. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t take anything with me. I’ll move faster without it.”

“Marat stronger than Tavi,” Fade said. “Faster.”

“Thank you,” Tavi said, testily. “I needed that kind of encouragement.”

Fade’s eyes glittered with something like good humor, and he ruffled Tavi’s hair with one hand. “Tavi smart. There Bag of tricks. Be smart, Tavi. Important.”

Tavi tilted his head to one side, peering at the slave. “Fade?” he asked. The glitter faded from the man’s eyes, and he gave Tavi his witless grin.

The boy blew out a breath. Whatever spark of awareness had been in the man’s eyes was gone now. “All right,” he said, and walked over to Doroga. He shrugged into the pack, drawing the straps down to their smallest size, so that it would fit closely to his back.

Doroga was handling his rope. Tavi watched as the Marat worked a loop into the end of it with the skill of a sailor and drew it tight. The Marat stood, leaving the loop just touching the ground, and in a moment of understanding, Tavi stepped forward and slipped his foot into the loop, taking up the rope itself to hold it tight.

Doroga nodded his approval. To Tavi’s right, Kitai had knotted the rope himself and stood at the edge of the precipice, his expression impatient. Tavi walked awkwardly to the precipice’s edge and stared over it to a drop of several hundred feet down a nearly sheer surface. His head spun a bit, and his belly suddenly shook and felt light.

“Are you afraid, Aleran?” Kitai asked, and let out a low little laugh.

Tavi shot the other boy a sharp glance and then turned to Doroga, who had secured the far end of the rope to a stake driven into the earth and looped it about a second such stake, so that he could let the rope out gradually. “Let’s go,” Tavi said, and with that, took a step back over the precipice and swung himself down into space.

Doroga held the line steady, and after a very short moment of terror, Tavi bumped against the wall and steadied himself, holding on. Doroga began to lower the rope, but Tavi called up, “Faster! Let it out faster!”

There was a brief pause, and then the rope began to play out quickly, lowering Tavi down the face of the cliff at a rather alarming rate.

From above, there was a yelp, and Kitai swung out into space. The boy plummeted down for several yards, and Tavi got the impression that when the rope finally did tighten and catch him that Hashat had only just managed to do so. Kitai shot Tavi a bright-eyed, angry glance and called something up the cliff in another tongue. A moment later, he, too, began to descend the cliff more quickly.

Tavi used one foot and one hand to keep himself from dragging on the stone and found that it was more effort than he would have expected. He was shortly panting, but a swift glance up at Kitai told him that he had thought correctly. Doroga’s huge muscles had an easier time letting out the rope at a faster, controlled rate than the more slender Hashat’s did, and Tavi had gained considerable distance on the other boy as they descended.

As he came down, closer to the lambent green glow of the
crouch
, he shot a glance up at Kitai and smiled, fiercely.

Kitai let out a sharp whistle, and the line abruptly stopped playing out.

Tavi stared up at him in confusion. Until the other boy drew his knife, reached across to the rope that held Tavi thirty feet over the floor of the bizarre forest below and, with an answering smile, used the dark, glassy knife to begin swiftly slicing through Tavi’s rope.

Chapter 33