worked its way across his back, holding on to him as she sobbed his name repeatedly.
Zvain went to work on his shirt-seams again. “We’ve got to keep the light from her eyes,” he insisted. “It’s the light that makes her see things.”
Yohan had recovered. “We can use this,” he said, tearing off a strip from the linen bedding.
“No!” Zvain lunged forward and pulled the cloth from the dwarf’s hands. “It’s dirty! Filthy! Let me rinse it out.”
And Pavek, suddenly remembering the slops bucket Zvain had once emptied on that linen, was inclined to agree. The boy darted past him and carried the linen out of the room—once again the clever, impulsive, and willful boy Pavek had remembered.
He sheathed the sword he’d been holding all this time. Yohan, who had dropped his obsidian knife when Akashia first screamed, retrieved it as well.
“Seems a good lad,” the dwarf said for Pavek’s ears alone. “You never mentioned saving his life.”
“I didn’t. He saved mine. I owed him.”
“You owe him again.”
“If we can trust him. If he’s telling the truth.”
“I ken nothing amiss in him. Do you?”
A wry smile made his scar twinge. “No. But then, he’s fooled me before. Perhaps I want too badly to trust him.”
“Trust yourself. What harm can a boy do?”
He shrugged, recalling a bruise that took a painfully long time to fade, but accepted the dwarf’s assessment with some relief.
Akashia was still huddled in Ruari’s arms when Zvain returned with the damp cloth, which he returned to Yohan.
“You put it over her eyes, please. She knows you; she doesn’t know me. I think she’s afraid of me.”
And with Ruari’s help, Yohan did. “We’ve got to find a healer,” the dwarf said when they were done. “Got to get the poison drawn out of her.”
“Healers can’t help,” Zvain said solemnly. “We tried healers. There’s nothing they can do. They said to keep my father quiet, keep the sun from hurting his eyes. But when his eyes were burning, the only thing that would stop the pain was more Laq. We’ve got to get her away from Urik. You’ve got to take her home.”
Pavek looked from Yohan to Ruari and back again. “Zvain knows more about Laq than any of us.”
“We’ll need a cart—” Yohan began.
“I can get a cart,” Zvain said, moving close to Yohan and his visible coin purse again. He and the dwarf were about the same height and appraised each other evenly. “There’s always carts left in the village market after the farmers sell their crops. I can get you one for a silver piece.”
“What do you think, Pavek?”
“Hadn’t thought about it, but I imagine he’s right. You can go with him, or I can—”
“I can go myself! I’ve been doing everything for myself since you left.”
…A thought that gave Pavek one more pause as the boy slipped silently out the door with a pair of Yohan’s silver coins.
* * *
Zvain wasn’t gone long and came back with a typical village handcart plus a basket of food—and a scant handful of ceramic bit coins that he counted carefully into the dwarf’s powerful hand, a degree of honesty that gave Pavek another twinge of doubt. A twinge that faded abruptly when he saw a final bit palmed.
Akashia had fallen asleep while Zvain was scrounging in the market. They tried, and failed to awaken her.
“It’s a good thing,” Yohan said as he prepared to hoist her over his shoulder. “She feels safe enough now to sleep. She couldn’t very well let herself sleep where she was.”
But it was disconcerting to see her arms dangling down Yohan’s back, limp and lifeless, as he carried her from the bolt-hole to the alley where the cart was waiting.
In the weeks following a Tyr-storm it wasn’t uncommon to see people who’d been blinded by the blue-green lightning or maddened by the howling winds. Akashia seemed no different than any other storm victim—or a Laq victim. Passersby averted their eyes and twisted their fingers into luck signs as the cart rolled past, but they approached the walls without attracting significant attention.
“You said getting into Urik was the easy part and getting out again would be more difficult. Now, how’re we going to get out?” Ruari whispered anxiously to Pavek when the western gate and its complement of templar guards loomed before them. “We didn’t register at a village. We didn’t come in through a gate so we didn’t give our thumb-prints to the guards?”
“We’re citizens of Urik, aren’t we?” Pavek asked with a grin.