by Roland Green
Hawkbrother’s look told Pirvan that he had guessed aright. Haimya’s told him that if he was so shrewd, why had he made a witless jest, insulting to both Hawkbrother and their daughter?
“Well, if your brother speaks plainly of the matter—”
“He will not, Chief Pirvan. But he feels himself a stranger here, facing battle with other strangers in a far land where no Free Rider may pass his grave mound for a century or more.”
Pirvan thought of all the Knights of Solamnia who had ridden out on their appointed duties and vanished forever, to be recorded on the rolls only as “Missing, presumed fallen with honor.” How many of them had doubted the wisdom of being in the place where they fell—and still faced death with courage?
He remembered an adage from his days of training as a Knight of the Crown: “Honor is not a contest. Set no man a test you would not be ready to face yourself.”
That would guide him with Threehands. The Free Rider would not be tested past tomorrow’s moon rise.
Then Solamnic trumpet and Gryphon drum together sounded the call to mount up.
Horimpsot Elderdrake was the first to sight the band of sell-swords waiting in ambush. This nearly ignited an argument with his companion, who disliked the thought of his eyes being dimmer than the younger kender’s.
Fortunately, Imsaffor Whistletrot was the first to sight the mounted column heading north toward the kender’s perch. And both simultaneously sighted the lookouts settling into position at the head of the pass to the east.
“This is going to be a wonderful fight,” Elderdrake said. “It should last all the rest of daylight, and then we can go down and do what we please on the field.”
“No, we cannot,” Whistletrot said. He spoke with a solemnity more commonly associated with White Robe clerics than with kender. “We need to warn the riders.”
“Oh, and if they are grateful, then we can—”
“We need to warn them because they are not Zephros’s men. Every band in this land who is not Zephros’s may in time fight him. It is not what they will do for us, it is what they may do to Zephros.”
“But how are we to warn them before they are in bow shot? Those sell-swords look strong.”
“What kind of a judge of human warriors are you?” Whistletrot snapped. “I have been among them more years than you have been on your journeys.”
“And their horses have been horses more years than you have been alive, and they are still horses!” the younger kender all but shouted.
Whistletrot did not dignify that outburst with a reply. Instead, he stood up and dropped pack, pouches, and weapons on the rock. Then he ran out into the open, toward a slope where he would be in plain view of the sell-sword band.
A moment later Elderdrake heard his companion’s voice rise in shrill mockery.
“Hey, you silly gut-bags up there! The sun will parch you in time, but right now you stink! Go somewhere else and make the air foul!”
The taunting rapidly grew worse.
Elderdrake did not wait long before he, too, stood up and dropped most of his pouches. He did not let go of his hoopak, however.
His friend had gone out there to taunt the sell-swords without more than the clothes on his back. By kender code, any other kender around had to join Whistletrot, or their memories would be taunted.
He ran out into the open, adding the drone of his whirled hoopak to a few well-chosen words about how seldom the sell-swords bathed. He went on to describe what this did to their skins, beards, hair, tongues, digestions, and chances with women. By the time he had run that line of taunting to an end, Imsaffor Whistletrot had come up with a few new ideas of his own.
In between taunts, the kender listened for the sound of sell-swords breaking cover, drawing steel, or nocking arrows. They could now hear easily, almost over the sound of their own voices, the approaching rattle and thump of the mounted column.
Sir Darin, riding in the lead, raised the alarm in a most irregular fashion.
“Why are those idiot children dancing up there?” he exclaimed. Then, in a different tone, he called, “Sir Pirvan! Threehands! I think we’ve found our kender!”
Then, as the westering sun glinted on the helmets and weapons of armed men leaping from cover, Darin shouted: “Attack!”
Some of those riding behind took it as a warning, some as an order. The library of Dargaard Keep was filled with books chronicling battles and campaigns gone awry or even turned into disasters by ambiguous orders. Pirvan spurred his mount forward, shouting to Haimya and Grimsoar to keep their company in hand and guard Tarothin. He would have a few words to say to Darin, who was not fighting his first battle and should have had more sense!
