The Brazen Gambit (14 page)

"We're not going outside?" Ruari argued. "You've lost your wits. The storm! The kanks will go mad."

"No madder than what's left loose in this village." Yohan stopped the cart and offered his brawny arm to Pavek.

Privately, Pavek sympathized with the half-elf. The kanks' high-pitched droning raised the short hairs at the base
of bis 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
circumstances, 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 gnashing pincers, and in the darkness that followed, their
mandibles shimmered with a faintly yellowish, liquid 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 bloody 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," Akashia 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 assuring himself that they hadn't broken his skin, he uprooted a handful of scraggly grass and,
with no regard for what was left of his dignity, swiped the radiant slime from his legs.

Several pulse-pounding moments passed before he heard Ruari laughing. It was one insult too many. He hurled
the soggy grass in the half-elf's direction. His aim was off: the faintly glowing wad missed that wide-open mouth and
splattered against bis 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 shirt. When he was done, his fingers were curled into claws. "Because I'm going to kill you-"

But Akashia thrust her open hand between them. Her wrist waggled slightly. First, Ruari staggered backward,
then a gust of wind punched Favek'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 what he did-"

Akashia'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."

"Kashi-"

"Don't 'Kashi' 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," 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 Akashia'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?" Akashia 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."

Akashia 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 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." Akashia cocked 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.
*****

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 assured 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. Akashia
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 shirt 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, 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 flashing 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 Akashia 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 brillianccj leaving him blind in those rare moments when lightning was not
flashing. 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 shivered; he
hugged himself for warmth, reassurance.

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 Akashia 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.

Nearby, tightly confined by Yohan's arms, Akashia 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 compassion 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 thrashing 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 passed."

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 with-: out 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.