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Pavek's leather armor and even the silk of his shirt would protect his body from the knife he though Kakzim was using against him, but no man could survive for long, taking real wounds from a weapon he couldn't see.
A real weapon, Pavek reminded himself. Kakzim could lose himself in an illusion, but the knife remained real, fixed in the real grip of the halfling's arm, limited by a halfling's reach, a halfling's skill. He'd taken a wound in his thigh because it was exposed, but also because it was Kakzim's easiest target. Pavek kept his arms and the sword in constant motion, warding against the attacks he thought a halfling might choose, while he, himself, looked for a knife-sized flaw in the illusion.
Kakzim chuckled; Pavek slashed at the sound. The halfling wasn't a fighter, not with steel. Kakzim sent illusion after illusion into Pavek's mind. Some were people the halfling must have plucked out of Pavek's memory, others were total strangers. All of them had weapons and all of them withered in the barren soil of Pavek's imagination.
All except one—
One dark-eyed woman returned, no matter how many times Pavek sent her image away. Her name was Sian. She had hair like midnight and a luscious smile. She'd never met a man she didn't love; never met a man she didn't love more than she loved her tagalong son. Pavek couldn't fight the memory of his own mother, couldn't look for a knife in her hand.
Kakzim had found his weakness. He took another gouge along his left leg. It was painful, but not yet disabling. The halfling's weapon was a small knife, but, then again, in human terms, any halfling weapon would seem small.
Pavek gritted his teeth against the pain. Once again, he reasoned his way past his long-dead mother—and became aware of another Unseen presence in his mind. It was furtive, but not small. It faded from a glancing thought, and with Kakzim reconstructing Sian's image, Pavek couldn't afford a second outward thought: the first alone cost him another gash—this one on his right shin, and deep enough to affect his balance.
Not a halfling, Pavek's mind reached that certainty with the speed of lightning. No halfling had the power, the sheer weight, to drive him to his knees. And, to his knowledge, nothing could strike a man so many times as he went down. The beast had twice as many legs as it needed and a tufted tail with wickedly curved spikes protruding through the shaggy hair. Fortunately, the spikes curved toward the tail's tip and were sharp on their inner edge, else Pavek would have lost an eye, at the very least, as the beast sank down on its too-many-feet between himself and Kakzim.
It was the Unseen predatory presence he'd felt moments ago and, quite probably, the predator that had responded to his Kakzim-image with food. Ears flicking constantly, it flooded the minds of its prey with a simple but powerful mind-bending attack. Pavek knew this, because it considered him prey. It considered Kakzim prey, as well, because the halfling had shed his illusions. Beads of sweat bloomed on Kakzim's forehead as he absorbed the beast's assault, trying—no doubt—to dominate it and turn it against Pavek.
If he'd been a clever man, Pavek would have used his few precious moments to slay the beast and Kakzim, too, but he was awed by its power, its lethal beauty. Hamanu styled himself the Lion of Urik, though no one in Urik had ever seen a lion. This many-legged creature could be Hamanu's lion. It had almost as many ways to kill its prey: if mind-bending wasn't enough, it had eight clawed feet, an abundance of teeth, a pair of horns, and the spikes on its tail.
Pavek was lucky to be alive, and he should kill it while he had the chance, but lethal as it was, it was beautiful, too, with irregular stripes across its long back, its tail, and down each leg. Magical silver-gold moonlight limned each muscular curve of its body as it fought Kakzim for dominance. The dark stripes were tipped with starlight; the lighter, tawny stripes, with fire.
Though he knew what he should do, Pavek found himself thinking of Ruari, instead. It was so easy to imagine the two of them together, Ruari on his knees, scratching all the itchy places that were sure to collect around those horns and ears.
So easy, and so breathtakingly sad that the half-elf would never touch, never see—
The lion made a sound deep in its throat, the first sound it had made. Pavek sensed its concentration had faltered. He feared Kakzim had won. Then, in his mind's eye, Pavek saw Ruari as he'd not seen him before: angular and flat-nosed, coppery hair and coppery skin coming together around slit-pupiled coppery eyes.
