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"Do something!" both Zvain and Kakzim shouted at the same time.
The drum beat faster and so did Mahtra's heart, yet her thoughts whirled faster still. She had a lifetime to look from Zvain to Ruari and finally to Kakzim. There was nothing she could do for the half-elf or the human, but she would not leave this place while the scarred halfling lived. Her protection was not a fatal magic: she'd have to kill him with her hands.
Her hands were strong enough to lift Ruari. They were surely strong enough to snap a halfling's neck. Mahtra could imagine flesh, sinew, and bone giving way beneath her hands as she took her first stride toward Kakzim.
You will die, she thought, her eyes fixed on his. I will kill you.
Mahtra struck a wall midway through her second stride, an invisible wall, an Unseen wall of determination that was stronger and more focused than her own. It had no words, only images—images of a white-skinned woman taking the rope and pulling it, hand over hand, until Ruari was high in the black tree. The image was irresistible. Mahtra turned away from Kakzim. She took the rope and gave it a powerful yank; Ruari's shoulders rose from stone slab. His head fell back with a moan. His long coppery hair shone like fire in the sun's last light.
They would all die. They would all be sacrificed to the black tree: the sacred BlackTree, the stronghold of halfling knowledge. Their blood would seep down to the deepest roots where it would erase the stigma of failure and disgrace. Paddock—
Her hands faltered. The rope slipped. She could see the familiar face with its jagged scar from eye to lip. His name was not Paddock; his name was Pavek. Pavek! And he would not approve of what she was doing—
A fist of Unseen wind struck Mahtra's thoughts, shattering them and leaving her empty-minded until other thoughts filled the void: It was not fitting that BlackTree refused to hear Kakzim's prayers, refused to acknowledge his domination. He'd committed no crimes, made no errors. He'd been undone by the very mongrels and misfits he'd sworn to eliminate, which was surely proof of the honor and validity of his intentions.
Pavek would have been the perfect sacrifice, but Pavek had escaped. Kakzim would offer three sacrifices in Pavek's place—Ruari first, then Zvain, then Mahtra herself—all three offered while the two moons shone with one light. Their blood would nurture the BlackTree's roots, and all of Kakzim's minor errors would be forgiven, forgotten. The BlackTree would accept him as the rightful heir of halfling knowledge.
She tied the rope off with the others already knotted at the base of the BlackTree's huge trunk, then she looked at Zvain. His turn would come next, when the overlapping moons were visible above the treetops. Her turn would come at midnight, when Ral was centered within Guthay's orb. She would walk freely to the stone, made by halflings and unmade the same way.
Made by halflings?
Mahtra recaptured her thoughts, broke the wall, and beat back the Unseen fist. Made by halflings—the voices in the darkness at the beginning of her memory were halfling voices. The makers who had made a mistake and cast her out of their lives with no more than red beads and a mask, those makers were halflings. Now another halfling, the same halfling who had slaughtered Father, had cast her out of her own thoughts, and...
Mahtra couldn't cry, but she could scream. She turned her head toward Kakzim when she screamed and nailed him with a look as venomous and mad as he'd ever given the world. Thunder brewed inside her as all the cinnabar she'd swallowed in the darkness quickened. The last thing she saw before the cloudy membrane slid over her eyes was Kakzim running toward her with his arm raised and the metal knife in his hand.
He might succeed in unmaking her, but that would come too late. Mahtra extended her arms, as if to embrace a lover, and surrendered herself to what the halflings had given her, confident that her thunder would kill.
* * *
Pavek had carried their guide almost from the start of their headlong march through the forest. He believed too late for halfling legs might be just in time for longer human legs, if they stormed through the forest like a thirst-crazed mekillot, never slowing, never weaving right or left. The little fellow on Pavek's shoulders had collected a few more bruises dodging branches on a maze of trails not made by anyone of Pavek's extended height, but Cerk hadn't complained, simply grabbed fistfuls of Pavek's hair and shou
ted out "right" or "left" at the appropriate time.
The twin moons had risen before the sun completely set. Between them, they shed sufficient light through the leaves to keep the trail visible to Pavek's dim, human eyes; but it was a strange light, filled with ghosts and shimmering wisps and luminous eyes in slanting pairs and foreboding isolation. The novice druid's skin crawled as Cerk guided him through the haunted trees, but he never hesitated, not until a solitary clap of thunder rolled through the moonlit forest.
"Mahtra!" Pavek shouted.
"The white-skinned woman is still alive," Cerk agreed.
Thinking he no longer needed a guide, Pavek came to a stiff-legged halt and tried to lift Cerk down, but the halfling clung to him, insisting:
"You won't find it without me, even now. We must all stay together!"
Pavek turned to Javed, who'd halted beside him, as the other templars had come to a stop behind them. With his nighttime skin and elven eyes, the commandant was little more than a moonlit ghost himself.
"You heard him. Commandant."
"Do you think you could ever outrun me, my lord?" Ivory teeth made a smile beneath glassy eyes.
"Javed—" Pavek dug the toe of his sandal into the loose debris that covered the forest floor. "I plan to outrun death itself."
He filled his lungs and pushed off with all the strength in his body. The elven commandant fell behind for two paces, then he was back at Pavek's side, grinning broadly, running effortlessly.
"Lean into your strides, Pavek, put your head down and breathe!"
Pavek hadn't the wherewithal to answer, but he took the lessons to heart as Cerk shouted another "Veer left!" in his ear.
He saw hearthfires flickering in the near-distance. He'd heard nothing louder than Cerk or the pounding of his own feet since the thunder rolled over them, but silence didn't reassure him. Mahtra's protection was a potent weapon. She could have felled a score of halflings, but they wouldn't stay down for long. Pavek fingered the knotted leather looped over the top of his scabbard and drew his sword as he and Javed led their templars into a clearing that was larger than the whole halfling settlement, quiet as a tomb and almost as dark at its heart.
