He was still at it when Balif said, “Everything in place, my friend?”
Anyone else would have leaped a yard at being address so suddenly. Rufe chuckled. “What happened to your claws?”
“Mind your tongue!” Lofotan barked.
“Peace, Captain,” said Balif. His voice was hoarse and strained. “My claws, friend wanderer, did not survive the night, I am happy to say.”
“You mean you were more of a beast last night than you are now?” Again Lofotan warned the kender about his manners.
Balif frowned. “The question is not without merit,” he said mildly. “While the storm was building, I was seized by a terrible urge to escape, to hide from every beam of light. I rode ahead, all the while transforming into the creature you saw. The poor horse went mad at having such a beast on his back. He tried to buck me off. I did all I could to stay on, but I lost by grip. The rest of the night I spent dodging my majordomo and my cook, both of whom were intent on killing me.”
Without turning his head to see, Balif raised his voice and added, “I saw you, Mathi, seated by the fire. I tried to tell you who I was, but I could not speak.”
“I did not know you, my lord, but I could tell you were no ordinary animal.”
He sat up, unconscious of his exposed state. “You spoke to me. I remember that you did but not what you said. I wanted to … harm you, but something in your words dissuaded me.”
Balif said he had eventually lost all power of coherent thought, lapsing completely into animal mode. When he awoke, the sun was shining overhead and Lofotan was carrying him to a waiting horse. He was naked, and his body ached as if he’d been beaten with rods.
“I found you sprawled in the grass, passed out,” Lofotan said. “Nothing would rouse you.”
He helped Balif stand. Mathi and Treskan held up the sleeves of a clean robe. Balif struggled to raise his arms. While he did, Artyrith whirled up on horseback.
“My lord!” he said, choked. “My lord, I am bound for Silvanost. I, therefore, bid you farewell!”
“What?” Lofotan exploded.
“I was hired to cook for one the most illustrious lords of Silvanost. When you took the Speaker’s command and set off on this journey, I went along, as befits a noble retainer. But now-” He reined his agitated mount in a circle. “Lord, if you are accursed, I cannot help you!”
Lofotan spat, “Coward!”
“If we were in Silvanost, I would challenge you for that insult!”
Lofotan repeated it. “It is easy to be brave in the city. Show your mettle here, pot-tender! Draw your blade or stand by your lord!”
Artyrith threw a riding glove in the grass at Lofotan’s feet. “Return that to me in Silvanost, and I will prove who is the coward!” With a final curt salute, he dug in his heels and rode swiftly away.
Lofotan shouted after him until Balif quietly asked him to cease. Artyrith rode due west, finally vanishing over the horizon. There was a long silence as everyone digested his sudden, surprising abandonment.
“He’ll never make it,” the old soldier swore finally. “Nomads will gut him like a trout!”
“He may reach home,” Balif said, grunting as he tried to walk. “He is a resourceful fellow.”
“Stiff-necked, overbred city fool,” Lofotan muttered.
Apart from the fur on his back, Balif looked the same. Mathi clasped his arm to help him walk, carefully noting his nails were quite unclawlike, as Rufe had discovered.
Shivering, he drew the robe close around his lean body. “So, my friends, we are down to three,” he said.
“Four.”
“You, little man? Since when do you belong to this company?”
“Since she started paying me.” Mathi tried not to look guilty. She failed.
They packed up their gear. Balif was too weak to help, so he sat in the grass and outlined his plans since his affliction had come to light. They would cross the Thon-Tanjan as planned and proceed with their mission.
“But, my lord, what about your condition?” asked his loyal retainer.
“At night you will bind me with chains a safe distance from the horses-and from you.”
“That’s not what I meant, my lord. Shouldn’t we seek a priest or sage who can help you?”
“Few are the practitioners who can reverse Vedvedsica’s spells,” Balif said calmly. “Gods willing, we will carry out the Speaker’s task and then find a cure for me … if one exists.”
Privately Mathi was in turmoil. She had no idea the Creator had cast such a spell on Balif. His sense of justice was worthy of a poet-to slowly turn the great general into a beast for his betrayal of Vedvedsica’s beast-children; that was godlike thinking. It wasn’t just the transformation and the loss of mind and faculties that would haunt Balif; it was knowing the horror and ignominy Balif would face in Silvanost if he ever returned.
But would he return ever? The last thing a proud, nobly born elf would want would be to display such an affliction to his peers. Artyrith’s revulsion was moderate compared to what Balif would encounter there. After all, Vedvedsica’s creatures, though innocent of their own origins, were rounded up, slain, or shipped off to eternal exile for simply existing. Balif was a victim, but under Silvanesti law, even the accursed were liable for exile or worse if their existence was deemed an affront to nature.
She helped Lofotan boost Balif onto his horse. The abused animal accepted his rider without a qualm. Mathi decided the horse was more tolerant than Artyrith.
They rode slowly down the sandy hill to the fast-flowing Tanjan. The ford was a series of pools and channels bounded by boulders that allowed travelers to pick their way across. Lofotan went first with the pack animals. Rufe the kender perched on the back of the last pack pony, looking back to the south bank where the other elves waited.
“Strange little fellow,” Treskan remarked.
“How do creatures like that get by in the world?” Mathi wondered.
“Oh, we manage.”
The scribe shouted with alarm. He and the others were surrounded by kender. They had arrived so quietly that neither he, Mathi, nor Balif had detected them. Among them was the Longwalker, a head taller than any other kender present.
“Excellent, friend,” Balif said. “You have a great talent for astonishment. Is it magic that allows you to move with such stealth?”
“Oh no,” the Longwalker said. “Most people just don’t pay good enough attention. That’s when we come and go.”
“Are you crossing the river?”
“I think so. The riders will soon be here, so we had better.”
By “riders” he meant humans. Glancing around, Mathi saw that many of the kender had injuries: sword cuts on their heads and shoulders, bruises on their faces, and battered hands. It turned out that the nomad band the elves had encountered earlier had returned in force. They were sweeping the bend of the river for kender, centaurs, and anyone else not of their band. Greath and the Hok-nu were fighting back, but the kender, being kender, chose to move on.
“How far behind are the humans?” asked Balif.
The Longwalker polled his comrades. Kender had little use for measurements of time or space, so no one had an adequate answer. “Close” was the best they could agree on.
Treskan took Balif’s reins. “Come, my lord.”
Lofotan gained the north bank and led the stubborn pack team ashore. The water had been cold, so it was good to get out in the summer sun. He saw the others linger on the far shore a while, surrounded by a large group of kender. Then they entered the shallow ford. The kender followed, and Lofotan was able to get a clear view of their progress. Being short and lightweight, they might have had a hard time crossing, but kender ingenuity prevailed. They waded where they could, clasping their hands together atop their heads. When the water grew too swift or deep, they clung together in living chains. The kender on the far end of the chain detached themselves one by one, clinging to their comrades as they crossed the hazard. First over was last to arrive. With a minimum of fuss, no equipment, and with considerable speed, the little folk were across the river.