Fidelias reached for the knife. Tavi swept it at him in a desperate cut. Fidelias clutched the boy's throat, and Tavi felt his breath cut off with a sudden jerk.

"Just as well," Fidelias said. "No witnesses."

Tavi's vision began to dim. He felt his grip on the dagger begin to loosen.

Fidelias shook his head, and the pressure on Tavi's throat began to increase. "You should have given me the knife."

Tavi struggled uselessly, until his arms and legs seemed to forget how to move. He stared up into Fidelias's hard eyes and felt his body going limp.

And so it was that he saw Amara weakly stir and lift her head. He saw her writhe, lifting one knee beneath her, and reaching back to draw a short, small knife from her boot. She clenched her jaw and shoved her broken arm beneath her, her forearm across the floor, lifting her body.

Then, in one motion, she drew back the knife and flicked it at Fidelias's back. A sudden jet of wind propelled the knife toward him.

Tavi saw the man jerk suddenly, startled surprise on his features. He stiffened, fingers loosening from Tavi's throat, and reached a hand up toward his back, his expression twisting with sudden agony.

"You wanted a knife, Fidelias," Amara hissed. "There's the one I took from you."

Fidelias, his face blank, frightened, turned back to Tavi and clutched at his hand, at the dagger.

There was a frantic moment of scrambling, and Fidelias let out a gasping cry of pain. Tavi felt a hand around his wrist, a sudden pressure, heard the crack of breaking bones. Agony roared over him, and he saw his hand dangle uselessly.

Fidelias reached for the dagger and grabbed its hilt.

Tavi seized Fidelias's belt and hauled with all of his strength and weight.

Fidelias overbalanced, let out a harsh croak and fell from the battlements, to the sharp-edged rubble of the gap in the wall. Tavi turned and looked down, saw the man land on the stones, with his feet under him. Tavi thought he heard bones break.

Fidelias fell to the ground, and a tide of Marat washed over him.

Tavi stared, panting, exhausted, in more pain than he thought could exist in the entire world. Uncle Bernard. Fade. The tears welled up, and he couldn't stop them, couldn't stop himself from sobbing, letting out ugly, harsh little sounds. He laid his cheek down on the stone and cried.

He felt Amara crawl to him a few moments later. The Cursor dragged a shield with her. She lay down beside Tavi and used the shield to cover them both.

He couldn't stop sobbing. He felt her hand pat clumsily at his back. "It's all right, Tavi. It's all right." She leaned her cheek against his hair. "Shhhh. You're going to be all right. It's over."

Over.

Tavi cried quietly, until the darkness swallowed him.

Chapter 44

Isana watched the battle on the shattered battlements with her heart in her teeth, trapped on the second floor of a barracks building in the east courtyard, and helpless to do anything to influence its outcome.

She saw her brother fall from the walls and, through a haze of tears, saw the Cursor dropped to the battlements as well. She screamed when Tavi took up the fallen sword and faced the enormous swordsman, and again when Fade took up the old weapon and fought the man up and down the battlements. She watched, careless of the occasional buzz of a flying arrow, as Fade was hanged and thrown off the walls, as Tavi fought for the dagger, and as the traitor Cursor fell from sight.

She watched as Tavi collapsed and as the wounded Amara dragged her shield over both of them-then went still.

"Tavi," she heard herself say. "Tavi, no. Oh, furies." She turned and ran out of the room, down the stairs to the first level of the barracks, a common room for the soldiers living there. Heavy iron shutters had been closed over the window, but the iron bars that could be fastened shut over the door had been torn away from their hinges only moments before, along with the heavy wooden door, and now the doorway had been blocked with a pair of heavy tables, leaving the upper half of the doorway open.

Frederic stood in the doorway, a Legion shield strapped onto his left arm, his dented spade clutched in his right hand. One of the women of Garrison stood with him, a stout, stern-looking matron with bare feet and a bloodied spear gripped in her hands. The young gargant herder's hair hung around his face, damp with sweat, and he bore a cut that would leave a long white scar leading from his jawline to his ear, but his eyes were determined, hard.

As Isana came down the stairs, another Marat threw himself at the barricade, stone-headed hatchets in either hand. The Marat swung the first at Frederic, but the herder lifted his shield and the head of the hatchet shattered upon it. The woman standing with him drove her spear viciously into the Marat's thigh, and the warrior dropped his second hatchet in a blow aimed at the spear's haft.

Frederic shouted and thrust his spade at the Marat, the steel blade of the tool gouging roughly into the Marat's chest. Frederic jerked the spade back to him and with a roar leaned back and kicked the stunned Marat in the belly. The warrior went flying away from the fury-assisted blow, landing in a heap upon the stones of the embattled courtyard.

Isana rushed to the doorway. "Frederic. I've seen Tavi and Bernard. They're hurt, and I've got to help them."

Frederic turned to her, panting, his handsome face speckled with droplets of blood. "But Mistress Isana! There's Marat running around everywhere out there."

"And they're lying wounded in it. I need you to help me carry them out of the fight."

The woman with the spear nodded to Isana. "Go on. We can hold the door for a while."

Frederic frowned, his expression torn. "You're sure?"

"Thank you," Isana said, and clasped the woman's arm. Then she grabbed Frederic's. "They're near the gate, on the broken section of wall."

Frederic swallowed and nodded. "So we just go to the other courtyard, right?"

"Yes."

Frederic settled his grip on his spade's handle and nodded. "All right, then."

Isana clutched tightly to Frederic's shoulder, as he leaned forward, took a quick look around the courtyard, and padded swiftly toward the other side of Garrison, keeping near to the wall. The carnage in the courtyard was like some kind of nightmarish slaughterhouse. The Marat roamed everywhere, attacking buildings, fighting with one another and with the Aleran defenders.

A shrill scream cut across the courtyard, terror filled. In the doorway of the barracks building across the courtyard from them, a pair of herdbanes appeared. They dragged a wounded legionare out into the courtyard, one on either arm, and tossed him to the ground between them.

Even as Isana watched, the legionare's helmet tumbled off, revealing Warner's bald head and exhausted face beneath.

"Warner!" Isana cried.

Warner looked up, his face ashen, and tried to sweep his sword at the nearest bird, but the movement was listless, as though he barely had the strength to move. The terrible birds began to wrench the Steadholder apart, shrieking. Two Marat, their hair bedecked with dark herdbane feathers, watched until Warner had been savaged and lay still upon the earth. Then one of them stepped forward with a knife in hand and, after a moment's consideration, removed the Steadholder's ears. He said something to his companion that drew a rough laugh, and then as the birds continued worrying the corpse, the pair of them rose and walked into the barracks Warner had been defending.

The cries within Garrison were joined by others-the screams of terrified children.

"Someone's going to help them," Frederic breathed. "Right, Mistress Isana? Someone's going to go help, aren't they?"