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