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.

"Well not right this minute," Tavi said, after a flustered moment. "You could at least try to help me come up with something, Fade."

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.