“Save yourself,” Osler muttered grimly. “You’d have better luck in a head-butting contest with a minotaur tonight. I swear, this bugger’s put a hex on the cards.”
Caramon chuckled, glancing at Riverwind, but the Plainsman shook his head. “The only games I know are wrestling and pole sparring,” Riverwind said.
“Pole sparring, eh?” drawled Borlos. “Well, maybe we can arrange something. Caramon, get Clem a broom.”
“All right,” Caramon said. He started toward a nearby closet.
Clemen’s face turned white as a cleric’s robes. The others held their straight faces for a moment, but it was a losing battle, and soon Osler and Borlos were howling with laughter, pounding the table. Caramon chuckled along with them, and even Riverwind cracked a smile.
“Had ye goin’ there, didn’t we?” roared Borlos, slapping Clemen on the shoulder. “Thought ye’d be gettin’ yer head clonked by a genuine Hero of the Lance, eh?”
Riverwind glanced at Caramon, surprised. “They know who I am?”
“Oh, great gods, yeah,” said Osler.
“Don’t believe them, Riverwind,” said Tika. She emerged from the kitchen, the smell of spices wafting behind her. “They heard me tell Caramon you were in town.”
Osler reddened. “Well, aye, but I reckon I’d’a known ye the moment I saw ye, Plainsman. Not many o’ yer kind taller than Caramon, here. He’s told us all about the whole lot o’ ye.”
“And told us, and told us….“ droned Clemen. Suddenly everyone-Tika included-was laughing again, at Caramon’s expense.
“Pull up a seat,” offered Osler, gesturing at an empty chair. “You can tell us the truth about the War of the Lance. It’d be nice to hear something other than Caramon’s tall tales for a change.”
Riverwind looked at Caramon, who waved a hand. “Go ahead. It’s a good night for war stories. The boys are right-they’ve heard everything a hundred times-but don’t let that stop you. They’re easily amused.” He ignored the snorts and scowls the three card players tossed his way. “I’ll be right back.”
He left the others and went to a storeroom in the back of the Inn. There he bent down and opened a trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Taking a lantern from a nearby cresset, he stepped through the open hatch and climbed down a steep flight of stairs. The stairway smelled of sap, for it led into the trunk of the great vallenwood tree whose branches cradled the Inn. Caramon had built the stairway when the Knights of Takhisis took control of Solace. Hewn out of the living wood, its entrance concealed beneath a wine cask even he could barely lift, it led to a room that had been a safe house for refugees who needed hiding from the Dark Knights. Now, with the Chaos War long over, it served as a cellar where he kept his best stock.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and shone the lantern around the cramped room. Bottles of elven wine and Solamnian brandy sparkled in the ruddy light, but he ignored them. Instead, he walked to a worn, oaken keg. The barrel, carefully sealed, held the last of the ale he’d brewed before the Second Cataclysm. He’d been waiting for almost two years for the right occasion to tap it.
“Well,” he said, bending down and hoisting it up beneath his massive arm, “looks like this is an occasion.”
The ale was fine, some of the best ever he’d ever brewed. Caramon didn’t drink it, of course-he hadn’t taken a drink in more than thirty years, and never would again-but Tika, the card-players, and Riverwind all praised its rich, nutty flavor.
So did Riverwind’s daughters. They had come in while Caramon was in the cellar, and had pulled up chairs beside their father. Moonsong and Brightdawn were twins, twenty-four years old and beautiful enough that Tika had to smack Clemen and Osler across the backs of their heads for staring. In many ways they resembled their mother, sharing Goldmoon’s silver-gold hair and sky-blue eyes, but there was something of their father in them too-a solemnness in Moonsong’s face, a strength to Brightdawn’s jaw.
Moonsong, who was the older sister by a few minutes, was the more graceful of the two. Destined, according to Que-Shu custom, to succeed her mother as high priestess of the Plains, she had trained as a healer under Goldmoon’s tutelage. Her hands were soft, her skin unblemished, and she wore her hair loose, held in place by a silver circlet hung with feathers. She was clad in a gown of pale blue, embroidered with abstract patterns in threads of red and gold. Gold shone at her ears, wrists and fingers.
