Part 10 (2/2)

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.

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