Pavek thought he'd set a hard pace when he'd gotten himself, Mahtra, Ruari, and Zvain from Quraite to Urik in ten days. Since leaving Khelo shortly after his conversation with Lord Hamanu, Pavek had learned new things about the bugs'—and his own—endurance.
Together with Commandant Javed of Urik's war bureau, a double maniple of troops, and an equal number of slaves, Pavek had pushed the war bureau's biggest, toughest bugs relentlessly, following the line he saw when he suspended the strands of ensorcelled halfling hair in the draft-free box he kept lashed to the back of his saddle.
And now, when they were almost on top of the mountains they'd been chasing since yesterday morning, the commandant was suggesting a two-day detour. More than two days: it would surely take longer to walk through the forest on the other side of the mountains than it would to ride to this Ject.
But Pavek had learned over the past few days not to trust Commandant Javed's statements at face value.
"Is that a recommendation, Commandant?" In that time, Pavek had learned the trick of answering Javed's questions with questions. It made him seem wiser than he was and sometimes kept him from falling into the commandant's traps.
"A fact, Lord Pavek," Javed said with a smile and no sign of the aches that plagued Pavek. "You're the man in charge. You make the decisions; I merely provide the facts. Do we veer southeast, or do we hold steady?"
A challenge. And another question, the same, but different.
Hamanu had said the templars in the double maniple were all volunteers, but the Lion hadn't said anything about the commandant, whether or not he was a willing participant in this barrens-trek or not; and, if he was, why? Those facts might have helped Pavek interpret Javed's smiles.
Commandant Javed had served Urik and the Lion-King for six decades, all of them illustrious. He was well past the age when most elves gave up their running on foot and sat quietly in the long sunset of their lives, but the only concession the commandant made to his old bones and old injuries was the kank he rode as if he'd been born in its saddle.
There were three rubies mounted in Javed's steel medallion, one for each time he'd been designated Hamanu's Champion, and two diamonds commemorating his exploits as Hero of Urik.
Among Pavek's cherished few memories of life before the orphanage was the day he'd stood on the King's Way, holding his mother's hand and watching the parade as the great Commandant Javed returned triumphant from a campaign against Gulg.
The farmers and druids of Quraite nowadays called Pavek a hero; Pavek reserved that honor for the black-skinned, black-haired elf riding beside him.
"A decision, Lord Pavek," the commandant urged. "A decision now, while the wheel can still turn freely." He gestured toward the outriding templars. "Timing is everything. Do not confuse a decision with an accident or lost opportunity, my lord."
Good advice. Excellent advice. So why wasn't Javed leading this expedition? Never mind that high templars outranked commandants: that only proved to Pavek that Commandant Javed had been more successful at holding on to his steel medallion than he himself had been at holding on to his regulator's ceramic one.
So why was Javed here at all? After conquering every challenge Urik's war bureau offered and successfully resisting a golden medallion, why was Commandant Javed headed into the halfling forest at a regulator's side, and looking to that regulator for orders?
"Now, Lord Pavek." The commandant smiled again, ivory teeth gleaming through the black gash in his weathered face.
Pavek turned from that face and looked straight ahead at the mountains.
"No guides," he said. "We've already got our guide." He thumped the box behind him and shot a sideways glance at the commandant, whose smile had faded to a less-than-approving frown. "When we brought the cavern poison to Lord Hamanu, he said we had time to destroy it because Ral didn't 'occlude' Guthay—whatever that means—for another thirteen days. Well, we got rid of the poison, but we didn't catch Kakzim. Maybe he's gone home in defeat and we can catch him anytime, but maybe he's got something else he can unleash when the moons 'occlude' four nights from now.
"If we go southeast and hire ourselves a guide, we're sure to lose at least two days getting back on the halfling's trail. Maybe more than two days, without kanks on the far side of the mountains. My rump would appreciate an easy passage, but not if I miss another chance to nab Kakzim."
The commandant's frown had deepened all the while Pavek explained the thin logic of his decision. He considered reversing himself, but the stubbornness that had kept him trapped in lower ranks of the civil bureau took hold of his neck and stiffened his resolve.
He faced Javed squarely, matching his scar-twisted smile against the elf's frown. "You wanted my decision, Commandant. Now you've got it: we hold steady, straight into those mountains ahead and the forest beyond. I want my hands on Kakzim's neck before the moons occlude."
"Good," the commandant said softly, almost as if he were speaking to himself, though his amber eyes were locked with Pavek's. "Better than I expected. Better than I'd hoped from the Hero of Quraite. Four days left from thirteen. Let's put on some speed, Lord Pavek. I could walk faster than this. We'll sleep tonight on the mountain crest. We'll sleep on the mountain, and we'll find your halfling before Ral marches across Guthay's face. My word on it, Lord Pavek."
Commandant Javed's word was as good as the steel he wore around his neck. Leaving behind the kanks, the slaves, and everything else that a templar couldn't carry on his back, the elf had had them sleeping on top of the mountain ridge one night and on the forest floor the next. They'd lost two templars in the process, one going up the mountains, the other coming down.
Carelessness, Javed had said both times, and refused to slacken the pace.
At the forest-side base of the mountains, the templars, including Pavek and Javed, paused to exchange the shirts they'd been wearing for long-sleeve tunics and leather armor that was fitted from neck to waist and divided into overlapping strips from there down to the middle of their thighs.
It was all part of the equipment Pavek had been given at the beginning of this journey, and he thought nothing of Javed's order until he touched the tunic's drab, tightly woven fabric.
"Silk?" he asked incredulously, fingering the alien fabric, which he'd associated with fawning nobles, simpering merchants, and women he couldn't afford.
"That's protection?" For all that the commandant had experience with the forest halflings on his side, Pavek began to remove his slippery tunic.
"Damn sure is. The barbs on the arrowheads don't catch your guts. Ease the silk out; and you ease the arrowhead out, too—with the poison still on it."
"Still on the arrow?"
Javed's enigmatic smile flickered at him. "Didn't believe it myself till I was fighting belgoi north of Balic. Watched a healer work an arrow clean out of a man's gut; silk was as good as new, and so was the man ten days later. Been a believer ever since. My advice, my lord, is to keep it on. We know your man's a poisoner."
The protection Mahtra's makers had given her against living creatures had no effect whatsoever on woven vine net. Unfortunately, she had exhausted herself against the halfling-made net before she realized that fact. She'd had nothing left when the halflings lowered them to the ground, and so she stood helpless, barely able to stay upright, when Kakzim had personally bound her wrists behind her back and taken her mask away.