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

“What else?” Raistlin said to Wren when she cocked her head as though to question his choice. “A fast and far hunter.” He collared the fox with another square of cloth, this garnered from Tanis’s pack, and sat back on his heels. “Follow the wren and the hunt well, fox. Use all your cunning. And remember, do not harm the mage, for I can only undo those spells of my own working.”

Pytr smelled danger in the wind. Rieve, back since the afternoon from another fruitless search for Wren, brooded darkly before the fire. The danger smell did not come from him. In him Pytr noted only the hard, bitter scent of anger. This smell was different. It was a combination of odors, woven together to send a fearful message of disparate creatures banded for some common purpose. Dog, he smelled—and fox. Pytr lifted his head and caught the scent of a bird, large and bold and bright: a deadly raptor. Over them all rode the thick, musky scent of a far-removed cousin; a mountain panther prowled near. They hunted, their scents told him, but they were not hungry.

In the cage on the table the squirrel roused and sniffed the air.

Cat! Pytr! Do you smell it ?

I do. The scent of enemies .

Enemies ? The squirrel’s tail danced. Yes, these were the scents of enemies. And yet the dream from which he’d just woken was not one of enemies.

Cat—Pytr, I thought when I was dreaming that I scented friends .

Pytr’s tail switched impatiently, then slowed to a considering wave. Friends ?

Well, it’s hard to explain. It’s ... I smell the dog and the fox, the falcon and the panther. And my nose tells me to be afraid. but ... in my mind I don’t see the beasts the smells are supposed to show me. I ... I don’t know how else to explain it .

Pytr wondered then if maybe the squirrel was crazy. He sighed and left his place by the window. He gave Rieve wide berth and leaped to the table. What do you see in your dreams, then, squirrel ?

I don’t know. I don’t see anything that I can tell you about for sure. I just don’t see a dog. or a fox, or the rest of them. What about the man ?

Rieve? He’s nose-blind, like all his kind .

The squirrel sighed. I don’t know how I know this, Pytr, being a squirrel as I am, but I have a feeling that friends are coming .

The long, eerie howl of a dog cascaded through the night. The hackles rose on the back of Pytr’s neck. A fox’s sharp yipping followed, and a falcon wailed high, then low. The panther was silent, but Pytr knew he was near.

Pytr rose, back arched, tail swollen to nearly the width of the squirrel’s. Rieve was on his feet, his back to the fire. His fear scent, sour and urgent, filled the room.

Let us hope, squirrel, that these are friends, indeed. Though if they are, I will tell you now that you have some very strange friends for a squirrel .

Part of the squirrel agreed completely. Another part, however, the part that dreamed memories he knew he shouldn’t have, laughed happily.

The falcon descended on a dropping air current and caught the tree’s bare branch neatly to perch. He spread his wings, his dark eyes flashing, and screamed an imperious challenge.

Sturm ! the fox thought, stretching his sharp-toothed jaws in a grin of acknowledgement. Behind him he heard the shepherd dog, Flint, just drifting down the hill. That path would take him right into the cottage’s dooryard, shadowed now by night and trees. To his left and ahead, around the far side of the cottage, rumbled the low growl of the panther. Caramon was in place. It occurred to the fox—Tanis—that it was a very good thing that Caramon had eaten well before the change.

The fox tested the air carefully, identified the scents of his companions and of those within the cottage. Man-scent was strong, and so was the smell of cat and squirrel.

Squirrel. His mouth began to water in spite of himself. Squirrels, he knew from some heretofore untapped well of information, tasted nearly as good as rabbits. Tanis shuddered and shook himself.

He caught man-scent again, this time from a hill behind him. That scent he knew well, though he had only recently come to recognize it: Raistlin. Light and sweet, the small scent of a wren hovered near. All were in position.

Wren , he whispered, though to any who heard it might only have been the soft pant of a fox pausing to rest in his night hunting.

Here, here

You know what to do ?

Yes. I’m ready .

Go, then !

She stitched the night air gracefully, darting from the bushes where Raistlin was concealed, down through the shadows pooled beneath the trees near the cottage door where Flint crouched ready.

The panther, Caramon, had silenced his ominous rumbling, but Tanis scented him closer now and knew he was prowling, ghost-silent, along the side of the house. Above him the falcon took wing and landed on the roof above the door. Tanis caught his breath; had he seen the falcon anywhere he would have known him for Sturm by the proud lift of his head.

Wren alighted on the windowsill and fluttered her wings against the glass. In the voice of the bird she piped and lamented. She might only have been some night-caught creature seeking shelter.

A shadow crossed the glass. Tanis heard an indrawn breath. Man-scent rose on the air, stronger now. The panther’s green eyes glittered dangerously in the light spilling from the window. It seemed to Tanis, with his heightened sense of smell, that Rieve must know what waited outside his door.

Wren left the sill, flew to the door, and came near to hitting Flint where he waited in the shadows.

Rieve’s shadow left the window, vanished, then fell to block the line of light leaking from beneath the door. A red ghost in the night, Tanis glided down the hill, keeping to the shadows until he was aligned with Flint at the opposite side of the door. He heard the sound of the latch being lifted.

“Wren,” a cold voice said from within. “So, you’ve returned?”

Yes! she piped. Oh, please let me in!

“Of course, little one, of course.” There was silky threat in the mage’s voice. “You’ve reconsidered?”

Yes! Only let me in! Please!

The door opened quickly, orange light spilled out into the night, and Wren shot past the mage like a small brown comet. He turned, then fell, breathless beneath the weight of a large black shepherd dog and a slim red fox.

The mage kicked hard at the fox and sent it tumbling across the floor. Before he could move to rise, however, the dog’s teeth clamped onto his shoulder. Behind him the cat hissed and the caged squirrel scolded and chattered. He brought up his knee and drove it into the dog’s stomach. Snarling, the beast fell away.

Rieve scrambled to his feet, kicked again at the dog, and missed. He spun toward the door and came eye to razor sharp beak with a dark-eyed falcon.

“No!” he shouted, flinging up an arm to protect his eyes. The falcon’s talons raked along the back of his hand. “No!”

As though in response to his protest, the falcon darted away, lifting high to take perch on the mantel. Rieve drew a shuddering breath and stumbled again to the door. A heavy, tawny paw hit him hard in the chest and dropped him where he stood. The panther’s fangs shone like daggers in the fire’s glow.

Standing at the panther’s shoulder, one hand on the mountain cat’s broad golden head, another extended in a parody of greeting, stood a light-eyed, pale young mage. His cold smile awoke a fear in Rieve that even the panther’s gleaming fangs had not.

Rieve moaned. He wondered if he would have time to prepare for death.

Animals were turning into people all around him, and the squirrel didn’t know where to look first. The falcon, that beautiful bird, became a tall, dark-haired young man. There was still something of the falcon’s brooding about him. The squirrel thought that it must always have been this way. The fox, limping from having been kicked half-way across the cottage, was no fox at all but a red-haired half-elf who leaned against the wall, holding ribs that must truly hurt from the look in his long eyes.