Dragons of the Fallen Sun

Chapter Thirteen The Scourge of Ansalon

The odd occurrence that befell Tasslehoff Burrfoot on the fifth night of his journey to Qualinesti in the custody of Sir Gerard can best be explained by the fact that although the days had been sunny and warm and fine for traveling, the nights had been cloudy and overcast, with a drizzly rain. Up until this night. This night the sky was clear, the air was soft and warm and alive with the sounds of the forest, crickets and owls and the occasional wolf howling.

Far north, near Sanction, the minotaur Galdar ran along the road that led to Khur. Far south, in Silvanesti, Silvanoshei entered Silvanost as he had planned, in triumph and with fanfare. The entire population of Silvanost came out to welcome him and stare at him and marvel over him. Silvanoshei was shocked and troubled by how few elves remained in the city. He said nothing to anyone however and was greeted with appropriate ceremony by General Konnal and a white-robed elven wizard whose charming manners endeared him to Silvanoshei at once.

While Silvanoshei dined on elven delicaces off plates of gold and drank sparkling wine from goblets of crystal, and while Galdar munched on dried peas as he marched, Tas and Gerard ate their customary boring and tasteless meal of flatbread and dried beef washed down with nothing more interesting than plain, ordinary water. They had ridden south as far as Gateway, where they passed several inns, whose innkeepers were standing in the doors with pinched faces. These innkeepers would have barred the door against a kender before the roads were closed by the dragon. Now they had come running out to offer them lodging and a meal for the unheard-of price of a single steel.

Sir Gerard had paid no attention to them. He had ridden past without a glance. Tasslehoff had sighed deeply and looked back longingly at the inns dwindling in the distance. When he had hinted that a mug of cold ale and a plate of hot food would be a welcome change, Gerard had said no, the less attention they called to themselves the better for all concerned.

So they continued on south, traveling along a new road that ran near the river, a road Gerard said had been built by the Knights of Neraka to maintain their supply lines into Qualinesti.

Tas wondered at the time why the Knights of Neraka were interested in supplying the elves of Qualinesti, but he assumed that this must be some new project the elven king Gilthas had instituted.

Tas and Gerard had slept outdoors in a drizzling rain for the last four nights. This fifth night was fine. As usual, sleep sneaked up on the kender before he was quite ready for it. He woke up in the night, jolted from his slumbers by a light shining in his eyes.

“Hey! What’s that?” he demanded in a loud voice. Throwing off his blanket, he leaped to his feet and grabbed Gerard by the shoulder, shaking him and pummeling him.

“Sir Gerard! Wake up!” Tasslehoff shouted. “Sir Gerard!”

The Knight was up and awake in an instant, his sword in his hand. “What?” He stared around, alert for danger. “What is it? Did you hear something? See something? What?”

“That! That right there!” Tasslehoff clutched the Knight’s shirt and pointed.

Sir Gerard regarded the kender with an extremely grim look.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“Oh, no,” Tas stated. “My idea of a joke is this. I say, ‘Knock, knock,’ and you say, ‘Who’s there?’ and I say, ‘Minotaur,’ and you say ‘Minotaur who,’ and I say, ‘so that’s what you stepped in.’ That’s my idea of a joke. This has to do with that strange light in the sky.”

“That’s the moon,” said Sir Gerard through gritted teeth.

“No!” Tasslehoff was astonished. “Really? The moon?”

He looked back at it. The thing did appear to have certain moonlike qualities: it was orb-shaped, and it was in the sky alongside the stars, and it glowed. But that was where the resemblance ended.

“If that’s Solinari,” Tas said, eyeing the moon skeptically. “Then what happened to him? Is he sick?”

Sir Gerard did not answer. He lay back down on his blanket, placed his sword within hand’s reach, and, grabbing hold of a comer of his blanket rolled himself up in it. “Go to sleep,” he said coldly, “and stay that way until morning.”

