Cinnabar Shadows (24 page)

Time stood still in the darkness as power leapt out of every pore of Ruari's copper-colored skin. He felt
a flash of lightning, without seeing it; felt a peal of thunder though his ears were deaf. He died, he was sure
of that, and was reborn in panic.

"Cave-in!"

Followed by the red-haired priest shouting, "I can't hold it!" from the front.

Other voices shouted out "Hamanu!" but there wasn't time or space to evoke the mighty
sorcerer-king's aid.

Templars at the rear of the column surged forward, desperate to avoid one certain death, unmindful of
the danger that lay ahead. Mahtra pushed Ruari, who pushed Pavek, who pushed the priest toward the
dust-streaked light. Ruari stumbled against something that was not stone. His mind said the sergeant's body,
and his feet refused to take the next necessary step. He lurched forward and would have gone down if
Pavek hadn't yanked his arm hard enough to make the sinew snap. His foot came down where it had to, on
something soft and silent. The next body was easier, the next easier still, and then he could see light
streaming in from above.

Whatever Mahtra had done—Ruari assumed that she and her "protection" were responsible for the
cave-in—it had destroyed the little building in the middle of the abattoir floor and any blue-green warding
along with it. With Pavek leading, they emerged into a devastated area of the killing ground where stone,
bone, and flesh had been reduced to fist-sized lumps. Smoke from the fires and dust from the cave-in made
it difficult to see more than an arm's length, but they weren't alone, and they weren't among friends.

Ruari made certain Mahtra and Zvain were behind him, then unslung his staff as Codesh brawlers
came out of the haze, poleaxes raised and swinging. He had no trouble blocking the blows—he was fast,
and the wood of his new staff was stronger than any other wood he could name—but his body had to
absorb the force of the heavy poleaxes. The force shocked his wrists, his elbows, his shoulders, and then
his back, bone by bone, through his legs and into his feet before it dissipated in the ground. With each
blocked blow, Ruari felt himself shrink, felt his own strength depleted.

There was no hope of landing a blow, not at that moment. He and the templars were surrounded.
Those who were fighting could only defend—and pray that those who were evoking the Lion-King
succeeded.

Desperate prayers seemed answered when two huge and slanting yellow eyes manifested in the haze.
To a man, the Codeshites fell back, and the templars raised a chorus of requests for flaming swords,
lightning bolts, enchantments, charms, and blessings. Ruari had all he'd ever want from the Lion of Urik
already in his hands. He took advantage of the lull, striding forward to deliver a succession of quick thrusts
and knocks with his staff's bronze finial. Three brawlers went down with bleeding heads before Ruari
retreated to his original position; the last place he wanted to be was among the Codeshites when Lord
Hamanu began granting spells.

The sulphur eyes narrowed to burning slits, focused on one man: Pavek, whose sword was already
bloody and whose off-weapon hand held a plain, ceramic medallion.

A single, serpentine thread of radiant gold spun down from the Lion-King's eyes. It struck Pavek's
hand with blinding light. When Ruari could see again, the hovering eyes were gone and Pavek was on his
knees, doubled over, his sword discarded, clutching his off-weapon hand against his gut. The templars were
horrified. They knew their master had abandoned them, though the Codeshites hadn't yet realized this and
were still keeping their distance. That changed in a matter of heartbeats. The brawlers surged. Mahtra
raced to Pavek's side; the burnished skin on her face and shoulders glowed as brightly as the Lion-King's
eyes.

Her protection, Ruari thought. The force that had knocked him down in this same spot yesterday and
collapsed the cavern passage behind them moments ago. At least I won't feel the axe that kills me.

But there was something else loose on the killing ground. Everyone felt it, Codeshites and templars
alike. Everyone looked up in awe and fear, expecting the sorcerer-king to reappear. Everyone except Ruari,
who knew what was happening, Pavek, who was making it happen, and Mahtra, whose eyes were glazed
milky white, and whose peculiar magic would be their doom if he, Ruari, couldn't stop it.

He'd touched Mahtra once before when her skin was glowing; it had been the most unpleasant
sensation of his life. But Pavek said she'd stopped herself because she felt him, Ruari, beside her.

If he could make her feel that again—?

