"Woman," he said when he was close enough for whispering. "Hire me to haul your cart through the city. Your zarneeka's being turned to poison, and you need my help."
Her eyes widened. She seemed about to say something, then Pavek felt myriad fiery needles pierce through his skin, and his mind was engulfed in blazing light. His world became timeless until, with a nauseating thump, his heart began beating again. By the time his sputtering mind had reconstructed itself, Bukke had joined them.
"What's going on here, scum?" the inspector demanded, flourishing his prod for effect.
Bukke glowered at each of them in turn, lingering longest on Pavek's bearded face, giving him enough time to wonder if, with all of them together in the same place, the younger templar would remember what had happened exactly sixty days earlier.
"No dishonesty, great one," the druid replied without a hint of deceit or indecision. "I was hoping to hire a man to haul our cart through the city.
Bukke scowled skeptically: even an old, leather-faced dwarf was stronger than a day-laboring human. The druid deflected Bukke's suspicion with lowered eyes and a fleeting smile.
"We were delayed, great one," she explained. "Poor Yohan exhausted himself getting this far-"
Poor Yohan had gotten the message. He was rubbing his muscles now, not flexing them. His shoulders sagged, and he'd developed a remarkably weary demeanor-all of which confirmed Pavek's original supposition: the woman was the one he had to deal with.
"Ah-you're all worthless scum anyway," Bukke decreed. He swung the prod to emphasize his judgment, striking Pavek's still-aching shoulder. "But he's more worthless than you. Choose another and begone."
A silent scream swelled in Pavek's throat. He'd placed all his hopes and faith in this moment, only to see them disappear.
"I see none better, great one," the druid said, scanning the other laborers with disdain worthy of a templar taskmaster. Then she focused her attention firmly on Bukke. "This scum will suffice."
"As you wish, Lady," Bukke conceded, his voice slower and softer than it usually was. "Will you be looking for an overnight inn?"
"No, great one. I'll be done with him by sundown."
'Tour name, Lady-for the records?"
"Akashia, great one. These are my servants. Their names are not important. I won't be trading in any market; my goods are already promised to their new owner, taxes paid and receipts recorded. There is no need for you to remember us at all, great one. Just send us on our way, great one." "Yes." Bukke spoke like a man in the midst of a pleasant dream. "Yes. Go on your way."
Pavek risked a tiny sigh of relief as he took the dwarf's place between the traces. She had believed him-surely that burst of pain had been the product of druid spellcraft as had Bukke's uncharacteristically mild and cooperative manner. She would not have risked a second display of spellcraft if she had not been satisfied with the first. Unlike the mages of the Veil, druids were not outlawed in Urik, but any magic that the king did not personally control was risky in Urik.
He glanced at the debris. The shade was empty, and he was still thinking about Zvain when the dwarf's jagged fingernails pressed between the nerves and bones of his wrist.
"Whatever happens," Yohan hissed-grim hazel eyes meeting and breaking Pavek's determined stare-"your life belongs to me."
With his arm already weak from Bukke's prod, Pavek didn't doubt the old dwarf could finish him off, but if, by some remote chance, he survived Yohan, the half-elf s scowl promised another battle. He turned weary eyes to the dwarf.
"We're all meat if we don't get moving," be said, not loudly enough for Bukke to overhear.
Yohan released his wrist, and though Pavek would have preferred a moment to shake blood back down to bis fingertips, he hooked numbed fingers around the traces instead.
"Are you ready?" the druid asked, a hint of maternal impatience in her voice, for all that she looked several years younger than Pavek himself.
With Bukke still blinking in the dappled light, Pavek and his new companions walked past the gatehouse and the inspection sand. There were countless reasons to keep his head down as he pulled the light and well-balanced cart up the shallow slope to the open west gate of Urik. He rejected them all and stole glances in every direction, hoping to catch sight of Zvain. They were almost at the man-high feet of mighty King Hamanu when Pavek saw a dark, lithe shadow in the tail of his right eye. He turned his head toward it.
"Something following you, city-scum?" the half-elf snarled-the first words he had spoken and full of a familiar adolescent whine.
"No, nothing." The stones and scrub where the shadow had appeared were empty now. Maybe there'd be another chance before sundown. Maybe-but no sane man would waste spit on those dice. The cart rolled from the packed dirt of the outside to the smooth, patterned cobblestones of Urik's streets. They reached the first plaza. He veered left, toward the wide, well-traveled avenue that led directly to the customhouse. The dwarf continued straight ahead toward the tangled stalls and alleys where weavers, dyers, and cloth merchants plied their trade. They collided with each other and the cart.
Yohan retreated a pace, giving him another measuring sweep with his eyes. The customhouse had not been mentioned since he'd joined them.
"Is there a problem?" the druid asked.
"He headed for the customhouse."
She laid a reassuring hand on Yohan's shoulder before turning to Pavek. He lowered the cart traces and, belatedly, worked on the cramps in his shoulder and arm.
"Follow Yohan, and don't cause trouble. We must attend other matters first."
He soon discovered the substance of those 'other matters.' Once he'd dragged the cart deep into a thicket of uncut cloth and bright-dyed skeins of wool and linen-where they were screened off from prying eyes and a man's shouts for help would be absorbed by the cloth or lost in the general din of bargaining-he was pummeled by the dwarf until he lay face-up on the cobblestones, with the tapered, metal-wrapped ferrule of the half-elfs staff resting in the hollow of his throat.
"Search him," the druid commanded, and the dwarf did so-efficiently.
"Well now, what have we here? An interesting bit of crockery for a wage-scum to have tucked beneath his belt..."
Yohan held up the glazed medallion.
"A templar! Yellow-robed blood-sucker," the copper-haired youth sneered, and the pressure on Pavek's throat increased.
"Not a templar, Ruari," the druid corrected, taking the medallion from Yohan's hand. "But the templar who gave us so much trouble last time we were here." She dangled the yellow ceramic above Pavek's face. "I am correct in that, am I not? You are that templar...? What happened to your bright yellow robe, templar-scum?"
Pavek was not fool enough to deny the accusation. "The zarneeka-that yellow powder you bring to the customhouse-it gets made into a poison called Laq-"
The half-elf leaned on his staff, and Pavek groaned.
"Ease off, Ru. Let him finish."
Between coughs and gasps, Pavek had a heartbeat to wonder if he hadn't made the biggest mistake in his soon-to-be-ended life. "Ral's Breath was sold freely and cheaply everywhere in the city. Folk who couldn't afford a healer's touch thought it eased their pain. Now your zarneeka gets simmered into a poison that rots a man's mind and turns him into a raving beast before it kills him. I thought you would want to know. I thought a druid-"
Pressure returned with a vicious twist
"Ruari!"
-And eased again.
"I thought a druid would care."
"He's a templar. A liar and a spy. Let's kill him and leave him here. The quicker the better."
The fire-hardened staff wavered in Ruari's hands, but his aim was true enough to kill a helpless man in a few, pain-filled moments. The druid steadied the staff with her own firm grip. "Why should I believe anything you say, bloodsucker?"