“But I want to know about the moon!” Tas persisted, hunkering down beside the Knight nothing daunted by the fact that Gerard’s back was turned and his head covered up by the blanket and that he was still obviously extremely irate at having been violently wakened for nothing. Even his back looked angry. “What happened to make Solinari look so pale and sickly? And where’s lovely red Lunitari? I guess I’d wonder where Nuitari was if I’d been able to see the black moon in the first place, which I couldn’t, so it might be there and I just wouldn’t know it—”

Sir Gerard flipped over quite suddenly. His head emerged from the blanket, revealing a stem and unfriendly eye. “You know perfectly well that Solinari has not been seen in the skies these past thirty-odd years, ever since the end of the Chaos War. Lunitari either. So you can stop this ridiculous nonsense. I am now going to sleep. I am to be awakened for nothing less than an invasion of hobgoblins. Is that clear?”

“But the moon!” Tas argued. “I remember when I came to Caramon’s first funeral Solinari shown so very brightly that it was like day only it was night. Palin said this was Solinari’s way of honoring his father and—”

Gerard flipped over again and covered his head.

Tas continued talking until he heard the Knight start to snore.

Tas gave the Knight an experimental poke. in the shoulder, to no avail. The kender thought that he might try prying open one of Gerard’s eyelids to see if he was really asleep or just shamming, a trick which had never been known to fail with Flint, although it usually ended with the irate dwarf chasing the kender around the room with the poker.

Tas had other things to think about, however, and so he left the Knight alone and returned to his own blanket. Lying down, he put his hands beneath his head and gazed at the strange moon, which gazed back at him without the slightest hint of recognition.

This gave Tas an idea. Abandoning the moon, he shifted his gaze to the stars, searched for his favorite constellations.

They were gone, as well. The stars he looked at now were cold and distant and unfamiliar. The only understanding star in the night sky was a single red star burning brightly not far from the strange moon. The star had a warm and comforting glow about it, which made up for the empty cold feeling in the pit of Tas’s stomach, a feeling he had once thought, when he was a young kender, meant he needed something to eat but that he now knew, after years of adventuring, was his inside’s way of telling him that something was wrong. In fact, he’d felt pretty much this same way just about the time the giant’s foot had been poised over his head.

Tas kept his gaze on the red star, and after awhile the cold, empty feeling didn’t hurt so much anymore. Just when he was feeling more comfortable and had put the thoughts of the strange moon and the unfriendly stars and the looming giant out of his mind, and just when he was starting to enjoy the night, sleep crept up and nabbed him again.

The kender wanted to discuss the moon the next day, and discuss it he did, but only with himself. Sir Gerard never responded to any of Tasslehoff’s innumerable questions, never turned around, just rode along at a slow pace, the reins of Tas’s pony in his hands.

The Knight rode in silence, though he was watchful and alert, constantly scanning the horizon. The entire world seemed to be riding in silence today, as well, once Tasslehoff quit talking, which he did after a couple of hours. It wasn’t so much that he was bored with talking to himself, it was the answering himself that grew old fast. They met no one on the road, and now even the sounds of other living creatures came to an end. No bird sang. No squirrel scampered across the path. No deer walked among the shadows or ran from them, white tail flashing an alarm.

“Where are the animals?” Tas asked Gerard.

“They are in hiding,” the Knight answered, the first words he’d spoken all morning. “They are afraid.”

The air was hushed and still, as if the world held its breath, fearful of being heard. Not even the trees rustled and Tas had the feeling that if they had been able to make the choice, they would have dragged their roots out of the ground and run away.

“What are they afraid of?” Tasslehoff asked with interest, looking around in excitement, hoping for a haunted castle or a crumbling manor or, at the very least, a spooky cave.

“They fear the great green dragon. Beryl. We are in the West Plains now. We have crossed over into her realm.”

“You keep talking about this green dragon. I’ve never heard of her. The only green dragon I knew was named Cyan Bloodbane. Who is Beryl? Where did she come from?”

“Who knows?” Gerard said impatiently. “From across the sea, I suppose, along with the great red dragon Malystryx and others of their foul kind.”

