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The overseer scratched his nose thoughtfully. "They killed a few templars, and the Great Lord himself came out for vengeance. That ought to put the fear into them. High time."
"High time," Ruari agreed, ending the conversation as they walked beyond the field.
"Get it right, Ruari, or you'll make folk suspicious. It's Lord Hamanu or King Hamanu or Great and Mighty Lord King Hamanu when you're talking to someone who's got a scourge in their hand!" Zvain objected once they were out of the overseer's hearing. "You can't talk about Hamanu as if you've met him!"
"But I have met him," Ruari complained. "He terrorized us, then he gave us gifts. He encouraged us, then he abandoned us. 'Hamanu answered their call'—that's the biggest lie I've ever told, Zvain: he closed his eyes!"
"Doesn't matter. I'm telling you, you can't talk about Lord Hamanu that way. Say it the way I told you, or folk are going to get suspicious and start asking questions."
Ruari shrugged. "All right. I'll try."
Zvain had lived in Urik all his life, while Mahtra had lived under it and Ruari had grown up nowhere near it. The three of them together didn't have half Pavek's experience or canniness, but Pavek was gone. Dead. And Zvain had suddenly become their font of wisdom where the city and its customs were concerned. Ruari knew the responsibility weighed heavily on Zvain's shoulders and the boy was staggering under the load—
Wind and fire! They were all staggering, putting one foot in front of the other because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant Pavek. He'd known Pavek for a year, one lousy year—and for most of that year they'd been at each other's throats.... No, he'd been at Pavek's throat, trying to rile him into a display of templar temper, trying to kill him with kivet poison because... because?
On the dusty road to Farl, midway through the longest afternoon of his life, Ruari couldn't remember why he'd poisoned Pavek's dinner. But not so long ago he'd wanted Pavek's death so badly it made him blind. Now he could scarcely see for another reason and hurriedly sopped up another tear before it betrayed him.
"What are we going to do when we get to Farl?" Mahtra asked when another stretch of hot, dusty road had passed beneath their feet. "Will we stay there? Overnight? Longer? Where will we get our supper? How many coins do we have?"
Ruari didn't know if Mahtra grieved at all. She couldn't cry the way he and Zvain tried not to cry. Her eyes weren't right for tears, she said, and the tone of her voice never varied, no matter how many questions she asked. Ruari didn't care about anything, including Farl, which was where they were headed. They were only going there because the two templars who got them out of Codesh said they shouldn't go back to Urik and the road to Farl was right there in front of them when the templars said it. Without Mahtra's questions, Ruari wouldn't have given a single thought to where they'd stay once they got to the village, or whether he ever ate another meal.
Mahtra was living proof that life went forward and that there was no use looking back. Her questions demanded answers—his answers. If Zvain had become their wisdom, Ruari discovered that he'd become their leader.
"We're poor," he said. "Not so poor that we'll starve right away, but—it's this way: I know the supplies we'd need to have to get back to Quraite: three riding kanks, at least seven water jugs, food for ten days, some other stuff, for safety's sake. That's what Kashi, Yohan, and I always had, but we had our own bugs, our own jugs, and Kashi did the buying when we needed food. I don't know how much going home will cost, or whether we have enough to get there."
Zvain offered a different idea before Ruari could answer. "I could—well—lift a bit. I got good at that." The boy dug deep in the wide hem of his shirt. He produced a little lion carved from rusty-red stone. "I lifted this right under Hamanu's nose!"
"Lord Hamanu," Ruari insisted, then, more seriously: "Wind and fire, Zvain—think of the trouble you could have gotten us into!"
"We'd be better off if I had," the boy replied, and there was nothing either one of them could say after that.
But nothing seemed to stanch Mahtra's questions. "Can I hold it? Keep it?"
"What for?" Ruari asked. "We get caught with something from Hamanu's palace and—" He mimed the drawing of a knife blade across his throat.
Mahtra took the figurine from Zvain's hand and held it up to her mask. "We won't get caught with it, if it's cinnabar."
Ruari cocked his head, asking a silent question of his own.
"I'll chew it up and swallow it," she replied. "If it's cinnabar. I can't tell through my mask. If it is, the more I swallow, the better I can protect myself. Lord Hamanu gave me plenty—" she parted a little pouch at her waist. "But, without Pavek, I don't think I can have too much cinnabar."
Zvain made disgusted, gagging noises, and Ruari's first instinct was to do the same thing. But he couldn't act on his first instincts, not anymore, no more than Pavek had.
Ruari's throat tightened, but he beat back that instinct, too, and all the memories. He forced himself to think of the crunching sounds he'd heard before the power passed through him and the passage caved in. If they had to choose between selling the staff Hamanu had given him or the red lion Zvain had stolen, Ruari supposed they should keep the lion. He could fashion himself another staff, he had a good carving knife now, thanks to Pavek, but Mahtra's ability to transform the air around them into a mighty, sweeping fist was a better weapon.
"Keep it, then. Do whatever you do with it."
"If it's cinnabar."
He nodded. He'd taken ten strides, maybe twenty, without mourning Pavek. He'd strung his thoughts together and made a decision—the decision Pavek would have made, he hoped, and with that hope his defenses crumbled. The grief, the aching emptiness, overwhelmed him ten times, maybe twenty, stronger than before.
Unable to hide or halt the sudden flow of tears, Ruari sat down on the edge of the road. He wanted to be alone, but Zvain was beside him in an instant, leaning against his shoulder, dampening his sleeve. He wanted to be alone, but he put his arm around the human boy instead, thinking that was what Pavek would have done. If Mahtra had knelt or sat beside him, Ruari would have comforted her the same way, but she stood behind them, keeping watch.
"There's someone coming this way," she said finally. "Coming from Codesh."
With a sigh, Ruari got to his feet, hauling Zvain up as well. There was a solitary traveler on the road far behind them, and behind the traveler, a swath of green fields becoming the dusty yellow of the barrens. The ring road had curved toward Farl; Codesh had disappeared.
