by Dragon Lance
Unless Kaz departed instantly, the blood urge would overwhelm him and he would waste the last few precious seconds of his life hacking away at his adversaries, as did so many of his respected but short-lived ancestors. While he revered his ancestors, he had no intention of joining them in the land of the dead just yet.
So he turned his mount and rode madly in the direction of the white vision.
Kaz rode for a solid quarter of an hour before daring to slow down. By then, the sounds of combat had been left far behind him. He was now just northeast of Xak Tsaroth.
“I’m no coward,” he suddenly whispered to himself and to whatever powers might be listening. Nevertheless, he still felt some misgivings. By rights, shouldn’t he have stayed and aided the Solamnic Order in any way he could? Had he not betrayed his trust to Huma, a man he had admired as much as the greatest of his ancestors?
“My honor is my life.” The phrase sounded strange now as he whispered it. It was part of the Oath and the Measure that Huma’s order had sworn to follow. To a minotaur, it was one reason why the Knights of Solamnia had been held in higher esteem than any other human organization.
Maybe you could have explained honor to me, Huma. He sighed, a very unminotaurish thing to do, and studied his surroundings.
He was at the edge of a field of wild grass, which he hoped would not suddenly reveal yet another dire threat. If Kaz continued on in the same direction, he knew that he would first come across an offshoot of the mountain range that more or less ran the length of Qualinesti. If he continued farther, he would find himself in the densely packed forests of the elven land itself. That, he knew with bitter satisfaction, was one choice he did not have to ponder. After Silvanesti, he had no desire to see another elf ever again. Let them stay happy in their seclusion from the outside world. Kaz knew of a shortcut. Delbin had told him of a river that ran north to Vingaard Keep. It meant passing through some mountains and part of the vast forest of Qualinesti, but it would lead him to his goal: Vingaard Keep, and a confrontation with the Grand Master himself.
He found himself wishing the kender was with him, if only to act as guide. Delbin knew the land well, but Kaz could not afford to wait for the ever-cheerful little annoyance. Luckily, he carried Delbin’s map.
Though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, Kaz had grown fond of the kender. Only a fool would have pointed that out to him, however, for minotaurs are generally picky about their companions, and to admit befriending a pouch-picking, childish creature like Delbin was tantamount to weakness.
With a grunt, Kaz urged his mount onward. He wasn’t going to get anywhere remaining where he was, contemplating everything under the heavens.
*
As the minotaur rode west, something stirred in the high grass. It was pale white and hairless. The eyes had no pupils and glowed scarlet. It remained in the tall grass as much as possible, hating, in some dim way, the light that burned in the sky. Its eyes remained fixed on the receding figures of rider and mount. When the figures were far enough away, the beast rose and began to follow. Standing, it resembled something that had once been a wolf – a wolf long dead, perhaps.
Fighting the searing pain of daylight, it began to follow the minotaur.
Chapter 3
At times, it seemed to Kaz that his life was nothing but turmoil. Following Huma’s sacrifice and the war’s end, he had hoped things would be different. His fellow minotaurs might have called him soft, dishonorable, but he no longer cared. The more he thought about the minotaur way of life, the less he liked it, which was not to say that the ways of humans, dwarves, elves, or even kender were any better.
The ride to the river was surprisingly without incident. If this river had a name, the mapmaker had forgotten to include it. Delbin had never said exactly where he had picked up his map, and Kaz, knowing kender, did not push the point. It served its purpose, and at least it was fairly accurate as far as landmarks.
The sun hung very low in the sky. Kaz estimated that he had perhaps a little less than an hour before it sank from sight. Lunitari was already visible above the horizon. Solinari, the pale white moon, would reveal itself later on. It would be a fairly bright night.
A river this size meant settlements and shipping along its length. That meant more people than Kaz really cared to encounter, but it was still the quickest route. For the time being, his best bet was to skirt the minor chain of mountains east of the river and just north of his present position. By the time the mountain range turned from the direction he needed to go, there would be forest, which would provide him concealment for nearly half the journey. He tried not to think about Northern Solamnia, which from what he had heard, was still a fairly desolate land. And if half the rumors were true, the knights were behaving strangely indeed.
