Wanderlust

by Mary Kirchoff

  “What’s this?” he wondered, but the moment he picked it up he recognized it as Flint’s special copper bracelet. “Goodness, that Flint Fireforge is careless with his things. Why would he put this in my map case?” After a moment’s reflection, Tas slipped the bracelet onto his wrist. “I need to get this back to Solace as soon as possible, and there’s no better way to remind myself than to keep it here on my wrist, where I’ll see it. Flint must be terribly worried. Well, won’t he be happy to see me again!”

  But first, there were more immediate matters. The entire region of Abanasinia was laced with low, narrow mountain ranges and wooded valleys. Three peaks to the west dominated the landscape: the largest was just several miles from Tas, and a smaller pair lay some distance beyond it. He was curious to see whether they had names. The closest one was a magnificent sight, with green, jagged slopes rising up and gradually turning white near the peak. A few small clouds clung to the summit. If it had no name marked down, Tas thought he might be tempted to give it one of his own.

  Unrolling the map and spreading it across his lap, Tas traced his progress from Solace with his finger. “Hmm, must be Prayer’s Eye Peak,” he muttered aloud. “What a strange name. I wonder what it means? I’d bet there’s an interesting story behind it.” Tas noted with disappointment that the crowns beyond Prayer’s Eye bore the unimaginative name of Double Peaks.

  Overall the map was rather sketchy, showing only the coastline, major roadways, and other significant features of interest to travelers. The new road to the south of Solace, on which Tasslehoff walked, was appropriately named Southway Road, a fact that was duly registered on Tas’s map. It followed a stream that wound its way through the foothills defining Darken Wood’s northeast border.

  Darken Wood, southwest of Tas’s position, earned its name from the haunted spirits residing there. The large, mountainous forest would have been foreboding even without its reputation, for Tas knew such forests were filled with twisting gullies, bramble thickets, bogs, and dark caves. He knew that Darken Wood probably was home to more benign forest creatures, too, such as dryads, centaurs, and pegasi, but that did not make its shadowy recesses any more inviting.

  Haven, the capital city of the fanatical religious group known as Seekers, and Haven’s Vale marked the western border of the forest. On the northwest were Double Peaks and Starlight Canyon, home of the pegasi. And twenty-five miles from Double Peaks, the White-rage River marked both the southern boundary of Darken Wood and the northern edge of the elven nation of Qualinesti.

  For this map to be truly useful, Tas decided, it needed many more landmarks: small streams, valleys, farms, unusually shaped trees or rocks, and good camping spots. Drawing a quill, a vial of ink, and a small knife from his map case, Tas carefully carved a new, sharp tip on the quill. With his leather pouch under the map for support, he sketched a grove of dogwood trees; their distinctive white and pink blooms were too attractive to be overlooked.

  After several minutes of this very precise work, Tasslehoff reached for the pack on his left side. Among other things, it held the flask of fresh water he had filled earlier that morning. Mapping always made him thirsty. But he was distracted by an unaccustomed sensation on his wrist; the ornate copper bracelet there felt uncomfortably warm. It must be from the sun shining on it, he decided. As he moved to pull off the jewelry, the world swam around him and Tas felt as if he was about to tumble straight into the sky. Spiced potatoes and duck eggs rose in his throat. He wanted to flatten himself against the rock, but was unsure in which direction it lay. In this state of complete disorientation, something flashed unbidden into his mind. For just a moment, he saw himself reaching into his pack, then, feeling a sharp sting, his hand jerked in pain and a red welt grew on the ink-stained tip of his middle finger.

  As suddenly as it came, the vertigo and the vision were gone. Tasslehoff blinked and looked around. His pack was behind him, closed, and his finger was unharmed. He rubbed and flexed it a few times, just to be sure. This was a fine mystery. Almost beside himself with curiosity, the kender dumped the contents of his pack onto the cold stone at his feet. From under the flask, some string, and two pieces of dried meat, poked the hairy legs of a poisonous spider!

  “Wow!” Tas exclaimed aloud. “If I had put my hand in there, I’d have been bitten.

