safe and neutral space Shadrun provided. Travelers arrived from all over Faerun, as they had in the past, but now they seemed to come more to gawk at the sanctuary’s increasing treasures and to listen to the stories itinerant bards told in the Great Hall than to meditate in the presence of the holy.
Time after time, Lakini almost brought herself to ask Lusk to take to the road with her again, to tread the dust of Faerun, to seek evil where it laired, to come to the aid of those who prayed for help, to become the earthly embodiment of the will of the gods. But Lusk seemed to relish the increased prominence of Shadrun-of-the-Snow, and he spoke whenever he could with the councilors to faraway kings, queens, protectors, regents, thrones, and dominions. Lakini considered pressing the point, or taking to the road herself, but whenever she steeled herself to it, some voice in her innermost mind would object, telling her to stay, telling her that her duty lay in remaining the sanctuary’s protector, and that this was the will of the gods that she sought.
That changed the day she and Lusk were patrolling the wooded slopes below Rophile’s Crevasse, and her sensitive deva’s nose caught an ominous, coppery smell in the air. Lusk caught it as well, and after they cast about and sniffed at the small breezes that danced about the mountain, Lakini pointed out a clearing a half mile away that pilgrims sometimes used as a camp spot.
The dull, heavy smell of blood grew stronger as they approached the clearing, and Lakini twitched her nose and shifted her shoulder into the position she took in battle stance, so she could more quickly grasp the hilt of the greatsword slung over her back. Lusk walked behind her and slightly to one side, glancing left and right into the darkness between the trees with a distracted frown.
Almost to the clearing, an unpleasant tang undercut the oppressive copper smell of blood. Lakini laid her right hand on the hilt of the sword, its familiar, worn, warm feel a comfort. Without thinking about it, Lusk shifted to the left behind her, out of the reach of the backswing the blade would make if she drew it. It was a move that grew naturally from years of experience fighting together, where knowing each move one’s partner was likely to make was as important to survival as predicting one’s enemy’s tactics.
At the lip of the clearing Lakini stopped.
“Ah, Sweet Mother,” she swore, taking in the scene before her.
Only one of the halflings had had time to draw his weapon. The short dagger lay loose in his fist. Rigor had worn off several hours before. In death he must have clutched it tightly. He sprawled near the edge of the clearing, his eyes still wide and surprised. Lakini kneeled beside him and shuddered to see ants crawling across the dull- filmed surface of his eyeball. Carefully she shifted his head, and it lolled back loosely, half-severed from the neck by a deep slice. The killer-or killers-must have taken out the lookout first. He was lucky. He had died quickly, unlike his companions.
In the center of the clearing, beside the ashy remains of a dead campfire, another diminutive figure lay crumpled. Lakini’s gaze was drawn, however, to the dreadful sight splayed across the trunk of a large tree that stood, bare of branches ten feet up, at the opposite end of the campsite.
Cautiously she rose, forcing herself closer to the blood-soaked nightmare, listening always for the rustling of leaves that might betray the return of the creatures that did this deed, aware of Lusk on the alert behind her.
The halfling’s arms had been bound at an unnatural angle tight around the tree, so tight the rough bark had torn the sleeves of his homespun shirt. His feet were tied together with many loops of rope and also anchored around the trunk. His head dangled limply between his wrenched shoulder blades.
A sheet of hundreds of blackflies clustered like a moving sheet of black armor on his torso, buzzing loudly, and there was an unbearable reek of blood and feces this close to the body. Lakini waved away the flies, which lifted a bare few seconds before returning to their ghastly feast. It was enough to see what lay beneath: the halfling had been gutted from neck to crotch, and his intestines pulled out in untidy loops to dangle at his knees.
Lakini reached out to cup his chin and lifted his head. A dirty rag had been stuffed into his mouth, and his eyes were glazed open in the extremity of pain and fear. A few black drops of dried blood spattered the pale face. Unable to look closer, Lakini let the head loll back on the chest and stood back, trying to keep her gorge from rising.
