Kendermore

by Mary Kirchoff

  Pouting slightly, Gisella rode up to him. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve been acting strangely all morning.”

  “Get off the road,” ordered Denzil. “Back here, behind me.” He unslung his crossbow and cocked it, then drew a bolt from a pouch attached to his saddle. “Keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way.”

  Gisella’s arms dropped to her lap and her petulance disappeared, replaced by indignation. “When did I enlist in your army? And what have you got in mind here, anyway? Those are the people we came up here to rescue. Start waving that shooter around cocked and loaded—and you’ll end up hurting somebody.”

  “Hurting people is what I do best!” he snarled. “Now get behind me unless you want to be the one hurt.”

  “Well, isn’t this typical?” fumed Gisella. “Give a guy a tumble and right away he thinks he’s been knighted. I’ve got some news for you, Dunce-el. Gisella Hornslager doesn’t bow, scrape, or take orders, especially from somebody whose eyebrows meet in the middle. Now you can either change your tone with me or turn around and trot back to town.”

  Denzil swung the crossbow to point directly at Gisella’s chest. His face betrayed no emotion. “I’m here for the kender. As long as I leave with him, what happens to everyone else is unimportant. Whether you live or die is the same to me. Now toss the little dagger I know you keep strapped to your thigh on the ground, be quiet, and keep out of sight, or I will silence you.”

  Gisella sucked in her lip for a long moment. Was this real? She had spent a terrific night with this man and a moment ago she was looking forward to quite a few more. Now he was pointing a crossbow at her and telling her he would pull the trigger with no remorse. He was also talking about Tasslehoff as if the kender was a valuable commodity. Was Denzil some kind of bounty hunter? Gisella decided that defiance might be inappropriate, for now. Cursing herself for getting involved with someone she knew so little about, she obediently dropped her weapon and guided her horse into the nook behind Denzil’s.

  Ignoring her, Denzil pulled a strip of cloth from his pocket and tied it around the leather protecter on his left forearm. Fishing a handful of crossbow bolts from his saddle pouch, he deftly slid them, one by one, under the cloth band. With growing horror, Gisella realized that Woodrow and Burrfoot were riding into an ambush.

  Heroics were not Gisella’s stock in trade. In her travels, she’d had to defend herself more than once. But drunken guildsmen and starving goblins were a far cry from a trained killer. Wistfully, Gisella eyed her dagger, lying on the ground. There was nothing she could do.

  * * * * *

  Tasslehoff was laughing.

  “Did you see the look on that mountain lion’s face when Winnie smashed the wall? It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. He looked like he’d bitten into an overripe skunkberry.”

  “I wasn’t scared!” wheezed Winnie. “I was sure I’d be scared, but I wasn’t. I just put my head down and, smash!”

  Woodrow was twisted halfway around on Winnie’s back, peering back up toward the castle. “I don’t see anybody following us. Why do you suppose they aren’t following us? They have a dragon, after all.”

  “Maybe they’re invisible,” suggested Tas, twisting around to see for himself. “I don’t see anything either. That’s usually a good sign that something is invisible, when you can’t see it. What do you think, Winnie? Could they make themselves and their dragon invisible?”

  Winnie considered that for a few seconds. He really didn’t know much about invisibility. “Well, I never saw them while they were invisible. Does that mean anything?”

  “It’s not definitive,” said Tas. “Although, if you’d seen them invisible, then at least we’d know for sure.”

  Winnie had been loping along at a good rate since leaving the tower. Abruptly, however, he slowed. “There’s something ahead of us. I can smell it. It’s different … There is something alive up there.”

  * * * * *

  Gisella tugged a lock of her hair. Denzil, still seated on his horse, had his crossbow braced on top of a rock and was sighting on something. She could not reach her dagger, and she had nothing else to attack Denzil with. But she had to stop this foul deed.

  Suddenly, she had an idea. Gisella spurred her draft horse forward, waving her arms. Denzil was caught completely off guard.

  “It’s Miss Hornslager,” shouted Woodrow, pointing down the trail some fifty yards. “She found us! Hooray!”

