The Brazen Gambit Part 10

Privately, Pavek sympathized with the half-elf. The kanks' high-pitched droning raised the short hairs at the base of his neck. He'd never been so close to the big, black bugs before; kanks were banned within Urik's walls and restricted to high-ranked templars at other times. Though they were considered docile creatures under ordinary circ.u.mstances, the storm bearing down on them was far from ordinary. Already the kanks inside the pen were milling in frantic circles. Every lightning flash illuminated their gnas.h.i.+ng pincers, and in the darkness that followed, their mandibles s.h.i.+mmered with a faintly yellowish, liquid light.

He'd known kank drool was poisonous and wasn't surprised that it stank worse than rotten broy, but he hadn't expected it to glow with its own light.

The thought of riding a crazed kank into the teeth of a Tyr-storm scared him to the marrow, but he'd do it, if the druids gave him the opportunity, because Yohan was more right than Ruari. The cerulean storms went beyond natural elements. The wind and the icy hail-which had just begun to pelt the ground with nut-sized chunks-were only the harbingers. When the storm's full fury was above them, it would drive some unfortunate men and women into madness.

Pavek recalled only too well the mobs outside the templar barracks during his two previous storms. Their screams were louder than the howling winds and their fists left b.l.o.o.d.y streaks on the plaster-covered stone walls. He doubted there was a wall or door in Modekan that could withstand such punishment.

He reached for Yohan's arm, but though he could feel the leathery texture of the dwarf's skin beneath his palm-a sure sign that he'd suffered no permanent damage while his limbs were bound together-his grip had no strength. Muttering words that were lost in the storm, Yohan hauled him out of the cart. Through great effort and an equal amount of luck, he managed to land on his nearly useless feet with his back braced against a fence post.

Before he could congratulate himself, the kanks crowded around him, palpitating his face with their flexible, sticky antennae.

"They like you, templar," Akas.h.i.+a chuckled.

He cursed and batted at the hovering antennae. The bugs retaliated by spraying him with their foul, poisonous drool. Fighting nausea, he shuddered uncontrollably, and chitinous pincers probed the backs of his knees. In a mindless panic, he tried to run, but his feet didn't cooperate, and he fell to his knees. He dragged himself beyond the kanks' reach, then, after a.s.suring himself that they hadn't broken his skin, he uprooted a handful of scraggly gra.s.s and, with no regard for what was left of his dignity, swiped the radiant slime from his legs.

Several pulse-pounding moments pa.s.sed before he heard Ruari laughing. It was one insult too many. He hurled the soggy gra.s.s in the half-elf's direction. His aim was off: the faintly glowing wad missed that wide-open mouth and splattered against his chest instead.

Ruari's laughter died in his throat. "You're dead, templar!" His teeth were visible in the lightning as he cleaned the mess from his s.h.i.+rt. When he was done, his fingers were curled into claws. "Because I'm going to kill you-"

But Akas.h.i.+a thrust her open hand between them. Her wrist waggled slightly. First, Ruari staggered backward, then a gust of wind punched Pavek's chest, knocking the fight out of him, too. Magic or mind-bending had somehow redirected the storm's gusty winds. The display was all the more impressive in its subtlety and casualness.

Pavek let go of his injured dignity. A templar knew when to lay low. A half-elf, apparently, did not.

"You saw saw what he did-" what he did-"

Akas.h.i.+a's hand flicked again. Ruari sat down hard, wide-eyed with astonishment.

"Enough! Both of you. Behave yourselves or we'll leave you both behind... together." together."

"Kas.h.i.+-"

"Don't 'Kas.h.i.+' me," she warned. "Just stay here and stay out of trouble. Can you manage that?"

Ruari scrambled to his feet. "He's a templar, Ah-ka-she-a," Ah-ka-she-a," he snarled each syllable of her name. "He's no good, and you know it. He's lying and deceit disguised as a human man. Look what he's done to us already. I say we leave him right here. Let the storm take care of him." he snarled each syllable of her name. "He's no good, and you know it. He's lying and deceit disguised as a human man. Look what he's done to us already. I say we leave him right here. Let the storm take care of him."