It was all the hope Ruari had, and there was no time to think of anything better. He was beside her in
one long-legged stride, had his arms around her and his lips close to her ear. The heat around her was
excruciating. The charring flesh he smelled was undoubtedly his own.

"Mahtra! It's Ruari—don't do this! We're saved. I swear to you—Pavek's saved us."
Dust and grit swirled around them. The ground shuddered, but not because of Mahtra. Wrapped tight
around Ruari's shoulders and waist, her magic was fading, her arms were cooling with every throb of her
pulse. He could feel her breath through the mask, two gentle gusts against his neck. Two gusts. In the midst
of chaos, Ruari wondered what the mask concealed, but the thought, for the instant that it lasted, was
curiosity, not disgust. Then his attention was drawn into the swirling dust.

And the guardian Pavek had raised through the packed dirt of the Codesh killing ground was an aspect
like nothing Ruari had ever imagined.

It cleared the air inside the abattoir, sucking all the dust, the debris, the smoke, and even the flames into
a semblance no taller than an elf, no burlier than a dwarf. But the ground shuddered when it took a
ponderous step, and the air whistled when it slowly swung its arm. A Codesh brawler caught the force of
its fist and flew in a great arc that ended on the other side of the wall, leaving her poleaxe behind. The
semblance—it was not a guardian: guardians were real, but they had no substance; that was another axiom
of druidry—armed itself with the axe and with its second swing took the heads of two more.

That sobered the Codeshite brawlers. The boldest among them attacked the semblance Pavek had
summoned. They died for their bravery. The brightest surged toward Pavek, who had not risen from the
ground. Ruari dived for his staff and regained his feet, ready to defend Pavek's life. The fighting was thrust
and block, sweep and block, rhythm and reaction, as it had been before, with no time for thought until they'd
beaten back the first Codeshite surge. Then there was time to breathe, time to notice who was standing and
who had fallen.

Time to notice, through the now-clear air, the solid line of yellow-robed corpses hanged from the railing
of their watchtower.

Until he had met Pavek, and for considerable time thereafter, Ruari would have cheered the hanging
sight. He'd been conceived when his templar father had raped his elven mother, and he'd grown up
believing the only good templar was a dead one. Even now he wouldn't want any of the men and women
fighting beside him as friends, but he'd learned to see them as individuals within their yellow robes and
understood their gasps and curses. He wasn't surprised when the war bureau survivors around raised their
voices in an eerie, wailing war-cry, or that they pursued the Codeshites, who broke ranks and ran for the
gate. What did surprise Ruari, though, was the four yellow-robed templars who stayed behind with him in a
ring around Pavek, the red-haired priest, Mahtra, and Zvain.

The. guardian semblance Pavek had raised was slow but relentless. Nothing the Codeshite brawlers
did wounded it or sapped its strength. The best they could do against it was defend, as Ruari defended with
his staff against their poleaxes—and with the same effect. Though formed from insubstantial dust and
debris, the semblance put the strength of the land in each of its blows. Mortal sinews couldn't withstand
such force for long. The brawlers went down, one by one, until the critical moment came when those who
were left comprehended that they wouldn't win, couldn't win, and stopped trying. They broke ranks and fled
toward the gate—which was apparently the only way off the killing ground and which was where the
fighting between Codeshites and templars remained thick.

Ruari took two strides in pursuit, then stopped when the semblance collapsed into a dusty rubbish heap.
Two of his four templar allies kept going, but two stayed behind, panting hard, but aware that they were in
danger as long as they were in Codesh, as long as Pavek remained senseless and slumped in the dirt.

Pavek's eyes were open when Ruari crouched beside him, and he groaned when, with Mahtra's help,
Ruari eased him onto his side. Blood soaked the front of the fine, linen clothes the Lion-King had given him.
Blood was on his arms and on his hands. Ruari feared the worst.

The priest knelt and took Pavek's left hand gently between his own. "It's his hand," the priest said,
turning Pavek's hand to show Ruari what had happened when the medallion burst apart. "He'll lose it, but
he'll live, if I can stop the bleeding."

Looking down at bone, sinew, and tattered flesh, Ruari's fear became cold nausea. He knelt beside the
priest as much from weakness as from the desire to help.

