emperors.
'You were in the arena, weren't you?'
'All minotaurs go to the arenas.'
'But you were in the arena a lot! You must have been a great champion! Don't champions become emperor if they defeat the old emperor, because that's what I heard, and you said something like that once, so if you were a great champion, then you could have become emperor, which-'
'Take a breath, Delbin!' Kaz suddenly snarled. He tried to be patient with the kender, but couldn't help the occasional angry outburst. The kender overflowed with questions, and endlessly repeated his favorite ones. This time Delbin shut his mouth and remained silent for nearly a mile, something approaching a miracle.
On the fourth night, they made camp near a range of hills. The woods had grown thicker. The forest covered everything. Kaz was vaguely familiar with the lay of the land, but their progress was slowed a bit. All the better- each day's travel brought Kaz nearer a place to which he had no desire to return, a place that in some ways he feared.
After tethering the horses, Kaz decided it was time to tell Delbin that he could go no farther. His life would be in jeopardy. The minotaur was surprised at how guilty he felt about letting his small companion ride this far. But the woodlands would provide good cover for him as he retraced his steps and found other kender to rejoin.
'Delbin-' Kaz started to say, turning… but the kender was nowhere to be seen. His mount was tied up and some of his belongings lay near the fire, but Delbin himself had vanished.
The moon Solinari was only a wisp in the heavens, but the stars were visible this night. Trust Delbin to go exploring now. Snorting in annoyance, Kaz searched the ground for some sign of the direction in which the kender had departed. Delbin's race was notoriously light-footed. The minotaur knelt to peer for tracks.
'Kaz! Look what I fou- What're you doing there? Did you lose something? Can I help?' Delbin materialized out of nowhere beside the minotaur and fell to his knees. He earnestly began surveying the ground for whatever he thought Kaz had dropped.
'I was looking for you!' Rising, the beast-man looked down at his small comrade. 'That's it!' He overplayed his attitude, pretending to be very annoyed. 'Come tomorrow, Delbin, you're heading back to your kind! You can't go running off at night in the middle of nowhere… or even during the day, for that matter!'
'I was just curious-'
Kaz thrust a finger at the kender. '
Delbin Knotwillow looked down. He seemed tiny and vulnerable at the moment, so chastened that Kaz found himself feeling guilty again.
'I… I don't want to. They all think I'm so serious! All 'my friends stay away from me!'
'What? Why?'
'Because I get bored with them! They're not as much fun as you and Helati are, Kaz! Not in the same way! You always come up with interesting things to do, interesting places to see! I told them all about everything we've done, and they were interested at first, but then they got tired of hearing about minotaurs and wanted to hear about anything else, and Noppel even made fun of you, and I didn't like that, so-'
'Take a breath, Delbin.' The minotaur blinked. 'So this… Noppel… made fun of me, and you got angry because of that?'
A wide smile spread across the kender's childlike features. 'You're my friend, Kaz!'
And obviously a worse influence on you than I could have imagined, the minotaur thought. He felt a slight twinge of shame for making his companion a veritable outcast among his own people. He could not send the kender away… not after learning that Delbin had stuck up for him… well, at least not right away.
'What did you find?' Kaz asked.
Smiling, Delbin reached into his pouch. 'You should see it! I think I know what it is, but… Hey, here's my book! Just what I was looking for!'
It was one of the few times that Kaz could recall having ever seen the fabled book. It was battered and filled with loose sheets of paper that he suspected had been 'borrowed' from everywhere the kender had visited. Somehow the sheets stayed more or less within the battered leather cover. Before Kaz could make out the lettering, though, Delbin put the tiny book back into the pouch and removed something else.
'Here it is!'
The kender's latest acquisition was almost as unnerving as the medallion. Every muscle in the minotaur's body tensed. Suddenly the forest seemed even darker, more filled with danger, than before.
'Isn't this a neat knife? You know, I think this handle is bone, which makes a pretty sturdy handle, I guess, because bones hold our bodies up pretty good, don't they-?'
'Be quiet, Delbin!' the warrior whispered. He seized the knife, turning it over. The handle was made of bone, just as his companion had said. But what Delbin did not know was that the bone had probably come from a thinking creature, possibly a human or even a minotaur.
Ogres did, after all, have preferences.
The knife was in very good condition and hardly rusted at all. 'Did you clean this up?'
'No, I found it just like this-'
Kaz waved him silent and glanced out at the shadowy forest. The knife could have been lost some time ago, depending on the weather, but the very thought that ogres had ventured this far south almost made Kaz want to head back and warn the others. It occurred to him, however, that with the number of minotaurs now living in the settlement, it would take a fairly large force of ogres to attack them. Such a large force could certainly not have remained hidden in this region. Ogres were too clumsy not to leave signs of their passing.
'Show me where you found this.'
The kender did. The place was surprisingly close to the campsite. Delbin had found the knife lying next to a tree. It was proof of just how superior the short creature's night vision was that he could have spotted it. Kaz found no other trace of ogres, but he knew the darkness might be masking some proof. When he rose at first light, he would do a thorough search of the vicinity.
The two of them returned to the fire, Kaz still clutching the blade. First the medallion… his medallion… and now this ogre weapon. There could not possibly be any connection between the two other than Delbin finding both, yet, the weary minotaur could not help but wonder.
Delbin sat, with a hopeful expression, next to the fire. Kaz realized that the kender wanted the knife back. It was a treasure to Delbin. The minotaur started to hand the blade over, then hesitated. He grunted. 'I'll give this back to you on one condition, Delbin.'
'What's that?'
'Don't find anything else for a while, okay?'
The smile widened. 'I'll try real hard, Kaz.'
Snorting, Kaz handed back the knife. He turned his attention to food, his stomach reminding him that it had been a long time since either of them had eaten. The minotaur looked forward to his simple meal. Food had a way of temporarily erasing worries.
Often in the past he had grumbled to himself and others that the gods must surely be out to test him. How else to explain the rocky path Kaz had journeyed over the past several years? In his mind, he had suffered more than his share of trial and tribulation. The short time he had spent in the home he and Helati had built had been the only peaceful period in his life that he could recall. That respite was over now, though. Once more, it seemed as if he had become a pawn of the gods.
Maybe I'm just tired, he thought as he passed a bit of bread to Delbin. Maybe it's just my imagination that the gods are steering me toward some dire adventure.
His arm came to rest against the pouch into which he had placed the medallion Delbin had supposedly been given by the gray man. He yanked the arm away and, ignoring the kender's curious glance, chewed his food as if doing battle with it.
