halfling came out of the underbrush bordering the village—from the direction the ensorcelled hair had foretold. His hair was blond and his face dark, but he wasn’t Kakzim, and the marks covering his face were not slave-scars, but bloody bruises.
Leaning on a crutch, favoring a bandaged leg and an arm that was bound up beneath his ribs, he made slow progress toward the cautiously waiting templars. As he approached, Pavek realized the bruises, while not fresh, were a long way from being healed. His right eye was swollen completely shut; the left was crowned with a festering scab.
Whoever had beaten the halfling—and in Pavek’s experienced opinion, several fists and clubs had been involved—they’d known what they were doing. Though he wasn’t near dying, it would be a long time before the man could move easily again, if he ever did.
“Paddock,” the battered halfling said through puffy lips once he reached the edge of the clearing.
“Pavek,” Pavek corrected and waited without saying anything more.
“My name is Cerk,” the halfling said, then added something in Halfling. “I’ve told them this is my fault. They were protecting me. I am to blame; this is the Black-Tree’s judgment. They’ve told you the truth: there is no antidote for our poison, and they know no one whose hair is blond and whose cheeks bear the scars of Urik’s slaves. If you’d asked them about Kakzim—”
Heads came up among the village halflings, even among the four they’d held captive since the ambush. Kakzim’s name was known here, and to judge by the expressions on the halfling faces when they heard the name, both feared and hated. A flurry of clicks, whistles and musical syllables passed among the halflings.
“They’re cursing a black tree, my lord, Commandant,” said the templar who’d translated the conversations earlier. “I don’t think it’s a place.”
“It is a place and a brotherhood,” Cerk explained. “They were my home, but they belong to Kakzim now. He is mad.”
“We know that,” Pavek said impatiently, when Cerk seemed to consider madness a sufficient explanation. “Where can we find him? Where’s this black tree? You said you’d give us what we want.”
“What you want, Pavek. He fears you as he fears nothing else; he knew you would come. You are the only one who can stop him—”
There was another outburst of Halfling. Their templar began to translate, but Cerk held up his hand and the man fell silent.
“The Black-Tree has been the center of my people’s lives since we came to this forest many, many generations ago. It holds the knowledge of our past in its roots. We would sooner die than deliver it to outsiders—dragon-spawned templars, especially. But Kakzim has already taken the Black-Tree from us. You, Pavek, are our last hope.”
Pavek thought hard and fast before speaking. “This knowledge it holds in its roots—you mean the knowledge to make poisons like Laq and that sludge Kakzim was going to pour into our water? Our king said if those bowls had been emptied, everyone in Urik and beyond would die. Is that the knowledge you’re trying to protect?”
“It is only a very small part of the knowledge the Black-Tree has preserved,” Cerk countered, then added softly and sadly: “But it is the knowledge Brother Kakzim absorbed and seeks to expand, now that he’s usurped the Brethren to his own purposes.”
“You helped him,” Pavek voiced the conclusion as it formed in his mind. “You helped him in Urik, helped him return to the forest. Then he turned on you—”
Cerk nodded, a movement that made him stiffen with pain. “We came back to the Brethren. I recanted my vows; I denounced what we had done. I called on the elders to do what must be done—but while they sought a consensus, Kakzim split the Brethren and turned one half against the other. Brother Kakzim has a mighty voice; no one can resist it now. There is no one left but you, Pavek. Your friends said you were dead in Codesh, but they hadn’t seen your corpse. I should have known that you weren’t dead, were coming. That you weren’t far behind, Pavek.”
“Lord Pavek,” Commandant Javed corrected. His sword remained unsheathed as he approached. “Speaking of a mighty voice, this one’s spinning a pretty tale. The hair points to him. I think we’ve found our halfling, don’t you, my lord? Let’s settle this now.” He raised his sword for a decapitating strike.
Pavek restrained Javed’s arm. “He’s not Kakzim, Commandant. We’ll let him take us to this tree—”