Sturm stretched and groaned, trying to ease chilled, cramped muscles. Flint lay huddled in misery, shaking so the buckles on his armor jangled. Laurana, leaning down to tuck her cloak around him, realized suddenly how cold she was.
In the excitement of trying to escape the ship and fighting the dragon, she had forgotten the chill. She couldn’t even remember, in fact, any details of her escape. She remembered reaching the beach, seeing the dragon diving on them. She remembered fumbling for her bow with numb, shaking fingers. She wondered how anyone had presence of mind to save anything—
‘The dragon orb!’ she said fearfully.
‘Here, in this chest,’ Derek answered. ‘Along with the lance and that elvish sword you call Wyrmslayer. And now, I suppose, we should take advantage of the fire—’
‘I think not.’ A strange voice spoke out of the darkness as lighted torches flared around them, blinding them.
The companions started and immediately drew their weapons, gathering around the helpless dwarf. But Laurana, after an instant’s fright, peered into the faces in the torchlight.
‘Hold!’ she cried. ‘These are our people! These are elves!’
‘Silvanesti!’ Gilthanas said heartily. Dropping his bow to the ground, he walked forward toward the elf who had spoken. ‘We have journeyed long through darkness,’ he said in elven, his hands outstretched. ‘Well met, my broth—’
He never finished his ancient greeting. The leader of the elven party stepped forward and slammed the end of his staff across Gilthanas’s face, knocking him to the sand, unconscious.
Sturm and Derek immediately raised their swords, standing back to back. Steel flashed among the elves.
‘Stop!’ Laurana shouted in elven. Kneeling by her brother, she threw back the hood of her cloak so that the light fell upon her face. ‘We are your cousins. Qualinesti! These humans are Knights of Solamnia!’
‘We know well enough who you are!’ The elven leader spit the words, ‘Qualinesti spies! And we do not find it unusual that you travel in the company of humans. Your blood has long been polluted. Take them,’ he said, motioning to his men. ‘If they don’t come peacefully, do what you must. And find out what they mean by this dragon orb they mentioned.’
The elves stepped forward.
‘No!’ Derek cried, jumping to stand before the chest. ‘Sturm, they must not have the orb!’
Sturm had already given the Knight’s salute to an enemy and was advancing, sword drawn.
‘It appears they will fight. So be it,’ the leader of the elves said, raising his weapon.
‘I tell you, this is madness!’ Laurana cried angrily. She threw herself between the flashing swordblades. The elves halted uncertainly. Sturm grabbed hold of her to drag her back, but she jerked free of his restraining hand.
‘Goblins and draconians, in all their hideous evil, do not sink to fighting among themselves’—her voice shook with rage—‘while we elves, the ancient embodiment of good, try to kill each other! Look!’ She lifted the lid of the chest with one hand and threw it open. ‘In here we have the hope of the world! A dragon orb, taken at great peril from Ice Wall. Our ship lies wrecked in the waters out there. We drove away the dragon that sought to recover this orb. And, after all this, we find our greatest peril among our own people! If this is true, if we have sunk so low, then kill us now, and I swear, not one person in this group will try to stop you.’
Sturm, not understanding elven, watched for a moment, then saw the elves lower their weapons. ‘Well, whatever she said, it seems to have worked.’ Reluctantly, he sheathed his weapon. Derek, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered his sword, but he did not put it back in its scabbard.
‘We will consider your story,’ the elven leader began, speaking haltingly in Common. Then he stopped as shouts and cries were heard from down the beach. The companions saw dark shadows converge on the campfire. The elf glanced that direction, waited a moment until all had quieted, then turned back to the group. He looked particularly at Laurana, who was bending over her brother. ‘We may have acted in haste, but when you have lived here long, you will come to understand.’
‘I will never understand this!’ Laurana said, tears choking her voice.
An elf appeared out of the darkness. ‘Humans, sir.’ Laurana heard him report in elven. ‘Sailors by their appearance. They say their ship was attacked by a dragon and wrecked on the rocks.’
‘Verification?’
‘We found bits of wreckage floating ashore. We can search in the morning. The humans are wet and miserable and half-drowned. They offered no resistance. I don’t think they’ve lied.’
The elven leader turned to Laurana. ‘Your story appears to be true,’ he said, speaking once more in Common. ‘My men report that the humans they captured are sailors. Do not worry about them. We will take them prisoner, of course. We cannot have humans wandering around this island with all our other problems. But we will care for them well. We are not goblins,’ he added bitterly. ‘I regret striking your friend—’
‘Brother,’ Laurana replied. ‘And younger son of the Speaker of the Suns. I am Lauralanthalasa, and this is Gilthanas. We are of the royal house of Qualinesti.’
It seemed to her that the elf paled at this news, but he regained his composure immediately. ‘Your brother will be well tended. I will send for a healer—’
‘We do not need your healer!’ Laurana said. ‘This man’—she gestured toward Elistan—‘is a cleric of Paladine. He will aid my brother—’
‘A human?’ the elf asked sternly.
‘Yes, human!’ Laurana cried impatiently. ‘Elves struck my brother down! I turn to humans to heal him. Elistan—’
The cleric started forward, but, at a sign from their leader, several elves quickly grabbed him and pinned his arms behind him. Sturm started to go to his aid, but Elistan stopped him with a look, glancing at Laurana meaningfully. Sturm fell back, understanding Elistan’s silent warning. Their lives depended on her.
‘Let him go!’ Laurana demanded. ‘Let him treat my brother!’
‘I find this news of a cleric of Paladine impossible to believe, Lady Laurana,’ the elf leader said. ‘All know the clerics vanished from Krynn when the gods turned their faces from us. I do not know who this charlatan is, or how he has tricked you into believing him, but we will not allow him to lay his human hands upon an elf!’
‘Even an elf who is an enemy?’ she cried furiously.
‘Even if the elf had killed my own father,’ the elf said grimly. ‘And now, Lady Laurana, I must speak to you privately and try to explain what is transpiring on Southern Ergoth.’
Seeing Laurana hesitate, Elistan spoke, ‘Go on, my dear. You are the only one who can save us now. I will stay near Gilthanas.’
‘Very well,’ Laurana said, rising to her feet. Her face pale, she walked apart with the elven leader.
‘I don’t like this,’ Derek said, scowling. ‘She told them of the dragon orb, which she should not have done.’
‘They heard us talking about it,’ Sturm said wearily.
‘Yes, but she told them where it was! I don’t trust her—or her people. Who knows what kind of deals they are making?’ Derek added.
‘That does it!’ grated a voice.
Both men turned in astonishment to see Flint staggering to his feet. His teeth still chattered, but a cold light glinted in his eyes as he looked at Derek. ‘I—I’ve had a-about enough of y-you, S-Sir High and M-Mighty.’ The dwarf gritted his teeth to stop shivering long enough to speak.
Sturm started to intervene, but the dwarf shoved him aside to confront Derek. It was a ludicrous sight, and one Sturm often remembered with a smile, storing it up to share with Tanis. The dwarf, his long white beard wet and scraggly, water dripping from his clothes to form puddles at his feet, stood nearly level with Derek’s belt buckle, scolding the tall, proud Solamnic knight as he might have scolded Tasslehoff.