  “That was like a pre … permon … I saw what was about to happen! I’ve heard of people who could do that, but I never thought I was one.” He shrugged and tapped at his breastbone. “I wonder if it was those three helpings of spiced potatoes. I’ve never eaten that many at one sitting before.” Using the frayed, feathery end of his quill, Tasslehoff flicked the spider from his pile of belongings and watched it scurry away to the safety of another rock. As he scooped his things back into his pack, he couldn’t help but admire the bracelet on his wrist.

  “I really must return this to that Flint fellow. It gets terribly hot in the sun, and the copper will probably turn my wrist green.” With that, Tasslehoff completed his map notes (adding “Spider Rock” alongside the road), recapped his ink bottle, took a long swig from his water flask, repacked and slung his belongings, and set off south once again, trudging merrily away from Solace and Flint Fireforge.

  As Tas marched, he noticed that the road was turning in toward the shadowy wood to avoid a range of rugged hills ahead. This did not alarm him—kender in general were remarkable for their complete lack of fear—but it did occur to him that, if any evil was afoot on the road, here was where it would strike. Just in case, he tightened his belt and pack straps and selected a smooth, palm-sized stone from the road. He was quite a good shot with his hoopak sling. Such a stone could shatter a larger rock, or break an arm or leg. Hefting the impromptu missile, for just a moment he felt genuinely sorry for anything that might try molesting him.

  That thought quickly faded from his mind as Tas noticed that, once again, Flint’s copper bracelet was uncomfortably warm on his wrist. “If you keep annoying me, I’m going to put you back in my pouch, where I will surely forget about you,” he scolded, as if to threaten the item. “Then see if you ever get back to your owner!”

  Before he could slip the bothersome ornament from his wrist, Tas took two stumbling steps to the right before recovering his balance by leaning on his staff. The world spun past him again as his stomach seemed to turn upside down. Then he heard the jingling of bells and, forcing himself to look up, he saw a wagon rounding a bend in the road ahead. It was the sort of two-wheeled wagon commonly used by tinkers and peddlers, fully enclosed with brightly painted wooden sides and a canvas top. Tas blinked and rubbed his swirling eyes. When he opened them again, he saw the wagon tipped on its side, one wheel spinning crazily, the horse and driver cruelly slain. The startled kender closed his eyes and shook his head to clear his vision. When he again looked down the road, it was empty.

  Then his heart thumped as the wind carried the sound of bells to his ears. He watched in amazement as a wagon, very similar to the one he had just foreseen, rounded the bend. It lurched and rocked along the soft road, pulled by a whiskery gray nag. A human, slightly built, sat on the driver’s bench, humming absentmindedly to himself.

  Tasslehoff was certain something awful was about to happen.

  Waving his hoopak above his head, he hollered, “Watch out! There’s danger!” Even as he spoke, several things happened. The horse, startled by the shouting and commotion, backed up in its harness and pushed the wagon off the soft edge of the road into a broad, water-filled rut. The wagon tipped dangerously, then settled in the mud and stuck. Tasslehoff heard a loud “thunk” and a rustling noise. Looking up, he saw a massive log at least the size of a man swinging down through the branches on the end of a rope. It swept across the road, precisely where the wagon would have been if the horse had not panicked.

  Guttural whoops and croaks rang through the crisp air as several large, ugly creatures broke from cover in the woods and charged toward the wagon. Hobgoblins! Tas had tangled with these savage brute
s often enough in his travels to recognize them instantly. Smelly, dirty, sadistic, dressed in uncured hides and brandishing clubs or captured axes, they specialized in ambushing travelers and raiding isolated farms.

  Flailing their long, hairy arms and splashing through the muck, they closed rapidly on the wagon, now hopelessly mired. The horse screamed and kicked and somehow managed to connect with the lead hobgoblin. The beast collapsed face-down in the muck, hiding its shattered ribs.

  Quickly Tas fitted his stone into the sling of his hoopak. Taking only a moment to aim, he let fly at the closest creature. The stone thudded solidly into its back, drawing a tremendous yelp of pain. The furious hobgoblin turned and its red eyes locked on Tasslehoff. Flashing a greasy yellow-toothed grin, it squealed something unintelligible at another hobgoblin. Thinking they had found easy prey, both rushed toward the kender.

