The Brazen Gambit (13 page)

"He can't be serious!" Ruari exclaimed, then, when the woman did not immediately support him: "Akashia-you
can't be serious. He's a templar! Once a yellow-robed bloodsucker, always a yellow-robed blood-sucker. He'll betray us
all-if he hasn't betrayed us already. He's been looking all around, like a scum-slime traitor who's led us into an ambush.
Shifty-eyed templar-scum."

The youth thwacked Pavek's shin with his staff, drawing blood and, very nearly, retaliation.

"Are you looking for something, someone?" Akashia asked.

His initial judgment had not changed: he wasn't sure he trusted them any more than they trusted him, and he
definitely didn't want Zvain involved. Fortunately, there was another acceptable answer: "I've got forty gold coins
resting on my head, woman! Of course, I'm jumping at shadows and looking over my shoulders."

"That's a lot of gold," Yohan the dwarf mused aloud.

"Take a very rich man not to be tempted."

"Pyreen protect us," Ruari swore an oath Pavek had never heard before. "Let's just turn him in."

"No," Akashia decided, and her decisions were clearly the ones that mattered. "Yohan-?"

She turned to the dwarf, her fingers fluttering in what, for her, seemed unusual femininity. Pavek had half an
instant for suspicion before Yohan's fist blasted into his gut, and the half elf's staff struck hard at the base of his skull.
After that there was darkness, and after the darkness, oblivion.

Pavek awoke empty-headed and floating in air. An instant later he landed hard on splintery wood. His mind
crystalized: the last thing he'd remembered was being hit over the head in the dyers' plaza. Now he was knotted up
inside the handcart as it rolled over rough pavement.

Whoever had spit-tied him was a master of the craft. His wrists and ankles were bound tightly together some
immeasurable distance behind his back and anchored from there to the cart itself. His limbs were stretched, strained,
and throbbing. His hands and feet were numb. In the midst of his discomfort, he spared a moment to wonder who,
besides another templar, would bind a man tight enough to cripple him.

Another jolt brought him back to immediate concerns. He couldn't stifle a moan, but no one noticed. There were
other voices, near and far. The words were lost in the wheels' clattering. He couldn't see anything, either. A piece of
coarse cloth had been bound over his eyes. Straw had been thrown over him as well; the sharp stalks pricked through
his clothes to his skin, which, he realized, was chilled.

The sun had set. The gates of Urik were closed. The druids must have consigned their zarneeka to the city-the
cart wasn't large enough for both him and the amphorae- after which they'd hauled him, bound and unconscious, out;
of the only home he'd ever known.

Pain-fogged as he was, Pavek didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified: he was out of the city where his life
was worth forty gold pieces and into the care of druids who didn't care if they crippled him. At least they'd protected
his eyes; a man could go blind through his eyelids if he lay faceup in the sun all afternoon. Then his nose reminded
him that the sun hadn't been visible this past afternoon. The air he breathed through a layer of straw was gritty with
smoke and sulphur.

So, the druids had tied him cruelly, and then they'd covered him with straw to conceal him while they smuggled
him out of the city. They wanted him, or more of his story, but they didn't trust him.

Pavek sighed. He could understand that: no templar took trust for granted.

He considered announcing that he was conscious, but thought better of that impulse. Better to wait while his
senses sharpened and his mind snared snatches of conversation from the world beyond his ears.

"What now?" An adolescent whine.

His mind struggled to find a name and threw up two: Zvain and Ruari. Ruari was correct; Zvain brought a
different ache. He could tell himself everything had gone for the best, that an orphan's chances on the streets of Urik
were better than a bound templar's in a handcart. Probably it wasn't a lie. The boy and he had squared whatever debts
had stood between them. But there was an ache, distinct from the myriad body aches, and the half-elf's grousing only
made it worse.

"I've never seen this place so crowded," Ruari continued when no one answered his question. "There's hardly a
corner that doesn't have someone camped in it."

"No one wants to go farther, not tonight," a woman's voice-Akashia, the druid, the leader of his captors. "Not
with that cloud lighting up the sky. There's a Tyr-storm brewing, Ru."
Brown-haired Akashia was beautiful in a way no hardened templar woman could ever be, but just as tough. The
half-elf was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and the cart jolted forward again.

A Tyr-storm. He hadn't heard that phrase before, but guessed its meaning. Tyr was the city that sent heroes, or
fools-the barroom ballads he knew equated the two-out to challenge the Dragon. And, against all odds, the hero-fools
had succeeded. Now the storms came, about as frequently as the Dragon had come for bis toll of mortal life.

