'Bandits. Attacked wagons. We fought — ' The big man coughed. 'Too many.'
Sturm examined the fighter's wounds. He didn't have to be a healer to know the warrior was doomed, and because the man was a warrior, Sturm told him so.
'Thank you,' he said. Sturm asked if he could do any thing to make the man more comfortable. 'No, but Pala dine bless you for your mercy.'
Something rustled behind the pine. Sturm reached for his sword, then saw the broad brown muzzle of a horse poke through the branches. The dying warrior called the animal by name. 'Brumbar,' he said. 'Good fellow.' The horse pushed through the scrub. He was an enormous animal, as black as coal. Brumbar dropped his nose to nuzzle his mas ter's face.
'I see that you are a man of arms,' rasped the warrior to
Sturm. 'I beg you, take Brumbar as your mount when I am dead.'
'I will,' Sturm said gently. 'Is there anyone in Garnet I can tell about your fated?'
The man slowly closed his eyes. 'No one. But do not go to
Garnet, if you value your life.' His chin fell to his chest.
'But why?' Sturm asked. 'Why shouldn't I go to the city?'
'Loosen my breastplate…'
Sturm undid the sraps and pulled the steel cuirass aside.
Beneath the armor, the man wore a quilted shirt. Embroi dered over his heart was a small red rose. Sturm stared. The dying man was a knight of the Order's highest rank, the
Order of the Rose! Only Solamnic Knights of noble lineage could enter that exalted brotherhood.
'The forces that destroyed the knights control Garnet,' the man said. His breath came in ragged gasps. 'I know you are one of us. It would not be safe for you there… assassins… '
'Who are you? What is your name?' Sturm asked franti cally, but the Knight of the Rose would never again speak.
Sturm gave the brave fighter an honorable burial. It was well after sundown when he finished. He collected Brumbar and went through the saddlebags thrown across the horse's rump. There were dried rations in one bag, and in the other, surprisingly, were hundreds of coins, all of them small cop per pieces. Sturm understood. The dead knight was living incognito because of the widespread hatred of the Order.
He'd adopted the guise of a guard for hire, and took his wages in copper. No one would ever expect a Knight of the
Rose to live so humbly.
Sturm left the Garnet road. He chose another trail through the highlands, one not frequented by traders, or (he hoped) bandits. Garnet he passed in the night. He saw the glow of its street lamps in the distance. Reining in Brumbar, he listened. Wind whirled around the mountain passes. A wolf gave voice, far away.
Chapter 36
His new horse was a steady plodding beast. Brum- bar, in Old Dwarvish, meant 'Black Bear.' Black he was, and bearishly stolid. Sturm didn't mind. The kind of traveling he was doing now was better suited to a steady animal, rath er than some excitable, fragile charger. Brumbar had a back so broad that Sturm imagined he could put his feet up on the animal's nodding neck and take a nap. Festooned with
Sturm's pack and other belongings, Brumbar kept a jingling pace all day long.
The Lemish forest thinned out to a few spindly pines, growing weakly amid the grassy undergrowth. It was hot on the plain, and very dry. Sturm began to ration his water when the streams and springs started getting fewer and far ther between.
Being off the road, he saw few people. This southernmost finger of the Solamnic Plain, thrust between the Garnet
Mountains and the Lemish forest, was too dry for cattle and farming. There were no robbers here, either; there was nothing to steal.
Alone, Sturm took time to reflect on things. Since he and
Kitiara had left Solace so many weeks ago, he'd come to realize that there was danger on the horizon everywhere.
The strange lizardlike mercenaries he had heard called dra conians had been seen in port cities. Caches of weapons being moved about. Large numbers of brigands infesting the roads of the northern countries. Dark magic at work. Gob lins led by a human magician. What was the common thread in all this? he wondered.
War. Invasion. Evil magic.
Sturm gave Brumbar a kick, and the big horse shuffled into a trot. A welter of vague impressions and shrouded memories surfaced in his mind. The visions he'd had on
Lunitari were lost to him in detail, but shadows of them remained, dimly. The strongest of these was that his father was alive somewhere. There was something about the old castle, too, and death that was somehow linked to lingering impressions of Kitiara's.
Oh, Kit. Where are you now?
The day's shimmering heat built towers of black clouds in the sky. Lightning danced far away, and peals of thunder crossed the grassland long after the flashes of lightning were gone. The smell of rain pulled Brumbar toward the storm, and Sturm let him go. He was thirsty, too.
The storm seemed to retreat from them even as they rode to meet it. Brumbar splashed through gullies running fast with rainwater, The air was wet, oppressive, yet the edge of the rain receded from Sturm's approach. The lightning played about a stand of pines to the east. Sturm reined away from the dangerous display, but Brumbar had other ideas.
Puffing hard through his dry throat, the horse headed straight for the trees.
Light, steamy drops of rain began to hit them. Brumbar cantered heavily through the widely spaced trees. The rain fell harder. Ahead, Sturm saw a dark shape flit between the pines. He blotted water from his eyes and looked again.
A rider in a flowing cape was weaving among the trees.
Now and then, the pale oval of a face turned back, as if the rider were peering over his shoulder at Sturm. He seemed to have a long mustache much like Sturm's own.
Brumbar slowed by a shallow pool of water, but Sturm spurred him on; he was curious about the other rider and wanted to catch up to him.
'Hello!' called Sturm. 'Could I talk to you?'
A bolt from the churning sky struck the ground a score of yards away, leaving a smoking crater in the grass. The rider didn't respond to Sturm's call, but continued to weave around the pines. Sturm slapped the reins across his horse's neck, and Brumbar launched into a jarring gallop. They were closing on the stranger.
The rider's dark hair was slicked down by the driving rain. He did indeed have a long mustache, symbol of the
Knights of Solamnia.
The stranger's horse was light and agile, but it must have been running hard too long. Brumbar closed rapidly. Only the passing of a tree between them kept Sturm from reach ing out to grab the other man's lashing cape.
'Wait!' Sturm shouted. 'Stop, I want to talk to you!'
The stranger's horse went hard to the left, circling around
Sturm. The man drew up and stopped thirty yards away.
Brumbar shuddered to a halt. The wind was up and blowing rain into Sturm's face, so he turned his horse around. The stranger was waiting for him.
'I didn't mean to chase you,' Sturm called out, 'but — '
He never heard the stroke of lightning that hit the ground between him and the stranger. Nor did he feel it. In
