Sturm dropped his cooking kit at that remark. The clay pot banged him smartly on the toe. "Where in the world did you get an idea like that?" he asked, flabbergasted.
"We've always heard how human men and women fight and yell at each other, but always end up married and, you know -" Fitter blushed. "Having babies."
Sturm picked up the spilled contents of his kit. "It will take a man with more riches and power than I'll ever have to claim her hand." He hung the kit bag around his neck. "The man who wins Kitiara Uth Matar had better have the patience of Paladine and the wisdom of Majere to keep her."
The gnomes gathered around him as he adjusted the last of his equipment. "Where will you go?" asked Wingover.
"Solamnia, as before. There are things I must investigate.
The visions I had on the red moon have faded from my memory, but I know my father's trail begins at my ancestral home, Castle Brightblade. That is my destination."
Small hands patted him on the back. "We wish you every bit of luck, Master Brightblade," said Cutwood. 'You're very smart, for a human."
"That means a lot, coming from you," Sturm answered wryly.
"W-we would offer to fly you on t-to Solamnia," Stutts said, "but we are on f-foot now ourselves."
That hadn't occurred to him. Sturm said, "Would you like me to escort you home to Sancrist?" It seemed the least he could do.
"No, no, we've delayed you long enough," said Sighter.
"We'll get to Gwynned, all right. There'll be ships there for
Sancrist."
"I shall miss you," said Rainspot fondly. He held out his small hand. With great solemnity, Sturm shook Rainspot's hand and each of the other gnomes' hands in succession.
Then he hitched up his gear and started out.
Funny, he thought; to have traveled so far and walked so little. His feet were more tender now than before he went to
Lunitari. Walking will be good penance, he decided. He could shed some of the stain of magic by walking and con templating his transgression. Perhaps he could also come to grips with the difficult choices he faced as he tried to live by the Code and the Measure.
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" called the gnomes. Sturm snapped out of his reverie and waved to them. They were good fellows indeed. He hoped they would not have any more trouble, but, being gnomes, they probably would.
He entered the humid forest and plunged through thicket after thicket of dense greenery. It cheered him to see vines and bushes with honest green leaves, plants that didn't bleed or cry when he tramped over them. Lunitari was such an unnatural world.
Two miles of woods later, he found a clear creek and filled his bottle. The water was cold, and had a mineral taste. It was a welcome change after weeks of drinking soft rain water. Sturm paralleled the creek bank for four miles, until he came to an arched stone bridge. He climbed the bank to the road that wended away north and south. A road marker was fixed to the corner of the bridge. On its south face, it read, 'Caergoth – 20 Leagues', and on its east face,
'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.