“In order to reach Ice Wall Castle, my people will be forced to travel over the glacier, where we will be visible for miles along the way—easy pickings for the white dragon,” Harald went on, growing angrier the more he talked. “Then those who by some miracle manage to survive the dragon’s attack will be targets for the dragon-men who will shoot my warriors as full of arrows as a prickly pig!”
“What’s a prickly pig?” Tas asked, but no one answered.
Derek had entered the tent.
Harald was on his feet, glaring at the knight. “So you would send my people to their deaths!”
“I had intended to explain my plan myself,” Derek stated, with an exasperated glance at the kender.
Tasslehoff grinned and waved and said modestly, “That’s all right, Sir Knight. No need for thanks.”
Derek turned to Harald. “Your people can slip up to the castle under the cover of darkness—”
Harald shook his head and gave an explosive snort that seemed to expand the walls of the tent. The Ice Folk inside the chieftent put down their work to give him their full attention.
“What is wrong with that idea?” Derek demanded, disconcerted by the sight of so many dark and emotionless eyes fixed upon him.
Harald looked to Raggart the Elder. The old priest in his gray robes rose, tottering on shaking legs, leaning on the arm of his grandson for support.
“Wolves roam about the castle by night,” Raggart stated. “They would see us and report back to Feal-Thas.”
Derek thought at first he was joking, then realized the old man was serious. He appealed to the chief. “You are a man of reason. Do you believe such nonsense as this? Wolf guards—it is a child’s tale!”
Harald once again swelled with rage and it seemed likely he would blast Derek out of the tent if he got started. Raggart rested a warding hand on Harald’s arm, and the chief choked back his rage and was silent.
“According to you, the gods themselves are child’s tales, aren’t they, Sir Knight?” asked the old man.
Derek replied in measured tones, “I had a beloved brother who believed in these gods. He died a terrible death when our castle was attacked and overrun by the dragonarmies. He prayed to them to save us, and they did nothing. This proves to me there are no gods.”
Elistan stirred at this and seemed about to speak.
Derek saw this and forestalled him. “Spare your breath, Cleric. If there are such gods of so-called ‘good’ who refused to heed my brother’s prayers and let him die, then I want nothing to do with them.”
He looked about the tent, at the eyes watching him. “Many of your people may die, Chieftain, that is true, but many people in other parts of Krynn have already laid down their lives for our noble cause—”
“—so that you can find this dragon orb and take it back to your homeland,” said Harald dourly.
“And we will slay the wizard Feal-Thas—”
Harald gave another terrific snort.
Derek was flushed with anger, at a loss for words. He was accustomed to obedience and respect, and he was getting neither. He was obviously baffled by Harald’s stubborn obtuseness, for that is what he considered it.
“You do not understand the importance—” Derek began impatiently.
“No, it is you who do not understand,” Harald thundered. “My people fight only when we must fight. We do not go seeking battle. Why do you think our boats are swift? To carry us away from the conflict. We are not cowards. We fight if we must, but only if we must. Given a chance, we run. There is no shame in that, Sir Knight, because every day of our lives of we fight deadly foes: shifting ice, bitter wind, biting cold, sickness, starvation. We have fought these foes for centuries. When you leave, we will continue to fight them. Will this dragon orb of yours change anything for us?”
“It may or it may not,” interjected Elistan. “A single pebble falling into a lake sends out ripples that expand and keep expanding until they reach the shore. The distance between Solamnia and Icereach is vast, yet the gods have seen fit to bring us together. Perhaps for the dragon orb,” he said, looking at Derek, then shifting his gaze to Harald, “or perhaps to help us learn to honor and respect one another.”
“And if Feal-Thas were destroyed, I think it unlikely Ariakas would send anyone to take his place,” Sturm said. “To my way of thinking, the attack on Tarsis did not prove the Dark Queen’s strength; it showed her weakness. If there was a way we could work together—”
“I have told you the way,” Derek interrupted angrily. “By attacking Ice Wall castle—”
Laurana quit listening. She was sick of the quarreling, sick of the fighting. Derek would never understand Harald. The chief would never understand Derek. Her thoughts turned to Tanis. Now that she too believed he was alive, she wondered if he was with that human woman, Kitiara. Laurana had seen her with Tanis in the dream. Kit was lovely, with her black curly hair, crooked smile, flashing black eyes…
There had been something familiar about her. Laurana had the feeling she’d seen those eyes before.
Now you’re being silly, she told herself. Letting your jealousy run away with you. Sturm’s right. Kitiara’s nowhere near Silvanesti. Why should she be? Strange that I feel this connection to her… as if we’ve met…
“We will carry on with our plans, Chieftain, no matter what you choose to do—” Derek was saying heatedly.
Laurana rose to her feet and walked off.
Tasslehoff had long since grown bored with the conversation. He was in the back of the chieftent having a grand rummage through his pouches to the delight of several children squatting on the floor around him. Among his treasures was a broken piece of crystal whose smooth planes and sharp edges formed a triangular shape.
He must have picked it up in Tarsis, Laurana realized. It looked as though it might have once graced an elegant lamp or maybe was part of the stem of a broken wine glass.
Tasslehoff was squatting directly beneath one of the ventilation holes in the roof. The midday sun streamed down, forming a bright halo around the kender.
“Watch this!” he said to the children. “I’m going to do a magic trick taught to me by a great and powerful wizard named Raistlin Majere.”
Tas held the crystal to the sun. “I’m going to say the magic words now. ‘Oooglety booglety’.” He twitched the crystal to make tiny rainbows go dancing about the tent. The children shouted in glee and Derek, in the front of the tent, cast them all a stern look and ordered Tasslehoff to stop fooling around.
“I’ll show you fooling around,” Tas muttered and he twitched the crystal again, causing one of the rainbows to crawl over Derek’s face.
The knight blinked as the sunlight hit his eyes. The children clapped and laughed and Tas smothered a giggle. Derek rose angrily to his feet. Laurana gestured to him that she would deal with it, and Derek sat back down.
“Did Raistlin really teach you how to do that?” Laurana asked, sitting beside Tas, hoping to distract the kender from his torment of the knight.
“Yes, he did,” said Tas proudly, adding eagerly, “I’ll tell you the story. It’s very interesting. Flint was designing a setting for a jeweled pendant for one of his customers, and the pendant went missing. I offered to help him find it, and so I left to go to Raistlin and Caramon’s house to ask if they might have seen it. Caramon wasn’t home and Raistlin had his nose in a book. He said I wasn’t to bother him and I said I would just sit down and wait for Caramon to come back, and Raistlin asked me if I meant to stay there all day, annoying him, and I said yes, I had to find this jeweled pendant, and then he put down the book and came over to me and turned all my pockets inside out and, would you believe it? There was the pendant!”
Tas had to stop for breath before continuing. “I was really happy to think I’d found it and I said I’d take it back to Flint, but Raistlin said, no, he would take it to Flint after supper and I was to go away and leave him alone. I said I thought I would wait for Caramon anyway, because I hadn’t seen him since yesterday. Raistlin eyed me in that way of his that kind of sends crawly feelings through you and then he asked would I go if he taught me a magic trick? I said I would have to go, because I’d want to show the trick to Flint.