“That’s right. An adventure.” Trapspringer’s eyes glanced about the room. “Do you like being a doctor?”
Phineas noticed for the first time that the kenderkarter had cleared away what was left on the shelves in the waiting room. “I did.” Suddenly he remembered Denzil. “I’m ready to go,” he said, walking toward the dim examination room. “I just have to release one last patient, then collect my pack.” He stepped into the back room and looked at the chair.
Denzil was gone.
Where could he have got to? Phineas wondered. There was no back door, only a small window, like the one in the candlemaker’s shop. He listened for any noise above in his rooms, but there was no sound through the thin wooden floor. Denzil must have slipped out the window, the human decided at last, though he could not understand why. The steel pieces still lay where Phineas had set them, next to his satchel. The man’s disappearance was easily as odd as his appearance, and that was odd indeed.
Shrugging, Phineas pocketed the steel pieces and took the leather handles of the satchel. He frowned suddenly, seeing his half of the Kendermore map sticking out the top of the bag. I must have pulled it up when I took out the bottle for Denzil, he concluding, placing the map in his vest for safe keeping.
Closing the shutters in the examination room, he led Trapspringer out the front door, made sure the “closed” sign faced the street, then set off toward the northeast corner of Kendermore with the elder kender, in search of Damaris Metwinger.
* * * * *
A dark figure lurked in the doorway for five long minutes after the kender and the human left on two small ponies. Holding his side to ease the pain of a recently won duel, the man walked the other way down the street. A mercenary by trade, he had just stumbled upon his next, and possibly last, job, if the spoils were all that were promised on the half-map. This time, he would be working for himself. Collecting his horse, a dark, menacing steed, from a nearby alley, he purchased enough provisions for one month; enough time, he figured, to find the village of Solace and a kender named Tasslehoff.
PART II
Chapter 11
“One, two, three, heave!
“One, two, three, heave!”
Tas, Woodrow, and the seven gully dwarves pulled with all their might, but the waterlogged wagon refused to budge. They had managed to drag it about halfway up onto shore. But now it was thoroughly bogged down in the mud.
Woodrow, standing waist-deep in the water, relaxed his grip on the rope and eased up to his full height. The movement aggravated a pain in his back. “I’m sorry, Miss Hornslager, but I just don’t think we can do this. That wagon hasn’t moved in the last twenty pulls.”
“Never give up, Woodrow. Those are words to live by,” responded Gisella, still seated atop the wagon. “Now everybody, one, two, three, heave!”
But even before she got to the word “heave,” all nine heavers had dropped the rope and slogged wearily back onto the shore. The gully dwarves, who had been in the shallow water closest to shore, plopped down in a soggy heap. Tas followed, stretching out on his back on a small patch of grass growing on the sandy beach. Finally, Woodrow sat down beside him, resting his head on his knees.
“What’s the matter with you? You’re all a bunch of quitters, that’s what’s the matter with you!” hollered Gisella. She paced back and forth on the small roof of her wagon. “Do you think I came all this way to give up now? Do you think I’m just going to shrug my shoulders and say, ‘Oh, well, things are getting a little tough now, so I think I’ll sit down here and wallow in my own pity’?”
“C’mon, Gisella,” responded Tas. “We’re tired. We just survived a shipwreck—let us rest for five minutes, OK?”
Gisella surveyed her ragged crew. “Maybe you’re right. So come and help me down off this thing already.” She held out her hand demurely.
Wearily, Woodrow rose to his feet and splashed back to the wagon. Gisella sat on the edge of the wagon’s roof and then, with a little hop, slid into Woodrow’s arms. The thin human suppressed a grunt.
“Oooh,” she purred, “you’re stronger than you look. I find danger to be incredibly exciting, don’t you?”
Woodrow’s face flamed to a bright crimson, and he practically dropped Gisella in his haste to set her down and retreat to the shore. The dwarf was puffing as she finally waded onto dry land, several dozen paces behind the human.
“Really, Woodrow, it was just an innocent little remark. I don’t know what gets into you sometimes,” she complained. “Hasn’t anyone ever flirted with you before?”