Through the tail of his eye, Pavek watched Akas.h.i.+a's hand fall slowly to her side and a variety of soft emotions parade across her face. She might be a druid and a mind-bender, but she wouldn't survive a single day or night in the templarate. Ruari, with his back to the storm and everything else, wouldn't last an hour. That left only the dwarf, at whom he dared a glance.

Yohan stood between the traces of the cart. His expression was properly opaque. If the dwarf had not been a templar, he'd spent enough time around them to learn their ways. Still, Yohan was waiting, not doing. He might be the shrewdest and wisest of his new companions, but he was the third of three in rank.

"What about you, templar?" Akas.h.i.+a asked. "Is Ruari right, are you lying and deceit disguised as a man, or can we trust you?"

He shook his head and chuckled. "That's a foolish question. Why would I say no? Why would you believe me if I said yes? You've got to decide for yourself."

"He's right," Yohan added, to Pavek's surprise. "And we don't have much time, if we're going to get ourselves out of this place before the storm's on top of us."

Akas.h.i.+a flattened her wind-swept hair against her skull and closed her eyes. Pavek braced himself for another mind-bending onslaught, but none came-at least not into his mind. When the druid reopened her eyes her calm and confidence had been restored.

"You're coming with us," she said. "If you even think think of lying or deceit, you'll wish you'd never been born. You'll do what you're told to do, when you're told to do it. And you'll leave Ruari alone, no matter what he does or what he says. Understand?" of lying or deceit, you'll wish you'd never been born. You'll do what you're told to do, when you're told to do it. And you'll leave Ruari alone, no matter what he does or what he says. Understand?"

He nodded. "In my dreams, great one. In my dreams." Akas.h.i.+a c.o.c.ked her head. She seemed about to ask a question when Yohan called from the doorway of the kank-keeper's shed, and she joined him there without saying anything more.

Yohan and Akas.h.i.+a emerged from the shed leading four kanks. Three of them carried curving leather saddles that promised a secure, if not always comfortable, perch. The fourth, a soldier-kank half again as large as the others and; with numerous spikes growing out of its gnarled chitin, was rigged with a cargo harness. A large bone rack rose above the rear of the harness. Pavek spotted the curved brackets where the zarneeka amphorae had been slung and knew immediately where he was going to be riding out the storm.

At least he didn't have to worry about controlling the creature. There was no way he could reach the bug's antennae once he'd gotten himself wedged beneath the rack.

"We're not going any farther than we have to," Yohan a.s.sured him as he threaded a supple leather rope through man-made holes in several of the soldier-kank's spikes."

"We'll dig in as soon as we find shelter."

Pavek nodded with more confidence than he truly felt. The dwarf tied the rope to the back of his saddle. Akas.h.i.+a led the way through the unguarded gate; Yohan followed, Ruari brought up the rear.

They weren't the only travelers who'd decided that safety lay in small, familiar groups beyond the village walls. Pavek lost track of the number of likely places they approached only to be warned away by well-armed men and women.

The Tyr-storm was almost above them. Lightning ringed the horizons and the thunder never ceased. Winds gusted from every quarter, sometimes bearing sulphurous grit from the Smoking Crown or sharp-edged pellets of ice. His companions huddled beneath thick, wool cloaks; Pavek had the s.h.i.+rt Oelus had given him. Cold, wet, and miserable, he curled up like an animal, eyes closed, enduring what he could neither control nor change. The kank's six-legged gait had no rhythm his body could decipher. He slipped into a thoughtless state midway between sleep and despair and did not notice when the insect finally came to a halt.

"Move your bones, templar."

Ruari's snarl penetrated Pavek's stupor. The rude jolt of a staff against his ribs roused him to action. He grabbed the smooth wood, noting with satisfaction that he'd recovered his strength. The half-elf twisted and tugged, but he couldn't free his weapon. The Tyr-storm winds swallowed Ruari's oaths as fast as he uttered them.

Pavek didn't need to hear, he could read the words by lightning-light. Never mind that his former peers had put a price on his head, to Ruari he was templar, templar, and personally answerable for all the many, many crimes his kind had committed. He straightened his arm, ramming the opposite end of the staff into Ruari's gut. The youth staggered backward. His hands slipped from the wood and, in the flas.h.i.+ng blue-green light, his expression changed from insolence to fear. and personally answerable for all the many, many crimes his kind had committed. He straightened his arm, ramming the opposite end of the staff into Ruari's gut. The youth staggered backward. His hands slipped from the wood and, in the flas.h.i.+ng blue-green light, his expression changed from insolence to fear.