  But even as Woodrow cheered, Gisella grimaced and clutched her side. The human’s joy turned to horror when Gisella cried out, swayed in her saddle, clutched her side, then slumped backward and tumbled to the ground.

  “Winnie, get over there, fast!” pleaded Woodrow. “We’ve got to see what’s wrong with her!”

  Winnie took two tentative steps forward, then stopped. “We don’t know what’s there.”

  “Miss Hornslager is there, and she’s hurt!”

  Woodrow swung his leg across the mammoth’s back and slid to the ground. As he dropped below the animal’s furry back, a crossbow bolt whistled past Tasslehoff’s ear and shot harmlessly through the space Woodrow had just occupied. Tasslehoff had heard the sound enough times before to know what it was.

  “Crossbow!” yelled the kender as he flattened himself across Winnie’s back. Lifting the mammoth’s ear, Tas told him, “Rush forward, Winnie. If we stand back, they’ll pick us off one by one. Rush forward, now!”

  The huge animal hesitated for a moment; then, with a toss of its shaggy head, bounded down the trail. Tas was almost thrown to the ground by the unexpected burst of speed. He clutched tightly to the thick fur of Winnie’s back, bouncing furiously.

  As they closed in on Gisella’s still form, Tas spotted a face behind a crossbow, perched atop a rock, only a heartbeat before another bolt was loosed. Tas heard the “thud” and felt Winnie stumble slightly. Looking down, he saw the feathered shaft sticking out of Winnie’s flank, just inches from Tas’s thigh. But Winnie pressed on, and in seconds they had covered the remaining distance to the assassin’s niche.

  After firing his third bolt, Denzil had dropped the crossbow and yanked his heavy, curved sword from its scabbard. The metal-shod end of Tas’s hoopak whistled toward his skull. Denzil’s scimitar deflected the attack, knocking a divit from the wooden shaft of Tas’s weapon. But he had no easy means to attack the kender himself, as the woolly mammoth stood at least four feet taller than Denzil’s horse. The kender’s height advantage reduced Denzil to fending off attack after attack as his horse backed slowly down the trail.

  Woodrow reached Gisella at last. Her horse was pawing the ground nervously several feet away. Woodrow knelt beside the dwarf and gingerly rolled her from her side onto her back. Then he saw the small, red hole in her wool vest, just below the armpit. At such short range, the crossbow bolt had buried itself completely in her side. Choking on his own emotion, Woodrow pressed his ear to the dwarf’s still chest, then held his cheek over her mouth, hoping to feel even the slightest breath.

  But there was nothing.

  Spinning around, Woodrow saw a burly man on a horrid horse—a nightmare—locked in a vicious melee with Tasslehoff. The man’s sword was not long enough to reach the kender atop Winnie, and Winnie could not get close enough to the man’s thrashing horse for Tasslehoff to strike effectively.

  Leaving Gisella’s body, Woodrow dashed toward the fight, snatching up the dwarf’s dagger on the way. As Tas aimed another blow at Denzil, Winnie struck out with his trunk, wrapping it around the man’s heavy boot. With a tug, he wrenched Denzil’s foot from the stirrup, throwing him off balance. Seeing his opening, Tas thrust the pointed end of his hoopak, spearlike, straight for Denzil’s chest. The metal point struck just below his rib cage, forcing the air from the man’s lungs and toppling him from his saddle. Armed with Gisella’s dagger, Woodrow stabbed toward the falling body and felt the blade sink in. Denzil hit the ground with a thump. There was blood on Woodrow’s dagger.

  Tassl
ehoff was ready to slide down from Winnie’s spine when Woodrow scrambled back up. “Let’s go!” the human barked. “We’ve got to get out of here before the gnomes catch us again. They couldn’t have missed all this racket.”

  “Oh, oh, I can’t be captured again. I just can’t,” Winnie moaned, launching himself back down the trail.

  But Tasslehoff shouted, “Wait, who was that guy? And what about Gisella—don’t we have to wait for her?”

  “Gisella’s dead,” spat Woodrow, fighting back angry tears, “and so is the man who attacked us!”

  Tasslehoff looked stricken. “Gisella can’t be dead! How do you know?”