He rode on. The mountains began to grow.
*
As the last vestiges of sunlight retreated before the night, Kaz began to wonder if he had made the right choice.
It was only a small range of mountains, and the mountains themselves were nothing in comparison to some of the giants he had crossed before. They were rather ordinary peaks. Yet he was disturbed by them in some way he could not decipher.
“Any magical weapons lying about?” he whispered half-mockingly to them. The minotaur’s eyes widened as he realized that was what disturbed him – the memory of Huma, that final conflagration. Kaz could not look at a mountain without subconsciously remembering how it all started – the search for the legendary Dragonlances, the only weapons capable of defeating the hordes of dragons of the Dark Queen, Takhisis. They had found those lances, but only a couple of dozen at first. Kaz, riding along with Huma, had been one of the small band that had first wielded them in battle. He was also one of the few survivors of that band and the only one to see Huma, in the last moments of his life, utterly defeat the evil goddess, forcing her to swear an oath that she would depart Krynn and never return. In the last five years, Kaz had often gone out of his way to avoid getting too near mountains. Granted, there had been times when it had proven unavoidable, but he had always tried his best to pass through them as quickly as possible.
Afraid of mountains! Kaz snorted in self-disgust and urged his horse forward. Tonight he would sleep with his head against one of these leviathans. The more Kaz thought about it, the more determined he became. At the very least, the minotaur would stand less of a chance of being discovered by some other traveler. Kaz eyed the looming peaks and tried to estimate how long it would take him to reach the nearest one. Past nightfall, the minotaur decided grimly. He would have preferred it otherwise.
*
Under a tall, worn peak, Kaz made camp. At some point, perhaps in the distant past or perhaps in the war, a good portion of one side of the mountain had broken away, giving it a toothy look. It reminded the minotaur of his grandsire, a once-fierce bull who had survived to great age despite a number of improperly healed injuries. He dubbed the mountain Kefo, in his ancestor’s honor. It made sleeping under its shadow much easier.
After months of incessant kender chatter, it was odd to rest with only the sounds of the night to keep him company. Kaz snorted. If he was beginning to miss Delbin, then perhaps it would be better if he turned himself over to his enemies!
“Paladine preserve my mind!” Kaz whispered wryly.
Delbin had come across him in the south, just after Kaz had returned from a long, hazardous journey to the frozen lands in the extreme south. The proclamations from Vingaard were just appearing in the southern regions, but the unorthodox captain who had led the expedition and who had grown fond of Kaz gave him the benefit of the doubt despite the harsh accusations of murder and treachery that the proclamations spouted with no evidence to back them up. The seal given to Kaz by Grand Master Oswal of the knighthood only strengthened the minotaur’s story of the truth. Besides, having a minotaur proved fortuitous, for the icy domains proved to be treacherous in more ways than one. A hardy explorer the human might have been, but after that one trip,
when the soil of Kharolis, his home, was once more beneath his feet, he told Kaz he was looking forward to spending the rest of his days – and he was still a young man – in some nice, peaceful market haggling with customers over the price of apples or something.
A high, curious voice had asked, “Did you really come back from the ice lands? Is it true your breath freezes so hard there that you’ve got to melt it over a fire to hear what you said? I heard that somewhere! Are you a minotaur? I’ve never seen a minotaur before! Do you bite?”
At first Kaz thought the intense questioner no more than a half-grown human child with a long, thick ponytail. Only when the captain swore and reached for his gold pouch did the minotaur realize the horror that they were facing.
Delbin Knotwillow, Kaz thought in retrospect, is probably annoying even to other kender. Certainly they never seemed to come across any others – at least not for long. Delbin, who had stuck by the minotaur’s side from that time on, plying him constantly with all sorts of inane questions about minotaurs and everything else, was a young male, handsome by his people’s standards. He was slightly larger than most of his kind, perhaps an inch or two under four feet and almost ninety pounds. He considered himself studious and had taken it upon himself to write a history of present-day Krynn – a worthy goal, except that often when he reached into his pouch for his book, instead he pulled out an item that some clumsy human had apparently dropped. In the excitement of finding it, Delbin would forget all about the incident he had wanted to record.
