Ricko Daggerheart's Arc

Chapter 8 of 18

By morning T'Zaro was on his feet. The panther cursed the bitter tea, ate two bowls of Kazan's stew, and stretched his healed side without a wince. Ricko watched him test the leg with short lunges near the palm cluster. The fever was gone. The heist could go forward on schedule now. Ricko felt the knot in his chest loosen for the first time in days. A second hyena walked in from the spring with a full water skin. She was Kelli, another of Kazan's desert kin, and Ricko had never seen anyone move like her. She dropped the skin, drew a curved knife, and grinned at T'Zaro. "You call that mending? Show me." T'Zaro answered by lunging. Ricko sat on a flat stone at the edge and could not look away. Kelli slid under the panther's arm and tapped his ribs with the flat of her blade. She was fast, faster than T'Zaro at full strength. She spun on the sand, ducked his sweep, and hooked his ankle. T'Zaro went down laughing. Ricko's mouth had gone dry. He watched her braid whip as she turned, watched her land each strike clean. Torin nudged him with his trunk. "Close your jaw, hyena. Sand gets in." Ricko shut it. He did not stop staring. Kelli helped T'Zaro up and caught Ricko watching. She sheathed the knife and crossed to him. "You fight, or just gape?" she asked. "I fight," Ricko said. His voice cracked. He stood too fast. "Then stop wasting the morning." She tossed him a practice stick. "The moon comes soon. If you go over that wall, you go sharp." That pulled Ricko back to the reason he was here. The wall. The jewel. The pack the sultan's guards had cut down while he hid. He gripped the stick and stepped onto the field. Kelli beat him three times in a row. She swept his legs, knocked his guard wide, and pressed her stick to his throat before he saw her move. But on the fourth pass Ricko watched her feet instead of her eyes. He read the spin early and stepped inside it. His stick touched her side. Kelli stopped. She looked at him with new interest. "You learn," she said. "Kazan, this one comes with us to the tunnels." Ricko turned to the zebra. "Us?" "Kelli knows the palace floor better than I do," Kazan said. "She has walked the tunnels twice. You will need her under the wall." So the crew grew by one. T'Zaro was whole, the moon was close, and now a fighter who outmatched Ricko would guide them beneath the sultan's stone. Ricko told himself it was the mission that made his heart pound. He did not believe it. He picked up the practice stick again and asked Kelli to show him the spin once more.