Tanis the shadow years

39

"Sliqs," whispered Clotnik, sniffinf the air. "I can smell their stinking odor. They must have taken her," he said with disgust. He kicked at the ground. "Kishpa's fire didn't stop them. They're still after that enchanted quill." Suddenly, he whirled in the dark to face Tanis. "You did get rid of the quill, didn't you?" "Yes" said Tanis distractedly, looking for some sign that would tell him in what direction the cousins of the hobgoblins had gone. "I left it in Kishpa's memory, just as he instructed." His elven eyesight helped him see slig footprints all over the grave site, but they told him nothing he didn't already know. Meanwhile his mind spun with recriminations. He berated himself for letting Brandella wander off alone. To have come this far with her only to lose her to a band of sligs filled him with rage. He would have exploded in frustration if he had not spotted a faint point of light on a distant hill. He gestured. "Over there! It looks like a campfire."

They headed indirectly toward the light. Tanis led the way making sure they did not leave themselves silhouetted against the horizon. Hugging lower ground, they were fast-moving shadows intent upon their destination. When they got close enough to smell the smoke from the campfire, Tanis ducked behind a burned stump and said, "We'll circle around behind. They'll be less likely to expect anyone from the direction they came from."

Breathing hard, Clotnik nodded in agreement. When they neared the rear of the camp, the dwarf managed to ask between gasps, "I wonder where they got the wood for a fire? Everything out here burned up three days ago."

Tanis's answer was to clap his hand over Clotnik's mouth and drag him, face down, to the ground.

A nearby slig guard paused as though it had heard voices. Sounds drifted down from the raucous slig camp above; the creature quirked its pointed ears down below, obviously trying to discern whether these new sounds came from below or from the camp. Its sword at the ready, the slig tromped down the hill to investigate.

"Don't move," Tanis whispered in Clotnik's ear. "And whatever happens, don't let its spittle touch your skin; it's poisonous."

Clotnik nodded, and Tanis removed his hand. flickering light from the fire at the top of the hill illuminated the slig guard in yellow flashes. More than six feet in height, the slig wore no clothes, although its back was daubed with broad stripes of black and brown. Its body was a mass of tough, horny hide that seemed more like flexible stone than skin. A tail dragged along the ground. When the slig looked their way, Tanis saw its long, thin mouth open to reveal rows of thick, sharp teeth. Its almost hornlike ears were huge and pointed.

Clotnik turned to whisper to Tanis, but the half-elf had disappeared without making a sound. Alone, not knowing what he should do, the dwarf froze. All Clotnik could do was watch the slig in silent terror as the guard made its way closer to where he hid in the brush.

The slig's jaws moved up and down as it filled its mouth with spittle. It was moving lower on the hill, the heavy metal trinket that dangled from its massive left ear swinging back and forth with each step.

The slig loomed closer. The dwarf tried to sink into the ground, to disappear, but it didn't seem to do any good. The creature kept coming in his direction.

Off to one side, Tanis watched as the slig came abreast of him, moving toward Clotnik, who was fidgeting in the brush below. As soon as the creature passed him, Tanis leaped up and unsheathed his sword.

The slig heard the familiar sound and turned with surprising speed-right into Tanis's blade. The half-elf speared the creature in the throat, just above the ar- morlike hide that protected its chest. As it fell, it tried to call out a warning, but all it could do was gurgle.

Tanis did not wait for the slig to die. He took the creature's sword and gathered up Clotnik. "Here, take this," he said, handing the weapon to the dwarf. "I hope you won't need it."

"I won't need it for long," he said in a shaking voice. Even his brown beard quivered. "I'm not a fighter."

Tanis took the young dwarf by the shoulders and looked directly into his green eyes. "I once knew a man who was much more terrified than you when he went into battle for the first time. When it was over, he was not only still alive, he was a hero. You'll do all right. Just stay behind me. And don't move around so much; you draw too much attention."

Tanis moved carefully up the hill until he could see the slig camp. And Brandella. She was tied to a stake in the ground, lying next to the fire. One of the sligs, obviously the leader by its size, stood over her, spitting its poisoned saliva just inches from her face. It splattered on the ground next to the long braid of black hair that coiled over one shoulder. She didn't cry out. She didn't even move. She simply stared up at the slig with defiance on her face.

