'Runne's father, Davron, was killed a few years ago in a hunting accident. And Galan… is gone now. Someone must stand in her father's place at the ceremony and, while there are uncles to spare, the little maid has remembered her grandfather's old friend and asked me to fill that place. I want to do that, Tanis.'
Though it was high summer now, the dust of the only street in Seven Wells dancing in the hot breeze like phantoms around his knees, Tanis well remembered how the winter firelight had looked like memories in Flint's eyes when he told that lean little tale. Yet every event of the summer seemed part of a conspiracy to keep Flint from Long Ridge and the wedding.
Hot and too early the summer had come, drying the stream beds and cutting hard into their travel time. Near Gateway one of the few storms of the season sent lightning lancing from the sky to ignite the tinder-dry forest. Two weeks on the fire line there, digging trenches to help defend the town from the burning rage of the forest fire, ate into their travel schedule. A merchant late for their rendezvous at Pine Glen, and another customer who never did meet them at Fawn's Run, left them here in Seven Wells with a two-day journey to Runne's home in Long Ridge which must be reached in one.
Now Tas had vanished.
Caramon would have no part of a search around Seven Wells for Tas. 'Who knows where the little ban dit's got off to now? I'M not spending the cool of the morning looking for him. He knows where we're bound. Let him catch up.'
Raistlin removed himself from the discussion altogether. Sturm, who decided it might be profitable to look while the others argued, returned after a time with the news that Tas was not to be found.
'Right,' Flint snapped. 'Because he probably took off in the middle of the night for who knows what foolish reason.' He lifted his pack with one easy swing and settled it on his back. 'I'm not waiting around for him to remember where he's supposed to be. Caramon's right, he'll catch us up on the road. And if he doesn't — then he doesn't.'
No one was disposed to argue. The road before them would be a long and hot one. Tas had too often romped ahead, lagged behind, or struck out on some kender-quest of his own for anyone to be concerned about him now.
Tanis hefted his own pack and fell in beside Flint. The kender could be as troublesome as a heel-snapping pup, but he was well able to take care of himself. This disappearance, like so many others, would be explained away with some fantastic tale of adventure or discovery. Tas had been looking forward to the celebration at Long Ridge. Likely he would join them there.
Tanis was not concerned.
Keli wasn't walking well. Tethered to Tigo, as the kender was to Staag, he stumbled, fell, and this time did not try to get up. He was too tired, too hot and frightened, and too certain that wherever the kender was leading them would be the place where Tigo would kill them both.
It was the kender, loping back from where he'd been ranging for trail marks and paths, who helped him. Keli pulled away from his hand and staggered to his feet. 'Do you really think they're not going to kill you,too?'
The kender only grinned and shook his head. 'They won't. And they won't kill you either.'
Staag hauled hard on the kender's line. 'Move away, little vermin.'
The kender went where he was pulled, but before he resumed his scouting he looked once over his shoulder and again winked. Trust me, the wink seemed to say.
Keli was in the way of trusting no one, and he certainly wasn't going to trust a kender who would bargain with killers. The boy hunched his shoulders against the heat and his fear and trudged on. He ached for home, he who had been so proud to leave it as his father's courier only a week ago.
Ergon, his father, had been almost casual about charging his son with the message to his old friend Carthas.
'Give him the scroll, son, but remember to give him first my regards and personally tender my regrets that I will not be able to accompany him this year on his horse-buying expedition. I must honor my promise to your mother's sister. Your uncle was a long time ill before he died. Though he tended his business as best he could, your aunt will need my help to untangle the mare's nest he left her. 'Tell all this to Carthas. He will understand.'
Keli had accepted the charge as though entrusted with a message to the High Clerist himself.
The tavern at Seven Wells had been Keli's third stopping place. And, it now seemed, his last. He'd come in late, stabled his horse, and snatched a quick meal. When he tried for a room, he was able to get lodging only in the barn with his horse. A party of horse traders filled the paddocks with their stock and most of the tavern's rooms with themselves.
So tired had Keli been that the straw seemed a princely bed. He'd fallen asleep easily to the stamp and chuff of horses.
And wakened to the nightmare of the goblin and moonlight streaming along Tigo's hook-hand. One of them hit him hard. There had been nothing but pain and darkness, and finally, the woods.
His horse they must have turned out among the stock in the paddocks so that none would wonder in the morning why the young courier had gone and left his mount behind.
And they'd snatched up the kender as well. Keli still didn't understand why, couldn't fasten on a reason. Tigo jerked on the tether again as though calling to heel a wandering dog. Keli tried to pick up his pace.
He could either look at the ground or the kender scouting ahead, and he chose the kender coursing the forest as though leading them through streets of a town he knew well. Bright blue leggings flashing in and out of the underbrush, topknot bouncing, the kender reminded Keli of a blue jay.
Chatters like one, too, Keli thought. The boy didn't mind the kender's chatter very much. Running like the song of the river they'd left behind, it took his mind off what must await him at the journey's end.
That would be death. The kender talked long and often, but he was not the only one who did. In fits and snatches Keli had picked up bits of his captors' guarded conversation.
Staag was pressing for opening ransom negotiations. Tigo had other plans.
'Aye,' Tigo snarled once, 'we'll send a ransom demand. But it's not only ransom that one will be paying out for his son. He owes me, Ergon does. He'll pay the coin, but all he'll find is a body.'
Sweat traced paths in the dust on Keli's face, ran stinging into his eyes. After a moment the kender dropped back, jostled him lightly, and stumbled to cover the move.
'Don't worry,' he whispered. 'This is just like a game of Hide and Go Seek, only I'm sure my friends will find us. Tanis is the best tracker there is. And Raistlin and Sturm and Caramon learned from him. The place I'm going to take us to is a place Flint showed me a couple of years ago. Once they get on our trail, Flint will know right off where I'm heading. Probably.'
Hide and Go Seek? Keli turned away in disgust. 'This is not a game, kender. I told you, those two are going to kill me.'
As before, the kender grinned and shook his head. 'Those two? Flint alone could handle three or four of that sort. Or five, or six, depending on the circumstances…'
Tigo booted the kender up ahead again, and Keli was left with something to consider.
His friends, the kender had said. Keli squinted hard at the kender's back. He did look familiar. Had he been at the tavern last night? Aye, and, despite what Staag had said about kender not traveling in company, this one had been with a red-haired hunter who had an elven look about him, three young men, and a dwarf. He remembered them because one of the young men, thin and pale-eyed, no warrior like his two companions, had threatened to turn the kender into a mouse and fill the tavern with cats if he so much as looked at his pouches again. A mage, by the sound of that threat. Keli had thought at the time that the others probably traveled with the mage just to keep the kender in line.
Could it be that these companions would be looking for the kender? I'm making sure that my friends find me… How? Keli drew a breath, and hope with it.
But the hope was small and too slim to flare. Hide and Go Seek, the boy thought, is played with friends in the streets and alleyways of the town you live in. Not with goblins and thieves in the forest.
The bride was a summer princess, her hair golden wheat, her eyes blue-touched with dawn's mist. Roses blossomed in her cheeks. Her laughter rose and dipped the way a bird's song will.
So she seemed to Tanis. She must have seemed that way to Flint, too, for he gifted Kavan, the miller's son, with her hand as though presenting the boy with jewels. How Karan felt was clear for all to see; all the jewels of Krynn would be but poor stones and rubble when compared with this girl.