Woodrow was seated, hugging his knees and staring at the ground. “No, ma’am, I guess not,” he mumbled.
This was beyond Gisella’s comprehension, so she dropped the subject entirely and joined everyone else stretching out on the beach.
* * * * *
Woodrow woke up shortly after dawn. He was disoriented at first, until he realized that what everyone had intended to be a short nap had turned into twelve hours of sleep. Tas was curled up on his side, Gisella was snoring softly, the gully dwarves were in a heap, squirming occasionally. Woodrow’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since early the day before. He set off to the south along the beach in search of something edible.
The beach extended perhaps a mile before giving way to rocky outcroppings, gravel, and eroded dirt banks. Walking along the shore was too difficult after that point, so Woodrow moved inland. As long as I can still hear the waves, he thought, I shouldn’t get lost.
Before long, Woodrow found a tangled patch of wild raspberry bushes. He filled his hat with the ripe, red fruit and sat down for a feast.
His meal was interrupted by the sound of movement somewhere in the tangle. Woodrow rolled onto his stomach and lay perfectly still, listening. Then he heard the sound again: the snorting of a horse.
Cautiously, he raised his head. In places, especially where the berries grew around gnarled trees and boulders, the bushes were taller than Woodrow. Slowly, he worked his way around the patch, then all of a sudden he laughed, stood up, and whistled. In the berry patch, contentedly munching, were Gisella’s two horses. Eagerly they pushed their way through the tangled brush to where Woodrow stood.
“I sure am glad you two are all right,” laughed Woodrow, throwing an arm around each horse’s neck. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”
Both horses were nuzzling Woodrow’s pockets. “I’m afraid you’ve already found something better than anything I could offer you, right there in that berry patch,” chuckled Woodrow. “Let’s gather some of this up and head back to the others, eh?”
Woodrow refilled his cap and the entire front of his shirt with berries, holding the latter out like an apron. He and the horses turned north toward the beach.
Tasselhoff was just sitting up and rubbing his eyes as Woodrow arrived with the horses. In moments, everyone was awake and noisily slurping up berries.
While the others breakfasted, Woodrow walked the horses out into the shallow water and started hitching them to the wagon.
“Oh, good thinking!” hollered Gisella, looking up from her handfuls of berries. “I can’t wait to get my things dried out so I can put on some decent clothes.” She glared disdainfully at the simple drab work outfit she’d been wearing since before the shipwreck.
Woodrow finished adjusting the harness and walked around to the front of the horses. “I don’t know whether pulling the wagon out will work, Miss Hornslager,” he cautioned. “This harness is in pretty bad shape, what with spending the night underwater. The leather may split open under the strain.”
Gisella crossed her fingers. Woodrow led the horses forward until they gradually put their entire strength into the harness. Slowly, the wagon rocked forward, then back, then forward again, and finally began rolling after the straining team. The horses picked up more speed as the wagon moved into shallower water and the water inside it drained out.
“Whoa,” said Woodrow, placing a hand on each of the
horses’ muzzles. The wagon stood on the beach, water still running out through the door and around the floorboards.
“Hooray!” shouted Gisella, clapping her hands. “We’ll be on our way in no time.”
“I don’t think so, Miss Hornslager.” Woodrow stepped from behind the wagon, shaking his head. “Both rear wheels are damaged, and the rear axle is cracked really bad. This wagon won’t go more than a mile or two without falling apart.”
“Well, can’t we fix it?” Gisella waved her arms vaguely at the wagon. “People fix wagons all the time, right? I mean, everything looks fine to me.”
Woodrow nodded his head. “Yes, ma’am, we could fix it …”
“Then let’s get at it.”
“… if we had the right tools, ma’am. Like a forge, and a sledge, and an anvil. And maybe some jacks and woodworking tools. But we can’t repair it with nothing to work with.”
“Oh.”
