At the second day’s end, all who had visited were long gone and had not returned. Brot’ân’duivé knew they were on their way to Ghoivne Ajhâjhe to catch a ship. His urgency grew, but he waited, remaining focused on his own purpose.
Of all who had entered the tree, only one had not reemerged this day.
Juan’yâre was still inside with Most Aged Father.
Brot’ân’duivé counted two sentinels before the great oak’s entrance. No others were in sight, and this disturbed him. If the journal was within, there should be more guards, but he had no more time to waste.
It took him longer than expected to work along the branches of the ringed oaks and leap to the lowest limbs of Most Aged Father’s home. As he landed, the branch’s leaves shivered and rustled. He quickly turned inward to flatten against the tree’s immense trunk.
One anmaglâhk sentinel rounded the trunk below him and peered about.
Brot’ân’duivé stilled both mind and flesh ... and let the shadows take him.
The anmaglâhk below tilted his head toward the branches above and stared upward for too long. Finally he turned, lowering his head, and looked out across the green to the ring of other oaks.
Brot’ân’duivé waited, though he was so tired that his mind lost its stillness. The only sentinels “Father” would have near him now were those most loyal to him—like those who had not hesitated in killing Gleannéohkân’thva.
Brot’ân’duivé would not hesitate either and did not risk the sound of drawing a blade as he stepped off the branch.
Something caused the anmaglâhk to look up.
Brot’ân’duivé landed with one foot on his target’s shoulder and folded his leg upon impact. His other knee struck as his weight crushed his target to the ground face-first. At a muffled crack of ribs breaking, he struck with one fist into the back of his target’s neck.
A crackle of vertebrae made his target go limp.
Brot’ân’duivé heard fast footfalls coming the other way around the tree. Amid too much hatred and anger to let shadow take him again, he ripped down the wrap across his face.
A greimasg’äh came to kill his own, and in exhaustion, he did not even try to hide. When the other sentinel appeared, he lunged from his crouch.
The fast rhythm of the anmaglâhk’s feet barely faltered at the sight of him, but it was enough. Brot’ân’duivé dropped low at the man’s delayed thrust.
A stiletto’s tip entered the side of his cowl instead of his chest. He straightened before the tip fully pierced the cloth. The forward edge of his right elbow rammed upward into his target’s jaw. The anmaglâhk’s head had not fully whipped back when Brot’ân’duivé’s left hand struck the man’s throat with two rigid fingers.
It all took less than a breath.
Brot’ân’duivé stepped back as his target fell prone upon the ground.
One anmaglâhk lay dead, and the other mutely struggled for air through a collapsed throat as he choked on blood filling his mouth. In a time to come, Brot’ân’duivé would look back and question which death was worse.
Even then he would not care. All that would disturb him in reflection was his loss of self-control. Without a sound, he rounded into the great oak and down the stairs toward the large chamber surrounding the heart-root. When he was halfway down the steps, a voice carried from inside the heart-root.
“I will not be long, Father, and I will bring fresh tea when I return.”
It was the sycophant, Juan’yâre.
Brot’ân’duivé froze with nowhere to hide. Immediately the boyish form of Juan’yâre appeared out of the heart-root and trotted for the stairs—and he stopped at the sight of Brot’ân’duivé six steps above. His lips parted below widening eyes. There was more fear there than in the last one who died.
Brot’ân’duivé descended six stairs in a single step.
The Covârleasa’s right hand flashed up on instinct to block—and failed.
Brot’ân’duivé’s fingertips struck the soft hollow of the sycophant’s throat. Juan’yâre toppled down the remaining stairs, and Brot’ân’duivé did not wait.
Secrecy was lost, and he dropped off the stairwell’s side to run for the entrance to the heart-root’s chamber. He halted before the heart-root’s opening and looked in.
Inside, Most Aged Father lay in his bower of living wood and dead moss, and stared out through milky irises. There was not a trace of surprise in his eyes at the sight of Brot’ân’duivé.
“My son!” the old one bit off in his creaking voice. “You are ever predictable.”
Brot’ân’duivé’s right hand flashed to the sleeve of his left wrist to pull a stiletto.
“Your too-long years end ... Father,” he said. “And the ancestors will not take you in as they have Gleannéohkân’thva.”
Most Aged Father smiled, exposing yellowed teeth in their shrunken gums.
In the corners of Brot’ân’duivé’s sight, the walls of the outer chamber began to move ... and silver glints appeared from three directions.
He lunged rearward as three anmaglâhk melted from the main chamber’s walls: two anmaglâhk on the left, one on the right, all holding bows with nocked arrows pointed at him. Each had a stiletto gripped between his teeth, at the ready once their shots were fired. A fourth figure stepped out of the heart-root chamber’s rear wall with a single blade in hand as he stood beside Most Aged Father’s bower.
Brot’ân’duivé had not seen any of them upon entering. None of them were greimasg’äh, and he looked to that old worm still smiling at him. How all this had been done, he did not know, but who had managed it was obvious.
He had been so focused on reaching Most Aged Father that he had not thought to sense for anything else.
“I am of the ancestors,” Most Aged Father said softly. “I was one of them, led here long ago to our land. You are the one who will never meet them when you die.”
Brot’ân’duivé’s mind went still, his heart and breath slowed, and calm returned.
He could take any one archer, but not all three, before a shot was fired. If he turned to run, he would not make it to the stairs without being hit by one, if not all three, arrows. Standing in the open, he had no opportunity to let shadow take him without his opponents still firing upon his position.
“Shoot,” Most Aged Father whispered in the silence.
At the sound of bowstrings releasing, Brot’ân’duivé twisted and snatched the edge of his cloak.
He tore it loose from around his waist in a spinning arc. A rush of air passed below his chin as the first arrow missed. His cloak jerked in his grip as the second arrow pierced it below his left arm at chest level. He finished that twist as the sound of a third bowstring released.
But Brot’ân’duivé felt—heard—no arrow strike him.
“Run, you old fool!” a female voice shouted.
One of the archers to his left, nearest to the stairs, whirled around as the other slid limply down the chamber’s wall. An arrow protruded from the center of the second’s chest.
Cuirin’nên’a stood atop the steps with another arrow drawn back, and she fired again, hitting the first one, who had whirled toward her.
That one fell as she reached for another arrow.
Most Aged Father stared out through the heart-root’s entrance at Brot’ân’duivé still standing there. Then the ancient creature shrieked in rage as the anmaglâhk beside him rushed toward the heart-root’s opening.
Brot’ân’duivé heard an arrow’s release and glanced to the right as the third archer—the only remaining archer—fired. The arrow flew past toward the stairs, and Brot’ân’duivé flung his stiletto.
It cracked against the anmaglâhk’s bow. In reflex, the man dropped the bow in a back step, and Brot’ân’duivé drew his second blade. Then he heard Cuirin’nên’a suck in a sharp breath behind him on the stairs.