Ник О'Донохью - Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes

Before too long, the dogs upstream on the opposite side began barking furiously. A hobgoblin there blew his horn.

“Ha! Now what do you say, Groag?” called Toede as he splashed across the stream on Galiot. He hunched over to avoid some low branches. “Kronin is not as clever as he—or you—believes!”

An exhausted Groag, falling to the rear of the pursuing hobgoblins, didn’t answer. A dead branch had torn the sleeve of his fancy robe.

“Uh oh, do you hear what I hear?” asked Talorin as he and Kronin dragged the dripping wet, impossibly cumbersome deer carcass through the woods. They stopped to listen. Talorin leaned against a large, rough-barked tree and slid to the ground to rest. “Goodness, they are persistent,” remarked Kronin. “My poor wrist is starting to chafe,” complained Talorin, “and I’m tired and hungry—”

“My, my, such a grumpy boy,” said Kronin. “How do you think I feel? Is there a worse curse than for two kender to be chained together?”

But then Talorin, only half listening to the older kender, snapped his fingers. “Say, I have an idea!”

Kronin looked at him skeptically.

“No, really, I do! It’s a good one!”

“Are we going to need anything special for this one?”

“No, no, just some muscle grease!” Talorin jumped to his feet. His face shone with eagerness.

“Well, that’s too much. Mine requires only—ahh. Hmmm. No. We’d need lard for that—”

“You see? Our situation is dire. Please let me tell you my idea! Please, please, please—”

“All right, all right!” said Kronin, half covering his pointy ears. “Just keep your voice down. They’re getting close.”

Talorin beamed and rubbed his hands. He leaned toward Kronin and whispered, “That hobgoblin dunderhead will never figure this one out!”

“At last!” said Groag, wiping his forehead with a silk handkerchief and looking up into the high branches of an especially large pine. “We’ve treed them!”

“It would seem so,” said Toede, peering up and rubbing his weak chin. He frowned grotesquely. “Although for the life of me, I don’t see anyone up there.”

All the guards looked up stupidly and scratched their heads. The dogs, which had led the party to the tree, continued jumping up onto its trunk and sliding back down again—though one of them had actually managed to jump onto a particularly low limb and now stood upon it on jittery hind legs, barking furiously.

“You’re right,” said Groag over the din. “I don’t see them either. Can kender fly?”

But even as Groag suggested this, a smile spread slowly across his master’s face. “Sire?” Groag prodded dimly.

“Fly, Groag?” blurted Toede. “Ha! Fly, you say? Is that your theory?”

“Well, no. I was only wondering—”

“Don’t you see what they did?”

“Um, let me see—”

“And you think you’re so smart!” Toede pointed with a stubby finger at the various heavy limbs jutting from the tree. “It’s obvious! They climbed along one of those upper branches, crossed to another tree, down they came, and—” Toede turned to the rest of his party. “Everyone! Spread out!”

The hunting party radiated from the tree. Toede, more confident than ever, waited with Groag. Every so often he smirked at his uppity attendant. Sure enough, one of the dogs started yapping at the base of a neighboring pine.

“Oh, I do love it!” shouted Toede as he galloped off behind his noisy black dogs. “We’ll show Kronin yet!”

“I’m sure we will, my lord,” sighed Groag, mostly to himself as another limb tore at his robe.

“Darn! I almost had it!” said Kronin, hunkered down before a large cave at the base of a rocky hillside. His own reddened wrist was at last free of the chain, and he was now working on Talorin’s. From the rim of the cave, the two kender had a good view across a clearing of the surrounding forest.

“Will you please hurry, sir?” asked Talorin, sitting on the glassy eyed deer carcass. “Those dogs are getting awfully close.”

Kronin rose to his feet. “You’re right.” He looked pensive for a moment. “Say! Why don’t we split up? That would confuse them!”

“What? Me lug this deer all alone?”

Kronin’s face showed that he did not think it was such a terrible idea. “You could always hide in this cave—”

“Sire!”

“Hmm. I suppose not.” But he looked unconvinced.

“Sir, perhaps it would help you to think if you pretended you were still chained.”

“You may be right,” said Kronin. “Let. me pretend I’m still chained. Hmmmm ...” And while Kronin pondered, the dogs’ barking got steadily louder.

Talorin cleared his throat and held out his wrist, rattling his chain. “Um, in all due respect, sir, maybe you should continue picking the lock.” Of course, Talorin could pick the occasional lock, but Kronin was better at it, and besides, he was the leader.

“Maybe,” said Kronin vaguely, taking Talorin’s shackled wrist. “But I can’t pick locks and think at the same time.”

“That’s all right, my liege. I’ll think for us. In fact, I’ve already got an idea. Why don’t we—rats! We already tried that. Or, maybe ...”

The barking got louder; in addition, the pounding of the ponies’ hooves could be heard along with Toede’s own hoarse shouting as he frantically barked orders at his hunting party.

“This is going to be just a bit too close for comfort,” said Kronin, fumbling at the lock.

Talorin, still sitting on the carcass, squinted in deep thought. Every so often he brightened, but then quickly shook his head and fell back to his cogitating. “Well, that does it!” he finally announced, slapping his thigh with his free hand. “I’m fresh out of ideas!”

Suddenly Kronin stopped picking the lock. His ears twitched. “Say, did you hear something?”

“Hear something?” repeated Talorin, who was busy scooping up pebbles and inspecting them to see if any might, accidentally, be jewels. “Yes, but I thought it was you tugging at the lock—”

“No, no—” said Kronin. His ears twitched again. He turned to face the cave behind them. “I think it came from in there.”

Talorin directed his attention to the cave as well. He leaned toward it to listen better, dropping his pebbles. “You’re right! Hmm! Someone’s an awfully loud snorer!”

The two kender stared at each other a moment. Their eyes lit up with recognition. Kronin resumed picking the lock more feverishly than ever. Talorin was almost giddy with excitement. “Hold still, will you!” said Kronin.

“Oh, this will be a good one!”

The dogs soon came to the cave and barked furiously at its dark entrance, refusing, however, to go in.

“At last!” shouted Toede, pulling up on the reins of Galiot and stopping behind his dogs. He slid off. “They’re trapped!”

“I hope so, sire—” groaned Groag.

“Oh, they’re in there, all right,” said Toede. He stuck out his hand for his bow and arrow.

“Yes, but every time—”

“Come, come! Be quick about it!” shouted Toede, snapping his fingers impatiently.

Groag handed the weapons over. “They’ve been very sneaky so far—”

“That’s right! Very sneaky, indeed!” said Toede, nocking his arrow. “And look where it’s gotten them! They’re doomed!”

“All the same, my lord, I would proceed carefully—”

“Bah! You just don’t like seeing me outwit a kender,” came back Toede, turning his back on Groag and peering eagerly into the darkness of the cave.

“You’re wrong, my lord,” said Groag, sliding his bulk clumsily off his pony. “Nothing would please me more. But—”

“Never mind ‘but’, ” said Toede, turning back. “Just follow your orders. Stay by the trees and watch the mounts and dogs. I’ll leave you the slaves and the two rearguards. If Kronin and that other pointy eared pipsqueak should sneak by us, kill them at once! Understand?”