"I smell it, too," Torgan said. "We should tell them."
"Not yet," Besh said. "We'll clear away what we can, but we'll honor their wishes. When it comes time to pull out the dead, we'll call them."
They continued to move away the wood and stone, saying little. Torgan, not surprisingly, was a poor worker. He rested often, pausing after every scrap of wood and every chunk of rock, and even when he did work, he did so slowly, as if refusing to exert himself. Besh kept these thoughts to himself. He didn't expect Torgan would take criticism well.
The stench from the rubble grew steadily worse as they worked. The scrap of cloth that Besh had wrapped around his face helped a bit, but his eyes were watering, and he felt ill. It took all his will to keep working, particularly with Torgan doing so much less than his share of the labor.
So it was that Torgan's whispered words caught him completely by surprise.
"This can't be good," the merchant said.
Looking up, Besh saw the two soldiers from the gate approaching from the far side of the pyre. It almost seemed to Besh that they had taken a route that would keep them away from Grinsa and the others.
"Mettai!" the scarred soldier called. He had a predatory grin on his face, as did his companion.
The three Fal'Borna looked up at that, and then turned toward Torgan and Besh.
"That's right," the soldier said, looking at the other Qirsi. "That one, the old man. He's Mettai. Didn't they tell you?"
"Mettai?" asked the young Fal'Borna with the scar. "You're Mettai?" Besh was bent over, and he straightened now, though not before he took a handful of dirt from the lane. There was a good deal of dust from the stone walls mixed in, but he thought that he could conjure with it, provided he could get his knife out. None of the Fal'Borna appeared to notice what he had done. "Yes," Besh said. "I'm Mettai. I'm also the person who killed the woman responsible for the pestilence."
The young Fal'Borna's eyes widened. "You killed her?"
"He's Mettai!" the soldier said, drawing the man's gaze. "Never mind the rest of it. Our people are under attack, and his people are the enemy."
"Your n'qlae didn't see it that way," Besh said.
The soldier shook his head. "No, but the a'laq would have. She's not our leader, not really."
"And you are?" Besh asked. "I've been declared a friend of all Fal'Borna by an a'laq on the plain. You would put yourself above that man as well?"
"Keep quiet, Mettai!" the man said. He looked down the lane back toward where Grinsa and Sirj were working. Then he pulled his sword free and waved it at a small alley off the lane. "In there. Now." He pointed his blade at Torgan. "You, too, dark-eye."
The alley appeared to be cluttered with broken stone, but it was open enough for a small group of men; a perfect place for the soldier to kill them both. But Besh noticed that the Fal'Borna was relying on his weapon, rather than on his power, and he wondered what magics the man wielded. He was tempted to pull his knife free right away, but quickly thought better of it. His best hope was to catch the Fal'Borna unaware.
He started walking slowly toward the alley. Torgan fell in step beside him.
The guard and his companion followed. "The three of you stay out here," the soldier said. "Watch for their friends."
"What are you going to do to him?" the young Fal'Borna asked.
The soldier looked at him, as if trying to decide whether or not to answer. "This is war," he finally said. "And like I told you, these men are our enemies."
"Aren't you going to do something?" Torgan asked, his voice low. "You can do magic, right?"
"Yes, I can. Get directly behind me as we walk into the alley."
"What?" Torgan asked. "Why?"
"I need my knife. If you can block me from view for a moment, I can get it free without anyone noticing."
Torgan nodded. "All right."
"Once I have it out, you'll need to get out of my way so that I can throw my conjuring at him. I'll tell you when."
"Right."
They neared the mouth of the alleyway, and Torgan fell in step behind Besh.
"Now," Torgan whispered.
Besh pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt, quickly cut the back of his hand, and gathered the blood on the flat of the blade, no small feat while walking over the wreckage of the buildings.
"After the third element in the spell, you need to get down," Besh said. "What? The third what?"
Besh didn't wait; Torgan would just have to figure it out. "Blood to earth," he said. "Life to power, power to thought." He spun around. Torgan's eyes widened and he dropped to the ground.
Too late, the Fal'Borna soldier realized the danger.
"Earth to fire!" Besh shouted. And as he said this, he threw the blood and earth at the man. Instantly, the clump of dirt changed to a ball of flame that soared toward the Fal'Borna's chest. The soldier lunged down and to the side, avoiding the attack, but his companion was not so fortunate. The fire crashed into his shoulder, the force of it knocking him to the ground.
Besh stooped quickly to grab another fistful of dirt, but before he could do anything more, the Fal'Borna's magic hit him. It was also fire, and Besh had no warning at all. Suddenly his shirt was burning, searing his arms and chest. He fell over and writhed on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames, though it was difficult to do with the debris all around him. By the time he'd managed to put the fire out, the soldier was standing over him, the tip of his sword hovering over Besh's heart. Torgan merely sat where he was, doing nothing, seemingly afraid of alerting the man to the fact that he was there. But the merchant's clothing bore burn marks as well, mostly on his left arm and shoulder. Apparently the fire magic had been directed at both of them.
"Mettai scum!" the Fal'Borna said to Besh, still menacing the old man with his blade. "Drop that knife."
Besh took a breath and said, "No," as bravely as he could, knowing what the man would do, hoping that the blow wouldn't be enough to sever his arm.
Just as Besh had expected, the soldier slashed at his forearm. Besh cried out in pain and grabbed at the wound with his other hand, which already held a fresh handful of dirt.
"I told you to drop the blade!" the soldier said.
Besh did as the man commanded, but already he was speaking the spell under his breath. He'd used this one on Lici during their first encounter and it had distracted her without killing her, which was just what Besh hoped it would do now. "Blood to earth, life to power, power to thought, earth to swarm."
He flung the dirt at the soldier, and as it flew from his hand it became a cloud of yellow and black hornets. Beset by the insects, the soldier dropped his sword to swat at them. He backed away, then turned and ran, the hornets following him.
"That was remarkable!" Torgan said, staring at Besh as if the old man had transformed himself into a god. "I'd heard people speak of Mettai magic, but I'd never seen anyone actually do it until now. Very impressive."
"Thank you," Besh said, still clutching his injured arm.
The merchant climbed to his feet, and helped Besh up. But the old man hadn't been standing for more than a heartbeat when pain exploded in his right leg and he collapsed to the ground again, crying out as he fell. Only after he had fallen did he realize that he'd heard the bone in his leg snap.
"I'll do the same to you, dark-eye," came a voice. "Back down on the ground. Now!"
Looking up through a haze of agony, Besh saw the other soldier approaching, the one he had burned with his fire spell, the one who, it seemed, possessed shaping magic.
Besh reached for another handful of dirt.
"Stop, Mettai! Unless you want that arm shattered, too!"
He'd been willing to risk a cut from the other man's sword. But whatever this soldier had done to his leg hurt nearly as much as what Lici had done to his hand. He stopped moving.
The soldier grinned. "That's right. Your magic might be able to do us some harm, but it's nothing compared with the power of a Qirsi." He walked to where Besh lay sprawled on the ground and kicked his injured leg. The wave of anguish that broke over Besh in that moment almost made him pass out.