Lynn Abbey - Cinnabar Shadows

And the guardian Pavek had raised through the packed dirt of the Codesh killing ground was an aspect like nothing Ruari had ever imagined.

It cleared the air inside the abattoir, sucking all the dust, the debris, the smoke, and even the flames into a semblance no taller than an elf, no burlier than a dwarf. But the ground shuddered when it took a ponderous step, and the air whistled when it slowly swung its arm. A Codesh brawler caught the force of its fist and flew in a great arc that ended on the other side of the wall, leaving her poleaxe behind. The semblance—it was not a guardian: guardians were real, but they had no substance; that was another axiom of druidry—armed itself with the axe and with its second swing took the heads of two more.

That sobered the Codeshite brawlers. The boldest among them attacked the semblance Pavek had summoned. They died for their bravery. The brightest surged toward Pavek, who had not risen from the ground. Ruari dived for his staff and regained his feet, ready to defend Pavek's life. The fighting was thrust and block, sweep and block, rhythm and reaction, as it had been before, with no time for thought until they'd beaten back the first Codeshite surge. Then there was time to breathe, time to notice who was standing and who had fallen.

Time to notice, through the now-clear air, the solid line of yellow-robed corpses hanged from the railing of their watchtower.

Until he had met Pavek, and for considerable time thereafter, Ruari would have cheered the hanging sight. He'd been conceived when his templar father had raped his elven mother, and he'd grown up believing the only good templar was a dead one. Even now he wouldn't want any of the men and women fighting beside him as friends, but he'd learned to see them as individuals within their yellow robes and understood their gasps and curses. He wasn't surprised when the war bureau survivors around raised their voices in an eerie, wailing war-cry, or that they pursued the Codeshites, who broke ranks and ran for the gate. What did surprise Ruari, though, was the four yellow-robed templars who stayed behind with him in a ring around Pavek, the red-haired priest, Mahtra, and Zvain.

The. guardian semblance Pavek had raised was slow but relentless. Nothing the Codeshite brawlers did wounded it or sapped its strength. The best they could do against it was defend, as Ruari defended with his staff against their poleaxes—and with the same effect. Though formed from insubstantial dust and debris, the semblance put the strength of the land in each of its blows. Mortal sinews couldn't withstand such force for long. The brawlers went down, one by one, until the critical moment came when those who were left comprehended that they wouldn't win, couldn't win, and stopped trying. They broke ranks and fled toward the gate—which was apparently the only way off the killing ground and which was where the fighting between Codeshites and templars remained thick.

Ruari took two strides in pursuit, then stopped when the semblance collapsed into a dusty rubbish heap. Two of his four templar allies kept going, but two stayed behind, panting hard, but aware that they were in danger as long as they were in Codesh, as long as Pavek remained senseless and slumped in the dirt.

Pavek's eyes were open when Ruari crouched beside him, and he groaned when, with Mahtra's help, Ruari eased him onto his side. Blood soaked the front of the fine, linen clothes the Lion-King had given him. Blood was on his arms and on his hands. Ruari feared the worst.

The priest knelt and took Pavek's left hand gently between his own. "It's his hand," the priest said, turning Pavek's hand to show Ruari what had happened when the medallion burst apart. "He'll lose it, but he'll live, if I can stop the bleeding."

Looking down at bone, sinew, and tattered flesh, Ruari's fear became cold nausea. He knelt beside the priest as much from weakness as from the desire to help.

"There's power here—"

"The power he himself raised?" The priest refused Ruari's offer with a shake of his head. "It's too riled, too angry. I wouldn't try—if I were you."

The priest was right. Ruari had no affinity for Pavek's guardian. This was Urik, in all its aspects: Pavek's roots, not his. But the red-haired priest was no healer. The only help he could offer was taking the remains of the leather thong that had held Pavek's medallion around his neck and tying it tight around Pavek's wrist instead.

Pavek opened his eyes and levered himself up on his right elbow. "If you want to do something useful, find Kakzim, instead." Between his old scar and the pain he was trying to hide, Pavek's smile was nothing any sane man would want see. "The bastard must be around here someplace."

Zvain, who'd been watching everything, pale and silent from the start, needed no additional encouragement. He was off like an arrow for the gallery where they'd seen Kakzim yesterday. Mahtra headed after him, but Kakzim was just a name to Ruari, and Pavek had lost a dangerous amount of blood.

"Go with them," Pavek urged. "Take your staff. Keep them out of trouble."

"You need a healer—bad."

"Not that bad."

"You've lost a lot of blood, Pavek. And—And your hand—it's bad, Pavek. You need a good healer. Kashi—"

Pavek shook his head. "Kakzim. Get me Kakzim."

"You'll be here when we bounce his halfling rump down those stairs?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

Ruari turned away from Pavek. He looked into the priest's blue eyes, asking silent questions.

"There's nothing more to do here," the priest replied. "I'll stay with him. We're well out of harm's way, and these two will stay—" He cocked his head toward the two templars who'd remained with them. "If anyone gets the bright idea to finish what they started before the great king comes to render judgment."

"The Lion closed his eyes," Ruari snarled and surged to his feet. He found himself angry at the sorcerer-king, and disappointed as well. "He's not coming."

"He'll come," Pavek assured him. "I'll wager you, he'll be here before the fighting's over. You've got to find Kakzim first."

By the screaming, shouting, and clash of arms, the fighting remained fierce around the abattoir gate. Ruari couldn't be certain, but he thought there might be more templars— perhaps Nunk and his companions, perhaps the other war bureau maniple—outside the gate, keeping the brawlers on the killing ground until the war bureau fighters finished their retribution. He could be certain that Pavek was safer right now with two templars and a priest watching over him than Mahtra and Zvain were, searching the gallery for Kakzim without weapons or sense.

"I'll be back before the Lion gets here," Ruari assured the group closest to him before running to the gallery stairway, staff in hand.

Finding Mahtra and Zvain was no more difficult than listening for Zvain's inventive swearing from the top of the charred but still serviceable stairway. Although the gallery appeared deserted, Ruari set himself silently against a door-jamb where he could see not only his friends ransacking a nearly empty room, but the rest of the gallery and killing ground where two templars stood similar watch over Pavek and the priest.

"Find anything?" Ruari asked, all innocence within the shadows.

Mahtra said, "No," with equal innocence, but Zvain leapt straight up and came down only a few shades darker than Mahtra.

"You scared me!" Zvain complained once he'd stopped sputtering curses.

Ruari countered with, "You'd be worse than scared if it weren't me standing here," and could almost hear Pavek saying the same thing. "You're damn fools, leaving the door open and making so much noise."

"I was listening," Mahtra said. "I would've seen trouble coming; I saw you. I would've protected—"

"What's to see? There's no one here!" Zvain interrupted. "He's scarpered. Packed up and left. Cut and run. Got out while the getting was still good—just like he did with dead-heart Escrissar."