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When twilight fell, Tavi knew that he was still in danger He had not seen or heard either of his pursuers since he had slithered down an als to sloould have been a deadly pluas&039; frailty to betray the heavy Marat warrior, killing or at least slowing him

The plan had been only a partial success The Marat looked once at the cliff and set off at a run to find a safe place to descend It bought Tavi enough of a lead to atteun to widen his lead The Marat were not like the Alerans-they had no ability at furycrafting, though they were reported to possess an uncanny understanding of all the beasts of the field It e-like Tavi, he had only his wits and skill to guide hilowering veil as the light began to fade Thunder growled forth, but there was no rise of wind, no fall of rain or sleet The storht to fall in full, while Tavi kept a nervous eye on both the sky and the barrens around his ached and his chest burned, but he had avoided the Marat, and just before sundown he eed from the barrens onto the causeway several miles west of the lane to Bernardholt He found a deep patch of shade beside a windfall and crouched there, panting, allowing his tiredflashed He hadn&039;tnearly ho run just to reach the lane down to the steadholt Thunder rumbled, this time so loud that it shook needles from the fallen pine beside him There was a low, dull roar frorowing nearer The rain had finally begun It came in a wave of half-frozen sleet, and Tavi barely had time to pull up his hood before a furious, frozen wind howled down fro rain and ice alike before it

The storht remained and drowned the valley in cold,skittering ah his cloak had been made to shed water, no fabric in Alera would have kept the rain and sleet of the fury-stor to hiarments and into his bones

Tavi shivered hard If he remained where he was, he would die from exposure to the storm in only hours-unless a bloodthirsty windh Brutus had surely reached the steadholt with Bernard by now, he could not rely upon any of the holdfolk to rescue him They knew better than to expose themselves to a furystorhtning flash There was a hollowed out space underneath, thick with pine needles-and it looked dry

Tavi started crawling inside, and the next lightning flash showed hihtmare The windfall already had occupants-half a dozen slives The supple, dark-scaled lizards were nearly as long as Tavi was tall, and the nearest lay within ar from its torpor It opened its jaws and let out a syrupy hiss, showing rows of needle-pointed teeth

A thick yellow liquid coated the slive&039;s front fangs Tavi had seen slive venoroarround And then the slives would drag him still alive into their lair And eat him

Tavi&039;s first reaction was a terrified desire to spring away-but fast er the surprised slive Even if the slive ht as a sign that he was prey to be pursued

and eaten He could outrun theround, but slives had a nasty tendency to re for days, waiting for their target to sleep beforein for the kill

Fear and excitement made Tavi tremble, but he forced himself to remain calm He withdrew as slowly and sotten out of the slive&039;s striking range when the beast hissed again and bolted out of its shelter and toward the boy

Tavi let out a panicked screaher pitch as he did He threw hiot his feet underneath him and started to run

Then, to his co shout, one nearly drowned out by the rising winds

Tavi snarled in frustration The memory of the Marat warrior and his terrible partner caht up to hiht hih to be the Marat There was nothe panic and fear in it "Please! So down the causeway toward his ho the opposite way, toward the cry for help He took a shaking breath and turned west, away froain, running along the pale stone of the causeway

The lightning flashed again, a shuddering flareen, then blue, then red, as though the furies of the skies had gone to battle against one another Light bathed the rain-swept valley for nearly half a minute, while thunder shook the stones of the causeway and half-deafened hiround through the tumult and rain, and raced and danced across the valley floor The windmanes had followed the stor the winds, pale-green clouds, nebulous and vaguely hu arms and skeletal faces The wind even above the bellowing thunder

Tavi felt terror slow his legs, but he gritted his teeth and pressed on, until he could see that ht swirled around and around a central point, their pale, sharp-nailed hands reaching

In the center of the ghostly cyclone, there stood a young woman Tavi had never seen before She was tall and slender, not unlike his own Aunt Isana, but there the resemblance to his aunt ended The woolden brown, like the traders froht and fine, whipped wildly about her by the wind, and was al of the appearance of a golden statue Her features were stark, striking, if not precisely lovely, with high cheekbones and a long, slender nose softened by a generous rimace of desperation and defiance She wore a bloodstained cloth around her ared, coarse skirts to ainst her by the rain, and a woven leather slave&039;s collar circled her slender throat As Tavi watched, one of the windraceful swoop

The girl cried out, throwing one hand toward the wind in the air-not as sharp or as well defined as the wind there ed horse, lashing out with its forelegs at the woman&039;s attacker The windmane screamed and fell back, and the woishly than the manes, more slowly Three more manes rushed the air fury&039;s flanks, and the woht fro 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 winded at hie from his pouch and tore it open The wind its claide

Tavi grabbed at the crystals of salt within the packet and hurled a portion of theed hih the fury like lead weights through cheesecloth The windonized screa down Tavi&039;s spine and into his belly It curled in upon itself, green fire flaan to tear, wherever the crystals had hit In seconds, the one

The others of its kind scattered out into a wide circle, letting out

screeches of rage The slave looked back at Tavi, her eyes ith desperate hope She clutched at her stick and hobbled toward hi unseen, when the windh the stored breath and to shout back, "Not much!" His heart thudded and lurched in his chest, and he hurried to the slave&039;s side, casting a look out and around hi the pair at a wary distance "Bloody crows!" he swore "We can&039;t stay out here I&039;ve never seen so many in one storm"