  Tas calmly scooped up another stone from the road. This one was small and jagged, just what he wanted. Loading it, he took his time and aimed carefully. As the hoopak snapped forward, the second hobgoblin’s head snapped backward. The beast spun partway around, then crashed to the road, dead. Tas resisted the urge to whoop, knowing there was still plenty of danger ahead.

  Unaware of its partner’s fate, the first hobgoblin ran headlong toward the unarmed kender. Tas planted his feet wide apart and held the sling in front of him like a quarterstaff. The hobgoblin roared brutally, raised its club with both of its gnarled hands, and lunged.

  In the last possible moment, so quickly the movement could hardly be seen, Tas whipped the hoopak staff sideways so its metal-shod point faced the onrushing monster and then he drove it forward with all his might. He felt the wood shiver and groan as his weapon punched through the hobgoblin’s thick hide and tore a grisly path through its vitals. Hot, rancid breath, stinking like rotted meat, swept over Tas as the hobgoblin rattled out its dying gasp. Tasslehoff leaped aside as the lumbering body plunged past him and crashed to the ground. The kender chuckled loudly, remembering the final look of disbelief in the creature’s jaundiced eyes.

  The mingled screams of a horse and a man quickly brought Tas back to his senses. One remaining hobgoblin struggled to grab the horse’s bridle while another fought, almost playfully, with the human, who was defending himself rather badly with a large mallet.

  Tas crouched and snatched a thin, straight dagger from his legging, then sprinted toward the fight. Without slowing, he ran straight by the first hobgoblin. As he passed, the dagger flicked out and sliced through the knotted flesh inches below the creature’s buttock. The monster howled in pain and shock, then stumbled as the now useless muscles of its hamstrung leg gave out. Dragging its leg and yelping horribly, it staggered into the forest and disappeared.

  The last of the creatures, toying with the human, was distracted by the sound. What it saw made its jaw drop. Three of its companions lay dead in the mud, a fourth was critically wounded and fleeing, and a kender with a bloody dagger was smirking at it.

  The kender winced as the human’s mallet crashed into the back of the hobgoblin’s skull. Its eyes rolled back and the body flopped to the soft ground. The human, foaming and hysterical, hammered on the limp form until its head disappeared in a churning froth of blood, mud, and bone.

  “I think it’s pretty well dead,” Tas concluded.

  Looking in horror at what he’d done, the man dropped the mallet and leaned against the tree behind him, panting and shaking for several minutes. “Thanks for your help, stranger,” he managed at last. “I knew it was too early in the season to hit the roads, I knew it was. Did I listen to myself? No, I gave in to Hepsiba. ‘We need money. It’s springtime! Get out on the road, you lazy fool.’ That’s what she said. So I left, mostly to get away from her nagging, I’ll admit. And now here I am, in the middle of nowhere, fighting for my life, my wagon up to its axle in mud. This trip is surely cursed by the gods!” He gave a vague snarl skyward.

  “What are you complaining about?” Tas wondered. “You’re alive and they’re not.” He nodded toward the carnage behind him. “I would say you’ve had a spectacular day, aside from what’s happened to your wagon.” Tas skipped across the muddy potholes to the side of the wagon. Tugging up his leggings, he hunkered over and peered under the vehicle.

  “She looks stuck, all right. But I once saw Beetleater Thugwart—he was a half-ogre who lived in Kendermore—heft a wagon out of mud like this all by himself. It was too bad he broke the axle doing it, but his heart was in the right place. Anyway, he just turned it over and Willie Wontori—he was the wainwright in Kendermore—fixed it right up, good as new.”

  “Who in blazes are you, anyway?” the man finally managed to squeeze in.

  The kender pulled himself up proudly to his full four feet and extended his fine-boned hand. “Tasslehoff Burrfoot, at your service. And who might you be?”

  “I might be the Speaker of the Sun,” the man sighed, still leaning against the tree, “but don’t count on it.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t,” Tasslehoff said, casually slipping his unshaken hand into the pocket of his leggings. “He’s an elf, and you’re a human. Besides, why would someone as important as the leader of the Qualinesti elves drive a broken-down old trader’s wagon himself? Surely he’d have servants for that.”

