The dwarf bade farewell to the small group gathered by the bridge: his friend the Speaker and the hooded mage, who restrained Laurana from exploring the ravine's edge. Lord Xenoth was conspicuously absent, as were Porthios and his friends. After many promises to return, Flint followed his guide and clomped across the bridge, though not without booming an oath or two that echoed off the cold stone.
With a smile and a sigh, Tanis gathered his gray cloak more tightly around him and turned to walk back to the city.
Chapter 7
Flint loathed horses-claimed to be allergic to them-and wouldn't ride one to save his life-well, maybe then. At any rate, he patted the neck of his gray mule, Fleet-foot, and surveyed the silvery aspens and broad oaks of Qualinesti with fond regard.
After twenty years of coming and going between Solace and the Tower of the Sun, he was almost familiar with the trail to Qualinost-a claim even few elves could make beyond the specially trained guides the Speaker of the Sun hired to escort visitors there and back. Of course, he occasionally took a wrong turn or two, but the hill dwarf who couldn't find his way by forest signs was a poor excuse for a dwarf, he thought.
Truth to tell, however, he wasn't quite sure where he was at the moment. He sat back on Fleetfoot, noting the rich earthen scent of the forest. A squirrel chattered at him from a bur oak and flung a clump of green leaves down upon him. The dwarf reached with broad fingers, deftly caught the bunch, and tossed it back into the air at the creature. 'Save it for your nest!' he cried. 'For if I'm not mistaken, you have family duties on your mind these days.' Another squirrel appeared on a nearby branch, and the first creature, tossing one last insult at the mounted dwarf, darted off after it.
Flint drew in a large breath. It was spring, and time to return to Qualinost. It had been a hard journey back to Solace, that autumn after his first stay in the elven city. The snow had begun to fly just as he'd reached the fringes of the grove of vallenwoods, the great trees that housed the village of Solace in their branches. His elven guide had quickly disappeared back down the road, and Flint had been left alone to trudge through the snow to his little house on the ground. He found his home cold and empty, save for a single mouse cowering in the corner.
It had been a lonely winter, twenty years ago, despite the warmth of the hearth and the companionship at the Inn of the Last Home; the following spring, he had found his thoughts turning toward the forests to the south, and Qualinost, wondering how Tanis was.
Not a week later, Flint had encountered a stranger in the Inn who turned out to be none other than a Qualinesti elf bearing a message from the Speaker: Flint was welcome to return, should he wish it. And he did. His next stay in Qualinost lasted more than a year before he grew lonely for human folk again. Eventually, with some variation, he'd worked into the pattern of visits that he found himself in now, living in Qualinost from the earliest spring to the latest autumn. Lately, he'd begun to wonder why he returned to his joyless little home in Solace at all.
The Speaker of the Sun had given up bothering to send for the dwarf each spring, knowing that Flint's love of the city would draw him back south, until one spring morning would find the dwarf clattering across the bridge west of Qualinost. Flint, queasy about heights, never crossed the structure without paragraphs of oaths that would make a Caergoth longshoreman's skin blister.
His entrance never ceased to amuse the elves.
Now, though, he still had several hours' ride ahead of him. He prodded the laden Fleetfoot in the flanks with his booted heels, hoping that for once she would pick up the pace without protest.
Naturally, she balked.
Han-Telio Teften had had a good trading expedition. He whistled tunelessly and, not for the first time, blessed the Speaker of the Sun, whose relaxed attitudes toward relations with nonelves had made it easier in recent years to make a living by trade.
The young elf's brown eyes glowed as, for the fiftieth time this trip, he slipped a slender hand into his canvas saddlebags, each time unwittingly tightening the knot in the thong that held the bag nearly shut. As he and his horse entered a widening of the trail, a small clearing, he drew out a small leather sack and shook the contents into his palm. Three white opals shone translucent against his weathered, tanned hand.
'Beautiful,' he breathed. 'And the key to my future.'
A rustle off to his left brought his head up, a wary look on his face. Brigands had been virtually unknown on the inland trails of Qualinesti for years, but recent months had brought reports of lost travelers. After minutes without incident, however, Han-Telio returned to admiring the opals and fell to listing the wonderful things they would buy.
'A home, that's first,' he mused. 'And furnishings, of course. And a plot of land for my Ginevra to grow fragrant herbs on.'
Then, of course, there was Ginevra herself, the sloe-eyed elf who had promised to marry him once he could handle his part of the wedding expenses. Her practical-minded vow had spurred him to spend months on the road, trading fine elven jewelry, silken cloth, quartz sculptings, and, of course, her popular herbal remedies. And now he had finally earned enough to meet his half of the arrangement.
He didn't see the creature right away. It was the smell that first caught his notice-a sweet smell of rotting garbage. The odor, and the sudden shiver of his horse, caught his attention.
Han-Telio looked up and felt his limbs go leaden. Waiting in the trail not twenty paces ahead stood a huge lizardlike creature. Its hide was dun-colored, the same hue as the worn dirt path behind it. Horns about the length of the elf's arm tilted back from the lizard's horny brow. It sported five toes with six-inch claws on both front feet. Its mouth was slightly open; each exhalation sent another cloud of fetid breath swirling toward the elven trader. The creature, resembling a wingless dragon, had a horned body as long as four elves, with a thin, whiplike tail only slightly shorter.
'A tylor!' the trader said. The beasts were rare even in the arid regions they preferred. None had ever inhabited the forests of Qualinesti. And even though the trader had ranged far from the elven homeland in his travels, he'd never seen a tylor.
But he knew they were strong, capable of great magic if brute force didn't succeed,… and deadly.
Beneath him, Han-Telio's horse stood stock-still in fright, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, forelegs locked. Han- Telio sawed at the reins, but the animal was heedless of his commands and kicks. The woods lay silent of all sounds except the creaking of the oak branches overhead.
'Your steed will not move, elf.'
Han-Telio looked around wildly, hoping that a rescuer- preferably one armed more heavily than an elven trader-stood ready to pitch into battle with him. The voice had been deep but raspy, as though air flowed over scales of sandstone. Over scales… Han-Telio felt another flood of fear pitch through him. He looked at the lizard.
'That's right, elf. I speak.'
The tylor spoke Common.
The sounds spurred Han-Telio into quavery action; he slipped the opals into a pocket of his split tunic, and, hands shaking as the creature advanced two paces, its dangerous, sharp-edged tail twitching, the elven trader attempted to draw his canvas saddlebags open wider, to draw forth the short sword that he kept there.
But the knot in the thong that bound the saddlebags resisted his efforts, tangled hopelessly. The tylor moved another step forward; the smell grew stronger. Han-Telio recognized the odor.
It was the stench of rotting meat.