Then Pirvan realized that Darin had, largely by chance, contrived exactly the right tactics. A good many of the Free Riders and a few of the Solamnics were closing on him, eager to be led up the slope to battle.
All the rest were maneuvering their mounts into a defensive formation—while from the right, a motley array of foot and horse was spilling from a narrow gap in the rock. Pirvan knew that it was his duty to parley with the newcomers and try to keep the peace with them, but if he failed, his fighters below would be well placed to stand against them.
He would still have words with Darin, but they would be fewer and milder. Also spoken after he had dealt with the men now barely out of bow shot to the right.
Pirvan turned his horse, discovered that Hawkbrother was riding with him, thought of asking the Gryphon warrior to withdraw, then thought the better of such folly. He had insulted Hawkbrother once already today; if he did so again and Hawkbrother did not survive the battle, Eskaia would never forgive him.
“Remember, young chief!” he called. “We give them a chance to speak, and if they speak peace, we give it.”
“Oh, I obey,” Hawkbrother called back, shouting over the rising battle din. “But they shall speak quickly, or my sword shall reply!”
The sun flashed on his scimitar as he drew and flourished it.
“That is a battle,” Tharash said, pointing ahead.
Rynthala shaded her eyes against the sun, then nodded. But her voice held doubt. “It is not where we both saw the smoke.”
“It is sun on steel, or I am an owlbear cub. That means battle, or at least warriors. I doubt that any travel this desert wearing armor and weapons to entertain the sandstingers.”
Rynthala realized she had just been gently reproved. Remembering what Tharash could say when he did not wish to be gentle, she hoped she would never again have the experience.
“I hope Lauthin and his friends are nowhere near,” she said. “I would like to lead in my first battle without a Silvanesti high judge watching.”
Tharash managed to put eloquent agreement into a simple nod. Then Rynthala stood in her stirrups and, with hand signals, motioned the riders into battle array.
They would remain mounted as long as the enemy or the ground allowed. All except her and Tharash carried two bows, a long one for work afoot and a shorter one for work mounted, with arrows suited to each. So they could shoot as fast if not as far from the saddle, and keep the rider’s power to advance, retreat, or charge to close quarters at will.
Now, if she and her people could just avoid sticking their heads into a noose that they would not recognize until it had already pulled tight …
Her hands dropped together in the final signal: Advance, at the center.
Pirvan would have liked to throw an occasional glance at the slope now on his left. He hoped Darin was rallying his attacking column, turning it from an eager mob into a disciplined body.
Hope was all he could do. He would lose an important advantage over the men before him if he appeared worried. He had to command himself before he could command the situation.
“Ho!” he called when he thought his voice would carry and knew it would not come out a rasp or a squeak. “Who comes here?”
“Who wants to know?” one of the advancing horsemen replied. He seemed to be
well mounted, although his horse was thin-flanked, while he had both broadsword and mace slung on his saddle.
“It’s the Solamnics!” somebody screamed from behind the rider. “Kill them, and none will know we are here!”
Pirvan had a moment’s leisure to reflect that whoever led this band would have to be truly witless or utterly vicious to deserve such idiots in his company. He had this leisure because the rider made a desperate effort to turn his mount sideways and block the onrush of the foot, pricked into action by the fool’s outburst.
The horse reared. One of the footmen thrust a spear up into its belly. Screams and spraying blood filled the air, and horse and rider fell, to be trampled out of sight in the rush.
One man darted out in front, determined to be the first into action. Pirvan hoped he was the witling who had brought on the battle. He drew his sword and spurred his mount onward.
One day his speed would desert him, and then it would be a race between the end of his fighting days and the end of his life. But for now, the Knight of the Sword who had once been a master thief in Istar could, in his new profession, rely on the same speed and agility that had been so precious in his old one.
