Temple of the Dragonslayer (4 page)

“Why not?” the kender said, starting to march toward the man-bull. “I think you’re just afraid because—
urk!”

The kender’s words were cut off as Davyn grabbed him by his purple cape and yanked him backward.

“Do you want to get killed?” Davyn hissed in one of the kender’s pointed ears.

“No,” he said. “I suppose not.”

“Then be quiet and let your friend handle this!” Davyn sounded confident, but as he glanced at the minotaur, Nearra saw the worry in his eyes.

“Why do you pursue the kender, if not to fight him?” the red-haired warrior asked. “And don’t tell me you only want to talk to him—unless minotaurs always hold conversations while swinging a weapon.”

“The kender stole something from me,” the minotaur said. “I merely wish to retrieve my property.”

The kender pulled away from Davyn’s grip with an ease that surprised Nearra, and he walked toward the angry minotaur.

“Now I really must protest. I am not a thief! I am Sindri Suncatcher, wizard extraordinaire!”

The warrior groaned.

The kender didn’t look much like a wizard to Nearra, but then Maddoc was the only one she’d ever met—as far as she could remember.

“Stay out of this, Sindri!” the girl warrior snapped. “Unless you want this minotaur to use his axe to turn you into two halves of a kender.”

“Two halves?” Sindri Suncatcher looked thoughtful. “I wonder what that would be like?”

The minotaur turned to glare at the kender, his grip tightening around the handle of his axe until it looked as if his bulging knuckles would break through skin and fur. “If you do not cease your foolish chatter, you will find out soon enough!”

Nearra almost jumped when Davyn pulled her aside. “Perhaps it would be best if we were on our way,” he said softly, presumably so the others wouldn’t overhear.

Nearra looked at Davyn, unable to believe her ears. “You showed no hesitation in facing Slean armed with only a bow and arrow. Why are you afraid now?”

“It is my responsibility to escort you to the healer and keep you safe until you have regained your memory,” Davyn said. “Getting involved in a dispute between a kender and a minotaur won’t accomplish either of these goals.”

“We can’t leave,” Nearra said. “The kender and his warrior friend might need help.”

The minotaur took a step toward Sindri and stuck out his free hand, palm up.

“I understand that it is a kender’s nature to handle whatever catches his eye. Return what you have taken, and I shall go in peace.”

“I don’t mean to keep arguing with you,” Sindri said in the tone of someone who most certainly
did
mean to, “but I don’t know where you get your information about kender. We do no
such thing. Oh, every now and then we stumble across objects people have lost, though why they insist on blaming us for their carelessness, I’ll never know. But as I said, I am a wizard. I have no need to take objects from anyone, for I possess the magical ability to conjure any item I wish.”

Davyn rolled his eyes. “He must be joking.”

The red-haired warrior must have overheard, for she said, “Unfortunately, he’s not.”

Sindri gave his companion a quick scowl. He whispered a few words, then reached into his cape. “Behold!” he shouted, and withdrew his hand with a flourish. He now held a bulging leather pouch.

“My steel!” the minotaur bellowed. “I knew you took it, you little thief! Return it to me at once!”

“You are mistaken,” Sindri said. “This purse may look similar to the one you lost—perhaps even identical to it. But this purse magically appeared within one of the hidden pockets of my cape.”

“He can’t possibly be serious!” Davyn said.

“Maybe he is,” Nearra replied. “What thief would ever invent such an outrageous story and expect it to be believed?”

“Even if Sindri is telling the truth, I doubt it will make much difference to the minotaur,” Davyn said.

Someone needed to do something or else Sindri Suncatcher was sure to get injured—or worse. Nearra clenched her hands in frustration and a tingling warmth spread through her fingers. It was the same sensation she’d experienced in the clearing when she’d been about to be devoured by Slean. She sensed that whatever this feeling might be, it could allow her to help Sindri somehow. And if that was the case, perhaps she shouldn’t fight it.

Sindri made a quick motion with his hand and the minotaur’s steel vanished back into his cape. His nimble kender fingers moved with a speed and grace that a human could never copy.

Sindri struck a pose, feet planted well apart, hands lifted into the air.

“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” Sindri said to the minotaur, “but you leave me no choice. I’m going to have to cast a spell on you.”

The red-haired warrior sighed. “Please don’t do this, Sindri.”

“Hush, Catriona. I need complete silence so I can concentrate.”

The tingling in Nearra’s hands increased until the sensation was almost painful. She shouldn’t have let this, this … whatever it was go this far. She felt pressure building inside her skull, as if a crushing headache was coming on. She thought she might faint.

Davyn looked at her with concern and grabbed her hand. Nearra squinted as an intense ray of sunlight reflected off his silver ring. The tingling ceased.

Sindri muttered a few words and threw his hands out in a flourish. The minotaur grunted in surprise as his axe pulled free of his hand and hovered in the air in front of him. As surprised as the man-bull looked, Catriona seemed absolutely shocked. Sindri himself stared at the floating axe as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

The battle-axe hung motionless in the air for another moment. Then the weapon turned upside down so that the bottom of the handle was pointed directly at the spot between the minotaur’s widened eyes.