“Well, if she isn’t from around these parts, why doesn’t some hero just go stick a lance into her?” Tas asked cheerfully.

Gerard halted his horse. He tugged on the reins of Tasslehoff’s pony, who had been trudging behind, her head down, every bit as bored as the kender. She came plodding up level with the black, shaking her mane and eyeing a patch of grass hopefully.

“Keep your voice down!” Gerard said in a low voice. He looked as grim and stern as the kender had ever seen him.

“Beryl’s spies are everywhere, though we do not see them. Nothing moves in her realm but she is aware of it. Nothing moves here without her permission. We crossed into her realm an hour ago,” he added. “I will be very surprised if someone doesn’t come to take a look at us—Ah, there. What did I tell you?”

He had shifted in his saddle, to gaze intently to the east. A large speck of black in the sky was growing steadily larger and larger and larger with every passing moment. As Tas watched, he saw the speck develop wings and a long tail, saw a massive body—a massive green body.

Tasslehoff had seen dragons before, he’d ridden dragons before, he’d fought dragons before. But he had never seen or hoped to see a dragon this immense. Her tail seemed as long as the road they traveled; her teeth, set in slavering jaws, could have served as the high, crenellated walls of a formidable fortress. Her wicked red eyes burned with a hotter fire than the sun and seemed to illuminate all they looked upon with a glaring light.

“As you have any regard for your life or mine, kender,”

Gerard said in a fierce whisper, “do or say nothing!”

The dragon flew directly over them, her head swiveling to study them from all angles. The dragonfear slid over them like the dragon’s shadow, blotting out the sunshine, blotting out reason and hope and sanity. The pony shook and whimpered.

The black whinnied in terror and kicked and plunged. Gerard clung to the bucking horse’s back, unable to calm the animal, prey to the same fear himself. Tasslehoff stared upward in open-mouthed astonishment. He felt a most unpleasant sensation come over him, a stomach-shriveling, spine-watering, knee-buckling, hand-sweating sort of feeling. As feelings went, he didn’t much like it. For making a person miserable, it ranked right up there with a bad, sniffly cold in the head.

Beryl circled them twice and, seeing nothing more interesting than one of her own Knight allies with a kender prisoner in tow, she left them alone, flying lazily and unhurriedly back to her lair, her sharp eyes taking note of everything that moved upon her ground.

Gerard slid off his horse. He stood next to the shivering animal, leaned his head against its heaving flanks. He was exceedingly pale and sweating, a tremor shook his body. He opened and shut his mouth several times and at one point looked as if he might be sick, but he recovered himself. At length his breathing evened out.

“I have shamed myself,” he said. “I did not know I could experience fear like that.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” Tas announced in voice that seemed to have developed the same shakiness as his body. “I wasn’t afraid one bit.”

“If you had any sense, you would have been,” Gerard said dourly.

“It’s just that while I’ve seen some hideous dragons in my time I’ve never seen one quite that. . .”

Tasslehoff’s words shriveled under Gerard’s baleful stare.

“That... imposing,” the kender said loudly, just in case any of the dragon’s spies were listening. “Imposing,” he whispered to Gerard. “That’s a sort of compliment, isn’t it?”

The Knight did not reply. Having calmed himself and his horse, he retrieved the reins to Tasslehoff’s pony and, holding them in his hand, remounted the black. He did not set off immediately, but continued to sit some time in the middle of the road, gazing out to the west.

“I had never seen one of the great dragons before,” he said qurietly. “I did not think it would be that bad.”

He sat quite still for several more moments, then, with a set jaw and pale face, he rode forward.

Tasslehoff followed along behind because he couldn’t do anything else except follow along behind, what with the Knight holding onto the pony’s reins.

“Was that the same dragon who killed all the kender?” Tasslehoff asked in a small voice.

“No,” Gerard replied. “That was an even bigger dragon. A red dragon named Malys.”

“Oh,” said Tas. “Oh, my.”