While Moonsong had lived a structured life, ordered by her duties as Chieftain’s Daughter, Brightdawn’s childhood had been at once rougher and more carefree. A tomboy from an early age, the younger twin had learned wrestling and archery, and had accompanied her father on hunts in the grasslands. She had calluses on her hands, a small white scar on her chin, and her hair was shorter than her sister’s, gathered in a single plait that hung down her back. Instead of a circlet, she wore a red headband, which marked her as a warrior-as did the flanged mace that hung from her belt. She was clad in plain, buckskin clothes-brown leggings and a beige vest-and her arms were tanned and bare. She was clad in no jewelry anywhere on her body.
Despite the twins’ beauty however, it was Riverwind who held everyone’s attention. The Plainsman sat on a high stool by the fire, his back erect and his eyes gleaming beneath his stem brow. His left hand gripped his flagon of ale, his right dancing like a weaver’s shuttle at the loom as he recounted the story of his first meeting with Caramon and the Companions.
“We never expected anything more than a meal and a bed for the night, Goldmoon and I,” he said. “We were led here by a man who wore the armor of a Knight of Solamnia-Sturm Brightblade. He was polite, but…” He searched for the right word. “Diffident. When he decided we were safe, he went to join his friends, whom he told us he had not seen in a very long time. We sat by the fire, much as we are now, although the Inn was very crowded that night. There was an old man there, telling ancient stories to a young boy. He was the one who started it all.”
The tale spun on. Riverwind told of the song he and Goldmoon had played, of how the Seeker Hederick had fallen into the hearthfire while trying to arrest them for heresy, and of how the blue crystal staff had shone after Tasslehoff used it to heal the Seeker’s bums. He recalled his shock when the old man-who, he would learn much later, was Paladine himself in disguise-had called for the guards, forcing the Plainsfolk to escape through the inn’s kitchen. Joining with Tanis and Sturm, Caramon and Raistlin, Flint and Tasslehoff, they had fled to Tika’s house while the goblins searched for them.
“There we were,” the old Plainsman recalled, his eyes distant with memory, “hiding in the dark like bandits. I didn’t know any of the others yet-and, to be honest, I didn’t trust them.”
“The man’s a good judge of character,” drawled Borlos, taking a long pull from his tankard.
“Aw, shut up,” Caramon said, scowling. Everyone laughed.
Osler cuffed Borlos on the arm. “Let the man tell his story, Bor.”
Riverwind took a drink from his own mug, smiling as the fine ale moistened his parched throat. “The goblins were thorough that night, searching house-to-house,” he continued, setting down the flagon. “Our plan was to pretend there was no one home, but somehow no one remembered to shut the door. By the time Tanis realized, it was too late-the goblins were almost on top of us.
“Caramon went over by the doorway and waited. When the goblins came in, he grabbed them from behind, and-” he clapped his hands, the sudden sound making the card players jump “-he cracked their heads together. They were dead before they knew what hit them.”
The others laughed at this, but Riverwind raised a hand, silencing them. “That’s not the best part,” he said, smiling. “When Tanis asked what had happened, Caramon just sighed and said ‘I think I hit ‘em too hard.’ ”
The card players laughed uproariously. Riverwind’s daughters joined in, and even Tika-who had heard this tale more than any of them-chuckled at her husband’s expense. Sighing, Caramon shook his head and rose.
Everyone, Riverwind included, raised their tankards in the air.
Caramon walked to the keg, listening to Riverwind describe how they had deliberately smashed up Tika’s house after killing the goblins-and Tika’s half-joking declaration that they could have been less thorough about it. As he poured a new round of drinks for his friends, the door swung open. He glanced up, raising his eyebrows in surprise when he saw who walked in.
It was the pair of kender he had seen outside the Last Heroes Tomb. The female looked to be the older of the pair, as she had more wrinkles on her otherwise girlish face, but it was the male who led the way into the tavern. They were both brightly attired-she in a red blouse and white trousers, he in hunting greens and a vivid yellow sash. The woman held a hoopak in her hands, and the man had something that looked like a dubious mixture of axe and slingshot slung across his back. They both wore their hair-hers was lustrous black, his chestnut brown-in the same style: long ponytails hanging down their backs, and short, tight braids dangling at their cheeks. Caramon had a vague recollection of Tasslehoff saying once that the strange hairstyle was a sign of noble blood among the kender. Flint had had a thing or two to say about using “noble” and “kender” in the same sentence.