“This one was hamstrung,” said Lusk from behind her, and she turned to see her companion crouched next to the figure lying beside the ashes. Keeping an eye on the perimeter of the clearing, Lakini backed away from the disemboweled horror tied to the tree.
Lusk examined the third victim dispassionately.
“His hands are bound behind him, and he’s gagged as well. And look at this.”
Beside him, Lakini glanced down, taking in the deep vermilion slashes at the back of the halfling’s knees that sliced through cloth and flesh and sinew, and the deep gash in the throat that cut right through to the bone. She noted something else about the way he’d been bound. The halfling had long braided hair, and it had been knotted cunningly into a rope that went from the hair to the hands secured in the small of the back.
“He was forced to watch. Couldn’t get away, and the killer-or killers-secured his head so he’d have to watch … that”-she indicated the gutted halfling on the tree, unwilling to look directly at it as this pathetic corpse had been compelled to do-“and then, I’ll wager, killed afterward.” She stole another look at the body at her feet, her mind temporarily unable to process what had happened to these people, incongruously noting the decorative beads woven into the wheat-colored hair. An image came to her, sudden and vivid, of the three little people, gathered around a cheery fire, caution forgotten in the comfort of fellowship, singing a song from their native land. Oblivious to the evil that stalked them, waiting for its chance to strike. Her eyes prickled, and she blinked the tears away.
Lusk nodded. “Only one or probably two, or else the clearing would be more torn up than it is. They must have acted quickly. Killed the lookout, immobilizing one so they could have their fun with the other.”
He rose, wiping his hand on his trousers.
Lakini swallowed the sharp-edged lump in her throat. “Who would do such a thing? We haven’t heard of bandits in this vicinity, and besides, they haven’t been robbed. It’s something a demon would do, or an acolyte of Orcus.”
“A quarrel between thieves, I’d say,” said Lusk. “Perhaps these stole from their clan, or cheated their partners or employer. Perhaps someone wanted to make an example of them.”
“No,” said Lakini. “Look. He’s not been robbed.” She pointed, and Lusk nudged the bulging pouch at the halfling’s belt with the tip of his boot. “Any thief worth his salt might kill, but quickly, without all this fuss,”
she said. “And certainly a thief would not have left coin behind.”
“Not fellow thieves, then,” Lusk conceded. He gestured at the shambles in the clearing. Sunlight slanted golden through the tops of the trees, and birds twittered and warbled in the growth above. It would have been a peaceful scene if not for the butchered bodies and the incessant buzz of the flies.
“Rangers would be stealthy enough. Or”-he pointed at the fire-“they cut wood. Druids, perhaps?”
“We have to alert the Vashtun and warn the travelers to be alert. Tell them to make sure they have double lookouts and not let them get distracted.” Lakini set her jaw. In her many lifetimes she had seen many tragedies, and brutality beyond imagination. This was not the worst thing one person had done to another, and it wouldn’t be the last in the great weave of time. “And we have to tend to the bodies. The sooner they have a decent burial, the better.”
She drew her dagger and bent to cut the rope that bound hair and hands together. To her relief, Lusk went to free the gutted halfling from his crucifixion. She didn’t think she could bear to touch that rope, thick with clotted blood.
They laid out the bodies as best they could and started back to the sanctuary. In the morning, acolytes from Shadrun-of-the-Snows would return, bury the bodies, and perform the proper rites, assuming the scavengers of night left anything to bury.
Halfway home, something occurred to Lakini, something Lusk had said before, that at the time had only just registered.
“Thieves,” she said. “You mentioned fellow thieves. How do you know they were thieves, and not simply pilgrims, or friends in search of adventure?”
The deva shrugged. “It’s a logical assumption. Halflings incline toward thievery, whether as a profession or a hobby. Or so I’ve always found.”
Lakini didn’t reply. Halflings made clever thieves, certainly, but it seemed to her a sweeping statement to make about an entire people.
When had Lusk become capable of thinking such things about an entire race? There was a time when he