Now the kender was likely somewhere in Xak Tsaroth or hopelessly searching for Kaz east of the city, unless something else had caught his attention. Or, for all the minotaur knew, Delbin was at this moment deep in Qualinesti looking for an elven horse, something he had always wanted to see.
Staring at the two visible moons, Kaz began to wonder if he was going to spend the entire night thinking about the kender or getting some of the rest he so badly needed. He hoped to have journeyed well into the forest before tomorrow evening.
Exhaustion finally began to overwhelm his senses. Nightmare visions of hundreds of curious and excited kender began to fade into the warm darkness of slumber. Kaz almost sighed in relief as at last he drifted away in peace.
*
He was standing before a great fortress that seemed to cling precariously to one side of the jagged peak. Creatures of all races lay dead or dying, and it was difficult to say who had been fighting whom.
“It’s all over now,” Huma sighed. Kaz turned to gaze at his friend and comrade. Despite his relatively young age, Huma’s handsome visage was marked with lines, and his hair, including his mustache, was silver-gray. His face was pale, almost deathlike.
An inhumanly beautiful woman with gleaming tresses of silver stood at his side, her arm linked with the knight’s. Kaz blinked. Every now and then, her face seemed to shift to that of a dragon.
“We won,” she said sweetly.
“You have won nothing but death!” a voice cried.
The ground before the vast citadel burst open, and a fearsome creature with a multitude of heads rose before them. Huma pulled a Dragonlance from his scabbard, but the monstrosity only laughed. The woman at Huma’s side melted and grew, wings bursting from her delicate back. Her slender arms and legs gave way to misshapen limbs that could only belong to a dragon. A symbol of majesty, she flew into the air and challenged the horror that Kaz realized must be Takhisis, the dark goddess.
Takhisis laughed mockingly and burned the silver dragon in midflight. A shower of ash, all that remained of Huma’s love, scattered in the breeze created by the goddess’s massive, leathery wings.
Takhisis laughed even harder. Kaz uttered an oath to his adopted god, Paladine. The heads of Takhisis were not the heads of dragons, as the minotaur had thought at first. Instead, most were human. One was incredibly beautiful, so that even Gwyneth, the silver dragon, was ugly by comparison. Takhisis the seductress. Turning his gaze from that visage to another did not help. The next head was the ebony-helmed visage of the mad warlord, Crynus. Spittle ran down his chin. Another was the head of the sorcerer Magius, Huma’s childhood friend, who had died a prisoner of the Dark Lady’s servants.
Yet another, this one the gaunt, deathly visage of a Knight of Solamnia, made both Kaz and Huma gasp. This was Rennard, he who had helped sponsor Huma to the knighthood and who, in the end, had been revealed not only as the lad’s uncle, but also as a treacherous cultist serving Morgion, god of disease and decay. Rennard had died horribly after failing in his mission to kill both Lord Oswal and Huma. Morgion was not a forgiving god.
The worst was last. Towering above the other heads, even that of the temptress, was one that Kaz had never really seen, but knew without having to hazard a guess. Grinning like a death’s-head, the long, narrow face swelled until it was almost as large as the rest of the abomination itself. Human was a term one could only loosely apply to it, for the skin had a slightly greenish tinge to it, and Kaz could see an elaborate network of scales, like those of a snake, covering it. The hair lay thin and flat against the head. The teeth were long, sharp, and predatory.
“Dracos,” Huma muttered. “In the good graces of his queen once more.” He shifted his grip on the Dragonlance, the only weapon ever to defeat Takhisis, and to Kaz’s horror, held it out for the minotaur to take.
“What – what’s this?”
Huma smiled at him sadly. The young-old face was drawn and white, as dead as ghostly Rennard’s. “I cannot do any more. I’m dead, remember?”
