“Why don’t they attack us?” Sturm muttered, floundering about in the water, trying to keep his balance. “They could cut us to ribbons!”
“Maybe they have a law that prohibits them from harming idiots!” snapped Tanin irritably.
Dougan had managed, with Palin’s help, to stagger to his feet.
Shaking his fist, he sent the gnomes on their way back to the ship with a parting curse, then turned and, with as much dignity as he could bluster, stomped across the beach toward the warriors. Tanin and Sturm followed more slowly, hands on the hilts of their swords. Palin came after his brothers more slowly still, his white robes wet and bedraggled, the hem caked with sand.
The warriors waited for them in silence, unmoving, their faces expressionless as they watched the strangers approach. But Palin noticed, as he drew near, that occasionally one of the men would glance uneasily back into the nearby jungle. Observing this happening more than once, Palin turned his attention to the trees. After watching and listening intently for a moment, he drew nearer Tanin.
“There’s something in those trees,” he said in an undertone.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Tanin growled. “Probably another fifty or so warriors.”
“I don’t know,” Palin said thoughtfully, shaking his head. “The warriors appear to be nervous about it, maybe even—”
“Shush!” Tanin ordered sharply. “This is no time to talk, Palin! Now keep behind Sturm and me, like you’re supposed to!”
“But—” Palin began.
Tanin flashed him a look of anger meant to remind the young man who was in charge. With a sigh, Palin took up his position behind his brothers. But his eyes went to the jungle and he again noticed that more than one of the warriors allowed his gaze to stray in that direction as well.
“Hail!” cried Dougan, stumping through the sand to stand in front of the warrior who, by standing out slightly in front of his fellows, appeared to be the chief. “Us gods!” proclaimed the dwarf, thumping himself on the chest. “Come from Land of Rising Sun to give greeting to our subjects on Isle of Gargath.”
“You’re a dwarf,” said the warrior glumly, speaking excellent Common “You’ve come from Ansalon, and you’re probably after the Graygem.”
“Well... uh... now...” Dougan appeared flustered. “That’s... uh... a good guess, lad. We are, as it happens, mildly interested in ... uh ... the Graygem. If you’d be so good as to tell us where we might find it—”
“You can’t have it,” said the warrior, sounding depressed. He raised his spear. “We’re here to stop you.”
The warriors behind him nodded unenthusiastically, fumbling with their spears and clumsily falling into some sort of ragged battle formation.
Again, Palin noticed many of them looking into the jungle with that same nervous, preoccupied expression.
“Well, we’re going to take it!” Tanin shouted fiercely, apparently trying to drum up some enthusiasm for the conflict. “You’ll have to fight us to stop us.”
“I guess we will,” mumbled the chief, hefting his spear in halfhearted fashion.
Somewhat confused, Tanin and Sturm nevertheless drew their swords, as Dougan, his face grim, lifted his axe. The words to a spell chant were on Palin’s lips, and the Staff of Magius seemed to tremble with eagerness in his hand. But Palin hesitated. From all he’d heard, battles weren’t supposed to be like this! Where was the hot blood? The ferocious hatred? The bitter determination to die where one stood rather than give an inch of ground?
The warriors shuffled forward, prodding each other along. Tanin closed on them, his sword flashing in the sun, Sturm at his back. Suddenly, a cry came from the jungle. There was movement and a rustling sound, more cries, and then a yelp of pain. A small figure dashed out of the trees, running headlong across the sand.
“Wait!” Palin yelled. “It’s a child!”
The warriors turned at the sound. “Damn!” muttered the chief, tossing his shield and spear into the sand in disgust. The child—a little girl of about five—ran to the warrior and threw her arms around his legs. At that moment, another child, older than the first, came running out of the woods in pursuit.
“I thought I told you to keep her with you!” the chief said to the older child, a boy, who came dashing up.
“She bit me!” said the boy accusingly, exhibiting bloody marks on his arm.
“You’re not going to hurt my daddy, are you?” the little girl asked Tanin, glaring at him with dark eyes.
“N-no,” stuttered Tanin, taken aback. He lowered his sword. “We’re just”—he shrugged, flushing scarlet—“talking. You know, man talk.”
“Bless my beard!” exclaimed the dwarf in awe. More children were running from the jungle—children of all ages, from toddlers who could barely make their way across the sand to older boys and girls of about ten or eleven. The air was filled with their shrill voices.
“I’m bored. Can we go home?”
“Lemme hold the spear!”
“No, if s my turn! Dad said—”
“Apu said a bad word!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Look, Daddy! That short, fat man with the hair on his face! Isn’t he ugly?”
Glancing at the strangers in deep embarrassment, the warriors turned from their battle formation to argue with their children.
“Listen, Blossom, Daddy’s just going to be a little longer. You go back and play—”
“Apu, take your brothers back with you and don’t let me hear you using language like that or I’ll—”
“No, dear, Daddy needs the spear right now. You can carry it on the way home—”
“Halt!” roared the dwarf. Dougan’s thunderous shout cut through the confusion, silencing warrior and child alike.
“Look,” said Tanin, sheathing his sword, his own face flushed with embarrassment, “we don’t want to fight you, especially in front of your kids.”
“I know,” the chief said, chagrined. “It’s always like that. We haven’t had a good battle in two years! Have you ever”—he gave Tanin a pained look—“tried to fight with a toddler underfoot?”
Profoundly perplexed, Tanin shook his head.
“Takes all the fun out of it,” added another warrior as one child swarmed up his back and another bashed him in the shins with his shield.
“Leave them at home with their mothers, then, where they belong,” said Dougan gruffly.
The warriors' expression grew grimmer still. At the mention of their mothers, several of the children began to cry.
“We can’t,” stated a warrior.
“Why not?” demanded Dougan.
“Because their mothers are gone!”
“It all started two years ago,” said the chief, walking with Dougan and the brothers back to the village. “Lord Gargath sent a messenger to us, demanding ten maidens be paid him in tribute or he’d unleash the power of the Graygem.” The warrior’s gaze went to the volcano in the distance, its jagged top barely visible amid the shifting gray clouds that surrounded it. Forked lightning streaked from the cloud, and thunder rumbled. The chief shivered and shook his head. “What could we do? We paid him his tribute. But it didn’t stop there. The next month, here came the messenger again. Ten more maidens, and more the month following. Soon, we ran out of maidens, and then the lord demanded our wives. Then he sent for our mothers! Now”—the chief sighed—“there isn’t a woman left in the village!”
“All of them!” Sturm gaped. “He’s taken all of them!”