Nancy Berberick - Stormblade

“Taking a wash. She insisted, and Tyorl didn’t argue. Said it would give him some time to look for gear.” Lavim dumped the clothes on the floor and dropped down among them, happily rummaging through cloaks and hunting costumes, boots and blouses. “I guess they didn’t burn everything before they left, did they?

“You know, Stanach, this place must’ve been really nice not so long ago. Its too bad the elves decided to leave. Me, I’d make those draconians drag me out of a place like this before I’d leave.”

Fear, like shadows, hung in the air. It clung to the lovely buildings, lurked in the darkness of the apple garths and pear groves. Fear and sorrow walked the streets and laughed darkly at each dying aspen.

Stanach shook his head. Fear was nothing a kender could understand, and there was no sense wasting time trying to explain it. The dwarf crossed the room and dropped cross-legged onto the icy marble floor. Curbing his impatience to be out of this sad room, this sad house, and the whole deserted city, he sorted through the clothing before Lavim could find a way to stuff the half of it into his pouches. The kender’s pockets and pouches were bulging already. His middle looked too thick for one Stanach knew to be sapling-thin. If the search through the deserted homes and shops of Qualinost had been painful for Tyorl and uncomfortable for Kelida and Stanach, it had been a kender’s dream for Lavim.

Stanach rescued a thick cloak from Lavim’s interest. The color of pine boughs and lined with gray rabbit fur, it had been made for someone about Kelida’s height and size. Next, he found a pair of hard-soled doeskin boots. The boots felt too heavy for their look. He peered into the interior of one and pinched an edge. The soft, supple leather was two layers thick and lined between with goose down.

“These look like they’ll probably fit her.”

Lavim picked up first one boot and then the other. “Nice stuff, Stanach. Kelida’s going to be warmer than all of us.”

“She’s been colder than all of us this far. It’s about time her luck turned. Why don’t you take those to her and then go see if you can find Tyorl and hurry him up. And, Lavim—”

The kender turned, his arms full of cloak and boots. “Yes?”

“Knock before you go in, empty out your pouches before you find Tyorl, and don’t take anything else on your way.”

Lavim’s wrinkled face was all innocence.

Stanach’s expression was firm. “And don’t bother spinning any of your tales about how you came by the stuff—just get rid of it.”

“But, Stanach—”

“I mean it, Lavim. That damn ghost of an elf is touchy enough. By the look of him, you’d think he was giving away his mother’s best gowns.”

“Maybe he is,” Lavim said thoughtfully. His eyes, in their webbing of wrinkles, looked unaccountably wise. “Well, not gowns, because Kelida’s probably going to be wearing breeches and not a gown, but maybe Tyorl used to know the person this stuff belongs to.”

Maybe he did, Stanach thought. He didn’t think on it further and did not regret his sour remark. It was a fine defense against the silent sorrow drifting around the room like old dust.

“Go on, Lavim.”

Alone, Stanach swept the clothing into a pile against the wall and sat, elbows on drawn up knees, to wait in moody silence for his companions to join him.

He’d done what he had to do. It hadn’t taken much to direct Kelida or Tyorl into believing that Hauk might still be alive. Kelida had even made the crucial connection herself: if Hauk was alive, he was protecting her. On the walk through the forest, Kelida had told the dwarf the story of how Hauk had given her the sword. Even as she described her fear of Hauk in the storeroom, her voice told him that she had been moved by his apology.

Stanach was certain now that any doubt Tyorl might again raise about the wisdom of taking Stormblade to Piper would be countered by the girl. Kelida was convinced that the half-drunk ranger who had given her the sword was even now, like some paladin, protecting her from the derro mage who would kill to get Stormblade.

Maybe Hauk had been protecting her—while he lived. However, he was surely dead now.

Stanach closed his eyes.

Once Stanach found Piper, Stormblade would be magically returned to Thorbardin, and in Hornfel’s hand, before Kelida or Tyorl had a chance to know it was gone. All Stanach had to do was keep the girl’s hope alive, play on her dreams a little longer. And how did the foolish dreams of a simple barmaid weigh in the balance against the certainty of having one rule—Hornfel’s rule—in Thorbardin?

They weighed not at all, Stanach told himself. Not at all. A light, thin fingered hand touched his shoulder. Stanach looked up to see Kelida standing before him.

“Stanach? Are you all right?”

She’d contrived to wash somehow. In her borrowed clothes, a hunting costume of bark-gray wool and soft doeskin boots, the green cloak around her shoulders, she looked like a wood sprite. Stormblade was scabbarded around her waist.

Stanach scrambled to his feet. “Aye, fine.”

“I thought I heard—”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. He jerked his chin at the Kingsword. “You still insist on carrying it?”

Fire leaped in Kelida’s eyes. “I’ve carried it this far.”

“Aye, and tripped over it every second step. This isn’t Long Ridge. If you carry a sword, people just naturally assume you can use it. You’d better know how, or you’ll find yourself dead before you can untangle your feet and haul it out. Let me carry it. Or if that doesn’t suit you, give it over to your friend the elf.”

Kelida shook her head. “For now, the sword is still mine.”

Stanach sighed. “The sword will be the death of you if you don’t at least learn how to carry it.” He jerked his thumb at the scabbard. “Buckle that lower and let your hip take the weight.”

Kelida adjusted the sword belt. The drag of Stormblade’s weight on her hip felt strange, but less awkward. She looked up at Stanach and smiled.

“Now what?”

“Now, go find yourself a dagger. You won’t be able to defend yourself with the sword.”

Suddenly, he was angry with Kelida for no reason, angry with himself for every reason, and lonely behind the walls of his duplicity. Stanach turned away and stalked across the room to a window. He looked down into a courtyard; it was better than looking at the shadows of hurt in Kelida’s eyes.

Aspen leaves, like brittle golden coins, skittered and whirled before a damp wind. Their dry rattling was the only sound to be heard in this sad, deserted city. Ghosts wandered all over silent Qualinost. Ghosts and memories.

Or the whispers of his conscience.

Thirty feet long, its head as thick and wide as a big horse, its powerfully muscled legs longer than two tall men, the black dragon might have been a huge piece of the night as it separated itself from the cover of the clouds and dove low over the ridges of eastern Qualinesti. A cloud bank shredded under the wind of its passing. Solinari had long since set, but Lunitari’s blood-red light ran along the metallic scales of its hide, leaped from its claws and dagger-sharp fangs in crimson points, and turned its long, narrow eyes, normally pale as frost, to fire. Sevristh was its secret and sacred name in dragon speech. It permitted itself to be called Darknight.

The dragon caught the wind under its wings and glided down toward the pine-forested, stony ridges that formed the border between Qualinesti and the dwarven mountains. A hater of light, its vision was superb when the sun had flown west. Though it did not fear the cold light of the moons, it saw more clearly when, as on this night, they were hidden behind thick, dark clouds.