An even bigger dragon. He couldn’t imagine it, and he very nearly said that he would like to see an even bigger dragon when it came to him quite forcibly that, in all honesty, he wouldn’t.

“What is the matter with me?” Tasslehoff wailed in dismay. “I must be coming down with something. I’m not curious! I don’t want to see a red dragon that might be bigger than Palanthas. This is just not like me.”

Which led to an astounding thought, a thought so astounding Tas almost tumbled off the pony.

“Maybe I’m not me!”

Tasslehoff considered this. After all, no one else believed he was him except Caramon, and he was pretty old and almost dead at the time so perhaps he didn’t count. Laura had said that she thought Tasslehoff was Tasslehoff but she was probably only being polite, so he couldn’t count on that either. Sir Gerard had said that he couldn’t possibly be Tasslehoff Burrfoot and Lord Warren had said the same thing, and they were Solamnic Knights, which meant that they were smart and most likely knew what they were talking about.

“That would explain everything,” said Tasslehoff to himself, growing cheerier the more he thought about it. “That would explain why nothing that happened to me the first time I went to Caramon’s funeral happened the second time, because it wasn’t me it was happening to. It was someone else entirely. But if that’s the case,” he added, becoming rather muddled, “if I’m not me, I wonder who I am?”

He pondered on this for a good half-mile.

“One thing is certain,” he said. “I can’t keep calling myself Tasslehoff Burrfoot. If I meet the real one, he would be highly annoyed that I’d taken his name. Just the way I felt when I found out that there were thirty-seven other Tasslehoff Burrfoots in Solace—thirty-nine counting the dogs. I suppose I’ll have to give him back the Device of Time Journeying, too. I wonder how I came to have it? Ah, of course. He must have dropped it.”

Tas kicked his pony in the flanks. The pony perked up and trotted forward until Tas had caught up with the knight.

“Excuse me, Sir Gerard,” Tas said.

The Knight glanced at him and frowned. “What?” he asked coldly.

“I just wanted to tell you that I made a mistake,” Tas said meekly. “I’m not the person I said was.”

“Ah, now there’s a surprise!” Gerard grunted. “You mean you’re not Tasslehoff Burrfoot, who’s been dead for over thirty years?”

“I thought I was,” Tas said wistfully. He found the notion more difficult to give up than he’d imagined. “But I can’t be. You see, Tasslehoff Burrfoot was a hero. He wasn’t afraid of anything; And I don’t think he would have felt all strange the way I felt when that dragon flew over us. But I know what’s wrong with me.”

He waited for the Knight to ask politely but the Knight didn’t.

Tas volunteered the information.

“I have magnesia,” he said solemnly.

This time Gerard said, “What?” only he didn’t say it very politely.

Tas put his hand to his forehead, to see if he could feel it.

“Magnesia. I’m not sure how a person gets magnesia. I think it has something to do with milk. But I remember that Raistlin said he knew someone with it once and that person couldn’t remember who he was or why he was or where he’d left his spectacles or anything. So I must have magnesia, because that’s my situation entirely.”

This solved, Tasslehoff—or rather, the kender who used to think he was Tasslehoff—felt extremely proud to know he had come down with something so important.

“Of course,” he added with a sigh, “a lot of people like you who expect me to be Tasslehoff are going to be in for a sad disappointment when they find out I’m not. But they’ll just have to come to grips with it.”

“I’ll try to bear up,” Gerard said dryly. “Now why don’t you think really hard and see if you can ‘remember’ the truth about who you are.”

“I wouldn’t mind remembering the truth,” Tas said. “I have the feeling that the truth doesn’t want to remember me.”

The two rode on in silence through a silent world until at last, to Tasslehoff’s relief, he heard a sound, the sound of water, angry water of a river that foamed and seethed as if it resented being held prisoner within its rocky banks. Humans named the river the White-rage River. It marked the northern border of the elven land of Qualinesti.

