Suddenly Brinestrider skipped over a series of low, choppy waves. Following the kender’s lead, Brightdawn rode them out. Swiftraven, however, finally lost his balance and fell on his rear. His face turned bright red as sailors all over the ship laughed and pointed.
Catt offered her hand. “Get up,” she said. “Try again-”
“Get away from me!” he snapped, his face twisting into a snarl. Catt pulled her hand back as if he’d stung her. With some difficulty, he pushed himself to his feet. “The only way you can help, kender, is to stay away from me.”
“Swiftraven!” Brightdawn exclaimed, reaching for his arm. He jerked away from her grasp and stomped down the deck, toward the stern.
Catt watched him go. “Grumpy sort of fellow.”
“He’s just proud,” Brightdawn replied.
Catt continued to frown at Swiftraven’s back as the young Plainsman stumbled toward Riverwind and Kael. “I don’t think he shares your father’s approval of kender.”
Brightdawn chewed her lip. “He doesn’t think we should be helping you. He wouldn’t say that in front of Father, of course,” she added quickly, “but he thinks it’s foolish to go to Kendermore.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Brightdawn asked, startled. “I–I don’t-”
“That’s okay,” Cart cut in. “Many of our people thought it was foolish of Paxina to ask the help of humans. ‘Humans make a mess of everything,’ they said. Lucky thing we found someone like your father.”
Suddenly curses sounded above them-oaths so vile, only a sailor could utter them. Brightdawn followed Cart’s glance up the mainmast. Kronn had climbed high into the rigging and somehow gotten himself and the ship’s dwarven first mate snarled among the ropes. The dwarf was swearing at the top of his scratchy voice as he tried to untangle himself.
“Not again!” snapped Captain Ar-Tam, storming up the deck. “Get down from there, you little squeaker, or I swear I’ll cut your-”
“It’s all right, Captain,” Catt said. “I’ll get my brother down.” She scrambled nimbly up the rigging and quickly worked both her brother and the mate loose. The dwarf made a wild grab for Kronn, who jumped out of the way, leaping from one rope to another with glee, apparently unconcerned that he was thirty feet above the deck of a rocking boat. “Kronn!” Catt snapped. “Stop with this game!”
“Oh, we’ve got games he can play,” the red-faced dwarf growled as Kronn and Catt descended the ropes. “There’s keelhaul-the-kender, for one. And catch-the-anchor-and guess who gets to go first.”
“Who?” Kronn asked.
The dwarf made a rude gesture.
At length, the two kender made their way back to the deck. As soon as they were both down, Catt cuffed Kronn on the back of his head.
“Ow!” he exclaimed. “What did you do that for?”
“Listen to me, Kronn,” Catt said. “You’ve got to stay out of trouble. Captain Ar-Tam is tempted to throw you to the sharks.”
Kronn’s eyebrows shot up excitedly. “Sharks? In these waters?”
Catt nodded gravely. “Bull sharks, to be exact. Big enough to swallow you whole-if you’re lucky.”
“I’d love to catch a glimpse of one,” Kronn said, his brow furrowed with thought. “Father told me once that Uncle Trapspringer got attacked by sharks, you know. Or maybe it was a giant squid. Anyway, it happened when he was on his way back home after winning the minotaurs’ arena tourney on Kothas.”
Catt raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Attacked by sharks?”
“Or a giant squid, I said,” Kronn noted. “Anyway, he couldn’t use his hoopak underwater, but fortunately he had a brainstorm…
“Let’s go talk to Father,” Brightdawn interjected. “He’ll be wanting to plan our route after we reach Ak-Thain.”
Kronn gave his sister a look.
She nodded. “Let’s.”
“Great!” Kronn exclaimed. “Come on. I’ve been looking for a chance to show off my maps.”
He ran off toward the stern, where Riverwind stood with Kael and Swiftraven. Catt watched him go, then looked up at Brightdawn, her mouth crooking into a wry half-grin. “Boys,” she said.
Laughing, Brightdawn started aft with the kender to join the others. The boat rolled under their feet as they walked, but no longer did she notice.
“Oh, no,” Swiftraven groaned softly.
Riverwind had been looking back over the rail, at Brinestrider’s foam-speckled wake, which stretched out behind them toward the sea-gray horizon. Abruptly he straightened and turned, following the young warrior’s gaze. He frowned when his eyes fell upon Kronn, who was walking cheerily toward them. Glancing at Swiftraven, he saw the young man’s lip curl. Riverwind’s brow furrowed. “Is something wrong, boy?” he asked.
Swiftraven started, then quickly shook his head, his cheeks burning red. “No, my chief.”
It was a lie, and Riverwind knew it, but he let it pass. Swiftraven was uncomfortable around the kender, but now wasn’t the time to confront him about it. He watched Kronn approach, Catt and Brightdawn coming up behind him.
“Kronn’s come back here to help you, Riverwind. Haven’t you, Kronn?” said Catt.
Kronn beamed at the old Plainsman. “That’s right,” he declared. “I’ve come to show you my maps. It’s a long way to Kendermore, even after we reach Ak-Thain.”
“Kendermore?” Captain Ar-Tam asked, incredulous. “You’re going there? What in Habbakuk’s name for?”
“We’re having some problems with a dragon back home,” Kronn replied.
Kael barked a harsh laugh, then checked himself, glancing at the old Plainsman. “Don’t tell me he’s serious,” he said.
“He is,” Riverwind stated, drawing himself up proudly so he towered over the captain. His face, though still pale from nausea, grew stern and severe. “We’re going east to help the kender.”
“You’re mad, then,” Kael said firmly. “No sane man would leave his home and kin and travel across Ansalon, just to help a bunch of bloody kender.”
“No offense intended, I’m sure,” Catt interjected, bristling.
Kael said nothing, smiling unpleasantly.
“What I choose to do is of no concern to you, Captain,” Riverwind said. He turned away, striding purposefully toward the hatch that led down into Brinestrider’s hold. “Come on, Kronn. We have the rest of our journey to plan.”
The hold was dim, lit by a single lantern that swung from the ceiling, in time with the creaking of the hull. A strange smell hung in the air, mixing salt and stale sweat with the scents of spices and wine, remnants of cargoes the ship had carried before.
Riverwind paused at the lamp, twisting its key until its light was bright enough to read by, then led the way to a broad table near the fore of the ship. He shoved aside the dirty bowls and playing cards the sailors had left on it.
The kender unslung a large, overstuffed pack from his shoulder. As Catt, Brightdawn, and Swiftraven gathered around the table, Kronn plopped the pouch down and began to root through it. It was stuffed almost to bursting with maps of all shapes and sizes, from vellum charts illuminated in gold leaf and precious inks to tattered scraps of rag paper whose markings were almost unreadable.
“These aren’t all mine, in case you’re interested,” Kronn declared. “That is, they’re mine now, but a lot of them used to belong to my father. This isn’t even his whole collection, either. You see, the strangest thing happened in Kendermore at the reading of the will. A bunch of his maps just sort of disappeared. So did a lot of his other possessions. It was most peculiar.”
Swiftraven snorted derisively, but Brightdawn cut in before Kronn could respond. “I’ve heard stories about Kronin,” she said. “Your father sounded like quite a fighter.”
“He was,” Kronn agreed proudly.
“There’s something I always wanted to know, though,” Brightdawn continued. “There’s all sorts of stories about how he killed Lord Toede, back during the War of the Lance. Which one of them is true?”
Kronn exchanged glances with Catt, then shrugged and returned to rustling through his pouch. “Beats me.”