The Brazen Gambit

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 ante

"They like you, templar," Akashia chuckled.

He cursed and batted at the hovering ante

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 ante

"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 stu

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.