Gisella let her arms drop to her sides as she looked sadly at the wagon. Then slapping her hips, she said, “That’s that, then. Let’s salvage what we can and get moving. I still have one cargo left, and it still has to be in Kendermore by the Harvest Faire.” She threw a glance at Tasslehoff. “I hope it intends to continue cooperating.”
* * * * *
The day was more than half over when Gisella finally called for a short rest. The gully dwarves collapsed in exagerated poses before the dwarf could even slide her leg over her horse’s neck and drop to the ground. Riding the second horse together, Woodrow waited for the kender seated in front of him to jump down before slithering off himself.
The spot Gisella had chosen was the crest of a gently rolling hill, which continued eastward in ever-taller waves, becoming mountains within two miles. The hills were barren except for tall, wavering, wheatlike grass, and the occasional stark tree. The sun was warm, but there was a slight chill to the breeze, the only sign of autumn in the austere landscape.
“Pass around those berries, Woodrow,” instructed Gisella. “But make sure I get some before those gully dwarves start stuffing their paws into them. And some water, too,” she added as an afterthought.
Woodrow hefted from the horses two of Gisella’s shirts, which had been salvaged from the wagon and stuffed with berries. The necks and waists had been knotted shut, and the arms were used to tie the makeshift sacks to the horses’ necks. The human untied a shirt, paused, and peered into its neck.
“I could have sworn this was full when we started this morning. We must have jostled an inch of berries out of the top.”
Guiltily, Tas shoved his red-stained fingers behind his belt. “How surprising,” he noted, turning his back to Gisella’s tight-lipped glare. But whatever she may have been thinking, Gisella said nothing, instead helping herself to a handful of raspberries.
“Does anything around here look familiar?” she asked Tasslehoff. “Anything at all? Does any of it even resemble anything on one of those ridiculous maps of yours?”
Tas shook his head. “I’m familiar with a lot of places, but this isn’t any of them. Apparently none of my relatives has been here, either, because I don’t see anything similar on the maps—no barren hills or tall grass anywhere.” Tas’s maps were spread around him in a semicircle. “Of course, we haven’t traveled too terribly far. All the really good landmarks may be just ahead.”
“Let’s hope so,” sighed Gisella. “We’ve got to find some sort of civilization soon.”
Those words were barely out of Gisella’s mouth when Woodrow’s head snapped up from his meal and he cocked it to one side, listening intently for some barely heard sound in the distance.
But the gully dwarves were getting restless. Taking the silence as a sign of inactivity, Fondu chose that moment to start singing the gully dwarves’ special version of the sea chanty Tasslehoff had taught them. Woodrow flapped his arms frantically at them, trying to get them to stop singing. But the Aghar took his gestures to be a new verse of sorts to the song, and they began flapping their arms to the music.
Helplessly, Woodrow looked at Tasslehoff. Acting on instinct, the kender took matters into his own hands and leaped in among the dancing Aghar, tackling Fondu. The two of them rolled across the ground and bumped up against Gisella’s feet, Fondu still singing. But when the gully dwarf looked up, he saw his lady’s face, her lips puckered and pressed to her finger. Instantly Fondu stopped singing and bellowed, “Red-hair lady says to shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
The singing stopped abruptly, and the gully dwarves froze in place. Pluk, balanced precariously on one foot, wavered, jerked, hopped three times, and with his arms windmilling wildly, collapsed on top of his brother, Slurp. Both of them struggled back to their feet with their hands clamped firmly over their mouths.
Once again Woodrow bent his ear to the wind.
Several moments passed.
“Well?” whispered Gisella.
Without turning his head, Woodrow whispered back, “It’s singing. I hear singing.”
“Oh, that’s marvelous,” hissed Gisella. “It’s probably another bunch of gully dwarves. Can’t you tell any more than that?”
“No, ma’am. Either they’re garbling the lyrics something awful, or they’re singing in a language I don’t understand, because I can’t make out the words. Sounds like quite a chorus, though,” he added.
“I can’t see anything through these cursed weeds,” spat Gisella, swatting at the dwarf-high grass surrounding her. “Woodrow, help me onto my horse.”
