Knights of the Sword

Chapter 1

He was twenty-two years old, six and a half feet tall, and strong in proportion. He bore the name Darin, because Waydol, the minotaur who had raised him, said that he ought to have a human name. However, he mostly referred to himself as “Heir to Waydol,” or even “Heir to the Minotaur.” That last title might not always be sufficient, if more than one minotaur came to inhabit this stretch of the northern coast of Istar.

Other minotaurs sailed along the coast, though fewer now since they faced death with scant hope of honor at the hands of Istar’s fleet and coast garrisons. Beyond the sea lay all the lands of the minotaurs.

But when one spoke of “the Minotaur” in this land, one spoke of Waydol.

At this moment Darin spoke neither of Waydol nor of anything else. He wished to be as silent as one of the trees of the forest and as invisible as the breeze that crept through them. Even though the furtive breeze in the forest left him sweating and allowed the insects free play with his skin, he neither wiped away the sweat nor batted at the insects.

The call of a sunwing, three times repeated, made him turn his head. In the shadow between two immense pines was a darker shadow. Darin nodded.

The darker shadow stepped forward, turning into a man. He stepped to within arm’s reach of Darin and, with two fingers and a thumb of each hand, tapped his message onto Darin’s left forearm and hand.

Darin had learned the handtalk Waydol had given the band almost from the time he could use words. He could understand it as swiftly as common speech.

“The village is good prey,” the man was saying. “Log wall with towers and ditch. Solid buildings. Fat cattle. Workers in field wear clothes-even women.” If it was possible to convey disappointment in his touch, Darin felt it in the last bit of knowledge. Not that the man would do more than look; he had honor and also fear of Waydol’s and Darin’s wrath.

Yes, a village so furnished had wealth. It would not be easy prey, and it doubtless had a protector or lord who would seek vengeance for its raiding. It might even be directly under the rule of Istar.

Let would-be avengers thrash the forest as they pleased. Waydol’s band knew paths to their stronghold that no one else did, and not only because they had made a good many themselves. In Darin’s lifetime, the Minotaur had gathered a formidable band of the cunning and the crafty, as a legacy for his heir. He had also proved that a minotaur could lead humans, even against their own folk-something that both races doubted was possible.

What he expected his heir to do with the band over the next twenty years, Darin had realized some time ago that he did not really know. However, it was enough for now to keep the men from growing stale.

It would be a night raid if they waited much longer, and that Darin would not have. The only way to raid by night was to be ready to burn where one raided, to make light to find one’s way about unknown streets or paths. That, or find a wizard with a flexible conscience and command of illuminating spells.

Darin had no scruples about the second, many about the first. There was not a magic-worker in the band, so the raiders would go in now, trusting to their own speed to confuse hostile aim as thoroughly as the gods’ darkness might in a few hours.

The man tapped Darin’s hand again. Darin nodded, squatted, and allowed the smaller man to leap onto his shoulders. The leaper caught a low-hanging branch and started pulling himself up, as silent as ever.

Darin remained kneeling, looking up as the man vanished in the branches with the speed of a squirrel. His name in the band was Stalker; after certain lessons, no one inquired too closely about his birth name. His birth blood was most probably sea barbarian; one seldom found that combination of agility and dark skin in other races. At last Darin heard from high above a faint whttt! That would be Stalker’s shortbow, sending a signal arrow some two hundred paces through the forest to where the rest of the band waited in two wings. Each wing of twenty raiders was now to move to a position already scouted, one on each side of the village’s fields.

The attack would come from two directions, forcing the villagers to divide their defenses. At the same time, the two wings would be able to help one another, and between them sweep up the people in the fields before they could reach the gate.

That was as far as Darin knew he could wisely plan. Waydol had taught him: “Never assume your enemy agrees with your notions of how to fight the battle.”

Darin crouched and listened for any sounds of his men moving to the attack. He heard nothing that most listeners would not have called forest noises, and knew that the underchiefs could fitly punish the noisy. After a while he ceased to listen, and finished his arming.

