Nodding, Riverwind looked out over his audience. “I played this song for the first time in this very tavern,” he said, his sonorous voice filling the room. “It tells of the ancient gods… and how they wait to return to the world.”
A murmur rippled through the room. No one was sure what to make of this. Didn’t the doddering Plainsman know the gods had left again, this time for good? What was the meaning of playing such a song now, when the pale moon shone above Balifor Bay?
Riverwind didn’t bother to answer those muttered questions. Instead, he raised his flute to his lips, and its plaintive sound filled the room. He played alone for a moment, then Kronn picked up the simple tune, weaving his own melody in harmony with Riverwind’s.
As the Plainsman and the kender played, the patrons of the Pig and Whistle discovered something remarkable. Even now, after so much change had visited the world, the song still spoke to them of hope.
Three days later, as the companions rode past the farmlands and windmills of Balifor, the low, green line of the Kenderwood at last appeared upon the horizon. It was still a long way off-three leagues, maybe four-but Kronn and Catt leaned forward in their saddles, eagerness on their faces. Seeing this, Brightdawn couldn’t help but smile.
“It must be exciting,” she remarked. “Coming home, I mean, after being so long away.”
“Sure is,” Catt agreed enthusiastically.
“I thought you people were born wanderers,” Swiftraven said. “I’ve seen enough of you on the Plains, anyway, always on your way somewhere.”
Kronn shook his head at the young warrior. “Just because I love the road, that doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see my homeland,” he replied. “Besides, my wanderlust ended years ago.”
“It’s not just that,” Catt said. “We’re worried about the ogres… and the dragon. Sometimes, when we were far from home, I worried that when we finally got back, there’d be nothing left. Kendermore would be gone, and Paxina.
“Not to mention Giff,” Kronn added, grinning slyly. Catt glared at him, flushing with embarrassment.
“Who’s Giff?” Brightdawn asked.
“Giffel Birdwhistle,” Kronn answered before Catt could intervene. “A friend of ours, from when we were children. He’s a warrior now-he came to Kendermore after Woodsedge burned, and Pax put him in charge of part of the town guard. He and Catt are sweet on each other.”
“Kronn!” Catt objected, but he only laughed.
“Father, have you ever been to Kendermore?” Brightdawn asked. “Is there anyone you’re returning to?”
The old Plainsman sat astride his horse, a faraway look in his eyes. His face was drawn, his skin sallow. To the others, he seemed to have aged ten years or more since they’d broken camp. They all looked at him worriedly now as he continued to stare down the road, not even glancing at Brightdawn in reply.
“My chief…?” Swiftraven asked.
“Father?” Brightdawn said at the same time, her voice low with concern. “Are you well?”
He started, blinking, then looked at the others as if seeing them for the first time. “I–I’m sorry.” he said, spots of color blossoming in his cheeks. “I wasn’t listening.”
“You’ve been quiet all day,” Kronn noted solemnly.
Riverwind looked away, momentarily unable to meet the others’ questioning looks. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Only a feeling I haven’t had… since I set out on my Courting Quest, I suppose. I’m leaving everything behind-every place I’ve ever seen, everyone I’ve ever met-except the four of you, of course. Back then, though, it was exciting. Now…“ He pursed his lips, shrugging. “I guess I’m older now.”
“Well,” Catt said, “what about Brightdawn’s question? You’ve never been to Kendermore, Riverwind?”
The old Plainsman shook his head, his gaze still abstracted.
“You’re in for a treat, then,” Catt promised. “Just wait till we’re in the Kenderwood. The bloodberries should be ripe about now, for one thing… or maybe not. It’s a bit warm for this time of year, to be sure.”
“I was thinking that myself,” Kronn agreed. “We’re well into fall. Last year we’d had our first frost by this time, but now it feels like summer just plain forgot to leave.” He pondered this thought grimly. “You don’t think it has anything to do with Malys, do you?”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the party. Brightdawn and Swiftraven exchanged troubled glances, then looked away, toward the still-distant Kenderwood. Catt and Kronn swallowed, their brows furrowed. Only Riverwind dared to speak, and only softly, as if he feared being overheard. “No,” he told the kender. “I’m sure it’s just a warm spell.”
