Kaz the Minotaur h2-1 Page 3

  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 pony-tail. 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 oh 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. “My 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.

  The day’s chase had worn Delbin out completely.

  Tomorrow, he decided with a yawn, he would try to say something nice to Delbin.

  His eyes closed and in moments he was sleeping peacefully, the troubling dream already a distant fragment of memory.

  Kaz woke to a chill morning and discovered himself in the shade of the mountains. An odd, brisk wind was dancing about. The minotaur stretched his stiff limbs and rose. Delbin still slept soundly.

  It could not have been much later than dawn. If not for the blue of the sky, he would have assumed it was still night, so dark were the shadows of the mountain range. Kaz reached for his pack and searched for something edible. As usual, half the contents were missing. He knew that the vast majority would be located in the kender’s pouch, where they had been put the evening before for “safekeeping.” Hungry, he decided not to wake the kender just yet. He found some rations where he had tucked them in the lining of his pack, just as an extra precaution. The rations were tough and practically tasteless, but Kaz had gotten used to them long ago. He wondered if the kender had managed to locate any of the items the minotaur had asked him to purchase in the market. The temptation to go through his companion’s pouch was powerful.

  “I’ve got some fruit and baked sweets, Kaz,” Delbin called out. There were times when the kender’s ability to move so stealthily jarred the minotaur.

  The kender began rummaging through his bag.

  “If you happen to come across any of the things that I’ve lost lately, I’ll take them off your hands,” Kaz remarked innocently.

  “Y’know, you should be more careful, Kaz. If it wasn’t for me, you’d not have anything left!” The sarcasm of the minotaur’s statement lost on him, Delbin began tossing things to Kaz. The pile was astonishingly large and included more than one item that had never belonged to him. Half-buried in the pile were two large, ripe pieces of fruit and one somewhat battered pastry. Kaz retrieved the food and gobbled it up while he waited for his erstwhile companion to finish inventory. He was amazed to discover how much he had missed the taste of the sweet pastries that humans baked. Minotaurs scoffed at such delicacies as being for youngsters and soft races.

  “My notebook!” Delbin held the battered book up for Kaz to see. Kaz wondered if there was anything written in it. Not once had he seen the kender actually scribble anything down. Delbin stuffed his prize possession back into his pouch, which somehow looked too small to have contained all of the kender’s acquired treasures.

  Since a seven-foot minotaur needed far more food than a not quite four-foot kender, Kaz devoured the rest of his allowance of dried rations. Somewhere along the trail today, he was going to have to hunt up some more food. Exhausted last night, he had failed to set any traps. Still, it was early enough that he might be able to catch something. Rabbits and other small animals seemed to be common in this region, more so than farther north. He suspected that the war in the north, which had dragged on for decades, had steadily pushed the wildlife either to the south or to the extreme north, where, while not untouched, the lands had suffered far less.

  Kaz shook his head, scattering memories of the war. To Delbin, he said, “I’m going to try a little hunting unless you think they might be following us still.”

  Delbin pursed his lips in thought. The kender was trying his best to be useful. “I think-I think they won’t be. Some men in Xak Tsaroth were talking about how the southern keeps are worried about Solamnia and what’s going on and how they think they should send some men to speak with the Grand Master or at least his nephew, who, I guess, has a lot of say about it all and might even be Grand Master soon because some of the knights think the present one is ill and-”

  All thought of hunting vanished at what the kender said. “Grand Master Oswal is ill?”

  “That’s what they said. It might be a rumor one old man said but a younger one thought it was true, and the nephew-I forget his name-”

  “Bennett.” Kaz’s face grew grim, and he snorted angrily. Delbin hushed, having seen the minotaur in this mood before.

  When Kaz had first met Bennett, the son of Grand Master Trake, the young, aristocratic knight had seemed little more than an arrogant tyrant. The final days of the war had seemed to change him, however, for Bennett had learned from Huma’s sacrifice what a true knight should be. On the day that Kaz had finally parted company with the knighthood, Bennett had been one of those who had thanked him solemnly for his part in the final conflict.

  There was an old saying among the minotaurs that warned of enemies who suddenly offered you their hand in friendship: One should always check for sharp claws first. Bennett, perhaps, had gone back to his old ways.

  I should give him the benefit of the doubt, Kaz thought. Huma would do that. But if I’m wrong… The minotaur’s hands flexed as if gripping an imaginary axe.

  Hunting was the farthest thing from his mind now. “Delbin, did they say anything about me?”

  The kender shook his head. “They’ve got raider troubles, Kaz. A lot of the warlord’s army came south, an
d I guess they thought this area would be good, though I don’t know why. I always thought Hylo was much more pleasant, even though I really wouldn’t want the raiders going there either. After all, they’re not very well behaved, are they?”

  “I find it odd that they came here at all. Why not northeastern Istar or the mountains of Thoradin?” Kaz shrugged. The marauders had no apparent leader and they had no real home. Eventually they would be weeded out.

  “If they’re not paying any attention to me, then we’ll risk moving closer to the river. When we come to some settlement, I want you to go and buy-the key word is i3uy,’ Delbin-some food for us. After we reach the woods in the north, we’ll start hunting again. We should be able to gather enough to see us to Vingaard.”

  Eyes wide with anticipation, Delbin grinned. “You’re really going all the way to Vingaard Keep? I’ve never seen it, but I hear it’s got vaults and locks and hiding holes and-”

  “Take a breath, Delbin. A deep one.” As the kender clamped his mouth shut, Kaz’s mind drifted to the journey ahead. He had everything planned out, and there was no word of his relentless pursuers. If nothing unexpected happened, the journey would be a safe one.

  The minotaur grimaced. If he really expected it to be so easy, then there was no need for him to continue to carry the heavy axe strapped across his back. He would certainly be more comfortable if he left it behind. Kaz had other weapons better designed for any hunting they might have to do.

  When the two of them rode off a few minutes later, however, the axe was still firmly in place in the harness strapped to his back. A single movement and it would be ready and waiting in his hand.

  Just in case.

  Chapter Four