A man of Darin’s size could put fear in many opponents merely by drawing himself to his full height. However, he did not disdain a shirt of fine mail, knowing that a large man was also a large target. He also donned a good round helmet with a dwarven-work tailpiece and nasal added, a sword, and a dagger.

But Darin’s principal weapons were his forearms and fists, guarded by elbow-length gauntlets of heavy but supple leather over still finer mail. Suppleness in leather that thick had to come from magic, or perhaps there was some other story behind those gauntlets that Waydol would not tell, not on the day he had given them to Darin or ever afterward.

Nonetheless, the gauntlets had allowed Darin to defeat a good many opponents while slaying few. He abhorred unnecessary killing even more than Waydol, and was not one to invent necessity where it was not found.

At last Darin had nothing to do but stretch and unknot his limbs for swift movement, as he took in deep breaths of forest-scented air. The forest smelled different than it did at home, no doubt through being farther from the sea, with less salt in the soil and leaf mold-

Chkkk!

Darin looked up. An arrow, twin to Stalker’s, was quivering just below the second branch from the ground. A moment later Stalker slithered out of the tree, snatching the arrow from the trunk as he came.

The two men nodded. The two wings were in position. Now all they needed was Darin and Stalker in their position, from which to give the signal to attack.

The two men trod silently but swiftly, one behind the other, as they moved onward.

* * * * *

One sharp-eared villager must have heard something untoward from the forest, but courage or foolishness undid him. Or perhaps he wasn’t sure of what he’d heard and wished not to make a fool of himself with a false warning.

The man fell before he could give any warning at all, as a slingball whipped out of the trees and into his skull. Darin waited a moment to see if any of the other workers had noticed the man’s fall and took flight or came to his rescue.

If they came, they would find little to prove what had happened to him. The slingers of Darin’s band carried balls of fire-hardened clay, fit to strike a man senseless and crumble into powder at the same moment.

If the villagers fled-

They did nothing. Perhaps none had seen their friend fall; perhaps they thought he had lain down from fatigue; perhaps they were too near the end of a long and wearying day to think of more than hot water and cold ale at home.

Darin licked dry lips. He himself had never drunk anything stronger than water when in health or herbal infusions when sick, but he understood weariness and thirst as well as these folk ever would! It seemed almost dishonorable to take them at such a disadvantage-unless one looked at the sentries atop the walls.

At that moment, one of those sentries seemed to notice the fallen man. He pointed with his spear, cupping the other hand to his mouth. Darin did not hear the words across the field, but he heard urgency in the man’s tone.

Darin stepped into the open and slammed his fists against the trees to either side of him. The forest spewed men dressed in a motley of rust, green, and brown, all bearded and long-haired. Some of the men showed a trace or more of elven blood, and on the shoulders of a man nearly Darin’s height rode a kender, belaboring his mount with a featherduster.

They raised no war cries; the only sound was of forty-some pairs of booted feet running hard. They had little breath to spare for shouting; it was also the custom in Waydol’s band to be silent until first blood.

That would not be long; even now sentries were nocking arrows to bows. Darin raised his left hand, palm facing toward the ground. His archers unslung bows, opened quivers, and pulled out shafts, all without missing a step. Only when it came time to nock and shoot did they halt, for better aim. Darin’s band had not nearly enough archers for an arrow-hail, which also led to unnecessary slaying even when one could use it.

So two sentries fell from the walls and one fell back out of sight, in return for one of Darin’s men down with an arrow in his leg. Meanwhile, the onrushing line overtook the fleeing villagers. Before Darin drew ahead, he saw his men starting to bring down their captives, each in a different fashion.

Some men used clubs or fists. One man threw a woman over his shoulder and spanked her soundly; one could not tell whether she was screaming or laughing.

Stalker used his bolas, his own design, drawing on both Plains barbarian and kender styles. When he had used both, he drew from his belt a weighted belaying pin and stopped two more villagers in their tracks with that.

