Pavek said, “and more than a city. A mere village wouldn’t stop him. If it’s Kakzim. We don’t know anything, except that we smell something burning. It could be something else. We’re late, I think, the other maniple could have finished our work for us. We won’t know until we get there.” Pavek might have left his shiny gold medallion behind, but he was a high templar, and when he spoke, calmly and simply, no one argued with him.
The sergeant organized them quickly into a living chain, then gave the order to extinguish the lanterns. Ruari, his staff slung over his back where it struck his head or heel at every step, fell in with the rest. It was slow-going through the dark, smoky passage, but with hands linked in front and behind there was no panic. Taller than those ahead of him and endowed with half-keen half-elf vision Ruari was the first to notice a brighter patch ahead and whispered as much to those around him. Ediyua called for a volunteer, and the first templar in the column went forward to investigate.
Ruari watched the templar’s silhouette as he entered the faint light, then lost it when the man rounded the next bend in the passage. The volunteer shouted back to them that he could see an overhead opening, and screamed a heartbeat later. After giving them all an order to stay where they were, the sergeant drew her sword and crept forward. Mahtra, next in line behind Ruari, pulled her hand free for a moment, then gave it back to him. He heard several loud crunching sounds, as if she were chewing pebbles, and was about to tell her to be quiet when instead of a scream, the clash of weapons resounded through the tunnel.
Ediyua hadn’t rounded the bend; Ruari could make out her silhouette and the silhouettes of her attackers, but it was someone else farther back in the column who shouted out the word, “Ambush!”
Panic filled the passage, thicker than the smoke. Discipline crumbled into pushing and shoving. Templars shouted, but no one shouted louder than Zvain:
“No! Mahtra, no!”
A tingling sensation passed from Mahtra’s hand into Ruari’s. It was power, though unlike anything he’d felt in his druidry. He surrendered to it, because he couldn’t drive it out or fight it, and a peculiar numbness spiraled up from the hand Mahtra held. It ran across his shoulders, and down his other arm—into Pavek, all in the span of a single heartbeat. A second pulse, faster and stronger than the first, came a heartbeat later.
Time stood still in the darkness as power leapt out of every pore of Ruari’s copper-colored skin. He felt a flash of lightning, without seeing it; felt a peal of thunder though his ears were deaf. He died, he was sure of that, and was reborn in panic.
The air was full of dust. Heavier particles rained around him like sifting sand. He didn’t know what had happened, or where he was, until he heard a single phrase welling up behind him:
“Cave-in!”
Followed by the red-haired priest shouting, “I can’t hold it!” from the front.
Other voices shouted out “Hamanu!” but there wasn’t time or space to evoke the mighty sorcerer-king’s aid.
Templars at the rear of the column surged forward, desperate to avoid one certain death, unmindful of the danger that lay ahead. Mahtra pushed Ruari, who pushed Pavek, who pushed the priest toward the dust-streaked light. Ruari stumbled against something that was not stone. His mind said the sergeant’s body, and his feet refused to take the next necessary step. He lurched forward and would have gone down if Pavek hadn’t yanked his arm hard enough to make the sinew snap. His foot came down where it had to, on something soft and silent. The next body was easier, the next easier still, and then he could see light streaming in from above.
Whatever Mahtra had done—Ruari assumed that she and her “protection” were responsible for the cave-in—it had destroyed the little building in the middle of the abattoir floor and any blue-green warding along with it. With Pavek leading, they emerged into a devastated area of the killing ground where stone, bone, and flesh had been reduced to fist-sized lumps. Smoke from the fires and dust from the cave-in made it difficult to see more than an arm’s length, but they weren’t alone, and they weren’t among friends.
Ruari made certain Mahtra and Zvain were behind him, then unslung his staff as Codesh brawlers came out of