The disassembled sledge packed for use in the mountains was unpacked and assembled. A stout harness hitched it to four mules. Four men carried it down to the nearest spring; others carried all the empty waterskins. As fast as the skins were filled, they were lashed to the sledge. Then came Serafina’s shrewd cajoling (and an occasional crack of the whip), and the strength of the mules did the rest.
Darin commanded the sentries, Gerik the watering party, and Grimsoar and Eskaia those setting up the tents. Tarothin kept a magical vigil, in so far as his strength allowed-although he had the look of a man who should not have been out of bed at all.
Pirvan and Haimya found themselves almost idle. As his lady sat down on the rock beside him, Pirvan slipped an arm around her.
“Shall we go seek if the spring broadens into a pool somewhere down-canyon?” he said, grinning.
Haimya pulled his arm tighter about her waist and squeezed his hand, then rested her head on his shoulder. She could do that easily and gracefully, even though she was barely a finger’s breadth shorter than her husband.
“I thank you for the thought, but I am too old for that,” she said.
“Hardly, and not at all too old to inspire it. When I dream of swimming under the sun or the stars, I dream of-”
“Yes?”
“You.”
“Flatterer.”
“Only clear-sighted.”
Haimya turned her head to kiss Pirvan lightly on the cheek and ear, then settled back into his embrace.
In truth, Haimya did not look old enough to have a son ready for training with the Knights of Solamnia and a daughter who could wed lawfully. Indeed, they had already received three veiled offers of honorable marriage for Eskaia, not to mention some unveiled and less honorable offers, which Eskaia had so far dealt with herself, without involving her parents in blood feuds.
Pirvan would not see fifty again, and Haimya was only four years younger. This first quest as a family might well be their last, even if they all survived. Rubina, their daughter who had just turned ten, might quest with her brother and sister, but not with her parents, though she had wailed like a dragon with a toothache at being left behind.
And before long, Sir Marod’s orders to search the highways and byways of Krynn would go to younger men. Gerik could be one of those, if he could make up his mind whether or not to enter training for the knights. Meanwhile, there was Darin, as firm in honor as he was in muscle, and as fertile in invention as he was terrible in battle.
Waydol had raised his heir well, and the knights would reap the harvest of the minotaur’s good work.
“Last load’s coming up!” Gerik called from below.
Pirvan gave the hand signal acknowledging the message, then added the one for silence-repeated three times for emphasis. Gerik replied with his own acknowledgment, and Pirvan said no more. His son was sometimes more eager than wise, no rare thing at nineteen, and likely to be cured by both time and Darin’s example.
Then the sledge came grating into view, and hard on its heels the watering party, with Gerik even pushing a little to speed matters-until Serafina gave him a glare that would have frozen tarberry tea steaming from the kettle.
Pirvan looked at Serafina’s tally board. All the water sacks were filled, and they would have time at dawn to refill any emptied tonight. For one more day, they had repelled the assaults of the desert’s arsenal of heat and thirst.
Enough more days of this, and they would be in the borderlands, fit to meet living foes. Pirvan expected to find that almost restful.
Hawkbrother was close enough to the strangers’ camp to watch the end of their water-gathering. That and much else he saw proved that they were desert-wise. How had this come about?
Few outside the Free Riders knew desert-wisdom. The plainsmen were accustomed to more water and grazing; their crops grew taller and their herds fatter. They could venture onto the sand, and sometimes return if they were brave and lucky, but not always.
The dwarves in the mountains to the west sometimes came to the very edge of the sand, seeking metal ores for their forges. More often than not, the Free Riders traded with them, dried meat for finished metal, thornberries for dwarf spirits, and so on. The dwarves and Free Riders had no quarrel with each other, and most commonly kept the peace.
The Silvanesti elves were not so well disposed toward the Free Riders, or anyone else, including their Qualinesti and Kagonesti brethren. They were also a long way from the sand. Distance kept the peace between the elven realm and the Free Riders, when willpower would not.
The Free Riders encountered most other folk as sun-mummified bodies or bird-picked, sun-bleached bones on the sand. So it had been with most Istarians, except for a few bold traders (and the tales ran that some of those had desert blood from far-traveling warriors, or the occasional maiden carried off when she ventured too close to the towns). Certainly it had so far been that way with the Istarian tax soldiers.
So what were these folk?
If Hawkbrother had been a wagering man (a nineteen-year-old fourth son had little with which to wager), he would have said that some of these folk were Knights of Solamnia. The Free Riders had had little to do with the knights, save when, generations past, the knights fought “barbarians” for Istar’s gold and glory. Many knights or their bones became decorations to distant sand dunes.
But these knights had come at the head of a good company. There were several women among them, all at least comely and one, the youngest, a rare beauty. They also had a score at least of grooms and guards, all of whom carried steel openly and looked as if they could use it.
Entering this camp on his belly, like a slinkersnake, would be a notable feat. So notable, indeed, that if he brought back nothing to prove it, even his being the chief’s son would not save him from being named a boaster.
That might end in the shedding of blood, which the Gryphons would better save for greater battles to come.
So he would be sure to bring home something that would end all doubts. The fairest of the women? No, her menfolk would surely pursue until she was safe and Hawkbrother’s blood was on their steel.
They had unsaddled and unloaded their animals, but much of their gear was piled close to where the hobbled beasts noisily fed. They had also surrounded the animals and indeed the whole camp with sentries, commanded for now by a giant who was likely one of the knights.
To a Free Rider, all of this was a challenge, not a barrier. Hawkbrother would be in, load an animal with what he could gather up, and ride for his life before the sentries knew what was afoot.
Hawkbrother looked at the sky. Night was swallowing the last of the sunset, and the stars and the moons marched across the zenith and onward to roof the desert. Then he looked back, toward where One-Ear would be crouching, four hundred paces away.
Good. The older warrior could not be seen by anyone whose eyes had not learned the desert. But Hawkbrother could see him plainly enough. The chief’s son slid down behind the boulder hiding him from the strangers, and raised his left arm.
In the fading light, the jewel on the wide arm ring winked three times-two long, one short. A long moment, and the reply came-the same signal, then two short flashes.
One-Ear knew what Hawkbrother planned, accepted it, and would be ready. There would be no need to use the jewels again, or the whistle at all.
Apart from the speaking jewel bracelet and the whistle, which could mimic the calls of scores of desert animals and birds, Hawkbrother was clad and armed lightly. He wore a loincloth and a headband, with the Gryphon sign dyed into the leather, a weighted sash, and a dwarven-made dagger in the Solamnic style.
He had not, however, even thought his death song, let alone sung it. He had no intention of dying tonight.
For that matter, Hawkbrother’s voice was such that anyone who heard him singing would seek his life, to return a decent and wholesome silence to the desert night.