Gerard slowed his horse. Rounding a bend in the road, they came within sight of the river, a broad expanse of white foaming water falling over and around glistening black rocks.

They had arrived at the end of the day. The forest was shadowed with the coming of darkness. The river held the light still, the water shining in the afterglow, and by that light they could see in the distance a narrow bridge spanning the river. The bridge was guarded by a lowered gate and guards wearing the same black armor as Gerard.

“Those are Dark Knights,” said Tasslehoff in astonishment.

“Keep your voice down!” Gerard ordered sternly. Dismounting, he removed the gag from his belt and approached the kender.

“Remember, the only way we’re going to be able to see your alleged friend Palin Majere is if they let us past.”

“But why are there Dark Knights here in Qualinesti?” Tas asked, talking quickly before Gerard had time to put the gag in place.

“The dragon Beryl rules the realm. These Knights are her overseers. They enforce her laws, collect the taxes and the tribute the elves pay to stay alive.”

“Oh, no,” said Tas, shaking his head. “There must be some mistake. The Dark Knights were driven out by the combined forces of Porthios and Gilthas in the year—ulp!”

Gerard stuffed the gag in the kender’s mouth, fastened it securely in a knot at the back of his head. “Keep saying things like that and I won’t have to gag you. Everyone will just think you’re crazy.”

“If you’d tell me what has happened,” Tas said, pulling the gag from his mouth and peering around at Gerard, “then I wouldn’t have to ask questions.”

Gerard, exasperated, put the gag back in place. “Very well,” he said crossly. “The Knights of Neraka took Qualinesti during the Chaos War and they have never relinquished their hold on it,” he said as he tied the knot. “They were prepared to go to war against the dragon, when she demanded that they cede the land to her. Beryl was clever enough to realize that she didn’t need to fight. The Knights could be of use to her. She formed an alliance with them. The elves pay tribute, the Knights collect it and turn over a percentage—a large percentage—to the dragon. The Knights keep the rest. They prosper. The dragon prospers. It’s the elves who are out of luck.”

“I guess that must have happened when I had magnesia,” Tas said, tugging one comer of the gag loose.

Gerard fastened the knot even tighter and added, irritably,

“The word is ‘amnesia,’ damn it. And just keep quiet!”

He remounted his horse, and the two rode toward the gate.

The guards were alert and had probably been on the watch for them, warned of their coming by the dragon, for they did not appear surprised to see the two emerge from the shadows.

Knights armed with halberds stood guard at the gate, but it was an elf, clad all in green cloth and glittering chain mail, who walked up to question them. He was followed by an officer of the Knights of Neraka, who stood behind the elf, observing.

The elf regarded the two, particularly the kender, with disdain.

“The elven realm of Qualinesti is closed to all travelers by orders of Gilthas, Speaker of the Sun,” said the elf, speaking Common. “What is your business here?”

Gerard smiled to indicate that he appreciated the joke. “I have urgent news for Marshal Medan,” he said, and reaching into his black leather gauntlet he brought out a well-worn paper which he handed over with bored air of one who has done this many times before.

The elf did not even glance at the paper, but passed it to the officer of the Neraka Knights. The officer paid more attention to it. He studied it closely and then studied Gerard. The officer returned the paper to Gerard, who retrieved it and placed it back inside his glove.

“What business have you with Marshal Medan, Captain?” the officer inquired.

“I have something he wants, sir,” Gerard replied. He jerked a thumb. “This kender.”

The officer raised his eyebrows. “What does Marshal Medan want with a kender?”

“There is a warrant for the little thief, sir. He stole an important artifact from the Knights of the Thorn. A magical artifact that once purportedly belonged to Raistlin Majere.”

The elf’s eyes flickered at this. He regarded them with more interest.

“I’ve heard nothing of any bounty,” the officer stated, frowning. “Or any robbery, for that matter.”

“That is not surprising, sir, considering the Gray Robes,”

Gerard said with a wry smile and a covert glance around.