"Do that again, half-wit, and you'll need a crutch, not a staff," Pavek shouted and hurled the stick away.

He eased down to the ground. His muscles were cold-cramped, but nothing like before. He glowered at Ruari, confident that he could deliver his threat if the youth was foolish enough to make a move toward the staff.

A bolt of lightning slammed the ground a few hundred paces away. It stunned them both and left them standing like angry statues until Yohan strode between them. One lightning-lit scowl from the veteran dwarf brought them to their senses. Ruari ran away, leaving the staff behind. Pavek took his first conscious look at what his companions called shelter: the roofless remnant of a peasant's mud-walled hovel, abandoned, no doubt, after an earlier Tyr-storm and melting as he watched.

He grimaced, Yohan scowled. Then they hobbled the kanks together, frontmost legs of one to the hindmost of another, and unlashed the harness from the soldier-kank's back. Cursing and slipping, they wrestled the bone rack through the mud, into the remains of the hovel where Akas.h.i.+a and Ruari were already huddled in a leeward corner. Pavek thought there was room there for two more, but, before he could join them, Yohan struck his arm, pointing outside, where they'd left the kanks.

Size and strength conferred their own, sometimes futile, responsibilities. Following the dwarf, he returned to the storm. The bugs, which had circled so frantically in their Modekan pen, obeyed different instincts now that the storm was directly above them, crowding close together to make their own shelter from the pelting hail. He overcame his distrust and, with the lead ropes from two of the smaller kanks wound around his waist and wrist, clung to their clawed legs when the wind struck like a giant's fist and thunder thumped; his gut.

His eyes adjusted to blue-green brilliance leaving him blind in those rare moments when lightning was not flas.h.i.+ng. His ears grew deaf to the ceaseless thunder clash. Time and place lost meaning, yet, somehow, he was aware of a woman's scream and cast aside the ropes. He strained his battered senses, but the only additional screaming came from the Tyr-storm itself.

He found himself ten long paces from the kanks, but couldn't remember moving his feet. His heart s.h.i.+vered; he hugged himself for warmth, rea.s.surance.

This is how madness starts.

The thought, not quite his own, floated through his mind as he returned to the hobbled kanks and Yohan.

He was halfway there when the first erdlu ran by, so close that its scaly wings brushed against his arm. Then another flightless bird raced between him and the hovel, its movements frozen in series of lightning flashes. There were other shapes in the flickering light. Dozens of them, and dozens more. Familiar creatures: erdlus, kanks, giant spiders, and unfamiliar escapees from a madman's nightmare. They were all panicked, stampeding beneath the Tyr-storm, trampling everything in their path.

Including the hovel.

Pavek skidded into Yohan just as Akas.h.i.+a and Ruari emerged, as terrified as the stampeding creatures around them. They both ran toward him, Yohan, and the hobbled kanks, which together were large enough and solid enough to deflect the stampede to either side.

With her robes flailing around her, Akas.h.i.+a scampered toward the safety of Yohan's open arms. Ruari, hidden behind Akas.h.i.+a's billowing silhouette, tripped or slipped and disappeared. When Pavek saw the youth again, he lay writhing in the mud, head thrown back in anguish, arms wrapped around an obviously injured knee. A lightning flash of exceptional brilliance left Pavek blinking-blind, with the impression of an erdlu leaping over Ruari frozen in his mind's eye. Another flash, another impression: a kank veering, saving its balance at the last moment, and sparing Ruari's as well. The third flash and Ruari still writhed in the mud, but there was blood on his face: he'd expended a lifetime of luck and fortune in a few heartbeats.

Nearby, tightly confined by Yohan's arms, Akas.h.i.+a was screaming: the same sound Pavek had heard before. The veteran wound his hands into her hair, forcing her face against his shoulder. There was nothing she or her druid spellcraft could against the panic of a Tyr-storm. There was nothing any of them could do, except watch in horror. Pavek forgot to breathe. It wasn't compa.s.sion that filled his lungs with fire. If there was a word for what he felt as the Tyr-storm roared, that word was outrage. Outrage because water, the most precious substance in all the world, had become deadly and life could be extinguished for no more meaningful reason than a slip in the mud.

