“Evenin’, big guy,” Clemen said jovially as Caramon crossed the tavern. His eyes flicked to Riverwind. “And bigger guy, too. We can deal the two o’ ye in next hand if ye’re feeling game.”
“Save yourself,” Osler muttered grimly. “You’d have better luck in a head-butting contest with a minotaur tonight. I swear, this bugger’s put a hex on the cards.”
Caramon chuckled, glancing at Riverwind, but the Plainsman shook his head. “The only games I know are wrestling and pole sparring,” Riverwind said.
“Pole sparring, eh?” drawled Borlos. “Well, maybe we can arrange something. Caramon, get Clem a broom.”
“All right,” Caramon said. He started toward a nearby closet.
Clemen’s face turned white as a cleric’s robes. The others held their straight faces for a moment, but it was a losing battle, and soon Osler and Borlos were howling with laughter, pounding the table. Caramon chuckled along with them, and even Riverwind cracked a smile.
“Had ye goin’ there, didn’t we?” roared Borlos, slapping Clemen on the shoulder. “Thought ye’d be gettin’ yer head clonked by a genuine Hero of the Lance, eh?”
Riverwind glanced at Caramon, surprised. “They know who I am?”
“Oh, great gods, yeah,” said Osler.
“Don’t believe them, Riverwind,” said Tika. She emerged from the kitchen, the smell of spices wafting behind her. “They heard me tell Caramon you were in town.”
Osler reddened. “Well, aye, but I reckon I’d’a known ye the moment I saw ye, Plainsman. Not many o’ yer kind taller than Caramon, here. He’s told us all about the whole lot o’ ye.”
“And told us, and told us….“ droned Clemen. Suddenly everyone-Tika included-was laughing again, at Caramon’s expense.
“Pull up a seat,” offered Osler, gesturing at an empty chair. “You can tell us the truth about the War of the Lance. It’d be nice to hear something other than Caramon’s tall tales for a change.”
Riverwind looked at Caramon, who waved a hand. “Go ahead. It’s a good night for war stories. The boys are right-they’ve heard everything a hundred times-but don’t let that stop you. They’re easily amused.” He ignored the snorts and scowls the three card players tossed his way. “I’ll be right back.”
He left the others and went to a storeroom in the back of the Inn. There he bent down and opened a trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Taking a lantern from a nearby cresset, he stepped through the open hatch and climbed down a steep flight of stairs. The stairway smelled of sap, for it led into the trunk of the great vallenwood tree whose branches cradled the Inn. Caramon had built the stairway when the Knights of Takhisis took control of Solace. Hewn out of the living wood, its entrance concealed beneath a wine cask even he could barely lift, it led to a room that had been a safe house for refugees who needed hiding from the Dark Knights. Now, with the Chaos War long over, it served as a cellar where he kept his best stock.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and shone the lantern around the cramped room. Bottles of elven wine and Solamnian brandy sparkled in the ruddy light, but he ignored them. Instead, he walked to a worn, oaken keg. The barrel, carefully sealed, held the last of the ale he’d brewed before the Second Cataclysm. He’d been waiting for almost two years for the right occasion to tap it.
“Well,” he said, bending down and hoisting it up beneath his massive arm, “looks like this is an occasion.”
The ale was fine, some of the best ever he’d ever brewed. Caramon didn’t drink it, of course-he hadn’t taken a drink in more than thirty years, and never would again-but Tika, the card-players, and Riverwind all praised its rich, nutty flavor.
So did Riverwind’s daughters. They had come in while Caramon was in the cellar, and had pulled up chairs beside their father. Moonsong and Brightdawn were twins, twenty-four years old and beautiful enough that Tika had to smack Clemen and Osler across the backs of their heads for staring. In many ways they resembled their mother, sharing Goldmoon’s silver-gold hair and sky-blue eyes, but there was something of their father in them too-a solemnness in Moonsong’s face, a strength to Brightdawn’s jaw.
Moonsong, who was the older sister by a few minutes, was the more graceful of the two. Destined, according to Que-Shu custom, to succeed her mother as high priestess of the Plains, she had trained as a healer under Goldmoon’s tutelage. Her hands were soft, her skin unblemished, and she wore her hair loose, held in place by a silver circlet hung with feathers. She was clad in a gown of pale blue, embroidered with abstract patterns in threads of red and gold. Gold shone at her ears, wrists and fingers.
While Moonsong had lived a structured life, ordered by her duties as Chieftain’s Daughter, Brightdawn’s childhood had been at once rougher and more carefree. A tomboy from an early age, the younger twin had learned wrestling and archery, and had accompanied her father on hunts in the grasslands. She had calluses on her hands, a small white scar on her chin, and her hair was shorter than her sister’s, gathered in a single plait that hung down her back. Instead of a circlet, she wore a red headband, which marked her as a warrior-as did the flanged mace that hung from her belt. She was clad in plain, buckskin clothes-brown leggings and a beige vest-and her arms were tanned and bare. She was clad in no jewelry anywhere on her body.
Despite the twins’ beauty however, it was Riverwind who held everyone’s attention. The Plainsman sat on a high stool by the fire, his back erect and his eyes gleaming beneath his stem brow. His left hand gripped his flagon of ale, his right dancing like a weaver’s shuttle at the loom as he recounted the story of his first meeting with Caramon and the Companions.
“We never expected anything more than a meal and a bed for the night, Goldmoon and I,” he said. “We were led here by a man who wore the armor of a Knight of Solamnia-Sturm Brightblade. He was polite, but…” He searched for the right word. “Diffident. When he decided we were safe, he went to join his friends, whom he told us he had not seen in a very long time. We sat by the fire, much as we are now, although the Inn was very crowded that night. There was an old man there, telling ancient stories to a young boy. He was the one who started it all.”
The tale spun on. Riverwind told of the song he and Goldmoon had played, of how the Seeker Hederick had fallen into the hearthfire while trying to arrest them for heresy, and of how the blue crystal staff had shone after Tasslehoff used it to heal the Seeker’s bums. He recalled his shock when the old man-who, he would learn much later, was Paladine himself in disguise-had called for the guards, forcing the Plainsfolk to escape through the inn’s kitchen. Joining with Tanis and Sturm, Caramon and Raistlin, Flint and Tasslehoff, they had fled to Tika’s house while the goblins searched for them.
“There we were,” the old Plainsman recalled, his eyes distant with memory, “hiding in the dark like bandits. I didn’t know any of the others yet-and, to be honest, I didn’t trust them.”
“The man’s a good judge of character,” drawled Borlos, taking a long pull from his tankard.
“Aw, shut up,” Caramon said, scowling. Everyone laughed.
Osler cuffed Borlos on the arm. “Let the man tell his story, Bor.”
Riverwind took a drink from his own mug, smiling as the fine ale moistened his parched throat. “The goblins were thorough that night, searching house-to-house,” he continued, setting down the flagon. “Our plan was to pretend there was no one home, but somehow no one remembered to shut the door. By the time Tanis realized, it was too late-the goblins were almost on top of us.