Dayn had his hands wrapped around his shins, his head on his knees. He looked at Kresean. “Now what?”
“Merely the end of phase one, lad.”
Dayn growled to himself.
“Come help me with this.” Kresean moved over to a boulder that sat near the cliff. He began pushing it toward the edge. With a sigh, Dayn went to help him.
Straining and grunting, the two of them pushed the boulder over the edge. The huge rock missed the lizard, but it started a mini landslide. Dozens of stones rained down on the beast, bouncing off its back and legs. The poor creature, lacking the strength to crawl away, was clobbered.
Dayn look at Kresean expectantly, but the warrior shook his head.
“Just a few more,” he said, and headed for another stone.
With a series of three more minor landslides, they managed to completely bury the hapless creature. Kresean climbed down a more gradual part of the cliff and made his approach. Dayn watched as the warrior walked gingerly on top of the pile of rocks and stuck his sword into it. After a few tries, he hit something. He smiled and pushed harder. Kresean stabbed the spot repeatedly until the dirt flowed red. He raised his sword triumphantly and winked at Dayn.
“How’s that for a tidy bit of dragon slaying?”
Dayn said nothing.
“Come on, lad. Help me dig this up, and we’ll get the head.”
“That certainly was a harrowing experience, wasn’t it, lad?” Kresean winked, patting the dusty, battered lizard’s head that rested on the rump of his horse. The left half of the head had been caved in by the landslides.
Dayn said nothing.
“So, have you given any thought to how you’re going to compose our epic ballad?” Kresean asked. “I’ve got some titles I’ve been playing around with, if you want to hear. I was thinking maybe Kresean and the Cave of Doom. Or maybe Flashing Swords and Dragon’s Teeth. How about-”
“How about Cowardly Kresean and the Poisoned Piglet!” Dayn yelled at the warrior. “How about He Won by a Landslide1. You’re a fraud! You lied to me!”
“I never lied to you,” Kresean said, holding up his hand. “You’re a bard. You have an active imagination. That’s good. That’s fine. That’s what you’re supposed to have. That’s what will make the ballad something to cheer for. I came here to help these villagers, and I have. They were afraid of that dragon. The dragon’s dead now. We did what they asked us to do.”
“Stop calling it a dragon. It’s not a real dragon! You told me we were going to fight a dragon!”
“You can make it as big as you want in your ballad, the bigger, the better. Don’t go diminishing people’s fears. They’ll hate you for it. I thought you wanted to bring light into people’s lives. You don’t make people feel better by calling them cowards.”
“I bet you weren’t even in the Chaos War,” Dayn said.
“Yes, I was!”
Kresean whirled his horse around and grabbed Dayn by the shirtfront.
“Don’t you judge me! You have no idea what it was like. No idea what we went through! You would have run, too. Do you know what it’s like to hold your best friend in your arms as the life seeps out of him? Have you ever seen a dozen of your comrades cut down all at once? Blood flying through the air? No! You’ve never even handled a sword! Don’t propose to tell me how to be a hero!”
Dayn was shocked. He’d never seen this side of the man before. He looked at his horse’s mane. “You’re right. I haven’t seen those things.”
“We each have our specialty, Dayn,” Kresean said, gentle again. “Yours is singing. Use it for something good. People need something to believe in.”
“But-”
“After all, their dragon is dead-”
Dayn shot him a sharp look.
Kresean chuckled. “Okay, I mean the big lizard is dead. I’m just asking you to embellish the deed a little, for their sake and ours. Let them think they were saved by a hero. It’s better that way for everybody.”
Dayn frowned, and said nothing else on the ride back. He thought about what Kresean said. He had to admit that the warrior had a point. Songwriting was about embellishing. It was about delivering the most magical moments from real life to those who had very little magic in their own lives. Perhaps real life never matched up to the tales of bravery found in songs and stories.
As his voice slowly lowered on the last word of his new ballad, Dayn looked around at the villagers of Feergu. They were packed into every possible space in Chandael’s tavern, and each person’s face glowed. Dayn had sung his song masterfully, with just enough detail to make it realistic. There wasn’t a dry eye in the entire tavern. After Dayn stopped, there was a long, reverent pause. Applause exploded in the room. The entire floor shook with stomping feet. A few people got up, hooked arms and began dancing in circles. More beer was called for.
Kresean rose from where he sat and came over to Dayn. “How do you feel, my lad?”
Dayn was surprised to hear himself say, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
Kresean tossed a bag of coins on the table in front of Dayn. “Fifty-fifty.”
“A little reward never hurts,” Dayn grinned, pocketing the coins.
The big man clapped him on the shoulder.
“I say we keep this up. Take it on the road, town to town. Your voice, my looks. There’s no telling where it will end. We could milk this partnership until we’re swimming in cream, until I’m a councilman in Palanthas and you’re singing for a king. Until-”
“Until a real dragon comes along?” Dayn offered.
“What?” Kresean raised an eyebrow warily, then realized Dayne was kidding. Kresean bellowed with laughter, and the young bard joined in. The celebrating villagers surrounded them with cheers, and they laughed until the tears ran down their faces.
Gnomebody
Jeff Grubb
“This is a gnome story, right?” asked Augie, staring over the rim of his tankard. There was derision in both his glare and his voice-they had traded a number of tales that evening, each more implausible than the last.
“Not exactly,” replied Brack, the older and more slender of the two sellswords.
The pair had met by chance in the tavern. They were veterans of separate units from the same side in the War of the Lance, now reduced to mere mercenary work in these years of chaos. As a youth, Augie had served in the personal guard of Verminaard himself, and Brack had been a lieutenant in the Green Dragonarmy. Now older, and presumably wiser, they chose their battles and their employers more carefully.
After a few moments of sizing each other up and determining that they had both fought for the same masters at one time, they slid into an easy conversation. They spoke of what regions would need their services, which wars and rumors of war would pan out, and the chaos they’d seen brought on the backs of the great dragons. The gnome wait staff brought the drinks quickly, and the dwarf at the bar kept a running tab.
Of course, over time, the conversation drifted to how the world in general had gone into the midden and that nothing was as good as it once was. This line of discussion quickly gave way (after a few more tankards) to stories of how things were in the old days.
Which of course brought Brack to mention of his last battle in the Green Dragonarmy, a disaster brought about in the pursuit of one man-or, to be more specific, one gnome and that gnome’s invention.
Which brought Augie’s question and Brack’s answer and Augie’s reply, “Whadayah mean, not exactly?”