Now it was becoming vital to keep the villagers from closing their gate. A good dozen of their folk were still outside and free, but from the gate tower and from within the gate people were screaming “Close the gate now!”

Darin charged through the ranks of the fleeing villagers, slapping aside with his gauntlet one dagger thrust. He reached the gate just as it started to swing shut, gripped it with both hands, took a deep breath, and heaved.

The gate swung wide open again, and in the moment it stood so, two of Darin’s archers shot down the men standing in the gateway. Darin leaped forward, snatched up the gate bar, which was twice as long as he was tall and as thick as his thigh, gripped it like a quarterstaff, and laid about him.

He struck only a few. Some fell in panic or simply lay down to save themselves, as others did by taking to their heels. In moments all those villagers who had been caught outside the gate were captives, and the gate stood open for the raiders to enter the village.

Darin would not give that order without giving the villagers a chance to yield. Even the briefest of fights at close quarters could strew more bodies in the village lanes than an honorable man could wish to see.

Darin cupped his hands. His voice was not quite in proportion to the rest of him-and a good thing too, Waydol said, or he would have deafened half his comrades by now-but it carried well.

“Ho, village of Dinsas! We have you at our mercy, and bid you yield at once. If you yield, little wealth and no blood will you forfeit. Fight on, and harsher fate awaits you.”

Only after a long silence followed did the raider chief remember that these villagers might not understand his minotaur-accented Istarian speech. This was farther than he and his men had raided, so Dinsas should be within the area settled directly from Istar or cities that spoke its tongue. But every land had villages where the folk walked their own path, spoke their own tongue, and made rude replies to the polite requests of strangers whom they could not understand.

The silence grew longer still. Several of Darin’s men picked up the gate bar; a battering ram was always a useful addition to the raiders’ arsenal, but a heavy one to carry through the forest.

At last, a square-built man with a red beard appeared in the gateway, facing Darin. He wore a well-kept sword hastily slung over a cobbler’s apron.

“My name is Hurvo, Speaker of Dinsas. Who are you?”

Darin looked down at the man. Hurvo looked more like an oversized dwarf than a short human, complete to the work-calloused hands. He did not appear to be short in courage, however.

“I am he who possesses your village,” Darin replied, in measured tones. “I and my men wish to share that which lies within these walls.”

“You possess the gate of Dinsas, no more,” Hurvo replied, in an equally level voice. “What are you prepared to pay for the smallest portion of the rest?”

“As much as necessary, and if it grows to be too much, we shall possess all of it when the paying is done. This will not be of much concern to you, for you will no longer need possessions beyond your graveclothes.”

“Oh, you don’t mean to eat us?” Hurvo said.

The kender mimed spewing all over the big man carrying him. The man hastily set him down.

“A kender!” someone said, in tones of loathing. Darin saw that several other villagers had come out from doorways and lanes to stand behind Hurvo.

“Imsaffor Whistletrot,” the kender said, with an elaborate bow that turned into a handstand that in turn flowed into a somersault. The movement brought him close to Hurvo. Some of the villagers took a step backward.

Darin quietly hand-signaled to his archers. The first man to try taking Whistletrot as a hostage would get an arrow through his gizzard. He would also probably get Whistletrot’s dagger in some less vital but surely painful spot if he survived the arrow.

Kender lived without fear, for which there were many explanations, some more fanciful than true. One explanation which Darin suspected might hold truth was that it was not easy to kill a kender if he seriously objected to the idea.

“Then you must be the Heir to the Minotaur and his band,” Hurvo said, tugging at his beard as if trying to estimate the price of repairing a shoe. “Rather far afield, aren’t you?”

“We have come as far as Dinsas, which is all that concerns any of us for the moment,” Darin replied. He felt impatience creeping into his mind, but fought to keep it from his voice.

Never give a man the notion that he can fight you by delaying matters. That was another of Waydol’s sayings that had proved true in many a skirmish, battle, and raid.

