the spectral outline of a long-legged horse, lashing out with its forelegs at the woman's attacker. The windmane screamed and fell back, and the woman's fury drove forward, though it moved more sluggishly than the manes, more slowly. Three more manes rushed the air fury's flanks, and the woman lifted her weight from a branch she had leaned upon, hobbling forward to swipe at the windmanes with desperate futility.
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