The Dragon's toll had been paid in slaves; anyone with a bit of luck or coin had nothing to fear. But the storms
ravaged everything equally with wind, hail, and rain. No one could buy luck when blue-green lightning filled the sky.

So why not name the storms after Tyr? Someone had to take the blame. Smoking Crown had been belching as
long as anyone could remember, but the smoke hadn't bred storms until the fools of Tyr had slain the Dragon.

Between the blindfold-bandage and the straw, he couldn't see the blue-green lightning, but, straining his ears, he
heard the now-and-again rumble of thunder. Dread greater than any pain filled his heart: he'd sooner be dead than
confront a Tyr-storm trussed-up as he was.

"This is as far as we can go without a decision," Yohan, the third member of the trio said with a sigh.

The cart tipped as the old dwarf lowered the traces. Pavek slid forward, helplessly, toward the dwarf and the
ground. Bolts of agony, sharper and brighter than the unseen lightning, racked his joints as the rope between his
bound limbs and cart snapped taut. His ribs contracted and, with his not-inconsiderable weight suspended halfway in,
halfway out of the cart, he tried to howl, but the sound strangled in his throat.

"Earth, wind, rain, and fire!" Akashia swore.

Yohan put a hob-nailed sole against his chest, shoving him backward as the cart leveled. Pavek could breathe
again, and scream as the wheels swiveled, bounced, and rolled rapidly through the darkness.

"Hold these!" the dwarf barked, and the two-wheeled cart tottered as one of the others took his place between
the trace-poles.

Straw was swept aside, and a massive, strong hand clamped over his forearm to haul him out of agony with the
rude courtesy one veteran expected of another, even when they were on opposite sides.

"Look at his hands," Akashia whispered from somewhere near his head.

Her tone, midway between horror and disgust, was enough set him struggling, but Yohan's grip was firm.

"You've come close to crippling him," Yohan snarled, not toward the woman, so it was the half-elf, the whiner,
who'd spit-tied him. "Give me that knife of his, Kashi-"

A moment later, he felt cold steel against his right arm. He heard the unmistakable snap of stretched leather as
steel sliced through his bonds and guessed that Ruari had tied him up with wet thongs. It was a templar tactic: leather
shrank as it dried. He couldn't control his arms or legs as, one after another, they went from freedom to spasms. He
ground his teeth together in a vain attempt to remain quiet, and when he could not, he swore vengeance against the
half-elf scum.

"Easy," Yohan counseled, shoving and pulling until he was sitting erect. "Water?"

Another pair of hands, Akashia's, unwound the cloth from his eyes. He blinked a moment, adjusting to the
twilight, and gasped when he saw his swollen, discolored hands. Growling like a maddened beast, he lurched toward
the lean silhouette at the corner of his vision. Yohan stopped him with one hand.

"Don't be a fool," the dwarf hissed.

He let the fight go out of him. With no control over his fists, no strength in his legs, he was a fool. He slumped
against the side planks of the cart.

"It's going to tip!" Ruari shouted, grappling with the traces-though whether to help or hinder was beyond
Pavek's guessing.

Yohan planted his foot against the opposite side. The danger passed. "Water?" he repeated.

Of his three captors, the dwarf was clearly the most dangerous, but the two of them were playing by the same
rules, by templar rules: victor and vanquished, power and prisoner. Right now water was more precious than life itself,
but accepting it would establish the hierarchy between them, with him inescapably on the bottom. Pavek hesitated.
The dwarf uncorked a jug and, tilting it recklessly, allowed water to trickle along his chin as he drank deep and loud.

"Yes-water." Pavek surrendered. With effort and concentration, he got his jelly-boned arms to move, but Yohan
had to steady the jug as he drank. The liquid restored his will and cleared his thoughts.

Lightning lit the heavens with cool brilliance. Pavek braced for the gut-punch crack of thunder, which did not
arrive for several moments and was distant-sounding when it did. The Tyr-storm would be violent when it arrived, but
he, his trio of captors, and the other scurrying denizens of Modekan-he assumed they'd come to that village-still had
ample time to prepare and dread.

"Can we trust him? Do we dare take him into the inn?" Akashia asked when the thunder had rumbled past.

Thrusting out his lower lip, Yohan blinked and shook his head. Pavek started to protest this judgment against his
character, but the dwarf silenced him with a scowl.

"It's not a question of trust; it's those hands and feet. It'll be midnight before he can use his hands, longer before
he can walk. Anybody who sees him will think a question or two and somebody may guess the answer. Forty pieces is
a lot of gold, Kashi. It's not my decision, but if it were, I'd keep moving and go to ground when we reach the barrens."
Another flash of lightning-the same color as the druid's eyes, or perhaps that was merely an illusion. Either way, her
nose wrinkled as she looked from him to the storm and back again. Without offering a word, much less the decision
they were all waiting for, she reversed the knife and aimed it for its sheath.