The officer nodded and twitched an eyebrow. The Gray Robes were sorcerers. They worked in secret, reporting to their own officers, working to forward their own goals and ambitions, which might or might not coincide with the rest of the Knighthood. As such, they were widely distrusted by the warrior Knights, who viewed the Knights of the Thorn with the same suspicion that men of the sword have viewed men of the staff for centuries.

“Tell me of this crime,” the officer said. “When and where was it committed?”

“As you know, the Gray Robes have been combing the Forest of Wayreth, searching for the magical and elusive Tower of High Sorcery. It was during this search that they uncovered this artifact. I do not know how or where, sir. That information was not provided to me. The Gray Robes were transporting the artifact to Palanthas for further study, when they stopped at an inn for some refreshment along the way. It was there the artifact was stolen. The Gray Robes missed it the next morning when they awoke,”

Gerard added with a meaningful roll of his eyes. “This kender had stolen it.”

“So that’s how I got it!” Tas said to himself, fascinated. “What a perfectly wonderful adventure. Too bad I can’t remember it.”

The officer nodded his head. “Damn Gray Robes. Dead drunk, no doubt. Carrying a valuable artifact. Just like their arrogance.”

“Yes, sir. The criminal fled with his booty to Palanthas. We were told to be on the lookout for a kender who might try to fence stolen artifacts. We watched the mageware shops, and that was how we caught him. And a weary journey I’ve had of it to bring him back here, guarding the little fiend day and night.”

Tas attempted to look quite fierce.

“I can imagine.” The officer was sympathetic. “Was the artifact recovered?”

“I am afraid not, sir. He claims to have ‘lost’ it, but the fact that he was discovered in the mageware shop led us to believe that he has stashed it somewhere with the intent to produce it when he had closed a bargain. The Thorn Knights plan to question him regarding its whereabouts. Otherwise, of course”—Gerard shrugged—“we could have spared ourselves the trouble. We would have simply hung the thieving nit.”

“The headquarters for the Thorns is down south. They’re still looking for that damned tower. A waste of time, if you ask me. Magic is gone from the world again and I say good riddance.”

“Yes, sir,” Gerard replied. “I was instructed to report to Marshal Medan first, this being under his jurisdiction, but if you think I should proceed directly—”

“Report to Medan, by all means. If nothing else, he will get a good laugh out of the story. Do you need help with the kender? I have a man I could spare—”

“Thank you, sir. As you can see, he is well-secured. I anticipate no trouble.”

“Ride on, then, Captain,” said the officer, indicating with a wave of his hand that the gate was to be lifted. “Once you’ve delivered the vermin, ride back this way. We’ll open a bottle of dwarf spirits, and you will tell me of the news from Palanthas.”

“I will do that, sir,” said Gerard, saluting.

He rode through the gate. Tasslehoff, bound and gagged, followed. The kender would have waved his manacled hands in a friendly good-bye, but he considered that this might not be in keeping with his new identity—Highwayman, Stealer of Valuable Magical Artifacts. He quite liked this new persona and decided he should try to be worthy of it. Therefore, instead of waving, he scowled defiantly at the knight as they rode past.

The elf had been standing in the road all this time, maintaining a deferential and bored silence. He did not even wait until the gate was lowered to go back to the gatehouse. The twilight had deepened to night and torches were being lit. Tasslehoff, peering over his shoulder as the pony clattered across the wooden bridge, saw the elf squat down beneath a torch and draw out a leather bag. A couple of the Knights knelt down in the dirt and they began a game of dice. The last Tas saw of them, the officer had joined them, bringing with him a bottle. Few travelers passed this way since the dragon now patrolled the roads. Their watch was a lonely one.

Tasslehoff indicated by various grunts and squeaks that he would be interested in talking about their successful adventure at the gate—in particular he wanted to hear more details about his daring theft—but Gerard paid no attention to the kender. He did not ride off at a gallop, but, once he was out of sight of the bridge he urged Blackie to increase his pace markedly.