"There's power here—"

"The power he himself raised?" The priest refused Ruari's offer with a shake of his head. "It's too riled,
too angry. I wouldn't try—if I were you."

The priest was right. Ruari had no affinity for Pavek's guardian. This was Urik, in all its aspects:
Pavek's roots, not his. But the red-haired priest was no healer. The only help he could offer was taking the
remains of the leather thong that had held Pavek's medallion around his neck and tying it tight around
Pavek's wrist instead.

Pavek opened his eyes and levered himself up on his right elbow. "If you want to do something useful,
find Kakzim, instead." Between his old scar and the pain he was trying to hide, Pavek's smile was nothing
any sane man would want see. "The bastard must be around here someplace."

Zvain, who'd been watching everything, pale and silent from the start, needed no additional
encouragement. He was off like an arrow for the gallery where they'd seen Kakzim yesterday. Mahtra
headed after him, but Kakzim was just a name to Ruari, and Pavek had lost a dangerous amount of blood.

"Go with them," Pavek urged. "Take your staff. Keep them out of trouble."

"You need a healer—bad."

"Not that bad."

"You've lost a lot of blood, Pavek. And—And your hand—it's bad, Pavek. You need a good healer.
Kashi—"

Pavek shook his head. "Kakzim. Get me Kakzim."

"You'll be here when we bounce his halfling rump down those stairs?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

Ruari turned away from Pavek. He looked into the priest's blue eyes, asking silent questions.

"There's nothing more to do here," the priest replied. "I'll stay with him. We're well out of harm's way,
and these two will stay—" He cocked his head toward the two templars who'd remained with them. "If
anyone gets the bright idea to finish what they started before the great king comes to render judgment."

"The Lion closed his eyes," Ruari snarled and surged to his feet. He found himself angry at the
sorcerer-king, and disappointed as well. "He's not coming."

"He'll come," Pavek assured him. "I'll wager you, he'll be here before the fighting's over. You've got to
find Kakzim first."

By the screaming, shouting, and clash of arms, the fighting remained fierce around the abattoir gate.
Ruari couldn't be certain, but he thought there might be more templars— perhaps Nunk and his companions,
perhaps the other war bureau maniple—outside the gate, keeping the brawlers on the killing ground until the
war bureau fighters finished their retribution. He could be certain that Pavek was safer right now with two
templars and a priest watching over him than Mahtra and Zvain were, searching the gallery for Kakzim
without weapons or sense.

"I'll be back before the Lion gets here," Ruari assured the group closest to him before running to the
gallery stairway, staff in hand.

Finding Mahtra and Zvain was no more difficult than listening for Zvain's inventive swearing from the
top of the charred but still serviceable stairway. Although the gallery appeared deserted, Ruari set himself
silently against a door-jamb where he could see not only his friends ransacking a nearly empty room, but the
rest of the gallery and killing ground where two templars stood similar watch over Pavek and the priest.

"Find anything?" Ruari asked, all innocence within the shadows.

Mahtra said, "No," with equal innocence, but Zvain leapt straight up and came down only a few shades
darker than Mahtra.

"You scared me!" Zvain complained once he'd stopped sputtering curses.

Ruari countered with, "You'd be worse than scared if it weren't me standing here," and could almost
hear Pavek saying the same thing. "You're damn fools, leaving the door open and making so much noise."

"I was listening," Mahtra said. "I would've seen trouble coming; I saw you. I would've protected—"

"What's to see? There's no one here!" Zvain interrupted. "He's scarpered. Packed up and left. Cut and
run. Got out while the getting was still good—just like he did with dead-heart Escrissar."

Ruari's spirits sank. Pavek wanted Kakzim; not catching him was going to hurt Pavek more than losing
his hand. "Is there anything here? Pavek..."

"Nothing!" Zvain said, kicking over a stool for emphasis. "Not a damn thing!"

"There's this—" Mahtra held out a chunk of what appeared to be tree bark.

"Garbage!" Zvain kicked the stool again.

Ruari left his staff leaning against the doorjamb and took Mahtra's offering. It was bark, though not
from any tree that grew on the Tablelands. Holding it, feeling its texture with his fingers, he got a vision of
countless trees and mountains wrapped in smoke like the Smoking Crown Volcano... no, mountains
wrapped in clouds, like nothing he'd seen before.