“I will hear your terms,” Hurvo said. “Hearing them does not mean accepting them. Nor does offering you drink mean offering you our village. But we need not fight one another with dry throats.”

The water was cold and clean, and, from the men’s sounds, the ale was good. Hurvo also sampled the first cup from each barrel before he allowed anyone else to drink.

* * * * *

“Speak now, Heir to the Minotaur, or is there another name you prefer?” Hurvo said, wiping foam from his beard.

“That one does most honor to he who raised me-” Darin began.

Several villagers hissed. One made a gesture of aversion and threw down his cup.

Hurvo sighed. “We have been through this argument before, Speko, and more often than you could count without taking off your boots. He may be heir to a red dragon, for all I care, but he is here, which makes it wise to listen to him.”

Darin spoke quickly, before Speko or anyone else could complicate matters. “Our terms are simple. We shall remove from each house and shop one or two objects of value, as well as a certain amount of coin for the whole village. Also, we may eat and drink as we see fit tonight, and tomorrow when we break our fast before departing.

“If no harm comes to our people, none will come to yours. We shall even help heal your wounded. For every man harmed, though, a life will be forfeit. If battle is forced on us, the village will be burned, over your heads or not, as the gods allow.”

Hurvo frowned. “Have you wizard or cleric with healing magic at their command?”

“Only the healing craft of those dwellers in the greenwood who must heal swiftly or die,” Darin said. He felt a certain compulsion to honesty with this self-possessed village speaker, whose refusal to change countenance had begun to remind him of Waydol.

“Let it be so, if the village consents,” Hurvo said. “I can decide myself if there is no time, but there will be a better chance of peace if I may hear the leading folk.”

The sun was westering, but darkness made neither peace bloody nor battle kindly. Nor would eagerness escape Hurvo’s sharp eyes.

Darin nodded. “Do not dally, or there will be a higher price. But you have until the sun touches the top of that tree over there.” He pointed at what appeared to be a young vallenwood, at the southwestern corner of the fields.

Hurvo nodded and led his villagers back into the shadows. Darin quickly ordered wedges thrust into the gate, to keep it open, and three or four archers climbed into the gate towers.

The rest of the men set to guarding, tending the captives, and fitting the gate bar with handles to make a more useful battering ram. Even if Dinsas yielded, there was always someone who had lost a key, run away, or been killed, leaving no gentle way to reach the valuables behind a locked door.

* * * * *

Hurvo’s argument with his village took nearly all the allowed time and most of Darin’s remaining patience as well. The leader of the raiders was sitting on the battering ram, whetting the sword he had yet to draw in anger on this raid, when Hurvo reappeared.

“We consent to your terms,” he said. Then he looked at Imsaffor Whistletrot. “Best keep that kender close by you.”

“I am of this band, and go where I please,” Whistletrot said. “If it doesn’t please you-”

“Any harm to him is harm to one of us,” Stalker said. He never raised his voice, even in battle, but Darin saw Hurvo take an exceptionally tight grip on his beard before nodding.

After that, the evening went well enough, if one can so speak of the looting of a village by a band of robbers, however moderate in their conduct. It helped that for the most part Darin’s men chose to remain sober, although he noticed a good many water bottles in the piled loot. He’d wager that most of them would leave Dinsas tomorrow morning, tied to a man’s belt and filled with ale or wine.

One man found a jug of mead and emptied it before he staggered out into the lanes again. Darin had him tossed down a disused well, then pulled up only when he was thoroughly frightened, half-drowned, and a little more sober. His chief hoped that the man would be fit to march in the morning. He had never left a living man behind on any raid, and few dead, but litters were always a burden.

Imsaffor Whistletrot was here, there, and everywhere, seldom in Darin’s sight for longer than the chief needed to assure himself that the kender was still alive. Darin vowed to pass word to the kender’s village, although, any word that implied system and order seemed odd applied to kender.