  “She’s dead, Mr. Burrfoot!” Woodrow sobbed. “She was hit in the side by a crossbow bolt. I stabbed the man who killed her—the one you were fighting as you knocked him off his horse. See, there’s still blood on Gisella’s dagger! Please, Mr. Burrfoot,” he begged, “let’s go! We can’t do anything for either of them, so the best thing to do is get away.”

  “He’s right,” Winnie whimpered, sad for his new friends. “We can’t let Bozdil and Ligg find us here.”

  “I don’t care about the gnomes!” hollered Tas. “We can’t just leave her back there. Stop, Winnie! Turn around!”

  But Winnie continued charging down the mountainside. “I can’t, Tasslehoff. I just can’t. It’s too risky! The gnomes.…”

  “Kender don’t leave their friends!” Tas cried in anguish. Quicker than Woodrow could react, Tasslehoff tossed his leg across Winnie’s back and was on the ground, rolling to break his fall. In a flash he was back on his feet and charging uphill toward Gisella’s body.

  Woodrow’s hands shook as he tried to slow Winnie. Every nerve in the human’s body told him to fly from this place as quickly as possible. Yet Tasslehoff Burrfoot was his friend, and if Woodrow could not go back, at least he would wait.

  As Tasslehoff approached Gisella’s body, his breath caught in his lungs and his eyes blurred. Her horse trotted forward to meet the kender, who gathered up the animal’s reins. The red-haired dwarf’s limp body lay some ten paces from the man who had shot her. His horse stood over him. The animal snorted and stamped as Tas drew near. When Tas saw the wound in Gisella’s side, he knew she was indeed dead. Summoning his strength, he gently lifted the body of Gisella Hornslager into his arms and laid it across the saddle on her horse.

  His steps leaden, Tas turned and directed Gisella’s horse, bearing her body, back down the trail to where Woodrow and Winnie waited anxiously. No one spoke as Tas tied the horse’s reins to Winnie’s tail and climbed back on the mammoth, behind Woodrow. Tas could hear nothing in his mind but the lone, droning drum beat of a kender funeral procession as they rode to the east down the mountainside.

  They did not look back.

  If they had, they would have seen a large man stir on the dusty road near the gnomes’ tower.

  * * * * *

  They buried the flame-haired dwarf by moonlight in a wooded clearing within earshot of a babbling stream. Tasslehoff’s voice broke over the strains of the Kender Mourning Song.

  Always before, the spring returned.

  The bright world in its cycle spun

  In air and flowers, grass and fern,

  Assured and cradled by the sun.

  Always before, you could explain

  The turning darkness of the earth,

  And how that dark embraced the rain,

  And gave the ferns and flowers birth.

  Already I forget those things,

  And how a vein of gold survives

  The mining of a thousand springs,

  The seasons of a thousand lives.

  Now winter is my memory,

  Now autumn, now the summer light—

  So every spring from now will be

  Another season into night.

  “I’m glad Fondu isn’t here to see this,” said Woodrow. “He’s better off rampaging through Rosloviggen.” Wiping away a tear, the human straightened Gisella’s auburn tresses and brushed the dust from her pale cheeks because it would have mattered to her.

  Tasslehoff’s hoopak served as a simple marker for the grave.

  “We’re going on to Kendermore—for Gisella.”

  PART III

  Chapter 19

  Trapspringer reached for Damaris, but he couldn’t find her in the swirling green and purple mist. He felt as if his lungs were being pushed out the front of his chest. Butterflies seemed to be swarming inside his stomach, fluttering their wings all at once and tickling him unmercifully. He giggled, but he heard no sound. He could see nothing but roiling, white mist streaked with amethyst and emerald, as his limbs flailed helplessly. Wherever he was, he was not touching ground, yet he did not feel as if he were quite floating, either.

  Suddenly Trapspringer became aware that the hair on his body was growing, and his fingernails were stretching. He felt weightless and unattached, but at the same time an enormous pressure bore down on him. Then, as if a great harness had been unbuckled and the doors flung open, the pressure and the mist disappeared and Trapspringer lay sprawled on top of Damaris Metwinger. She pushed him away frantically, and together they stood and looked around, unconsciously holding hands.

  Both kender dropped their jaws in amazement, and Trapspringer shook his head. We’ve plummeted into a child’s shadowbox diorama, the elder kender thought.

