be sure—he didn’t ask questions. The sight of food still made him nauseous, and he had to stop now and again as he walked to catch his breath.
Once the sun came up, as it had a short while ago, the only useful shade between the village and the groves came from the brim of a borrowed straw hat. There was no point to leaving the path to rest; when he got tired, he just sat down where he was, back to the east, where the sun was climbing, and making the most of what the hat and his shoulders gave him. With his eyes closed and his mind as empty as only a veteran templar could make it, he waited for his pulse and gut to settle.
They did, and before the hat got hot enough to burst into flames. He rubbed his eyes, got to his feet and, because he was a templar and was accustomed to having enemies, spun slowly on his heels, scanning his surroundings for anything that didn’t belong. Nothing man-shaped—Ruari-shaped—had appeared, but there was something new, something to make him squint into the shimmering heat-bands along the southern horizon, the Urik horizon.
A fist-sized dust plume billowed there, raised—if he could believe his eyes—by a horde of black dots beneath it.
His first self-centered thought put Elabon Escrissar’s name on one of those fast-moving dots, and he’d started back toward the village before common sense regained a foothold in his mind. He knew the whole story of Quraite, zameeka, Ral’s Breath, and Laq, and how he, himself, had gotten bound up in it. But, there was no reason—no reason at all—for anyone in Urik to think a third-rank templar with a forty-gold-piece price on his head had found refuge at a distant druid oasis. There was no reason to think anyone in Urik knew Quraite’s name and every reason to believe that Telhami and the guardian kept its precise location a well-secured secret.
So he turned about-face, retraced a hundred paces, and stopped again.
Something was on the salt plain. Maybe it would skirt the guarded land; he wasn’t at all certain how Quraite’s protective magic worked. But, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the druids would know the instant a stranger set foot in their, private wilderness. But, maybe they wouldn’t. There were trees everywhere, trees as high as the walls of Urik, without battlements and watchtowers.
Regulators patrolled the Urik walls sometimes, when King Hamanu dragged the war bureau off on campaign. It was light duty with clear-cut orders: Report what you see, within the walls or outside them. Do your duty and let superiors make the decisions.
Pavek spun around again and headed for the village.
The broad green crown of village trees loomed in front of him, distinct from the dust plume, which had not grown noticeably. Another black dot had appeared between him and the village. It was moving, growing, coming toward him, resolving itself into a dwarf’s stocky silhouette.
Yohan, and immensely relieved that he wasn’t going to have to trek all the way to Telhami’s grove to deliver his message. The dwarf spoke first: “The elves are coming, they’ll be here by midday. Grandmother and the others are waiting for them in the village. No lessons today.”
“Elves?” Pavek stared at the dust cloud, asking himself if that was what he saw.
“Moonracers. The whole tribe of them, and their herd. And a barrel or two of honey-ale.”
The dwarf came close and clapped him across the back, as casual a gesture as they’d exchanged, but his thoughts were still on the elves.
“Moonracers—Ruari’s kin, aren’t they? Trouble?”
Yohan let his arm fall. “Maybe,” he conceded. “You’ve seen him at his worst, Pavek. His age and his breed, they take things too hard, too personally. Ghazala didn’t have a choice, not really. Moonracers—they’re a fast-moving lot, no place for outsiders who can’t keep the pace.”
“Or remind them of things they’d rather forget?”
“That, too.” Yohan cupped a hand around his beardless chin and shook his head. “The boy doesn’t understand. When the Moonracers show up, he’s all strut and brawl to prove that he’s as good as any elf. When they’re gone, he seems happy enough here—”
“Not since I heaved into sight,” Pavek corrected.
“Aye, well—” The dwarf shrugged. Muscles rippled across his bare shoulders and chest. “Their honey-ale’s as good as you’d find in Urik, and maybe the boy will sulk in his grove ’til they’re gone.”
Pavek didn’t know about honey-ale; it wasn’t the sort of rotgut Joat stocked in his Den, but where Ruari