The sligs seemed impressed, but not enough to stop. Tanis tried to make out what the slig leader was saying. It sounded like Common tongue, but all the half-elf could hear was the shouted warning, 'Tell or die!"

Clotnik crawled up next to Tanis and saw the remnants of a water wagon, empty barrels lying on their sides all around it. The wagon obviously had been on its way to the glade to fill up at the pond. The dwarf wondered where the driver was. His attention was arrested by something black turning above the blaze, juices dripping down and causing the wood to sizzle and the flames to jump. Clotnik leaned close and whispered, "Where'd they get the venison7 I thought all the animals had left with the fire."

Tanis looked at him, expressionless, and Clotnik realized the chunk of meat above the blaze was no deer. He swallowed hard and looked away.

Tanis continued to scan the camp. If there had been a wagon, something must have pulled it. On the far side of the camp, he saw what he was looking for: two brawny bullboggs. The six-legged draft animals, crosses between horse, bull and buffalo, weren't fast, but they were steady and dependable.

"How fast can you run?" Tanis whispered.

"How fast do I need to rim?" the dwarf replied nervously.

"Faster than the sligs."

"If they're behind me, I'll run like the wind."

"You'd better," said Tanis, "because you're going to attack their camp-you and your 'men'-and then you're going to run like you've never run before."

Clotnik swallowed again. Hard.

Brandella had fought the sligs after they surprised her at Kishpa's grave site. It wasn't her own life that she was defending, though: it was the peace of Kishpa and the lives of Tanis and Clotnik. At all cost, she did not want the sligs to disturb her mage's grave, digging it up for the enchanted quill that they so ruthlessly demanded of her. She told them she knew where it was-although she had no intention of ever telling them. Nor did she want the sligs to know that she had two companions just a short distance away. Far preferable, she thought, to die for those who had done so much to try to save her.

Her fight with the sligs was decidedly short. One of the creatures knocked her down with a swipe of its gargantuan right hand, hitting her so hard that she thought for a moment that it had broken her jaw. Two of the wilder sligs grabbed each of her arms, intending, she guessed in terror, to eat her limbs raw. They were stopped by their leader, who kicked them away from the woman.

It was getting dark. Although sligs often lived in caves, they did not like to be out in the open in the dark. The leader, who towered above the other creatures and had a long scar that ran down its snout, ordered the band to take Brandella back to their camp. They would learn there, with torture, what they wanted to know.

They cooked the wagon driver right in front of her, making her watch the man burn on the spit. She refused to talk. But she listened.

"We could trade her for weapons."

"Only if she's in perfect condition."

"If she doesn't talk soon, though…"

"Broken bones and burns will lower her value."

The leader cut them short with a snarl. "If we get the quill, it will be well worth the loss of her life. Besides," it added, "if we can't trade her, we can always eat her."

Brandella lay quietly by the campfire, thinking of Kishpa and Tanis and Scowarr and the brave acts she'd witnessed the past several days. She was determined, despite a tremor in her abdomen that she couldn't quite control, to live up to those examples. But she blanched as the leader of the sligs took a slat from a broken water barrel and put one end of it in the fire; after the end began to smolder, the slig walked to the weaver and held the burning wood near her face. In Common, the slig said, "I am going to set your hair on fire. Loose hair burns in a flash, but a tight braid should burn slowly-satisfactory for our purposes. If you don't tell me where the magic quill is, I will let the flames continue, to burn your head and face until there is nothing left. Do you understand?"

She looked away.

Its thin lips drew back from sharp teeth. "Yes, you understand."

Brandella clenched her teeth and decided she would not cry out, even when the pain became unbearable.

The slig lowered the burning piece of wood. Brandella could hear the crackle of the wood and feel the heat.

A shout suddenly went up at the camp's western perimeter, and Brandella closed her eyes. "Attack!" cried one slig. A rush of heavy slig feet ran past her body, toward the commotion.

Brandella knew it was Tanis and Clotnik, and her heart sank. They were throwing their lives away for nothing. They couldn't possibly attack a band this large and survive-there were at least twenty of the creatures!

"A small disturbance," said the leader, who did not run with the others. "My troops are taking care of it. And I will take care of you."

It touched the burning stick to her hair.