Love And War (11 page)

Bruised, pinioned, and bound as Keli was, his fellow prisoner was in a worse plight,
caught hard by the neck in the goblin's iron-fingered grip. He was small, but no child;
the cant of his ears as well as his slim build and small stature marked him as a kender.
Several pouches of varying sizes and materials bounced at the kender's belt each time
Staag shook him. And Staag, that slope-shouldered, gray- skinned nightmare, shook him
often and hard simply because it amused him to do so.

The kender, a game little fellow, hitched up his knees and drove them into the goblin's
belly. Had a mouse attacked a mountain the result would have been the same. Laughing,
Staag loosed his grip on the kender's neck and dropped him.

The kender writhed against his bonds. “Swamp- breathed, slime-brained bull,” he croaked.

Keli's heart sank. So much for the kender, he thought. Staag's going to kill him now!

But the goblin didn't. Tigo stopped him with a command.

If Staag, his arms too long, his legs too short, his skin the color of something a week
dead, was the nightmare, his human companion Tigo was reality gone twisted. Tall and lean,
bony-shouldered, with limbs that might have been stolen from a scarecrow, Tigo bore a
four-pronged grapnel where his right hand should have been. His eyes, muddy and brown,
held little sanity in them.

“I said bring him over here, Staag.” Tigo glanced at Keli, who shivered despite the close
heat of the summer morning. “And the boy, too.”

A bull, the kender had called the goblin, and bull-strong he was. He tossed the kender
over one shoulder, Keli over the other and, with no thought, he dropped them next to Tigo.

Breathless, Keli lay still where he fell. The kender, his face in the dirt, snarled
another insult.

“Let's just kill the kender and get it over with,” Staag grunted. “We should have slit his
throat at the tavern and got done with it.”

“Aye,” Tigo drawled. “And left him bleeding all over the place for anyone to find. I don't
think this one traveled alone.”

Staag snorted. “Since when do these little vermin travel in company? Tigo, we waste time.”
He peered up through the forest's brooding green canopy. “It's almost noon and we're still
too close to that village. Let's just kill him and the boy and get OUT of here!”

Keli clamped his teeth down on a whimper and prayed to every god his mother had told him
was real.

“Be patient, you'll have your fun. But we're not going to kill the boy yet.” Tigo, his
hands thief-light, slipped a finely tooled leather map case from the kender's shoulder. He
laughed, a sound that reminded Keli of rusty hinges creaking. “Nice collection of maps,
kender.”

The kender hitched himself onto his back, spat dirt, and looked at Tigo with the
expression of a guileless child. “Used to clean middens for a living, did you? I can tell
by the smell.”

Keli groaned again, hoping the kender's blood wouldn't splatter all over him. Yet, though
he paled, Tigo didn't reply. Staag kicked the kender.

“Please, kender,” Keli breathed. “Be quiet!”

Sometimes a bad dream, steeped in terror and warped perspective, turns funny. Keli felt he
was in one of those odd turns now: the kender winked.

Before Keli could be certain he'd seen the wink, Tigo cuffed the kender hard.

“These maps! How recent, how dependable?”

With a speed that left Keli confused, the kender became the spirit of helpful affability.
“Some are very old - I've been collecting them for years, you know. It's kind of a hobby
of mine. I like the drawings, especially the things the mappers sketch when they don't
know who or what lives in the land. And I like the little legends and poems in the borders of the larger ones. That
one, the one drawn on hide, is my oldest and the one I think I like the best. I got it in
Schallsea; an old man gave it to me and he said - ”

Tigo's hook-hand flashed silver in a shaft of sunlight, dancing threateningly before the
kender's eyes.

“Right. Some of them are old, some are new. I guess it depends on where you want to go,”
the kender added hastily.

“Away from here,” Staag growled, “and fast.”

The kender did not give the goblin a glance, but spoke to Tigo. “Then you're really lucky
you brought me along. I've been all around these parts, many times, and I know them nearly
as well as I know the inside of my own eyelids. That's why I don't have any maps of this
area in the case. Who needs one? Not me. Where do you want to go?”

Tigo hissed a snake's warning. “What makes you think we need a guide?”

“You said so.” The kender was all innocence now. Keli marveled at his composure. “Not in
so many words, of course, but I can tell. Otherwise why would you be so interested in my
maps?”

“You make a large guess, kender.” Keli thought so, too, but held his breath now, waiting.
The kender shrugged as best he could. “Maybe I was wrong. But if you DID need a guide - and I'm not saying that you do - I'd be the one you'd
need. As I said, I know - ”

“Aye,” Staag snarled, “all the lands about here.”

“That's right, I do. What do you think? Do you need a guide?” The kender lowered his voice
in a confidential manner. “If you want to kill someone, for example - ”

Staag rumbled threateningly, loosed the dagger at his belt.

“Whoa! Wait! I'm not saying you do. I'm not saying you don't. But I can take you to a
place I know where you can do whatever you need to do and no one will be the wiser.”

“In exchange for what?” Tigo asked. The kender snorted. “For my life!” Keli's heart sank.
Whatever that wink had been, it certainly hadn't been an expression of solidarity. Tigo shook his head, baring his teeth
in a deadly smile.

“What's your bond, kender? What will keep you from sneaking off in the middle of the
night, leaving us with daggers in our backs?”

Staag laughed then, thunder and nightmare. Keli's stomach turned weakly. “The same thing that keeps him here now, Tigo. Loose his feet so he
can walk, but keep his hands tied and him on a short rein.”

Keli shifted away from the kender. This was no fellow prisoner now, but one in league with
these two who, for some reason Keli could not figure out, wanted to kill him. He squeezed
his eyes shut against a cold wash of despair and only partly heard the argument between
Tigo and the goblin about whether the kender's pouches should be rifled now or later.

It hardly bore listening to anyway: Tigo argued that there was no time, and clearly Tigo
was someone whom even the goblin feared. I'm not dead yet, the boy thought, but it's only
a matter of time and place now. And I don't even know why!

*****

Tanis had suspected all winter that the real purpose for Flint's journey this year was to
attend Runne's wedding. Flint mentioned the occasion only once, when he and Tanis were
mapping out the summer's trips, and then only told a brief tale of how the girl was the
grandchild of Galan, the man who had been the old dwarf's first customer and who many,
many years ago had become a friend.

“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 bandit'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 honour 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.”