Most of them are a scurvy lot of bullies and cutthroats. In my younger days, I must have fought a hundred duels with men who tried to push me around, take advantage of me, until I became as hard and cold as the blade I carried." Kiti ara fingered the hilt of her sword. "Then came Tanis.
"I was on my way back to Solace one autumn a few years back. The summer campaigning season was done, and I'd been paid off by my most recent commander. With a pocket full of silver, I rode south. In the forest, I was ambushed by a pack of goblins. An arrow took out my horse, and I was thrown down. The goblins came out of the brush with axes and clubs to finish me off, but I lay in wait for them. When they got close, I was on them before they could blink. I killed two right away and settled down to toy with the last pair. Goblins are startlingly bad thieves and even worse in stand-up combat. One of them tripped and managed to impale itself on its own weapon. I carved my mark on the last one, and it screamed its bloody head off. I was ready to finish the pest, when out of the bushes bounded this beauti ful fellow with a bow. He scared me for a second. I thought he was with the goblins. Before I could move, he'd put a gray-goose shaft into the last goblin. It was then I realized he thought he was rescuing me."
She paused, and the ghost of a smile played about her lips. "It's funny, but at the time I was mad. That goblin was mine to kill, you see, and Tanis had taken that away from me. I went after him, but he stood me off long enough for the blood-anger to leave me. How we laughed after that! He made me feel good, Tanis did. No one had done that for a long, long time. Sure, we were lovers soon enough, but we were more than that. We rode and hunted and played pranks together. We lived, you understand? We lived."
"Why did this love not continue?" asked Cupelix quietly.
"He wanted me to stay in Solace. I couldn't do that. I tried to get him to go on the road with me, but he wouldn't fight for pay. He's half-elf, as I said; some rogue mercenary molested his elf mother to conceive him, and he's ever had a cold place in his heart for soldiers." Kitiara made a fist. "If
Tanis had fought by my side, I would never have left him till the last drop of blood spilled from my body."
She slapped her knee. "Tanis was great fun, and in that he was far better as a companion than Sturm, who's always serious, but the time came when I had to choose between his way of living and mine. I chose, and here I am."
"I'm glad," said Cupelix. "Will you help liberate me?"
"Back to that, are we? What is it worth to you?"
Cupelix raised his ears, making the veined webbing behind them stand up. "Don't you worry about your own safety?" he asked in a rumbling voice.
"Don't bluff me, dragon. If you were going to use threats, you'd have threatened Stutts, Birdcall, and Flash before we got here. You can't force us to help. You're not the sort of dragon to do it."
The dragon's threatening posture collapsed, and the the atrical menace left his voice. "True, true," Cupelix said. "You are a razor, Kit. You cut deep with little effort."
Kitiara flipped a hand in salute, mockingly. "I'm not new to the game of threat and bluff," she said, standing. A slim band of new light fell across her shoulder from a slit window in the obelisk wall. "Consider what I said about partnership, dragon. It needn't be for life, just a year or two. Do that for me, and I'll speak for you."
Sunlight brightened the room. The magic globe at the ceiling's apex dimmed and went out. By the natural light,
Kitiara could see that the dragon's books and scrolls were more decayed than she thought. The tapestries were rotten, too. In the midst of this decay, the dragon's predicament was more obvious. Someday, Cupelix would have nothing to read or study but a heap of mildewed pulp.
"How many more centuries will you live?" Kitiara asked.
The dragon's eyes narrowed. "A great many."
"Well, maybe someone else will show up and help you escape. But think how lonely it will be. Soon no more books, no tapestries, no company."
"Partnership… one year?" said Cupelix.
"Two years," Kitiara said firmly. "A very short span in the life of a dragon."
"True, true." Cupelix gave his word that he would travel with Kitiara for two years upon their return to Krynn.
She stretched, smiling expansively. Kitiara felt good. She would come out of this crazy voyage to the red moon with more than increased muscle power. A dragon, a living dragon, as her companion for two whole years!
