The man stepped up close to him, his eyes narrowed. He had the dark, heavy feathers of a herdbane braided through his pale hair. "I will not permit you to speak to Atsurak, outsider, while he is at the horto. You will wait until-"
Fidelias's temper flashed, and it was with a flicker of annoyance that he reached down into the earth to borrow strength from Vamma and dealt the axe-wielding warrior a blow that lifted the Marat's feet up off the ground and stretched him out senseless in the snow.
Without pausing, Fidelias stepped over the silent form of the fallen Marat. He limped up to the lean female warrior and said in exactly the same tone, "Peace. I have come to speak to Atsurak."
The Marat's amber-colored eyes flicked up and down Fidelias, bright
beneath heavy, pale brows. Her lips lifted from her teeth, showing canine fangs, and she said, "I will take you to Atsurak."
Fidelias followed her up the rest of the hill and to the great stones there. The smoke from the torches, heavy and dark along the ground, held a curious odor, and Fidelias found his head feeling a bit light as he stepped into it. He glanced back at Aldrick, and the swordsman nodded, nostrils flared.
Seven stones, smooth and round, their surfaces protruding above the heavy smoke, sat around a pool of water, somehow unfrozen despite the cold. The smoke seemed to sink into it and swirl beneath its surface, leaving it shining and dull, reflecting back the light of fires and the dull night glow of snow and ice.
Scattered around the pool were perhaps a hundred other Marat, their hair plaited with herdbane feathers, or else showing the shagginess of what Fidelias assumed to be the Wolf Clan. Male and female, they ate, or drank from brightly painted gourds, or mated in the sultry, dizzying smoke with animal abandon. In the shadows stood the tall, silent shapes of the herd-bane warbirds and crouched the low, swift shapes of wolves.
On one of the stones lounged Atsurak, his bruises all but gone already, the cuts bound in strips of hide and plaited grass. Aquitaine's dagger rode through a strap at his waist, the blade contained within a rawhide sheath and positioned to be clearly on display. On either side of him curled a female Marat warrior, of the heavy-browed and fanged variety. Both were naked, young, lithe.
The mouths of all three were smeared with fresh, scarlet blood. And bound over the stone beside them was the shivering form of a young Aleran woman, still wearing the shreds of a farm wife's skirts and apron, and still very much alive.
Aldrick's mouth twisted with disgust. "Savages," he murmured.
"Yes," Fidelias said. "We call them that because they're savage, Aldrick."
The swordsman growled in his throat. "They have moved too soon. There aren't any Aleran settlements on this side of the Valley."
"Obviously." Fidelias stepped forward and said, "Atsurak of Clan Herdbane. I understood that our attack was to begin two dawns from now. Was my understanding in error?"
Atsurak looked up, focusing on Fidelias, as an older woman, also showing the signs of Clan Wolf, rose from the smoke at the base of one of the stones, coated liberally in blood, and crossed to him. She folded her arms
casually over his shoulders, amber eyes on Fidelias. Atsurak lifted his hand to touch the woman's, without looking at her, and said, "We celebrate our victory, Aleran." He smiled, and his teeth were stained scarlet. "Have you come to partake?"
"You celebrate a victory you do not yet have."
Atsurak waved a hand. "For many of my warriors, there will be no chance to celebrate, after."
"So you broke our agreement?" Fidelias asked. "You struck early?"
The Marat lowered his brows. "A raiding party struck first, as is our custom. We know many ways in and out of the bridge valley, Aleran. Not ways for an army, but for a scouting party, a raiding party, yes." He gestured toward the bound girl. "Her people fought well against us. Died well. Now we partake of their strength."
"You're eating them alive?" demanded Aldrick.
"Pure," corrected Atsurak. "Untouched by fire or water or blade. As they are before The One."
As he spoke, a pair of Herdbane warriors rose to their feet and moved to the prisoner. With casual, almost disinterested efficiency, they drew her up, tore the clothes from her, and bound her back down over the stone again, belly up to the stars, arms and legs spread.