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then, Pavek had roused a guardian spirit in Urik, too, much to Telhami's
surprise.
Druid tradition held that guardians were rooted in places-forests, streams,
rocks, and other phenomena of the land, not in man-built cities. Pavek wasn't
about to argue with tradition, but Urik stood on a hill that was no less a
place than Telhami's grove, and the force that distinguished Quraite's
guardian from the lesser spirits of the barrens was born in the generations of
druids who'd lived and died above it. Pavek wasn't bold enough to equate the
street-scum of Urik with the druids of Quraite, but he had roused a guardian
there, and ever since he'd known without thinking where the city lay over the
horizon.
The path between Urik and Quraite was a sword-edge in Pavek's mind: straight,
sharp, and unwavering. As far as he knew, he was the only one walking it, but
if there were a woman coming the other way, they'd meet soon enough.
Heat abandoned the salt as quickly as the sun's light. They hadn't walked far
before the ground was cool beneath their feet and they were grateful for the
shirts on their backs. A little bit farther, when the sky had dimmed to deep
indigo and the stars were as bright as the moon, Pavek heard the sounds he'd
dreaded. Zvain heard them, too, and as he'd done in the face of Akashia's
scorn, he tucked himself into Pavek's midnight shadow.
"The Don's bells," the boy whispered.
Pavek grunted his agreement. Most folk who dared the Tableland barrens did so
discreetly, striving not to attract the attention of predatory men and beasts.
It was otherwise with Lord Hamanu's personal minions. They carried bells-tens,
even hundreds of ceramic bells, stone bells, and bells made from rare
metals-that announced their passage, and their patron, across the empty land.
During Pavek's ten years in the orphanage and ten subsequent years in the
civil bureau, he knew of only one time that Urik's official messengers had
been waylaid.
Lord Hamanu had hunted the outlaws personally and brought the lot of them-a
clutch of escaped slaves: men, women, and their children-back to Urik in
wicker cages. With his infinitesimal mercy, the Lion-King could have slain the
outlaws in a thousand different and horrible ways, but Urik's king had no
mercy where his minion-messengers were concerned. He ordered the cages slung
above the south gate. The captives had all the water they wanted, but no
protection from the sun or the Urikites, and no food, except each other as
they starved, one by one. As Pavek recalled, it was two quinths before the
last of them died, but the cages had dangled for at least a year, a warning to
every would-be miscreant, before the ropes rotted through and the gnawed bones
finally spilled to the ground.
Quraite would deal fairly with its uninvited visitor, or suffer the
consequences. Pavek swallowed hard and kept walking.
Ruari saw them first, his elven inheritance giving him better night vision and
an advantage in height over his human companions.
"What are they?" he asked, adding an under-breath oath of disbelief. "They
can't be kanks."
But they were; seven of them spread out in an arrowhead formation. Seven, and
all of them bearing travel-swathed riders. And Kashi had sensed only one mind,
blaring its intentions as it moved closer to Quraite. That implied magic,
either mind-benders who could conceal their thoughts and presence, or templars
drawing the Lion-King's power through their medallions, or defilers who
transformed plant-life into sterile ash in order to cast their spells. Then
again, Urik's king had a well-deserved reputation for thoroughness; he might
have sent two of each.
Hamanu had definitely spared nothing to make certain his messenger reached her
destination. His kanks were the giants of their kind, and laden with supply
bundles in addition to their riders. Their chitin was painted over with bright
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enamels that glistened in the moonlight and, of course, hung with clattering
bells.
When they needed transportation, the druids of Quraite bartered for or bought
kanks from the Moonracer tribe. The elven herders were justly proud of their
shiny black kanks, selectively bred for endurance and adaptivity. Lord Hamanu,
however, wasn't interested in a bug that could run for days on end with
nothing but last-year's dried scrub grass to sustain it. The Lion-King of Urik
wanted big bugs, powerful bugs, bugs that made a man think twice before he
approached them. And what the Lion wanted, the Lion got.
And Pavek would get, too, if he returned to Urik, because these were the bugs
that the high templars and the ranking officers of the war bureau rode. The
thought made Pavek's knees wobbly as he stood his ground in front of the
advancing formation.
The kanks chittered among themselves, a high-pitched drone louder than all the
bells combined. They clashed their crescent-hooked mandibles, a gesture made
more menacing by the yellow phosphorescence that oozed out of their mouths to
cover them. There were worse poisons in the Tablelands, but dead was dead, and
kank drool was potent enough to kill.
Pavek loosened his sword in its scabbard and wrapped his right hand around its
hilt. "In the name of all Quraite, who goes?" he demanded.
The dark silhouettes atop five of the kanks failed to twitch or prod their
beasts to a halt. The kanks kept coming. Pavek drew his sword partway. "Halt
now, or be run through."
"I can't see their faces," Ruari advised with his better nightvision. "They're
all slumped over. I don't like this-"
The lead kank-the biggest one, naturally, with mandibles that could slice
through a man's neck or thigh with equal ease-took exception to Pavek's
weapon. With its antennae flailing, it emitted an ear-piercing drone and sank
its weight over its four hindmost legs.
"It's going to charge," Ruari shouted in unnecessary warning.
"You've entered the guarded lands of Quraite! Hospitality is offered. Stand
down," Pavek shouted with less authority than he would have liked to hear in
his voice. He had the sword drawn, but he and the other two with him were
doomed if he had to use it. "Stand down, now!"
The kank reared, brandishing the pincer claws on its front legs. Pavek's
breath froze in his throat, then, to his complete astonishment, the kank's
hitherto silent, motionless rider hove sideways and tumbled helplessly to the
ground, like a sack of grain. That was all the signal Ruari needed. He wasn't
fool enough to use druidry in competition with a rider's prod, but if the
riders weren't in control, he knew the spells.
Pavek felt his heart skip a beat as Ruari drew upon the guardian's power. He
muttered a few words-mnemonics shaping the power and directing it-to create
rapport between himself and the bugs. The now-riderless kank dropped to all
six feet with a clatter of chitin and bells as Ruari began weaving his arms
about. One by one the kanks began to echo his movements with their antennae.
Their clashing mandibles slowed, then stopped, and high-pitched chittering
faded into silence.
"Good work!" Pavek exclaimed, pounding Ruari on the shoulder hard enough to
send him sprawling, but there was a grin on the half-elf's face when he stood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]