The laughter by the fireside faded as Riverwind and his audience watched them walk in, striding straight up to the bar.
“Caramon Majere?” asked the male.
Caramon blinked, taken aback. “Uh,” he said, “yes?” “I’m Kronn-alin Thistleknot, son of Kronin Thistleknot,” the male stated. He nodded sideways, at his companion. “This is my sister Catt. We need you to come with us to Kendermore.”
Chapter 4
It grew very quiet in the Inn of the Last Home. Everyone stared at the kender. Kronn and Catt stared back.
“Kendermore?” Riverwind asked.
Kronn nodded earnestly.
“Kendermore?” echoed Caramon, incredulous.
Catt leaned over the bar, her brow furrowing. “I don’t mean to intrude,” she said, “but is there a reason you’re pouring beer all over the floor?”
Caramon started, glancing down at his feet. He’d forgotten, in his distraction, to close the spigot on the keg, and nut-brown ale was gurgling out, forming a pool around his boots. Tika snorted in disgust as he fumbled to close the tap. In the moment he was turned away from the bar, Kronn grabbed one of the full tankards.
“Wait!” Caramon said. “That’s for-”
Kronn downed half the tankard’s contents in one deep draught. “Good stuff,” he remarked, wiping foam from his lips. “Plenty of hops-I like that. Brew it yourself?”
“Thanks. Yes. I-” Caramon shook his head vigorously. “Kendermore?”
Catt turned to her brother. “Why does he keep saying that?”
Tika strolled over, her hands on her hips. “Now see here,” she said. “Kendermore’s clear on the other side of Ansalon.”
A smile lit Kronn’s face as he came near. “You must be Tika,” he said.
Caramon looked around quickly, making sure there were no heavy, blunt objects his wife could reach.
“And you must be going,” Tika snapped back testily, “unless you have a damned good reason why my husband should cross an entire continent at his age.”
“Oh, there’s a good reason,” Kronn declared. “We need him to help us drive off an army of ogres.”
“An army of-” Tika repeated, her eyes widening.
“Plus there’s the dragon,” Catt added.
“Dragon?” Tika echoed.
“Her name’s Malystryx,” Kronn said, his face grave. “She’s been causing all sorts of problems, but she didn’t bother us, so we let her be. Then, last month-” He shut his eyes, his face pinched with pain. “She destroyed a village-Woodsedge was its name. Burned it to the ground. And she… she killed our father.”
“Kronin?” Caramon asked, his face ashen. “Kronin Thistleknot’s dead?”
Kronn nodded, then bowed his head, his cheek braids drooping. Catt stepped forward to continue the story. “Our sister, Paxina-she’s been in charge of Kendermore for about ten years now-sent us here,” she said. “We brought one of Father’s shoes to put in the Tomb of Last Heroes. I hope you don’t mind. And since we were going to be in Solace anyway, Pax asked us to bring back someone who knew a thing or two about dragon-slaying.” She looked up at Caramon, beaming. “Naturally, we thought of you.”
Caramon and Tika exchanged glances.
“I’m sorry,” the big man said, turning back to the kender. “I think there’s been a mistake. I don’t know anything about slaying dragons. I’ve never even fought one, not really.”
Kronn’s brows knitted. “But that’s not what the legends say.”
“Which legend is that?” Tika asked acidly. “The one where Tanis shot the green dragon out of the sky with his bow, and Caramon cut off its head when it hit the ground? Or the one where the two of them killed and skinned a blue and snuck into Neraka wearing its hide?”
Caramon chuckled. Kronn, however, was serious. “Both of them,” he said. “I always wondered, how did you think of that thing with the skin? That’s pretty smart. How’d you keep the other dragons from smelling you, though?”
“They didn’t-that is, we didn’t… oh, blast.” Caramon put a hand to his forehead. “Look, there are all sorts of stories about us. Bards started making them up before the War of the Lance was even over, and they’ve had another thirty years to practice. If they were all true, Tanis and I would have killed fifty dragons by ourselves.”
