Tanis moved carefully up the hill until he could see the slig camp. And Brandella. She was tied to a stake in the ground, lying next to the fire. One of the sligs, obviously the leader by its size, stood over her, spitting its poisoned saliva just inches from her face. It splattered on the ground next to the long braid of black hair that coiled over one shoulder. She didn't cry out. She didn't even move. She simply stared up at the slig with defiance on her face.
The sligs seemed impressed, but not enough to stop. Tanis tried to make out what the slig leader was saying. It sounded like Common tongue, but all the half-elf could hear was the shouted warning, 'Tell or die!"
Clotnik crawled up next to Tanis and saw the remnants of a water wagon, empty barrels lying on their sides all around it. The wagon obviously had been on its way to the glade to fill up at the pond. The dwarf wondered where the driver was. His attention was arrested by something black turning above the blaze, juices dripping down and causing the wood to sizzle and the flames to jump. Clotnik leaned close and whispered, "Where'd they get the venison7 I thought all the animals had left with the fire."
Tanis looked at him, expressionless, and Clotnik realized the chunk of meat above the blaze was no deer. He swallowed hard and looked away.
Tanis continued to scan the camp. If there had been a wagon, something must have pulled it. On the far side of the camp, he saw what he was looking for: two brawny bullboggs. The six-legged draft animals, crosses between horse, bull and buffalo, weren't fast, but they were steady and dependable.
"How fast can you run?" Tanis whispered.
"How fast do I need to rim?" the dwarf replied nervously.
"Faster than the sligs."
"If they're behind me, I'll run like the wind."
"You'd better," said Tanis, "because you're going to attack their camp-you and your 'men'-and then you're going to run like you've never run before."
Clotnik swallowed again. Hard.
Brandella had fought the sligs after they surprised her at Kishpa's grave site. It wasn't her own life that she was defending, though: it was the peace of Kishpa and the lives of Tanis and Clotnik. At all cost, she did not want the sligs to disturb her mage's grave, digging it up for the enchanted quill that they so ruthlessly demanded of her. She told them she knew where it was-although she had no intention of ever telling them. Nor did she want the sligs to know that she had two companions just a short distance away. Far preferable, she thought, to die for those who had done so much to try to save her.
Her fight with the sligs was decidedly short. One of the creatures knocked her down with a swipe of its gargantuan right hand, hitting her so hard that she thought for a moment that it had broken her jaw. Two of the wilder sligs grabbed each of her arms, intending, she guessed in terror, to eat her limbs raw. They were stopped by their leader, who kicked them away from the woman.
It was getting dark. Although sligs often lived in caves, they did not like to be out in the open in the dark. The leader, who towered above the other creatures and had a long scar that ran down its snout, ordered the band to take Brandella back to their camp. They would learn there, with torture, what they wanted to know.
They cooked the wagon driver right in front of her, making her watch the man burn on the spit. She refused to talk. But she listened.
"We could trade her for weapons."
"Only if she's in perfect condition."
"If she doesn't talk soon, though…"
"Broken bones and burns will lower her value."
The leader cut them short with a snarl. "If we get the quill, it will be well worth the loss of her life. Besides," it added, "if we can't trade her, we can always eat her."
Brandella lay quietly by the campfire, thinking of Kishpa and Tanis and Scowarr and the brave acts she'd witnessed the past several days. She was determined, despite a tremor in her abdomen that she couldn't quite control, to live up to those examples. But she blanched as the leader of the sligs took a slat from a broken water barrel and put one end of it in the fire; after the end began to smolder, the slig walked to the weaver and held the burning wood near her face. In Common, the slig said, "I am going to set your hair on fire. Loose hair burns in a flash, but a tight braid should burn slowly-satisfactory for our purposes. If you don't tell me where the magic quill is, I will let the flames continue, to burn your head and face until there is nothing left. Do you understand?"
She looked away.
Its thin lips drew back from sharp teeth. "Yes, you understand."
Brandella clenched her teeth and decided she would not cry out, even when the pain became unbearable.
The slig lowered the burning piece of wood. Brandella could hear the crackle of the wood and feel the heat.