Then he saw Ruari's staff, unbroken, almost within reach and, without an intervening thought, outrage became action.

Every would-be templar had to master five weapons before he wove his first messenger's thread through the hem of his sleeve: the sword, the spear, the sickles, the mace, and a man-high staff. The smooth hardwood was familiar in Pavek's hands. He cleared a path to the injured half-elf, planted his feet deep in the mud and, with a fierce bellow, defied the minions of the storm.

None of the panicked creatures, including the nightmare predators swept up in the stampede, was interested in a challenge, nor were they running so thick that they could not avoid a noisy, moving obstacle in their path. Pavek bashed at anything that came too close or seemed to hesitate, but the greatest danger came from Ruari, still clutching a knee and thras.h.i.+ng into his legs at unpredictable moments.

But he kept his knees flexed and retained his balance until the last immature erdlu had raced by. The Tyr-storm itself still raged. He feinted at the wind until Yohan appeared in front of him, shouting his name.

"Pavek! Back off, Pavek. Danger's pa.s.sed."

Suddenly his arms were lead and the staff was the only thing keeping him upright. He stood calmly while Yohan, scooped the moaning youth and carried him to safety.

Then the shaking started.

He couldn't accept what he'd done. He had nothing but contempt for the fools of Tyr who'd challenged a dragon, yet he'd done something just as reckless and for less reason: for Ruari, who was a callow mongrel with a streak of cruelty cut through his half-wit's heart, not worth a moment's mourning.

Yohan came back: one comradely hand between his heaving shoulders, steering him out of the fading but still-potent storm, offering a small-mouthed flask. He took a swig without thinking, just as he'd picked up the staff. A camphor-laced liquid made his eyes water. When his vision cleared, so had his mind. He sat on the ground, with Ruari's staff resting across his thighs.

There were fresh gouges all along the wood and a fractured chunk of chitin as long as his forearm wedged near one end. He traced the jagged edge with a trembling finger.

"You saved his life, templar-Pavek."

Akas.h.i.+a, beside him, didn't have to shout in order to be heard. The thunder was receding, and compared to what they'd been, the wind and rain were insignificant.

Pavek grunted, but kept his attention focused on the chitin chunk. His mind held no recollection of striking the creature who had lost it. Its dull yellow color was wrong for a kank. The inner edge was razor-sharp. He could have lost an arm, a leg, or his head.

"Your shoulder's bleeding, Pavek. May I tend it for you?"

Akas.h.i.+a knelt beside him, and noticing the gash for the first time, he began to s.h.i.+ver. She placed her hand on his brow. The s.h.i.+vering ceased. He didn't flinch when she peeled his s.h.i.+rt away from the wound, though he'd been to the infirmary often enough to know he was going to hurt worse before he felt better.

But the druid's touch was pleasantly warm. It soothed his nerves before numbing them. Maybe Oelus was right. Maybe there was something in the nature of the power King Hamanu granted his templars that caused pain. Or, just as likely, the infirmary butchers simply didn't care.

Curiosity got the better of him, as it often did. He observed Akas.h.i.+a's every move until the gash was a tidy scab some two handspans in length. Words for thanks were hard to find in his mind, awkward on his tongue; he grunted a few about appreciation and respect.

"I owe you that and more," Akas.h.i.+a a.s.sured him as she got to her feet. "I think I have misjudged you, Just-Plain Pavek. Without hesitation or thought of reward, you risked your life to save Ruari's, after you twice swore to kill him. There is more to you than a yellow robe. You might be a man, after all."

A hand came between them, long-fingered and lithe. It grabbed the staff and retreated.

"He's a templar, templar, Kas.h.i.+. The worst kind of Kas.h.i.+. The worst kind of templar. templar. He pretends to be what he's not. Wash your hands after you touch him." He pretends to be what he's not. Wash your hands after you touch him."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The huge blood-orange disk of the sun had climbed its own height above the eastern horizon when Pavek stretched himself awake, more refreshed than a battered man had any right to be after a half-night's sleep. No trace of the Tyr-storm remained-except for the crusted mud and the dark angular silhouettes of kes'trekels rising through the dawn, scouting the storm-wreck for scavenge.