Regardless, it was not much more than a day’s march from Dinsas, though hard to find if the kender did not wish visitors. Darin thought they ought to know that the poison of hatred for nonhumans had flowed all the way from Istar to Dinsas, and to be on the watch against their once-friendly neighbors.

Then he decided to leave the warning to Whistletrot, if in fact the local kender hadn’t learned all they needed to know by their own methods. They would also have their own methods of dealing with hostile neighbors, and if it came to betting, Darin would not bet against the kender.

It was well after dark when Whistletrot reappeared for the last time. By now the village square was well lit with torches and bonfires, and the loot formed a glittering pile in the middle. The kender swung out hand over hand along a projecting rooftree to its carved head, then dropped lightly to the ground, turning a somersault in midair before landing.

Darin looked up from a plate that held meat pie, porridge, and brownfish pickled with onions. “There’s a house that hasn’t been visited, and it’s locked,” Whistletrot said.

Several men laughed. “You didn’t get in, and you call yourself a kender?” one said.

Whistletrot looked hurt. “I was told not to bring my lockpicks along on this raid. I-” He fished in the pocket of his coat. “Oh, my. I suppose I forgot to clear out my pockets before we left. Let me see.”

Quite a few things turned up in the pockets, including the lockpicks. Another was a small, shiny metal ball.

“Ha, that’s one of my bola balls,” Stalker said. Short as he was for a sea barbarian, he still managed to loom over the kender.

“It is? Come to think of it, it does look like it came off a ship. Let me hold it up to the light and-”

Stalker tapped the underside of the kender’s arm lightly with his belaying pin. The ball flew into the air. Stalker’s hand plucked it from midair and pocketed it before it could fall more than a hand’s breadth.

“You really ought to start putting your name on things you’re going to leave lying around,” Whistletrot began indignantly. “Otherwise there’ll be so much confusion-”

Darin held up a hand for silence; Hurvo had appeared in the square.

“Yes, Speaker?”

“I heard you talking of a locked house. Did the kender-ah-do as usual with it?”

“No.”

“As well for him. That is the house of Sirbones, our priest of Mishakal.”

“Then why hasn’t he come out to help us? We have enough work for three healers, I should think.”

“Ah-we have been taking our hurt to him-eh-in private. He has been busy since it was still twilight.”

Darin’s first thought was of taking a villager’s life-preferably Hurvo’s-for this piece of deceit. Then he realized that he had not said anything about Sirbones in the agreement. It would be dishonorable to punish the village for not granting what had not been asked in the first place!

Also, none of the raiders were dead or even mortally hurt. There were two who needed healing to walk-one with an arrow wound and another because one of his captives had bitten him on the thigh-and several more who would march in greater comfort if they had healing.

Darin took a deep breath. “If he is done with your folk, then let him come forth and heal mine.”

“I cannot command him. That was not part of the agreement.”

“You have a fine memory,” Darin said.

Hurvo smiled. “Not so fine for a villager, really. My great-uncle-now that was a memory. He could hold all the buying and selling of a village’s three-day fair in his head, without writing a single figure on a wooden slab. Of course, he couldn’t write in the first place, but-”

“That sounds like Uncle Trapspringer,” Whistletrot put in. “He once had to judge a contest-”

Darin made a sound that plainly declared the unwisdom of continuing this contest of marvelous uncles.

Hurvo turned and led the others toward the healer-cleric’s house, with Whistletrot riding on Darin’s shoulder.

* * * * *

The house was a small one, only two rooms with a woodpile out back and a well-mortared chimney now trickling herb-scented smoke on the night wind. The door was ajar, and in the torchlight Darin saw that it bore what looked like blue scratchings.

A closer look suggested that it was intended to be a carving of a woman holding a staff. It was hard to tell if she was intended to be clothed or not.

Since Mishakal was supposed to be a rather chaste goddess, Darin decided in favor of her being clothed. He also decided that the carver had never seen a woman, clothed or not.