A shout suddenly went up at the camp's western perimeter, and Brandella closed her eyes. "Attack!" cried one slig. A rush of heavy slig feet ran past her body, toward the commotion.
Brandella knew it was Tanis and Clotnik, and her heart sank. They were throwing their lives away for nothing. They couldn't possibly attack a band this large and survive-there were at least twenty of the creatures!
"A small disturbance," said the leader, who did not run with the others. "My troops are taking care of it. And I will take care of you."
It touched the burning stick to her hair.
40
The slig heard the noise before it saw the source. There was a pounding that made the earth shake. The creature was slow, however, in taking its eyes off Brandella's burning hair. When it looked up, Tanis, riding one of the bullboggs, was only feet away.
The half-elf kicked the slig in the chest, knocking it backward into the fire. It screamed and rolled. In the same motion, Tanis leaped off the bullbogg and, wielding his sword, hacked at Brandella's hair, cutting off the long braid at the base of her neck. With the next well- aimed stroke, he slashed her bonds. He sheathed the sword, leaped back on the bullbogg, and held out his arm to her. She sprang up and took it, swinging behind him onto the broad back of the bullbogg. Behind them, the slig leader continued to shriek from the blaze.
Tanis dug his heels into the animal's generous flanks, and it took off at a dead run, all six legs churning. Behind him thundered the second bullbogg, tied to the first.
Tanis rode the lumbering beast down the hill, in the same direction in which the band of sligs had run. He came up behind them and cut one down after another with the gray metal sword that Hint had forged for him. It wasn't as light and easy in his hands as when it had been enchanted by Kishpa, but it still did its work.
Plunging through the front ranks of the enemy, Tanis thought he saw movement ahead that contrasted with the herky-jerky running style of the lizardlike sligs. "Clotnik!" he bellowed.
"It's me!" came a relieved tenor.
Tanis slowed his bullbogg long enough for Clotnik to climb on the second animal. And then they galloped away, leaving the sligs cursing after them.
They watered the bullboggs at the pond in the glade, gathered their meager belongings, then quickly set out to the west, putting as much distance between themselves and the sligs as they could before exhaustion overtook them.
When they finally stopped to rest, Tanis took the first watch. Brandella had insisted on the second watch, and he went to wake her two hours later, just before the dawning. He kneeled next to her and watched her sleep, as peaceful as the nearly soundless forest night. He was thinking of the future; she would fit in fine with his small group of friends. Hint, Sturm, Caramon, and Tas would instantly see that she was one of them-although she'd have to keep an eye on her valuables around the kender. Even Raistlin might welcome her in order to learn about Kishpa's magic. Of course. Kit would hate her, but Brandella could hold her own with the swordswoman. Together, they would make quite a group. And maybe, over time, Brandella would come to see him in a new light. He could wait. And he would. Tanis reached down to touch her shoulder and wake her. His hand passed through her. "Brandella!" he cried. Startled out of a deep sleep, she sat straight up, her newly shortened curls dancing around her shoulders. "What's wrong? What's happened?" she demanded, looking all about for any sign of danger. "Sligs?" Shocked awake, Clotnik had run to the bullboggs before he realized he was the only one moving. He stopped and looked back at Tanis and Brandella. And he listened… "I wanted to wake you," Tanis said, confused. "Except there was nothing there to touch. My hand went right through you!" She touched her own hand and felt flesh and bone! "You must have fallen asleep and dreamed it," she said soothingly. "I'm still here. See?" She held out her hand to him. He reached out to take it, but although he could see it, he could not touch it or hold it. Brandella gasped. It was true. "Do you feel anything?" Tanis asked, trying to comfort her and to fathom what was happening. Her eyes flashed with terror. "I don't feel any different than I felt before. Tanis! I don't understand it!" The early morning fog seemed to flow right through her. It was as if she was becoming one with the fog, thin and airy. "Did the sligs do anything to you7" Tanis asked, his mind racing. "Did they give you anything to eat or drink?" She shook her head, bewildered. "No. Nothing." Tanis strained to think. "Wait!" he cried, putting out one hand but stopping just short of trying to touch her. "When you were at Kishpa's grave, did anything happen? Anything unusual?"