As Kaz watched in horror, his comrade was caught up in the wind and scattered like ash all around. In seconds, there was not a trace left.
“Minotaurrrr. Wayward child. Time to come back to the fold.”
He looked up at the leering faces and was gripped by an overwhelming panic. Despite a part of him that cried out at such cowardice, he turned and tried to flee, only to discover that no matter how hard he ran, he only seemed to be drawing closer to the five-headed beast.
The Knights of Solamnia were there, but instead of aiding him, they were jeering. Lord Oswal and his nephew Bennett, their hawklike features so identical it was uncanny, watched his struggles with as much interest as if they were studying an ant on the ground.
“I’ve never seen a five-headed dragon before,” a familiar voice commented happily. “Will each head take a bite out of you? Does it have five stomachs? Is something wrong? Kaz? Kaz?”
The heads, maws open and grossly exaggerated in size, dove toward him.
The last thing he heard was a voice asking, “Kaz, do you want me to leave you alone?”
*
With a bellow, Kaz sat up, eyes wide with horror. Something short and wiry fell backward, landing with a loud “Ouch!” on the rocky ground.
“Are minotaurs always this excitable when they wake up? Maybe that’s why nobody likes minotaurs! Well, I like minotaurs, but you know what they say about kender – well, they say something! I thought I’d never find you!”
Kaz rubbed his eyes, unsure whether the voice he was hearing was part of the nightmare from his sleep or a living nightmare instead. His eyes began to adjust to the light of the moons. Squinting, he ventured a hesitant “Delbin?”
Even in the darkness, he could still make out the kender’s irreverent smile. “What’re you doing here, Kaz? Did you ever see so many humans fighting each other? Was it like that during the war? I didn’t get to see any of that! Grandfather said I was too young! Said I should leave serious business like that to the adults!”
“Take a breath, Delbin,” Kaz replied automatically. After weeks of effort, he had finally been able to make the kender understand that there were times when it was absolutely necessary to shut his mouth, unless he wanted to chance making the acquaintance of the heavy fist of an enraged minotaur.
Delbin quieted, though it was always an effort for him to do so.
“How did you find me, Delbin?”
The kender gave him a triumphant look. “M
y grandpa, he could track something as small as a mouse halfway across Hylo – well, maybe not that far – and he taught me all sorts of stuff, so when I saw all those men fighting, I figured you’d either be trying to take them all on or you had gone! When I didn’t find you, I remembered the river from the map, but you don’t want to be seen any more than you have to, so that left the mountains, and you were easy to find after that, what with the trail you left behind!’Course anyone but a kender like me would’ve never seen it, but I did!”
Kaz snorted. He had forgotten what explanations from Delbin were like, although this one was fairly straightforward for the kender. “You must have traveled nonstop.”
For the first time, the cheerful look vanished from his companion’s visage. “I was worried about you.”
“Worried?” Kaz, unused to such sentiment from anyone, especially a happy-go-lucky soul like Delbin, grunted. Taking a deep breath, he tried to make himself look as huge as possible. “I’m a minotaur, Delbin! No reason to worry about me!”
“Well, you’ve been so good to me, letting me come with you even though I know I’m pretty young and maybe not as worldly-wise as some adult kender. That reminds me, I should write down what happened today, because this’ll make a great addition to my book and show the others that I am smart and not a childish wastrel and – gee! This isn’t my notebook, but it sure is interesting! I wonder how it got inside my pouch?” He started examining a small flat book that Kaz suspected the former owner had been searching for futilely for some time already.
The minotaur groaned and leaned back. Things were back to normal – or at least the kender variation of normal. Despite his annoyance with Delbin at times, he was forced to admit that things never looked gloomy when the effervescent kender was around. Confusing and irritating, yes, but not gloomy.
Suddenly he realized that Delbin had grown uncharacteristically quiet. Kaz raised himself up and eyed his companion. Where the bright-eyed and energetic kender had been now lay an exhausted, slumbering little form.