  The man’s parchment-colored face wrinkled up in a frown. “Did my wife send you after me, or is it your own idea to make me feel worse?” he asked rhetorically.

  Tasslehoff shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t know your wife, unless she was at the inn in Solace last night. I’m not from around here.”

  “My wife at an inn? No, that would cost money and be too much fun. Lord, even when I’m on the road, I am hounded,” muttered the human.

  Tas crossed from the wagon back to where the dead hobgoblin lay, impaled on the kender’s hoopak. “Yuck,” he pronounced, his lips drawing up in disgust. Propping the body on its side, he placed one foot against its ribs and pulled the weapon out. He held it by his fingertips at arm’s length, then carried it to the side of the road and proceeded to scrape it clean in a small patch of snow.

  The man snorted at the sight and turned his attention to his wagon. Carefully he picked his way past the body at his feet. “What are these things, anyway?” he asked, frowning at the grisly sight.

  “Hobgoblins. Don’t feel bad about killing one. They’re evil from ears to brisket. They rarely listen to reason. I avoid them when I can, because otherwise you pretty much have to kill them. And once they get their smell on something, it never comes off. I can see I’m going to have to spend this evening making a new hoopak—this one will never be the same again.”

  Tasslehoff returned to the wagon and climbed onto the driver’s seat. “What’s so bad about your wife?” he asked.

  “These creatures remind me of her: evil, scheming, unreasonable. She’s going to make my life a living hell when she finds out about this costly fiasco, too.”

  “Why tell her about it?” Tasslehoff asked.

  “Because she’ll know by how much money I didn’t make on this trip that something went wrong. And then in that nagging way of hers she’ll wheedle the truth out of me, like a butcher tugging the gizzard from a chicken!” The man closed his eyes and gave a long shudder.

  “She doesn’t sound very nice,” Tas said, bouncing on the seat. “Surely she can’t blame you for the nasty things hobgoblins do, or for the roads being mired in mud.”

  The man sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “You don’t know my wife. She’ll say I drove into that ambush on purpose, just to spite her, or some such nonsense.”

  “We’ll just have to get you out of the mud and on your way, then. What is it that you do, anyway?”

  “I’m a tinker,” he replied. “I fix pots and pans, sharpen knives, clean lamps. I do just about everything.”

  Tasslehoff jumped down and stepped back from the wagon, then leaned against his hoopak to study the situation. He watched the old nag chew brown grass. “Why don�
��t you just use your horse to pull the wagon out?”

  The tinker chuckled. “That old thing? Bella hardly has the strength to pull her own weight on a straightaway anymore, let alone get this wagon out of a rut. And she hates mud, always has. Soon as she feels it on her hooves, she stops cold.”

  “Why don’t you replace her?”

  “Hepsiba says she’s good enough. Besides, I’m kinda fond of the old girl. The horse, that is.”

  Tasslehoff jumped off the wagon and drove the end of his hoopak down through the muck in the rut until he found solid ground. “Hmm, about the length of my forearm. That’s not too deep. I’ll bet if you push the wagon from behind, I can coax Bella into taking a couple of steps.”

  The man leaned against the side of the wagon. “I can’t see why anyone should spend so much effort fighting fate. If this is where providence wants me, this is where I’ll stay, in spite of your efforts or mine.”

  Tas looked at him for a moment before speaking. “That’s nonsense. Why would fate want your wagon stuck in a muddy ditch?”

  “I don’t know, but here I am! I don’t make a practice of trying to change my destiny.” As if the matter was settled, the tinker pulled a small knife from his pocket and began cleaning his fingernails.

  The kender considered that for a moment but then shook his head as if to clear the thoughts away. He decided to try a fresh approach. “Look, let’s say it is your destiny to get stuck in this ditch. But it is also your destiny to have me come by and get you out, because I refuse to walk away and leave you here. What do you say to that?”

  The tinker scratched his chin. “I suppose if you can get her to move, that would be a pretty convincing argument for your view.”

  “Of course it would!” Tas exclaimed. “Now, you get behind the wagon and push,” he instructed, demonstrating the technique. “Hunker down and put your shoulder into it, uh—I still don’t know your name,” the kender suddenly realized.