Ruari? Pavek was no mind-bender, but after enduring so many of Kakzim's Unseen assaults, he had a notion of how to channel his thoughts to the lion. Ruari—? Is that you? Telhami, after all, persisted as a green sprite in her grove. Perhaps on this magic-heavy night, Ruari had found a refuge in the mind of a lion.
But before the lion could answer, Kakzim lunged forward and thrust his knife between its ribs, high above its front legs. The lion leapt aside and yowled. Pavek saw—and recognized instantly—the knife sticking out of a tawny stripe. It was his knife, the knife he'd given to Ruari in Codesh, the knife whose hilt he'd wrapped with a lock of his mother's midnight hair.
Faster than thought and with a scream of his own, Pavek took his sword-hilt in both hands. He easily dodged the lion's thrashing tail and committed everything to a sweeping crosswise slash with his sword.
Kakzim's body toppled forward; his head came to rest where the wounded lion had stood a heartbeat earlier. The lion was already gone into the forest, roaring its anger and agony, taking Pavek's knife with it. Pavek called his friend's name, but Ruari's spirit had not come to rest in the great cat, and soon the forest was quiet again.
He cried for his knife as he hadn't yet cried for Ruari and had never cried for Sian. Then Pavek picked up Kakzim's gory head by a tuft of hair. He remembered the four of them—him, Mahtra, Zvain and Ruari—first returning to Urik; it seemed a lifetime ago. Zvain had wished for honor and glory; he'd wanted to throw Kakzim's head at Hamanu's feet.
If Zvain lived, he, at least, could have a wish come true.
But the strength of purpose that had sustained Pavek since morning finally failed him. Walking slowly with Kakzim's head in one hand and his sword back in its scabbard, Pavek slowly retraced his way to the black tree. Ral slid free of Guthay; the forest remained bright, but the silver-gold light came to a sudden end.
***** Dawn was coming, the fainter stars had already vanished for the day, and Pavek's injured legs hurt with every plodding step he took. By the time got back to the brook where he'd reached for moonlight magic, Pavek didn't know quite where he was, and really didn't care. He stumbled on the wet stones and went down. The cool water felt good on his wounds. He didn't want to stand again; couldn't have, if he'd tried. Pavek barely had the strength left to heave Kakzim's head onto the far bank where someone could find it. For himself, all he wanted to do was put his head down and sleep..
Pavek didn't recognize the voice—didn't see anyone at all until Javed laughed and pulled him out of the water. Mahtra was waiting on the bank, too. Her mask was in its accustomed place and her shawl was expertly wound around her shoulder.
"Lord Javed is very good at bandaging; he'll take good care of your legs," she confided to Pavek.
With one arm bound against her, Mahtra remained as strong as many men, and had no trouble propping Pavek's weary body against a tree. The commandant—whom she called Lord Javed, as she'd once called Elabon Escrissar Lord Elabon—stood nearby tearing strips of silk into bandages. Everyone said the Hero of Urik took good care of his men, and apparently that was no myth. He unslung a roll of soft black leather and surveyed an assortment of salves and potions that any healer would be proud to own.
Mahtra must have seen Pavek staring. "Don't worry," she reassured him. "My lord is very wise, like Father. He's been everywhere—even to the tower where I was made. There's nothing he doesn't know."
Pavek was too weary to say anything except the first words that came into his mind: "You've made a good choice, Mahtra. He'll take good care of you."
"I know."
The commandant had already taken care of almost everything. While Javed cleaned and bandaged Pavek's three wounds, he carefully explained everything that he'd done while Pavek was chasing Kakzim through the forest— and in Lord Pavek's name, of course. The corpses had been respectfully laid out beneath the black tree; they awaited the proper burial rites, which the halfling, Cerk, would perform with the assistance of the Brethren who'd sworn their loyalty to him. Javed had personally examined all the wounded before sending them to the halfling village for rest, food, and other care. Those halflings who'd refused to swear to Cerk had been sent to the village, also—under the watchful eyes and sharper swords of Javed's maniples. And once Lord Pavek's wounds were bound up, they'd be going back to the village. There was a litter waiting, with two strong dwarves to carry it, if Lord Pavek didn't think he could walk that far.
Pavek nodded. He listened to everything the commandant said, but he didn't really hear any of it. His legs had been numb before Javed bandaged them, and they felt no different now. He needed help s