The others could tell, from the tone of his voice, that he didn’t fully believe the words either.
Unlike the sylvan homes of the elves, the Kenderwood was not an ancient forest. In fact, as the lives of woodlands are measured, it was quite young. Before the Cataclysm, the lands surrounding what was now Kendermore had been part of the empire of Istar, a place of fertile farmlands, isolated abbeys, and a few human towns. They had even been home to one of the fabled Towers of High Sorcery, although the wizards themselves had destroyed that august edifice during the Lost Battles rather than let it fall into the Kingpriest’s hands.
When the fiery mountain sundered Istar, however, the humans had fled, leaving their monasteries and cities to ruin. Some had gone west to found such cities as Flotsam and Port Balifor; others traveled east to the Dairly Plains and became barbarians. By the time the kender arrived, traveling north from the ruins of their ancient land of Balifor, central Goodlund was abandoned-a place of ghosts, if the rumors were to be believed.
The kender, however, didn’t let anything as paltry as ghosts stop them from making the land their new home. Indeed, they explored the supposedly haunted ruins with glee, “borrowing” anything the humans had left behind to help them erect their own villages and towns. Kendermore, built only a few leagues from a fallen city the kender pragmatically called “The Ruins,” had quickly risen as the hub of the new kender nation.
Shortly after the kender’s arrival, the land had begun to change. The farmlands the humans had tended grew wild, and trees began to appear. According to legend, the new forest was the work of a kender lass named Oletta Maplekeys, who had traveled from one end of the land to the other, spreading seeds in the fallow fields the humans had left behind. Of course, this was a kender legend, so Krynn’s other races didn’t believe it for a moment-but regardless of the reason, the forest continued to grow, slowly spreading to engulf the kender’s new homeland.
Being a new forest, the Kenderwood was not as dark and dense as Ansalon’s older woodlands. Instead of the huge, looming trees of Silvanesti, it was a place of papery birches and golden willows, maples and poplars, apple orchards and berry bushes. Unlike Darken Wood, which came by its name honestly, the Kenderwood was bright and airy, the canopy of its leaves sparse enough to let plenty of sunlight through. Ferns and wildflowers grew among the tree trunks, a lush carpet that provided homes for badgers, skunks and other small animals. Larger beasts dwelt within the Kenderwood, too-deer, boars, wildcats, and even a few black bears. Birds of all kinds flitted from branch to branch, filling the air with music, and bees hummed contentedly from blossom to blossom. When all was said, the Kenderwood was one of the most idyllic places in Krynn: a tranquil woodland stretching nearly fifty leagues from east to west, and another twenty north to south, unbroken except for the occasional clearing where a kender farm, vineyard, or town stood.
Now, however, there was something wrong.
The day wore on, and the weather grew warmer with each passing mile. The sun hung fat and red behind Riverwind and his companions when they finally reached the edge of the forest. It curved ahead of them, its slender trees hissing as the summery breeze brushed through their leaves. None of the companions missed the fact that those leaves were still green; by all rights, they should have been ablaze with color at this time of year-or even
already fallen brown and dead upon the ground. Somehow, the beauty of the foliage seemed more sinister than soothing.
They could do little but ride on, though; spurring their mounts, they continued, their long shadows sliding into the dappled shade of the woods.
“The bloodberries aren’t ripe yet after all,” Catt noted as they passed a tall, leafy bush. Bright red blossoms still bloomed upon its branches, instead of the fruit the kender had hoped to find. She nodded toward a thorny thicket, where bees hummed lazily around fat blackberries.
“It’s like it’s still midsummer,” Kronn murmured. He pointed at a nearby tree, where an azure-breasted songbird perched, whistling a tune to welcome the oncoming dusk. “Branchala bite me, Catt-is that a bluetwitter?”
“Kronn,” Brightdawn said suddenly, her voice very soft.
