Her eyes on Stanach’s broad-shouldered back, neatly bisected by his scabbarded sword, Kelida thought about his bad-tempered suggestion that she learn how to use the slim dagger she now carried.
When he’d snapped the warning to her in the sad, deserted chamber in Qualinost, Kelida’s first reactions had been anger, then hurt. Her second had been to find a dagger. She had not, however, given Hauk’s sword over to Stanach or into Tyorl’s keeping. Since she’d adjusted the scabbard, Stormblade rode easier on her hip and leg, though it still dragged, and the sword belt caused her borrowed hunting leathers to chafe and rub at her skin.
She had set her sights on the modest goal of learning to use the dagger Lavim helped her find before they’d left Qualinost. Stanach, though he’d volunteered the suggestion that she find a blade, hadn’t volunteered to teach her how to use it. According to what Stanach had said over the dawn campfire, they would soon be near the place where he expected to meet his friend Piper. Then, Thorbardin would be only a shaky breath and a transport spell away.
Tyorl had looked thoughtful at the news and made no comment. Remembering the look in his eyes, Kelida wondered now whether the elf was beginning to doubt Stanach’s tale. Which part of it, she wondered, the part about the sword or the part about the mage?
Kelida shook her head and stepped over a downed sapling in the trail. Stanach, a little ahead, looked back, his dark eyes moving, as they always did, to Stormblade’s richly decorated hilt.
No, she thought, the tale is true. There was a light in his eyes when he looked at Stormblade, and it wasn’t the cold light of avarice. He looked at the sword the way Kelida imagined someone would view a holy relic. Whatever Tyorl thought, Kelida knew that Stanach’s tale was not one spun to help him steal a valuable sword. He called it a Kingsword, Stormblade, or masterblade. He spoke of king regents and legends become truth. Behind his words, behind the tale, Kelida saw Hauk, somehow more shy and gentle than he seemed, and with his silence defending her from the wrath of a cruel derro mage who would kill to retrieve Stormblade. From their first night in Qualinesti, Kelida had instinctively liked the dwarf. She remembered their conversation before the dying campfire. When she’d attempted to tell him about the destruction of her home, the deaths of her parents and her brother, he’d gently whispered “Hush, girl, hush.”
So deep in her thinking was she that she did not see the tangle of thick gray roots snaking across the path. Her foot caught, she gasped, and fell hard to her knees. Up ahead Tyorl stopped and turned, but it was Stanach who came back for her. He grasped her elbows and lifted her easily to her feet.
“Are you hurt?”
Kelida shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I’m sorry.” She apologized before she could even decide whether or not she needed to.
“You’d be sorrier if you’d broken an ankle.” Stanach softened the warning with a smile, barely seen before it was lost in the depths of his black beard. “Our part is to watch the ground, Kelida. Tyorl will watch the forest.”
Kelida looked after him when he turned and continued up the path. Silent as a cat rounding a corner, Lavim came up beside her.
“You all right?” Startled, Kelida gasped. “Lavim! Where did you come from?” The kender grinned and jerked his head.
“Back down the trail. Dwarves: I dunno. Strange fellows. They brew a good drink, though. Me, if I had all the dwarf spirits I could drink, I’d be the happiest person around. Swords, and kings who aren’t kings—I don’t know about that business. The dwarf spirits’re why I’m going to Thorbardin. Can you imagine? All the dwarf spirits you could want, and made by the people who know how to do it! I figure I won’t be cold all winter!”
Kelida hid a smile. No one had invited the kender along, but no one seemed inclined to try to banish him either.
“Stanach’s right, though, you should watch the ground. I don’t think you’re used to walking in the woods, are you?”
“No, I’m not. I’ll manage though.” Her eyes on the faint trail, Kelida set out again, hurrying her pace to catch up with Stanach and Tyorl. Lavim fell in beside her.
“I only look up at the sky when I’m sleeping,” he said. “Or when a dragon flies by. That’s my secret.”
“Good advice,” she murmured.
The kender shrugged, ducked off to the side to make certain there wasn’t anything of interest behind a broad-trunked oak, and rejoined her.
“That Stanach’s a moody fellow. Have you noticed that?”
“I have.”
“He used to be a swordcrafter, did you know that? You should look at his hands sometime. They’re scarred all over with little burns. That’s from the forge fires.”
Lavim warmed to this receptive audience and grinned, remembering Givrak in the tavern and the draconian patrols in the warehouse. “Stanach, he’s nice enough when he’s not being moody, but he has this strange knack for annoying people. He could really get into trouble one of these days if he’s not careful.” Lavim’s eyes were suddenly wise, or so he imagined. “This mage, Piper—I figure it’ll be a good thing when Stanach finally catches up with him. Somebody’s got to keep him out of trouble. I figure that’s what this Piper fellow does. You know, kind of keeps an eye on him?”
Kelida remembered the four draconians that had precipitated their flight from Long Ridge. “What did he do to get the draconians so mad?”
“Oh, you can’t ever tell about a draconian. They’re not like us, you know. They’re mean as a way of life. Stanach aggravated a bunch of them outside an old, burned warehouse.” Lavim paused, looked thoughtful, and then shrugged. “Maybe it had something to do with the four who were chasing me, or the one who fell out the window … I dunno. Like I said, you can’t tell about ’em.”
The kender’s chatter was like a warm summer breeze. “I’ll tell you,” he said, cocking an eye at the girl, “the only thing meaner than a draconian is a minotaur—and even that bears thinking about. Ever see a minotaur, Kelida? They’re, well, kind of strange looking. Big fellows! They have fur all over them. Not long fur, you see, but short. Like a bull’s.” Lavim frowned, then grinned. “And no sense of humor at all! If you ever see one try to remember not to—well, um, suggest that his mother was a cow.”
Kelida’s eyes widened. “Why would I suggest that?”
“Oh, it would be a natural mistake.” Lavim’s green eyes twinkled.
“They kind of remind you of cows or bulls. They have real thick faces and horns and a disposition that definitely makes you think of a bad-tempered bull. I was around the Blood Sea last year, just passing through Mithas—”
His laughter, deep-throated and merry, rang out suddenly. “That’s when I learned that I might be old, but I can still run! No, they really don’t like it if you talk too much about cows. I don’t think there’s a minotaur alive who knows what a joke is.”
Kelida, smiling, trudged along beside Lavim, trying to follow the winding paths of a tale about three minotaurs, a gnome named Ish, and a bale of hay offered as dinner, for some reason Lavim never made clear. As the track of the story became more confused and obscured with exaggeration and hyperbole, Kelida contented herself with watching the ground and trying to present the appearance that she was, indeed, listening to the kender. After a time, she remembered Stanach’s insistence that she learn to use her dagger. She dropped her hand to the sheath at her hip. It was empty, the dagger gone.
“Lavim!”
Lavim looked around and up. “What?”
“My dagger—it’s gone!”
“Oh, have one of mine.” He slipped a bone-handled dagger from his belt and held it out to her. “I found it back on the trail, but, of course, I already have six or seven. Here.”