The axe shot forward and the handle slammed against the minotaur’s head. A soft moan escaped his lips, along with a thin line of drool. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body went slack. The minotaur collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

A moment later, the axe fell to the dirt a foot away from the minotaur’s head, the blade sinking into the ground with a soft
chuk!

Nearra, Davyn, Sindri, and Catriona stood in silence for a long moment as they tried to understand the event that had just
taken place. At last, Sindri gave out a whoop and jumped into the air, on his face an expression of pure delight.

“Did you see that, Catriona? I told you I was a great wizard, didn’t I?”

Catriona gaped in astonishment. Nearra turned to Davyn. His brow was covered with sweat, and his lips formed a small, almost unnoticeable smile.

I
t shouldn’t be much longer now,” Sindri said. “Bramble Street is just around the corner.”

“That’s what you said about the last corner we came to,” Catriona said.

The kender was unruffled by the warrior’s comment. “Well, this time it is.”

Catriona shook her head. “I should have known better than to take my eyes off you for so much as an instant. If I’d been watching you more closely, you wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with that minotaur.”

“It was just a simple misunderstanding,” Sindri said. “Luckily, my magic was able to get us out of trouble.”

Nearra was glad that Sindri and Catriona had decided to come along with them to make sure they reached the healer safely. Walking with the two of them—and with Davyn—felt right somehow, as if the four were meant to be together.

Davyn had persuaded Sindri to leave the minotaur’s money pouch behind when they’d left the unconscious creature. Well,
left
was too mild a word.
Fled
before the man-bull could wake up and come after them was more accurate.

Now Sindri was leading them to the healer, and though Nearra knew she shouldn’t get her hopes up, she couldn’t help
herself. If the healer could restore her memories, then she’d know more than just her name. She’d know where she came from, if she had a mother or father, brothers or sisters. And maybe she’d even learn how she’d come to be in the middle of the forest with no traveling gear, no food, and no water, not to mention how she’d lost her memories in the first place.

But what if she didn’t like who she really was? What if there was a reason—a good reason—why she’d lost her memories?

Sindri suddenly came to a halt, and since he was leading the way, the rest of them nearly collided with the kender before they could stop.

“That’s odd,” Sindri said as he stared at a small shop. The shutters were open and candles hung by their wicks over a wooden rod, on display for potential buyers. “I don’t recall this candle maker’s shop being here.” He frowned. “Why do you suppose they moved it?”

Davyn made a sound in his throat as if he were choking. “I’ll go inside and ask for directions.” Without waiting for anyone to reply, he walked into the candle shop.

“Asking directions is nothing but a waste of time, since I already know where we’re going,” Sindri said. “But if it will make Davyn feel better, I have no objection. Besides,” he added, almost to himself, “it’ll give me a chance to try and remember exactly how I managed to levitate that minotaur’s axe.”

The minotaur in question, whose name was Jax, was at that very moment returning to consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was a terrible pounding in his head; it was especially bad between his eyes. The second thing he became aware of was that he was looking at an expanse of blue sky dotted with clouds. Strange, but the sky seemed to be directly in front of him, when it should have been—

And then he remembered: the kender. Jax sat up and immediately regretted it as the throbbing in his head increased and a
wave of nausea rolled through his gut. He did his best to ignore the pain in his head and the roiling in his stomach. He was a minotaur—a warrior born and bred—and he would not let such minor discomforts get the better of him.

Jax looked around but saw no sign of the kender and his allies. A handful of onlookers stood off at a distance, talking among themselves. One man was laughing, no doubt at Jax’s foolishness for allowing himself to be brought down by a kender—a kender wielding magic, but a kender nonetheless. As soon as the people saw the minotaur was awake and looking back at them, they turned and ran.

If Jax’s head hadn’t been pounding so, he might have gone after them, but he told himself that the rabble wasn’t worth the effort.

He looked around for his axe and was glad to see it lying on the ground, along with his pouch of steel coins. Minotaurs usually didn’t have to worry about someone trying to rob them. What pickpocket in his right mind would risk coming close enough to a minotaur to do so? But kender weren’t exactly in their right minds, were they? Not when it came to “handling” objects that didn’t belong to them.

Jax would have loved to have his own hands around the kender’s tiny neck right now. If he did … The resultant image, gory as it was, made Jax smile.

Still, he had his money back, and more importantly, he had his axe. The weapon had been his father’s. He’d given it to Jax on the day Jax had left the island of Kothas to seek fortune and honor in the world. Upon reaching the mainland of Ansalon, Jax began working as a guard for trading caravans. Humans might be intimidated by minotaurs, but that didn’t stop them from hiring the man-bulls for their ferocity, strength, and skill with weaponry.

Jax was in something of a dilemma now. Honor was everything to his people, and his honor had been severely insulted by the kender wizard. True, no other minotaur save Jax knew
what had happened, and if he never spoke of the incident again, none would. But that didn’t matter. Jax knew, and that was enough.

Any other time, he would have immediately set out to find the kender and teach him what it meant to insult a minotaur. But Jax had just signed on to guard a trading caravan leaving Tresvka later that afternoon. If he went in search of the kender, he might miss the caravan’s departure. If he weren’t there when it left, he would break his word to the caravan-master who’d hired him. Honor would not permit Jax to break his word in such a fashion.