15
The route of the seekers held southwestward as days became weeks and weeks became months. Across the central pass of the Suncradles and for five days beyond, the route had been charted by Cale Greeneye and his six companions in their search for the lost patrol. But everything west of that was uncharted country, and Colin Stonetooth led his people into it without ever looking back. Behind them was Thoradin; ahead — so said the prophecy of Mistral Thrax — was Everbardin.
No longer of Thorin, they were no longer Calnar, but still they were of those once called “the highest,” because of Thorin’s lofty place high above the human realms. In the dwarven manner of speech, the term was “Hylar.” So, having no other name for themselves, they took the name Hylar and carried it with them. For them, Thorin was now Thoradin, and Thoradin was of the past. Somewhere beyond the hills and plains of the middle realms lay the future.
Perched in the saddle of the great horse Piquin, with six other young adventurers at his back, Cale Greeneye scouted far afield as the tribe of Colin Stonetooth plodded onward toward a distant place none of them had ever seen — a place called Kal-Thax, which might be nothing more than legend or the dreams of old Mistral Thrax. Through the foothills leading down toward the Ergothian realm, the Hylar trekked, a thousand homeless households on the move. The steady beat of their marching drums was a promise and a warning to any who heard … a promise to the Hylar people that the prophecy of Everbardin would be fulfilled, and a warning to all others that these were a people who looked to the left sides of their tools.
Many times the dwarves had halted the journey — to rest and gather food, to perform marriages and funerals, once for the birth of a baby to one of the younger women, and sometimes just because a hill demanded to be delved, a forest cleaned of underbrush, or a vein of ore to be mined and smelted.
Now, as the procession entered even more new lands at a place where steep ravines crisscrossed a jumbled, broken countryside, they no longer resembled the serene, practical, and ensconced people they had been within Thorin. Their features were the same. They were still a short, sturdy dwarven people with dark hair and proud, thoughtful eyes, whose males’ trimmed beards were back-swept as though they faced into a wind and whose females were strong and usually beautiful. But now much of their attire was of the fabrics they had crafted along the way, and their armaments were more obviously warlike than they had favored in Thorin.
Three times the Hylar had been attacked — twice by roving humans and once by ogres — and their lessons had been learned well. They were a weathered and travel-wise group now, and most creatures gave them wide berth in passing.
At the rock-strewn top of a deep ravine that was as wide as a small valley, Cale Greeneye and his scouts drew rein, shading their eyes against the quartering sun of Krynn. The ravine walls were steep, though shelved with natural trails angling downward, and below were groves of trees lining a ribbon of bright water.
Cale studied the landscape, gazing carefully up and down the canyon, then gestured. “Let’s take a look,” he said. “That may be a good place to pass the night.”
He jerked around, then, as a voice only feet away said, “That’s exactly what you’ll have to do if you intend to cross that stream, but it won’t be easy.”
Cale squinted, then frowned as a small figure stepped out of shadows between two slabs of upthrust stone. The creature was no taller than a dwarf — not as tall as most — but was distinctly not a dwarf. He was slim and fine-boned, with a face that might have belonged to a half-sized elf and a great cascade of brown hair tied up in the back with a leather thong.
“A kender,” Cale Greeneye rasped, looking down from the height of Piquin’s saddle. “By Reorx! Are you people everywhere?”
“Not me,” the kender shook his head, eyes widening in surprise. “I’m just right here, at least right now. Of course, before I came here, I was at …”
“What did you mean, crossing the stream won’t be easy?”
“Oh, that’s because of the knight,” the kender said, shrugging.
“What knight?” Cale demanded, raising his voice in irritation.
“Oh, I don’t know. Any night really.” The kender looked from one to another of them, gazing happily up at the frowning faces high above him. “You don’t live around here, do you?”
“Of course not!” Cale snapped. “We’re just passing through.”
“I didn’t think so,” the kender said. “You’re dwarves, and there aren’t any dwarves around here that I know of. But if you plan to pass the knight down there, like you said, then you’d better have a pretty good plan, because he won’t make it easy for you.”
“Who won’t?”
“The knight.”
“
“The one down there at the bridge. And you don’t need to shout. I can hear you just fine. I have good ears. Do you know, I can hear insects breathe? Have you ever listened to a pond beetle breathing? It sounds just like an angry minotaur, except a lot smaller. Sand scorpions sound pretty neat, too, but you have to be really careful, or they’ll sting you on the ear. My cousin Chiswin had one ear twice the size of the other for three weeks because he was listening to …”
“Gods’ rust!” Cale Greeneye hissed. “I only asked you a simple question! And you’re babbling on and on, and I haven’t learned anything yet. Don’t you ever shut up?”
“Sure.” The kender nodded and raised a curious brow. “You talk a lot yourself, for a dwarf. Are you sure you aren’t from around here? I believe those are the biggest horses I ever saw. And all seven of them are the same color. The knight’s horse is pretty big, but not that big, and it’s a horse of a different color. Sort of light brown, like …”
Cale took a deep breath. “
“I just told you. The one down there at the bridge.”
“There … is … a … knight … at … the … bridge?” Cale spoke very slowly and distinctly, waving back his companions. Two of them had drawn their axes, out of sheer exasperation.
“There sure is,” the kender assured him. “His name is Glendon.”
“And what is this Glendon doing there, at the bridge?”
“He’s waiting for people to try to cross the stream.”
“Why?”
“So he can stop them. It’s what he does, you know … or, rather, I guess you don’t know, not being from around here.” Abruptly, the kender scampered directly under Piquin’s belly and peered up from the other side. “Aha! I wondered how you dwarves get on and off these big horses. Now I see. You have a little roll-down rope ladder. That’s pretty clever.”
Cale was fighting the reins, barely keeping his startled mount in control. Piquin’s ears were laid back, his eyes rolling, and his jaws fighting the bit. The other horses, sensing his panic, shied and back-stepped, and for a moment all the dwarves had their hands full.
“Rust and corruption!” Cale yelled, baring his teeth in a snarl. “Don’t you know better than to run under a horse?” Furious, Cale brought Piquin under control, slipped off his spurs, loosed the hitch on his mounting ladder, and scurried down. He turned, the reins in one hand, the other balled into a fist. “I won’t stand for …” he stopped, looking this way and that. The kender was nowhere in sight. “Now where did that little tarnish go?”
“Who?” a voice asked, from above.
Cale swung around and looked up. The kender was sitting in his saddle, high atop Piquin. “You!” the dwarf roared. “Come down from there!”
“Oh,” the kender said. He scampered down the ladder, agile as a spider on a web. “That’s all right, I was just curious. But I guess that was bad manners, considering that we haven’t been introduced or anything. My name is Springheel. Castomel Springheel. You can call me Cas if you want to. Who are you?”
“Cale Greeneye,” Cale growled. “And you stay away from my horse!”