  For that is what the land around them most resembled. They stood at the crossing of two narrow, shiny black streets that looked and smelled remarkably like anise licorice. Neat little houses of golden brown with scrolling, white trim—iced gingerbread?—were set at regular intervals along the streets. Every house was identically landscaped with multicolored gumdrop bushes, lollipop trees, nut-cookie sidewalks, and all-day-sucker flowers. Everything was in perfect kender scale.

  Though there was plenty of light, there was no sun—no sky, for that matter, just a swirling mass of pastel mists that formed a ceiling of sorts over the strange landscape. It was as if the town had, in fact, been constructed in a box.

  Trapspringer and Damaris spun about, their excitement growing.

  “Can it be real?” she breathed.

  “Only one way to find out!” Trapspringer said brightly. He led them to a small, pink-and-white striped bush and broke off a crunchy leaf. Snap! He popped it in his mouth. “Strawberry and vanilla taffy!” he proclaimed, snapping off another piece for her.

  “Harkul Gelfig, what do you mean, eating my bush?” an angry voice called from the depths of the nearest house. Trapspringer and Damaris jumped back guiltily.

  “Why, you’re not Gelfig!” The man peered through a little grate in his taffy front door. The door swung open and a heavy-set kender waddled down the cookie walk.

  “The name’s Trapspringer Furrfoot, not Gelfig Whatever-you-said,” Trapspringer said pleasantly. “Pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand. “Where are we, by the way?” He looked around at the small village.

  “I’m Lindal Hammerwart.” The kender, one of the most obese either Damaris or Trapspringer had ever seen, took Trapspringer’s hand and broke into a jowly grin. “And you’re in Gelfigburg! Hey, everyone, we’ve got newcomers!” he hollered.

  It was as if the cry opened floodgates. Doors flew back, their lemondrop knobs slamming into gingerbread siding. The box-world shook as dozens of the fattest kender ever seen waddled and jiggled themselves toward Trapspringer and Damaris. The two were surrounded in no time and bombarded with an unintelligible stream of high-pitched, excited questions.

  “What are your names? The Welcoming Committee needs them for the cake.”

  “Are those boots pigskin or cowhide?”

  “Are you bothered by indigestion?”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Do you have any food made from anything besides sugar?”

  “What an interesting color for a cape! May I borrow it sometime?”

  Laughing and shaking hands, Trapspringer tried his best to answer all the questions,
unable to squeeze in one of his own.

  Suddenly a multicolored streak of light shot down from the swirling clouds above and touched the ground for a heartbeat or two, as if it was solid. Then, as quickly, it receded back into the mist, leaving a very unsteady Phineas standing a few yards from the cluster of kender.

  “What in hell was that foggy tunnel?” he grumbled, while jarring the side of his head with the heel of his hand. He looked at the black licorice beneath his feet and jumped backward. “And what in hell is this?” Then he heard the chatter and looked up, his face turning crimson. “Who in hell are you?”

  “A human,” one of the kender muttered above the twitter. “I don’t think we have one of those, do we? And a vulgarian! I don’t suppose he can help being a human. Still, didn’t we outlaw vulgarity?” The crowd of weighty kender turned in on itself to discuss the matter.

  Phineas pushed his way through the fleshy crowd surrounding Trapspringer and Damaris. He looked more than a little relieved at the sight of them.

  “Where are we?” he asked, trying hard to control his voice so that Damaris could not accuse him of sounding “unhinged.”

  He had never even imagined such a place. Who would build an entire village out of candy? Who, indeed, he mused, watching the throng of unusually massive kender. Perhaps this was the stage for a play, and these kender were but actors with padding in their clothing? But then how do they get their cheeks to puff out so convincingly? he wondered.

  No, these were genuinely plump kender, he concluded after bumping into a few of them. Then he noticed something that made his breath catch in his throat. These kender were nonchalantly breaking off pieces of houses, plants, and fences and stuffing them into their mouths while they continued their discussion.

  “I believe that one there—” Damaris pointed to the first kender they’d met, the one who looked to be wearing two pair of pants sewn together “—said this place was called Gelfigborough, or something like that.”