"It'll be a great adventure," she said to him.
Cupelix snapped his jaws. "Indubitably."
Kitiara went to the window to take in the fresh air. Light ning crackled from the obelisk peak as the magic essence dis charged into the red moon's sky. When the flashes ended,
Kitiara looked down at the valley below.
"The Lunitarians are moving!" she exclaimed.
"Of course; it's day, their time to move," said Cupelix.
"But they're forming ranks! I think they're going to attack!"
The Micones showed no signs of moving, so Sturm announced that they'd best proceed on foot. The gnomes were already untied and sliding off the backs of their mounts. Sturm got down and patted the Micone on the head, a habit he'd always had since owning his first horse.
The giant ant cocked its wedge-shaped head and clacked its mandibles together. A response of pleasure? Sturm wonder ed. It was hard to tell.
The rubbish around them was knee-deep to Sturm and chest-deep to the gnomes. Sturm found Sighter examining a piece of the red leather with his magnifying glass.
"Hm, doesn't look like vegetable material," said Sighter.
Cutwood tried writing on the soft brown parchment-stuff, but it wouldn't take a pencil mark; it was too soft and supple.
Sturm tried to tear a sheet of it in two, but couldn't do it.
"This would make admirable boot tops," he said. "I won der what it is?"
"I would say it's some form of animal hide," said Sighter, snapping his glass back into its case.
"We haven't found any animals on Lunitari, except the dragon," Stutts objected. "Even the Micones are more min eral than animal."
"Maybe," Wingover said slowly, "there are other kinds of animals in these caves. Animals we haven't seen before."
Rainspot swallowed audibly. "Gnome-eating animals?"
" "Bosh," said Sighter. "The Micones wouldn't allow any thing dangerous to live near the dragon eggs. Stop scaring yourselves."
Flash was off a little ways, touching the white crust on the walls. He plucked a tack hammer from his tool-laden belt and butted a cold steel chisel against the wall. Back swung the hammer.
Bong! The little hammer hit the chisel, and the whole cavern reverberated with the sound. So powerful were the vibrations, that the gnomes lost their footing and fell in the thick rubbish. Sturm braced himself against a squat stalag mite until the ringing ceased.
"Don't do that!" Cutwood said plaintively. With his aug mented hearing, the tone had been enough to start his nose bleeding. All the Micones were clicking their mandibles and shaking their heads.
"Fascinating," said Stutts. "A perfect resonant chamber!
Ah! It makes sense!"
"What does?" asked Roperig.
"This extraneous jetsam. It's padding, to deaden the ants' footsteps on the floor."
They waded though the rubbish toward the end of the oblong chamber. The ceiling level fell and the floor rose to form a tight circular opening. The rim of the opening had been notched with jagged spikes of quartz, probably by the
Micones. Anything softer than a giant ant would be cut to pieces if it tried to walk or crawl over the spikes. The gnomes held back and proposed many solutions to the problem of the entrance. Sturm planted his fists on his hips and sighed. He turned back and gathered up an armful of the tough parchmentlike shreds, then laid them across the spikes. He put his hands on the parchment and pushed. The spikes poked through three or four layers, but the top layers remained unpierced.
"Allow me," said Sturm. He lifted Stutts and sat him on the padding. Stutts slid through the opening to the chamber beyond. One by one, the other gnomes followed. Sturm went last. The gnomes plunged ahead in their bumbling, fearless way, and he had to catch up with them.
Sturm hurried down the narrow slit in the rock and into another large chamber. Here veins of wine red crystal oozed out of fissures in the rock. When the soft crystal touched the warmer, moister air of the cavern, it lightened to clear crim son and began to take more exact form. Around them were dozens of half-formed Micones; some only heads, some whole bodies but without legs, and some so complete that their antennae wiggled.
"So this is the ant hatchery," said Wingover.