stone falling with a ponderous grace to the weakened floor of the battlement. It struck, and the two slashes Fade had made in the stone became a sudden myriad of crumbling cracks. Aldrick tried to step back, but the stone beneath his feet gave way like a rotten board, and with a howl Aldrick ex Gladius and a thousand pounds of stone went crashing down to the courtyard below.
Fade closed his eyes for a moment, panting, then looked up at Tavi.
The boy stared at him. "How?"
Fade moved one shoulder in a shrug. "Aldrick has always thought in lines. So I thought in curves."
Tavi saw a movement behind Fade and shouted, "Fade! Look out!"
The slave whirled, but not before Fidelias, holding the rope they had used to climb to the wall, had tossed a loop of it over Fade's head. Fidelias jerked on the rope, and it tightened. Then the man planted his feet and hauled.
Fade struggled, but he had no leverage. The rope hauled him off the battlement. Fidelias let go of the rope, and Fade fell out of sight. The end of the rope had been tied off to one of the crenellations, and the rope tightened with a sudden, snapping jerk.
"No," Tavi breathed.
Fidelias turned toward Tavi.
"No!" The boy rose to his feet and threw himself at the man on the wall, brandishing the dagger. He leapt at Fidelias, knife extended.
Fidelias caught Tavi by his shirt, and without any effort spun him around and threw him to the stones of the battlement. Tavi felt the rock hit his back with an impact that stole his breath and turned the steady, hot sting of his wounded arm into a raging fire.
He let out a weak sound of pain and tried to struggle away from Fidelias, but within a few inches he felt the crumbling edge of the shattered battlement behind him. He looked back and down on a drop into the hard, jagged rubble of the fallen section of wall, where Marat and beasts fought in savage efficiency, killing.
He turned back to Fidelias, clutching the dagger.
"Give me the knife," Fidelias said, his voice quiet, his eyes dead. "Give me the knife, or I'll kill you."
"No," Tavi wheezed.
"You don't have to die, boy."
Tavi swallowed. He squirmed out as far as he could on the broken battlements and heard the stones begin to crackle and groan beneath him. "Stay away from me."
Fidelias's face twisted in anger, and he jerked his hand in a sudden gesture. The stone rippled, as if it had been a sheet snapped by a holdwife, and threw Tavi a few feet toward Fidelias, stunning the boy.
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