Bound and Smuggled Out of Urik
Pavek wakes up hog-tied inside a handcart rolling over terrible pavement.
His wrists and ankles are bound together behind his back and anchored to the cart itself. His limbs are stretched to the point of screaming. His hands and feet are completely numb. There is straw thrown over him, a cloth blindfold over his eyes, and the cold air of a night outside the walls of Urik.
Ruari tied him with wet leather thongs. As leather dries, it shrinks. This is a templar torture technique, which is a really interesting detail. The half-elf who despises templars more than anything used their exact methods to bind one. Pavek notices. He files it away.
The druids delivered their zarneeka to the city, loaded Pavek into the now-empty cart, covered him in straw, and smuggled him out of the only home he has ever known. While he was unconscious. Without asking.
Pavek is blindfolded, freezing, and heading into the desert with people who do not trust him. A Tyr-storm is brewing above. He lies still and listens. Ruari whining about the crowds at Modekan village. Akashia saying nobody wants to travel tonight. Yohan the dwarf saying they need to make a decision.
Then Yohan sets the cart down and everything goes wrong. Pavek slides forward, the rope between his bound limbs and the cart snaps tight, and his full weight hangs from the connection point. His ribs compress. He tries to scream but the sound dies in his throat.
Yohan shoves him back with a hobnailed boot. Akashia unwraps the blindfold. And when they see his swollen, discolored hands, the mood changes fast. Yohan turns on Ruari. “You’ve come close to crippling him.” He grabs Pavek’s own steel knife from Akashia and cuts the bonds. Each freed limb goes straight into spasms.
The group dynamic here is something else. Yohan is the veteran. He plays by templar rules even though he is not a templar. He understands that prisoners have value and crippled prisoners do not. He offers Pavek water with the calm authority of a man who has done this before.
Pavek hesitates. Accepting water from a captor establishes the hierarchy. It puts him on the bottom. This is pure templar thinking, and Pavek cannot help it. But his body is wrecked and he has nothing to bargain with. So he surrenders and drinks.
Lightning cracks the sky. Thunder rolls closer. They argue about what to do with him.
“Can we trust him? Do we dare take him into the inn?” Akashia asks.
Yohan shakes his head. Not because Pavek cannot be trusted, but because those ruined hands and feet will draw attention. Anyone who sees him will ask questions. And a forty-gold-piece bounty makes people very observant. Yohan votes for pushing on into the barrens.
This is when Pavek does something small but clever. Akashia is about to sheath his knife without cleaning it. He speaks up. “Wipe it first, if you please, lady. There’s a stone on the back of the sheath. The blade’s as fine a steel as the dwarves of Kemelok ever made.”
He has no idea who forged the knife. But mentioning the legendary dwarven stronghold gets Yohan’s attention. A flicker of something like awe crosses the dwarf’s face. Akashia sees it and carefully cleans the blade. It is a tiny act of respect that costs nothing and shifts something.
Ruari misses the moment completely. “You aren’t going to let a mud-scum templar talk to you like that, are you?”
That is Ruari in a sentence. He is so locked into his hatred that he cannot read a room. He accidentally drops the name “Telhami” while ranting. Pavek catches it immediately. There is someone above Akashia, a druid leader they have not mentioned, and now Pavek knows her name.
Akashia confronts Pavek directly. “Is Ruari right? Are you lying and deceit disguised as a man, or can we trust you?”
Pavek shakes his head and laughs. “That’s a foolish question. Why would I say no? Why would you believe me if I said yes? You’ve got to decide for yourself.”
Yohan backs him up. “He’s right. And we don’t have much time.”
She decides. Pavek is coming with them. Her terms are absolute. Do what you are told, when you are told. Leave Ruari alone no matter what he says or does. If you even think of lying, you will wish you were never born.
A panicked merchant stumbles across them offering gold for their sheltered spot between two walls. Akashia nearly gives it away for free, because the druid instinct is to share. But then she catches herself. “Was that eleven gold pieces you offered, good merchant, or twelve?” Yohan whispers “good for her.” Same, honestly.
They buy four kanks from the village pen. Giant black riding insects with gnashing pincers and glowing poisonous drool. The bugs crowd around Pavek, spray him with foul slime, and he panics, falls, and scrubs the glowing goo off his legs with grass.
Ruari laughs. Pavek hurls the soggy grass at him. It splatters on his chest. Ruari lunges. And Akashia stops them both with a casual flick of her wrist, redirecting the storm wind to knock each of them backward.
Like separating two kids at a playground. “Behave yourselves or we’ll leave you both behind… together.”
That threat is the most effective piece of conflict resolution I have ever read.
Three riding kanks, one massive soldier-kank with a cargo harness. Guess where Pavek is riding. Under the bone rack on the giant battle bug. They head out into the gathering Tyr-storm. Pavek has no cloak, just the thin shirt Oelus gave him. He curls up and shuts down somewhere between sleep and despair.
Trust is nowhere to be found in this group. But it is starting to have a shape. A faint outline that nobody wants to acknowledge yet.
Book: The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey Series: Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas, Book One ISBN: 1-56076-872-X
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