Tip smiled wanly. "I don't plan on needing any stitching or other such, bucco. Besides, your healing is wanted here."
"Not so. The plague is as good as gone, what with the gwynthyme you and Bekki brought back, and the locals can deal with whatever else needs doing. No, bucco, as soon as I can, I'm coming after you. I'm certain that it will take the two of us Litenfolk to throw Modru down."
Tip grinned and shrugged, and Beau smiled in return. Yet of a sudden Beau's face took on a serious cast. "See here, Tip, we don't really know what the future will bring… but the fact that we are separating must mean something. Look, everything that happens has some bearing on events as yet untold. It's all connected, you know."
Tip laughed aloud and then said, "Let us just hope that by me leaving now and you coming later, well, that it is for the best."
Again a silence fell between them. Tip took up his lute and strummed a few soft chords. But then Beau said, "Oh, did I tell you that Phais and Loric believe that a firemoun-tain on Atala blew up, and mayhap the entire island has sunk?"
Tip set aside his lute. "Because of the blast we heard ringing 'round the world?"
"That and the dust which fell here. Did any fall on you and Bekki?"
Tip nodded. "Yes. From the west it came, flowing over the sky and then falling down. Bekki said it was rock dust, perhaps from a firemountain, and the only firemountain he knew of west of here was Karak on Atala."
Beau drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Karak, yes. Phais said that many Elves and others lived nigh the slopes, and when it exploded, well, it killed them all, all in one terrible blast, and that was the awful doom she and Loric felt that dreadful day. She said others lived on that isle-Humans, Dwarves, Hidden Ones, even some War-rows-but it was the deaths of so many Elves all at once that blew through them like an ill wind."
"Oh my," said Tip. "Oh my."
Three days later in early morn, Tip came to Beau's bedside. Bekki came as well, along with Phais and Loric. Even King Agron came to see Beau, for this was the day of parting: Bekki was going with his Dwarven escort back to Mineholt North. And now that the plague was well in hand, Phais and Loric would ride southerly with Bekki and the Dwarves until they came to the Landover Road, the Dwarves to turn west and the Lian to continue south, for the Elves were sworn to deliver Agron's message to High King Blaine along with a small pewter coin. As for Agron and Tip, they were heading to Alvstad. And for the moment, wan and weak, Beau would go nowhere, confined to his bed as he was.
But on this morning, King Agron stood at the side of the frail buccan's bed. "Sir Beau, not only did you save Dendor, but the whole of Mithgar owes you a debt it can never repay, for ever has the plague beset all folk, and you have found the cure. Others have been named Hero of the Realm, but I name you Hero of the Entire World."
"Hear, hear!" said Tip.
Under the remaining dark pustules, Beau blushed. "Oh, I'm not a hero at all, not like everyone here-"
"Nonsense," snapped Bekki. "King Agron is right, and I here and now proclaim you Chak-Sol of Mineholt North, Beau Darby, Master of the Plague. So I have said; so shall it be."
"Oh my," said Beau, as Tip grinned.
Agron now turned to Tipperton. "Sir Tipperton, I know you are pledged to ride scout for me. Yet this I say: instead of joining my winter campaign in Gron, mayhap you and Beau should go with the Lian Guardians and represent the interests of the Litenfolk to High King Blaine, wherever he may be."
Tip glanced at Phais and Loric, friends he had come to love. It would be so easy to go with them and search for the High King rather than ride into the cold wastes of Gron. He gazed down at the floor, remembering the courageous young man who had saved his life at his mill. Tip looked back up at Agron. "Nay, my lord, I am pledged to you to avenge the death of Dular. A scout I am, and a scout I will be."
Agron then looked at Beau, that buccan to shake his head. "Nay, my lord, wherever Tip goes, so will I go. We started this war together, and together we will be when it ends. That we are separated is temporary, or so I do believe. Besides, you will need healers in this winter campaign, after all, and you can use my hands. I'm a hero, you know; you said so yourself."
And so it was decided: the comrades would go their separate ways-three south, one west, and one to remain behind until he was well enough to follow.
Agron glanced at the light beyond the prison window; outside, snow had begun drifting down. " 'Tis time we were going, Sir Tipperton, on this winter morn." One by one, Agron looked at the others. "Fare ye well, Sir Beau. Fare ye well DelfLord Bekki, Dara Phais, Alor Loric. May Adon watch over ye all." Agron turned on his heel and strode down the passageway.
Bekki growled, "Would that I were going into Gron with you, Tip, to lay Grg by the heels." Bekki then smiled at Beau. "Hear me, Chak-Soclass="underline" when you are well enough to follow Tipperton, take plenty of bullets for your sling, for surely you will need them."
Beau nodded, then said, "Oh, Bekki, that reminds me. Take a goodly amount of the gwynthyme and silverroot back to your mineholt; the Chakia will need it there. And, you, Phais and Loric, take some silverroot and gwynthyme, too. You as well, Tip, you as well; you never know when it will come in handy."
Phais nodded and then leaned down and kissed Beau on the cheek in spite of his pustules. "Take care, wee one. We shall meet again."
Loric also kissed Beau, and laid a hand on the buccan's thin shoulder. "I, too, think we shall meet again, little one."
"Oh, Phais, Loric, Bekki, Tip, it is as if I am losing everyone I love."
"Nonsense," said Tip, embracing his friend, "we shall meet again soon. After all, you said it yourself: everything is connected."
"Connected, yes, but that doesn't mean we will all meet again."
Bekki shrugged. "In this war, who can say?"
A horn cry drifted in through the window slit.
"Oh my, Beau, I've got to go now," said Tip, catching up his lute. "Get well, and soon."
"I will, bucco, and you can wager on it."
Bekki, Phais, Loric, and Tip: they all stepped from the prison cell. "Remember," cried Beau, his voice tight with emotion, "stop by the healer station and get gwynthyme and silverroot to take with you."
Beau heard Tipperton call back, "We will," and there came a chord on the lute, and Tipperton's voice lifted in song:
Oh-fiddle-dee hi, fiddle-dee ho,
Fiddle-dee hay ha hee.
Wiggle-dee die, wiggle-dee doe,
Wiggle-dee pig die dee.
Once there was a very merry man
Who came to Boskledee…
Tipperton's voice faded away as he went down the hall and into the stairwell. And Beau sat propped in his bed, tears running down his face, humming along with Tip's song, Beau's favorite: "The Merry Man of Boskledee."
Long moments later Beau heard a second horn cry, followed by the shouting of voices and the clack of hooves on the cobbles below, the ching of arms and armor and the clatter of the cavalcade to fade into the distance…
… And then he could hear nothing more but the silence of the prison.
Chapter 19
In the last seven days of October and the first nine of November, Agron's cavalcade pressed on toward the muster at Alvstad. And during these sixteen days of travel, snow fell five of them altogether, unusual in Aven this time of year. Some claimed 'twas Modru's doing, while others claimed 'twas not. Regardless, in spite of the early snowfall and the cold, Agron's company finally arrived at their goal on November the ninth.
Alvstad itself was a stockaded city nigh the banks of the River Argon, yet with the muster at this place it was more tents and wagons ringed all 'round than buildings of wood within. Down through this gathering fared the cavalcade, down through snow churned to mud. And when the blue and gold of the king passed by, followed by the king himself, men stood along the route and cheered their monarch, slayer of the Gargon and conqueror of Modru's Swarm. Coming after the king and astraddle a horse towed behind a mounted soldier rode a legend alive: one of the Litenfolk.