Kender, Gully Dwarves, Gnomes (2 page)

“You argue his inexperience,” the dwarf had said, “but I'd like to know how he's to come
by any if he spends all his time in Solace.”

It was, Tanis thought at the time, a telling point. But he had not been swayed until he
heard in Flint's careful silence the echo of memories of another inexperienced youth:
himself. That was no argument against which he might win. In the end he had been persuaded
to include Sturm among the party. It was, after all, to have been a brief trip, with no
diversions.

And Sturm, to his credit, did not rail against the hardships of the unlooked-for storm,
but accepted the challenge and deferred, with a solemn and graceful courtesy that
contrasted oddly with his youth, to Tanis's leadership.

Well, we've certainly been diverted now, the half-elf thought, settling his pack and
stamping numb feet in the snow in a vain effort to urge into sluggish circulation the
blood that surely must be near frozen.

“Come on, Sturm. The sooner we get back, the happier we'll all be. Tas's promise to stay
behind will only hold for so long. Were you inclined to gamble, I'd wager you anything you
like that though we've a long trudge ahead of us, it is Flint who is beset with the worse
trial.”

When they stepped out into the rage of the storm again, Tanis thought that were wishes to
be granted he would forsake a mule's strong back and ask instead for a dog's finely
developed instinct for finding home. The wind had erased any tracks they'd made coming
into the stand.

Flint glared out into the night, thinking, as Tanis had, that this was to have been an
easy trip. It had been a journey of only a few days to reach Esker. The wealthy headman of
the village had welcomed them eagerly and been well pleased with the pair of silver
goblets he'd commissioned the previous summer. The goblets, with their elegantly shaped
stems, gilded interiors, and jeweled cups, were to be a wedding gift for the man's beloved
daughter. Flint had labored long over their design, obtaining the finest jewels for their
decoration and the purest silver for their

execution. His client had been well pleased with them and not inclined toward even the
ritual dickering over their cost.

Aye, Flint thought now, they were beauties. And like to cost us our lives.

The weird, atonal wailing of Tas's shepherd's pipe keened through the shelter, rivaling
the whine of the storm, drawing Flint's nerves tighter with each moment that passed. It
never seemed to find a tune, never seemed to settle into anything he recognized as even
remotely resembling music.

“Tas!” he snapped. “If you're bound to fuss with that wretched thing, can't you at least
find a tune and play it?”

The piping stopped abruptly. Tas got to his feet and joined Flint near the door. “I would
if I could. But this is the best I can do.”

Before Flint could protest, Tas began to play again. The awful screech rose in pitch,
splintering his temper, never very strong where Tas was concerned, into shards as sharp
and hard as needles of ice.

“Enough!” he snatched the pipe from Tas's hand. But before he could fling it across the
shelter, the kender leaped up and caught it back handily.

“No, Flint! My magic pipe!”

“Magic! Don't tell me you're going to start that again. There's no more magic than music
in that thing.”

“But there is, Flint. The shepherd told me that I'd find the magic when I found the music.
And I'd find the music when I wanted it most. I really do want it now, but I don't seem to
be able to find it.”

Flint had heard the story before. Though the circumstances and some finer details varied
from one telling to the next, the core of the tale was always the same: a shepherd had
given Tas the pipe, swearing that it was enchanted. But he wouldn't tell the kender what
the magical property of the pipe was.

“You will discover its use,” he'd supposedly said, “when you unlock the music. And when it
has served you, you must pass it on, as I have to you, for the magic can be used only once
by each who frees it.”

Like as not, Flint thought, the instrument had been acquired the same way a kender comes
by most anything. A quick, plausible distraction, a subtle movement of the hand, and a
shepherd spends the next hour searching for his pipe.

He probably should have counted himself lucky that half his flock hadn't vanished as well!

“There's no magic in this,” Flint said. “More likely there's a flaw in the making. Give
over now, Tas, and let me wait in peace.”

With a sigh that seemed to come straight from his toes, Tas went back to where he'd been
piping. He dropped onto the frozen dirt floor and propped his back up against his pack. In
his head he could hear the song he wanted his pipe to sing. In some places it was soft and
wistful. Yet, in others it was bright, almost playful. It would be a pretty tune, a song
for the snow. Why, he wondered, couldn't the pipe play the music?