Pavek murmured, "Wipe it first-"
Akashia glowered as thunder rumbled and Yohan made a fist.

He had no idea who'd forged his knife, but any steel was worthy of respect, and mention of the last dwarven
stronghold got Yohan's attention, as he'd hoped it would. Akashia, seeing something like awe on the veteran's face,
swirled the blade carefully across the whetstone attached to the sheath.

Only Ruari missed the moment completely. "You aren't going to let a mud-scum templar talk to you like that, are
you? His kind never learns. He still thinks he can give orders and we'll all grovel at his filthy, stinking feet. He'll sing a
different song once Telhami's through with him-"

"Ruari!" Akashia snarled.

And Pavek looked immediately at Yohan, whose face reflected unspeakable weariness in the faint light. The
dwarf had the requisite experience and wisdom, but he wasn't the druids' leader, and neither was Akashia. That honor
belonged to someone named Telhami-a woman, by the name's cadence, and undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with.

"Well," Pavek demanded when no one else seemed inclined to say anything, "what are you going to do with me?
Hit me over the head again and dump my body where the storm will finish your dirty-work?"

Akashia finished stropping the blade but before she returned it to the sheath she took a moment-or so it
seemed-to examine the elaborate knotwork along the hilt, the knotwork that concealed his mother's hair.

He wanted the knife back because the worth of its metal was measured in gold; he wanted Sian's midnight hair
back because its worth was beyond all measure.

"You value this?" she asked.

Her expression went beyond calculation or suspicion. Remembering the white fire she'd seared through his mind
at the gate, he feared for his life, though common-lore said any mind with enough thoughts for stealing could defend
itself against a mind-bender's invasion. But he felt nothing explicitly threatening, only the elusive sense that he was
still being measured and judged.

"I value it, yes."

"How much?"

"To you, or to Telhami?" he countered, letting them know he'd heard Ruari blurt out that name. "Nevermind."

She secured the valued knife in its sheath and the sheath in a fringed bag suspended from her waist.

Lightning flashed and the thunder came quicker, louder. A merchant wearing silken robes scurried toward them.
He spotted the four of them and stopped suddenly, causing his tail of servants, carters, and apprentices to stumble
against one another. One cart overturned completely with the sound of shattering glass.

"We're doomed!" the frantic merchant wailed. "Doomed! The inns are full. The stables. There's no place for an
honest man to hide. Will you give me your place for ten pieces of gold?"

They looked at one another and at the wedge of ground where they stood. The place Yohan had selected for an
urgent discussion lay between two tall, windowless walls and was as readily defensible as it was discreet. Another
weight went on the balance pan in Pavek's mind with the scales tipping toward a conclusion that Yohan had seen
service with one or another of the sorcerer-longs.

He knew what he'd do in similar circumstances: accept manifest good fortune, ten gold pieces, and make his
stand against the storm from somewhere else. But he wasn't Yohan, and Yohan wasn't in charge.

Akashia held out her hand, palm-up. "You have so many with you, and so much more to protect. To deny your
request would be to deny the principles of life itself."

The merchant extended his own, empty, hand toward her. He would have sworn he could hear both Yohan and
the half-elf muttering. But at the last moment before an agreement would have been reached without any exchange of
gold, silver or ceramic bits, Akashia made a fist.

"Was that eleven gold pieces you offered, good merchant, or twelve?"

"Good for her," Yohan whispered clearly enough for Pavek to overhear despite another clash of thunder.

Pavek let his swollen hands hang loosely in his lap, hoping not to draw attention to them. His fingers twitched
uncontrollably as blood slowly, painfully, restored feeling to lifeless nerves. Yohan's concerns about his
conspicuousness were valid: people would notice and people tended to remember what they noticed when gold was
involved, whether it was a forty-piece bounty or the eleven pieces the merchant was dribbling slowly into Akashia's
hand.

He lowered his head, avoiding eye-contact with anything but his feet, until the cart was well-away from the
merchant and his company.

"Good work, Kashi!" Ruari cried. "Now we can buy a room at the inn-"

"Don't be a fool," Akashia retorted as she and Yohan turned toward the open, unguarded village gate. "If eleven
pieces of gold could buy a place at an inn, that merchant wouldn't have given them to us."

The wind had picked up. It blew with enough force to set the heavy gate banging on its hinges. Yohan turned
the cart toward the public kank-pen, just inside the gate. A gust caught the disc-shaped wheels and threatened to
dump them all on the cobblestones.