Margaret Weis - Love and War

"Ships, yes… a sea voyage would be more comfortable than rolling in this cart," she said. "Could we find passage to Abanasinia in Thel?"

"Easily, my lady. 'Tis a thickly traveled route."

"Then we shall proceed to Thel, then take ship."

The carthorse wheezed and shivered. "I pray the beast holds out till then," said Soren.

The beast did not. By the time they reached the fork, the poor carthorse collapsed in harness, never to rise again.

"Oh, lady, what shall we do?" Carin wailed.

"Nuitari will have to serve," said Lady Ilys. Soren could only obey in silence. He loosed the tracings from the dead animal and dragged the carcass aside. Then he backed theblack, straight-limbed Nuitari between the poles of the over burdened cart. Soren patted the horse's nose consolingly.

"There's no shame in it," he said in a low voice, though Sturm was near and heard him. "We all must serve beneath our worth sometime, my friend."

Day passed and night came. The two bright moons rose, shone their faces on Krynn, and set again. Mistress Carin drove all night, and Sturm noticed that his mother parted with one of her fine scarves so that her maid might have some protection from the facing wind.

The air warmed with day, and the ice on the track changed to mud. It gripped the cart wheels and the sergeant's boots with fervor, but neither Soren nor the brave Nuitari complained. They climbed a long, grassy hill to an ancient ring of standing stones. Strange images were graven on the triliths. Sturm knew dark forces were abroad in the land. He held close to his mother when they stopped amid the ruined circle.

Soren advanced to the crest of the hill. He pointed down to a vista Sturm could not see. "It is Thel," he said.

Thel was a modest town of five-hundred souls, but toSturm's eye, it was a complete city. Some of the half timbered houses had three stories — not so tall as the towers of Castle Brightblade, but so full of people! Sturm was fascinated.

Soren walked the cart along the high street. The toll of four days and nights on the road was obvious. Even Lady Ilys was bedraggled, her fair face chapped by raw wind and her soul weighed down with bitterness and hurt.

The Thelites paid them no large attention as they passed. Strangers and refugees were common in the town. Lady Ilys, for her part, ignored them in turn.

"Rabble. Riff-raff," she said through pursed lips. "Remember, Sturm, you are the son of a knight. Do not speak to these people unless they address you properly, with the deference due us."

Soren found an inn off the waterfront. He went in to dicker with the owner, leaving the women and boy in the cart. Sturm climbed atop the baggage and watched the passing crowds with total absorption.

One fellow in particular caught Sturm's eye: he was short and slender, a green mantle draped over his shoulders. His ears drew back in sharp points, and his eyes slanted down at the corners. He walked with smooth, unconscious grace.

"There's elf blood in him," Mistress Carin said knowingly.

Across the street, a hulking figure loafed in an open doorway. A shaggy mane of hair did little to conceal his ugliness, and his lips could not hide the jagged teeth protruding from his outthrust jaw.

"Half-orc," said Carin.

Soren returned. "My lady," he said. "The innkeeper has a small private room for you and Master Sturm. Mistress Carin may have a place by the kitchen hearth, and I a bench in the beerhall. All this for four silver pieces."

"Four! That's outrageous!"

"I chaffered him down from seven."

"Very well," she said. "If it is the best we can do." She sniffed the moist, salty air. "I suppose there are ELVES and things in there?"

"No, lady. In the cold season, such folk generally go to warmer climes."

"Let us be thankful for that, at least." Lady Ilys took four coins from her purse. Soren helped her down from the cart and escorted her and Sturm into the inn.

The innkeeper was a fat, bald man who grinned through rotten teeth. He bobbed his head and waved Lady Ilys to the stairs. Before Sturm reached the steps, the innkeeper let out a howl.

"Put that back, you two-legged rat! Don't tell me you found it; I know you stole it!" he cried. A diminutive manlike creature, a head shorter than Sturm, silverware poking out of his pockets, stood by a beer keg. When the innkeeper yelled again, the little man put his fingers in his ears and stuck out his tongue. Spoons, coins, and buttons cascaded from his clothes onto the floor.

"I'll swat you good, you roach!" the innkeeper bawled. He reached for a stout broom. The tiny fellow — a kender, according to Carin — stooped to retrieve his booty. The broom's first swipe was a miss, but the innkeeper caught the kender by the seat of his pants and swept him out the door.

"My 'pologies, ma'am," the fat man said. "I never allow them kender in here, but they slip in sometimes when I'm not watchful."

Lady Ilys gave the man a glacial look and dropped only three silver coins in his palm. The man was too flustered to protest. He bowed and backed away. Soren hoisted two bags on his shoulders and went up the steps, chuckling.

The room was small, and the beds were stacked one above the other. Sturm was delighted and climbed nimbly up the ladder to the top bunk.

"We will need more money for the voyage," Soren said. "May I have my lady's approval to sell the cart for what it will bring?"

"Nuitari too?" asked Sturm, aghast. Soren nodded curtly.

"See to it, Sergeant. We shall not stir till your return," said Lady Ilys.

It was long dark before Soren came back. He thumped on the door. Mistress Carin admitted him. Soren bore a wide trencher of food. He'd intercepted the innkeeper's wife on the stair and taken the heavy platter off her hands. Soren set the trencher down on the lone table and announced, "We have a ship."

Sturm stabbed a slab of boiled mutton with his knife. A stern look from his mother froze him at once.

"What ship? And where bound?" asked Lady Ilys.

"The good ship Skelter is bound directly for Abanasinia and the Hartshorn River," said Soren. "From there we can go upriver to Solace itself."

"Who is master of this Skelter ?"

"One Graff, a mariner of many years' experience on these seas."

"Very good, Sergeant. And when do we sail?"

"With the morning tide, my lady."

With the morning tide . Sturm repeated those words over and over in his head. Since leaving the castle, he had imagined their quick deliverance. He would hear a sharp tattoo of hoofbeats behind, and Lord Bright-blade would gallop over the hill at the head of a troop of horsemen. "Come back! All is well!" he would shout. How would his father ride to them across the sea? The answer was clear, and Sturm did not like it.

The good ship Skelter lay fast against a long wooden pier. Short and round, she was freshly caulked and painted. Sturm wondered what exotic cargoes had been carried under the green planking of her hull.

Dark-skinned sailors clung to the rigging, doing mysterious things with lengths of rope and bundles of sailcloth. Sturm never took his eyes off them as he trailed after his mother and Soren down the pier. The captain of the Skelter greeted them at the foot of the gangplank. He clasped his own hands across his belly and bowed shortly to Lady Ilys.

"Captain Graff, at yer service, ma'am," he said. His beard was plaited in intricate braids, and a dull gold bead hung from one earlobe. "We'll be weighing anchor ere the sun strikes the housetops of Thel. Will ye board now?"

She made only the slightest nod of assent. Mistress Carin went ahead, and two husky sailors fell upon their baggage. Soren stood aside, one hand on the pommel of his sword. Sturm stayed by him, taking in the busy spectacle of a ship being readied for sea.