The blizzard raged, shaking the walls of the little shelter. Night now held the mountain
in its freezing grip. It occurred to Tas that Sturm and Tanis had been gone much longer
than they should have been.

Likely, he thought, drifting with the memory of the tune he heard but couldn't play, it
only SEEMED that the waiting was long. Probably Tanis and Sturm had only been gone a few
hours at most. It would take them that long to get to where the trees were, find the wood,
and fill their packs. He was certain, though, that if he'd been with them, it wouldn't
take nearly that long to get back. And three could carry more wood than two. Tanis's
reasons for extracting his promise seemed less clear to Tas now. He wished he had gone
with them!

It might have been the cold that set him to shivering deep down in his bones. Or the
sudden strange turn that the storm's song took. Whatever it was, Tas found that his music
had faded and left him.

The wind roared and screamed. The snow, falling more heavily now than it had in the
afternoon, was like a gray woolen curtain. Frustrated, Tas laid aside his pipe and went to
stand by the door.

“Doesn't the wind sound strange?”

Flint did not answer, but stayed still where he sat, peering out into the storm.

“Flint?” “I heard you.” “It sounds like ... I don't know.” Tas cocked his head to

listen. “Like wolves howling.” “It's not wolves. It's only the wind.”

“I've never heard the wind sound like that. Well, once I heard it sound ALMOST like
wolves. But it was really more like a dog. Sometimes you hear a dog howling in the night
and you think it's a wolf but it's not because wolves really do sound different. More
ferocious, not so lonesome. This does sound like wolves, Flint, don't you think? But I've
never heard of wolves hunting in a blizzard unless they were REALLY starving.” Tas
frowned, remembering a story he'd heard once. “There was a village way up in the mountains
in Khur that was attacked by wolves in a blizzard. I didn't see it. But my father did, and
he told me about it. He said it was really interesting the way the wolves came down after
dark and stalked anything that looked like good food. And he said it was AMAZING what
wolves consider good food when they're starving - ”

“Will you hush! And while you're at it, stop imagining things that aren't there!” Gritting
his teeth against his anger and the fear that the kender's tale of starving wolves and
blizzards fanned, Flint climbed to his feet. He was stiff and aching with the cold. “If
you must do something, come help me start a fire.”

“With what. Flint?”

“With those old boards and - ” Flint thought of the blocks of wood in his pack. He sighed
heavily, regretting the loss of his whittling wood. “And whatever I have in my pack.”

“All right.” But Tas lingered at the doorway. It WAS wolves howling, he decided firmly,
and not the wind. In his mind's eye he could see them: big, heavy-chested brutes, gray as
a storm sky, eyes bright with hunger, fangs as sharp as the blade of his own small dagger.
They would leap across the drifts and slink through the hollows, pause to taste the air
with their noses, howl in eerie mourning for their empty bellies, and lope on again.

His father had also told him that the big gray wolves could be almost invisible against a
snowy sky. Lifting his head to listen, he thought the howling was closer now. He wouldn't
have to go very far to get just a quick glimpse of the beasts. Forgetting his promise to
Tanis, forgetting the uncooperative pipe, Tas decided that he simply had to see - or not
see - the wolves.

Checking to be sure that Flint was not watching, Tas grinned happily and slipped out into
the storm.

“Tanis!” He was but an arm's length behind the half-elf yet Sturm could see Tanis only as
a vague, dark shadow. He hardly heard his own voice, bellow though he did above the wind's
scream, and he knew that Tanis had not heard him at all. He caught Tanis's arm and pulled
him to a halt.

“Listen!” Sturm shouldered his pack to an easier perch on his back and moved in close.
“You're not going to tell me again about how that's the wind, are you? Those are wolves!”

They were indeed. The fiction of the wind had been partly for Sturm's sake, partly for his
own. Tanis abandoned it as useless now. “I know! But we have to push on, Sturm! We can't
let them get between us and the shelter!”

“Run? You want us to run?” The thought of fleeing from danger sent a spasm of disgust
across the youth's face. Beneath that revulsion, though, was an instinctive fear. It was
not hidden, Tanis saw, as well as Sturm might have hoped.

