behind. Eyes blurring, the lad thought of Mirabeth, horrified at the prospect of her captivity among the merciless bandits. Strangely, that fear seemed much more real and more terrifying than the prospect of his own imminent death. He fought back another sob, his grief rising from the fact that he was so utterly unable to come to Mirabeth's aid.
When he attempted to leap over a rock that blocked the ravine bottom, Danyal's strength and agility came up a fraction of an inch short. His foot caught at the top of the boulder, and he tumbled headlong, landing heavily on a patch of sand. He rolled hard into the steep wall of the gully and looked up to see Zack's villainous face leering down at him.
'Well, laddie-looks like I get to wet my blade again after all!'
Danyal clawed to either side, trying to find a rock or a stick, anything he could use as a weapon. But his hands couldn't do more than scratch at the smooth, hard-packed sand.
Zack threw back his head and laughed-the last sound he ever made. A heavy piece of granite, jagged with a multitude of sharp edges, plummeted from above, striking the knife-wielding bandit in the middle of the forehead. Zack's head snapped back like a cracking whip, and he toppled like a stone statue. Danyal vaguely heard the thump as the man's head smashed onto the rocky ground.
Only then did he look up, squinting against the sky to see Foryth Teel leaning over the lip of the ravine. The historian dusted off his hands and shook his head in agitation, clearly distressed.
'Did you throw that?' Danyal asked, looking once more at the piece of granite that had smashed Zack's skull.
'I'm afraid-tsk, that is, yes, I did,' Foryth admitted sadly. He sighed, as if he had just committed a grave act of injustice. 'I just don't seem to be able to keep from getting myself involved. Er, is he dead?'
Danyal stepped over to Zack's still form, hesitantly taking a moment to look closely at the expressionless face, the blank and sightless eyes. Finally he nudged the bandit's knee with his toe, drawing no response.
'Yes, he is.' He was about to turn away when he saw the big knife, the keen edge shining like quicksilver in the sunlight. The weapon lay in the stones where Zack had dropped it, and Danyal impulsively reached down and picked it up. The hilt was smooth and comfortable in his hand, and the blade was well balanced and clearly lethal.
At the thought of killing, an urgent thought grabbed him. 'What about Mirabeth?' he shouted. 'We've got to help her!'
'I'll meet you up ahead!' Foryth called back.
Danyal was already racing back along the ravine floor. When he reached the spot where the kendermaid had ascended, he stuffed the knife into his belt and climbed as quickly as he could, drawing himself onto the rim of the precipice as Foryth came huffing up to him.
'They went that way,' the historian said, pointing into the woods.
Danyal was about to start along the trail when he caught sight of something unnatural on the forest floor.
It was a wedge of tan wax, and when he picked it up he clearly saw the resemblance.
'It's the tip of a false ear-a pointed ear!' he exclaimed, his mind churning.
'Do you think-that is, could Mirabeth have lost it?' Foryth asked.
'Yes!' Picturing the kendermaid with the twin to knots, the pointed ears, and the webbing of age lines around her mouth and eyes, Danyal's mind whirled with questions. 'Why would she wear something like this-a fake tip for her ear?'
The answer was obvious in his own mind, but just in case any doubt remained, Emilo Haversack came into view, trotting from the direction of their cave. He saw the ear, looked into the questioning faces of Foryth and Danyal, and nodded in understanding.
'I remember now,' the kender confirmed. 'Mirabeth is really a human.'
CHAPTER 31
First Bakukal, Reapember
374 AC
'She
'Yes-or, rather, a young lady, actually.' Emilo's brow was furrowed, and the lad wondered if his companion was trying to recollect other details. But then he realized that the kender's expression was related to his news.
'Her story's like yours, in a way,' Emilo told Dan. 'She's the only survivor of a catastrophe, a murderous attack that killed everyone in her family, including their servants and guests. Mirabeth was lucky to escape with her life, and she only did so by donning a disguise.'
'As a kender? But why?'
'Ahem.' Foryth Teel cleared his throat with dignity. 'I'm never one to ignore the details of a story, but I wonder if perhaps our discussion should wait for another time. If our attentions now might not be better directed toward pursuit?'
'You're right.' Danyal was nearly overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness, but the tautness in his limbs and the palpitating of his heart were caused by another emotion as well: He felt a burning fury, a rage that he knew could drive him to savagery and violence. When he thought of the way Kelryn Darewind went about calmly, arrogantly, destroying the lives of so many people, he wanted only to kill.
His hatred for the bandit lord roared into an angry flame. The man seemed to represent everything frightening, terrible, and unfair in the world. He was a deadly foe, but unlike the dragon Flayze, he was not invulnerable.
And he had Mirabeth.
'Which way did he take her?' Foryth asked. 'I saw him here at the edge of the ravine with Zack, but then I chased after you, Dan. I'm afraid I lost sight of him.'
'We saw his men down by the stream. I'm sure he'll take her there.' Danyal started along the most direct route to the clearing, plunging between the trees, holding his arms before his face to brush the branches aside. He heard Foryth and Emilo charging behind him and, in a surprisingly short time, saw the open sunlight of the meadow expanding before them.
Instinctively the lad halted and crouched. Joined by his two companions, he squirmed forward to get a look without revealing himself to view.
A shout sounded from the far side of the clearing, and they saw Kelryn Darewind holing the still-squirming figure of Mirabeth in one hand. With the other, he waved, and one by one his men came into view, scrambling up the bank of the low streambed to rejoin their captain at the edge of the woods.
'I count seven of them,' Foryth Teel remarked softly. 'Plus the young lady, of course.'
And then they were gone, vanishing into the woods at a jogging trot that, Danyal knew, he and his companions would be hard pressed to match for any length of time.
But they had to try. He rose to his feet, ready to dash across the meadow and chase the kidnappers through the woods, when he felt a restraining hand on his arm- one on each arm, actually.
'Wait!' Emilo hissed.
'Indeed. Wouldn't you think they've set someone to watch their trail?' Foryth asked, with what seemed like maddeningly casual curiosity to Danyal.
'Why?' snapped the lad. 'He's got what he wants. He'll just-'
'Precisely my question,' the historian continued. 'What does he want? If we knew that, we'd know what he plans to do about us, among other things.'
'Such as whether or not he wants to lure us into an ambush,' Emilo added.