Unfortunately for both Pirvan and the bold opponent, Hawkbrother was even faster.
A shrill Gryphon war cry split the air—and nearly Pirvan’s ears as well. Hawkbrother’s black horse was a blur; his scimitar and the arm holding it moved faster than the human eye could follow.
One moment the foe was running boldly forward; the next moment his body was toppling one way and his head was rolling the other. Two comrades loyally tried to retrieve his body from being trampled by friend or foe, and Pirvan was almost ready to let them do it.
Not so Hawkbrother.
“You will know we have been in this land, though you kill us all!” he shouted. His scimitar came down again at impossible speed and a barely imaginable angle; Pirvan would not have cared to describe the stroke to any of the arms instructors at any Solamnic Keep. But the steel reached its mark, and another foe went sprawling, his skull gaping.
The third man raised a spear in both hands; the scimitar came down and chopped it in half, while the tip of the blade ripped the man’s face. He screamed, but had the courage to throw the pointed half of the spear at Hawkbrother’s mount. It struck sideways, and the horse acted as if it were no more than a fly bite.
Pirvan pointed his sword urgently toward the rear and his hand pointed toward the onrushing enemy. “We need to be back with our comrades to make a fight of this, Hawkbrother. I will sing songs for you whether my voice is fit or not, but I would rather we were both alive when they are sung!”
“If that is a promise, I follow you,” Hawkbrother said, although Pirvan noted he actually turned his horse a moment before the knight did.
Then both galloped back toward their own ranks, arrows and oaths pursuing them without either finding a mark. When he could raise his head again, Pirvan finally turned his eyes toward the slope, to see how Darin’s part of the battle fared.
He learned little. The slope cast up an immense cloud of yellow dust. Amid the swirls of dust, Pirvan could occasionally make out what he presumed were human figures in swift movement. He could not tell one side from the other, nor indeed be entirely sure there were not hobgoblins and ogres on the battlefield!
Meanwhile, the head of the column facing Pirvan was coming on, in no particular order but with a considerable edge in numbers. Pirvan and Hawkbrother might have had to fight for their lives, but Threehands and Haimya brought both Gryphons and Solamnics to their rescue.
The reinforcements numbered hardly more than twenty, and faced odds of better than two to one. But the enemy had no other advantage, not in weapons, discipline, or skill at arms, and they were gravely outmatched in valor and determination.
The Solamnics were determined to avenge the insult to their leader and to the knights in general. The Gryphons were determined not to be outdone in prowess by anyone even remotely friendly to Istar. They also rejoiced at the chance to finally come to grips with one of the armed ghosts that had been haunting their trail for three days.
Altogether, the counterattack crashed into the head of the column with a savagery that could have routed a much larger and stouter-hearted force. Those in the column who did not fall at once recoiled, then turned and ran. Those immediately behind them fell into disorder as they tried to avoid being trampled by their fleeing comrades.
The four mounted leaders—Pirvan, Haimya, and the two sons of Redthorn—wheeled their horses and drove them in among the ranks of the fleeing men. Their men followed, with more haste than order, but this was a battle where steel and ferocity counted for much more than well-ordered lines.
Pirvan’s heart rose into his throat and stuck there when he saw that one of the “men” was Eskaia. Fortunately her brother was on one side of her, wielding his sword with nearly a knight’s skill. On the other side of her, improbably but undeniably, was Grimsoar One-Eye.
Serafina was nowhere in sight. Pirvan suspected her heart, too, was in her throat, seeing her weak-lunged sailor husband ride into battle on a horse barely large enough to carry him at a trot.
If Grimsoar does not live through this battle, Pirvan thought hastily, I had best flee to live out my days among the minotaurs, or Serafina will track me down.
Then somebody was shouting, loud enough to be heard above the horse cries and man cries, the hammering of steel on steel, and all the rest of the battle din. A moment later Pirvan could even make out the shouter’s words.
“Look! Up on the hill, above Darin! Enemy cavalry!”
