As he did, he saw Tulia approaching from the gateway. She had her sword in one hand and was all but dragging Sirbones with the other. The priest of Mishakal looked rather as if he wished to be somewhere else, but duty as well as Tulia’s firm grip kept him moving forward.
By the time Sirbones and Krythis met, the pegasus had fallen senseless from pain and loss of blood. Half a dozen humans and dwarves were dragging the dead gryphon away. The rider, who was indeed a Silvanesti elf, had not yet regained his senses.
Sirbones bent over the elf first. He rested one hand on the elf’s chest, the other on his forehead, and murmured a short spell. Then he looked up, without rising.
“A blow to the head and cracked ribs. I have eased the pain so that he will sleep while we bind the ribs. He should be watched closely while he sleeps. And next time you handle a wounded man, Rynthala, do not toss him about as if he were a bale of hay on the end of a pitchfork.”
Rynthala’s mouth opened, then closed as both her parents gave her looks that conveyed the wisdom of silence. Meanwhile, Sirbones was examining the pegasus.
“I lack the art to heal these wounds in pegasi,” Sirbones said. “The wing may never bear flying again, and it-”
“She,” Rynthala said. “The pegasus is a mare.”
Sirbones seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say, and nodded. “I fear I cannot heal her.”
“Then do as the rider would, if he were awake,” Tulia said. “Put her out of her pain.”
The pegasus rolled her vast green eyes at those words and neighed faintly, as if in protest. Rynthala stepped forward.
“Well, Sirbones?”
“I-I have never given death, even to a pegasus. My oath-”
Rynthala used a much less sacred oath of her own. She also cast doubts on Mishakal’s chastity and Sirbones’s manhood.
“Your oath commands you to ease unbearable pain, does it not?” Tulia said. “Does it command how?”
“I may not give death,” Sirbones said. Frail and past sixty as he was, he was as immovable as Belkuthas’s keep when he spoke in that tone.
“Can you put the pegasus to sleep while I try to set her wing and dress her flank?” Rynthala asked. “And steep the dressings and splint in whatever healing potions you keep about?”
Sirbones started to look to Krythis and Tulia for permission to obey their daughter. Rynthala’s face darkened. He hastily looked back at the daughter, and nodded, then knelt beside the pegasus. Within moments, the wounded creature’s eyes were closed, and its breathing was even shallower than before, but far steadier. From time to time its braided, silver-hued tail twitched, and once the good wing rose halfway. Otherwise it might have been a statue.
Krythis suspected that Sirbones had been less than wholly truthful about his ability to heal pegasi. Most likely, he had not wished to spend his spell power on pegasi when humans, elves, and dwarves might soon need all he had and more besides. Rynthala might have lived with that truth. But dithering was something Rynthala neither understood nor forgave, and Krythis found it hard to disagree.
Not when war might be coming to Belkuthas. Naked, raw, red war.
And if not war, then so much else that was unheard of for years in this land that the leisure to contemplate alternatives over wine would be a luxury that existed only in memory.
As the column made camp for the night, Darin found the next set of footprints. The chiefs had chosen a site as far as possible from rough ground. This was no more than long bow shot. They also commanded that no tents go up, so none could be trapped within them, and that double sentries would stand watch all night.
Darin led out the first watch, and found the footprints while he was picking the sentry posts. A returning messenger brought Pirvan, Haimya, and the two Gryphon brothers out to where Darin knelt, guarding a patch of soft sand as if it were a relic of Huma Dragonbane.
“Kender, I think,” Darin said, when only the four summoned were within hearing.
Certainly the footprints were too small for anything except kender or gully dwarves. Gully dwarves would find little fare in this land and lack the wits to pack food and water. Kender, on the other hand, had wits to spare, regardless of how they used them.
Pirvan knelt and studied the footprints more closely. The feet were not only small but booted, which further argued against gully dwarves. Also, they were sunk deep into the sand in proportion to their length.
Pirvan rose, brushing sand off his hands and knees. “Kender indeed,” he said. “And carrying heavy packs.”
“Probably everything in them handled from their rightful owners,” Threehands muttered. Hawkbrother looked away, and Pirvan decided on silence, as there seemed more to this than met the eye.
Less tolerant, Haimya spoke briskly. “Have you or your folk a quarrel with the kender, my chief?” It did not take one who knew Haimya well to hear the edge in the words “my chief?”
“And if we do?”
“The knights seek to undo the evil they did, wielding swords for Istar against ‘barbarians.’ Will you help or hinder?”
“How am I hindering?” The Gryphon sounded truly perplexed.
“Do you see all kender as thieves and vermin?”
Threehands laughed, less harshly than usual. “No, only those who come into the desert without knowing its laws. Fortunately not all of them live long enough to trouble anything but the sand. But a kender will handle anything, including a man’s mount, weapons, or water. The desert spirits do not honor that.”
“You and your warriors have laws about sharing in need,” Pirvan reminded Threehands.
“Yes, but those laws command one to return or repay as soon as possible. Kender-well, the gods only know where something handled by a kender will end up. Not back with the one who first held it, surely. Free Riders have died because kender handled their waterskins,” Threehands concluded. “Fortunately they seldom come into the desert at all. So I suppose we can be at peace over these two, as long as they stay well away from us.”
Pirvan nodded. This seemed the wrong time to suggest they should vigorously follow the trail of those kender, seeking to meet and speak with them. If kender seldom entered the desert, what were these two doing here, especially now? What might they have seen?
Not that these questions were ever likely to be answered. Not only was the desert large and kender small, but the average kender could find a hiding place on a dining-hall table!
By evening at Belkuthas, it was plain that Sirbones and Rynthala between them had done well by the pegasus. The inward bleeding had ceased, the cleric’s spells kept the pain within bounds, the stepped dressings were already at work on the wounded flank, and the broken wing was set with a splint so elaborate that Rynthala had enlisted the help of two harness-makers and a carpenter’s apprentice to design and build it.
This was as well, and for more folk than the pegasus. The rider, when he regained his senses, turned out to be a messenger from Maradoc, king of the Silvanesti. His message was that a Silvanesti embassy, led by one Lauthinaradalas, a high judge, was on its way north. It intended to reside at Belkuthas, a neutral location that all parties to the dispute with Istar might approach without fear. The embassy would remain until Istar either sent its own embassy to the Silvanesti or showed itself determined to treat the elves as mere subjects.
“Lord Lauthin is not expecting the humans to see reason,” said the messenger from his sickbed. Krythis and Tulia offered no response to that. “But the king has commanded, and he will obey. So will you.”
Krythis was glad Rynthala was still down in the stables-she seemed prepared to sleep in the stall with the wounded pegasus.
He said, “Your pardon, my friend-”
“Hardly that, to a half-elf.”
Krythis counted to ten. “I will call you by your name, if you will condescend to give it.”
“You may call me Belot.”