Ruari sat beside a small fire. His right leg was thrust straight in front of him. The knee was swollen to the size size of a cabra melon and was the color of yesterday's storm. The pot he tended exuded the alluring aromas of journey-bread softening and heating in spiced tea. Pavek's stomach woke up with a yowl, but the way things stood between himself and Ruari, breakfast would have to wait until the youth finished. of a cabra melon and was the color of yesterday's storm. The pot he tended exuded the alluring aromas of journey-bread softening and heating in spiced tea. Pavek's stomach woke up with a yowl, but the way things stood between himself and Ruari, breakfast would have to wait until the youth finished.

Nearby, Yohan cinched the cargo harness around the soldier-kank while the insect masticated a heap of forage. The adobe walls of the roofless hut had been reduced to muddy mounds, pocked with the deep tracks of panicked wildlife. Here and there, shards of pottery grew out of the mud: the trampled remnants of a good many of their water jugs.

There'd be more room for him on the cargo platform, less water.

Overall, it was a bad trade.

Two of the riding kanks were foraging nearby. He looked around for the third kank, and found it collapsed in the hardening mud, with Akas.h.i.+a crouched over its head. He wandered over for a closer look.

"It's no use," she said sadly. She'd heard someone coming, but hadn't raised her head to see who it was. "They're scarcely conscious of their own life. They shed whatever healing energy I can impart to them."

"It must be very frustrating to try so hard with such little result."

Weariness turning to wariness when Akas.h.i.+a craned her neck toward him.

"Just curious. Didn't mean to disturb you."

She sighed, tucked storm-tangled hair behind her ears, and faced him with the hint of a smile on her lips. "Are you sure you're not Just-Curious Pavek instead of Just-Plain Pavek?"

Embarra.s.sed for reasons he couldn't decipher, he shook his head and retreated. Her almost-smile broadened into a grin, then faded. Ruari's shadow-long, lean, and reinforced by his longer, leaner staff-fell between them.

"It's no use," Akas.h.i.+a repeated. "I cannot heal it, and it begins to suffer. Help me?"

There was no mistaking the question in her voice, or the need. Pavek thought he understood. Templar healers could kill without hesitation either on the battlefield or, afterward, among the wounded. A druid, whose powers did not flow from a sorcerer-king, might feel differently. Ruari seemed to have a sufficiently cruel temperament to enjoy what others might call mercy.

But Ruari laid down his staff. He sat opposite Akas.h.i.+a, carefully arranging his knee with his hands as he did. The joint was functional, but obviously sore and delicate. For a moment Pavek felt sorry for the troublesome half-wit whose life he'd saved, then everything was lost in astonishment. They pressed their pains together above the kank's head.

With her eyes tightly closed, Akas.h.i.+a began a droning, wordless chant The complex rhythms pa.s.sed through her swaying body to Ruari, who began an eerie countermelody. Pavek's mind filled with thoughts of death and desperate flight, but his curiosity was stronger, and he remained where he was while the pair wove a spell to end the kank's suffering.

The insect had no eyelids to close over glazing pupils, no proper lips or nostrils through which a dying breath might pa.s.s; nonetheless, he knew the moment when its spirit departed. An inhumanly piercing wail seemed to emerge directly out of Akas.h.i.+a's heart before she went suddenly silent and limp. Ruari held her wrists until he finished the chant with another ear-splitting wail.

So, Ruari was a druid, too.

Pavek hid his slack-jawed surprise behind a hand. His thoughts leapt to a comforting conclusion: if that sullen, vengeful sc.u.m could summon Athas's latent magic, then there was hope for a determined ex-templar who'd already learned the words and lacked only the music.

And he needed a full measure of hope later that day.

Within hours of settling himself among the remaining water jugs and empty racks on the soldier-kank's cargo platform, he looked across a landscape where there were no streets or walls.

No signs of life at all.

The gentle slos.h.i.+ng of the water jugs was a constant reminder of mortal vulnerability to the elements. He put his faith in the wheel and closed his eyes.

They traveled steadily, uneventfully, from sunrise to sunset for two days. On the third day, for reasons Pavek could not guess and the others would not explain, they made camp early. Their journey-break was almost gone and more than half the jugs were empty. A man could survive out here beyond the city, if he was well-prepared and cautious. But not forever, not long enough to get back to Urik, even if he knew the way.