“So we have come to this land in search of breath and space. It’s a good land. We’ll stay.” Smiling, the kender chief qualified his last statement by saying, “With the help of our friend the famous general.”
“Is that story true?” demanded Lofotan.
Serius Bagfull grinned. “How could it be?”
With that, Treskan snapped his stylus in two. He stared helplessly at the broken instrument. How would he write his chronicle?
“Hey, boss.”
Rufe appeared like a mirage beside him. Treskan lost his composure. After frantically recording the entire fantastic story related by the Longwalker, only to hear it pronounced untrue, he had broken his last writing instrument. He cursed loudly, but less elegantly than the departed Artyrith.
“Easy, boss.”
“What are you playing at?”
“Found your whatsit,” Rufe said.
“Wonderful! Where is it?”
“Not here. In the nomad camp where I saw it.”
Anger rose and fell on the scribe’s face like a fever. He resisted an urge to take Rufe by the throat and shake him. “How do I get it back?” he asked slowly.
“Come with me. I’ll get it for you. You come too,” he said to Mathi.
“Me?” said Mathi. “You don’t need me. It’s not my trinket.”
“He’s clumsy and blind in the dark. You see like a cat. You come, or I don’t go,” Rufe said flatly.
Mathi looked to Balif, seated comfortably between the Longwalker and Lofotan. To be polite, it was Balif’s turn to tell a story, so he had launched into the tale of Karada, the woman who led the nomads out of fear and obscurity to their current state of power. The general was a fine storyteller. No one would willingly leave that spot for some time.
Treskan sadly pocketed the pieces of his writing instrument. He begged Mathi to accompany them.
It was a fool’s errand and a good way to get killed. Still, she had made a pact with Treskan, and he had kept his part faithfully. Perhaps she could leave word for her brethren along the way. They had to know about Balif’s unfolding curse.
“Lead on,” she told Rufe.
Treskan embraced her, and he was dissuaded from kissing her only by threat of violence.
CHAPTER 14
Together Mathi and Treskan got their horses from the picket. Mathi prepared to saddle hers, but Rufe insisted they not take the time. A rough blanket and a rawhide halter would do, he said. The kender sat in front of her, and together the trio trotted off into the twilight. On the way Rufe explained his plan to get the talisman back. Upon hearing it Mathi hauled back on the reins and stopped.
“That’s the maddest thing I ever heard!”
“Oh, I’ve heard plenty of madder things,” Rufe replied cheerfully. “Trust me, boss. I know how this goes. Do it my way and all will be well.” Treskan was speechless with astonishment.
I must be mad to even contemplate this, Mathi thought. Putting my fate in the hands of this kender, this criminal gang of one … when that phrase came to mind, she brightened. Rufe
They rode many miles under cloud-swept skies, galloping then walking, galloping then walking. After three repetitions of that pattern, Rufe grabbed the reins from Mathi.
“Now we walk, quiet as can be,” he whispered.
They had left the woods long before, dashing across the windy, open grassland northeast of the forest. It was a high, flat plateau, higher than the Tanjan valley or the old forest. The glow of many campfires dotted the horizon. Rufe, Treskan, and Mathi got down and started for the distant nomad camp, leading their ponies by their halters.
Though he had called for quiet, Rufe chattered on about humans and elves, ways to confound either, and what worked with one group but not the other. Humans, he said, were always fooled by boldness. If they thought it was impossible to walk out of a gate unseen, then the way to confound them was to walk out that very gate. He had walked in and out of the nomad camp unmolested simply by skipping along and singing off key. The nomads who saw him took him for a human child and did not bother him.
Elves, on the other hand, readily succumbed to subtlety. With their greater senses, they believed they could not be surprised by stealth, so Rufe always resorted to stealth to deceive elves. At Free Winds Rufe came and went from the fortress at will by clinging to the backs of the guards, often hidden under their cloaks. By such simple methods, he reduced Dolanath to hysteria and had his run of the place.
Mathi listened with half an ear. The rest of her was alive to her surroundings. She was no scout trained to creep up on hostile camps, so she relied on her native skills long buried beneath a shell of elflike flesh. The shell was slowly eroding, and the night took on new dimensions as she walked. Sounds and smells were stronger than ever. Subtle changes in cloud colors meant things to her she had forgotten. Every step, every breath, every beat of her heart held meaning. Mathi had lost those sensations, but they were creeping back. She wondered if they would bring her to life or reduce her to madness.
Listening to the kender’s lecture, Treskan asked, “Have you always been a thief?”
“Thief?” Rufe stopped dead. “I beg your pardon! I’m no thief, no sir, not me!”
“Shh, please! Lower your voice!”
“I won’t be called a thief by anyone!” said Rufe shrilly.
“All right! I apologize! Now lower your voice before the nomads hear us!”
Rufe stamped his small foot. “Thieves take things for their own gain. They make their living stealing the property of others. I’ve never done that, no sir, not ever! Anyone who says I have done so had better be prepared to deal with Rufus Reindeer Racket Wrinklecap!”
“You do know an awful lot about how to deceive gullible people,” Mathi said, trying to divert the little man’s ire.
“That’s different,” he returned proudly. “A lone traveler like me wouldn’t last a week in the wide world unless I took advantage of the quirks of my fellow creatures.”
They went on, Treskan chewing his lip, Mathi absorbing the expanded world around her, and Rufe fuming about the scribe’s infuriating slander. When they were close enough to make out individual tents in the nomad camp, they halted again. It was time to enact Rufe’s plan.
Mathi and the scribe dragged the blankets off their ponies. He pulled two corners of his over his shoulders like an oversized cloak and tied the corners to his sash. Leaning forward, he braced his hands on his knees. Rufe explained where he intended to go. Mathi promised to cut his throat if he tried to do that to her. Shrugging, Rufe wormed his way under Treskan’s tunic instead. He braced his feet against the edges of the blanket and held his face averted so his nose didn’t protrude from the scribe’s clothing. With the laces of the scribe’s tunic drawn tight, only the top of the kender’s head showed. In poor light it could be taken for part of a fur vest, a garment much favored by the nomads.
Treskan straightened up, but staggered under the kender’s weight. “This will never work,” he grunted.
“It will if you make it work,” said the kender’s muffled voice.
Mathi stuffed tufts of grass inside his clothing to round out his profile. With Rufe inside, he looked rotund indeed. He wrapped a scarf around his head to hide his elf ears. Mathi tied the horse blanket around her shoulders too, making a sort of turban to cover her fine hair and ears. At Rufe’s muffled urging, she used a charred stick salvaged from the campfire to blacken hers and Treskan’s faces. Nomad warriors were famously dirty, so there was no point trying to pose as them if their faces were too clean.