Tasslehoff assumed that they would ride all night. They were not far from Qualinost, or at least so he remembered from his previous journeys to the elven capital. A couple of hours would find them in the city. Tas was eager to see his friends once again, eager to ask them if they had any idea who he was, if he wasn’t himself.

If anyone could cure magnesia, it would be Palin. Tasslehoff was extremely surprised when Gerard suddenly reined in his horse and, professing himself exhausted by the long day, announced that they would spend the night in the forest.

They made camp, building a fire, much to the kender’s astonishment, for the Knight had refused to build a fire prior to this, saying that it was too dangerous.

“I guess he figures we’re safe now that we’re inside the borders of Qualinesti.” Tasslehoff spoke to himself, for he was still wearing the gag. “I wonder why we stopped though? Maybe he doesn’t know how close we are.”

The Knight fried some salt pork. The aroma spread throughout the forest. He removed Tasslehoff’s gag so that the kender could eat and was instantly sorry he’d done so.

“How did I steal the artifact?” Tas asked eagerly. “That’s so exciting. I’ve never stolen anything before, you know. Stealing is extremely wrong. But I guess in this case it would be all right, since the Dark Knights are bad people. What inn was it? There are quite a few on the road to Palanthas. Was it the Dirty Duck? That’s a great place. Everyone stops there. Or maybe the Fox and the Unicorn? They don’t much like kender, so probably not.”

Tasslehoff talked on, but he couldn’t induce the Knight to tell him anything. That didn’t really matter much to Tas, who was perfectly capable of making up the entire incident himself. By the time they had finished eating and Gerard had gone to wash the pan and the wooden bowls in a nearby stream, the bold kender had stolen not one but a host of wondrous magical artifacts, snatching them out from under the very noses of six Thorn Knights, who had threatened him with six powerful magicks, but who had, all six, been dispatched by a skilled blow from the kender’s hoopak.

“ And that must have been how I came down with magnesia!”

Tas concluded. “One of the Thorn Knights struck me severely on the headbone! I was unconscious for several days. But, no,” he added in disappointment. “That couldn’t be true for otherwise I wouldn’t have escaped.” He pondered on this for a considerable time. “I have it,” he said at last, looking with triumph at Gerard.

“You hit me on the head when you arrested me!”

“Don’t tempt me,” Gerard said. “Now shut up and get some sleep.” He spread out his blanket near the fire, which had been reduced to a pile of glowing embers. Pulling the blanket over himself, he turned his back to the kender.

Tasslehoff relaxed on his blanket, gazed up at the stars. Sleep wasn’t going to catch him tonight. He was much too busy reliving his life as the Scourge of Ansalon, the Menace of Morgash, the Thug of Thorbardin. He was quite a wicked fellow. Women would faint and strong men would blanch at the mere sound of his name. He wasn’t certain exactly what blanching entailed, but he had heard that strong men were subject to it when faced with a terrible foe, so it seemed suitable in this instance. He was just picturing his arrival in a town to find all the woman passed out in their laundry tubs and the strong men blanching left and right when he heard a noise. A small noise, a twig snapping, nothing more.

Tas would not have noticed it except that he was used to not hearing any noises at all from the forest. He reached out his hand and tugged on the sleeve of Gerard’s shirt.

“Gerard!” Tas said in a loud whisper. “I think someone’s out there!”

Gerard snuffled and snorted, but didn’t wake up. He hunched down deeper in his blanket.

Tasslehoff lay quite still, his ears stretched. He couldn’t hear anything for a moment, then he heard another sound, a sound that might have been made by a boot slipping on a loose rock.

“Gerard!” said Tasslehoff. “I don’t think it’s the moon this time.” He wished he had his hoopak.

Gerard rolled over at that moment and faced Tasslehoff, who was quite amazed to see by the dying fire that the Knight was not asleep. He was only playing possum.

“Keep quiet!” Gerard said in a hissing whisper. “Pretend you’re asleep!” He shut his eyes.

