Tavi reacted without thinking. He lurched into a tottering run, clawing at his pouch as he did. His balance wavered in the darkness between thunderbolts, but only a breath later the clouds lit up again. Blue, red, and green lightning warred for domination of the skies.

One of the windmanes abruptly whipped around toward him and then surged at him through the frigid rain. Tavi clawed a smaller package from his pouch and tore it open. The windmane howled in a spine-tingling scream, spreading its claws wide.

Tavi grabbed at the crystals of salt within the packet and hurled a portion of them at the windmane as it charged him.

Half a dozen crystals tore through the fury like lead weights through cheesecloth. The windmane let out an agonized scream, a note that sent terrified chills racing down Tavi's spine and into his belly. It curled in upon itself, green fire flaming up and over it as it began to tear, wherever the crystals had hit. In seconds, the mane tore apart into smaller fragments that dispersed and vanished into the gale-gone.

The others of its kind scattered out into a wide circle, letting out

screeches of rage. The slave looked back at Tavi, her eyes wide with desperate hope. She clutched at her stick and hobbled toward him, the ragged shape of her fury once more becoming unseen, when the windmanes drew away.

"Salt?" she shouted, through the storm. "You have salt?"

Tavi managed to draw a ragged breath and to shout back, "Not much!" His heart thudded and lurched in his chest, and he hurried to the slave's side, casting a look out and around him at the pale phosphorescence of the windmanes, circling the pair at a wary distance. "Bloody crows!" he swore. "We can't stay out here. I've never seen so many in one storm."

The slave squinted out at the darkness, shivering, but her voice came to him clearly. "Can your furies shelter us at all?"

Tavi felt a sickly little rush in his belly. Of course they couldn't, as he didn't have any. "No."

"Then we've got to get to shelter. That mountain. There could be a cave-"

"No!" Tavi blurted. "Not that mountain. It doesn't like trespassers."

The girl pressed her hand against her head, panting. She looked exhausted. "Is there a choice?"

Tavi cudgeled his wits to work, to remember, but fear and exhaustion and cold made them as sluggish as a snow-covered slive. There was something he should remember, something that might help, if he could just think of what it was. "Yes!" he shouted, finally. "There's a place. It isn't far from here, if I can find it."

"How far?" asked the slave, eyeing the circling windmanes, her words trembling as her body shook with cold.

"A mile. Maybe more."

"In the dark? In this?" She shot him an incredulous look. "We'll never make it."

"We're not spoiled for choice," Tavi called back, over the wind. "It's that or nothing."

"Can you find it?" the girl asked.

"I don't know. Can you walk that far?"

She looked hard at him for a moment, during another strobe of lightning, hazel eyes intent, hard. "Yes," she said, "give me some of the salt."

Tavi passed over half of the scant handful of crystals left to him, and the slave accepted them, closing her fingers over them tightly.

"Furies," she said. "We'll never get that far."

"Especially if we never get started," Tavi shouted and tugged at her arm. "Come on!" He turned to move away, but the girl abruptly leapt at him and shouldered him hard to one side. Tavi fell with a yelp, startled and confused.

He climbed back to his feet, cold and shivering, his voice sharp and high. "What are you doing?!?"

The slave slowly straightened, meeting his eyes. She looked tired, barely holding on to her wooden club. On the ground at her feet lay a dead slive. Its head had been neatly crushed.

Tavi looked from it to the slave and saw the dark blood staining the end of her club. "You saved me," he blurted.

Lightning flared again. In the cold and the gale, Tavi saw the slave smile, baring her teeth in defiance, even as she shivered. "Let's not let it go to waste. Get us out of this storm, and we'll be even."

He nodded and peered around. Lightning showed him the strip of the causeway, a dark, straight line, and Tavi took his bearings from it. Then he turned his back on the looming shape of Garados and started off into the darkness, fervently hoping that he could find the shelter before the wind-manes recovered their courage and renewed their attack.

Chapter 9

Isana woke to the sound of feet pounding up the stairs to her room. The day had passed and night had fallen while she slept, and she could hear the anxious rattle of rain and sleet on the roof. She sat up, though it made her head pound to do it.

"Mistress Isana," gasped a breathless Beritte. She tripped in the darkness at the top of the stairs and stumbled to the floor with a gasp and an unladylike curse.

"Lamp," Isana mumbled, forcing out a familiar effort of will. The spark imp in the lamp flickered to life on its wick, giving the room a low golden glow. She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, trying to sort out her rushing thoughts. Rain pounded, and she heard the wind gust into an angry howl. Lightning flickered outside, followed swiftly by an odd, bellowing thunder.

"The storm," Isana breathed. "It doesn't sound right."

Beritte gathered herself to her feet and bobbed in a hasty curtsey. Holly-bells, the scarlet flowers just beginning to wilt, dropped petals to the floor. "It's horrible, mistress, horrible. Everyone's afraid. And the Steadholder. The Steadholder is here, and he's badly hurt. Mistress Bitte sent me to fetch you."

Isana jerked in a sharp breath. "Bernard." She pushed herself out of bed, rising to her feet. Her head throbbed with pain as she rose, and she had to rest a hand against the wall to keep herself from falling. Isana took a deep breath, trying to still herself against the rising panic inside her, to steel herself against the pain. Dimly, now, she could feel the fear and anger and anxiety of the rest of the people in the steadholt, rising up from the hall below. They would need strength and leadership now, more than ever.

"All right," she said, opening her eyes and forcing her features to smooth out. "Take me to him."

Beritte rushed out of Isana's room, and the woman followed her with short, determined steps. As she stepped out into the hallway, the anxious fear flowing up from the room below began to press more firmly against her, almost like a cold, damp cloth that clung to her skin and began to seep inside her. She shivered, and at the top of the stairs paused for a moment, forcing the cold sensation away from her thoughts, until it no longer pressed so tightly against her. The fear would not simply go away, she knew, but for the moment it was enough that she distance herself from it, make herself functional again.

Isana then walked down the stairs, into Bernardholt's great hall. The room was fully a hundred feet long, half as wide, and made entirely of bedrock granite long ago raised from the earth. The living quarters above had been added on, wood beam and brick construction, but the hall itself was a single shaped piece of stone, wrought by long and exhausting hours of furycrafting from the bones of the earth. Storms, no matter how fierce, could not damage the great hall or anyone sheltered within it or the only other such building in the steadholt-the barn where precious livestock lived.

The hall was crowded with folk. All of the steadholt's residents were there, representing several large families. Most were gathered around one of the several trestle tables that had been set out earlier in the evening, and the food that had been in preparation since before dawn had been taken to the tables and laid out upon them. The mood of the room was anxious-even