Then he knocked.

Two half-grown girls supporting an older man who limped but looked otherwise hale appeared in the doorway. “Bless you, Sirbones,” one of them said. “I don’t know what Father would have-oh!”

Darin stepped aside. The others scurried past, unable to take their eyes off his towering form. It was a while before he noticed a small man with a sleek and full head of silver hair standing in the doorway.

“Ah-you are Sirbones?”

“Oh. Yes. Hurvo warned me you were coming. He was not quite telling the truth about my being done with the villagers. However, I have worked on all the wounded as well as the regular sick. Kyloth was my last for the day, and for him it would take a greater healer than I to give him back his youthful pace. The one who healed his ankle the first time left some of the spell bound into the bone, which no doubt seemed a good idea at the time and might have been if the healing had been properly performed-”

Eventually Darin was able to get the priest’s attention, though not before he’d begun to feel as if he were listening to an elderly gnome recite his entire name. In fact, Sirbones did look rather like an oversized gnome, much as Hurvo resembled a large dwarf-had there been mixing of blood with more than elves around here in days not only long past but wholly forgotten?

A fine jest, if some of those in Dinsas who loathe nonhumans have themselves the blood of elves or gnomes, kender or dwarves!

However, a chief with men in need of healing has no time for jests, or for listening to the babble of clerics. A chief who has sworn not to harm priests-and knows that threats against them are as useless as threats against kender-also must be exceedingly patient.

Darin was sure that spring had turned to summer before Sirbones finally ran silent. The priest looked up at the towering figure before him and said, in an entirely different tone of voice, “How many men have you who need healing, and what are their hurts?”

Darin wasted no time gaping, the more so in that the roster of his wounded was always the first thing he rooted in his memory after a battle. He could have recited it drunk or dying, and now spoke swiftly.

Almost before he was aware that the priest had vanished, Sirbones reappeared, carrying his staff and a small bag. The staff seemed to be plain, polished wood, with a blue glass tip-except that the glass glowed, was faceted like a jewel, and seemed to have some tiny figure dancing within its blueness.

“Lead me to your men.”

“I must remain within the walls until we are done,” Darin said. He pulled out a ring and handed it to the cleric. It was silver, with a dolphin engraved upon it. Waydol had worn it upon the little finger of his left hand, until he gave it to Darin, who had just turned ten.

“This is a sign that you come with my permission, and your healing is lawful.” Darin tried to glower. “If it is not, and you live long enough in the face of my men’s wrath-”

“Of course, of course. A traveling man am I, and I have fared in far lands and with men less courteous than yourself. I remember once-”

Darin pointed at the gate and muttered a frantic prayer to various gods that Sirbones was not going to go maundering again.

By the time the prayer was finished, the cleric was gone.

* * * * *

Darin did not see the priest of Mishakal again until the next morning. When he and the men inside the village gathered the loot and their breakfasts and marched out, Sirbones had already finished with the wounded raiders. None of them were quite as fit as they had been before wounds, but all could fight and march.

“I wonder if that healer is weak, or not giving us his best,” Stalker said.

“Treachery is hard to believe in a priest of Mishakal,” Darin said, then made a gesture of aversion for good measure. “As for being weak or fumbling-anyone can suffer that fate. It is something beyond even healers.”

Stalker seemed about to reply, but then one of the raiders came up with a jug of spring water, into which he had mixed cider and crumbled herbs. It was a refreshing drink that not only killed Darin’s last thirst but made him aware of how long he had labored (it had hardly been worthy of the name “fighting”) since dawn.

Darin drew off his gauntlets, wrapped them in his cloak to make a rough pillow, lay down, and was almost instantly asleep.

He awoke to see Sirbones standing almost over him, so close that Darin could have grabbed an ankle and snatched the little priest off his feet. Then he heard the sound of wailing and lamenting from the village.

He leaped to his feet and rested a hand on his sword hilt. Actually drawing it might lead him to the wrong conclusion.