Woodrow linked his fingers and formed a step with his hands, boosting Gisella onto the back of her horse. She shaded her eyes with her hand and scanned the horizon.
“I see a red banner moving across our path—it looks like someone’s family crest,” the dwarf said at last. “It’s not too far off. There must be a road farther ahead. Let’s try to catch up with whoever it is.”
Gisella’s horse loped easily through the tall grass. Woodrow and Tas hurried their horse to catch up, with the gully dwarves jogging along behind them.
Tas had an idea for attracting the attention of whoever was on the road. Twisting around on his horse, he yelled to the leader of the gully dwarves. “Sing! Fondu, sing!” The kender broke into the song he’d taught them.
“Come all you young fellows who live by the sea,
Kiss a fair maiden and then follow me.”
And then came their reply:
“Hotel this ale and your uncle’s a whale,
Wheel run with the Winifred ball of four bale.”
Tasslehoff could see that the banner had stopped moving ahead, and he could no longer spot Gisella. Moments later, he and Woodrow broke through the grass and came upon the road. Gisella had dismounted and struck the same “come hither” pose she’d used in the inn: hands on her hips, hair tossed back. She was surrounded by a dozen male dwarves who were all stroking their beards and fumbling with their hats.
The troop was on foot—most dwarves distrusted horses. They stood in two straight lines of six dwarves, with a lone dwarf at their head. Wearing sparkling, polished chain mail and knee-high leather boots, each dwarf had a war hammer at his waist and a coil of rope draped over one shoulder. The leader of the troop wore an ornamental helm with a cluster of green rooster feathers in it.
Gisella threw Tas and Woodrow a coy look and batted her eyelashes when they at last emerged. “Boys,” she said, “I’d like you to meet Baron Krakold of the village of Rosloviggen.” She turned and blew a kiss to the dwarf who sported the green feathers. Tas couldn’t tell whether the dwarf blushed—his already ruddy complexion was mostly hidden behind his enormous beard. He’s not at all the way I pictured a baron, thought Tas, who, if he pondered the subject, conjured up images of shining armor, a flowing cape, and a prancing white charger.
Gisella hooked her arm around the baron’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “The baron—I just love the sound of that, don’t you?—and his men just finished some mission or other and they’re on their way back to the baron’s
village. They’d love to have us join them. I don’t see how we can refuse such a gracious offer.” Gisella turned and stared deeply into the baron’s eyes, simultaneously grinding her hip against his thigh. The baron’s eyebrows—which constituted a considerable mass of hair—twitched up and down, and a murmur of vague, manly approval rippled through the troop of dwarves.
Just then, Fondu and his six kinsmen tumbled through the edge of the grass and onto the road. They froze for a second, looking at the noble entourage. Gisella closed her eyes and bit her lip—she knew that, as a rule, her own kinsmen were no fonder of gully dwarves than of horses. But when the Aghar broke into another spirited chorus of “Balifor Bay,” the baron and his men laughed with delight. After a good round of guffawing and back slapping, the column was under way.
The procession hiked for several hours. Tas, Gisella, and Woodrow dismounted and walked in deference to the horseless dwarves. Woodrow took both sets of reins and dropped back to lead the animals at the rear of their party. The ground rose steadily as the road wound into the foothills of the upcoming mountain range. Tas, who thought himself uncommonly patient on this trip, finally voiced the question that had been occupying his mind all day.
“How much farther is the village? We’ve had nothing to eat but raspberries all day.”
The dwarf directly ahead of Tas grunted good-naturedly. “We’ve a way to go. The town is across that spur, in the next gorge.”
Tasslehoff eyed the spur with awe. “We have to cross that? Those boulders look the size of castles! We’ll be at it for hours!”
“We’ll get to the other side, all right,” replied the dwarf, maintaining the brisk pace set by his fellows.
“A friend of mine, Flint Fireforge—he’s a dwarf, too—told me once to be more concerned about what lies on the other side of the hill than how I’m going to cross it,” mused Tas. “I guess that applies right now. It isn’t very often that sayings apply as well as that.”
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