“I suppose he might see something without anyone seeing him,” the dwarf said. “The gods look after fools, children, and drunks, and a kender counts for two out of those three.”
“Here, now,” Kindro began indignantly. The other underchief was genuinely fond of kender, whom he said were made to remind other races not to take the world too seriously. It was rumored that he was fonder of kender maidens than of their menfolk, and that for this reason the male kender were less fond of him than he liked to believe.
“Enough,” Darin said. “We know where we stand, which is hip-deep in a midden pit. No need to talk over the fine points of the stink. The question is how to get out of it?”
Before anyone could speak further, a signal arrow thumped into the ground a sword’s length from Darin’s foot. Then Whistletrot thrust his head and torso precariously out from the branches of his tree, so far that he nearly fell out headfirst. He caught himself with ankles locked around a branch, and, hanging like that, frantically signaled the approach of a small party, men, on foot, not heavily armed, but otherwise unknown.
Darin and his underchiefs wasted no breath with orders. Every seasoned man who saw arrow or dangling kender passed on the warning to those out of sight, and the seasoned men everywhere rallied their greener comrades. In less time than it took Whistletrot to swing himself back onto the branch and start descending the tree, the raiders were prepared to receive their visitors.
The kender’s observations were accurate, as usual. Darin wondered at times how a race commonly so maddeningly feckless could produce such a reliable scout as Whistletrot. But, then, the few humans who had spent time in Kendermore had come away with the notion that kender could be quite sane and sober when their homes and kin were at stake.
Perhaps Imsaffor Whistletrot had decided that Waydol’s band was his home and kin. It made as much sense as any human notion about kender usually did.
Four men walked into the clearing, obviously aware that they were being watched, but showing no signs of fear. One of them carried a large earthenware pot, and another had a basket slung over his back. The rest carried packs, pouches, and daggers, and one unburdened man carried a boar spear nearly large enough for Waydol.
“Ah-where is the Minotaur?” the spear carrier asked, speaking in no particular direction, as if he expected the air, earth, or trees to answer.
“I am Heir to the Minotaur Waydol,” Darin said, stepping forward. He did not bother to gather his scattered weapons, as there was no man in the band he could not have dealt with barehanded. That was, of course, assuming that the concealed archers did not put all the visitors on the ground at the first sign of treachery.
“Then we offer you these gifts,” the same man said. He held the boar spear out butt-first and laid it on the ground at Darin’s feet. The young chief saw that the shaft was cunningly wrought to provide firm handgrips, and that the head and crosspieces were good dwarf-work.
The other gifts included the pot, which exhaled a tantalizing scent of honey, and the basket, filled with cakes made of flour mixed with some scented herb that Darin knew but could not name. He ceremoniously raised the spear, licked a finger dipped in the honey, and broke a cake in half, handing the half he did not eat to the leader.
The man devoured it with more appetite than ceremony, brushed crumbs from his beard, and frowned. “Then you accept our gifts of peace?”
“That depends on what kind of peace you offer us,” Darin said, and his underchiefs nodded. “If the price of peace with you is too great, you shall at least have these gifts back, to sustain you on your return journey, and we will not take you hostage or fall upon you on that journey.”
The men looked at one another. “It seems the honor of Waydol and Darin is no legend,” the leader said.
Another nodded. “Catch Aurhinius making that sort of bargain.”
Darin was as careful to keep his voice steady as he would have been careful to be silent when crouching barehanded by a trout pool. “Aurhinius? The Istarian general?”
“The same,” the leader said, then the other three men all seemed to find their voices at once. They had to lose their breath before Darin could make sense of their words.
“Aurhinius has a garrison in your town, or near it?”
They nodded.
“You wish us to drive it out?”
One man nodded, and the other three shook their heads.
“Best I make this short,” the leader finally said. “We can’t ask you to fight Aurhinius, or even the smaller band of soldiers he will leave behind when he moves on to the next town. His strength is too great for you to meet it, and even if you won, we would be dwelling amid ruins and ashes.
“No, what we want is for you to draw Aurhinius and his men away from all the villages, so that we may hide what the soldiers might otherwise take. Aurhinius keeps firm discipline among his men in the matter of women, but only a god could keep a soldier away from mead or a gold necklace.”
Darin nodded slowly as a smile spread across his face. If the villagers could deliver up Aurhinius to humiliation, the less bloody the better, the raiders would have their victory without any danger of having to wander the country for months, until their retreat was cut off or they returned to the stronghold to find it besieged.
Darin turned to his underchiefs.
“It could be a trap,” Fertig said.
Kindro shrugged. “For that, we have the mounted scouts-as long as we keep them out of those folks’ sight,” he added pointedly.
Darin let the tone pass unremarked. Kindro had been a sell-sword for nearly as long as Darin had lived, before he came to Waydol. He was not jealous of the younger man’s being heir to Waydol, but thought and sometimes said that he ought to make better use of the warcraft of his elders.
“That goes without saying,” Darin said. “Let us learn where Aurhinius lies, then the best way to it, then pick another and send three or four of our best scouts. Whistletrot, too,” he added, in a tone that left Fertig with his mouth open but unable to make a sound.
“So be it,” the two underchiefs said in unison. Darin turned to the villagers.
“Now, it would be well if we arranged all this so that Aurhinius has no inkling of your part in it. If he suspects nothing, he will be less ready to burn houses or take hostages, let alone worse punishments.”
“True enough,” the leader said. “He’s a warrior who follows Kiri-Jolith, not Hiddukel.”
Hiddukel was the god of corruption, fraud, and theft.
Darin clapped the leader on the back, hard enough to make the man stagger.
“Your pardon,” he said. The man choked out some sort of reply.
It had been some while since Darin so forgot his strength, but he had reason if not justice on his side. To enter a contest of wits as well as strength, against a foe as honorable as he was formidable, and with little risk of death or suffering to the innocent-that was the greatest pleasure man or minotaur could contemplate.
Darin vowed to make offerings to Kiri-Jolith if he won the forthcoming contest. He also prayed, briefly, that Aurhinius’s honor would lead him to do the same if the victory went to him.
* * * * *
The work of the scouts was less finding Aurhinius than keeping him from finding the raiders at a disadvantage. Had the riders not been out, the two companies of warriors might have met at a crossroads overshadowed by a half-grown vallenwood and set about with crumbling shrines so ancient that no one could tell which god they honored.
As it was, one scout rode back to halt Darin’s advance. Two others trailed Aurhinius and his company, until they reached country too rough for safe riding. Dismounted, the Istarians’ pace was such that a nimble kender, such as Imsaffor Whistletrot, could easily keep up with them-and report when and where they made camp.