“I’ve never seen one this far south past Summer’s End, and that was more than a month ago!” Kronn went on, his eyes fast on the bird.
“Kronn.” The Plainswoman’s voice was stronger this time, and louder.
He looked at her sharply. “What is it?”
Brightdawn hesitated, then raised her hand, pointing down the trail before them. “That light,” she said. “Do you recognize it?”
Kronn followed her outstretched finger. In the distance, dimly visible through the trees, a dull, red glow was rising into the twilight sky. His eyes widened when he saw it. Beside him Catt gasped in amazement.
“It’s a fire,” Riverwind said, a sudden tension in his voice. “A great fire.”
“Trapspringer save me,” Kronn murmured. “The Kenderwood’s burning.”
Chapter 13
They slept fitfully that night, at the very edge of the forest. Each took a turn at watch, looking to the north and east where the ruddy glow continued to light the sky. By morning the wind had shifted, and smoke drifted into their eyes as they packed their bedrolls, quickly broke their fast with cold biscuits and sausage from the Pig and Whistle, and took to the road once more.
As they rode, their horses grew more and more nervous. The smell of burning was everywhere, though the fire was yet miles away. There was another scent too, still faint but unmistakably foul, which made their mounts even more skittish. Around midday they gave up riding, finding it faster to dismount and lead their steeds along Kendermore’s winding main road.
Kronn and Catt took the lead, marching swiftly and wiping stinging soot from their eyes as they crested one low hill after another. Every league, Swiftraven sought out a suitably tall tree and climbed it, nimbly ascending until he was above the blanket of boughs that spread above the path. Each time he jumped back down with the same report. The fire was still far ahead and did not look to be getting any closer. They passed the whole day that way, never stopping for more than a few minutes. They kept moving on through the deepening dark, always toward the glow. All five knew it would be fruitless to make camp. None of them would be able to sleep with that terrible light before them.
Then, sometime in the morning’s smallest hours, the glow began to waver and fade. The smell of smoke still clung to the woodland like a shroud, maddeningly strong, but there was no doubting what they saw. The fire was going out. Long before the sky began to bruise with the promise of dawn, the light had vanished entirely. If anything, it only strengthened their resolve to go on.
The sun still had not risen halfway to its full height when the forest ended. It was as if the party had struck a wall. The underbrush stopped suddenly, giving way to blackened earth. For a hundred yards or more, there were no trees at all, only stumps. Beyond the strange, razed clearing-which stretched out of sight to either side-the poplars and maples resumed, clawing upward with leafless, ash-caked branches. Smoke hovered around their sooty trunks like mist, swirling as the wind clawed past. Here and there, orange light flickered where small, stubborn fires still smoldered.
Riverwind bent beside a blackened stump, his hand running over the charred wood.
“Too even,” he pronounced. “This tree did not fall. It was cut with a saw. So were the others.”
Swiftraven crouched down, running his hand through the ashes. “This was burned on purpose.”
“Someone cleared the trees away, then scorched the earth,” Riverwind agreed. “A firebreak, to keep the flames contained.”
“My people did this,” Kronn said. He unslung his chapak from his back and compared its blade to the axe marks on a smoking stump. “They trapped the fire and let it burn out.”
Catt whistled, impressed. “It must have taken hundreds of them, cutting the whole day long.”
“Where is everyone, then?” Brightdawn wondered, looking around the clearing. “If there were so many of them here, where did they go now that the fire’s out?”
“The same place we’re going,” Kronn answered. “Kendermore. Paxina said she’d order people back from the outlying villages… if there was trouble…. Make no mistake,” he added solemnly, “those woods ahead of us were burned just as deliberately as the firebreak.”
Morning wore on to midday as they picked their way through the burnt forest, holding Kronn’s handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths to keep from choking on the lingering smoke. All around them the bare trees moaned, blackened branches clawing upward like the hands of a thousand charred skeletons. It was almost noon when they reached the remains of a tiny cottage, reduced to nothing but a chimney and stone foundation. For a while they searched for bodies but found none. “Whoever lived here got out in time,” Riverwind said.
