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

They called the village Dragon’s Point. It was a grand name for a tiny human settlement located at the tip of a peninsula northeast of Kornen. Fishtown might have been more appropriate. All who lived in Dragon’s Point played some part in the fishing trade. Young and old, men and women.

Visitors were rare in this part of the world: a few traders, a wandering soul, even a minor cleric now and then. A Knight of Solamnia, then, should have been a sight rare enough to make every villager cease his work and stare in astonishment. At least that was what Torbin had believed. Yet, they did little more than eye him suspiciously and then disappear into their respective homes. They seemed more frightened than surprised.

Those standing nearest to him—those that did not run or sneak away—watched him with narrowed, covetous eyes. His personal wealth amounted to little, but it must have seemed a king’s treasure to these folk. His hand strayed to his sword just long enough to warn potential bravados. The message shot home with the swiftness of an arrow. Torbin soon found himself alone in the midst of the very village he had come to protect.

A young knight, he had a tremendous desire to prove himself to the world. He wanted to make a name for himself, something that would gain him the respect of the elders of his order, something that would make the common folk gaze at him in wide-eyed admiration. In short—though he would not have admitted it to himself, much less to anyone else—Torbin wanted to be a hero.

Most of his fellows had chosen to go south toward the more populous regions. They would fight a few bandits, stare down a few peasants, and come back boasting of their great struggles. Torbin wanted much more than that. He wanted a real struggle, a worthy adversary. That was why he had chosen to head toward Kornen and then up the peninsula. The minotaurs lived near here. Savage manbeasts with their own code of honor.

A commoner, making his ways to the more hospitable lands to the southwest, had spoken of the village held in a grip of terror by a great band of minotaurs. The man-beasts prowled the woods and marched along the shore. Any day now they would surely overrun the helpless settlement.

Torbin suspected the commoner of being a great embellisher, and further questioning proved him correct in that assumption. The great band was reduced to one lone minotaur and a few whispered but unaccountable incidents. The situation seemed ideal.

Two weeks later, Dragon’s Point’s new savior had reached his destination.

It stank heavily of fish.

Three slightly better-dressed men met him at the village center. By their continual bickering over which of them was to speak—none of the three seemed to want the actual honor—he assumed them to be members of the local governing power. As a matter of fact, they turned out to be the mayor, the chief fisherman, and the tax collector. Torbin took the choice out of their hands by steering his horse toward the mayor. The man looked ready to faint, but managed to sputter out a greeting. The knight removed his helmet and returned the greeting.

The three elders seemed a bit disappointed in his youthful appearance. Torbin was clean-shaven and rather handsome, though his nose hooked slightly. His eyes were a bright blue, which seemed to accentuate his lack of experience. His brown hair contrasted greatly with the blond locks that dominated in this village. The tax collector, a weed of a man who stared down his prominent nose at everyone, sniffed at the newcomer with open disdain. The others shushed him.

“My name is Torbin. I am merely seeking a place to stay for a night before I continue my journey.” He had decided to play it dumb for the time being, the better to check the accuracy of his own information.

The mayor, a plump, bald man with the unlikely name of Hallard Boarbreaker, looked even more distressed. “Then you have not come to save us from the minotaurs?”

The knight stiffened. “Minotaurs? I vaguely remember hearing that the islands of the great man-beasts were said to be somewhere near here, out beyond the Blood Sea of Istar, correct?” He waited for them to nod. “I know nothing about your plight. How many? How near?”

Between the three of them, he eventually discovered that there was indeed only one such creature, though it had originally arrived in a boat with others. The rest had immediately turned around and headed for home, to plan more war strategy, no doubt. The remaining minotaur had situated itself somewhere on the shore, though from their inconsistent accounts, the exact location could be anywhere within an hour’s to a day’s ride. The one thing all three agreed on was that this minotaur must be an advance scout for an invading army. Those brave enough to spy on the creature had reported that it sat in the same spot every day, cutting sharp sticks from wood it gathered and staring out at the sea in expectation.

A grand image was swiftly forming in the young knight’s mind. He pictured himself standing over the gutted body of the horrific minotaur, his sword bearing the severed head of the beast on its point. A better trophy he could not have asked for. It did not occur to him that such a scene could easily be reversed. He was, after all, a Knight of Solamnia.

Looking as stern as possible, he nodded. “Very well. Come the dawn, I will ride out to deal with the minotaur. Before the sun sets, I will be back with its head. You have my word on it.”

They looked rather dubious at this last statement, but thanked him nonetheless. If he succeeded, they would be all too happy to honor him with a feast. If he failed, they would be no worse off than if he had never come.

At Torbin’s request, they found him a place to stay for the night. He was also served one of the finest meals the inn’s cook had ever made, though the knight himself had never really been that fond of fish and thus did not realize the trouble the woman had gone through. As it was, he was barely able to down the foul dish. Torbin was also ignorant of the fact that she had outdone herself for the sole reason that she believed this young man was going out to die and deserved one last fine meal.

Torbin made no attempt to converse with those who drifted in and out of this poor attempt at a public inn. The few who stayed for very long only glanced his direction, that same hungry look in their eyes. The knight found himself anxiously awaiting the morrow.

He bedded down for the night—it could only loosely be called a bed, being more of a bug-ridden mattress on a piece of wood—and eventually drifted off into sleep despite his numerous tiny companions. In his dreams he finally found pleasure, skewering his hapless foe a thousand different ways, each one more daring and skillful than the one preceding it.

He rode quietly, hoping not to alert the minotaur. The tracks he had come across were fresh and spoke of a large beast. Torbin’s pulse quickened. Legends said the minotaurs were crafty fighters, as skilled in their own way as the Knights of Solamnia. They also had their own code of honor of which some of the older knights had spoken with great respect.

For a short time, he was forced to ride around trees on a path that could be described as maddening at best. It twisted this way and that, and the knight even found himself momentarily facing the direction he had just come from. Abruptly, it turned toward the coastline and led him to a gritty, open area.

Off to the north, his left, he saw the lean-to; nearby sat the feared minotaur, his great horned head bent over some unknown task.

Using the natural curve of the land to hide him, Tor-bin readied his sword and shield and backed the horse up in order to give it more time to build up speed before he clashed with the minotaur. A smile flickered on his face. He took a deep breath, quickly searched his mind for any options he might have missed, and then spurred the horse on.