Tasslehoff obediently shut his eyes, though he opened them again the next instant so as to be sure not to miss anything. Which was good, otherwise he would have never seen the elves creeping up on them from the darkness.

“Gerard, look out!” Tas started to shout, but a hand clapped down over his mouth and cold steel poked him in the neck before he could stammer out more than “Ger—”

“What?” Gerard mumbled sleepily. “What’s—”

He was wide awake the next moment, trying to grab the sword that lay nearby.

One elf stomped down hard on Gerard’s hand—Tas could hear bones crunch and he winced in sympathy. A second elf picked up the sword and moved it out of the Knight’s reach.

Gerard tried to stand up, but the elf who had stomped on his hand now kicked him viciously in the head. Gerard groaned and rolled over on his back, unconscious.

“We have them both, Master,” said one of the elves, speaking to the shadows. “What are your orders?”

“Don’t kill the kender, Kalindas,” said a voice from the darkness, a human’s voice, a man’s voice, muffled, as if he were speaking from the depths of a hood. “I need him alive. He must tell us what he knows.”

The human was not very woods-crafty apparently. Although Tas couldn’t see him—the human had remained in the shadows—Tas could hear his booted feet mashing dry leaves and breaking sticks. The elves, by contrast, were as quiet as the night air.

“What about the Dark Knight?” the elf asked.

“Slay him.” said the human indifferently.

The elf placed a knife at the Knight’s throat.

“No!” Tas squeaked and wriggled. “You can’t! He’s not really a Dark—ulp!”

“Keep silent kender,” said the elf, who held onto Tas. He shifted the point of his knife from the kender’s throat to his head. “Make another sound and I will cut off your ears. That will not affect your usefulness to us.”

“I wish you wouldn’t cut off my ears,” said Tas, talking desperately, despite feeling the knife blade nick his skin. “They keep my hair from falling off my head. But if you have to, you have to, I guess. It’s just that you’re about to make a terrible mistake. We’ve come from Solace, Gerard’s not a Dark Knight you see. He’s a Solamnic—”

“Gerard?” said the human suddenly from the darkness. “Hold your hand, Kelevandros! Don’t kill him yet. I know a Solamnic named Gerard from Solace. Let me take a look.”

The strange moon had risen again. Its light was intermittent coming and going as dark clouds glided across its empty, vacuous face. Tas tried to catch a glimpse of the human, who was apparently in charge of this operation, for the elves deferred to him in all that was done. The kender was curious to see him, because he had a feeling he’d heard that voice before, although he couldn’t quite place it.

Tas was doomed to disappointment. The human was heavily cloaked and hooded. He knelt beside Gerard. The Knight’s head lolled to one side. Blood covered his face. His breathing was raspy. The human studied his face.

“Bring him along,” he ordered.

“But, Master—” The elf called Kelevandros started to protest.

“You can always kill him later,” said the human. Rising, he turned on his heel and walked back into the forest.

One of the elves doused the fire. Another elf went to calm the horses, particularly the black, who had reared in alarm at the sight of the intruders. A third elf put a gag in Tas’s mouth, pricking Tas’s right ear with the tip of the knife the moment the kender even looked as if he might protest.

The elves handled the Knight with efficiency and dispatch.

They tied his hands and feet with leather cord, thrust a gag into his mouth, and fixed a blindfold around his eyes. Lifting the comatose Knight from the ground, they carried him to his horse and threw him over the saddle. Blackie had been alarmed by the sudden invasion of the camp, but he now stood quite calm and placid under an elf’s soothing hand, his head over the elf’s shoulder, nuzzling his ear. The elves tied Gerard’s hands to his feet, passing the rope underneath the horse’s belly, securing the Knight firmly to the saddle.

The human looked at the kender, but Tas couldn’t get a glimpse of his face because at that moment an elf popped a gunny sack over his head and he couldn’t see anything except gunny sack. The elves bound his feet together. Strong hands lifted him, tossed him headfirst over the saddle, and the Scourge of Ansalon, his head in a sack, was carried off into the night.