Tanis nodded absentmindedly. He leaned over, picked up a piece of driftwood, and regarded it thoughtfully.
Until now, each man had instinctively shied away from the real thing weighing on their minds. But shivering in the needle-sharp wind that angled north off the bay, Caven broached the subject.
"Do you think she really is?"
"Is what?" Tanis asked. He looked up from the piece of driftwood to Caven, who didn't meet his eyes. The half-elf tossed the branch behind him.
"With child, half-elf. Like the owl said."
Tanis considered. "I think so, yes," he said at last, as though he hadn't been thinking about the same thing incessantly ever since Xanthar had made the revelation.
They sat in silence for a while. Caven finally shrugged. "I can't see Kitiara getting married," the mercenary said. "Or basking in motherhood. Especially that."
Tanis ran his hand through his hair. "No," he said. He frowned and turned his back on the bay, facing north. The valley they'd just traversed sloped before him. The wind howled and pushed against his back.
"Maybe it was some other . . ."
All of a sudden, Tanis froze, holding up a hand in warning. Caven stopped in midsentence. The Kernan rose and drew his sword. Tanis unfastened his bow from his pack and checked his sword.
"What is it?" Caven whispered.
Tanis shook his head.
"Battle drums?" Caven ventured. "I've heard the dwarves of Thorbardin bang the hollow trunks of symphonia trees to scare their enemies, and Thorbardin is up that way. But I've never heard . . ." He paused to listen. "An attack from the north? It makes no sense. We've been all the way through the dust plains. I saw nothing to threaten us except miles of shifting sand."
Tanis strained his eyes, trying to see as far back as he could into the direction from where they had come. Except for a dark line in the sky, which looked like a low bank of storm clouds, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Tanis pointed. "If you told me the Valdane knows we are carrying these magic jewels, I'd say that maybe we've become a target."
They looked at each other then. Hazel eyes met black. "He might have ways of knowing," Caven replied.
Seconds later, they were hiding among the trunks of the nearest trees. The pair bent some branches to improve their cover, then crouched, armed, behind their makeshift bulwark.
The drumming grew louder. The pounding racked Tanis's nerves. It sounded like battle drums, but slower—more like the beat that resounded when a prisoner marched to the gallows. Now Tanis thought he could hear smaller beats, sounding counterpoint to the loudest reverberations. Perhaps it wasn't one large creature at all, but many smaller ones. He said as much to Caven.
"In the name of Takhisis, could it be dragons?" the Kernan whispered.
"Dragons haven't been glimpsed on Krynn for thousands of years. If ever."
Caven and Tanis waited, motionless, as the black line drew closer, widened, and deepened. Then, with a roar of wings, they were there. Cream-colored underfeathers flashed as more than three hundred giant owls settled onto the rocks and trees of the shoreline. At the fore, dropping clumsily onto a needlelike protuberance of rock, was Xanthar. In a flash, Tanis and Caven were out of the trees and dashing toward him.
Tanis shouted the owl's name, expecting to hear the creature's sardonic tones buzz in his head. But there was no telepathic reply. Tanis looked alarmed, Caven surprised. They slowed to a halt before the giant owl.
"What's wrong with the old canary?" Caven muttered.
Tanis looked up into the bird's flat eyes, the color of mud, dimmed with pain. The bird's beak was partially open. He seemed to be panting. Up close, the half-elf barely recognized the once-sleek creature. The bird's proud carriage couldn't disguise that Xanthar had withered to little more than bones and feathers.
"He can't speak to us," Tanis told Caven. "He's been out of Darken Wood too long. The lady mage warned him." The bird nodded. "But he can understand whatever we say." Xanthar nodded again.
"What about the other birds?" Caven demanded. "Can we communicate with them?"
Tanis turned toward the chattering mass of giant owls, which stretched for some distance in both directions on the shore. Xanthar was shaking his head. "From what Kai-lid said, I'm guessing that only Xanthar had the rare ability to mind-speak outside his race," the half-elf said. Xanthar dipped his head again.
"Could he still speak to the mage?"
Xanthar cocked his head, and Tanis shrugged. "Maybe. He trained her. They have a special bond. But it doesn't matter, does it? She's not here."
Four somewhat smaller owls gathered around Xanthar. They appeared to be arguing with the old bird. Perched at the apexes of four dead oaks, the quartet broadcast their agitation with chittering, wing-flapping, and much whetting of beaks. Xanthar sat, apparently unmoved, at the tip of the stone, imperiously overlooking them all. The smaller birds chittered again; Xanthar dipped his beak in what Tanis interpreted as disagreement. The others cross-stepped back and forth on their branches, squawking some more. Xanthar appeared to consider, then dipped his beak again. The four other owls seemed to think a decision had been made. They leaped into the air with a rush of wind.
Xanthar didn't follow. Instead, he straightened and called out to them, a screeching that rivaled the tempest of wind, ocean, and crackling ice floes.
Several owls took to the air and circled overhead, calling down to the giant owl. One seemed particularly disturbed, darting again and again at Xanthar, screeching raggedly.
"l think they want Xanthar to go back home," the half-elf said, watching as the huge owl raised his beak and uttered a deep trill, the sound of water over stones. At that, the four returned, but with a deflated air. This time, as they landed on the ground, they turned large eyes toward Tanis and Caven.
"I hate that stare," Caven whispered. "It makes me feel like lunch. Their lunch."
"I see that Xanthar rules his family still," Tanis said, ignoring his companion's remark.
