Yet when Ruari slipped and started to fall, Pavek's hand was there to catch him before any damage could be done.

"You two are kank-head fools," Zvain announced when the three of them were sitting again. "Can't you do anything without going after each other?"

Zvain wasn't the first youth, human or otherwise, whose need for attention got in the way of his good sense. Needing neither words nor any other form of communication, Pavek and Ruari demonstrated that they didn't need to fight with each other, not when they could join forces to torment their younger, smaller companion. It was a thoughtless, spontaneous reaction, and although Pavek reserved his full strength from the physical teasing, Zvain was no match for him or Ruari alone, much less together. After a few moments, Zvain was in full, sulking retreat to the pool's far side where he sat with his knees drawn up and his forehead resting between them.

The youngster didn't have a secure niche in the close-knit community. Unlike Pavek and Ruari, he hadn't been a hero during Quraite's dark hours. Following a path of disaster and deceit, Zvain had become Elabon Escrissar's pawn before Ruari, Pavek, and Yohan spirited him out of Urik. He'd opened his mind to his master as soon as he arrived in the village. Although Zvain was as much victim as villain, in her wrath and judgment, Telhami had shown him no mercy.

Young as he was, she'd imprisoned Zvain here, in her grove.

He'd lived through nights of the guardian's anger and Escrissar's day-long assault. Ruari said he was afraid of the dark still and had screaming nightmares that woke the whole village. Akashia still wanted to drive the boy out to certain death on the salt flats they called the Fist of the Sun. Kashi had her own nightmares and Zvain was a part of them, however duped and unwitting he'd been at the time. But the heroes of Quraite said no, especially Pavek whom she'd once accused of having no conscience.

So Zvain stayed on charity and sufferance. He couldn't learn druidry—even if he hadn't been scared spitless of the guardian, his nights in this grove had burned any talent out of him. The farmers made bent-finger luck signs when the boy's shadow fell on them; they refused to let him set foot in the fields. That left Ruari, who had his own problems, and Pavek, who spent most of his time in this grove, avoiding Akashia.

A vagrant breeze rippled across the pool and Zvain's shoulders. The boy cringed; Pavek did, too. There was only one good reason for Pavek to return to Urik and the Lion-King's offer of wealth and power in the high bureau: Zvain's misery here in Quraite. It wasn't noticeable when the boy was whooping and hightailing after Ruari, but watching that lump of humanity shrink deeper into the grass was almost more than Pavek could bear.

"Let's go," he said, rising to his feet and retrieving the shirt he'd thrown on the grass. Ruari hauled himself out of the pool, but Zvain stayed where he was. "Talk to him, will you?" he asked the half-elf as he wrung the shirt out before pulling it over his head.

Ruari grumbled but did as he was asked, crouching down in the grass beside Zvain, exchanging urgent whispers that ignited Pavek's own doubts as he bent down to lace his sandals. Those doubts seemed suddenly justified when he looked up again and saw them standing together with a single guilty expression shared across their two faces.

"Give it up," he snarled and started toward the verge.

There was another frantic exchange of whispers, then Ruari cleared his throat vigorously. "You should maybe bring your sword...."

Pavek stopped short. "What for?" But he headed for the lean-to without waiting for an answer. "I'm not teaching you swordplay, Ru. I've told you that a thousand times already."

"I know. It's not for me," Ruari admitted softly. "Kashi wants you to bring it. There might be trouble. There's something out on the Sun's Fist."

"Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy!" Pavek swore, adding other, more colorful oaths he hadn't used much since coming to Quraite. He glanced into the nearest trees where there was no sign of Telhami. She was a part of the guardian; she could sense what was happening out on the brutal salt plain as easily as she had sensed Ruari and Zvain approaching earlier. He thought she would have told him if there was any danger. "When? Where? Riders? How many?" he asked when he had the sword buckled around his waist and neither of his glum companions had volunteered more information. "Moonracers?"

"Who, Ruari? Who does Akashia say is out on the Fist? Damn it, Ruari—answer me! Did she send you out here with that message? that warning? and you decided to ignore it?"

"I forgot, that's all. Wind and fire, Pavek—whoever it is, they're on the salt; they won't be here until after sundown, if they don't melt and die first."

"She wasn't really worried or nothing," Zvain added in his friend's defense. "She just said there's someone on the Fist, coming straight toward us like an arrow, and that we—"

He gulped and corrected himself; Akashia never talked to him. "That Ru should come out here and get you. There's lots of time."

"In your dreams, Zvain! Lots of time for her to decide where she's going to hang our heads. Don't you two ever learn?"

It wasn't a fair question. Zvain couldn't sink any lower in Akashia's estimation. Likely as not, the boy wouldn't complain if things came to a head and Akashia exiled the three of them together. And as for Ruari...

Ruari and Akashia had grown up together, and though it had always seemed to Pavek that she treated the half-elf more like a brother than a prospective suitor, Ruari had made no secret of his infatuation. Before they became heroes, they'd been rivals, in Ruari's mind at least. The half-elf's hopes had soared once Kashi turned her back on Pavek. He'd courted her with flowers and helpfulness. Pavek thought he'd won her, but something had gone wrong, and now Akashia treated Ruari no better than she treated him. Ruari had every woman in the village swooning at his feet. Every woman except the one that mattered.

"Never mind," Pavek concluded. "Let's just get moving."

They did, covering the barrens at a steady trot with the sword slapping, unfamiliar and uncomfortable, against Pavek's thigh. He kept an eye on the horizon where dust plumes would betray travelers approaching Quraite in a group. But the air there was quiet, and so was the village as they approached through the manicured, green fields. Folk paused in their work to greet Pavek and Ruari, ignoring Zvain, which made the boy understandably sullen.

Maybe it was time to go back to Urik—not forever, not to accept the Lion-King's offer, but for Zvain. The boy would be better off returning to his old life, scrounging under Gold Street, than surrounded by scorn in Quraite. Pavek knew he was telling himself a lie, a choice between scorn and scrounging was no choice at all. He'd have to come up with something better, or convince himself that Zvain's fate was no concern of his.

He swung an arm around Zvain's shoulders, trying to reel him in for a reassuring hug and wound up wrestling with him instead. Ruari joined in, and they were fully absorbed in their own noisy games as they came into the village-proper.

"It's taken you long enough to get here!"

A woman's voice brought them all to a shame-faced halt.

"We came as soon as I heard the message. I was deep in the grove," Pavek lied quickly. "They had to wait for me to get back to the pool."

"Quraite could have been destroyed by now," Akashia countered, believing the lie, Pavek guessed, but unpersuaded by it.

He guessed, as well, that Quraite's destruction would take more than an afternoon. Rather than pull down or fill in barricades and ditches they'd thrown up before their battle against Escrissar, Akashia had given orders to expand. Quraite had surrendered fertile fields to permanent fortifications. By the time she was satisfied, finished, there'd be two concentric elf-high berms around the village with a palisade atop the inner one and a barrier of sharpened stakes lining the ditch between them.