Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(148)

"All right, Scipio," hissed a voice. "Or whatever your name really is. Hand over my mother's purse."

"Crassus," Tavi growled. "Get off me."

"Give me her purse, you thief!" Crassus shouted back.

Tavi clenched his teeth against the pain. "You're making me late for an officers' meeting. We're mobilizing."

"Liar," Crassus said.

"Get off me, Sir Knight. That is an order."

Crassus's grip tightened. "You're a fool as well as a liar. You've merely annoyed her, and you think what she's done so far is bad? You haven't seen what she can do when she's angry."

"The crows I haven't," Tavi spat. "I've seen Max's back when he changes his tunic."

For whatever reason, the words hit Crassus hard, and Tavi felt him rock back from them, almost as if they'd been a physical blow. The pressure on his wrist eased just enough that Tavi had room to move-and he was in a position to make a real fight of it. The incredible strength offered by the use of an earth fury was enormous, but earthcrafters often forgot its limitations. It did not make its user any heavier; and one's feet had to be on the ground.

Tavi got a knee under his body and slithered out of Crassus's loosened grip. He seized the Knight's tunic at the throat, twisted with the weight of his whole body, and used arms and legs both to throw him up onto the wooden porch of a nearby shop. Crassus hit hard, but rolled back up onto his feet, his face dark with rage.

Tavi had followed Crassus onto the porch, and when Crassus lifted his head to glare at him, Tavi's kick was already halfway to the young man's head. His boot struck Crassus on the mouth, a stunning blow, and he reeled back.

Tavi slipped aside a clumsy counterblow with one hand and struck Crassus with closed fists, nose and mouth, followed by a hard push that slammed the back of Crassus's head against the shop's wall. The young man wobbled and fell. When he growled and started getting up, Tavi struck him again.

Crassus staggered up again.

Tavi sent him crashing to the wooden floor again with precise, heavy blows.

All in all, he had to beat Crassus back to the ground four times before the young Knight let out his breath in a groan, blood all over his face and nose, and lay on his back.

Tavi's hands hurt terribly. He hadn't been wearing his heavy fighting gloves, and he'd ripped several knuckles open on Crassus's head. Though he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that it was at least as thick as Max's.

"We through?" Tavi panted.

"Thief," Crassus said. Or so Tavi supposed. The word came out mushy and barely understandable. Which was the expected result if one's lips were split and swollen, one's nose broken, and when several teeth may have gone missing.

"Maybe. But I'd die before I lifted a hand against my own blood."

Crassus looked up and glared, but Tavi saw a flicker of shame in the young man's eyes.

"I take it this is about the red stone?" Tavi asked.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Crassus said sullenly.

"Then I don't know anything about a purse," Tavi said, frowning at the beaten young man. Tavi didn't have the advantages of a skilled watercrafter, but he was as good as anyone without that advantage could be, when it came to reading people. Crassus wasn't lying to Tavi about the stone. He was sure of it.

"You'll get what you want now," Crassus said quietly. "You'll report me to the captain, won't you. Have me cast from the Legion. Sent home in shame."