Hot Obsidian

“Ah, nice to meet you,” the pale man smiled. “The worldholders’ immortal apprentice’s name! Very interesting!”

Juel shrugged. He didn’t find any of that interesting. Or amusing. He still felt like hitting Orion in the face for endangering the mission and being a reckless fool.

“I see you guys are Lifekeepers,” Sumah kept rabbiting on. “But I must admit that you’re quite good at killing people too.”

“Some lives can’t be saved. Some shouldn’t be,” Juel quoted Kangassk Abadar, his master.

“The situation was desperate,” said Orion, apologetically. “I just had no time to plan anything properly… Had I tried to spare anyone, I’d just die myself…”

“Oh yeah, fascinating philosophy,” nodded Sumah, obviously thinking of something else. “Very, very interesting indeed!”

The picture on the other side of the half-hill changed everyone’s mood in an instant: there was a battle too and that battle had ended just recently. Juel and Orion run to the site; Sumah, now grim and frowning, followed them at a steady pace.

“Anyone’s wounded?” cried Juel in that thunderous voice of his. He was still ru

“I am. Now what?” grumbled Lainuver. He was sitting in the middle of the road, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

Pai answered too, not with words but with a single pitiful wimper. Curled up on the road’s side, he was holding onto his slashed thigh. Had that wound been deeper, he would have been dead already, but, luckily, the wound was shallow, so it was extremely painful, yes, but not life-threatening.

Milian didn’t answer at all: he had no breath left to do that, having had suffered a blow of a battle staff to his ribs, a glancing blow, not direct, though: otherwise the ribs would have been broken.

The rest of the younger Lifekeepers looked battered too. Still, no one was dead or dying. Both Juel and Orion sighed with relief.

“Jarmin?” Orion called for the boy. “You okay?”

Jarmin raised his head and whispered:

“They killed Varro…”

“Who?” Juel turned to Orion.

“His charga. The kitten,” he explained and turned to Jarmin. “Varro died in battle protecting you. We will remember him as a true hero.”

Jarmin could no longer hold back the tears. He didn’t run up to Orion like he often used to before, he didn’t make a single sound. The six-year-old warrior mourned his friend in silence, alone, and didn’t want anyone to share his pain.

“There were five Shlakers,” muttered Juel, looking around. All the bandits had died of sword wounds, all but one who had a little throwing knife between his clavicles.

“That’s Jarmin’s work,” explained Lainuver. He was not so grumpy now with his charga taking care of his wounded shoulder.

“Great throw,” nodded Juel. “But I wonder why there’s no blood…”

“Because I didn’t kill him!” Jarmin’s voice rang with anger. The boy jumped to his feet, ran to the fallen assassin and took the ‘knife’ out of the wound.

It was a weapon built for throwing all right but it was no knife: instead of a blade, it had a little lead weight to move the centre of mass forward and a short, thick needle. Jarmin sheathed the strange weapon and said,

“He will wake up by the evening. He’ll think twice before hurting anyone again!”

“I should’ve guessed!” Orion slapped himself on the forehead. “Kangassk Eugenia is a master poisoner and paralyzing poisons are her speciality! Well, Jarmin, looks like you’re the only true Lifekeeper today.”

“No!” retorted the boy. “Varro died because of me!”

“Oh my! That kid will have quite a character when he grows up!” That was Sumah, who had kept up with his saviours and now quietly stood behind them.

Orion winced: that remark suddenly hit home and hit hard. He knew what Sumah was talking about. Behind Jarmin’s naivete and kindness, behind his childish cheerfulness, his love of stories, his curiosity, his artistic talent, loomed something dark, something menacing. And it took a stranger to make Orion properly notice that! Shame.

“We forgot about Milian,” said Jovib with scorn. “Mil, how are you?”

“Fine…” hissed the boy, straightening himself up. Speaking was still hard for him, so his reply was more like a self-soothing chant, “I’m fine… fine… fine… I will be okay in a minute…”

With a huge effort, Milian managed to stand up, and leaned against his charga for support. The charga praised his bravery in her own, cattish, way: by gently nudging him with her nose.

The chargas were all wounded, not seriously though. Only Varro was unlucky today. Mourned by the humans and the beasts both, the big kitten lay there in the dust, looking as if he were asleep.

Of all the human part of the team, Lainuver’s and Pai’s wounds were the worst. Lainuver had to fight several adult opponents at once and one of them was quick enough to get through his defences. Pai had simply repeated Gerdon Lorian’s mistake: he preferred reading, meditation, and daydreaming to swordplay and was now paying for his carelessness.

Still, no one blamed Orion, the reason for all the trouble. No one, not even Juel.

When the assassins saw three warriors leave their group and rush to help Sumah’s, they decided that the whole Lifekeeper team was Sumah’s friends. What did that mean? Right: that meant that they would get paid extra for their heads. So the Shlakers attacking the kids was entirely Orion's fault.

But why was no one judging him now? First, seven human lives had been saved today and second, staying out of the battle would have had its own consequences for the team – like all of them having to live with the fact that they stood and watched people being killed and didn’t lift a finger to help them.

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