Margaret Weis - Love and War

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 ban dit'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.