Pirvan looked, and his heart sank down to his bowels. The dust had cleared enough that he could see Darin—well forward in the ranks of the enemy, along with his men—and also a mounted force descending the slope to strike at Darin’s flank.
The battle had suddenly turned from hard fought to desperate.
When Rynthala led her band over the crest of the ridge to within sight of the battle below, two things immediately faced her. One was a vast cloud of dust, in which it was barely possible to tell that human beings moved and fought, let alone which side was where.
The other was a kender, standing on a rock, desperately waving his arms.
Rynthala spurred her horse toward the rock, then reined in so sharply her riding teacher would have winced. Battle imposed its own rules.
“Ho, little friend—”
“Little? I am as tall as my Uncle Trapspringer, who was tall enough to be mistaken for a human. This annoyed him very much. It will annoy me as much if you do not rescue my friend, Imsaffor Whistletrot.”
Rynthala pointed at the dust cloud. “Is he in there?”
“Well, I have not seen him come out and, if he didn’t fly or burrow into the ground—and he isn’t a dwarf, but a kender like me—”
The kender had sent his message. Rynthala pointed off to her left.
“Follow me down there, but stay in line and clear of the dust. We don’t want anyone striking out at us in a panic.”
Rynthala hoped she would have equal self-command. At the moment, her mouth was as dry as if she had swallowed dust for an hour. Her breath came quick, and muscles that she had not known she had were twitching of their own will. When she dug in her spurs, she was surprised that the pressure of her legs did not crack her mount’s ribs.
But the horse seemed as eager as his familiar mistress. Together they shot down the slope. Rynthala’s notion was to stay well clear of the dust until she could snatch a prisoner or even find a willing informant among those fighting. She saw no elves and little archery at the moment, but the dust cloud was rapidly growing large enough to hide a small manor. She could not risk the slaughter of friends on the slim evidence of her eyes.
A breeze rose as she was halfway down the slope, at first blowing the dust toward her. She rode through a yellow wall, half surprised that it was not as solid as brick, to find herself coughing in relatively clear air.
S
he was also almost on top of the largest man she had ever seen, nearly the size of an ogre although vastly better-formed. Indeed, he was so handsome and so swift and graceful, Rynthala’s hand came up of its own accord to make the sign of Kiri-Jolith.
The godlike young warrior did not see Rynthala at first, being occupied with two opponents. She noted that he was holding them at a safe distance without trying to beat down their guards and kill them; he could have done so easily, with his advantage of height and reach, not to mention a sword in proportion to the rest of him.
At last, one of the men threw down his blade and knelt to ask mercy, and the other turned and fled. As he vanished into the dust cloud, Rynthala heard a scream—and the man stumbled out again, clutching a bleeding leg.
A kender followed, clutching his hoopak and trying to look in all directions at once. He was coated with dust and spotted with blood, but from the vigor of his movements most of it must have belonged to others.
“You must be Imsaffor Whistletrot,” was the first thing Rynthala could say.
At least it was better than hailing the warrior as Kiri-Jolith. A valiant fighter, surely, and almost certainly for good, but definitely human, and not even as young as Rynthala had thought. He could not be far off thirty, which to her still seemed a considerable age.
Both the warrior and the kender replied at once, but the kender talked three times as fast, so that Rynthala heard his answer first, even if most of it did not make sense. Apparently she had named him correctly, he thanked her, he trusted that Horimpsot Elderdrake had told her, he would return his friend’s hoopak now, and on and on for some long while.
By then the warrior was plainly trying hard not to laugh. He looked down at the kender, who barely came up to his waist, and said, “Have I changed so much that you no longer recognize me?”
The kender looked up, his mouth fell open, and for once in history a kender was too astonished to speak. This gave the warrior a chance to bow to Rynthala.
“I trust you are on the side of good, my lady, for it would be a painful duty to fight you. I am Sir Darin Waydolson, Knight of the Crown.”