“Who is weeping, and why?”

“Oh, it is the folk of Dinsas. They grieve for themselves, and for me.”

“You?” Darin looked down at the priest. He seemed hale enough, but then with priests of Mishakal this could be an illusion.

Sirbones laughed. It was the laugh of a younger man than he had seemed to be last night. Darin also noticed for the first time that Sirbones seemed ready for traveling. He wore trousers and a loose coat, had a pack on his back and several pouches on a well-made belt, and had his healing staff slung across the pack and wore stout shoes instead of sandals on his feet. In one hand he carried a silver-headed walking stick.

“No. I am not sick or dead, and you are not talking to either a ghost or a carrier of plague. You are merely talking to one who wishes to continue his journey with you.”

The way Sirbones said “journey” seemed to give the word ritual significance. Darin remembered that each priest of Mishakal had to go wandering for a few years, as part of his priesthood. He supposed that he should be honored, and he would certainly be grateful if the priest continued to do good work and did not talk men to death as fast as he healed them.

“Indeed. What have the villagers to say to this?”

“Nothing.” Then Sirbones added hastily, “That is to say, they cannot go against my duties as a priest of Mishakal and the will of the goddess. They are not happy, however, and predict dire fates if I go with you into the Minotaur’s lair.”

“Waydol does not have a lair,” Darin said. “He lives in a hut overlooking the seashore, like a civilized being. Nor will he hurt you, unless you talk to him at the same length as you have talked to me.”

“Ah, that is a vice that comes when one has much of one’s own company,” Sirbones said. “But if one has no love for oneself, one is a poor healer, for one loves not others. Also, one’s own company is what one finds most often on one’s journey.”

“How long ago did you begin your journey, if that is a lawful question?”

“Certainly,” Sirbones said. “I left the Three Lakes Temple in Solamnia twenty-six years ago this summer.”

“How long were you on the journey before you returned to the temple?”

“I have yet to return, young giant. I found that the farther I stayed from temples, the more the goddess favored me. I have been in Dinsas a full three years, which is the longest I have stayed in one place since I left the temple. It was time for me to move on.”

Darin squatted. This brought his eyes almost to a level with Sirbones’s. “I am not sure that I should not take back the-our prizes from last night. If I cannot ask you to return-”

Sirbones shook his head emphatically. “You cannot. Nor are you bound by any oath to return the villagers’ wealth, which is but a fraction of what they possess. It would displease your men, and you will need their loyalty on the long journey home.

“Also, Waydol will need every man at his command, and soon.”

Darin stood. “You have prophecy?”

“Only knowledge from your men, gained while healing them-ukkkh!”

“Aaargghhh!”

The first sound came from Sirbones, when Darin snatched him up by the collar, to dangle him at arm’s length. The second came from Darin, when fire seemed to shoot up his arm and make arm and hand alike go limp so that Sirbones dropped to the ground.

The priest picked himself up while Darin was still rubbing his arm. “I lack strength to do that every day, and you cannot afford to be hurt every day,” Sirbones said firmly. “I have not stolen thoughts from your men’s minds. I only listened to them and their friends talking. I added their knowledge to mine, and the sum was a need to help Waydol.”

Darin sighed. “Well, if I cannot send you back or keep you from following me,” Darin said, “I suppose the next best course is for you to march with us. You can keep up, I trust?”

“You may indeed trust me in that, and wisely,” Sirbones said. He sounded maddeningly complacent.

Darin looked after the priest as he strode off toward the assembling line of men. He rubbed his arm and realized that the pain had vanished as swiftly as it had come. In fact, all the aches from yesterday’s exertions had also vanished, not only from his arm but from the rest of his body. Even the mild case of the flux from a bout with bad water two days ago was gone.

Darin began gathering his own gear. He still was not sure that bringing Sirbones home would not be bringing an owlbear into the sheepfold. But it seemed hard to believe that the Minotaur and his heir could not between them deal with anything short of Mishakal herself!