“Not to mention the story about Sturm and Kitiara sailing to the moon,” Tika added. “Or all the tales about them fighting dragons and draconians years before the War started.”
“We even had one idiot come in last year claiming Raistlin once had passed as a woman in disguise!” called Clemen. “The big guy showed him the quick way down from this tree.”
“Anyway, I’m afraid the stories you’ve heard are like those,” Caramon finished sympathetically. “The truth is, I’ve never killed a dragon in my life. And I’m no youngster, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Kronn’s face fell. “You sure look big and strong to me.”
Tika stepped up to the kender, glaring. “Get this straight, Mr. Thistlebulb,” she snapped.
“Thistleknot.”
“Whatever. My husband has done a lot of boneheaded things in his life, but dragon-slaying isn’t one of them-to say nothing of thwarting ogre armies. And there’s no way I’m going to let him start up again. Listen to him.” She waved her hand at Caramon. “He’s not the man he used be, you know. He’s old, fat, and slow-and he never was very bright. I doubt he could even kill a hobgoblin these days.”
“Thanks, Tika,” Caramon muttered.
“Oh dear,” Kronn said resignedly. He glanced at Catt, who shared his crestfallen expression. “But we’ve got to bring some hero to help us.”
“I will go.”
Astonished eyes turned toward the stool beside the fire. Riverwind rose from his seat and came forward, leaving Clemen, Borlos, and Osler to gape, wide-eyed, at his back. “I will go with you,” he said to the kender.
“Father!” Moonsong exclaimed as she and Brightdawn hurried after him.
Caramon stared at the Plainsman, shocked. “You’re not serious.”
“I will go with them,” Riverwind repeated.
“You can’t defeat a dragon all by yourself, Father,” Brightdawn argued. “It’s impossible!”
“Impossible?” Riverwind asked. “Like a poor, heretic shepherd wooing a princess?” He looked at Caramon. “Like the group of us bringing back the gods? Like stopping Chaos from destroying the world?”
Caramon shook his head, scowling. He started to say something, caught Riverwind’s fierce look, and bit his tongue. Brightdawn and Moonsong stared at their father, their faces lined with worry.
“For the love of Reorx, man!” called Borlos, rising from his place
beside the fire. “They’re just kender.”
Riverwind glared at Borlos even more fiercely, and Borlos sank back into his chair and looked at the floor. The Plainsman turned back to Kronn and Catt. Solemnly, he offered them his hand.
“I am Riverwind of Que-Shu,” he said. “I don’t know much about dragons either, but I have love and admiration in my heart for the kender. I will go with you and do the best I can.”
The trees of Solace blazed red with the rising sun. Birdsong filled the air, and squirrels chased each other across the inn’s steep roof. Caramon and Riverwind stood on the balcony outside the tavern, smelling the tempting aroma of cooking fires that drifted on the wind. They cupped mugs of hot tarbean tea in their hands, taking occasional sips to keep the morning’s chill at bay.
“A good day for traveling,” Riverwind noted.
Caramon grunted, took another sip of his tea, and set it down on the balcony’s dew-dappled railing.
Neither man had slept; neither man had wanted to. Soon after Riverwind declared his desire to help the kender, Clemen, Borlos, and Osler had slipped away and the rest had gone upstairs to bed-first Moonsong and Brightdawn, then Kronn and Catt. Last of all Tika had kissed her husband good night, embraced Riverwind with tears in her eyes, and left them alone. The Plainsman had helped Caramon drag a straw pallet into the tavern and lay the drunken tinker out on it. After that, the two old men, who had been friends for more than thirty years, had sat together the whole night through.
“Kendermore,” Caramon muttered.
Riverwind glanced at him, then chuckled, gazing at the vallenwoods’ waving branches. “I know what I’m doing, Caramon.”
“Do you?” Caramon persisted. “Riverwind, you’re sixty-five years old, and you want to pick up and travel across Ansalon to fight a dragon at the behest of two kender you’ve never even met before tonight.” He scowled. “If that makes so much sense to you, could you please explain it to me?”
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