“There aren’t any axes here,” Swiftraven added, rooting through the ruins of a tool shed. The metal heads of shovels and hammers glinted dully amid the ashes. “They must have gone to help make the firebreak.”
“And the children?” Brightdawn asked, holding up another bit of metal. It was a toy knight, made out of tin.
Catt shrugged. “Fled to Kendermore, I guess.”
“Come on,” Kronn said, his voice firm with determination. He had already begun to walk onward, leaving the cottage behind. “It’s not much farther to the nearest hamlet-Weavewillow.”
Weavewillow was no more. The town, which had once been home to some eight hundred kender, had been blasted from the face of Krynn. Like the cottage, wood and plaster and thatch were gone, leaving nothing but empty, stone husks where homes and shops had stood. Chimneys had blown apart, and cobblestone streets had cracked from the heat. The town well was nothing more than a pool of glassy rock around a steaming hole.
“What could have done this?” Brightdawn wondered, staring at Weavewillow’s five-towered town hall. The spires had melted, then hardened again, so they looked like candles that had burned down to stubs. “I’ve never seen a fire that could do this to solid rock.”
“I have,” Riverwind said, his face dark. “In old Que-Shu, after Verminaard’s troops laid waste to it. The stones were melted there. The only thing I’ve ever seen that could make flames this hot is a red dragon.”
“It’s just like Woodsedge after Malys attacked,” Catt agreed.
“Then-are we too late?” Swiftraven asked. He held his sabre naked in his hand and was watching the woods, his body tensed.
“No,” Catt answered. “I saw tracks, leading away from town. They went to Kendermore, I’m sure.” She scratched in the soot with the butt of her hoopak. “Kronn, we’d better get moving. Pax will be waiting for us.”
A moment passed, and no one answered. Catt looked around. “Kronn?”
Her brother was gone.
Instantly alert, Riverwind and Swiftraven fanned out, combing through the rubble with their swords ready. Catt followed, calling Kronn’s name. It was Brightdawn, though, who found him, at the far edge of Weavewillow. Her horrified cry brought the others running.
Beneath the blackened arch of the ruined gatehouse, Brightdawn stood over Kronn, who was on his knees, face buried in his hands. He had found the bodies.
They were everywhere around him, dozens of them, burnt black by the conflagration. The Plai
nsfolk felt bile rise in their throats as they beheld the tiny corpses, frail as birds, strewn upon the earth like a child’s discarded toys.
“There was a fierce battle here,” Swiftraven noted, moving from one body to the next. Many still clutched weapons in their charred hands. “A fighting withdrawal, I’d say.”
“A withdrawal from what?” Brightdawn wondered, putting her arm around Kronn. She was close to choking on the sickly sweet smell that hung in the air. “Not the dragon, surely.”
“Here!” Riverwind called suddenly. He had wandered away from the others and was staring at something on the ground. Brightdawn remained with Kronn, but Catt and Swiftraven hurried to see what the old Plainsman had found.
There were more bodies where Riverwind stood, but they were not kender. They were too big-larger than humans, many more than eight feet tall. Swiftraven nudged one with his foot, and winced as its burnt flesh crackled. It had fallen forward, and so its face had escaped the worst of the fire. The blistered skin was brown, mottled with dark, hairy warts, and its features were ugly and brutish. Low, heavy brows surmounted a blunt, broad nose. Teeth that were almost tusks jutted from its mouth above a strong, square chin. The creature wore a leather breastplate and bracers, and near its blackened fist lay the iron head of a massive battle axe.
“Ogre,” Swiftraven said, and spat in the ashes.
Catt nodded slowly. “They must be in league with Malys now. These died fighting my people before the dragon burned the town.”
“Could there still be more around here?” Swiftraven asked, his sharp eyes flicking from shadow to shadow.
“No,” Riverwind said. “They would have left before the dragon attacked. They probably chased the kender north, toward Kendermore.”
Swiftraven’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. “They’re driving them,” he murmured. Riverwind nodded.
“Driving them?” Catt asked. “But-what does that mean? What are we going to find at Kendermore?”
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