Tanis's humorless laughter was caught by the wind and flung away. “I do! But the best we
can do is slog on. There is no shame in this retreat, Sturm. We're no match for a pack,
and Flint and Tas won't appreciate our courage at all if they have to consider it while
freezing to death.”

Though carefully given, it was a reprimand. Sturm recognized it and took it with
considered grace. “I'm not accustomed to flight, Tanis,” he said gravely. “But neither am
I accustomed to abandoning friends. Lead on.”

Sturm, Tanis thought, seeking his bearings, you're too solemn by half for your years! But,
aye, I'll lead on ...

And that was another matter. How far had they come? Tanis could no longer tell. He was
storm-blind now, hardly able to keep his eyes open for the merciless bite of wind- driven
snow and ice. The bitter wind had battered at their backs when they'd left the shelter. As
long as it roared and screamed in their faces, clawing at their skin, tearing at their
clothing, he could be fairly certain that they were moving in the right direction. He did
not like to think what might happen should the storm suddenly change direction.

Likely someone would find our bones in spring and wonder and pity. Putting aside the grim
thought, Tan-is hunched his shoulders and bowed his head before the storm's blast,
protecting his eyes as best he could. His legs

were heavier and harder to move with each step. His neck and shoulders ached beneath his
burden of wood. And the wolves were howling closer.

It only SEEMS A never-ending journey, he told himself as he waded through still another
drift. Before the night was much older they would be back at the shelter. Then the storm
could tear across the mountains, then the wolves could howl until they were hoarse. It
wouldn't matter. Tanis could almost hear Flint scolding and grumbling about two young
fools who couldn't come right back, but must linger to catch their deaths in the storm.
Beneath it all would run Tas's chattering and incessant, never-ending questions. Their
miserable burdens of fuel would feed a crackling fire to thaw hands and feet they could no
longer feel.

Thinking to share the encouragement with Sturm toiling silently behind, he turned,
squinting into the blinding snow.

“Sturm! Soon!” he shouted.

Sturm looked up. Ice rimned his hair, long streaks of white scored his face where the cold
had bitten. “What?”

“Soon! We're almost - ”

It might have been instinct that made Tanis slip immediately out of his pack and reach for
his bow and quiver. Or it might have been the look of wide-eyed horror on Sturm's face. He
never heard the wolf's roar, or the slavering snarl of its mate. He only felt the heavy
weight where it caught him behind the knees and drove him with all the force of its
hundred pounds face first into the snow.

His bow was beneath him, his dagger still sheathed at his belt. Fear raced through him
like a hot river. He shoved his chin tight to his chest and locked his hands behind his
head, protecting his neck and throat. The wolf's hot breath, stinking of its last kill,
gagged him. Powerful jaws snapping, unable to reach his neck or throat, the wolf fastened
on his shoulder, worrying at the thick cloth of his cloak, tearing through it and his
leather tunic to lay his flesh bare to dripping fangs. Its eyes were gleaming green fire,
its mouth a roaring crimson maw.

Bucking and kicking, his mind empty of all thought but survival, Tanis heaved onto his
back. His head still low, he freed his hands and found his dagger. The wolf rose up,
scrambling to regain position, belly exposed for an instant. Tanis gripped his dagger
hard. The icy air stung in his lungs. He thrust upward with all his strength. The blade

drove into the wolf's belly to the hilt. Gasping hard, he dragged until he struck
breastbone. The beast fell away, dead as it hit the snow.

Shuddering, locked for one painful moment in the rictus of fear, Tanis lay on his back.
Sweat froze on his face, nausea churned in his belly. His breath, ragged and hurting,
sounded like the pumping of a bellows. Dark blood pooled, steaming in the freezing night.

Behind and above him another wolf roared. That challenge was followed swiftly by deadly
snarling and then a shocked scream of pain. So horrible was the sound that Tanis could not
tell if it had come from the lungs of man or beast.

Sturm! Coppery, musty, the stench of fresh blood filled the air. Tanis scrambled to his
feet. The storm wind blinded him, tore at him. He couldn't see!