'Garnet — 6 Leagues'.
Sturm laughed until tears came. The gnomes had landed in Solamnia, not twenty miles from where they'd left in the first place! And he laughed for other reasons. To be home again, not merely on Krynn (though that was good), but in
Solamnia. He felt light and free, without the gnomes to wor ry about, without the constant apprehension of what strange things might be around the next corner — and free of his curious relationship with Kitiara. Their separation was like the pulling of an aching tooth; a definite feeling of relief, yet tinged with an underlying sense of loss, of a void in him self.
Sturm took the road for Garnet. The roads in this prov ince converged on the city, so it was the best way to get to the northern plains. He set himself a good pace. With his light burden and no dependents to herd, he ought to make
Garnet by the next morning, he thought. As he marched, he took in the sights and sounds and smells of his native land.
The scrub pastures and rolling hills. Peasants ranging through the dales, chasing cattle and driving them with sticks to tumble-down pens made of fieldstone. Once the
Brightblade family had owned a vast herd of cattle, but those had been quickly lost in the upheavals that toppled the great, knightly estates throughout the country. Who knew but that the scrawny, ill-tended beasts that Sturm now saw shuffling over the hills were offspring of the prime
Brightblade herd?
It wasn't cattle or land that bothered Sturm about the fall of the Solamnic Knights. Such things were not the true mea sure of a knight's worth. It was the injustice of it. The com mon folk blamed the Cataclysm and the troubles that followed on the arrogant pride of the knights, as if the
Knights of Solamnia could turn the whole world on its ear and split the land asunder!
Sturm stopped in his tracks. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles were blanched white. He let go of his anger and slowly opened his fists. Patience, he admonished himself. A knight must have self-control, or he is no better than a barbarian berserker.
From the time Sturm gained the road at the stone bridge to late afternoon of the following day, he met no other trav elers. This struck him as ominous, especially as he got near er to Garnet. Drovers and merchant caravans always moved from town to town, timing their arrivals to the local market day. An empty road indicated that something, or someone, was keeping the travelers at home.
The road began to rise and wind as the hills of Garnet grew out of the plain. Here he found signs of traffic: hoof prints, wheel tracks, and marks of bare and booted feet.
The prints multiplied until it seemed a small army had marched through not long before.
Sturm saw smoke rising from around a bend. He shifted the pommel of his sword forward to be convenient to his hand.
He could smell the smoke now. Slowly the scene came into view. Several heavy wagons were overturned and burning in the road. From the extent of the damage already done, the fire must have started hours before.
Crows and other carrion birds stirred at his approach.
Between two gutted wagons, Sturm found bodies. One, thick-waisted and richly dressed, obviously was a successful merchant. He had two arrows in his chest. Beside him was a younger man with the stump of a broken mace still clutched in his hand.
A groan brought Sturm running. A few yards away, a big, well-muscled man sat with his back against a scrub pine. He was a warrior. His body bled from a dozen wounds and arrayed at the warrior's feet were six dead goblins.
"Water," moaned the fighter. Sturm put a hand behind the warrior's head and raised his bottle to the man's parched lips.
"What happened here?" asked Sturm.
"Bandits. Attacked wagons. We fought — " The big man coughed. "Too many."
Sturm examined the fighter's wounds. He didn't have to be a healer to know the warrior was doomed, and because the man was a warrior, Sturm told him so.
"Thank you," he said. Sturm asked if he could do any thing to make the man more comfortable. "No, but Pala dine bless you for your mercy."
Something rustled behind the pine. Sturm reached for his sword, then saw the broad brown muzzle of a horse poke through the branches. The dying warrior called the animal by name. "Brumbar," he said. "Good fellow." The horse pushed through the scrub. He was an enormous animal, as black as coal. Brumbar dropped his nose to nuzzle his mas ter's face.
"I see that you are a man of arms," rasped the warrior to
Sturm. "I beg you, take Brumbar as your mount when I am dead."
"I will," Sturm said gently. "Is there anyone in Garnet I can tell about your fated?"
The man slowly closed his eyes. "No one. But do not go to
Garnet, if you value your life." His chin fell to his chest.
"But why?" Sturm asked. "Why shouldn't I go to the city?"
"Loosen my breastplate…"
Sturm undid the sraps and pulled the steel cuirass aside.
Beneath the armor, the man wore a quilted shirt. Embroi dered over his heart was a small red rose. Sturm stared. The dying man was a knight of the Order's highest rank, the
Order of the Rose! Only Solamnic Knights of noble lineage could enter that exalted brotherhood.
"The forces that destroyed the knights control Garnet," the man said. His breath came in ragged gasps. "I know you are one of us. It would not be safe for you there… assassins… "
"Who are you? What is your name?" Sturm asked franti cally, but the Knight of the Rose would never again speak.
Sturm gave the brave fighter an honorable burial. It was well after sundown when he finished. He collected Brumbar and went through the saddlebags thrown across the horse's rump. There were dried rations in one bag, and in the other, surprisingly, were hundreds of coins, all of them small cop per pieces. Sturm understood. The dead knight was living incognito because of the widespread hatred of the Order.
He'd adopted the guise of a guard for hire, and took his wages in copper. No one would ever expect a Knight of the
Rose to live so humbly.
Sturm left the Garnet road. He chose another trail through the highlands, one not frequented by traders, or (he hoped) bandits. Garnet he passed in the night. He saw the glow of its street lamps in the distance. Reining in Brumbar, he listened. Wind whirled around the mountain passes. A wolf gave voice, far away.
Chapter 36
His new horse was a steady plodding beast. Brum- bar, in Old Dwarvish, meant 'Black Bear.' Black he was, and bearishly stolid. Sturm didn't mind. The kind of traveling he was doing now was better suited to a steady animal, rath er than some excitable, fragile charger. Brumbar had a back so broad that Sturm imagined he could put his feet up on the animal's nodding neck and take a nap. Festooned with
Sturm's pack and other belongings, Brumbar kept a jingling pace all day long.
The Lemish forest thinned out to a few spindly pines, growing weakly amid the grassy undergrowth. It was hot on the plain, and very dry. Sturm began to ration his water when the streams and springs started getting fewer and far ther between.
Being off the road, he saw few people. This southernmost finger of the Solamnic Plain, thrust between the Garnet
Mountains and the Lemish forest, was too dry for cattle and farming. There were no robbers here, either; there was nothing to steal.
Alone, Sturm took time to reflect on things. Since he and
Kitiara had left Solace so many weeks ago, he'd come to realize that there was danger on the horizon everywhere.
The strange lizardlike mercenaries he had heard called dra conians had been seen in port cities. Caches of weapons being moved about. Large numbers of brigands infesting the roads of the northern countries. Dark magic at work. Gob lins led by a human magician. What was the common thread in all this? he wondered.